Stripping down a match to information and decisions

Decisions are the bones of StarCraft, everything you do is based on the decisions you’ve made in the past, and this is why choosing a good opening build is so important. The decisions you make can determine the rest of the game and the outcome, which is why professional players focus so much on “reading the game”.

It’s also really important to ensure you have the correct information to make decisions on. This is why scouting, map vision (and control) as so important. You need to know what your opponent is doing or you’re making blind decisions, and most of the time that won’t work out too well.

(Daybreak has a number of these squares, they are awesome places to put your Overlords)

But it’s not just the decisions you make during the game that are important, it’s also the timings. You need to ensure your decisions are timed correctly, it’s no good deciding to make some Corruptors when the Voidray’s are fully charged and taking down your main base.

The three things listed above (good decision making, good timing and good vision / scouting) are the main concepts we’re going to cover in this short article.

Making the right decisions

Making the correct decision is always an important point (obviously). But to do this you need to have the correct information. This isn’t something you’re often “born with” so to speak, it’s more something you develop over time with your knowledge of the game and your ability to gather the information.

(Wall-Off's aren't fun, thankfull I had Overlords ready to suicide in to check his buildings)

We’ll talk more about gathering information in a bit, but for now let’s focus on being able to use that information to make the correct decision.

All throughout the match you should be asking yourself questions, you should always be asking specific questions that use your information to arrive at the correct decision for the time. This is done using two key concepts.
The first is never making decisions based on information you don’t have. This is one of the worst things you can do and is what keeps many people in the lower leagues rather than the higher leagues. You need to ensure when making a decision that you are not acting on information you do not have.

It’s easy to see bunker at your natural in the early game and some marines rushing towards it, and to then assume he’s doing a 2 barracks opening. But you’ve got to keep in mind what you’ve already scouted and what you can scout later on (after you’ve held off the bunker rush).

Another way of looking at this is the idea of making “good decisions”. This is based on having adequate information that is constantly updating and changing. This information should be correct as well! If you’re playing Zerg then use your overlords and Zerglings to be constantly poking and prodding to gain information. If you’re playing as Protoss then you have observers and you can even run probes around, maybe sacrificing one blink stalker into his main to see the structures if you’re totally miffed as to what he has.

Terran are known for dropping their opponent a lot, so why not have a look around the base while you’re unleashing hell on his economy.

This leads us on nicely to our next idea, gathering good information.

Gathering good information

It’s all about the scouting baby! Watch a game you or someone in your league has played, and then watch one from someone like MVP or DRG, you can see that they will do everything they can to keep units around the map, ready to spot anything and everything!

(He didn't re-scout my base later on until he started dropping, so this is what he could see)

I’m currently struggling with scouting problems myself at times. I’m often seeing a replay and thinking “if only I had known that!” Just by checking to see if he has an expansion or a third you can easily determine what you should be doing.

(However he didn't see the Roach Warren! Lucky for them, I didn't make many roaches anyway)

The most basic techniques for gathering information include just having basic map vision. During the early game keep checking his natural and third to see when he expands. That way you can easily know when you should tech or attack, to provide an overall improvement to your game play.

I won’t bore you with “How to scout” because we all know the main methods each race has to scout. However I am going to list a few important things you should always be looking for when scouting.
• On your first scout into the enemy base (if you choose too) you should be checking his gas, it’s important to check he’s not trying to rush any double gas builds.

- Third expansion (or the natural if you’re in the early game).
- Where his army is.
- Army producing buildings (or core army units).
- If he’s moving out, defending or just sitting in the middle of the map.

I’m sure you can all think of a number of different important things to look for when scouting, but if you’re not sure, that list should help you ensure you can make the correct basic decisions. If you like you can use that as a mental list though the game.

Keep asking yourself, “Do I know where his army is? Do I know what the army is made of?” etc. When you’re answer is “I don’t know”, you know you need to scout more and gather more information!

Choosing your timings

Knowing what to do is all well and good, but when you look at a reply I’m sure more than once you’ve said “If only I put that building down sooner” or something akin to that.

The aim of this article isn’t to help you time your execution, so we’re instead going to talk about the timing of your scouting.

Each race has a number of different times that you should be expecting an attack, or expansions etc. You need to ensure you’re scouting and these crucial times. Now a lot of these times will come from your knowledge of their builds but some are very distinct.

For example, if you want to see if a Zerg is fast expanding, you want to be moving to his natural much earlier than you would against a fast expanding Terran, because Zerg expansions are cheaper, and more vital to the play of the race. You’re going to want to be moving to his natural around the 3-5 minute mark. Anything after this and it’s not much of a fast expand!

It’s also really important when making decisions in the early game, to remember exactly what is possible. I’ve had the problem in the past of not knowing when it’s actually possibly for my opponent to have siege mode for his tanks, or to have a Dark Shrine up and running. I overcame this with practice and the beloved Post-It note! Telling me exactly when to check for things.

So don't forget, keep scouting and making the best decisions possible! Hfgl!