Latency

Everyone seems to always go for “extra high latency” at the beginning of the game. Do you think that really makes the game “faster”? In some cases, yes, but usually, NO! Let me tell you a little bit about latency. Extra high latency increases the amount of time it takes your units to respond (which does reduce lag). This means that if you tell your zealot to attack, on low latency he will do so right away, but on extra high, he will wait almost 2 seconds before obeying the order. Thus, while it may reduce lag, it makes your units less responsive. In conclusion, extra high latency can be useful, but ONLY IN EXTREMELY LAGGY GAMES! If the game you’re playing in has no lag as it is, then there is absolutely no point in setting latency on extra high, because it will just make micromanagement that much harder.

In the beginning of the game, latency should be set on low. If, after a few minutes, lag persists, latency should be moved to high, then to extra high if needed. So, do not immediately go for extra high latency at the beginning of the game. Switch only if you must.

Losing

If you’re losing a game, don’t ever purposefully disconnect. Disconnecting is a form of cheating because the win/loss does not register properly. There’s no shame in losing and no reason to take any game so seriously that you can’t own up to losing. How would you feel if you played a long, exhausting game, and just before you wiped up, a losing player disconnected? Battle.net records the number of disconnections per player. Thus if you collect too many, people won’t play you. A disconnecter is the worst kind of cheater.

Be gracious in defeat. Allow the other person to destroy all of your buildings. It often only takes a minute or two and gives you time to do the proper thing and congratulate the other person by telling them “Good game” or “GG” for short. It’s often irritating after a long battle when you win and the other person surrenders without warning just because they ran out of money or got discouraged.

Don’t give excuses after losing. If you’re curious about what you could have done differently, get advice from the winner as to what you did wrong or what you could have done better. Ask for advice while you let your victorious opponent raze your buildings. On the flip side, be a gracious winner. Don’t rub it in and only give advice when it’s asked for.

Sometimes you’ll be teamed up with players of lesser skill. Help them out during the game, and never berate them for “causing you” to lose the game. Again, losing is no big deal, and it’s much better for you to offer them advice on better tactics, build orders, etc. than for you to insult them. Remember, everyone started out as a “newbie.” Becoming good takes practice.

Fundations Of Gameplay:

Dont Stop Making Probes/SCV’s – This is the single most important thing you will ever learn about the game of Starcraft. Until you master this simple thing you cannot go foward in terms of skill no matter how hard you practice! The zerg cant produce drones as easily but they should also endeavor to get a lot of drones happening per expansion.

Scout Scout constantly, without good recon a game you should have easily won turns into a defeat due to a hidden expansion or something of the sort.

Stay Calm Do not let your opponent rattle you. If your back is against the wall dont cave, dig deap and even if you do lose at least you’ll have shown your opponent that your not going to give him an easy win just because he got a little ahead of you.

Hotkeys Make sure you use hotkeys. Some players like to hotkey manufacturing facilities, others units. They are something easily used and can really improve your game.

Terrain Every map is different and should be played as such. Learn to analyse the terrain and try to use it to your advantage.

Replays Their are so many excellent replays out their and they all have something to offer to an aspiring Starcraft player. When watching replays dont concentrate so much on particular build orders and such, watch how the players use them and the way they react under different situations.

Practice In the end practice makes perfect (or at least a h*ll of alot better) and without it you will make stupid mistakes or bad judgement calls.

Organization

This makes me sick. Sometimes when I go play pick-up games, I look at my partners base and am disgusted by what I see. They place buildings wherever the heck they feel like putting them. I can’t emphasize how much better it is to have an order and pattern to how you place your buildings. Call me a perfectionist, but I tell you — in my opinion, in order to do well at Starcraft, your base has to show that you know how to build stuff in ways that benefit you.

First of all, organizing your base not only looks better, it allows you to cram more stuff into smaller areas. By keeping yourself tightly packed at the beginning of the game, you give yourself room to expand as you grow, and also keep yourself protected from early rushers. If you build all over the place, then that bunker you stuck in the front of your base may not protect your mining scvs from a good Zerg player that runs past the bunker straight to the mineral patch. By keeping yourself organized, you benefit in the short run, as well as in the long run.

This is an example of a well-organized base. Hide 2 of the sunken colonies so that they would be hard to get to from attackers coming from above. Any units attacking me would have to either kill my buildings to get to the sunkens, or walk around to get to them, and that takes time in which their units would be taking hits. An unorganized zerg base would just have a bunch of sunkens stuffed up at the entrance, but you can prolong the life of your defensive structures by making them hard to get to.