I honestly feel a little silly uploading these, as they were played before I read MonkeyBallz's critiques, but I promised to upload all of my games. Sorry I haven't been playing often. Hopefully I'll get better (goddamn flu) and get some drive to play some 1v1s before (or while at?) PAX East. Anyway, enjoy me looking like an idiot. :P
Grum vs NSNick on Slag Pits
NSNick vs hayato on Typhon Peaks
Not touching on things i've said before,
ReplyDeletePvT:
-I like taking the idea of taking an expansion while moving out. There are other ways to take an expansion that i'll talk about later.
-You don't always have to commit your entire army to an attack in a large battle. You can always just send a few units to 'test' the front. Don't be afraid to pull back your army when you know you've most likely lost that fight.
PvZ:
-If you intend to tech up (Colossus) try to take a 2nd gas fairly early. If teching, the main reason you would want your expansions for are gas. Minerals are equally important but gas is so much more precious.
I don't know if you know the different ways of when it is safe to take an expansion so i'll just list them out with brief explanations.
1. Fast Expand:
Self-explanatory. What it allows you to do is take an early expansion to prepare you for the mid-late game and abusing the idea that your enemy will not a large enough of an army to successfully attack you while you have the defender's advantage. Of course the exception to this are certain cheeses and all-ins.
2. Attack and Expand:
Basically you pressure your opponent while taking your own expansion. Your attack isn't really to outright win you the game but pressure him so that he's scared to move out with his main army defending his main. Exceptions to this are certain counter-attacks so be prepared for that.
3. Tech Expand:
For this you will generally have to 1-base/turtle for awhile while teching up for certain units. With these tech units (eg banshees, DTs, mutas) to then pressure your opponent so you can easily take your expansion similar to the Attack and Expand. But be wary to counter-attacks.
Those are the general methods in knowing when to take an expansion. There are complex ways but we'll leave them aside for now.
Of course again, the highest priority should be macro (and scouting in my opinion) so mainly concentrate on that. If you have to, play with a computer to train your mechanism and macro.