StarCraft 2 Beginner’s Guide to Multiplayer

Whether you are new to StarCraft 2 or an old StarCraft veteran, StarCraft 2 offers many new features and gameplay elements that keep the competitive environment balanced. StarCraft 2 is not just another RTS game, you will start multiplayer and be wining on the go.
It requires time to master, and most probably you will start your multiplayer journey with few losses.

But, worry not, StarCraft 2 matchmaking system is designed in a way to keep the 50% winning ratio for every player so it won’t be long before you start winning.
If you are StarCraft I player beginning StarCraft 2 then you need to keep few things in mind.

1. StarCraft 2 gameplay wise is more of an expansion to original game and it won’t take you long to understand the core strategies.
2. StarCraft 2 Interface is improved and better than the original game and has everything you ever wanted.

• Unlimited size control groups
• Improved rally system
• Ability to hotkey multiple buildings and types
• Simpler economy and base management tools
• Efficient Queuing up.

3. Don’t try the same units combination in StarCraft 2, you did in StarCraft.
4. StarCraft 2 matchmaking system is designed to put you against the player of your skill level unlike StarCraft.

StarCraft 2 Basics

When you will start your journey in StarCraft 2 multiplayer you will be faced with several questions during your initial phase.
Which units counter which units, what I am to do under certain circumstances, what should I do, if my opponent does this, what constitutes a good attack force for Terran, Zerg or Protoss etc.

While it is only natural for you to ask these questions, it is wrong way to proceed to multiplayer game.First, you should really get a grip on the fundamentals rather then specific versus strategies.

StarCraft 2 Multiplayer Basic Tips

Fundamentals focus on how you should go about StarCraft 2 economy, production management, and hotkey usage. Focus of this guide is to provide essentials for you practice which enable you to work out specific strategies later on.

Solid economy will be our focus although killing all the units of your opponent also guarantees a win, but that depends on how many units you have, which depends on how many units you can create and which ultimately is governed by how strong your economy is.

If you have more bases as compared to your opponent, you will certainly win the battle due to having more resources.

Following are the fundamentals you should focus on as a beginner.

1. Many More Workers
You need many probles/SCV’s/droids for each base. You always require workers for many tasks and if you have many, you can fasten it up as in multiplayer you have not much time before the opponent strikes.

In case of Zerg Paradigm, its different but if you are playing Protoss or Terran, your Nexus/Command Center should always be building a worker.
Queue up workers and rally them straight to the task, like a mineral patch by right clicking on it so that they start working once built.

An easy way to continually build workers is to put your command center in a control group.
When in the middle of a fight , you can always hit the hotkey to start building workers. Infact, you can hotkey multiple command centers to build workers from all of them.

2. Build Supply Depots in Advance
Always build Supply Depots/Pylons/Overlords/ early so that you are not waiting on supply when you need to build more units. You should generally try to never get “You must build additional supply depots” type of messages.

3. Spend All Your Resources
Don’t save resources, try to maintain zero resource level if you can, by spending all the resources. Build structures, expand, and expand more. At the beginner level, it doesn’t matter how you spend your resources as long as you spend them on something.

Resources tend to pile especially when you are fighting (guiding your marines as they destroy opponent structures), so get used to build units even in middle of the fights. Watch your replays to analyze where you tend to fall behind the order to rectify the mistake.

Now when you queue up units there is something that you need to keep an eye on. You shouldn’t queue up more that two units in single structure. When you do queue up more units in a single structure it ties up your resources to the units in queue.

It means you have used the resources to build those units while actually you are only actively building the first unit. If you have enough resources to queue up 5 units in a single lets say barrack then instead you should queue them up in two barracks.

Check your replay and make sure your structures are not idle and do not generally have more then 2 units queued up any given time.

4. Don’t Overdo Static Defense
When anyone starts RTS general trend is to build lot of static defense structures to make your base a safe heaven. There are two reasons, you shouldn’t make lot of static defense structures, like bunkers/turrets.

1. They are defense only structures and only offer assistance in defense, they can’t help in attack.
2. If you have too many static defensive structures for quite a while in a match, you will present less offensive threat to your opponent as your main focus would be to fortify your base.

Spending on resources too much would get you no where. Your opponent will realize that you have less offensive power and will take over rest of the resources on the map, winning the resource war.

5. Be a Good Scout
Send a worker out to your opponents base fairly early in the game and try to keep it alive by moving it into different position, try to be stealthy if you like. (Scout with worker when you start the game as there are no other units available).

Scouting is vital to your success not only it gives you a hint on your opponent’s strategy but all also shows key areas of the map. Keep your scout on your opponent’s trail, later in the game you can send other advanced unit.

Whether you really know how to respond to the information you get by scouting doesn’t matter. You will surely benefit from all the information you get by scouting especially when you start getting the grip of the game.

StarCraft 2 Hotkeys and Control Groups

How you can effectively use your mouse and keyboard while playing StarCraft 2 is an important addon in your road to victory. Even if you are not that fast with fingers, and loads of options offered in StarCraft 2 are fairly confusing for you. There are two things you can still put to good use and those are:

• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Control Groups

Keyboard Shortcuts
If you have a command center selected, you can either build SCV action button in the lower right corner or hit “E” to build an SCV. Now “E” here is a keyboard shortcut for building an SCV.

Building an SCV using a keyboard shortcut is faster then if you build it by clicking the mouse button.
Thus hotkey usage offers a clear advantage in how quickly you can execute actions. You should generally not be clicking the action button since every action button has a hotkey assigned.

Hotkey usage will take some practice before you get used to it and know them all. But, its usage for effective play as in combat situations.
You will not often have time to mouse over an action button to execute an action, and in general you would like to minimize the mouse movement.

In order to learn most of the keyboard shortcuts, always when you are about to create/build anything mouse over to the action button and check the keyboard shortcut then do the task with the keyboard shortcut.

Its a good way to train yourself with the keyboard shortcuts. You can also refer to our StarCraft 2 HotKeys/ Keyboard shortcuts list for help.

Control Groups
Control groups let you assign a number to your building or ground units from 0-9. Select any building or the units and then hold CTRL and press the number you want to assign to that control group.

Now, you can select that control group by pressing the number key you assigned to that control group. Control groups are critical for managing the units and structures in the later stages of the game. Like if you have 10 StarGates, you don’t want to manually go back and click on each stargate to build a carrier.

You can easily do that by grouping all the StarGates to a control group say ’1′ and then, you could just hit ’1cccccc’ to build as many carriers you want without taking your eyes off to what you are doing at the time.

How you assign control groups is up to you, but its better to put all your command centers in one control group and your main production facilities in another.

StarCraft 2 makes it convenient for you to select a specific production facility in a control group by using TAB. Like if you have barracks, factories and stargates in one control group, you can use TAB to cycle between them, so you can build some marines with ‘a’. Hit TAB and build some siege tanks, hit TAB again and build some vikings.

These few tips tricks and basic tips will help you improve your game in the long run.