New to the game, looking for someone to show me the ropes ;-

[BlackSummers]

Hello Commanders,

I am fairly new to the game (played Supreme Commander several years ago) and am now looking for someone willing to show me the ropes.
After watching several Youtube videos and casts I do fell kind of overwhelmed with what is happening on the screen and what to look out for/what to do while I do struggle to get a base up and running.

I am from Germany and looking for ppl. who are in my time zone. Kind of fluent in english and german

If it matters for the cause: I'm 37 years old - so there won't be coming squeaky sounds from me


Looking forward to playing some awesome games in the future with all of you!

[armacham01]

If you can find someone to hold your hand and explain everything to you, that's the fastest way to learn. However, there is a LOT to learn, so you probably can't find someone to give you personalized attention every step of the way as you grow in skill. Here is what a new player needs to get moving, without so much personalized help:

1: you need to understand the game's mechanics.

1a - campaign missions

If you already understand how to give orders and what the units do, then feel free to skip past the campaign missions. They tend to be a bit TEDIOUS, especially you already know this stuff. The only reason to play them is if you are learning from them. So feel free to skip past them if you don't think they're helping. But I do think they are the most straightforward way to learn the extreme basics of the game.

You can play the original game's campaign missions, which were really intended more as a tutorial than as a "fun experience." If you are using the Steam version (not FAF) it is easy to launch Forged Alliance campaign missions, but those assume you already know how the units/economy work, and immediately give you tech 3. If you want to play the ORIGINAL campaign missions, which teach you how to use the most basic unit types, you need to do that through FAF. (You can load vanilla SupCom through Steam, but the interface is just awful, it's just awful, don't do it.)

To run the original campaign missions through FAF: go to the PLAY tab, then go to Co-Op. At the top left part of the screen, you will see the text "Black Day." Click on that and select a different mission. The ORIGINAL campaign missions are the ones with faction icons next to them. Start at the top of the list and work your way down for each faction. So for example, start with "Joust" and just work your way down.

Then you press "Host Game" and you will go to the game lobby.

There are two things you need to do in the lobby before you launch. First, disable all "sim mods." You can leave "UI mods" on. (A "sim mod" is something that changes the game, like "5x resources" or "2x build range"). You could play with these on, but it will mess up the learning experience. A "UI Mod" on the other hand is legal to use in 1v1 ladder matches, it only changes the game interface, and there are a number of these mods that you probably want to use. (But you don't NEED them to learn the game mechanics.) Second, TURN DOWN THE DIFFICULTY.

Click on the "Options" button (bottom right side of the lobby). In the OPTIONS menu, on the bottom left is a button labeled "Mods." That is how you can make sure all sim mods are disabled. On the right side, there are game options. Turn all of these options to "default" EXCEPT for difficulty. turn that to "easy." For some reason, the default setting is "hard." If you try these missions on hard as a new player trying to learn the game you are just going to be very frustrated.

Now go play some campaign missions! This will teach you the VERY basics, how and why to use units. If you're crushing it on "easy" mode, good for you, you can turn it up to "medium."

1b - entry-level tutorials

In addition to playing the campaign missions, here are some beginner's guides you should get into:
https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?ti ... ing_SupCom
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJYYaF ... helf_id=15

1c - StarCraft is different

Since a lot of people have experience with Brood War or SC2, I think it would be helpful to explain some differences between this and StarCraft, so you're better-oriented to get started on FAF. I'm even worse at StarCraft than I am at FAF so I don't think this is a perfect explanation of how the two games differ, but here are some key things to look at if you are coming over to FAF from those games:

Spoiler: show

1 - FAF is more symmetrical. The factions are barely different, compared to the three races in SC1/SC2.
2 - FAF is designed to be playable with lower APM. You can do more to automate your armies, like setting factories to "infinite build" and it is more viable to queue up lots of orders (telling your engineer to build 20 buildings is normal in FAF, I think that's less normal in SC2 and of course impossible in Brood War)
3 - The primary game-ending mechanics are different. In both games, "send a big army to your opponent's base/expansion and wreck it" can be a viable strategy. But in FAF you can also kill the enemy ACU to win. There is nothing like that in StarCraft, where you have to kill every building to win. Also, in StarCraft, people can "mine out" resources and that is often a way that the game ends (and the fear of mining out forces people to attack). In FAF, mexes never run out, but the game becomes more dangerous as time goes on. Nukes, heavy artillery, and experimentals ultimately can break basically any base/expansion. In the early game and mid-game, you can take and hold mexes in the middle of the map. As the game goes on, it is normal for there to be a "no man's land" between the two (or more) bases where nothing can survive.
4 - There is less quirkiness. In StarCraft, upgrades are important, but there is nothing really equivalent to upgrades in FAF. Also, in StarCraft, spells are very important. There's basically only one "spell" in SupCom, overcharge, which is VERY important. But it is just the one.
In StarCraft, units do different "types" of damage so some units are better at hurting other units, e.g. vultures are great against drones but not against Ultralisk, because they are coded to do "concussive" damage. FAF does not have that, a point of damage is a point. Of course in FAF There are some units that are better at killing other types of units, but it's more obvious what is going on. You can see it more easily with your eyes. You don't need to consult a chart to know which units are effective against other units. You can see whether units are dodging shots, whether splash damage is hurting lots of units, etc. Even though FAF has more units than SC2, it's actually less complicated because the units fit neatly into certain categories, both because of the symmetry between factions, and just because there are fewer types of attacks in FAF. Every unit does not have its own quirky identity, in FAF, nearly AS MUCH as in StarCraft games.
5 - you don't have to be deliberate about expanding. In StarCraft, taking an expansion is expensive and you need to think carefully before you expand. But in FAF, it can be as simple as dropping an engineer out of a transport and building 4 mexes (4 mexes cost 132 mass, which is like 2.5 tanks, it's incredibly cheap, and it pays for itself in less than 30 seconds). Of course it costs more mass to lock down the expansions with factories, turrets, etc. But the point is: you generally want to grab as much as you can as fast as you can.
6 - FAF deals with scale much better. In StarCraft, battlecruisers are the size of about 10 marines. In FAF, there is much more diversity/disparity in unit size. This is one of the neatest things about FAF. You can zoom out and you should probably zoom and play zoomed out so you can see what's going on.
7 - You can scale up economy without expanding. In StarCraft, if you sit on one base, you WILL fall behind in economy compared to someone who takes 4 bases, and you will eventually "mine out." In SupCom, you can upgrade mexes to grow your economy. Expanding and grabbing lots of T1 mexes is usually more efficient than upgrading mexes to T2 right away, so you want to expand at the start of the match. But eventually it can be good to upgrade mexes (depending on the map/situation) and I don't think there's anything comparable in StarCraft. Yes, you can boost economy by making more workers, but it's just not the same, because you become saturated and eventually you mine out. It's a mistake to start upgrading mexes too early, or to upgrade mexes that can easily be killed, but at some point it can become necessary to upgrade mexes, and there's just nothing comparable in StarCraft.
8 - Unit cap tends to be less important. A major part of StarCraft is the 200 "supply cap." Bigger units use more cap. You have to play around the cap, making enough supply depots etc. and when you get maxed out, you need to attack your opponent or else you just stop making units, or you need to sacrifice some vultures/SCVs so you can make more siege tanks. In FAF, a mech marine takes as much cap as a Megalith. While there is still a unit cap, it was meant to avoid the game taking up too much memory. It wasn't meant to be an important gameplay mechanic that determines when people attack vs. defend. You still need to pay attention to the cap, but it's pretty easy to play around it in FAF, compared to in Brood War/SC2. There is basically no such thing as a "maxed out army" in FAF.
9 - reclaim. It's extremely important as a gameplay mechanic and there's just nothing like it in StarCraft.

2: start laddering

2a - get ready for some ladder matches

A lot of new players want to jump into multiplayer games so they can act out what they saw in a Gyle cast. You can definitely do this even if you are bad at the game. But if you want to improve, the best way to become a well-rounded player is to play ladder matches. When you play 1v1 matches, there is no one to hold your hand and do things for you (like scouting, raiding the opponent, expanding, etc.). This is great because, when things go wrong for you in 1v1 matches, it shows you what you need to improve.

Before you start laddering, I suggest sandboxing your build orders. Create a custom game, 1v1 against an AI:Easy (or, as you get better, more difficult AIs). Pick a map that is from the ladder pool. And practice playing like a ladder match. So practice hydro builds and second air, third air, etc. (If you don't know what those are, you need to watch the build order tutorials. Build orders are very important for ladder.) Practice these a few times so you get in the habit of carrying out a build order. Pay attention to whether you stall on mass/power. Then work on expanding. On basically every map, you don't want to just sit in your base getting up to tech 2 while your opponent takes over the whole map. You want to expand, whether that means sending out engineers to walk across the map to build a few mexes, or using transports to rapidly expand.

I wrote a bit about playing against the AI to practice for ladder, here.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17924

2b - play some ladder matches

Get onto the ladder. Play some games. Watch your replays. Learn how to use the replay vault! Play at least 15 ladder games before you start asking for help. And if you are steadily improving, maybe don't ask for help, just keep going until you hit a wall.

Unless you have someone who wants to basically watch over your shoulder as you play (which is a real thing, for example if you have a friend or family member who plays the game) or someone who will play with you and chat you advice during the game, you're probably going to have to just play the game and then ask people to watch your replays and give you advice about what you can do better.

Don't worry about getting crushed on the ladder. Losing is normal. Even the best players lose about half of their games. If you are losing 3 out of 4 games, that's fine. You are creating opportunities for learning.

Here are some of the most common reasons new players get crushed in ladder:

1 - not expanding, being out-expanded. Your opponent has more mexes than you. When you watch the replay, count the number of mexes and the "mass per second" income. If you are falling behind in that, that can be a reason you're losing. If you are struggling to upgrade a t2 mex while your opponent grabs 6 mexes around the map, you are being out-expanded.
2 - under/overbuilding power generators. When you watch the replay, pay attention to your power bar. Are you power stalling? Are you floating +140 power with a full bar? Every 2 pgens could be 3 more tanks. So if you build 10 unnecessary pgens, that's 15 tanks, which could make a big difference.
3 - under/overbuilding t1 land factories. If you're mass stalling while you try to build another factory, that's a sign you made too many. Count the factories during the replay and see if your opponent makes more than you. it is common for new players to only make 1-2 land factories, while more experienced players might make 4+ (depending on the map). You don't want to be "out-spammed" (where your opponent has more tanks than you and uses that to roll over the map and maybe kill your ACU).
4 - ACU positioning. Did your ACU get caught out by 30 tanks and you didn't have any tanks with it and you just died? Did the enemy ACU get a gun upgrade and walk up to your ACU and now you're just dead? This happens even to good players, it is a normal part of the game. But if you are dying because of it, you can work on it. In general, just keeping more units with your ACU can stop 90% of this, and then eventually have a flak with your ACU so you don't get killed by 6 gunships.
5 - not scouting. Make some scout planes. Fly them around.

Try to engage with those issues before you come back to the forums asking for help. It's fine to ask for help here, including asking for help dealing with those things, I'm just suggesting that you should make a real effort to work on them, on your own, before asking for help.

2c: learn how to watch replays and POV videos

What should you be looking at when watching replays? Well, anything that interests you, and anything that you think might be important. But here are a few things to look at:

1 - Economy. As I put above, look at your mass bar to see if you mass stall, look at your power bar to see if you power stall or overbuild power. Pay attention to whether you have too many factories or not enough.
2 - reclaim. Press ctrl-shift to see it, and also look at the scoreboard at the top right side of the screen to see how much reclaim each player got, and their total mass numbers.
3 - positioning. What expansions were taken, what should have been taken, what opportunities were there for raids, that you didn't take advantage of? Should you have scouted more?
4 - battles. What was the unit composition/unit count and did units do what they were supposed to do? Did light artillery do lots of damage to tanks, or not?
5 - tech. Did someone get tech 2 before the other person? How did that work out? Same for tech 3. And ACU upgrades.

Watch your own matches and watch good players' matches to see what they're doing differently. You can watch these the way Gyle casts them (with god-vision over the entire field) or you can click on one player and watch it from only their point of view. And you can hold down shift to see what orders they give. (Hildegard talks about that here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17924#p177184)

Also, you can watch point of view (POV) videos on YouTube and Twitch of people playing ladder matches and tournaments. This is really helpful because you can see what orders they give, and you can see what part of the map they are looking at. Ask yourself: "what would I do differently" and then assume that JaggedAppliance is doing the right thing and you would be doing the wrong thing. Try to be more like Jagged.

2d: read my guide

Once you have an understanding of the basic game mechanics, and some ladder experience, let's say at least 30 games and 300 rating, I wrote a guide that you will probably find useful.
viewtopic.php?f=62&t=17559

You might have to come back to the guide more than once, because it's probably too much to absorb in a single sitting (if you can pick up the entire guide in a single sitting, you probably waited too long to start reading it).

Also, you can go back to the guide I mentioned earlier:
https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?ti ... ing_SupCom

3 - ladder moar or play custom 1v1s

Keep playing ladder matches (or custom 1v1 matches). If you can find someone to train you (and there are trainers) that's great. If not, just keep playing, and watch replays, try to figure out for yourself what is going good/bad in your games. (Just the act of trying to figure it out for yourself can be useful to grow as a player) and also every now and then, maybe once a week come to the forums and say hey, here are three close games (replay IDs 111111 22222 and 33333), I'm not sure why I lost, can you give some advice?

The basic point is that human attention to give you advice/guidance tends to be limited. So it's best if more people try to learn more without relying on help from better players. If you get up to 700+ ladder rating, I think the trainers are more willing to take the time to give you help. If you show up at 200 rating points and you want personalized attention, they probably think "I could spend a month training this guy and then he probably goes off and finds another game" or "I have to spend an extra hour to show him this thing because he refuses to spend 3 hours trying to learn it on his own, I don't want to put that much effort into helping someone who is lazy" but if you work your way up to 700 points, people know that you are serious about the game and it's probably not a waste of their time to train you.

Feel free to go as far as you want, and then stop improving. No one is obligated to improve as a player. Your self-worth should not be tied to your ladder score. You shouldn't be a skill snob (sneering at people just for having less skill/rating than you) although you don't have any obligation to play with anyone. If you get to 350 ladder rating and you decide "now I want to play 100 games on Astro Crater Battles" then good for you, go do it. If you get to 700 and you're desperate to keep improving, then good for you, get to it.

Also, I am happy to provide some personalized attention to anyone who wants to get better. I'm not an official trainer, so I wouldn't provide any kind of rigorous, long-term training, but no matter how new you are, I'm happy to play some 1v1s now and then and give you some pointers. If you see me on FAF, feel free to send me a message through the chat tab.

[biass]

I am fairly new to the game

watching several Youtube videos and casts I do fell kind of overwhelmed

Hello, i've been training players for over 3 years now. ok beast
I would recommend you completely disregard all tutorials and just hop in and play the game.

Sounds stupid, but i "have" to unteach what people have gained from purely bad advice (like above, sorry but not sorry dude) and attempt to instill basic mechanics instead, almost every day.

We don't have a defined curriculum and a lot of advice is provided from people who also don't understand how to play the game (sorry again?) so a lot of your time spent in learning materials will most likely be a waste, you're a lot older than the majority demographic here so just enjoy the free time you have actually playing, you'll pick up basic mechanics with a bit of self reflection with any luck.

[BlackSummers]

Thanks both of you for your time and effort replying to my call.

I definately got a few valuable infos out of it and while it is quite difficult to grasp every aspect in a short anmount of time I'm looking forward to playing some games.

I for instance did not know that it was possible to start AI games in the FAF client.

[Uveso]

I send you a PM!

[H-master]

Nice that armacham01 took the time to write such an extensive post. There is a lot of good info in there.

My advice is, just play and enjoy the game. If you have the time it's probably best to play the campaign to get a feel of the units. Do take the time to read the unit descriptions as they are accurate and will teach you a lot! By the time you reach the end of the campaign you'll feel comfortabele to play multiplayer. From there one, just learn from your mistakes. Try to get as much map coverage and reclaim as possible and never forget the health of your acu (like me). Imo on navy maps it's almost always the best strategy to gain Naval superiority and go for t2 navy as it can defeat everything. You'll need to find the balance between eco and building an army, but that will be different every game.

[armacham01]

I don't take offense at what Biass writes. You will find that many people have very strong disagreements about what constitutes good advice. We lack an objective way to measure what is good advice vs. bad advice and probably different people benefit from different approaches. And if this kind of spicy discussion bothers you, how are you going to jump into a ladder game and get rekt?

And I don't take offense at him pointing out that my grasp of the game is far beneath his (about 600 ladder points lower). To establish a hierarchy is one reason we have ladder ratings. Of course, ladder ratings are about more than just understanding. There's also focus/attention/tunnel vision, decisionmaking under pressure, and fatigue (what Gyle calls "SupCom Head"). But to be honest, I'd rather say "my rating is lower than biass because he understands the game better than me" than "my rating is lower than biass because I'm a scatterbrained doofus who makes bad decisions under pressure."

But I also believe that good advice is good advice, it doesn't matter whose mouth it comes out of. Is it "pUrEly bAd aDvIcE"? No. Sandboxing your build orders, playing ladder matches, and watching your replays is good advice. It's best if some really good player is willing to train you 1-on-1, but they probably want you to do those things anyway between lessons. Heaven was a very good player and his tutorials are good. Telling new players who want to learn what units do to go watch Heaven's tutorial videos is not "pUrElY bAd AdViCe"

I do think "pLaY tHe GaMe" is at best oversimplified. What kind of games? Playing against the AI? I did that with the trial version of SupCom (cybran v. cybran AI on Finn's Revenge), SupCom, and Forged Alliance, and after a fashion, I basically stopped learning. I only played campaign missions and against the AI (with AI teammates even). Playing against AI:Comatose and going up to Tech 4 every single game is not going to teach you almost anything beyond the most basic mechanics of the game. Even then, you're going to skip using 2/3 of the units, you will never give a factory attack move order, or even press ctrl-shift to look at reclaim, so really you will learn almost nothing. You could play with 7 AIs on Burial Mounds for 20 years and learn NOTHING. When you have 3 AI teammates carrying you and your 4 AI opponents always fall for the same tricks, what is there to learn? So "play the game" is too simplistic to be good advice.

BlackSummers: PLEASE don't just play by yourself against the AI. It's fine to do that to sandbox a few build orders. If your idea of a good time is to play against the AI, make a custom game lobby and invite people to join you. You can call it "2 vs. AI" or "4 vs. AI" or whatever. People will join. Don't be shy about making your own lobbies. Playing with other people is better than playing alone.

And laddering against other people is better than playing against AI (when you are good enough to actually win sometimes). As long as you are working hard to try to win ladder matches, if you ask for help people will recognize your effort and help you out.

[Blodir]

I think it's useful for a new player to get advice from all levels of play (even low rating players like biass), but you have to use your own brain to evaluate said advice (that's where the learning happens). In sc2 I sometimes get advice from top 200 players that's absolutely retarded and shows they have little understanding of the game... i wouldnt count on all high rating advice being good in supcom either. Treat advice as fuel for your own thoughts and logical conclusions

[BlackSummers]

Wow, really guys. Thank you for all your effort!
Especially you armacham01 for your comprehensive replies. That's really something else. And I don't think that a ladder rank is tied to good advice.

Getting advice in so many fields is really appreciated. Sure, not everything will be of use to me or in general. Luckily I do have my own brain and am able to identify "stupid" stuff in a relatively short anmount of time - at least I think so.

I do not plan on only playing against AI all the time. AI for me is usually something to try things out on. Getting a viable start and having map awareness is "kind of" learnable with AI as well.

What stood out most was the part with "play with and/or against other players" to learn. So I think I will try to get a few AI matches in to get a build order down (yes, a signle for starters) into my head and brainnburn some control keys (thanks again armacham01 for pointing out ctrl+shift to see reclaim values - I tried to find that key while watching a ladder match).

In the end all boils down to what I do with all the advice given combined with what I my goal is and how well I am able to translate it into actual gameplay.

[biass]

I'm happy to elaborate and am glad you don't take offense (even if putting what I say in rancaps belies your true feelings)
But lets get something out of the way first.

At no point did I mention rating during my first post, and I do not believe that rating correlates with training ablity. I didn't know your rating before I said that you didnt understand and based the comment purely on how you communicated gameplay concepts; specifically how you spoke about scouting, and expanding.

Is it "pUrEly bAd aDvIcE"? No.

I will now explain why it is bad advice. I'll spin it so it helps you get better at training people and that OP can learn something from it if he wishes.

I do think "pLaY tHe GaMe" is at best oversimplified. What kind of games? Playing against the AI?

It's up to interperetation because each player on FAF has different goals. If someone is interested in playing teamgames, and i tell them to go play the game, they will likely go and play teamgames. If they want to play the ai, making them go and learn in pvp will not work. The player will get bored and mad, and then stop playing the game. Not every player wants to compete and it is damaging to the community to think otherwise.

Playing the game (for pvp) is crucial because pvp implies an enviroment with both something on the line (your rating) and time related pressure. Both of which are not present in a campaign/pve scenario. The ultimate goal of me telling people to play the game is so they can execute what it is they want to do very quickly under said pressure, and leave more time open for conscious decision making. If they cannot do the simple things like "make pds" or "rush t2" with basic muscle memory, players cannot implement new ideas or react to an opponent fast enough to pass. It doesnt matter the quality of the training - if it's a comment from another pleb in aeolus or a zock lesson. You need to be playing and be comfortable enough to try new things as you play.

Recently, players have started just watching tutorials in lieu of playing, when in reality tutorials should be a suppliment. You can blame this on performance anxieties or the questionable state of client quality but the results are more or less the same. A player comes to a trainer and they ask why they cannot get anywhere. They explain that they watched through all the media available and then when I check their game count they only have around 3 games (op had 0 when i checked and still has despite "watching several videos and casts"). I've simplified my induction of new players to counter this specicifcally. The side effect is that many players think they're above it.

Sandboxing your build orders

I used to tell people to just use the generic build from the wiki but I no longer do that because:
1. It makes way too many new players overated (most 700 rated players are just 300 rated players with a build order)
2. I don't want new players to autopilot through the beginning of the game. (and crash when the build is over and they must start thinking for themselves)

Autopilot is almost the rule of law in low rated games. We have advertised this game as being a very big and scary milsim RTS that isnt like those yucky starcraft mainstream RTS games. The adverse effect of this is that new players will just default to a single state of playing and will not actually think about what they're going to do or why. It's estimated that players stop playing "against the game" at 1100 and then start playing "against an opponent" at 1600.

I leave the beginning of games open to new players in the hopes that they will consider one of these things: (pay attention BlackSummers)

- does the map require something different? (for example, navy maps)
- do i want to go for early (example:) land dominance? (and thus do something odd like 8th air)
- is the player known for doing a certain strategy? (making a scout or a blind counter early)
- does the faction matchup require something different? (more air against aeon)

Or something similar, as long as they actually think about what they want to do and adapt how they play to their will. Instead players when faced with the unknown, will default to FIRST LAND SECOND AIR FIRST INTIE every single game.

As far as the sandboxing goes, again because of the pressure enviroment, and that ladder has a few hurdles to get into (first game queue times..) so you might as well mess around with how you open in a real game. you will probably lose your first games anyway because trueskill needs you to play to rate you properly, and you get to see how it works on a variety of terrains too if the opening is generic.

You also get to do the build while trying to micromanage raids, instead of just leaving them idle because you didnt practice against an actual player.

Same ideals apply to the incoming:

Telling new players who want to learn what units do to go watch Heaven's tutorial videos is not "pUrElY bAd AdViCe"

Sure. But in both cases that you mention the tutorials here, it either links to the generic build order tutorial or to the playlists, in which the first tutorial video in the tutorial playlist is generic build orders again. You also mention tutorials again in the guide you linked, wherein the first link to the channel is again to the build order video. You do not make any references to using materials to learn "what the units do" in your posts.

I already made a comment on my issue with this video on your guide post, that being the use of the ratio.
The idea of the ratio (2 pgens one factory or whatever) sounded good in theory but in practice, every new player sticks to it like the scary adhesive your dad keeps on the top shelf in the shed. Players do not take into account the other variables (engie drain, radar drain, reclaim, unit cost variations etc) and instead of making choices about what to build by looking at economy and playing against an opponent, they will rigidly stick to the ratios for no reason.

it's caused us serious pain in the discord training department trying to teach players to focus on both what they want to do ingame (win land -> produce more tanks -> make more factories) and by looking at the eco bars (making power when overflowing already) instead of adhereing to ratios. This was also the case before these guides, when the UEF clan were prominent.

Regarding the wiki, it's really a toss up on the quality of the content because it's more about who can be bothered (i made the uef guide when i was but a 1000) so i cannot recommend that either. Exceptions being petrics guide and the habits guide by dog, wherein he tells you to play the game.

I'll end it here but i am happy to keep going if you have more questions. Mr BlackSummers, may i recommend the following to you to try out as a new player:

1. Ignore dialing in openings, just go factory first and try out a variety of different ideas depending on what map or fun strategy lies ahead (only air, fast boats?)
2. make sure to not only scout but properly take the time to look at what an enemy has and see how you can exploit it (he has one air factory? make 2, thats double the planes.)
3. Most maps will have given you half of the map to claim easily, make sure you hold half of it at least and if you lose it, fight to retake it.
4. see for YOURSELF how much things cost per second and then think about how they can be used. (upgrade costs?)

Now go and get some ranked games in, Make sure to have fun!