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RTS Tips (Warcraft 3, etc. . .)
Rderdall
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey All!
With the upcoming release of Starcraft 2, I've decided to brush up on my RTS skills. To be quite frank, I'm actually looking to DEVELOPE some skills. I've played DOTA with friends at gaming cafes a loooong time back, and was never very good. I re-installed Warcraft 3 / Frozen Throne last night and gave a couple of custom games a whirl (4 to be exact) against the Computer on Easy. I lost 3 of those 4 times.
Can you provide me with some basic strategies and tactics to help me get a solid understanding of what it takes to win? I realize that no matter what the case, it's not going to happen over night, and it will require dozens of hours of practice, but I'm simply looking to reduce the hours of trial and error.
Thanks in advance,
With the upcoming release of Starcraft 2, I've decided to brush up on my RTS skills. To be quite frank, I'm actually looking to DEVELOPE some skills. I've played DOTA with friends at gaming cafes a loooong time back, and was never very good. I re-installed Warcraft 3 / Frozen Throne last night and gave a couple of custom games a whirl (4 to be exact) against the Computer on Easy. I lost 3 of those 4 times.
Can you provide me with some basic strategies and tactics to help me get a solid understanding of what it takes to win? I realize that no matter what the case, it's not going to happen over night, and it will require dozens of hours of practice, but I'm simply looking to reduce the hours of trial and error.
Thanks in advance,
Xbox Gamertag: GAMB1NO325Xi
Rderdall on
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1) Expand expand expand. Once you've secured your first resource deposit(s) then go find more. This will boost growth rates substationally.
2) Don't turtle up. You win by defeating the enemy. Turtling up just lets him expand easily and get ready for consecutive assaults. The only time turtling up works is if you hold all the resources.
3) Don't send all your army out at once. If your army is concentrated at one spot that isn't your base then your base is left open.
4) Take advantage of powers/abilities. Units have certain abilities, including hero units. Use these often! This leads me to the next point:
5) Don't upgrade unless you can use the upgrade. If the upgrade isn't useful to you or a stepping stone to something else, why are you spending resources on it?
6) You're allowed to retreat. Not all attacks need to be live or die, not all defenses need to be this way too. Retreat if things start going south.
Choose a race to play and stick with it. Some stuff carries over from race to race, but a lot of stuff doesn't.
Find recorded games on youtube or, if you can, observe some games on battlenet.
Watch their early builds and try to duplicate them.
Practice your micro-game. Focus fire on wounded units, pull your wounded back from the fight, etc...
If you're observing a live game ask questions of any other observers. They may be able to tell you why certain decisions where made.
Practice. Play games against people rather then the machine whenever possible.
You may look like a noob, but so what? It's B.net. If your self worth is linked to what they think of you, then you've got bigger problems that may need addressed.
Most of those games are won like 30 seconds after the game starts and this is why, the other guy got more resources faster than you did.
To add to all the good points already mentioned: Map control is key. Control of the map is control of the expansions, and if you control more expansions than your opponent you win (save phenomenal fuckuppery by yourself).
#1 Scout
#2 Expand
#3 Build different unit types
#3 Advanced - Build counter unit types
#3 Explained - Blizzard games work off a Rock, Paper, Scissors mentality. Unit types are good and bad vs other unit types. Dont invent all your resources into Rock, a good opponent will scout you, see what you are getting, and then go Paper and eat your face.
(On another note, you seriously need to invest time into your basic RTS skills. An easy computer is supposed to be easy, if you are losing to it, you have a severe lack of SOMETHING in your game) Most people can beat an easy computer and only get heroes and gatherers.
Warcraft 3 is entirely different than Starcraft II in strategy BTW. Only basic RTS skills will transfer over.
My Backloggery
If you're playing a Blizzard RTS the biggest mistake you can do is have a worker idling here and idling there.
In Starcraft 2 the ideal number of workers per base is 23 - two per mineral patch and three per gesyer.
You always always always want lots of busy workers.
Basically you never want to be sitting still. I find playing RTS extremely stressful for that reason. You have to be going a mile a minute and there are no breaks.
Resources are everything. Prevent your opponent from expanding (while expanding yourself) and that's pretty much game over unless you and your opponent are both really skilled. Once you're at all familiar with the game, using the proper counters isn't even that advanced a tactic - it'll just be automatic.
Micro, micro, micro, though. That's the part that wins - part luck, part strategy, and lots of clicking.
This is really important, too. If you've got more resources coming in than are going out then it's probably time to build another barracks or the equivalent so you have more units fielded.
This is actually generally a bad idea. If your army is split up, and you attack his main force with it, your shit will die. If he attacks your base with your secondary force in it, it will die, and when you bring your main force back, it will die too. If you're playing a game like SC2, your base defense should either be static defense or units that you're creating from your production buildings, since there should ideally be a pretty steady stream of them.
One thing about static defenses, at least in Starcraft, is that making defined lines of defense = bad. You want a few turrets spread throughout the entirety of your base. They should be used primarily as a delay until your army can get there, and then as backup for your army. If you make a big strong line, the enemy will just go around, or they will punch a hole in it in two seconds and then have free reign over your base. Whereas if you have a turret behind your production buildings, they will have to kill your production buildings to get to it which will take much longer - all while they are being shot at.
Don't attack where the enemy is strong. Attack where he's weak instead. My favorite Starcraft strategy is sending flying units around the enemy's defenses to attack unsuspecting units in the back or flanks, especially any exposed workers.
If your opponent is foolish enough to leave his workers without adequate protection, you can rip his heart out all at once with a well-timed raid.
Remember also, as someone said up above, know when to retreat. If a fight starts going against you, then back off unless you're on vital defensive ground. If your units can be healed or repaired, have a well-defended, open area designated where they can fall back and recharge, and position healing units nearby where they're ready to receive them.
And remember to send sufficient forces on your raids. A medium-sized squad can do exponentially more damage in a short time than a small one can.
Also, one Starcraft strategy that drastically improved my game: Never stop building workers. You can always find something productive for a worker to do, and a steady stream of them will ratchet up your efficiency in a hurry.
This mainly works in 2v2 and 3v3, I don't play much 1v1. We usually sacrifice at least one persons base in 3v3. You attack when they attack you, but since your units are designed for destroying buildings you are able to cause a lot more damage while they are throwing themselves against your towers.
There's a lot more to it of course, there is a lot of hero harassing and getting your build order down. Base lay out and all that kinda stuff. The thing is the majority of people on bnet do the same thing and when you do something else they don't know how to adapt. Don't be afraid to experiment and figure out what works best for you.
I think the best advice is Grombar's, which is actually from the Art of War: Avoid that which is strong, attack that which is weak.
1: Scout. Always always scout, it doesn't matter if his army is twice as big as yours if you have the right units. Always know what strategy he's doing, and where his resources are coming from.
2: Balance expansion and armies. Expanding is good, but expanding before your first mineral/gas line is at full capacity is generally a bad idea, as is makign two expos at once (unless you have a gigantic surplus already). Remember that expanding costs a lot of money and time that could be used for an army - for example, a Command Center is 400 resources. That's 8 marines. Not much, but then you also need 20-odd workers - that's almsot 30 marines, a sizable army on it's own.
If your opponent shows up with 30 marines to your expansion, it's obvious who will win. If you hold it for a few minuites though, the tides turn. Just expand as neccesary, since you can have too much of a good thing.
PSN: TheScrublet
Xbox Gamertag: GAMB1NO325Xi
Also our signatures are similar
"Always make the foe react to what you are doing, never the other way round"
What I mean by that can be demonstrated in the following example -
Red Alert 3: I love RA3, it is by far my favourite C&C game (let us forget the nipple-clamp that is C&C4 shall we). In RA3 I play the Sovet's who suit my style to a tee - lots of armour, lots of firepower and the sheer Fear-factor that can stop most folk in their tracks.
A favoured tactic of mine utilises the humble Twinblade Attack Chopper. I try to lull my opponent into trying to combat it. I want him to react by building anti-air. I'll never build huge amounts of twinblades, just enough to strike random places and to give the impression that I have a fuck-ton of twinblades.
In the meantime, I am actually pumping out V3's and Hammer Tanks, unbeknownst to my opponent. I have made him react to my moves (he builds anti-air to counter me, then I use ground to counter his ill-adviced counter) and it means that he is on a sever back-footing in the forthcoming ground attack.
A third tactic can then be applied, if he is able to stand up to the ground assault, bring the Twinblades back in or better yet, roll out the Kirov's. The quick jump from air to ground to air again can leave the most unprepared spinning and cursing. I find this leap-frog tactic very effctive with the Soviet's, and even moreso the Empire of The Rising Sun.
In short, make your opponent react to your choices, and maintain the pressure. You can make an opponent literally crazy with panic with some applied pressure and falsehoods (man, I can't wait for RUSE to come out)
The biggest thing that changed my strategy is that you don't need an lolhuge army to win. While it's fun to build 50 carriers and send them like a plague across the map, it's not at all necessary and takes a buttload of time. Some games are over in 10 minutes using 6 units because their opponent wasn't ready.
You need to scout to learn what they're doing, but if you don't really know what the counter is to their strategy, that's not really going to help. At least when you're first learning the game. There's no harm in sending things out to explore though.
Learn at least a few hotkeys. The more you know, the faster you'll be.
Don't build unecessary buildings. Try to learn the tech tree to get to one or two things you like and build those. If you want battlecruisers, look at what you need to build those and work backwards. Having a well rounded army isn't really necessary and takes a lot of time and resources.
Oh yeah. Something I don't even think about because I've been playing SC so long that I know every key combination by heart, but knowing the most common shortcuts helps enormously.
Some casual players might dismiss it as "too much effort" but it really isn't, and blizzard has it's own kind of logic so after you know a few you can guess other races pretty easily.
No income = no production !
Also - always have units pumpin - need to use the money - no point hanging on to it (this goes for WC3 and SC2)
Notice how a lot of people are mentioning scouting. The first step in any military operation is always reconnaissance. Information is power, and it shapes your decisions to combat the enemy. Prevent similar reconnaissance on you, and if it can't be prevented, counter it with misinformation.
Seanron also mentions another common military guideline: maintain the initiative, and dictate the tempo. Essentially what this means is that you should be proactive, always dictating the time, place, and terms of your engagement. When the enemy is reacting to you, you are controlling him, and of course the reverse is also true.
With regards to workers, they are an abstract of the supply problem. It's a numbers game, basically. More workers = more numbers = more resources to spend on fighting assets. Like other people say, expand any time you have the resources to spare, but beware of overextending your resource base when you have little capability of protecting them.
There is literally a ton to learn in RTS games, and you are always, always busy. Watch good replays, take notes, learn what the pros are doing. What I'm saying in this post is that learning military theory and science might be a fun common sense way of learning the pivotal factors that win you an RTS game.
Generally speaking in any RTS, your first tier troops aren't going to be strong enough to take down buildings without a serious time investment and you'll probably lose them when the enemy notices you're doing this. It's fine for a brief diversion, but harrassing the enemy builder units is a much better idea. They are generally weak, unable to handle combat with proper units, and if you can get rid of them you can seriously hamper your opponents momentum early game.
If you are harrassing early enough, the enemy is not focused on building up to the next tier for stronger troops and abilities - he is focusing on building countermeasures to get you away from him. He is wasting resources to do this. Fast attack and stealth units make the best harrassers (going back to Dawn of War, for me this was Chaos Raptors - Jetpack melee units): You're not interested in keeping them there for the long fight, just throwing the enemy off his early game so you can scrape a lead in the tech race to better and stronger units.
Good luck, and be sure to watch a lot of videos to see what the pros are doing!