When discussing strategies and tactics it is imperative to know the difference between the two terms. Though they are inexplicably linked they are, nonetheless very different. Defined in this article are these two important terms as well as important strategies and prominent tactics.you Strategy is a long term plan of action. It is centered in macro-management because the strategy you use will determine what buildings and units you buy as well as what upgrades to research and when to do all of this. This should be decided as soon as you begin the game because it affects your build order. There are three universal strategies that counter each other: The Rush, The Turtle and The Boom as well as the sub-strategy known as Teching. They can be done with any race but the dynamics of each race naturally support one strategy. Though each race is suited more towards a certain strategy there are many sub-strategies that are specific to a certain race often because they hinge on the use of a specific unit. Between games the strategies you use should be varied; it's best not to fall into a rut and use the same strategy more than twice in a row. Your strategy should be defined by the map you are on and your starting location on that map since the location of resources and chokepoints as well as those of your enemy and expansion spots are varied and can affect the strategy you are using. This is especially important if you are playing on an asymmetrical map. The Rush focuses on swift attacks as early in the game as can be mustered. It does this however at the expense of the players economic base since the focus will be on building units as opposed to strengthening the economy or building up your base. The player will strive to get production buildings early on and have an army produced within the first minutes of a game and send them at the enemy. Rushing relies on the enemy being unprepared for an attack at that early stage of the game and thus the damage caused is crippling enough that even if the attacker loses all of his units he will still retain enough of an advantage to be able to finish his enemy with little resistance as the enemy has little or no army or economy and cannot recover quickly enough. The main disadvantage of a rush however lies in its quickness. By building military units sooner the player has to forego building as strong of an economy since the limited money in the early game is insufficient to support an army and an expansion with workers at the same time (600 spent on building more soldiers instead of a new expansion and workers). This means that if the rush is countered successfully the enemy might retain enough of an economic advantage to build a bigger army more quickly and crush the rusher. Due to the low unit prices and ability to build them quickly the Zerg are natural rushers. The rush counters the boom by destroying the economic advantage it would have had. The Rush is countered by the turtle which is able to hold off the attack without the loss of the economy. The Turtle focuses on building defenses early on to enable the player to more easily fend of any early attacks. Like the rush, the turtle focuses on military at the expense of the economy but instead of focusing on an attack force focuses on a more defensive force by building defenses and the infrastructure to support a defending army. The home base advantage is a major aspect of the turtle because if you fight the enemy closer to your own base you have the advantage of rapid reinforcements and the additional fire support from turrets and other defensive buildings like the Bunkers or Shield batteries. The disadvantage of the turtle is similar to that of the rush in that it is weak economically. With the focus on securing your base your economy will suffer due to you lacking expansion bases. It is quite possible to "turtle yourself into a corner" by building so much defense that you either don't have an army strong enough to secure expansions or the enemy takes more sooner than you. The turtle naturally counters the rush by being able to decimate his army and have enough of your own left for a swift counterattack. Due to the lack of economy though it is countered by the boom which is able to eventually be able to support an army that can break the turtle. The Terrans are very effective at turtling because the bunker is able to protect the Terran army and Siege Tanks make excellent fire-bases for holding enemies at bay. The Boom focuses on building a strong economy early game in order to allow for a larger army later on in the game. In order to facilitate this though the player has to forego building a large military early on to save more resources for additional expansions and workers. The idea is that if you can survive the opening minutes of the game you will have enough of an economic advantage to out-build any of your enemies and be able to crush them with superior numbers of higher level troops. The advantage is that if you survive long enough you will never run into money problems and will never have to halt production. The disadvantage to this strategy is the fact that there is a very small army. If the enemy attacks early enough with a large enough force then he will have little trouble eliminating you economic advantage allowing them to finish you off. With your economy crushed you lose your only advantage and become easy prey to further attacks. The boom counters the turtle by having a hefty enough economy to support an army capable of breaking the defenses. In turn though it is weak against the Rush because you will have insufficient forces to protect yourself with. Due to the Protoss ability to produce buildings without tying up a worker thus keeping more on the mineral line, the 'toss are natural boomers. Teching is another strategy that exists but it is actually a sub strategy of the main three and thus is used in conjunction with them. The idea is to focus more resources on purchasing tech buildings and research to unlock more powerful units and abilities. By doing this you may be able to effectively destroy the lower tech units of your enemy. It is not foolproof however because many high damage units fire to slowly to survive hordes of units that are available at lower levels. As stated before it is a sub-strategy used in conjunction with others. An example of this is such things as a Mutalisk Rush since the player has to first tech up to a spire to produce them instead of attacking with zerglings or hydralisks earlier in the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tactics are what a player does in a particular situation and is based more in the micro-management of the game. They are the methods for achieving victory in a particular situation and can be used regardless of strategy but should be different during each attack lest your enemy adapts to that tactic. Tactics are how you control your forces once they are built and consist of decisions such as if you are flanking, what direction to flank from and what units to use. The decision to destroy supporting casters or front-line units are based in tactics as is the decision to attack the enemy's infrastructure instead of his army. There are many tactics but a few major one exist that should be used in each and every game to achieve victory they are: Scouting, Harassment, Flanking and Kiting Scouting. You should never stop scouting but in order to get the most out of it you need to be choosy about where you scout. You need to find out where your enemy is first and foremost and what he is building in order to counter that and prioritize targets. Remember to scout often as any spot that was empty a minute ago may now be an enemy expansion or a trap. Harassment. Even when you are not assaulting the enemy base fully you should be harassing the enemy. Information is key so you want to destroy his scouts to ensure you know more than he does about the situation. Prevention is paramount so you want to stop the enemy from building up. Attack his expansions before they are done and draw his forces into skirmishes because if he is busy attacking you he is less busy building up his own forces. Flanking. Busting down the front door is often a bad idea especially against turtles since that is where the bulk of his forces are. If you come from the side not only is he weaker there but he will take longer to respond; long enough to give you the advantage. A sub tactic of this is the pincer maneuver were you attack from multiple directions and catch the enemy in a vice where you control the best ground. One or more allies should be perform this together for efficiency because the less locations each person has to focus his attention and divide his army amongst the more effective he will be. Kiting. Though it takes more skill that the others, kiting is still a very important tactic, perhaps even more important than the others. The basic premise of kiting is to maintain the advantage by engaging the enemy outside of his range but still in yours. To do this requires strict timing which can only be learned from using the units you want to kite with because you have to pull back when the unit is done firing and stop it when it is ready to fire again. Proper kiting not only vastly increases the longevity of your forces but opens up other options such as drawing an enemy towards your defensive line into an ambush and separating his forces. Edited to match article Now with 100% more inflatable zergling
Awesome post. I think this clears up any confusion people may have had concerning the two different, but equally important, aspects of the game.
You deserved the bonus minerals. Usually I don't find new info about starcraft in arcticles, but now, I am amazed by this.
great post! owerup: for you! way to go! now for some discussion questions: Do you think certain tactics are used by players relative to their strategy? If so, which ones are related and why? Do you think a player's strategy can affect his/her ability for one or more of the different tactics? If so, which ones and how? Do you think any tactics work especially well with or against a certain strategy? If so, explain.
First I would like to thank you all for digging this up. On the the Q&A session. 1> All of the tactics should be used regardless of strategy however the strategy you are using does alter the tactics slightly. If you are rushing then you will do less harassing and more full blown attacks and the harassment will be more of a diversion to draw the defenders away from your army while someone turtling or booming would use harassment to more directly harm an enemy's economy. The reason is the rusher already has an army to destroy the economy. Also a rusher will want to scout the enemy base more to find the weak spots while people turtleing will want to scout closer to home more as an advanced warning device in case an enemy army is coming. What affects the tactics more I think is the racial dynamics. A Protoss player won't do as much kiting as a Terran player due to the fact that their units have shorter ranges than Terrans and it is more pronounced with the Zerg who have even shorter ranges especially when you count kamakaze troops. The Protoss would be more focused on drops and ambushes and trying to prevent your enemy from kiting away which is where flanking and the pincer attack comes in. 2. Different tactics do have more effectiveness against different strategies. Harassment is most effective against boomers since they won't have as good of a force to stop the attack. Scouting will be especially effective against turtles since you need to find the weakest point to attack. Flanking is most effective against a rusher since most of the fighting will take place outside of his base on open ground and thus you will have more maneuvering room to flank them.
wow very good bop article im an ok player but your article has tought me a lot and will give me a clear motive during game play
