In the beginning, I wanted to create a FREE environment suitable for all people – hence ‘free gaming swag’.

My $7 eBook is basically free, more of a donation than anything, but… I am disappointed in myself over the lack of content.

I plan on reviving the site VERY soon, with a much more sleeker look, faster loading speeds, and much more FREE content!

Please stay tuned, and don’t give up on me yet .

You can read the sales page here:

http://freegamingswag.com/ebook/terran/index.php

That is also the link where you can purchase it for only $7

I now give you… Zerg Gameplay. In this article I will explain SPECIFIC Zerg gameplay tactics, not only in Microing, but in Macroing as well.

As I am writing this guide, I would like to inform you… My friend and I have reached Platinum Rank 1 (2v2). I being Zerg, he being Protoss.

Key Zerg notes to engrave in your head:

1. Queen’s Energy – To become a higher level Starcraft 2 player, you MUST keep your QueenS’ (note, multiple queens, not just one) energy below 26 at all times. I will not sit here and lie to you and say that I do this even. Of course with one Queen I can accomplish this easily… but once I start getting 2-4 Queens, I start to struggle. On my ‘A’ games I keep all of my Queens’ energy below 50, but on other bad games I can get to 100-150.  Which is what differentiates me from pros, they keep all energy below 26 at all times.

2. Spread Creep – I always will build one extra Queen than I do have Hatcheries. (I.E. – I have 2 Hatcheries, so I would have 3 Queens). That extra Queen will be used for spreading creep across the entire map. Most people don’t do this… And to be honest until a while ago, neither did I! Now that I am using it, I see what a powerful tool it can be.  Don’t think your Overlords’ creep generator skill they have is enough, because it isn’t!  You will see an extreme benefit from doing this, just try it.

3. Expand – Zerg is known for their quick expanding and good economy. Not only because Hatcheries are only 300, but you can create a lot more Drones faster than they can create SCVs/Probes. Always expand early depending on the game. Don’t fast expand if they are doing a fast attack (duh!). In the case they are doing a small, fast, attack right away, build up a counter army. Make sure you can hold them off with that army, THEN expand (whether if they’ve attacked you or not). In the other side of things, if they look like they are teching or expanding themselves, fast expand! If they have hardly any units, you build hardly any units. If someone is teching and just turtling up  in their base, get at least 3 Hatcheries as fast as you can… but make sure you can hold off any attack they send. A lot of noob Protoss players will build a Forge before a Gateway, which means Cannons… which usually, almost always, leads to Void Rays. They will just put 5ish Photon Cannons in their base so you can’t break through and fast tech to their Void Rays. This is where you get your 2nd, maybe 3rd, Hatchery and build up your Hydralisks.

This section describes more on units. You can also check out Blizzard’s Official Fansite to read more about units.

Powerful units and how to use them:

1. The Power of the Roach – A lot of the players I play against never even use Roaches. Which in the case I’m speaking, a Zerg vs. Zerg game… Roaches are key… But not JUST in ZvZ, they are vital in all games. Of course there are cases that Roaches will be ineffective: (They get Immortals [Just a few OWN Roaches], They get a lot of Marauders, They get a lot of air… and more)… But in many cases, they are extremely vital to your success. So how do you use Roaches? I tend to always get Burrow+Tunneling. In SC2, observers are more of a thing that you ‘get when needed’. In SC1, it seemed like everyone had an observer (Especially Zerg, haha). Just get 5+ Roaches and burrow right under their workers.

2. Mutalisks – Continuing from SC1, Mutalisks are still a powerful asset to many games. You must be careful with this set up though. Don’t go straight Mutalisks… because that will be all your army will consist of due to their extreme gas price (100 gas per Muta). I usually get Mutalisks after a successful first (and sometimes second) attack. By saying successful, I mean you must significantly reduce their army size with this first and/or second attack. (Usually with Roaches/Zerglings/Banelings, whatever you are using). By ensuring that you have hurt their army, this will give you some ‘cushion time’ to build up your Mutalisks. It takes 5 Mutalisks to 1 hit any worker. Do not attack them if you don’t have 5 Mutalisks. After getting 5-6 Mutalisks, raid the crap out of their economy. This will usually provoke a Counter attack, but from what we discussed before… Their army will have just been built back up, and you should have an equal (or a bit lesser) army waiting for them. In most situations, your army WILL BE smaller because of Mutalisks high resource price. Build some Sunken Colonies to hold them off while you are still killing their economy with your Mutalisks.

3. Banelings – As a first note… if it’s ZvZ, get Banelings. Period.  Moving on…. Banelings are SO ‘under used’ with so many people. Many beginners think that they are a waste of money because they don’t have much army value when it comes to battling. Well they do! Banelings do a staggering 35 damage to Light units. A Marines starting HP is only 40! So with 2 Banelings, you could very well clear out 6-10 Marines… Now tell me that Banelings aren’t worth it!!  Another GREAT use for Banelings is their damage to structures. I have forgotten the exact amount, but I believe it takes 5 Banelings to kill a Supply Depot. This is perfect when it comes to busting Terrans ramp block. I usually get about 7-10 Banelings in the mix, so if they have any extra Marines standing behind their wall (which they usually do), you will kill all of them as well.

… To be continued… I will try to write as much as I can about vital units to use. Infestors coming next.

Anyhow… Here is the next Beginner’s Guide!

Micro/Macro Management

I have several articles posted on how to increase your APM in many ways, but this post will be all out you, the beginner (Whom should be the only one to be reading this : D).

Beginner’s Micro – Impossible? Nope… Vital? Yes!!! Some ‘beginners’ don’t micro AT ALL., they just click on the buildings to build them, they don’t use Control Groups, etc. Although it may be hard forcing yourself to do this the first few times, it will pay off.

I don’t expect a beginner to memorize all the hotkeys (although you should, I recommend it), but I do expect you to do just TWO hotkeys.

1. Control Groups… I have explained them before. Just use them! Ctrl + #…. Recall that unit/building later with that #.

Control Group set-up should look FAMILIAR to this, but everyone has their preferences.

Zerg

1 – unit
2 – unit
3 – unit
4 – Hatchery
5 – queen
6 – queen
7 – queen
8 – queen

(If you even get to 8 )

Protoss

1 – unit
2 – unit
3 – Gateway/Warp Gate
4 – Building (Robo, Stargate)
5 – Nexus
6 – Building (The building you didn’t use on 4, put here)

Terran

1 – unit
2 – unit
3 – Barracks
4 – Factory
5 – Command Center
6 – Starport

(4 and 6 can be switched around if you plan on using more of the Starport than a Factory that game)

I recommend you find a set Hotkey set up that YOU like (not what I use… But if you like mine, use it!).

——————————–

2. Build key – As you might remember, this is a Beginner’s Guide… So the MOST helpful hotkey in the game for you to use is…

B

and

V

Use them!!! It will speed up your APM so much if you’ve never used them before, believe me.

b – Normal Buildings
v – Advanced Building

So if I’m Zerg and want to build a Spire I’d go: v-s … or a Spawning Pool: b-s …. or an Evolution Chamber: b-v

I don’t expect you to know the hotkeys for the buildings themselves yet, but use the ‘b’ and the ‘v’ as MUCH AS YOU CAN.

As for Combat Microing for beginners, I’d suggest just taking a look at the Free Video Guides here: Free Video Guide Thread

…..

Beginner’s Macro – To be honest, Macroing is much harder for a Beginner to do than Microing. Macro involves almost all economic objects of the game, as well as building buildings and units.

Microing can be accomplished by using a few hotkeys, but to Macro, you must use hotkeys AND macro.

How to Macro:

1. Find your inner clock. What I mean by this is: You must have have a timer going in your head that tells you when to do a certain thing. *Explained in more depth below*

2. CONSTANTLY be building drones until you reach a total 24 Drones on your Mineral patches and 3 Drones on each Gas.

What do I mean by your ‘inner clock’? You must acknowledge when things to be done when. The BIGGEST mistake beginners make is watching the battle they are in. Although to micro properly you must watch the battle, but only for about half the time.

If you engage in a battle that lasts 40 seconds, you should have only concentrated on your troops for 20 seconds. The other 20 seconds? You need to be tending to your MACRO.

What would happen if you were to lose the battle you were just in and watched the entire thing? I’ll tell you what would happen:

1. Your economy production would have stopped. Less workers = less units = you lose

2. You don’t have another army to back you up!! If you get in a small battle at the very beginning of the game, let’s say: Your 5 Marines vs. their 3 Zealots. You would lose, but if you simply press 3 > a > a (Assuming you have two barracks), you would have 2 more Marines coming out. You would lose that battle and they would end up with 1 or 2 Zealots left over. If you didn’t build those Marines, those 1-2 Zealots will do some serious damage to your workers… but if those 2 Marines are sitting there and waiting, you could MICRO your Marines and your SCVs together to kill the remaining Zealots.

Instances of MUST HAVE Macroing:

* Queen – Spit Larvae… The ‘eggs’ from the Queen’s ‘spit’ come out at the exact time the Queen reaches 25 energy. This means, if you are a pro, you could have CONSTANT Larvae eggs coming out all the time. I make notes in my Video Guides to watch my Queen’s Larvae… As a Platinum Rank 8 player my Queen’s Energy stays under 30 for the first 15 minutes of the game usually. Towards later games I start to slack off due to big battles and 3+ Queen’s to deal with.

* Workers – Always be making at least one worker in most cases. There are some times when you need those resources to build units, but 50 resources isn’t very much. So try to keep worker production going. (Remember, only 24 workers per Mineral area)

* Units – As discussed above in the example… Don’t forget to make new units! If you only remember to make new units AFTER your army is dead, you will just get ran over.

* Don’t Queue – What I mean by this is, don’t build 2 SCVs at a time on your Command Center. Build one, and try to call your ‘inner clock’ to tell you when that SCV is about done. When it’s about done, build the next SCV. Same goes with units! I’ve seen so many beginners in my days that build 5 Marines in a barracks at one time. The extra 200 resources that is sitting in queue (4 marines not being produced = 200 minerals) could buy you another barracks AND you could produce a Marine in that. Keep that in mind!

* Population Max – When under max population of 50 (#/50), I usually build an Overlord when I am 2-6 population from reaching the max of where I’m at. It all depends on what I’m going to be spending in the near future. If I’m going to build another Hatchery and I have only 250 resources and my population is at 23/26, I won’t build an Overlord yet. Instead, I will build the Hatchery, then build an Overlord, then build units. On the other hand, if I were going to skip the Hatchery and try making a push with Roaches (they cost 2 pop. each), I would build the Overlord (now I’m at 150 resources), build 1 Roach (75 resources and 25/26 pop.), build a drone (26/26 pop and 25 resources)… By the time I get 150 resources again to build 2 more Roaches, my Overlord will be out.

That’s all I can think of for now. Macroing is a HUGE concept and is applied to nearly everything in the game. Some people say that Micro-pro’s are the best there is, but they are wrong. If you are great at Microing, but suck at Macroing and remembering to do such and such things… you will surely fail at higher level play.

Sincerely,

swords – Admin FGS

What classifies you as a beginner:

# Your APM is under 30

# You click to build units, rather than using their hotkey

# You type excessively in a game

# You ask “What are [unit]?”

# You have no Control Groups, or a bare minimum

# Your resource count goes above 500 within 5-10 minutes of gameplay

# You don’t know the maps

So what can you do to improve these aspects of your gameplay? I will give a step-by-step guide on what to do early game, and a few key tips for late game.

*For reference, I will use Zerg. Nearly all Steps can, and should, be applied to all races*

EDIT: I was going to type this all out, but then thought… I could just use my Build Order list from a previous game.

Direct link to image: http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/6458/beginnerguide1.jpg

*Waits until you are done reading it*

At the very bottom, I note the Zerglings I made.

Well, you may ask, “How did you know he had 6 Zerglings coming?”

I knew because I kept my scout (That 8th drone) alive that long! For 3 minutes I ran around his base, just waiting for something informational to happen.

I saw the 6 Zerglings, and instantly pressed my Hatchery Hotkey > s > z > z > z (I made 6 Zerglings myself). My 6 Zerglings + Queen = I will defend his 6 Zerglings.

If you do not know what the units are that I am talking about, I suggest you take a look at several unit ‘databases’ on Google. One specific one would be: Unit Database 

This Part 1 Beginner’s guide was designed for:

-Introduction – ‘Are you a Beginner’

-Build Order

Part 2 will contain specific Micro/Macro management that will increase your APM drastically as a beginner.

Stay tuned!

Sincerely,

swords – Admin FGS

Upon request from another Starcraft II player, I am creating this post to give examples on various ‘Combat Micro’ skills.

In my Increase Starcraft II APM post, I gave a small example about running your Roaches back to avoid being surrounded by a group of zerglings, [Run, 's', Run, 's']

Read on to learn other units Combat Micro abilities.

I realised today that I may have been favoring ‘Zerg’ strategies more than any other… That may be because I’m a Zerg-only player. I will try to describe all micro-able units that I can, each race having a different post. (Not all units are micro-able)

Zerg

Zerglings – Don’t get me wrong, Zerglings can be microed efficiently without the speed upgrade, but to be honest… I don’t even bother getting Zerglings if I don’t plan on getting the speed upgrade (Maybe some in the beginning for early attacks).

With the speed upgrade, Zerglings may be one of the most annoying units that you can use. There have been multiple cases where I have won a game, simply because I harassed with my Zerglings.

THE SURROUND! Zerglings give Zerg there name of a ‘swarm’ race. The surround is Zerglings one and only use for being morphed. If you cannot surround the unit in which you are attacking, Zerglings have only a 25% use.

That 25% being… Harassment.

How to harass with Zerglings: Have a group of about 12-16 Speedlings (speed upgrade on Zerglings) sitting across the map, hidden somewhere. Make sure to control the Xel’ Naga towers on the map (very vital). If you cannot control the Xel Naga, you must get some sort of scout out.

Upon seeing their army coming towards your base, counterattack their UNDEFENDED base with your dozen of Speedlings.

How many people actually think, “Hey, he might send some Zerglings here when I go attack, I better leave half my army here just in case”…. OF COURSE NOT!

12 Speedlings = 300 minerals…. Pish Posh

Even against most Terran players this is fairly effective because they don’t really remember to put up their supply depot to block off. If they do, just kill it.

Now your in your enemy’s main base! Go straight to their workers and press ‘s’. Your Speedlings will wreak havoc on nearly half their workers before they run them away. Simply select your Speedlings (Should be Control grouped) and cut their workers off from running away. Once you are in front of the path in which the workers are running, press ‘s’ again.

They will continue to kill a few more.

In the meantime…

Your opponent has 2 choices.

1. Continue with his attack and try fending off his base with newly created units

2. Come back with his army

90% of the time they WILL CHOOSE #2. Here’s where you seize the moment! Send your entire army AFTER his army, following them straight to his base.

He will be caught in a big frenzy to either kill your army, or kill the Speedlings that are killing his workers. Usually if it gets this far, it’s a gg.

*This won’t always work. Sometimes they will leave a tank sieged up at their base, or they may have cannons or sunken colonies.*

Zergling (Speedling) Combat is by far the most you need to control well. As stated before, a proper surround is REQUIRED. Let’s say for example they have 4 Zealots coming at your base. You have only 6 Speedlings and a Roach to defend. You may not think so, but this is easily defendable!

1. Send your Zerglings (Speedlings preferably) at the Zealots until you are right at them, and press ‘s’. The Zerglings will attack each Zealot and the Zealots will ordinarily attack back (duh!)

2. Bring in the Roach (between #1 and #2, there is only a 1 second time frame. DO THIS FAST!) and attack the Zealots.

3. Run your Zerglings behind your Roach. (Zerglings should be Control grouped on ’1′ and the Roach on ’2′)

4. The Roach will continue to attack the Zealot, but according to the law of AI, the Zealots will continue attacking what the user told him to attack (Being the Zerglings behind the roach)

5. Your Roach will get a few extra hits off until your opponent realizes he could just attack your Roach instead.

6. Run your Roach back and send your Zerglings in front of it and press ‘s’. (DO THIS FAST)

7. The Zealots, again, will attack what it was told to attack.

8. It will bump into a wall of 6 Zerglings and every Zealot will attempt to run around the Zerglings to reach the Roach. (Allows for extra ‘free hits’)

9. By this time, 2 Zealots are near death, or may be dead already and you SHOULD have more Zerglings on the way (Don’t forget your macro while doing these steps!)

10. You can rinse and repeat this to kill the rest, but usually I have my extra sets of Zerglings coming out and I just overwhelm the remaining Zealots.

Hope it helps!

You may want to consult someone who knows more about computer hardware, this post is just for comparison purposes.

Blizzards minimum computer specs:

PC Requirements

PC Minimum System Requirements*:

* Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c

* 2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor

* 128 MB PCIe NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better

* 12 GB available HD space

* 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users)

* DVD-ROM drive

* Broadband Internet connection

* 1024X720 minimum display resolution

PC Recommended Specifications:

* Windows Vista®/Windows® 7

* Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor

* 2 GB RAM

* 512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better

*Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time.

Mac Requirements

Mac Minimum System Requirements:

* Mac® OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer

* Intel® Processor

* NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT or ATI Radeon® X1600 or better

* 12 GB available HD space

* 2 GB Ram

* DVD-ROM drive

* Broadband Internet connection

* 1024X720 minimum display resolution

Mac Recommended Specifications:

* Intel® Core 2 Duo processor

* 4 GB system RAM

* NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT or ATI Radeon® HD 4670 or better

And these are my computer specs… I am able to run Starcraft II perfectly fine in Low settings, but putting it on Medium makes me lag pretty bad. If ANY of your computer’s hardware is lower than mine, I’d suggest updating.

Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.80 GHz

1 GB of RAM

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Graphics Card

I have accepted my first customer (Yes, you have to pay). We have began only TWO lessons thus far, and he himself has noticed a dramatic increase in his APM.

Not only did I coach him on increasing his APM, I gave him other useful tips.

If anyone is interested, fees start at $12/hr [PayPal]. Further instructions upon purchase.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me at: support@freegamingswag.com

I’d be glad to answer any questions you may have about my services.

Sincerely,

swords – Admin FGS

Original post got deleted for some reason, so I’m going to try my best to make a copy of it.

Knowing your opponents strategy is a vital part of any game, whether it be online or not. The same rules apply to Starcraft 2.

Want to know my opinion on Starcraft 2 pros? They aren’t pros because of their apm. Heck, I have 20 less APM than one of the best pros there is. They are pros because they know how to counter each and every single build that their opponent makes.

So you ask, how can you predict these outcomes like the pros? Well I’m here to teach you how to predict your opponents entire gameplay, all within the first 10 minutes of the game!

Step 1. Scout, scout, scout!! As a Zerg, I have 8 drones on the mineral patches (each mineral patch is covered). I begin making my 9th Drone and then I’ll Control group (#1) a drone and right click him to the enemy’s base. The 9th drone being made, I put his rally point on the drone that is scouting, so all 8 mineral patches are still covered.

Step 2. Harass! Your drone can be so annoying to your opponent, it may possibly psychologically disturb is gameplay…. and I’m not kidding. Just by simply attacking one of their workers and running way provokes them to chase you. Run away, and do it again… run away, do it again. They will get super pissed and possibly forget to build a pylon or build another worker.

Step 3. What are you looking for when scouting… Here are the top tips I can give you for when you see your opponent build something early in the game::

1. Dual Barracks – 80% chance he is going Marine-Marauder-Medivac army. As a Zerg player, when I see Dual ‘racks’ I usually NEVER build Roaches because Marauders do work on them. Zerglings (Speedlings), Banelings, and Hydralisks are an early counter.

2. Forge before Gateway – If you see no Gateway and you see a forge there are two things he is doing. 1. Proxying (Builds a pylon in your base and cannons up in your base) —- 2. Preparing for a long game, normally with Void Rays. Almost every Protoss player I’ve seen do this, he cannons up hard in his base, builds a mass Void Army…. and then I own him xD. (Hydras)

3. 9 Pool – A 9-Pool refers to when a Zerg player builds a spawning pool at 9/10 population (before building his Overlord). 99% chance he is going to send 6 Zerglings your way very shortly. How do you know if it’s a 9-pool? If his spawning pool is over half done before your gateway/barracks/pool is started (or just started)…. he’s 9-pooling

4. Dual Gateway – He builds no gas (sometimes they might build gas), and has no cybernetics core, but has 2 Gateways… He will be sending a nice army of Zealots your way. They usually come hard and strong with this attack, and put a lot on the line here. If defended, you have a great upper hand.

Step 4. Late game countering. This is usually more difficult to do because it’s hard to get a scout to see them. Some things I can tell you though from personal experience is:

If you see Mutalisks, they will have hardly any (or none) Hydralisks in their army. Their army will consist of Roaches/Zerglings only at their base. (Vice Versa, if you see mass hydras, they won’t have Mutas)

If you see they have a third expansion before you even build your 2nd expansion… They definitely have a very weak army.

—————

How to counter Void Rays

—————

Had to make this a separate section within this post. Everyone hates being killed by a mass Void Ray army, but they are just so easy to kill if you do the right things!

As Terran – Marines + Medivac…. Void Rays ‘special ability’ is to charge up their attack the longer they are hitting a target. With Marines low HP, their ability can never really be used to its potential.

As Protoss – Stalkers + Templar (Psi Storm)…. They are almost always bunched up in one big cluster. That is where your Storm comes in . You can also use the Stalkers to blink backward to stop the Void Rays ‘charge up’. This will force the Void Rays to attack a new target and charge back up again.  Be careful to not lose your Templars if you have them!

As Zerg – Hydralisks! That’s all you need… I sometimes get some Infestors with Neural Parasite, but a plain army of Hydra’s will easily beat them. (You must have at least 2x the amount of their Void Rays… Void Rays cost over double net worth of mineral/gas, so making 2x the army of Hydras shouldn’t be a big deal).

Also… TARGET FIRE… Do not leave your units firing blankly. If there are 5 Void Rays, you may weaken all 5 3/4 damage, but you have now lost your entire army. But if you target fired one Void Ray at a time, you will probably kill them all, with some units to spare!

Hope it helps! Please, recruit friends to this site. I need a bigger ‘visitor base’ to be worth my motivation. It’s like writing a book that no one ever reads.

Sincerely,

swords – Admin FGS

For anyone who loves to play a great RTS, Starcraft II is highly recommended. It features a tremendous graphical update from the previous version (Starcraft: Brood War), new units, and overall better gameplay.

One of the questions I always get from my friends is: “How is your APM so high?”. Well I am here today to tell you how I have reached my current APM average.

For those who don’t know, APM = Actions Per Minute. An action in Starcraft II is defined by a user pressing a keystroke or clicking their mouse. Ex: I click a unit and hit ‘s’ (stops the unit), all basically simultaneously, that would be roughly 2 actions per second. If you were to keep this up all game long your APM would be: 2 x 60 seconds = 120 Actions Per Minute

So you ask, ‘What is your APM?’. Currently I range anywhere from 80-90 APM. To some people, this might not seem incredibly high, but for whomever is reading this post, I’ll assume you are not a pro. I have watched pros play before, you want to know what their APM consists of? 100-150 on average. Does that make me a pro since I have 90? No… Pros have a Starcraft II tech tree built into their brain along with build times (which I’ll discuss in another blog) which allows them to have the upper advantage.

You say, ’90 APM, how do you do that? That’s like 1.5 actions PER SECOND.’ Here is where my instructional guide begins. Get comfortable, load up Starcraft II, and make a ham sandwich.

Step 1. [Discussing what APM is. Skip this step if you already know]

*You must do this before further preceding. It will dramatically help you, trust me.*

Get on Starcraft II and go to one of your recent replays, preferably 1v1. Below is an image that shows how to ‘watch’ your actions.

Notice on the screen it has a username (#)

The bottom one is me, swords

swords (4)

[To get those names to show up, its on the bottom rightish corner of your replay screen, under the 'time length' bar.]

What I would do to watch my actions is simply double press ’4′. This will command the replay to watch my screen, as if it were live and I was playing it.

Now that your watching yourself, watch your entire reply in Faster mode. Press ‘m’ on your keyboard (to show your APM). After pressing ‘m’ you will see: Average and Current.

Average – Basically takes the total time of the game thus far and divides that number by your total actions in the game, thus far.

1 Minute and 1 Action = 1 APM

10 Minutes and 10 Actions = 1 APM

10 Minutes and 20 Actions = 2 APM

10 Minutes and 100 Actions = 10 APM

…

By now, your probably getting bored of my explanation of what APM is… So let’s get down to improving your Starcraft II APM!

Step 2. [Where can I improve my Actions Per Minute?]

Your watching yourself in real-time now, exactly as you had played it. Watch your entire replay, and ask yourself these questions:

1. Did you have pauses where you weren’t doing anything for a period of time?

2. Did you use hotkeys?

3. Did you use control groups?

4. Did you micro/macro?

5. Did you keep your mineral count below 500 the entire game? (10 minutes +)

If you answered no to ANY of these questions, there is PLENTY (and I mean PLENTY), of room for improvement.

Let’s knock down each of the #’s as we go down this page.

****************************************************

-1. Pausing. If you answered ‘No’ to this, I can already tell you that your APM is below 40. When I play my games, the only time my screen isn’t moving is at the end of the game when it’s over, and either side doesn’t have a chance to win (last 30 seconds of game).

What do you need to do?

Don’t pause!

Simplest way to put it really. As I explain the other 4 #’s, you will understand this concept more and more…. ALWAYS BE DOING SOMETHING

****************************************************

-2. Hotkey. Ouch right? Truth be told, here is where you decide if being a good Starcraft II player is really worth it.

You have to, need to, must, memorize your hotkeys. Period. I only play Zerg, but I still could tell you how to build ANY unit or structure with any race. (Upgrades I have only memorized for Zerg, but that tells me where I could improve when playing other races)

Try not to change Blizzard’s default Hotkeys… They are mostly all put on the left hand side of your keyboard, purposely. This allows your right hand to not leave the mouse and for your left hand to be pretty stationary, rather than running all over the keyboard. [Starcraft: Brood War... Overlord was 'O'... All the way across the keyboard]

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-3. Control Groups. Some may ask what control groups are, and here is your answer.

Control groups are when you press ‘Ctrl + #’ on your keyboard. What they do is put the selected unit/building onto that #. Later on you can recall this unit/building by simply pressing the # you assigned it to from Ctrl + #.

Example: I have 5 Marines, a barracks and a Command Center.

I would select all my Marines and press Ctrl + 1, select my barracks and press Ctrl + 3, and select my Command Center and press Ctrl + 5. (2 and 4 are reserved for extra units/buildings later on… 4 is usually factory, and 2 is another different type of unit)

Now we can use these groups one of 2 ways:

1. Press the # ONCE. This simply reselects your unit/building, but your screen stays stationary. Use this with your Command Center and Barracks. You simply press ’3′ (Barracks), press ‘a’ (Marine). That builds you a marine without EVER looking at your base. Same with Command center, press ’5′ (Command Center), press ‘s’ (SCV)

2. Press the # TWICE. This ‘jumps’ your screen to that unit/building. Let’s say I’m teching up at my base and I have 5 marines in the field (Control group 1). I see/hear the notification that ‘Your troops are under attack!’. I quickly double press ’1′, and it will instantly jump me to my marines. Then I can control them and make sure I win the battle, etc.

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-4. Micro/Macroing. I’ll keep this description brief for those who know what is, but lengthy enough for those who don’t. (Because it will be described in depth on another article)

Micro - Deals with controlling your units.

Macro - Deals with controlling your economy, building units, and your overall strategy for that game. (Build order, teching up, etc)

I will discuss Micro only, as Macro is much harder to learn. Some Macro examples would be: Constantly making Larvae from your Hatcheries, constantly using Mules, constantly using Queen’s Larvae Spit, and etc.

Microing – Huge, huge, huge factor in upper level Starcraft. Most players under 40 APM do not Micro… Actually I can guarantee you don’t micro sufficiently.

How to Micro Efficiently… Use your control groups!!

Example: I have 2 Roaches and my opponent has 10 Zerglings. Right away you would put all bets on the zerglings right? Wrong, if microed properly.

Zerglings biggest advantage is ‘surrounding’ their opponent with their numbers (since each Zergling = 25 Minerals). This allows for a much bigger Zergling army than their opponents Roach army (Or whatever it may be). Here is where microing takes place. An ideal situation is at yours/his mineral patch when their Zerlings come.

Your base consists of 8 Mineral patches, but some of them have a gap in between them, enough space for a roach to get through.

Can you guess where I’m going with this yet? Well keep reading.

Sneak your 2 Roaches in between one of those gaps when you see the Zerglings coming. Most player’s responses would be, right click the Roach… Oh silly Zerglings, wrong move. What do you think happens? That gap is only wide enough for two Zerglings to fit in, this means 2 Roaches dealing 16 damage with 145 HP, are up against two zerglings dealing 5 damage with 35 HP. What do the other 8 Zerglings do? Blizzard tells them to find the closest route to the target, so swinging alllll the way around the minerals to hit on the backside does not commute with their AI system… So those 8 Zerglings run out like chickens with their heads cut off until one of their fellow comrades dies, in which they fill the spot in.

That is just one example of good microing… Other uses are just running back with your 2 Roaches (if you are in an open battlefield), and pressing ‘s’. Wait for them to attack the 10 zerglings, then run back another few steps and press ‘s’ again. This prevents Zerglings from completely surrounding you right away (They will eventually, but you will definitely dish out a lot more damage I assure you)

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-5. Mineral Count… Short, but sweet description.

It’s a difficult task to do, and it falls 100% under the category of Macroing.

Always be building units, NO MATTER WHAT. Don’t get caught up in a battle like we all do… Don’t let Blizzard’s insane graphics mesmerize you… Simply keep microing at the current battle, but use your control groups (pressing the # just once) quickly to build units, and then reselect your army for microing.

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Sincerely,

swords – Admin FGS