Many new players have started to get involved in the new real-time strategy game StarCraft 2 for PC. For many gamers, who are used to console games like Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, etc., they may find it difficult to adjust to PC games, especially those that rely on clever strategy and the use of a mouse. and keyboard instead of the controller. Personally, I’ve had several friends almost quit StarCraft 2 because they found it hard to win games against other players. If you’re having similar problems, some of the following strategies might help.
First of all, you will need to learn how to use hotkeys. Basically, hotkeys are keys that you can press on your keyboard to instantly perform tasks that would normally take time. For example, you can press a drive and then click somewhere else. Pressing the hotkey again will instantly reselect the drive. Hotkeys are important because in StarCraft 2 every second, even every fraction of a second, can count. Some players are capable of performing over 300 in-game actions per minute, and they do so via hotkeys.
Second, you’ll want to watch your replays. Watching replays is vital to becoming a better player because by doing so you can see what mistakes you have made and improve on them. If you find you’re not making enough workers, be sure to focus on making them the next game. If you find that you did not pump out enough units for combat, be sure to focus on that. You will have many “Aha!” moments when watching the replays.
Ultimately, you will want to choose a career and stick with it. I personally recommend choosing the Terran race for two reasons. First of all, all of their units are ranged, which is important because it gives you more time to react if an enemy attacks with melee units like Zealots or Zerglings. Second, they have the best defense in the game, which is great for beginners. While the Zerg and Protoss need to get more bases early on (which can be risky), the Terrans are capable of “turtle” and work from one base for a long time. There are two Terran strategies that I highly recommend. The first is Reaper Rush, where you create a lot of Reapers early in the game and send them to ambush your enemy’s workers. If you can kill all the workers, you are almost guaranteed victory. If you are not comfortable with Reapers, you can use “MMM” which stands for Marine Marauder Medivac. Get plenty of Marines and Marauders, and some Medivacs to heal them while they are using the Stimpack. This is an extremely powerful unit combination.