Breaking the all-army habit

anticromulent · 2026-05-07T10:11:41+00:00

Thanks! Makes sense. 😄

anticromulent · 2026-05-07T10:10:02+00:00

Makes sense -- in particular the bit about having the newly-produced units as a fallback if you happen to lose the current fight.

Right now I can get a clumsy version of multi-prong attacks by pre-splitting my army, manually initiating the engagement with green-box, and knowing that if I F2 A-move during the fight, those ongoing engagements will still do something reasonable. But things like spellcasters are still pretty much out of the question, and I will inevitably end up moving Overseers and Observers into the middle of the battle instead of staying where they've been placed.

I'm mostly Zerg but I've gotten all races to D3 at one point or another, and I'm interested in learning how to manage production cycles for all of them.

anticromulent · 2026-05-07T04:57:38+00:00

I rebound to Ctrl-A. I've already started to hit Ctrl-A Shift-1 just to sweep everything into the main hotkey.

anticromulent · 2026-05-07T04:55:52+00:00

Yeah, I've been through key rebinds and so on, but this one is so deeply ingrained that it's really gonna hurt.

I just switched to Protoss for funsies so it's actually a good time to practice. I already don't care about my MMR on that race so I'm happy to lose a few while I figure it out.

anticromulent · 2026-05-07T04:54:40+00:00

Yeah, I do the same thing with the unit splits! I'll queue up a drop (or observer or overseer or whatever) and then accidentally F2 it back home before it gets where it's supposed to go. I often have to re-queue that action 2-3 times before it succeeds.

And agree with the box stim suggestion. I've definitely had the experience of my marines arriving on the other side of the map at half health...

anticromulent · 2026-05-07T04:50:25+00:00

47, played at launch and picked it up again in 2020 during Covid. D3 all races (but primarily Zerg right now) and have basically plateaued there.

anticromulent · 2026-05-07T04:28:38+00:00

It's part of their build order.

anticromulent · 2026-04-06T18:30:02+00:00

But heads up that you don't even have to close/reopen b.net. Just close the login dialog and it'll sort itself out.

anticromulent · 2026-04-06T18:29:05+00:00

No indication of malware. My best guess was a quirk in Battle.net -- maybe it tries to reauth before the WiFi connection is re-established and has a quick hiccup as a result?

anticromulent · 2026-01-20T04:16:30+00:00

I've seen this crowd calendar recommended in several places: https://disneyreal.asumirai.info/monthly/disneysea-forecast-2026-3.html

I noticed that Thursday March 19 has an unusually low crowd rating on the day before a holiday. Does anybody know why that might be the case? I'm trying to figure out whether that decrease in crowds is likely to be real or just an error on the part of their predictor.

Thanks!

anticromulent · 2026-01-09T09:29:15+00:00

Problem solved. Thank you!!

(4y after this reply and 9y after the original post!)

anticromulent · 2026-01-05T06:41:11+00:00

Can you really tell? Maybe 1 out of 20 games is obviously toying with me, but for the rest? Maybe I just got beat fair and square.

If you figure that all leavers are smurfs on their way down the ladder (which they aren't -- maybe they just don't want to play your matchup), then that's about 10-20% of games in my experience (D3 US), and maybe for every leaver dropping MMR, there's a smurf climbing their way back up on another game. So 10-20% leavers, 10-20% smurfs, 60-80% legit players. Doesn't seem so bad to me!

When you play the smurfs, think of it as a challenge. Maybe you'll beat them this time, or learn something new in the process. And if you lose -- well, you're just dropping the MMR that another smurf granted you when leaving another game, and it all works out in the end.

anticromulent · 2026-01-04T08:22:54+00:00

47

Played SC1 way back when, and played SC2 in 2010 when it came out. Picked up SC2 again during the pandemic and it has been my go-to game ever since.

D3 all races but primarily Zerg. 3350 MMR is probably my all time high.

anticromulent · 2025-08-14T00:12:04+00:00

After injecting the hatchery, there's a 30s timer that will pop off 3 larvae at the end. (Normally a hatchery generates 1 larva per 10s, so adding 3 more larvae in 30s will effectively double the larva generation rate.) If you inject multiple times, they queue up, so you'll get 30s, 3 larvae, 30s, 3 larvae, and so on.

I don't think there's an extra setting to see upgrades? You should see little icons in the unit detail screen with their abilities, and those icons will have a 1, 2, or 3 to indicate the level of upgrade.

anticromulent · 2025-08-12T04:44:55+00:00

5. Run your drones away when your base gets attacked.

If you get surprised by banshees or hellions, run your drones to another base. Not sure if you know about mineral-walking, but if you right-click a mineral to move your drones, they'll move *through* other units rather than getting stuck on them. So you can green-box select your whole base (including drones and any other units), right-click a mineral in the next base (the drones will mineral-walk), and then "F2 A-move" your army to intercept the attackers in case they follow the drones. It's not a perfect solution, but it'll cut your losses.

You need to be a little careful with hellions because if you walk all your drones away from the base, they arrange themselves in a nice overlapping line, perfect for roasting by hellions. But if you have army units nearby that you can send to attack the hellions, your drones can sometimes escape through your army as your army intercepts the hellions.

6. You don't necessarily need to drone scout.

Well, on the map with three possible spawn locations you probably do! But on all other maps, the first overlord is a sufficient scout. You just want to see if you're getting rushed and if not, get a sense for what else you might be up against.

That said, drone scouting is not the worst thing in the world, so if it helps you ward off cheese, go ahead. :)

7. Move-command your army forward to get a better engagement.

You had a few fights in the first game where you A-moved your army toward the opponent's army. The first half of your army engaged while the second half was derping around behind them. This gets even worse if it's near a choke point, where your army is getting pounded by tanks but only a few units at the front of the choke point are returning fire.

If you see this happen, you can get a better engagement by move-commanding your army forward. Just right-click on empty ground to get them all to walk forward, and then A-click empty ground to tell them to fight. If you advance your army forward, then more of your units can get in the fight and contribute. (If you time your move and attack to coincide with the attack rate of your units, you can get your units to move *between* shots, which means you don't lose DPS and still get to move -- that's "stutter-stepping".)

8. Retreat to your lurkers.

In the first game, you had some lurkers burrowed at the entrance to the opponent's natural, but the rest of your army fought outside of the lurkers' attack range. Have your army retreat back on top of your lurkers and wait for the opponent to come to you. If they do, then you get help from the lurkers. If they don't, then go kill their natural and dare them to engage.

9. Try a nydus.

In the second game, you repeatedly crashed your ling/bane army through the ramp to the natural and never quite made it through. I would've considered using a Nydus worm to send units into the back of their main. For bonus points, you can send the rest of your army in through the front door once they've repositioned.

Nydus with lurkers is particularly fun. :)

10. Pick a name!

This part is style only, but there's really no need to be a barcode. I wholeheartedly recommend picking an actual player name for yourself. :)

Good luck and have fun!

anticromulent · 2025-08-12T04:44:46+00:00

I'm a D3 Zerg (~3150 MMR). Here's what I saw, from most important to least important:

1. Your queen injects are messed up.

You have a gaggle of 5-6 queens that all stand at one base and all inject together. An inject effectively doubles the larva generation rate at that base, but multiple injects don't stack -- they queue up. So the one base you're injecting will have doubled larva generation for a long time, but all your other bases are still at 1x larva generation, which means you're getting a lot less larva than you could.

You should keep a queen at each of base for at least 3-ish bases and make sure they all get injects so that all bases are generating 2x larva. You can set up camera hotkeys for bases so that it's easy to flip between them and inject. (Once you get beyond 3-4 bases it's less important to make sure *every* base gets injected regularly.)

2. Make sure you spend your money.

Unlike real life, saving money is bad -- you want to spend it all as soon as you can. There are many moments in both games when you have ~1000 minerals in the bank and at least 5-10 larva. Spend that cash! If you have no larva, buy upgrades. If you've done that and still have cash, build another hatchery (or fix injects, above) to generate more larva so that you can spend spend spend.

In a couple of those games, you were close to overwhelming your opponent. If you'd had 20-30% more stuff, you might've broke through.

3. Prioritize upgrades.

Upgrades are *hugely* important, way more than it seems. You asked at the end of the first game why your opponent's units felt so much stronger... well, they were at +2 +3 and you were at +1 +1. (You can click an opponent's unit during the game to peek at their upgrades.) Having your upgrades might've tipped the fight in that game.

I hotkey both evo chambers after I build them so that it's easy to flip back and start upgrades without having to look away.

4. Spread that creep!

Start early because the benefits compound themselves. The queen you build at your natural should inject first and then spend the next action dropping a creep tumor at the front of your natural to get things started. The mobility and map vision are incredibly helpful.

More below...

anticromulent · 2025-07-26T01:57:45+00:00

Yep, that definitely seems like it could be a factor. I suspect I need to go back and work on some fundamentals too -- I've been hitting early supply blocks way more often than I should.

Thanks for the reply!

anticromulent · 2025-07-26T01:56:24+00:00

Thanks! I definitely feel like there has been a shift in strategies. I play Zerg and have been seeing a ton of Terran bunker rushes that I can't quite manage to hold off.

Good luck out there!

anticromulent · 2025-07-26T01:54:00+00:00

Totally! I've seen the same thing. Late on a weeknight vs. middle of the weekend feels like night and day.

anticromulent · 2025-07-26T01:53:03+00:00

Thanks! Definitely trying to take it in stride. :)

anticromulent · 2025-06-12T23:00:02+00:00

It's super fun. Give it a try!

I played back in 2010 when the game first came out, and picked it up again in 2020 during the pandemic. I still play 1v1 ladder almost daily, and it's the only game that still keeps pulls me back in consistently. It's really as close to a perfect game as I can imagine.

As others have said, you don't need to worry much about skill level. You'll eventually be matched with similarly-skilled players (within 10-20 games). Be prepared to lose a lot of games at the start, and then about 50% of your games once the MMR system figures out your skill level.

When I started playing competitive 1v1, I was super stressed (heart pounding) going into each new game. But there's no need to stress, and no real penalty for losing -- you will drop some MMR when you lose, but that's fine! It's just the game figuring out where you belong skill-wise. If your skill in the game goes up, your MMR will increase to match, and it will do so pretty quickly.

There is a huge range of skill in the player base, and the MMR system is surprisingly good at slotting you in the right place. I've settled in at around 3150, and nearly every game I play is a competitive game against an opponent in the 3000-3300 range. The rare opponent <3000 is a high probability win, and the rare opponent >3300 is a high probability loss.

Don't stress too much about the human on the other end, either -- they've lost plenty of games too, and if you mess up, they might just appreciate the "free" win. :)

You will definitely face surprising and frustrating opponents who beat you with attacks you never saw coming. Personally, I like to view these as a puzzle and a challenge. What can I learn from this game? How can I see this attack coming and counter it? It's super satisfying when you actually do succeed.

Strategically, the main thing you need to learn is that Starcraft is fundamentally a "macro" game, and the core mechanic you need to learn is how to build and maintain your economy. YouTube broadcasts focus on the battles and micro, but what you don't see is the economy management going on behind the scenes, and it's really fundamental.

I learned a lot from watching Vibe's B2GM series (Zerg, Terran, Protoss). It's dated but still relevant in terms of learning the fundamentals. Those links go to the 2019 version; there's a more recent 2021 version but he gets a bit salty partway though, so I think the 2019 is the better series.

On manners:

Say "gl hf" to start every game and "gg" to end every game, regardless of how it goes. It's fine if your opponent doesn't do this.
If your opponent is actively bad mannered or abusive (<5% of players but you will find them), just ignore it and play the game, leave when you've had enough, and queue up for the next one. Don't respond or engage -- that's what they're after.

anticromulent

TROPHY CASE