Lessons from Zock (Work In Progress)

[armacham01]

Immediately after I posted my 1v1 ladder guide, I found Zock's YouTube channel, with 25 hours of him giving 1-on-1 lessons. I've only gone through about 20% of it so far, but I want to share what I have found. I am trying to keep my own ideas and my own opinion out of this as much as possible. I want to just summarize the things Zock says, and organize them by subject matter (so you can quickly find what you are interested in). Then you can decide whether reading my summary is enough, or if you want to click through the link to hear Zock in his own words.

I would appreciate any feedback if you think the summaries are useful. I certainly have found the videos to be extremely helpful.

OPENING BUILDS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=22m00s
If you stall because you build too many factories, you are spending your mass on factories instead of units, so your opponent will have more units than you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=24m08s
Two half-built factories vs. one complete factory. Usually Zock does not build factories with just 1 engineer. He likes to have at least 2 building each factory. He prefers to build the factories inside his base, instead of outside his base, because he can get them up faster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=26m25s
For opening builds: if your first factory is building engineers, then 1 factory – no unit production. 2 factories – you have production. 3rd factory: 100% increase in unit production. 4th factory: 50% increase in unit production. 5th factory: 33% increase. This shows that your 2nd and 3rd land factories are extremely important for getting combat units out onto the map.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=29m30s
For opening builds: it is better to power stall slightly than to overbuild power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=32m07s
If you and your opponent both have 1 air factory, and are making interceptors, if you are mass stalling and your opponent is not, you will end up with fewer inties. And that means you will lose air.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=47m38s
The first priority when you start a map is to spend your mass. In the early game, the only way to spend your mass is the ACU. On most maps, you want to get at least a second factory before you send your ACU out. On big maps, you might even want your second factory to make engineers also. On big maps, you need to build a lot of power, so you should keep your ACU in the base to build power and factories. Usually the goal on most maps is to get up as many factories as fast as possible. Expanding is the second priority. Expanding without spending the mass is worthless. When mass is in storage, you’re not using it, so you’re not getting value out of it. When you use mass, you get advantages from it, and the advantage snowballs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h54m37s
One of the few cases where you want to have mass in storage, is if you are deciding whether to build an emergency point defense. Having the mass in storage gives you flexibility to build it at maximum speed instead of stalling. In some circumstances, it can even be a good idea to pause all of your factories so you don’t stall while you are building the point defense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=54m52s
If one player’s opening leads to a significant economic advantage, the game has basically been decided in the first five minutes. You need to learn how to play efficiently for the first few minutes, so you can get far enough into the game where your decisions matter. You have to learn efficiency first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=1h06m50s
Whenever you play, be aware of what went wrong, and try to improve it over time. Have a plan what you will do better next game. Especially when it comes to build orders, it is easy to make a change in the next game. Just keep improving it, every time you play, even if it’s just a small thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h22m03s
When you play, if you realize you made a mistake, next time you change something. It doesn’t even matter if the change that you make, makes things worse. The point is to try something different to see if you can’t improve. That is how you fine tune a build order over time. It doesn’t really matter what you do. The point is to change one thing every time. Don’t get into the habit into repeating your mistakes every time. It’s about not forgetting to improve your process. So if you force yourself to always find 1 thing to change, after every game, you are less likely to forget to attempt to improve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 10&t=5m42s
Regarding your build order: “You will get raided. That happens. Don’t worry so much about it.” You can replace the engineer expanding to build mexes, but you can’t just replace the engineer that is going to mid to take reclaim, because your opponent might scoop it before you get another engineer there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 10&t=7m05s
The problem with his student’s build order is the power stall. He started building factories before he had enough power to support those operations. On this particular map, Zock would prefer only 2 engineers building pgens in the initial build order, not 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=59m56s
If you are slow at grabbing your resources, your opponent does not even need to raid you, it is like you raided yourself, by not building the stuff. “Grabbing your resources is a key competence of being good.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h29m32s
Zock does not like to build factories or hydros with just 1 engineer, because it takes so long to finish.

ECONOMIC BALANCE AND SPENDING AFTER THE OPENING BUILD ORDER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h17m08s
Zock: you don’t build T2 power like you build T1 power (which you just spam). Every time you make a T2 pgen, it should be a conscious decision.
If you get into the habit of “every time I get to Tech 2, I make two T2 pgens” that is bad. On the other hand, if you try to only build as many as you need, and overestimate your power needs, and you end up building two T2 pgens and it wasn’t really necessary, that is less bad. In the first case, you are committed to playing the game in a thoughtless, sloppy way and you will not improve over time. In the second case, you are trying to improve and over time you will get better at deciding how many pgens you actually need. Being good at SupCom is not just about making the right decisions, it is about having a process to constantly improve. From the outside it looks the same (both people built two T2 pgens) but it’s actually very different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h25m30s
Pausing air when you stall power, and unpausing it after you stop stalling, is really nice. Just don’t forget to unpause your air. That happens a lot, even to Zock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h41m56s
When you stall mass, you have to decide what you want. When you have too much mass, you just need to build something and it is not as important what you choose to build. As long as it gives you an advantage it’s okay. But when you are stalling you need to make a careful choice about what to have, and you need to cut projects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=11m25s
When you have close to full bars of mass and energy, you want to spend it. You don’t have to make just 1 factory at a time. In this case Zock suggests using 3 engineers to start building a second factory. (If there was only 1 engineer, Zock might not like that because it takes so long to finish a factory, but with 3, it is definitely efficient.) Also, at this point it would be good to start upgrading a mass extractor to T2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h04m40s
Spend your mass, build more power. Take care not to overbuild power. 5 engineers building power at the same time is good for this particular map (Flooded Tabula Rasa). You don’t need all 5 engineers following the same order. You can have some engineers building one line of power and have some other engineers building another line of power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h07m15s
If you need more engineers to spend your mass you may need to make another engineer factory. If you don’t immediately need tanks to stop from being overrun, you can have your existing factory make engineers instead of tanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h15m16s
If you’re trying to spend resources as quickly as possible, building factories is more efficient than building engineers to assist factories, because it takes so long to build the engineers.

ECO-ING

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=15m17s
Describing how IF your opponent goes for early T2 mass extractor upgrades, you will have unit advantage. You need to use that advantage to expand/raid. But at the same time, you want to upgrade your own mexes. Because your opponent will eventually be able to expand out and recapture parts of the map.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=19m44s
Make sure that if you fall behind on eco, use your advantage (in having more units) to try to catch up in eco. If you are behind in economy and you don’t catch up, you will definitely lose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 10&t=21m00
“When to eco and when to not . . . trade map control for eco and then return the trade. And then if you fall behind in eco, catch up.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=33m40s
Discussion about when to eco. If you are a little bit behind your opponent in eco, catch up. If you are a lot behind, it will snowball (your opponent’s economy will grow far faster than you can hope to catch up).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=34m18s
When you are behind in both units and economy, you should eco. You kind of need more factories and more units, but you can’t do that and also eco. If you get the units, you will fall behind in economy and most likely lose. If you eco, you can try to catch up and still have a chance to win. That means you have to survive in the short term with fewer units than your opponent while you try to catch up in eco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=36m37s
“But in general, the idea that if you are falling behind then you have to play more aggressive, that is a really good way of thinking.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=1h10m46s
The same logic applies, to try to get ahead, as how to avoid falling behind. Which is: make a T2 mex, even though it means you won’t have as many units on the field. If you get raided a little bit, as long as you recover your territory, it can be worth it to have the T2 mex. As long as you don’t get overrun, it can be worth it to make the T2 mex.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=1h13m48s
Another really, really simple rule: once you start eco-ing, don’t stop, unless there is a really good reason for it (like: if you get overrun and you need every unit to survive). So you always want to be ecoing a little bit. If your opponent doesn’t keep up with you, you will get ahead. You don’t really lose a lot from not eco-ing. 5% less units won’t make a big difference. But 5% less eco will snowball over time. The cost of ecoing is small but the advantage is large because it builds up over time. You can change the pace of how fast you eco, but keep ecoing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h08m34s
Getting a T2 mass extractor too early hurts you. Zock describes building one as a reaction to his own error, namely that he messed up by not building enough factories quickly enough in order to spend his mass, so he spent it on a T2 mex. In that situation it is better to at least get a T2 mex than to do nothing with your mass. But you should recognize that you made a serious error, and getting a T2 mex is a kind of damage control, not a good strategy.
In particular, Zock was talking about Syrtis Major, where in the early part of the game it is helpful to have more units so you can more effectively fight for the quantum gateway in the center of the map. The amount of mass you get from reclaiming the quantum gateway is far more than you get from having an early T2 mex.
(This lesson obviously does not only apply to Syrtis Major. It applies to every map where you can use extra units to try to grab additional mexes or additional reclaim early in the game, which may be more valuable to you than upgrading a T2 mex. On the other hand, if you are on a map where you don’t have that kind of an opportunity, it might make more sense to immediately upgrade a T2 mex.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h10m38s
Zock explains that his student was, at this point in the match, so far behind in economy that he needed to take drastic steps to catch up in eco. He said: you should be very defensive, hide behind some point defense. You don’t need very many units, especially if you use your ACU to fight. You can pause all of your factories and use all of your eco to upgrade your mexes. If you were equal to your opponent, you would only want to eco a little. But if you’re falling behind, you need to seriously commit in a big way to eco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=33m10s
If you are in a comfortable position on economic-heavy maps, then you should start to eco, and when you start ecoing, you don’t stop again unless it is an emergency (you need units immediately to avoid serious damage). On the economic-heavy maps, you should start ecoing whenever you feel somewhat safe. “Somewhat safe” means you ask yourself two questions: is your advantage enough that you can just win the game if you crank out a little more spam? And: will you lose anything important if you have fewer units rolling out of your factories in the short term, while the mex ugprades? If the answer to both questions is “no,” then you should start upgrading a T2 mex.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=34m03s
You can start upgrading all of your mexes to T2 at the same time, wait a half second, then pause all of them, and order engineers to assist mexes in sequence (so that your engineers will upgrade 1 mex at a time). If you don’t pay attention to the upgrades, they will still happen. However, Zock feels it is smart to pay attention, to add or subtract engineers, or pause some engineers, or unpause the mex while it is being upgraded, in order to add or take away build power, so the mexes upgrade faster without using too much of your economy. You should fine tune the amount you are spending on ecoing in order to maintain eco balance. Whenever you have the chance to pay attention, you should unpause the mex that is being upgraded, because it makes the upgrade go faster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=36m44s
The student asks for a clear answer about when to eco, that is not just based on the map. Zock says: there are general principles that you use, primarily: eco if you can get away with it (and, don’t eco if you can’t get away with it).

RECLAIM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h43m31s
On a map with mass that can be reclaimed, like stones, you need to have factories that send out engineers to grab the mass. You can use a patrol order, which you don’t need to worry about, or you can do an attack move order, which gives the engineers extra reclaim range. If you use attack-move, you then press shift so you can see the attack move order and drag the factory attack move order to another place. If you keep moving the order around, the engineers that have been produced will then keep moving and reclaiming, but this takes your APM. When you have reclaimed about half of the stuff that can be reclaimed, stop making more engineers for reclaiming. At that point, let your existing engies finish reclaiming the things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h51m33s
One advantage to have so many engineers reclaiming things is that you have build power around the map, that you can use to quickly build things like T1 anti-air turrets. If you are using gunships to raid, you want to kill engineers first before they can build up T1 anti-air.

THE TRANSITION TO T2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=37m02s
As soon as your tech 2 factory finishes, you want to try to get as much out of it by pushing out as many units as possible. The first few Tech 2 units (1-5) matter a lot, and are a lot more valuable than later Tech 2 units (like the 10th). So you want to assist your factory and crank out T2 units as soon as it gets online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=1h15m42s
Tech 2 transition: the goal is, once you are tech 2, put 100% of your unit production into tech 2. But for Cybran, you also want medusa, which Zock says “count” as tech 2. (Zock doesn’t say this, but it is okay to produce land scouts.) You don’t want to keep making mantis, unless you are using them for raids (like the way you might use LABs at the start of a match.) You don’t want to get overrun. If you completely stop your unit production in order to switch to tech 2 support factories, you will be very vulnerable. There could be a full minute where you have zero unit production. So you may want to upgrade 1-2 at a time before upgrading the next ones to Tech 2 factories. Even so, if you have lots of Tech 1 units, and you don’t want to play super aggressive, you could upgrade all Tech 1 at once. The goal is to upgrade to Tech 2 as fast as possible. If it is safe (because you have enough units) you would upgrade every single factory to Tech 2 at the same time. It is convenient to upgrade them 2-3 at a time, instead of all at once, because you can judge how much strain it puts on your economy.
Similarly, with Tech 3, once you get a Tech 3 factory, stop making Tech 2 junk. (It is fine to keep using MMLs, flak, and deceivers once you get to Tech 3, but stop making Tech 2 tanks.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=1h21m33s
Once both sides have T2 tanks, you don’t want to have mantis in the front of your army. The mantis won’t kill the enemy’s units, and they will just get in the way of your own T2 tanks. If you keep making mantis for your frontline force you are just wasting mass. You could pause the T1 factories (the ones making mantis) and use the mass to eco.
When you have T1 and T2, don’t move your whole army together. Move your rhinos up front as a concentrated fighting force. Keep the mantis behind, in case there is an all-in engagement. If he overruns your rhinos you can bring the mantis in as well. Until then, keep them out of the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h12m37s
When you transition to T2, you stop making T1. That is true regardless of your economic situation. It doesn’t matter if you are ahead or behind in economy. Just stop making the T1 tanks once you can make T2 tanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h15m00s
You want to make the transition complete as soon as possible, which means no more mantis. You can have a factory making mantis if you want to use them as raiding units, because they are fast. Zock’s example is to send out 3 mantis on a raiding mission to attack outlying T1 mexes. The point is to stop making mantis for use in combat once you can make rhinos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h26m22s
Zock would avoid ecoing heavily AND upgrading to T2 at the same time. Do one, then the other. You can eco first, or you can go to T2 first. But if you try to do both at the same time, you will end up ecoing more slowly and it will take longer to finish your T2 factory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=28m05s
Transition to Tech 2: you have to decide whether you can win with Tech 1. If not, then move to Tech 2 instead of building more T1 factories. If you can just make a few more T1 factories and spam units to defeat your opponent, then you can do that. But if both players make more and more T1 units, it stops being feasible to win with T1. So you should stop making T1 factories, and move to T2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=32m50s
At some point, think about: do you actually want more T1 factories, do you want more T1 units? Ask yourself this question. If the answer is “no,” then you go tech 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h10m14s
The rule for Tech 2 factories is: the first unit out should be a T2 engineer. If you’re getting attacked and you have an immediate need for T2 combat units so you don’t just die, get the combat units. Otherwise, get a T2 engineer first, or two. Queue up 1-2 T2 engineers and then 30 T2 tanks. At some point, you should notice your Tech 2 engineer, you will want to give it an order (make a TMD, make a T2 pgen, etc.) and that should remind you to pay attention to your T2 factory to update the build queue. Tech 2 power is one of the best things about going to T2. Even if your first unit is not a T2 engie, you should queue them because you always want a T2 engineer eventually.

THE TRANSITION TO T3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=1h28m38s
When you get a T3 factory up, you want to stop making T2 tanks/bots because T2 direct fire units are very inefficient against T3. (Note: this video is from early 2016, before the “T3 rebalance” happened, but it is probably still valid advice.) Just stop your T2 factories completely. T3 factories have much more build power than T2, so you don’t need very many of them to spend the same amount of mass.
You can still make flak, MMLs, deceivers, mobile shields, and T2 engineers. If the flak or MMLs are going to be part of your unit composition, make them out of the T3 factories. You don’t need to have a T2 factory cranking out flak next to a T3 factory making Percivals. (Zock does not specifically say this, but I think if you just want a couple units, like you want a T2 engineer for some special purpose, or you want to make a couple flaks for your base, it is perfectly fine to use your T2 factories to build that. There is no absolute rule that you are forbidden to use your T2 factories for any purpose. But according to Zock, your war production should only come out of T3 factories.)
In contrast to the transition to Tech 2, where you may have a need to keep making T1 units, once you get to the T3 stage, you can immediately completely stop making T2 tanks/bots. By the time you transition to T3, you should have enough engies to assist your T3 factory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h16m17s
Zock describes using transports to move his first bricks from the T3 factory. He says a weaker player would just have them walk out of the factory. (By using transports, Zock gets his first bricks into the fight much faster. This goes back to what Zock was saying about your first five T2 units coming out of the T2 factory being more important than the next five. The same thing applies to the first five T3 units to come out of your T3 factory. They are more important so if you can transport them to get them into the fight faster that is an important benefit.)

AIR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=1h27m46s
Corsairs are nice, you can use them even if you don’t have air control. If your opponent has unshielded power generators, you can send them in (on a suicide mission) to snipe the power, and that can win you the game. But if you don’t have air control, you should only use them to snipe power. You shouldn’t just make lots of corsairs when you lack air control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h53m26s
On 10x10 maps, you don’t want to make too many air factories too early. Five air factories early is too many. But a second air factory early is not terrible. If you’re going tech 2 air, you want a second air factory. (Zock doesn’t say why, but I think the point is so you can keep making interceptors so you don’t lose air control, because then you won’t be able to use your fancy Tech 2 air toys. Or perhaps he means you should have a T2 support factory so you can make more T2 air units, faster. I don’t know.) If you want more transports, it can be good to build them from a second air factory. But (at least for 20x20 maps) your first transport should come out of your first air factory. With Tech 2 air, you don’t want to make gunships on an infinite queue. You want to queue up about 15 only. Because after you start doing damage with them, your opponent will make a lot of flak.

BEING AGGRESSIVE AND BEING DEFENSIVE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h33m30s
One way to get ahead is to be aggressive, which is to make attacks in order to try to hurt your enemy. The other way is to be more defensive and put more economy into eco. If your opponent is putting 5% of their economy into eco, you put 10% in to eco and just have 5% fewer units. You can still defend well with 5% fewer units.
Aggression can be more risky. If aggression fails, you can leave behind reclaim. If you make a mistake with aggression you can give the game over to your opponent. But if you hang back and eco, that style of play is more forgiving of mistakes. Being defensive and out-ecoing your opponent can be a more boring way to play potentially. It is a matter of preference. Being aggressive, or out-ecoing your opponent, are both legitimate ways to play the game.
Also, you can shift back and forth between the two strategies. It can be good to move back and forth between both strategies (aggression vs. ecoing) rather than investing all of your resources into a single strategy. It’s better to have a mix than to do just one thing. (Zock does not specifically say this, but I think it’s obvious: if you only do one thing, you will be more predictable.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h48m51s
On raiding: you need to make a guess if your opponent has units in the area. If there are units, you only want to send a small number of units, maybe 2, 3, or 4, to put some pressure on your opponent and to try to sneak by to kill a mex. If you send in too many units, and they are caught by a larger force, that can be very damaging to you early in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h14m07s
Timing: if you are building more units from the start of the game, or if your opponent pauses or slows unit production for some reason, you may have a unit advantage (meaning: more units on the field than your opponent). Presumably, whatever he is spending his mass on instead will benefit him eventually. So if you wait too long, your unit advantage will disappear.
The example shown in the video is: Zock paused his factories in order to upgrade his land factory HQ to T3, so for a brief time, his opponent had unit advantage. His opponent (the student) attacked at the right time, taking advantage of the opportunity. If the student had held back, soon Zock would start making Bricks, and then the student would no longer have a unit advantage. During this brief time, there was a window of opportunity to attack Zock with more effectiveness.
You want to take advantage of the opportunity created by having unit advantage. You want to convert your unit advantage into other advantages—for example, by raiding your opponent’s mexes. Another way to use your unit advantage is to pause unit production and focus on ecoing, because you can effectively defend yourself with the units that you already have. You don’t want to miss these opportunities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=26m46s
If you choose aggression instead of ecoing, you do need to attack your opponent. But then you need to scout, or maintain radar coverage, so you are not surprised when you attack. It is not necessarily a mistake to choose aggression over economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=19m54s
If you don’t eco, you need to go all-in. If you build up a fighting force (including: getting the gun upgrade for your commander) then you need to attack your opponent. If you just wait for your opponent to out-eco you, that is wrong.

UNIT MICRO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=13m34s
Zock discusses unit micro. The student was retreating tanks away from a superior force. Zock agrees that the opponent took advantage of an opportunity to attack with a superior force, but Zock says that his student actually did well to retreat. By retreating from the superior force, the student was able to preserve tanks.

RAIDS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=1h32m32s
Raids have much more impact when they are simultaneous. If you lose 4 mexes in on spot, and then later you lose 4 mexes in another spot, that is much, much easier to recover from, than if you lose the 8 mexes at the same time. If you get far behind in economy, you may need to use an aggressive all-in strategy (a snipe, or an all-out attack).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 10&t=9m09s
Zock discusses sending units from base to clean up raiding units. He suggests giving those units a sequence of orders: first, a move order to get near the raid, and the second (holding shift to queue up another order) an attack-move order, so your units will chase after the raiders if necessary but not run past them. If you send units to clean up a raid, you don’t need to wait for the raiders to die before you send another engineer. You can send the engineer so that it arrives by the time you expect the raiders to be dead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=19m15s
On raiding: send a few units (like 3-6) on a raid. And send a few more on another raid in another area. Sure, your opponent might catch them and kill them. But that’s okay, take the risk, you can afford to lose a few units.

ACU POSITIONING

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h29m57s
If you have the gun upgrade, you want your ACU to be in a position where you it can be fighting enemy units. If you just use it to hold an important position that is not being attacked by your enemy, you aren’t getting as much value out of the gun ACU as if it was shooting enemy units.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h48m09s
On a small map, an early radar can help you to keep track of your opponent’s ACU. Seeing where the enemy ACU goes is extremely important so having an early radar is very valuable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h49m47s
Aggression with ACUs and defending against it: Zock explains why he does not build a point defense in his own base (he believes he can handle the enemy ACU without it). Also, Zock has radar so he knows that his opponent is still walking towards his base. On the other hand, Zock’s opponent does not have radar, so he does not know that Zock’s ACU is walking back to Zock’s base (which will let him trap and kill his opponent’s ACU). If you are going to walk in to your opponent’s base, you should have all of your units with your ACU.
In this case, Zock pulled his units back behind his base, leaving his base undefended for the enemy ACU. He did this to buy time for his ACU and other units to get back, so he could build up a large enough number of units near his enemy’s ACU, in order to get the kill. If he had used units to defend his base, the ACU would have just killed them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=15m12s
The lack of radar led to a bad engagement. And the lack of radar by the ACU allowed the opponent to kill the ACU.
The ACU should not have been close to the front at all. In this case, the ACU was securing 2 mexes in the front, which just were not important enough to justify the risk.
If it was justified for the ACU to be up there, all of the combat units should have been with the ACU. In this case, more than half of the army was on the other side of the mountain range that runs down the middle of Twin Rivers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=21m54s
“Don’t upgrade at the front line. If you upgrade, do it in a safe position. A safe position is where your opponents can help.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=23m07s
If you want to be aggressive with something important, like an army or your ACU, then scout before attacking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=24m30s
If your opponent’s ACU starts attacking your ACU, and you don’t know what units might be behind his ACU, you should assume that your opponent knows the situation better than you. So you should retreat and kite, rather than standing your ground or aggressively moving in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h02m28s
Usually you don’t want to send your ACU alone anywhere. You want to send it with some units.

ACU SNIPES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=39m38s
Once you realized that you are so far behind you can’t win, it is smart to go for a snipe. If you go for a snipe, focus everything into it. Commit to it completely. For an air snipe, pause your land factories. You can even think about recycling a few of them if you need mass. If you recycle them, they show up on the radar as dead, which is the same as if they upgrade to T2 support factories. So if you reclaim a few, your opponent might think a big land push is incoming, and prepare for the land attack, when really you are preparing a corsair snipe.
It is good to build a new air factory for a snipe so your opponent can’t see on the radar that you have teched an air factory. Then keep building inties from your original air factory. You don’t build the inties to protect the corsairs. You build the inties to shoot down scout planes so your opponent doesn’t see that you are preparing a snipe. In fact, Zock assists both the T1 and T2 factories with his engineers. Meanwhile your land units should play defensively because you want to delay your opponent while you are setting up the snipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=59m33s
On large maps, it is easier to go for a snipe. Because the cost for a snipe always stays the same. You always need like 10 corsairs, whatever, as many corsairs as you can get. On maps with a small number of mexes, it can be hard to put that together. But on maps with a lot of mexes, it is much easier to get the mass you need to prepare a snipe. Use your factories to make engineers in order to support your snipe attempt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... &t=1h01m7s
If you are able to, stop making new tech 1 units. But keep using your tech 1 units to pressure him. You don’t want to be too defensive. You also don’t want to suicide your units. You don’t want your opponent to get suspicious that you are planning a snipe.

ON PLAYING LARGE MAPS (20x20)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=38m23s
20x20 maps are “a whole new dimension” compared to 5x5 or 10x10 maps. You need more of everything. You need to learn how to handle having so much more mass available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=42m20s
20x20 maps with so many mexes, there is so much to do, more than on other maps. You won’t have enough time to do everything that you need to do which is frustrating. While you are lower rated, focus on getting good at 5x5 and 10x10 maps. You should still try to do your best when you are on ladder and you get a 20x20 map, but in terms of developing your skills and refining your build orders, you should focus on 5x5 and 10x10 maps until you are a better player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=46m10s
On most big maps, you wait until your expansion is complete to start ecoing. Until your expansion is complete, you use your eco to make more units. With more units you can delay your opponent’s expansion. In this case, it would be air units. Instead of getting a tech 2 mass extractor, you could be getting air control. You can try to find and kill your opponent’s transport. You can rush a transport yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=51m48s
The biggest early air game advantage you can get is if you can find his transport and “target lock it” (I think a target lock is when you give an attack order to some interceptors, who keep the attack order even after you lose track of the transport on your radar). One interceptor is not really enough to kill a transport

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=52m23s
When your opponent drops the same expansion as you, you need to fight for it. You need to focus on that fight, which means to put all of your mass into it. You need to make a number of factories to crank out units in order to defeat your opponent. Having a T2 mex upgrading, and having a naval factory cranking out units, is going to take up a significant part of your economy, slowing down your ability to fight your opponent. You want to build up a bunch of factories on your side so you can win on your side, and you also want to then get a transport onto your opponent’s side. (Or if you dropped your opponent’s side first, then after you do that, drop your own side.) If your opponent drops your side, you should return the favor by dropping their side. You can definitely use bombers to attack their expansion, that can be an effective weapon. (Zock also says that bombers give you radar coverage, but that was taken away in a balance patch. Bombers no longer have radar.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=57m31s
Zock’s student is ecoing too early. He is upgrading mexes while he is still trying to expand. The cost of upgrading the mexes is slowing down the student’s ability to expand, which is very bad. (Losing your expansions costs you more than you would benefit from getting T2 mexes.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=58m33s
Factory placement: you don’t have to walk with your ACU halfway to your opponent’s drop to start building factories. You can build them on the other side of the island and let your units walk. It doesn’t really matter that much if your units have to walk farther because it takes extra time for your ACU to walk anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h00m55s
Balancing your power and your mass on 20x20 maps is harder than on 5x5 or 10x10 maps. There is so much mass, that the amount of power you have to build is so different from 5x5 or 10x10 maps. On smaller maps, you probably want to have only one factory cranking out engineers. On 20x20 maps, you may want 2 factories producing nothing but engineers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h08m05s
It is okay to upgrade mexes to T2 on a big map as a panic way to spend mass because you would want to eventually upgrade them anyway. It is better to spend your mass on upgrades rather than not spending it at all. Once the expansion phase is basically complete (all of the free mass extractors are taken, even if you don’t have half of them) you should start ecoing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h09m11s
On big maps, you should go Tech 2 quite early. There is so much mass that you want to a lot of power. It is better to get the more efficient T2 pgens than spamming so many T1 pgens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h13m34s
To spend your mass for a 20x20 map, you want a lot of engineers, and you want them assisting your navy factory. Usually you don’t want to assist air factories. You could just make more air factories. But you don’t want to pause your air factories, on big maps you want to build up plenty of interceptors. Unlike on smaller maps, you want to have 100 interceptors, because in relation to everything else, it does not cost much to build so many.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h18m45s
On 20x20 maps, you need more everything, because you have more mass you can spend. You need more build power especially (in order to spend the mass), and don’t forget to eco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h22m18s
Zock doesn’t really enjoy playing 20x20 maps because you have to do so much at the same time. You have to build things, balance your economy, raiding, rebuilding after raids, (and air, navy, drops, teching, scouting, etc.). There is so much to do that you don’t have time to play the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h24m13s
The early game on such high mass maps, especially where they are so spread out, is about using transports to speed up your expansion. You want to drop everywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h26m11s
On such big maps, you don’t need to be so efficient with your resources, and you don’t need to be so flexible, because you build everything. It is more about speed (to produce as much as possible as quickly as possible).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h29m51s
Regarding Stella Maris, but this can apply to any map with islands: if your opponent drops your island, you need many factories making units so you can win the fight. But if your opponent does not drop you, you don’t want to overspend on making units. If your opponent does not drop you, having only one factory making tanks is good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h32m12s
If you make a factory at your expansion, you can make engineers on a patrol order so they can reclaim trees and mass for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h32m31s
It can be worth dropping engineers on your opponent’s side of the map just to steal a large piece of reclaim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h33m28s
On large maps, when most of the mexes have been taken, whatever mexes are still open, you should use transports to grab them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h36m21s
The rule of thumb is, when your expansion phase is done, you start ecoing. You want to assist mexes while they upgrade. It is not as good to upgrade multiple mexes at the same time if you are stalling. But if you have too much mass, you need to spend it faster, so you can upgrade multiple mexes at once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h46m46s
On the big maps, your initial focus is on air. As long as expansion is not done yet, air is very important. But once expansion is done, you should get T2 support factories in your expansions and make flak. On this island map (Stella Maris) have T2 support factories on each expansion, make a flak and a few T2 tanks. Tech 1 and Tech 2 air is good while the expansion phase is not over, and T2 air is strong where there is not flak. T1 air is strongest for attacking units where your opponent does not have T1 factories. T2 air is strongest for attacking units where your opponent does not have T2 factories. While the focus early is on air, your focus should shift to navy. On this map, you can do so much damage with navy. With naval control, you can do massive damage, but even without total naval control, you can still use a strong navy to do massive damage to your opponent’s economy. When the focus goes from air to navy, your new engineers should be assisting the navy factory.

NAVY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=40m09s
In most 20x20 water maps, you want to focus on air early and not invest in navy too early. On most navy maps, the payoff time for naval units is so long. However, in Flooded Tabula Rasa, there are many water mexes so you can get more economic benefit from having an early navy if you use it to protect engineers building the water mexes. On all naval maps, you don’t want to be too late to the water, because you will be pushed out of the water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=40m45s
Naval composition: don’t make only subs. You want at least a few frigates. They give you radar. Depending on the maps, you can use them to pick off a few mexes. And if you get enough frigates you can go to your opponent’s naval yard and destroy it. You want frigates even during the Tech 2 phase for navy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=43m15s
“You need a Tech 3 sonar.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=44m03s
You should see navy mostly the same as you see land. The normal rules apply: fight with a superior force, retreat from a superior force, kite your opponent. Sonar is great. Tech 3 sonar is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h00m23s
Zock’s student is getting a lot of mass from mexes in the water, so Zock says it was not a mistake to get such an early navy. (Obviously, you can’t do this on a water map that does not have any mexes in the water.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h28m04s
When to start navy: on Stella Maris, starting navy too early is a mistake because there aren’t water mexes. You don’t get much economic benefit from early navy. If you start too early, it takes away resources that you should be using for expansion. However, if you see your opponent start making navy, you also should start.

USER INTERFACE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h31m20s
Rather than having factories idle, Zock will queue up a single engie and then pause his factory. That way, there is no icon appearing on the right side of his screen showing an idle factory. You ought to pay attention to the icons on the far right side of the screen for idle engineers and idle factories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h39m41s
Use the upgrade key (“m”) so you can more quickly upgrade mexes without clicking as much. Zock changed this hotkey to “caps lock” so he could press it more easily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h40m37s
There is a hotkey, “select nearest idle mass extractor, lowest tech” – it picks the mex closest to mouse cursor. This might be the mex that you want to upgrade next. So if you click that, and then click the upgrade button, you can very quickly start a mex upgrading with less time spent clicking.

ON MAKING A PLAN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=51m46s
“In the first minutes, while your factory is building, or maybe even in lobby already, try to make at least a very rough game plan, so you are not completely lost, and you don’t play out of complete instinct, because that will lead to many mistakes like this . . . . Try to think of a very rough plan what to do . . . Because once you start playing, once you start moving around and something, you don’t really have time to think any more, so you just act out of basic instinct and basic gut feeling what to do. I would say it is much more ordered if you have a basic idea. So you make like a few focus points what you want to do. So one focus point, I want to get this transport, and I want to get this second engie factory, and then I want to just want to expand and protect those units. But that will be my game plan. Just get early factories, expand here with engies, protect that with units and spam, relatively much tech 1, because it’s a very open map try to raid a bit, and then get my transport relatively early to go here. So it doesn’t need to be a very complicated, the plan doesn’t need to cover to much. But something, so you are not lost.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... 0&t=53m28s
“It doesn’t really matter how good the plan is. It is really important to have something to hold on to and something. You can always change the plan as well. I think it is really useful to at least have one. So you don’t end up in the situations that you, think about, you have lots of things to do, you need to protect raids, you have idle engies, idle factories, and so on, and on top of that you have the feeling in your mind like ‘holy shit, what should I do, I have no idea.’ . . . Even if your plan is not the best thing you can do, it is better than being completely lost because that will just stress you and lead to doing a lot of mistakes everywhere. And it is still better to have something to fall back to, in case you don’t really know what you want to do.”

ATTENTION

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=24m48s
Don’t focus 100% of your attention on just one battle. Zoom out and give orders to other groups of units even while a very important battle is happening. Even if the battle is very important, you can zoom out, give orders to other units, and then bring your view back to the battle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h05m50s
Losing takes away your attention. Losing makes you busy because you are losing things everywhere. Winning is much less stressful than losing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h33m42s
You should keep an eye out for unbuilt mass extractors while you are zoomed out. An unbuilt mex glows, in order to draw your attention to it. That is a design decision that was made in order to help players to save APM. The reason to look for these is so that when they get raided, you are reminded to rebuild them. But also, if you just forgot to build it in the first place, you should take the opportunity to notice it and build it. You should be in the habit of looking for that while you are zoomed out. You should have an automatic habit to look for open mexes and rebuild them immediately when they get raided.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h17m08s
If you get into the habit of “every time I get to Tech 2, I make two T2 pgens” that is bad. On the other hand, if you try to only build as many as you need, and overestimate your power needs, and you end up building two T2 pgens and it wasn’t really necessary, that is less bad. In the first case, you are committed to playing the game in a thoughtless, sloppy way and you will not improve over time. In the second case, you are trying to improve and over time you will get better at deciding how many pgens you actually need. Being good at SupCom is not just about making the right decisions, it is about having a process to constantly improve. From the outside it looks the same (both people built two T2 pgens) but it’s actually very different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwVVS5 ... t=2h22m03s
When you play, if you realize you made a mistake, next time you change something. It doesn’t even matter if the change that you make, makes things worse. The point is to try something different to see if you can’t improve. That is how you fine tune a build order over time. It doesn’t really matter what you do. The point is to change one thing every time. Don’t get into the habit into repeating your mistakes every time. It’s about not forgetting to improve your process. So if you force yourself to always find 1 thing to change, after every game, you are less likely to forget to attempt to improve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=29m50s
Staying on Tech 1 is really good to learn the game. You can learn so many basics while spamming tech 1. When to move up in tech level is a difficult decision and it can lose you games. But if you stay at Tech 1 for a long time, you can learn the basics of the game: eco balance and unit management, the basic things you need to play the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h56m00s
In this lesson, we focused most on 20x20 maps. But that’s not what I would normally prioritize in teaching a player. Try your best on 20x20 maps, but to learn the game your focus should be on improving how you play 5x5 and 10x10 maps.

SPECIFIC MAP ADVICE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=14m46s
Regarding Twin Rivers: this is an eco-heavy map, since it is so easy to defend the expansions, because the mexes are close together. You can’t really get an advantage by having map control because the expansions are so easy to defend. Once you feel safe, you should either start ecoing, or go all-in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=49m09s
Zock talks about where you should send your transport for rapid expansion on the map Tabula Rasa. You don’t need to drop close enough to your base that your engineer can just walk there in a short time. You want to drop the expansions that are far from your base. If your opponent drops engineers on your side, the important thing is to win the fight so that you end up securing your side. You will be delayed in getting all the mexes because you have to fight your opponent, but if you win the fight, you will get extra reclaim to make up for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... 0&t=59m01s
It is a mistake to wait too long to make a transport on Flooded Tabula Rasa. The student made too many interceptors before making the transport. You don’t want your first transport to be too late. You want to build the power for it and assist it as soon as possible. Even if you don’t build factories on your opponent’s side to fight for it, if you just drop some engies and build 6 mexes, you might get to hold them for 2 minutes because it takes time for your opponent to get there. That’s still worth something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WFQxy ... t=1h02m48s
On a naval map, making radars and sonars: in Roanoke Abyss, sonar is much less necessary because subs are not much of a factor. You use frigates to raid the islands and sonars would die really easily because it is such an open map. On Flooded Tabula Rasa, sonars are much more important. It is important to keep them alive, though. If they are going to die, then they’re not going to provide value to you so don’t make them.

[JaggedAppliance]

Nice.

[madformuse]

That was a blast from the past

[relent0r]

That's awesome, like a book from the Bible.

[Rikai]

This is amazing! How many hours did you sink into this?

[armacham01]

This is amazing! How many hours did you sink into this?

So far, probably 8. It takes close to double the length of the video and I watched 5 hours. There is something like 20 more hours and I don't have a lot of time in the short run for this so I thought I would share what I have and eventually (maybe 1-2 months) I'll finish it.

Probably there are better ways to spend my time . . . but I think eventually I will get around to finishing it.

[Bennis-]

Finish it¡!