From this thread it's clear that we have a good handful of L19 members who are also SC2 players, so at the request of Christos I've decided to put up a list of L19 members and their SC2 handles. This can be great for finding practice partners! The list was compiled using a sig generator that also shows the league that everyone is in; this will allow you to find someone of similar level to play. It also contains the character code and the region that everyone is in for your convenience. Anyways, list is below, if I missed you from the previous thread and/or you want to be added in, just post here.

here

edit: sc2sigs wasn't working anymore, so feel free to add yourself to the sc2ranks Go league .

Bravo to Sha for being the only Random player in the list so far. I always have a certain respect for players who are good at all aspects of the game, including all three races. Too bad he's also the only Australian player in the list, so he can't play with anyone.

Haven't dared to go online yet, just done some challenges and played against the AI + some practice league

I've done about a dozen practice league games, but I'm wondering if I should skip the rest and jump right into placement. The practice league games use special maps where you start out walled-in behind destructible debris, so you don't get an opportunity to practice your own wall-ins, early scouting, defending against early pushes or learning the real maps. It's like 9x9 go.

I'm also wondering if it'll make for more interesting matches. Right now, I seem to get paired up with either somebody way, way stronger or somebody much weaker. My games can basically go two ways:

"Let's see, I can get a second stalker out now, and I've almost got warp gates... I guess I'll start robo... Don't forget to chrono boost... Holy crap, where did those 50 marines come from? And a thor? And three battle-cruisers?!"

...or...

"Alright, extended thermal lances are just finishing, time to push out... Haha, I'm in yer base, killin'... where are your dudes? *TotalN00b has left the game* Wait... one barracks, one factory and one stargate, but three ghost academies?"

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Yes, I think it's best to just skip the practice league and go to placement. After you're in your league you'll end up playing far more players near your level and far less sandbaggers. And I definitely agree with you on those wall-in maps, there are so many strategies/tactics that you don't have to be concerned about thanks to those wall-ins.

GAH! First placement match, I get 6 pooled. I'm proud of myself for scouting it correctly, and on time, and knowing the correct response, and building my wall-in. I'm not so proud that I only had two zealots out when the zerglings came.

Edit: LOL, not to get overexcited, but placment match #2, 6-pool again. But this time I held off the zergling waves easily, then colossused his broke ass.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

#3, 6 pool again. Do zerg players do anything else?

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Although, I'm no expert, I think it's actually strategy for placement matches? They pick aggressive builds because it's the easiest and fastest way to win against most of the people in those match ups. As far as I've heard, the matchmaking isn't so great in these things as I believe you MUST go through this process.

I have to get SC2 soon now, so I can always be like "Fear my bronze skillsss". Mostly though, it seems like a fun idea to get some sc2 games going on in L19 too.

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I know nothing.

That may be the case. The third guy was just a lot stronger than me too. I held off the zergling rush, but he followed up with roaches unbelievably fast and I couldn't keep up at all. Fortunately, after that I got some more interesting matches.

Hidden so you don't have to tolerate n00b gushing.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Haha, I don't feel like I'm any good though :p.


Yeah .

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19/02/2011: this grumpy person takes a voluntary holiday from L19.

So it seems that, like with go, playing a lot and reviewing your games is important. What's the Starcraft equivalent to tsumego?

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Just practice BOs and timing, then try it against a human and learn to adapt to their silly actions.

Lies! My APM is like 2 and in the first ten minutes I'm constantly not having ENOUGH minerals to keep everything flowing. You just have to have a plan, and you need to always prioritize macro in your own base before considering the rest of the map with things like scouting and harassing the opponent. (Don't go picking berries while your house is on fire, etc.) If in the early to mid game your minerals start nearing 1000, that is an emergency that should cause you to drop everything else and build two or three more production buildings. If you hotkey all your production buildings, you should have no problem making sure they never stop producing.

Here's a nifty tool to practice your BO repeatedly with no loading time in between: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... _id=126942 The only thing I don't like about it is that the timer displays actual seconds rather than game seconds, so it's practically useless.

p.s. After writing that I checked my actual APM (which I had never bothered to look at before) in my last replay and it was an average of 30, occasionally spiking up to 60. That's an average of one thing every two seconds. Not exactly Mr. McSpeedy.

How exactly does one check APM? I've always heard it bandied about, but never known how you would check it.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

If you watch a replay it's one of things you can monitor. In the upper left there's a menu that lets you monitor APM, army size, income rate, production and a bunch of other stuff.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

You guys are making me want to try this game even though I have no time.

I suppose you need a windows box?

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

Don't do it!! The resistance needs you! Without role-models, how are the sheep like me going to keep up my resistance based on "other people don't feel the need to play it, so I don't have time and shouldn't start"?

It's working just fine for me using Linux and Wine. I haven't noticed a problem yet...

Ok, it only runs smoothly on the lowest settings, but that's most likely because my laptop is under the minimum specs, so I guess I should be grateful it's running at all

I think APM matters less than concentration. I find that I just don't notice that I've built up that 1000 minerals, and it only takes a momentary lapse (or distraction, such as a skirmish) for that to happen. If I do notice (even in the middle of a skirmish), it's usually not hard to find a moment to quickly spend some of it, usually through hotkeys (so you don't need to look away from the current fight) or if I havn't kept up with my buildings (for supply/production), even to skip away from the battle to build a building or two.

I would say build orders/timing are more like joseki. Tsumego exercises your reading/visualisation, and I think for something similar in Starcraft, starting with build orders/timing is a bit like substituting learning joseki for learning to read.

If we're talking about practicing basic starcraft skills (which reading isn't :p, nor strategy/tactics, etc, even though it's a strategy game, I think the real time part makes it hard to get to the point where you even apply any of those things), then that's what I would consider all the stuff people always talk about - micro, macro, apm, build orders, timing, counters, scouting, etc, and I personally am still mostly stuck trying to get those right .

I think to start with you need to be able to keep aware of each piece of changing information given to you by the interface - the minimap, resources, number of workers, zerg larva (by queen production and number available), units in production, health of units, etc. Some of which involve actively selecting them (usually through hotkeys). Program yourself to repeatedly check all these things :p. Then, as people have said, force yourself to constantly build workers and spend all your resources (and if your mineral/gas are maxed out, expand and don't stop building workers), it doesn't matter what, just build a bit of everything until you feel you're ready to go beyond attack-move. I think all of this really comes down to exercising your ability to concentrate on/with the activities you should always be performing in the game.

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19/02/2011: this grumpy person takes a voluntary holiday from L19.

I guess my attention is divided so many ways that I just don't know what I need to be doing next with my money. "Do I need to make probes? Should I chrono boost something? How's my food? Are all my unit production buildings working? Do I need more unit production buildings? What's my opponent doing? Do I need more tech buildings? What tech building do I need? Should I expand? Should I move out? Crap, here come those reapers again..." And by the time I've gone though my list and dealt with the next crisis, I'm up to 1500 minerals and something new is on fire. Although I suppose if I don't know what to spend my money on, I ought to be smashing my army up against something to give me a reason to spend.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku