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How to Get Good at StarCraft

StarCraft 2 is a complex game with a difficult learning curve, particularly for people with little or no experience in real-time strategy game. To reach levels considered "Good" in this game takes a long time, and is not merely a matter of learning the rules of the game, but physically improving your finger dexterity and coordination. However, once you learn the basics, you can start honing your skills. It may take time, but with practice you can reach the higher leagues.

Instructions

- 1
  Learn the Basics. Start off by playing against the computer, on the easiest difficulty setting. Play a few custom games and try out each of the races so you can get an idea of their strengths and weaknesses. The more you play, the more you'll get a "feel" for how long things take to build, what buildings are needed to create what units, and which units are best at attacking which other units.
- 2
  Learn -- and practice -- the keyboard and other short cuts in the game -- in particular, master the ability to quickly grouping units and set way-points.
- 3
  Learn basic tactics. Always be building worker units. The key to many matches is often resource accumulation, and your workers are the ones that do that for you. When you build your money, remember to spend it -- if you get wiped out with lots of minerals remaining, it's because you didn't spend those minerals on units.
- 4
  Look at the map with a tactical eye. Look for choke points -- areas of the map that your opponent must move through so that you can concentrate your fire at these points. Try to identify areas you think your opponent will try to move into, where he'll also be more vulnerable to attack. You can even throw decoy attacks into other areas to encourage him to move into your trap.
- 5
  Take advantage of some of the control features in the game. Organize control groups in ways that you prefer, based on your experiences so far. For example, you could have separate melee, ranged and air groups.
- 6
  Micro-manage your attacks so that all your units are attacking -- ensure the group moves as fast as the slowest unit, for example. Focus your fire when attacking and take out enemies one at a time -- one dead enemy means one enemy that can't fire back, but 10 enemies on 10 percent health can all still fire at you.
- 7
  Raise your actions per minute. Unlike first-person shooter games, where the winner tends to be the one with greater reflexes, accuracy and knowledge of the map, success in StarCraft tends to boil down to knowledge of the game plus actions per minute, or APM. Some of the top players reach more than 300 actions per minute, though more than 200 is considered good. Take time in practice games to build up your speed at pressing buttons -- get into the flow and try not to stop and think too much.

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