🚀 go-pugleaf

IN TEH PALECE KNOWEN AS alt.games.starcraft, TEH FAGGORTER "Artificer"
<eliezer...@gmail.com> DUMPED HIS GHEYE SHIET ON MY COMPUTAR
SCREEN!!!!:
>Hi I have played a couple of RTS games and I will say that I play
>decently but I can not say I am a professional. However the more I play
>RTS games the more I get to the conclusion that you win on RTS games
>using more brute force than strategy. What I mean is that usually the
>player that clicks faster and builds armies faster is the player that
>wins.

Welcome to the age-old debate of the pro's and cons of Real-time Vs.
Turn-based strategy games.

Yeah, if you can't keep up to the "common level" in terms of speed you
probably won't be able to beat an enemy who is at that level and has
half a clue about the game. Sorry, no go, unless he makes some sort
game-killing mistake move or just otherwise gets too
comftarble/overconfident. 

Of course, you also have to always question yourself too - WHY is he
out-producing me? Because I'm that much slower and just can't keep up,
OR, because I don't actually know what I'm doing, when compared to my
enemy?

In terms of SC and player speed affecting ability to play, my own
personal experience says something like this:
(Numbers are APM - Actions Per Minute. If you don't know what that is,
go to www.bwchart.com and download the program and then run a few of
your replays through it)

0-30 You are and will always be totally hopeless
30-60 You are a casual gamer
60-70 Basic bottom-line. If you do not reach this, you're not going to
ever beat anyone who's rates above casual gamer.
80-100 Speed should not the main limiting factor in your gameplay
anymore.
120+ PGT ladder, Here I come!

Note that APMspam is for losers and progamers :p
I tend to clock 85-95 on average myself in most of my games these
days, and yet find my hands full of stuff to do all the time -
Especially as Terran ;_;. 
I've also noted that I fail the game, probably due to lack of practice
playing against equal/good people, since half the time when some
random battle.net schmuck does beat me they tend to be slower than me
(of course, ~15 APM in one direction or the other isn't that much) but
just know that much better what they're doing while I'm still master
of making bad decisions at times ;-P


> On the other side sometimes on chess you are highly outnumber and
>still you get focus and find that move that jeopardize the opponent and
>you win with tactics and strategy not with brute force. Still I keep
>reading that Starcraft players master hundreds of strategies and that
>it can take a life time to fully master Starcraft so I wonder if the
>game is being glorified or if there is lots of stuff I don't know
>about. 

To really get the "awsomeness" (har) of some of the pro gamers out
there you have to have a complete understanding of the metagame and
the basic concepts of high-level gameplay mechanics yourself. Forget a
pylon and stuck on supply? You're screwed. Built hatch with 12th drone
instead of 11th? You're screwed. Built one too many sunkens? You're
screwed. Vent Vulture before Tank? You're screwed - etc. 
A lot of it is really "small stuff" and taking gambles on them when
appropriate - Things that you won't "get" if you don't have a
sufficiently good understanding of the game yourself. For the non
SC-gamer, I'd say no matter what level the game is in it's rather low
on entertainment value in terms of  a watching experience :-P

...Of course, the real neat stuff usually happens when someone screws
up or otherwise pull up some super-micro- or other hax-trick from the
wazoo (lol land scouting float-barracks at enemy choke so his vultures
can't get out to raid your recently discovered defenseless expo) in
order to win the game.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4063957325232066624&q=starleague
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6855654305089685373&q=starleague

There's your "neat stuff". No strategy, but some totally awsome
manouvers and unit usage in those. Well, should be too, as the titles
say it's the cream of the crop from the past years. Pity the video
quality, though =/


>Please show me those great tactics and strategy and please tell
>me if brains can beet speed on a Starcraft match.

Brains (or, well, good preception and quick thinking) will win you the
game, but only if you don't fail at speed - Even in a real war, if you
got the plan but not the production facilities and other means &
resources to execute said thing, that plan is for naught, no?
It's a /Real Time/ strategy, after all, so the clock's ticking there
for a good reason. Learn to cope, adapt, or whatever, or switch back
to something like Steel Panthers: World at War.

But yeah. I guess it's more a game than a strategy game - Granted
strategy plays a pivotal part, but that's not the /only/ thing to it,
as in per say the mentioned SP:WaW.