Is it bad that I don't watch other people's replays? I'd rather figure it out for myself. Maybe if/when I get to mid diamond I'll start looking around, but I don't think it helps to learn things by rote. I played a ton of SC1 - played a couple of World Cyber Games - but most of it was before replays existed so I'm not sure if I'm using them right.

(That said I only have 15 1v1 league games with 10 wins in Platinum)

Watching replays doesn't turn you into a one build order robot. For one, you can learn a ton of micro and positioning tricks that you can't get from reading posts simply because no one talks about them.

Also, it helps you learn the real truth behind the situation since you can see different panes regarding income, harvesters, and food count. Lots of people claim X, but when you watch their replays the reason why they won was the 20 food differential in the army size, not the composition.

I don't really listen to what other people have to say about composition/build orders either :]

Is there any micro that isn't in SC1? All I've really seen is there're more range advantages in this game.

Walling in is pretty much necessary against zerg and quite beneficial against protoss. The only matchup you don't have to wall in against is tvt. If you don't wall in against zerg you will be harrassed by lings non-stop in the early game.

I don't understand. You're not a pro nor expert player. Instead, you think that you can come up with the strategies on your own. Regardless if you can or cannot, you're more or less skipping a fast way to learn.

This is like a child not going to math class because he can derive all of the theorem on his own -- eventually.

Cueballmania: Well, I was good at SC1 (went to Korea to play a couple of tournaments). I don't think the game is so complicated that it'll take forever to figure out - I already know how to micro/macro/time my moves/etc.

ImAllInNow: Maybe I'm just not playing good enough players, but I've not really found that to be a problem because it's much easier to defend against zergling/zealot harass than it is to execute it, giving me more click time to do the other stuff.

Edit: Oh, and it's much much much easier in SC2 to bypass chokes, which leaves you in danger against a lot of builds that you might not necessarily spot.

I'm pretty sure people who went to college in the 50s didn't use Google either.

Sure, if you're on a map with a backdoor then it might be okay to not wall in.

Sciologist,

How could having access to more information ever be worse than having access to less? As long as you're capable of critical thought then watching replays and other people's analysis of matches can do nothing but advance your game. At the worst you waste a little time.

And although I'm not an expert on sc1 nor sc2 it seems obvious to me from the stuff I've read and seen that sc2 has quite a lot of small strategic differences to sc1 and there's bound to be more that will be discovered later. Just look at the Terran 1-1-1 build in the hands of TLO. Something like that would never have worked in sc1.

...

Reapers are there, drops are easier, voidrays are there, warp prisms, mutas are a pretty common zerg build, baneling rushes too.

???

Reapers are terran and I said not to wall in tvt. All of those other things (except for banelings) are quite late game and have very little to do with walling in and much more to do with scouting your opponent and building anti air defense if necessary.

As for banelings, this also comes down to scouting and building bunkers behind the supply depots.

Wolframarm:

Well, I was already doing that build so I don't think it required a moment of genius to invent.

that's not the point.

The point is, there's new stuff out there to be discovered. And thinking that you on your own with no added info will be able to keep up with the advances that everyone else is sharing with each other is pretty damned optimistic.

re: wallins,
one benefit that no one has mentioned is that it denies scouting.

I don't intend to do it forever - just til I'm mid diamond or whatever and have a 1:1 win:loss ratio. At that point I'll have a decent fundamental understanding of the game and can go out looking for what other people have worked out too.

Won't people have generally scouted you before your 2nd depot's up? Unless you're changing the build in order to get the 2nd depot early (which would be a significant negative). Most maps require 2 depots & rax or rax with reactor & depot.

Sure they'll have scouted a small bit but your opening should be the same every time to the point of getting out your first marine where you deny the scouting and then wall in to prevent future scouting of your actual build path.

Ah yeh, true.

How about a bit of a negative for walling: potentially costs you mining time when they attack your building SCV with their scout

True, especially on maps where the choke is very far from your minerals. In exchange, though, it takes a lot of focus for your opponent to micro around his worker so that takes away from his opening build too depending on his APM.

Getting our building workers harrassed is something we have to live with playing as terran.

How do you know TLO's 1-1-1 build if you don't watch replays?

That doesn't really "belong" to TLO.

Building one of each production facility isn't really some giant revelation.

Won two more, but I am not really sure that I feel this build is better. I sometimes have to wait for minerals which I don't have to when I build my rax later.

If you play vs random, normally do you try to rush MMM? I really don't like fast reapers vs terran if they have half a brain they just have a bunch of marines near the mineral line and I can't really take much down without insane micro (and I suck).

What I like about fast reapers is that it puts them on defense so I can do my macro at like.... 75% while he macroes at 25% plus his income is hurting.

I am still in the practice league btw, only have time for 3-4 games per day during the week.

Quite, particularly if you play the practice games where teching is almost obligatory and you end up doing it by default before you work out a real strategy.

Oh, and I know what it is because the name describes it. I was doing it in my first placement game and I'm fairly sure I'm not the Da Vinci of SC2.

You should know their race by that stage.

And it's fine to do ineffectual harassment against decent players because they overreact. It's no use against good players because they know what they need to do.

In other words, if you spend 30 seconds attacking their refinery because that's all you can reach, go ahead and do it because they're going to waste much more time dealing with your 3 reapers than you are by checking in on them.

Edit: I've not had time for 3-4 games each day during the week. Make sure you're learning something new each game. It's the same as poker. Don't go in and hope you find something new, DO something new so that you can decide if it's worthwhile or not.

Obviously 1-1-1 is superstandard but TLO plays it different than the default 1-1-1 a lot

Another reason to wall in against protoss is to easily prevent a cannon or gateway rush from continuing after you kill the initial probe. Because you can wall in and prevent a future probe from coming in. Also, since you're building your 10-supply at the choke, you can sometimes see the probe right as he tries to sneak in your base.

How can I know the race? Like I said I play in practice league. I have scanned all locations to find the base sometimes but it is such a pita if I have to use 3 scans to find their base which could have been mules. Plus if I find it with the third scan I better be having a bunch of reapers running around already :P.