The Fundamentals of Macro & Micro in SC2

Basics

As a quick introduction Macro refers to your economy and production capability while Micro refers to detailed control of units, sometimes individually and sometimes as groups, to increase their effectiveness. Both are absolutely vital as Macro enables Micro (that is, you aren’t going to be Micro-ing units you can’t afford to build) and superior Micro may allow you to defeat superior armies.

I strongly advise new players to focus on Macro first.

Why?

If you can get far enough ahead in Macro then Micro will not matter most of the time. Ulysses S. Grant, in the US Civil War, was an inferior strategist and tactician to his opponent Robert E. Lee. However, Grant had a far superior population and industrial base, and, more importantly, recognized that if he tried to play chess (micro) with Lee he would lose. Instead, he latched onto Lee’s army and beat him to death, never allowing time to resupply or recover. There are plenty of examples of inferior forces defeating superior ones in battle, but  that rarely occurs in war. Whoever gets there firstest with the mostest wins 80% of the time.

 

As a new player the biggest mistake I made, and on I see a lot of other new players make, is not expanding properly. Once you're capable of holding your natural you should expand, unless you're going for an all-in. Consider this- the cost of a new base is 400 (300+50 for Zerg) plus a few hundred for workers. That seems like a lot of units you could be making, but an expansion will pay for itself very quickly; taking your natural doubles your income. That’s double the units that will die gloriously in your name. If you’re worried about holding the expansion remember that unless your enemy has a proxy set up they are going to have to walk all the way across the map to get to you, whereas your units produce right there, so all you have to do is hold on until the economic advantage starts to show. Then crush nerd skulls.

The next issue is saturation. Studies, some more scientific than others, have shown that around 16-18 workers is ideal. The reason being threefold- there are 8 mineral patches per base, only 1 worker can mine 1 mineral at a time, and some patches are farther away than others. Anything above 16 causes the economic law of diminishing returns to come into effect (in short, if you want to dig a 20 meter by 20 meter hole 15 meters deep then 1 person is okay, 10 are better, but when you get to a thousand people they’re just in each other’s way); 16 workers produce about 640 minerals per minute, 18 produce about 700, and 24 produce around 840. Yes, it’s more, but you could build another base for the cost and make up the difference within a couple of minutes. If you can’t expand, or have to delay expanding, then maxing out is preferred, but if you can’t expand at all then you’ve probably already lost.

Production is something else I screwed up a lot due to not muiltitasking. If you queue units to be built as Terran or Protoss, or build excessive pylons/overseers/supply depots,  you’re locking away your resources without actually using them. An investment with no return. Just hotkey production facilities and constantly check them so you have 1, maybe 2 until you get used to it, units producing at a time. Once I've started producing units from more than one building I try to build a pylon when I've got 6 supply to spare.

Once I have more than one base, I build about one pylon per base each time I see that I'm getting close to supply capped. Use the hundreds of resources you’ve probably just freed up to build more production facilities (so you can spend the excess resources faster), another base (if you aren’t accumulating excess resources), or invest in tech. A few extra production buildings, or an extra base, are worth more than not having to spend half a second to check whether you are building workers or not. 

Finally, base layout is something new players frequently pay no attention to. Given that each race has a different way of building it should come as no surprise that base layouts should reflect this, as well as the strategy/build order you want to use. The most common mistakes I’ve seen are not walling in properly and Artosis Pylons for Protoss (1 pylon powering several key structures by itself). The only things I can tell you about those are to make sure your wall in is doing its job and that you have multiple pylons covering key buildings, and have them somewhat spread out.

The only other general advice I have is to always have a turret/photon cannon/spore colony in your mineral line when playing Terran or Protoss. They cost very little and, again in my experience, are useful often enough to justify it. Let’s briefly examine each race and see what they should be doing, in my opinion, when building a base.

 

Terran

Your buildings lift-off or can be lowered, so always wall in. At very least it prevents scouting early on. Your production buildings require room around them, not only for units but also for tech labs and reactors so rows with a bit more space are a good idea, especially since you need so many production buildings. Since all of your units are ranged it’s a good idea to plan your base layout to focus your enemy along set lines of attack, granting you superior arcs or keeping buildings between you and them for longer periods of time if they happen to get into your base. This is devastating against melee units.

When Napoleon rebuilt Paris after the Revolution he designed it with the now famous broad, straight avenues. They’re beautiful and very effective for transportation. Additionally you can put several cannons with grapeshot at one end and Royalists/would-be revolutionaries aren’t getting out of the way, so design your base to give your enemies a “whiff of grapeshot.” Also, sensor towers are the most useful building in the entire game pound for pound. That extra 10 seconds to move your army back or get your SCVs out of the way will save you every time. I’m surprised more players don’t use these.

An alternative, pictured above, is to build clusters of production facilities. It is harder to create the wide avenues discussed previously, but it is a superior way to maximize your use of space.

Zerg

You don’t have production buildings, but your tech buildings are absolutely vital. Nothing gives me more joy (as a Protoss player) than warping in Zealots and taking out a Greater Spire, Infestation Pit, and a Hive. It costs me far more resources than rebuilding will cost the Zerg player, but the sheer amount of time it costs them to get their tech back almost always wins the game. Keep your tech buildings spread out and hidden if possible. Otherwise take advantage of not needing production facilities to leave yourself nice big open areas where you can surround anyone foolish enough to attack your main base. Also, creep spread. It’s cheap, easy, makes your units faster and gives you vision over everything. Do it.

Protoss

Once Warpgate research is finished you do not need space around your Gateways, so building them in blocks or rows with pylons in the middle gives you maximum use of your space. Avoid putting building near or at the edge, especially key tech structures, as a quick drop or Muta fly-by can snipe them and cost you precious minutes. You’re likely to have larger units in mid/late game, so make sure you have a clear path out of your base, preferably one that multiple units can use at the same time in case you need to move your army quickly. If you walled in against Zerg be prepared to destroy your own buildings so you can move your forces out and not send them out one at a time to be devoured. One game my wall in such that Immortals couldn’t exit but Zealots could…I ordered my army out to crush my enemy and….yeah…lost a large portion of my army while the rest was stuck in my base.

You probably want wider open spaces than a Terran player, but not the wide open spaces of Zerg, since you’ll have a mix of melee and ranged units in most battles. Finally, make sure your pylons cover as much space as possible. You want to be able to see everywhere in your main and be able to warp units in to respond to any situations which may arise.

Alright, that’s my discussion of Macro tips that newer players should read up on and put into practice. Onto the Micro! Do note- there are Micro maps in the Arcade where you can run through unit combinations and try out scenarios. These are great for practicing and perfecting your micro and I highly recommend them!

Scout Harass

I’m a fan of sending out an early scout (after pylon) and either attacking the SCV building a wall-in barracks (generally forces an SCV to be pulled off the line, but about 10% of the time I get a kill…which is just great) against Terran, blocking the natural with a pylon if Zerg isn’t rushing, and if it’s a large map and I get lucky a double gas steal on Protoss. Anything that annoys my enemy and won’t get me killed is the right thing to do!

Stutter-step/Kiting 

One of the most fundamental and important Micro skills is kiting/stutter-stepping. Kiting most often occurs with Stalkers against Marines (before stim) and Marines against Zealots. In both match ups the kiting unit has a longer range and faster movement speed than the other and you take advantage of this by attacking, then moving the unit directly away from the enemy during their attack cool down, then attacking the enemy unit and immediately moving away again, repeating until you’ve crushed your enemies, seen them driven before you, and heard the lamentations of their women. As for the attack I prefer to focus fire by right clicking on a specific enemy unit.

The advantage is I kill the units faster, but I’ve noticed it does cost me a little bit of time (like, .05 seconds or less) compared to using an Attack Move command, though this way does not allow for targeting. More optimal examples with the kiting unit first: Marauders vs Zealots, Vikings vs Battlecruisers or Void Rays (the latter being very difficult), Roaches vs Zealots, and Reapers vs damn near anything. Less than optimal scenarios are when you have Marines against Zerglings. Even when your enemy has a significant speed advantage kiting allows you to get a few extra hits in and helps prevent being surrounded.

You can also use this technique offensively, usually when your units are clumped together; rather than allowing the front rank to fire continuously while the units in the back move around trying to get into range, let the front rank fire, then move the army up until you can attack again, and so on. More units firing more times = good.

Splitting

The most annoying thing about Banelings is…well…everything. They’re faster than most units, don’t care about dying, and oh yeah, they frakking explode! The best way to handle Banelings is to kill them before they get close or, failing that, have one unit absorb as many of them possible. If you’re stuck, however, the best trick is to divide your units, click-dragging small numbers as quickly as you can and sending them in different directions. This is most commonly done with Marines. The only way to learn it is to practice doing it.

Cloning

Cloning is a way to rapidly give different orders various members of a group of units at once rather than selecting each group individually. For example, if your main base is being destroyed and you want to redistribute your workers to other bases, select all of them and order them to the next base, then deselect (Shift + Click) the number you want to actually go there, and then the remaining ones to the other bases. If you need to scout you can quickly pull several units off of your main army using this method as well. Offensively you can use this to target fire specific units then deselect some and target another, and so on, or, without deselecting units, or order several units to use special abilities on different targets.

Sentry Cannon

This is one of the core units of almost any Protoss army. Forcefield allows you to block off your ramp, cut other armies in half to devour piecemeal, and create your own choke points. Guardian shield reduces the damage of Marines significantly, as well as almost negating Muta’s bounce damage. Hallucination is particularly useful for scouting, especially because Protoss tend to lack vision in mid/late game once detectors start becoming common. Essentially no matter what build you’re going for this unit should always be included in the mix. The micro isn’t very intense and only really requires paying attention and proper hot keys to use effectively.

Blink Stalkers

Early on Blink Stalkers are lovely and maintain their use throughout. When the enemy’s army is running away blink allows you to chase down units of equal speed and get a few extra shots against faster units, meaning you kill more enemy units without losing more of your own. Other applications include taking advantage of terrain- blinking down to escape from enemy units quickly or, with sight on the high ground you can blink up into the enemy’s main base, snipe a couple of structures and blink away.

Hellions

These are arguably the most micro-necessary unit in the game. You can include Hellions in your army and they’ll do damage, but without positioning them properly you’re ignoring their primary ability- to do damage to lots of units at once. Hellions are very fast, so having a small group to rush past the enemy army and into their mineral line is a great move, and since the first response is to usually order all the workers somewhere where they clump together, well, you see where this is going. If you run into the typical arcs with your army you want your Hellions on the flanks to enfilade (fire at the longest axis of a formation) the enemy so you do maximum damage. If you don’t micro Hellions you’re hitting 1 marine. If you micro Hellions you hit 5 marines.

Larva Injection

I’ve heard that no race rewards players for paying attention as much as Zerg and larva injection may be the very thing that proves that as when it is done properly it gives an extreme advantage. The problem is it’s easy to get caught up doing something and forget, and then you miss out on lots of extra units. Master the timing and listen closely for the larva popping sound, then, with your Queens all hot keyed together, hit Backspace (allows you to cycle through your Hatcheries), Queen hot key, hot key for larva inject, click Hatchery, backspace, and so on. Queens can also inject larva on the mini-map, which can bypass the need to backspace and leave the current situation unattended.

Chrono boost

Like larva injection to Zerg this is something fundamental to Protoss that, if used correctly, can earn you a huge advantage. It’s important to remember that chrono boost not only increases the rate at which a building produces or researches, but also the shield regeneration rate (only use in desperate situations). If you recall the previous discussion of Macro and how economics influences the game you will not be surprised when I say you should use your chrono boosts for probes almost exclusively in the early- to mid-game period, and only for units or research when it’s absolutely necessary. 1 chrono boost nets you almost 2 probes. That’s a huge economic advantage in the long run, and more valuable than having a zealot of few seconds sooner. In mid- and late-game you should continue using this to speed up your research. In short, learn to use it logically and religiously.

Surround

While this happens naturally with Zerglings attacking just about any unit there’s an easy micro trick to help if the enemy is kiting; use the move command to direct your units past the enemy army, then attack move once you’re all around it. Your units will rapidly surround the enemy from all sides, thereby preventing them from kiting your force. This is best used with Speedlings.

Hotkeys

A lot of players and guides will tell you what to put where as your hotkeys and control groups. I won’t. I don’t care. Just make sure you use hot keys. What I do is have my main army on 1 with 2-4 as specific units for micro-ing, 5 for my Nexus, 6 and 7 for production facilities, and 8 for forges (so I can keep monitoring my upgrades. Also, it can be handy to reset the standard hotkeys for buildings and abilities so your primary function is always the “E” key, and moving on from there. Avoiding bottom row of keys helps too. In short, always use hotkeys. There is literally no reason not to.

Order-of-Battle/Formation

Simply put you want your melee units in front with your ranged units and casters in the back. The problem is these units move at different speeds so when you move across the map your army tends to get strung out (making it vulnerable!) and then everything gets jumbled up. I’ve had to blink my stalkers back to allow my zealots to more forward many times in battle, and often this could be avoided by setting up a proper formation before moving, and then moving short distances so my units stick together. I still occasionally have to move my zealots up front, but overall it’s far superior to just moving them across the map. Another thing to work on with formations is to maximize the “surface area” of your army, meaning you want as many units (preferably all, obviously) firing at the same time, generally by putting your units in an arc.

Terrain

High ground is great! Your enemy can’t see (and therefore, can’t shoot) you unless they have vision, which requires either a flying unit, a unit on high ground, or a scan. General rule: Being able to shoot your enemy without being shot is a good thing. Also, if you set up an arc so all your units are firing while the enemy gets bottlenecked. 

Focus Fire

Pro players do this and get great results, and with smaller armies it’s vital to focus down one enemy at a time (you can also queue attack orders with shift!) to maximize your impact. However, in large scale engagements I find that focusing fire leads to my units moving out of position to get within range. This is where control groups or rapid click-dragging comes into play to allow you to set up multiple focus-fire attack chains. It’s a bit tricky at first, and you will likely screw it up several times, but if you can master it you will find yourself winning battles you never thought possible.

Map Vision

Has anyone in the history of warfare thought knowing what the enemy was doing and where they were doing it was a bad idea? Nope. Terrans can scan, Zerg can creep spread, and Protoss…well observers are expensive but placed properly are invaluable. The point being you want to see as much as you can without sacrificing too many units.

 

In conclusion StarCraft 2 is a well-balanced game that comes down to economics and logic more often than not. Laying the proper groundwork for victory via economy (Macro) and reacting well and effectively (Micro), as well as making habits of doing so, will help you improve far more than watching pro-games.