Winning at Starcraft 2 Part 1 – Defining Goals

This is an ongoing series about winning at Starcraft 2. It will begin with a basic discussion on the fundamentals of planning a successful match and then move into individual executions that can be used to win almost any game. This is part 1 in the series

What is a goal?

A goal or objective is a projected state of affairs that a person or a system plans or intends to achieve—a personal or organizational desired end-point in some sort of assumed development. Many people endeavor to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines.

What is the goal of every Starcraft 2 match

In order to be successful at Starcraft 2 we must first define success. Winning a game can be accomplished in two ways:

Destroy all of the opponents buildings

Be the last person (or team of persons) left in a game

If being successful means winning — then the absolute goal of every game is to win. Now you are say, “Duh, Waldo. Why don’t you tell me something that the other 100,000 Starcraft 2 players don’t already also know.” Young grasshopper, I’m going to make my point momentarily. Please bear with me.

An issue arises when smaller goals, throughout the game, rise up and take focus away from the more important goal. Let’s work with an example.

Example 1

Pretend that you are in a 2v2 match with a solid partner. Your are Protoss with a Terran teammate. Your opponents are Terran and Zerg. You’ve just defeated 6 lings that came into your base and your only Zealot has a few hit points left. Two more Zealots come out behind him almost immediately and your teammate has a few marines and a single Marauder. The absolute correct thing to do would be to get a scout near the Zerg base and see if he has rebuilt those lings, or moved on to create more advanced buildings & units. Let’s assume the Zerg player is moving up the tech tree and you know this.

You are at a crossroads:

Build more units and buildings

Attack with what you have

If you decide to go up the tech tree you have created another smaller, and much less important, goal for yourself. You’ve decided to get “x” number of Zealots or get to “Y” units. Maybe it’s 10 zealots, maybe it’s Void Rays/Air. Either way your focus has just switched from winning to teching.

“But Waldo, sometimes you have to tech to win.”

I agree — you certainly do. However if you have the opportunity to reach the most important Starcraft 2 goal early, you should take advantage of that moment and put a nail in the proverbial coffin.

Example 2

How many times has this story played out….

In mid-to-late-game economies have become very important. You have multiple bases and so does your opponent. You scout an expansion and see no units so you send in your army. As you are destroying his expansion, your opponent enters your base. Now he is mining less minerals and gas, which is a great advantage to you. Only problem is you can’t build the advanced units that counter his assault any more because those buildings have been destroyed.

Your goal of destroying an expansion got in the way of your ultimate goal of winning the game.

In summary…

Scenarios like this happen all the time and you won’t always loose your main base while wiping out an expansions. In the previous example the player acted with incomplete information, something we will discuss later.

For now, keep in mind that you are playing to win, not playing to get a nuke off, destroy some minerals, or tech to carriers. If your strategies and tactics don’t line up with this goal, you should revisit those immediately.

- Waldo

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Tagged as: Goals, Marauders, Marines, Strategy, Tactics, Void Rays, Zealots, Zerglings