So you just got beaten. Again. You don't understand why, so you rage. You blame everything - imbalanced units, factions, strategies, a horrendous, game-breaking bug, the broken ladder- anything. We've all done it, admit it to yourself- you just love to blame anything and anyone but yourself; it's an aspect of human nature.

This nature is the #1 thing standing between you and the #1 slot. Sure, an imbalanced unit or tactic may have contributed to your loss. It's possible that your units missed when they should have hit, giving your opponent enough of an advantage to help him edge you out. Maybe your faction is gimped on that map, or your opponent 'got lucky'.

It doesn't matter in the least. The reason you lost that game is, 99.9% of the time, because you did not play perfectly. You made mistakes with your unit micro, you did not scout properly, you built too many engineers, too much (or too little) power, no AA, no radar, whatever.

It's your fault.

You know the top players? Those evil, arrogant, self-serving know-it-alls? The as­sholes who criticize every statement you make, point out all your errors, the insulting bastar­ds that tell you that you're bad and wrong? They're the ones who have come to this realization: they acknowledge that the games they've lost, are their own fault- and that of nobody else. They don't compete with others. They compete with themselves. I criticize you because I am even more critical of myself.

I can't stand making mistakes. When I lose a game, I go back and watch it to find my mistakes. When I win a game, I go back and watch it to find my mistakes. I might have made a tactical error, not scouted enough, hell, even put a factory in the wrong place. The error doesn't matter- the point is that I find it, and don't make the same mistake again.

The top players perfect their play because they love doing it, and they expect the highest possible standards from their own play.

We don't (as AZ aptly put it) think. We just do. When you just got trounced by Unconquerable, Sir_Loui, Mentel, FunkOff, _PINK, Matiz, Dark-Ragnos, Lunar_Wind, TimmyFred, Scyn, Mephistophile, RapierX, or Cauldr0n, you go back to the replay, and note how easy it seems for him. The reason for that is simple: It's because it was that easy for him. That guy just expended no more mental energy grinding you into a fine red mist than he would swatting an unfortunate fly. Tony Jaa would crush me in any sort of physical challenge because he has put an enormous amount of time into perfecting his body. Likewise, any top player of SupCom/FA/anything will smash you without a second thought because he has painstakingly trained himself to do just that.

I've had a lot of PMs from people looking for 'tips and tricks', 'advice', or related nonsense- hell, I did the same thing myself when I had just picked up the game. It's a quick fix, and it won't help you at all. I can't speak for every top player, but I personally became very skilled very fast because I simply challenged myself as much as possible. Ask ShloobeR, Loui, Kiwik, Mentel, TCC, AngryZealot, or any number of other players who were good back in the day- I played against people better than me as often as I could. This forced me to eliminate most mistakes from my gameplay, and to become as effective and efficient as possible- because that was the only way in hell I was going to beat any of them. Yes, many of them were arrogant in manner, but the mere fact that they'd take time out of their day to play with me is a kindness I'm still thankful for.

Some say "I'll never be that good". They're right. If you don't want it, it just won't happen. Natural talent and synergy with your skills as regards the game are certainly helpful. A good strategic mind, and fast fingers are vital. All of this, however, can be trained, and if you're determined enough to put the effort in and actually get good, there is nothing standing in your way.

If you don't want to put the work in: get the hell out of this thread right now. It's not for you. Feeling lazy? Fine, go play 4v4 Setons. If you want help, need to ask questions, or want a game, feel free to PM me either on the forums or on GPGnet, or post in this thread.

Hopefully, this will help someone. I'll be updating periodically.

Now, this as good an introduction as any.

ADDENDUM DUE TO POSTS: A great place to start: Sirlin's repository of wisdom. Read everything on this site. I've taken a great deal of inspiration from these articles, and hopefully you can as well. Iruian, it's me.

Basics and Mechanics

Also: I'm not satisfied with this section right now. I'll update it and beef it up significantly at a later date.

Okay, you're still in here. That's great. You want to get better, and we applaud the effort.

You're going to need to crawl before you can walk, and you'll need to walk before you can kick asses.

Now, what a lot of newbies don't realize that the problem isn't necessarily with their strategy: it's with their basics. Even players up in the 2000-2200 range often seem to struggle with the game basics, things that ALWAYS need to be done. Before learning how to do things right, first you need to know exactly what you're doing wrong.

1. You're scouting wrong.
2. You're macroing wrong.
3. You're microing wrong.
4. You're using air wrong.
5. You're using land wrong.
6. You're ecoing wrong.
7. You're using the wrong strategies.
8. You're playing the wrong people.

I might have missed something, but the point is that you're doing it wrong. That's okay. But if you want to get better, you have to fix it.

I'm going to start at the top.


BUILD ORDER

Go watch some pro replays. Seriously. I'm not writing this down for you, it takes two minutes of your bloody time to learn how to place your first dozen buildings. If you're not motivated enough to do this, you have no reason to be here.

The Fundamental Theorem of Strategy Games, according to _PINK

In essence, every unit you build, and everything you have (including your commander) is, or should be, an asset. All your mass, your energy, your units, buildings, intelligence, concentration (your Actions Per Minute), all of it.
You have it, but what's it doing for you? Your commander's sitting about in your base, your engineers are idle or playing bumper cars, your units are camping outside the opponent's base, you're taking a swig of Coke, your mass and energy stockpiles are building up, your factories aren't working, have rally points set in your base, or are working when more units won't help you.
Fix it. Now. These kinds of things should never, never happen. Really. If you are playing the game, you're playing Supreme Commander, not Faffing About Commander. There is absolutely no reason that any of your assets should not be working for you. Ever.

Engineers
If you have the resources, build stuff. If you have a LOT of resources that you just NEED to spend, don't upgrade mexes. Build factories, and get those factories building engineers, which can build MORE factories, upgrade mexes or factories, build radar, reclaim, whatever. The point is, all your engineers are doing things, all the time. Even if you have no mass/energy, get your engineers moving somewhere, so they can build mexes when you have resources again. Get them reclaiming. Just do something. If you have nothing you can do with your engineers, you have too many. Ctrl-k some, and reclaim them.

Light Bots
Get them raiding. Seriously. If you build these, put some damn pressure on your opponent. If he comes for you with tanks or labs of his own, run the hell away! Go cause trouble somewhere else. This pretty much applies to everything.

Tanks
If you have a large group of tanks, kill his smaller group of tanks. If you have a small group of tanks, go kill stuff on his side of the map. There is no reason for idle tanks unless they're
a. Protecting engineers
b. Participating in a standoff, where you need every single tank.

Interceptors
If you don't need them, don't build them. If your opponent doesn't have an air factory, stop building ints NAO and start pumping bombers/ghettos until he has AA everywhere.

Bombers
Hit his power. Failing that, hit his engineers. It's not a difficult concept.

Your Commander
If he's in your base, he has the power of 2 engineers. If he's out taking territory, he has the power of 20 tanks. Do the math.

Everything
Get it working. If you have built something that isn't working for you, you've wasted resources. If you have resources sitting in storage, you're wasting resources.

Your Concentration
Micro stuff. You can make one tank > two tanks. Really, it's worth it. If there's nothing left to do, FIND SOMETHING TO DO. Hell, if I have nothing to do, I manually reclaim trees. When you click things to reclaim, it goes about three times as fast as if you patrol the engineer.



In essence: Don't be lazy. If you can find something that can increase your chances of winning by 0.0001%, do it.



NOW:
A ton of people have asked for an economy subsection. Here it is.

Do it intelligently. Really. Don't mindlessly follow build orders or preset plans of any kind- reason out your entire economy, and customize it to the direction you want to take in the game. Most importantly, use the map to your advantage- it affects the economy as much as your military tactics.

I'll begin with a very brief map study or two.


THETA PASSAGE
This map is small, open, and has a few rocks on it. The mexes are few and far between. There are two ledges upon which the two commanders start, a third ledge in the top left with two mexes on it, and two narrow passages in the bottom right.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU:
You should be reasoning it out by yourself. The mexes, scarce as they are, and out in the open as they are, are very difficult to capture and defend- so you'll need to rely entirely on mobile forces. The map is very open, so you'll need to stick to T1 tech for a very long time (unless you're doing an odd Cybran T2 rush). Because the mexes are so hard to defend, you won't be able to upgrade a mex easily (a mex upgrade costs about 26 tanks), as you will quickly lose ground.

Air is a luxury- you probably won't be able to afford it with all the tanks you'll need early on, but it will be difficult for the opponent to defend a surprise ghetto. Use discretion. As you likely won't be getting fast air, build as little energy as you can get away with- this will force you to use less engineers (using them costs a LOT of energy), but allow you to build more tanks.

As both you and your opponent will be running on minimal mass incomes, the reclaimables are essential. Suck up the rocks as quickly as you can (including those along the center ridge), and reclaim dead units quickly. Capturing a single significant wreck field may well win you the game.


Now, you should be able to follow these kinds of lines of reasoning on your own: open map -> more tanks, less defense, less air. Less mexes -> less mex upgrades, less power, don't incur unnecessary expenses.

OPEN PALMS
This map is huge, open, and has a shi­tload of mass. Games tend to come down to raw spam- and with good reason. It's simply difficult to efficiently control higher tech units in addition to everything else going on on the map.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU
Use your time wisely. Seriously. Prioritize- do the most important things first, because you will not have the time to do everything you need to do.
What you do need to do:
1. Get mexes (including dropping the ones on the sides, sadly overlooked very often)
2. Build power
3. Build factories. Lots of them.
4. Build more factories.
5. Seriously, more factories.
6. Reclaim. Reclaim, reclaim, RECLAAAAAAAAAAAIM. Before about 7 minutes in the game, I have a factory dedicated to 'building' engineers, and another dedicated to 'reclaiming' engineers. Reclaim a lot. Each reclaiming engineer is worth about 1.5mass/second, and 15energy/second- so do the math.
7. Build units, set rally points, don't let them die uselessly.

Basically, just try to get map control, and don't do anything stupid. Your economy will take up 99% of your time, so do it as well as you can and use any spare time to control your units.


...Starting to get the idea? The economy of the game is highly dependent on the strategy you wish to take, as well as the map you're playing on. Use your head. Probably the most important points:

1. Waste nothing. Energy is a convenient example- if you don't need it, don't build it. If you have it anyways, spend it! A great way to do that is to get commander upgrades, which cost an as­sload of energy but little mass. More interceptors is another useful alternative, but they're a waste of mass if you already have air superiority (or you're getting camped).
2. Do whatever you can get away with! If your opponent is building defense, UPGRADE A MEX, DAMN YOU. You should be taking one of two strategies at any given time:
a. Build as little military as you can get away with, try to survive and go for an eventual economic victory
OR
b. Build as little economy as you can get away with, and go for an assasination (or just run over him).
If you're going for A, don't build more military than you need, and vice versa for B.
3. Don't live beyond your means, unless you're planning on risking it all.
I catch myself doing this a lot. If I reclaim a big wreck field, I have an unfortunate tendency to immediately build a bunch more factories and pump out more units. This is great for a couple minutes, but when the field runs out I'm fu­cked because I have a lot of useless factories and no mass. Instead, shift into a temporary defensive posture, upgrade a mex or two, build some energy, and prepare to make the enemy your bit­ch.
4. Use your commander in the field as much as you can get away with. The more hits he takes, the less hits your tanks take, the less mass you spend.

...My burst of creative energy is spent, so that's all for now. =)

Scouting and Reaction. Section A

You read it right. In a five part guide, this takes two. For those of you taking notes, that makes it REALLY BLOODY IMPORTANT.

Essentially, once you know the basics, this is the game. Once you know your build orders, you know how to command your units, you know what to build and when, the entire rest of the game is simply your reaction to your opponent.

BlueScreenISU is one of the game's top players at the moment, holding rank #7 at the time of writing. He has an impeccable understanding and mastery of game mechanics, and wins easily against 99% of the FA's online populace.
The other 1%, he has enormous difficulties with. BlueScreen is enormously good at knowing how to respond to situations, knows the best units to use when and where, and can eco whore with the best of them. However, because he plays the same way every single game, razor's edge players counter his build orders quite easily. He may rag on me for this post, or even change his playstyle- either of which would be a good thing. =P
The point of this is, you can become very, very good on mechanics alone. Some of the very best players are 'robots'. However, this will not take you all the way. A player who crafts his strategy around smashing this player's current strategy on this map in this game, and is able to constantly adapt, will obviously have a huge advantage over someone who simply uses a time-tested cut and paste game plan.

TheLittleOne is pretty much the antithesis of this, having (I'm sorry TLO <3) highly inconsistent mechanics, but more than makes up for it with his continual brilliance in making up new strategies on the fly. He fluctuates wildly within the top 20, somewhat akin to a kangaroo on copious amounts of crack, but this is more due to the occasional colossal screwup and problems with basic mechanics than being a poor overall player. :p
Despite my criticism of "poor mechanics", this mostly comes down to the occasional idle commander for 10 seconds, poor positioning of forces, or other tiny mistakes that can only really cost you the game against a top-tier player.

Now, the basta­rd child of these two players would basically be unstoppable. Basically, I'm trying to reiterate how ludicrously important your basics are. Master them. I know this is the scouting and reaction portion of the guide, and I will get to it- but seriously. If you don't have your basics to a point where you can play at a high, consistent level, this isn't likely to do you much good. Once you are decent, however, the primary area for improvement is on your reaction to your opponent. You can be as big and bulky as you damn well like- if you don't know how to block or punch properly, a scrawny New York prepubescent girl like RapierX could probably paint the floor with your red blood cells.

That said, we can now get on with things.

Basic Scouting
Let's get back to build order for a moment. For the first time in this guide, I'm going to give you step by step instructions on what to do.

1. Build a land factory (Unless you're going for a bomber/jester cheese.)
2. Build a land scout.
3. Run that little basta­rd straight into the enemy's base and glean as much as you can about your opponent's opening strategy. By the time you get there, he should either have a couple engineers, raiders, or some combination of the two out. Sandbox the maps to find out how many units the enemy should have by the time you get there- and if you don't see them in his base he's either using a funky order or you're about to get raided.
4. RAID. RAID, RAID, RAID, RAID.

#4 is not optional. You need to raid every single game that isn't on Roanoke or in one of TCC's retarded phantom games. Raiding encompasses the following:
a. Building early units
b. Getting said units the hell out of your base
c. Poking your opponent's engineers, scouts, and raiding units with them
d. Gathering and inferring valuable intel with your raiding party.

I said it. Raiding is part of scouting. In essence, when you put your opponent on the defensive, you force him to respond to you. When you're killing his engineers, you can infer that either 1. His tanks/LABs are rushing to save said engineers' pathetic as­ses or 2. His engineers are going to die, and his units are going to kill yours. You win out in case #1 because his units are, instead of securing territory, trying to fight a losing battle, and you're at an advantage in case #2 as well because his engineers die earlier than or at the same time as yours. In addition, because you've presumably scouted his units' directions with your initial scout and then raiding party, you can get your engies the hell out of the way.

Basically, building early units cannot put you at a disadvantage unless your micro is deplorably bad. Therefore, I will address raiding micro right here and now.

Your light bot runs into his light bot: Kill it by dodging his shots (run in tiny circles) or run away and kill his engineers.
Your light bot runs into his scout: If you don't have to go too far out of your way, kill it. Anyone good will run it away, though, buying your opponent precious seconds. Don't bother chasing.
Your light bot runs into his tank: Run the hell away. There is no shame in running- it simply forces him to waste his tank's time as it chases you, and you can probably run off and pop some engineers while you're at it.
Your light bot runs into his commander: Now you know where his commander is. He will probably take out at least one of your units, but if you zig-zag and run away, you can get away with the rest rather easily.

I'm going to make a quick note here: HAVE A LAND SCOUT WITH EVERY GROUP OF UNITS. PERIOD. In order for your raiding/army movement/whatever to be effective in the least, you need to not be surprised. For your raiding groups: You can see a long way off where he is well-defended and where he is weak. Take advantage of it. Precisely the same logic applies to later in the game as well: If you can crush his group of units with yours, what are you waiting for? Just keep wary of the enemy commander, because he can and will make life miserable for your army if he catches up with it.

Continuing on that thought: Always, always, always know, or at least have a general idea where the enemy commander is. Remember, your objective in playing this game is to KILL HIM. It's not to take out every single unit, even all his power, his base, or even some of his units! If the enemy commander ventures into a vulnerable area for a nanosecond, it's your responsibility to know about it, and capitalize.

If you don't plan on killing the enemy commander immediately, steer clear- you will only feed him veterancy, you will lose units, and he can reclaim them.

You thought this was going to be a general guide on scouting, probably- but keeping tabs on your enemy is simple. You already know how, really.
1. Build scouts/air units
2. PAY ATTENTION TO THEM and respond to the intel you're getting.

I cannot stress the second point enough. A very bad habit a lot of players get into is simply running scouts at the enemy, without paying attention to or even really acknowledging what the enemy is trying to accomplish. This is effectively fighting blindfolded, and even worse, you're wasting resources on scouts you're not using. Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not do this.

In conclusion: Raid. Keep constant pressure on your opponent with your military, and keep him contained as much as you can. This makes it much easier to scout (Smaller area to cover), you know what he has and doesn't have (because your forces keep engaging his and putting the pressure on), and you can force him to react to you. Happy hunting.

Part B of Scouting and Reaction will cover the reactions portion of things in a little more depth (hopefully), so you will be able to more sensibly respond to the wonderful things you see your enemy up to.

Scouting and Reaction. Section B

So you've got scouts. You have a general idea of what the enemy is up to, but you're clueless as to what to do about it. I'm going to sum up this entire section in the next sentence: if you can apply this, you're pretty much set; all I can do is offer you different perspectives.

USE YOUR DAMNED BRAIN.

It's really that simple! If you logically think through every situation you encounter and have complete information about your opponent's doings, it's completely possible to react perfectly (in the strategic sense) to everything he does. Now, it doesn't quite work out that way due to limited physical and mental speed, but if you want to win you better damn well do your best.

Now, for this section, I'll give you a few realistic examples, and hopefully you can see the patterns of reasoning by which the correct response is reached.

Exhibit A

Shadow and myself produced this picture simply for the purposes of demonstration because I can't be bothered to find a suitable replay in the Vault. The yellow player is Seraphim and the green player is Aeon.



Let's play a game of "What the hell is wrong with this picture".

1. First and foremost, the yellow player is not scouting. As we've established, this is a bad thing.
2. Yellow is not raiding. Because of the poor maneuverability of Auroras, they cannot attack through the middle and bottom passages without getting as­sraped- usually forcing the Aeon player to defend these areas. However, the Seraphim player is ignoring the bottom area entirely, forsaking his possible offensive advantage and giving the Aeon player exactly what he wants (a battle of large armies in open terrain).
3. Green has way, way too many ints. As he has scouted Yellow to have no anti-air or even an air factory- he should have stopped making ints a long time ago and rerouted all his resources to pumping out hordes of T1 bombers. The bombers, because Yellow has a lot of power, would be best utilized killing off all of his land units and engineers.
4. Neither army is mixed- the lack of artillery and anti-air is hurting both players. The Aeon player could use some artillery to knock out the point defense and mexes at the top left, and fobos would be of great service to the Seraphim player- as they totally wreck auroras in the face.
5. Yellow has no selens on Green's side of the map. Poor choice.

Now, as this is a contrived situation, it's impossible really to point out other errors, but you get the idea. Reacting to your opponent is simply a matter of common sense. He doesn't have any AA? BUILD SOME DAMN OFFENSIVE AIR UNITS. His commander too far out? Circle around behind him and kick his fat as­s. You get the idea? React logically. Creativity is an illusion: you must simply react to every situation in the most logical manner possible. Nothing is off-limits, but damn near everything would just be stupid.


Exhibit B



This is a game of GIA (green, Cybran) vs Thog (red, Seraphim) on Crag Dunes. Sorry for singling you guys out, but it was the first game in the vault that looked half decent

So, I'll start pointing stuff out.

Green

1. He has five engineers and no military units whatsoever. Basically bending over and asking to get boned.
2. He only has one scout, and even that isn't at a forward position. He has no idea what's going on anywhere on the map.
3. He has no radar.
4. His commander is walking down the 'long' side of the map, an irrational response to the construction of the map.

Red

1. He also has a bunch of engineers and no military units. Neither player is being forced to react to each other. They're both content, which, naturally, is horrifying to anybody playing to win.
2. He has some scouts in the enemy base. Good. He's not responding to the fact that he knows the enemy has no units and raiding, however.
3. Again, no radar. D=


So those are a couple counterexamples of players not reacting to one another. As I can't be bothered to sniff about the replay vault, I'll give some positive examples.

Situation: Your opponent has no defenses in his base, and is low on power.
Correct Responses:
1. Drop. Some. Damned. Artillery. Kill his power. If he doesn't have power, he is dead.
2. Hit his power with bombers or, if you're Cybran, snipe his hydro with Jesters and raid his engineers as soon as he gets significant AA.

Situation: You're being advanced upon by a large Aeon T1 and T2 army. You have a decent army, but will lose in a direct confrontation.
Correct Responses: You're probably screwed- it mostly depends on whether he has flak.
If he has flak: Upgrade your commander as fast as you can and smack the hell out of his auroras. Try and snipe his flak if it gets in range. Kite with hoplites/mongoose/Ilshavohs- try and make his life miserable every step of the way.
If he doesn't have flak: Rush fighter- bombers, and laugh.

Situation: You're excessing 100 or more energy
Correct Responses: If your commander isn't in immediate danger, upgrade him! Or, build more air.
If your commander is in immediate danger, build more air! D=


One fatal flaw in just about everybody's playstyle at the moment is how much they ignore air, and other possibilities. If your opponent has large clumps of units, spam overcharge or use bombers. If he has weak areas that are vulnerable to drops, drop them! If you can gain an advantage by upgrading your commander, upgrade him. If you can get away with a fast tech, do it.

Again, we come back to how critically important the basics are. If you do not have the speed to react, you cannot play properly. Every time your opponent shows a weakness, you must capitalize upon it.

It's all a matter of reacting in the most logical manner possible. Like pt. 2, I will add more to this section as I feel the need. At the moment, there's too many people yelling at me to get it up. So here it is, and happy hunting.
If you have suggestions on things appropriate to add to this section, I am all ears.

Rantings, Ramblings, Ravings, and a Bit of a Conclusion

Well, damn. I don't really know what's left to say- so I'll let this last section take me wherever it will.

Firstly, I'll direct you to a couple links you can, should, must visit.
Chill's guide to Starcraft. It applies to FA and every other game, as well.
Sirlin's guide to competitive gaming. READ THIS, as it contains everything important I've said and much more.

Now, a few notes on playing to win. I realize I don't always practice what I preach, but that's because I'm not perfect. I'm working on it, and so should you.

1. Fu­ck morality. The moment you refuse to use a tactic because it's 'unfair', 'cheap', 'not gentlemanly', or any other related nonsense- you are playing to cater to your opponent, not to win.
2. Play with Zen. If you cannot accept victory and defeat with equal grace and determination to learn, you will never be the champion. Every game, win or loss, should simply be an opportunity to learn. Don't compete with others. Compete only with yourself.
3. Play at your peak. Every single game should be played at 110% of your capacity: never let yourself slack. The moment you give it less than your all, you let bad habits creep in. Naturally, this also extends to things like- don't play when you're tired/hungry/angry: it won't help you get better.
4. Play with humility. Again, when you lose it is, nearly 100% of the time, entirely your fault. So, fix it! Never begrudge your opponent his victory- simply ensure it doesn't happen again. Don't be ashamed of looking up to better players, asking for help, or admitting that you're wrong. Everybody is wrong sometimes.
5. Play with confidence. This is the one I have the most trouble with, especially when I'm on a losing streak. Simply put: don't second guess yourself. Make good decisions, and then stick with them. Don't hesitate, and trust yourself not to do anything monumentally stupid. Even if you do something of such a high caliber of idiocy that you're ashamed to even admit it to yourself, just watch the replay, find out what you should have done better, and learn from it. If you're not confident, don't play.
Now, this doesn't necessarily mean confident that you'll win: simply be confident that you will play to the best of your ability, and never give up.

Balance
In one sense, it doesn't matter. As regards the winner of most games: the player who is most in tune with the balance of the game, and plays it to win, will usually win. Unless it is an official, tournament illegal exploit, it is legal- and at your disposal for the purpose of demolishing your opponent.
This does not, however, mean that the current balance is close to perfect, or even necessarily good. It just means that if you want to win, you will have to scrap the strategies you think should be good, and go with the ones that will win you the game.

Regarding the Seraphim regen field: If it is legal, it may be used. That's the definition of legal. If GPG (or the director of a given tournament) declares it to be an exploit and bans it, then that will be a condition of the new balance. Unless and until that happens, it's fair game. In most situations, it is not uncounterable, though very strong. Just adapt. I personally think it should be fixed, and should not be tournament legal. However, my opinion does not matter. Deal with it until a solution is found.

Self-Evaluation and Self-Improvement
In essence, this is what this whole guide has been about. The whole point is, you won't get better by spamming games, and you won't get better by complaining when you lose. I frequently see on GPGnet folks with hundreds upon hundreds of ranked games, a huge portion of those losses. They haven't gotten better, because they're simply playing, not playing to win. If you don't push the envelope and stretch your abilities, you will never improve. If you don't put more weight on your bar, your biceps won't grow. Once you've reached your peak, push harder, and find a new peak. Perfection cannot be reached, but it can damn well be approximated.

Watch some StarCraft VODs- preferably with english commentary. I recommend KlazartSC because he offers relatively in-depth insight, and gives you a good idea of what the players are doing, and why.
As you watch, notice what the players are doing, and why. Observe the level of perfection they've forced themselves to achieve, and eventually you will come to the realization that it is possible for you to do precisely the same thing.
To be frank, if any of these guys played the Forged Alliance ladder, they would probably reach a rating of 2700+ within a couple weeks. When a single tiny mistake can cost you the game, you need to eliminate your mistakes.

Nobody can make you better except yourself. If you are determined, you will find the path. If you work hard, you will get better. Never give up, never give in, never surrender, and never settle for mediocrity.

Heroes are not born. They are forged.

/applaud.

Purpose?

most truth ive read since joining these forums, good job pink

This is probably the best advice for any competitive gamer ever. You could probably stop your thread here.

You get a lot better a lot faster by losing than by winning. The downside being, you have to lose to a lot of arrogant shmucks beforehand.

Pink.

You are epically FTW.

Of course, some people (really new, as in first game) need some help, or others just don't get what they're doing wrong, but they have to watch their own replays. What do they need that will help them to win? What did they do wrong?

This could be very helpful. Thanks, Pink.

I did not bother to read that whole wall of text so i won't comment on it.

I will however comment on the fact that you can get thumb ups in this forum for writing something like that in the first place.


Quite sad.

Thank you Pink for sharing your thoughts - great post.

I removed what I'd posted - evidently it's going to be an issue and might distract from the point of this thread.

Read, please, and you will find that it is a guide to fit its name. It's about climbing the ranked ladder. You have to get your @$$ in gear and get to it. It's not for noobs or those without experience, and its not an arrogant insult post either.

EDIT: This is in response to Leyline.

www.sirlin.net/ptw

a book, available online, that is very very useful in any competitive game

[quote="Rounder"
Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.

The difference in poker and FA is that you have the opportunity to see exactly what your opponent is doing. If you play in a different way than what your opponent is doing you will probably lose!

If you can make your opponent think you're doing one thing but really doing another - or not allow him to scout your other strategies then you have a better chance to win.

I'm simply trying to emphasize how important scouting is and how that aspect of the game alone can improve you as a player. Your opponent can't have surprises if you scout him. If you know what he's doing you can be ready for it with the appropriate counter.[/quote]

Off topic:
Rounder: You've either failed to grasp what David meant, or you're deliberately changing the facts to suit your point.
He;s saying you should play Poker the same way with a given hand REGARDLESS of what hand your opponent has. (which of course you may never even know)
FA is NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL. You acknowledge this in the next paragraph, which kinda makes me wonder what your whole Poker analogy was for?

Good post, arrogant, but good.

I wish I wouldn't have had internet troubles that day I met you in Ranked, would have been interesting.

kinda got stuck here.

did you mean to say "If you play in a differently than how you would, if you saw what your opponent was doing you will probably lose!"


the way you said it was play exactly like your opponent or you lose.

i think the relation he was trying to make is that if your opponent is forcing YOU to react to HIM then you are at a disadvantage. if u force HIM to react to YOU you are at an advantage.


that of course has been one of the most fundamental rules of strategy since before chess. and often one of the most overlooked (and turtles wonder why they lose)

The real question is: What competitive FA?

Removing this post as well.

I'm anxious to read what Pink has for reserved slots.

Win: The OP's full of it.

I understand what Rounder is saying about Poker and its relation to the importance of scouting. Scouting/reaction has been loosely slated as one of the sections of this guide.

This thing may grow a bit out of proportion, so it may not end up being only out of 5 parts- in which case I will simply edit extra sections into the available posts.

DeadMG: The purpose is largely to get this off my shoulder, give me something to direct newbies to, and just maybe help someone. Hopefully, Loui/Beetle/whoever will also be able to include this as perhaps a chapter in their epic FA guide.
And what competitive FA? True, there aren't very many intensely good FA players at the moment- not nearly as many as SupCom had, in any case. Regardless, the principles are unchanged, and hopefully the community will grow.

Well, y'know, QuadV and stuff aint greatly common and without somebody to partner up with me its pretty hard to get into TheSGL or whatever. For me, there are just very few opportunities to properly compete.

I would love to play in some very competitive matches, but I sure as hell don't seem to get any opportunities. Nobody comes and asks, I don't know when they are before the teams are set, and the whole arrangement thing seems really confusing.

Good stuff from _PINK. Mindset is probably 90% of winning the games you play. Getting upset at the game is a surefire way to lose.

PLEASE don't sidetrack this thread to be about the fundamental theorem of poker. It is very deep, and takes a long while to even start to understand.

Here is the right place to discuss it:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=15

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to parts 2-5.

I thought this had something to do with climbing up a Cybran omni sensor array. :p

Good stuff, though. I have no desire to become as good as I can possibly be at this game, namely because I am busy with other games and work and school, but it's definitely some good wisdom for people who DO want to excel at FA.