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Special Control. Unit Control. Unit Positioning. Choke Points. High Ground. For example, Terran normally first stay defensive in TvP then push out when Stim is ready, and Zerg would also focus on not taking damage before their flock of Mutalisks spawned.
Thus, having earlier access to strategic goal defining upgrades e. While doubling the starting worker count increases mining rate at the start, the increase in mineral gathering is higher than the increase in gas gathering. This is because several factors were kept unchanged even though the number of workers was doubled:. Hence, the increase in starting workers does not increase the gas gathering rate under the same circumstances.
Therefore, in spite of having more workers at the start, you essentially are given a big boost in mineral but not in gas. Nevertheless, the limit of having three workers mining from each geyser still kept the gas mining rate constant, while the mineral mining rate continues to increase with the increasing number of workers.
This results in players taking the second geyser a lot quicker in LotV than in HotS as a way to balance the mineral gas collection ratio. The increased number of starting workers allows us to reach worker saturation earlier. We generally stop worker production once we have reached our perceived optimum worker number, and the number is usually around 70 for a standard macro game.
We can now reach our desired worker count quicker with the additional six workers at the start. However, importantly, the difference in time to reach the optimum number is not simply the time required to produce six workers i.
The additional workers at the start allow us to have a second expansion earlier, so we can double our worker production at an earlier time. This in turn exponentially increases the resource gathering rate to get the third base quicker, and this leads us to reach worker saturation faster.
The three consequences I listed above interact with each other to produce a series of negative byproducts that decreases the quality of StarCraft II as a real-time strategy game.
A good strategy game allows players to make choices that are meaningfully different from each other. In StarCraft II, a player can choose to prioritise economy, tech, or army. If you want economy, you should save up sufficient mineral to expand. Alternatively, if you want units, you put down multiple Barracks and build units with the same amount of resources using Terran as an example.
You cannot, with the same amount of resources, do both at the same time. This opportunity cost in strategic decision making is nicely illustrated in the builds in HotS. If you build two proxy Barracks and continue Marine production, you cannot practically expand or tech.
In contrast, building two proxy Barracks in LotV is an opening that applies early pressure and later transition to a standard macro set up comfortably. Using the two recent vods below as examples, Maru built two proxy Barracks to apply pressure with Marines, and at the same time he is putting down a Factory and Starport; i.
Hence, the additional workers in LotV allow players to get units, tech, and economy simultaneously. While this is correct, such argument shifts away from the difference in opportunity cost for build choices. There is no build in HotS to the best of my knowledge that allows players to get units, tech, and economy simultaneously. Is it bad that players are able to get units, tech, and economy simultaneously?
In my opinion, yes, because this leads to less consequential and less distinctive choices. This brings us to the next point. The increased number of starting workers result in less discriminating openings and builds. Before I go further, it is important to clarify the terminologies I use. An opening is the set of precise notation you use at the very start of the game e. A build is a broad description of the strategic choice e. Although the concept of build order blocks emphasises that different openings can proceed to the same build , the openings used in HotS are more meaningfully distinct than those in LotV.
A Refinery before Barracks opening in HotS is a tech emphasized opening, and the Command Centre is delayed due to the commitment to tech. The goal is to deal early damage and transition to a macro game, and the strategy hinges on the outcome of the early attack. This strategy is very different to a one Barracks expand opening then a with Widow Mine drop.
With the standard expansion opening, the Widow Mine drop is merely a harassment and scouting tool, and the success of the strategy is not heavily dependent on the result of the harassment. Such strategic distinction due to opening choices in HotS is minimised in LotV. The former has 50 more gas but less mineral than the latter when the Barracks is completed.
This resource difference affects some early game details. However, unlike the examples I gave for HotS, these two common openings in LotV do not have deeper strategic differences. The underlying reason could be traced back to the difference in resource ratio at the start, whereby the twelve workers start gives you enough mineral to expand early even when you take an early gas geyser.
Therefore, openings in LotV are less distinctive and have lower relevance to strategy choices than openings in HotS. According to the concept of convergent points , no matter what builds you use, they all converge to the standard convergent points. Although the key convergent points are the same for HotS and LotV e. This attenuates the differences between various strategic options.
Let me use a common convergent point of Protoss in PvT as an example. Protoss players have to choose between Robotic Facility and Twilight Council for their first tech building after they expanded off one Gateway. Whichever tech choice they pick, they would later add the other tech building to reach the convergent point. In HotS, Protoss has to stay on the first tech choice longer before the second tech choice is placed, so the players are confined to the first tech commitment for a considerable period of time.
This difference in the time when Protoss stays on just one of the two tech paths affects how meaningful it is to choose one tech over the other. The same issue is extended to the later part of the game.
For instance, Terran often reaches a convergent point of on two bases , and the player has to decide whether to put down two more Barracks or a third Command Centre first assuming it is not a two base all-in. The former gives you a bigger army for the time being, while the latter sets you up for the late game with a better economy. The accelerated economy in LotV decreases the impact of this decision in two ways. First, similar to the above Protoss tech example, the decreased difference in the time you put down the two sets of buildings makes the decision less discriminating.
Second, the faster worker saturation in LotV decreases the value of an earlier third Command Centre. Putting down an earlier third Command Centre supposedly boosts your economy by increasing your worker production by one per production cycle.
But given that we reach worker saturation quicker in LotV, we stop producing workers from the third Command Centre sooner too. Thus, the supposedly benefit of a build decision is dampened by the accelerated economy, so the decision is less consequential. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the strategic interactions in LotV become shallower as players have access to more choices quicker.
Generally, more options increases skill differentiation because better players pick the good options more often than the inferior players. That is, more options should increase the depth of a game. However, the access to many options could in fact have a negative impact on a game of imperfect information like StarCraft II. He said that see vod below :. It is about trying to figure out what your opponent can do [and] the ability to hide some of your cards. If there are too many possibilities… the pros would have no idea what to do next.
However, as I have discussed earlier, the increased number of starting workers reduces the opportunity cost of strategic decisions and allows players to do previously mutually exclusive options simultaneously. Consequently, one has to account for a wider range of plausible moves from the opponent.
A good example is scouting and attempt to deduce what exactly Terran wants to do. Knowing Terran has a set up carries little meaning in LotV , as that is what Terran players do almost every game in every match up. In HotS TvZ, a after expanding is a unique tech path, as it is meaningfully different from other options e. Therefore, scouting a partial out a good number of options Terran could plausibly do.
When were the gas geysers taken was key to scouting in HotS, but this aspect is drastically simplified in LotV. With a standard worker scout in LotV, you normally look for the following:.
That is it. This almost maxes out gathering speed, wastes fewer resources, and scales nicely when a patch is exhausted. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.
Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What's the correct number of workers to put on gathering vespene and minerals in StarCraft 2? Ask Question. Asked 11 years, 4 months ago. Active 11 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 6k times. What's an appropriate guideline for maximum income rate in StarCraft 2? Does it differ by race? Improve this question. Mag Roader Mag Roader Add a comment.
Active Oldest Votes. I know some people have answered this but I thought I could add a little data. This is also true for minerals as shown by this graph: As you can see after your first 16 workers the gain per worker starts to decrease dramatically. Improve this answer.
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