Avatar given by Sausage Zeldas.
To macro is focus on your base and economy; build a lot. Make a lot of bases, a lot of workers, a lot of units, a lot of STUFF. Expand a lot (if your zerg) and just make stuff. At low levels, if you macro well enough, then it should make you enough units to win without amazing micro. Micro is good control of small things; controlling units effectively, etc.
Oh, and watch pro games.
A lot of them.
Like, a lot. Trust me. It helps.
www.sc2casts.com is a good site I like to use for pro games. Usually well casted too.
Edit : Go mess around in custom games versus the computer with every race, even if you dont want to play them. Get an understanding of what units the other races have, how they build them, etc. Having a decent understanding of the other races mechanics will help you play against them, understand more, and also make you much better able to understand casters when they talk about pro games.
"English doesn't so much borrow words from other languages as follows them into a dark alley, hits them over the head and goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary."
I'll preface this with apologizing if I sound like a douche and I'm insulting your intelligence, but I don't know how much you know on the game so I'll explain everything super detailed (x
Macro is focusing on building things efficiently, your structures, your bases, your units, upgrades, etc. It's how quickly you can produce things from whatever build your trying to go for (a build is whatever the general strategy of what you're trying to do is) Since your new though, you should really only try and do one/two base plays until you can consistently keep your resources low.
And on that note, people will try and give you advice like "look at X strategy it's super good!" or "you have to scout really efficiently between x time and y time" but if you can macro better than your opponent (until you hit like platinum league) you'll just win from having more stuff than the other guy. So for example, say you are in a ZvT (lets say you're zerg and in silver league) the Terran might have some super insane strategy build for this game, but if he can't macro for shit and you can macro somewhat better than him, you WILL win just because you have more stuff.
A lot of people will say EXPAND EXPAND EXPAND, and that's normally a good thing to do, but if you're in a really low league and you can't macro efficiently off of two bases, trying to go three or four bases will overwhelm you easily and you'll probably lose.
/end massive wall of text, hope it helps.
Day9 http://blip.tv/day9tv has couple of beginner videos (they're called newbie tuesday, search for them), in which he explains basics of the game (he once explained point of macro as "in RTS games, the player with more shit usually wins", so good macro will easily allow you to beat most of the players). Some of advice can be a bit dated because of balance changes from then, but most of it is great even now (drone timing daily is a must watch for any zerg player).
Some general advice:
-Always make workers (have a worker in production), you can't win without good economy
-don't get supply blocked (when your available supply is maxed out and you can't produce any more workers or units), this is a bad thing because it creates "bumps" in your economy, making your army smaller than it could be
-above two rules can be summarized as immortal "pylons and probes", basically as long as you don't forget to produce workers and supply (pylons, depots or overlords), your economy is good
-don't queue units in production buildings, that's just wasted money than you can't use now (when you need it most, duh) it's a bad habit and it can give you illusion that your macro (spending resources you earn) is better than it is (of course there are exceptions for this, queuing units during attacks is fine as you'll need all your attention on battle)
-as zerg, your larva is your third resource, watch drone timing daily and practice, practice, practice your injects
-don't try to turtle (play only defensively) and attack only with maxed army, it's a bad habit (Grubby, legendary warcraft 3 player once said that best players are ones that play greedy as much as possible without losing) don't be afraid of taking risks and pressuring your opponents in early game, it makes wonders especially in lower leagues
-don't overcommit to attack (for example you play as terran against zerg, you went for 2 barracks early pressure and killed couple of his workers and maybe a queen, there's no point in staying further and losing your entire army for nothing, as long as you forced zerg to make units early game, you're way ahead) knowing when to pull back when you're ahead will make you extremely dangerous player
-try to expand while pressuring opponent, if his units are at his base yours are much safer (i know it seems straightforward but too much people don't do anything useful with their units, as long as you made them, put them to use)
-cheese (cheesing is a simple, one-trick-pony tactic designed to win game fast and quick) once in a while, (some people will say that cheesing is a cheap tactic and only long macro games are epitome of skill, i say they're idiots who don't utilize their entire toolset), it will make you well rounded player and make you more resistant to opponent cheesing you (you'll get cheesed a lot in lower leagues, you may as well get used to it)
-learn other races that you can counter them better
There is a ton of other information (build orders, countering, harassing, all-ins etc) be prepared to research starcraft and watch tournament videos once in a while, always ask yourself "why are professional players doing this, and how can i use it?" but for now, just play and try to build good fundamentals of the game. This is probably best time to start playing, game is extremely balanced, and expansion is coming out soon, which will make most of current strategies obsolete (if you get a good grasp of mechanics and game strategy you'll be able to start form even field as everyone else as game changes with expansion)
TLDR: Pylons and Probes, watch videos, don't get discouraged by losing, pressure opponents and above else just PLAY.
http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/TwitchTV
World finals happening right now.
After about 20 matches in HotS, I can say it still needs LOTS more changing, my biggest problem as of now is 2-3 phoenix 6 oracle harassment, I've got no means of scouting it, if I prepare for it before knowing it's is build, I lose to ie. a 3 immortal sentry all-in build.
I've been fightning a 6 oracle harassment build 7 times, all tried different tactics, all lost.
I play zerg.
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Armory
That first match between Scarlett and Nerchio.... DAYUM!
So many sick matches today!! Parting Vs Scarlett, HerO vs BabyKnight, brother vs brother (Vortix vs Lucifron) and Rain vs IdrA!
haha! the carbot animations are amazing! check them out.
Watching Suppy vs PartinG on stream 4 right now!
Last edited by noteworthynerd; 2012-11-18 at 04:31 AM.
man, I hope HerO ends up doing well. He's my last liquid hope!
For that matter, I think he was the only guy from Liquid in the tournament.
Too bad Terrans did not got a Buff before BWC. PvZ, ZvZ and PvP are really boring in 90% of the games. Expect to see Broodlord Infestor in every game from now on -_-
Suppy up 2-1 against PartinG. he might take this next game to make it a game 5
Aaaaaaand PartinG won. Fucking sick Stalker micro.
I think it's pretty much universally accepted in the SC2 community that Infestors need changed/nerfed in some way.
A dev (I believe it is Dustin Browder himself) spoke about them a few days ago:
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
II paid 38€ for SC2 at releasedate... now I try to get to 55€ on my bnet-balance with some more d3 auctions, so I can buy the digital deluxe.