[Makra]

I'm a platinum terran player (dabbling in random) and I've recently had quite a breakthrough by simply building nothing but marines in TvT and expanding like crazy. It's really starting to change my perception of the game and I feel it is a kind of macro training exercise, one which I wish I had discovered much earlier.

Until now I thought my macro was pretty decent, though in mid-late game it would often slip. However, by only building marines, having like 20 rax in one control group, I only have to focus on building marines, SCVs and supply depots. By simplifying the mechanics, it's much much easier for me to stay on top of macro and most importantly I've started noticing where the big holes in my mechanics are. It's also opened my mind hugely to the power of solid macro and how far from decent my macro actually is.

With this strat, I'm dominating every game I play against terrans who are at equal or lower level to me like never before. I think once I have mastered my mechanics just using marines, I can just convert barracks into factories/starports and will have (hopefully) masters level play.

Now I'm not going to go into the specifics of the build or strategy, instead I'm more interested in whether you've discovered any training exercises like this, or for the coaches out there whether you give your students any exercises like this?

[Mezza]

in day9's words, and paraphrasing a little

"having lots of STUFF will still help you beat someone who has higher tech (like say, ONE void ray)"

this seems like the syndrome of you just simply having more stuff than your opponent, it may not be the most cost efficient unit counter, but having stuff beats having no stuff. so yeah.

unfortunately as you rise through the leagues and people start learning to macro, and learn how to use terran/strats that will counter mass marines, then you might find yourself hitting a brick wall again

say marines go smashing into a bling army or chargelots and colossi or watever else they can throw at you.

so just keep playing, and try to mix up your play and not just stick to mass mariners. there's more to terran than that, or so we'd like to believe

[Dox]

Lately I played like 100 games vs each race using the 21 supply double fac fast expand build against all 3 races, relying on Hellion harassment to execute the expansion properly. I have to say, managing to stay on top of macro whilst keeping the Hellions alive and maximising their damage potential was a great way to improve my multitasking and macro. Builds like this which put a lot of pressure on the player in terms of execution are a great way to get better at the game, imo.

[ke_ivan]

I listened to day9 too and just built tier 1 units with upgrades to improve my macro (stick to the basics right?). I have a similar build where i go FE into 4 rax and then explode into like 13 rax and expand like crazy. Yes it does absolutely work! just by focusing on marines, and later marauders, with upgrades, it's scary what you can take out just by attack-moving. (Marauders are great against zerg with banes and later ultras.) Surprisingly, once terran goes MMM it is quite easy (on 3 base) to switch into viking to take out colossi, but positionting for terran (i.e. the concave) seems to be of utmost importance.

[Makra]

Haha Mezza, I don't by any means plan to stick to using mass marines, especially verse zerg or protoss. Once I start coming up against players with good macro there's no way marines would be viable even against terran. I'm just using it as a way to improve my mechanics really. I'm finding by the time I get to about 150 supply the enemy is only at about 100, so as you say a lot of stuff beats higher tech, such as tanks.

@Dox yeah in my strat I make sure to put pressure on early keep them from FE'ing while I do, then get my 3rd and fourth up while they're only on two bases. ^_^


Edit: Well, I just had a game against nGenMJ, a masters terran, using that strat and it was a pretty close game O.o. Furthermore I didn't play as well as I have recently, so I think with more practice my macro should be pretty solid