Here are a few ideas for the average player to implement and practice.
I think that what sets apart most players in skill is the mastery of the basics.
So the first thing to consider is chop patterns. Of course, you want to place your mill 1 square away from the woods. I often like to place it in a way that there's 1 tree blocking the path around the mill, and that will be the first spot I'd chop in. More importantly it is important to micro every chopper one by one basically all game long. You want to avoid double chops at all cost for three reasons: One is that a secondary peon might start chopping a tree that will disappear before he's done. The 2nd reason is that you might open up your base to attacks to soon. The third reason is that you get rid of wood faster which means the peons will have to travel higher distances sooner than necessary. This last one does not make a huge difference, but I always find that I have more res than my opponents for trying to optimize things like this. If you find your peons double chopping together, then stop them even if they've already started. You have to trust yourself that you're on top of it all the time and you won't waste much time even if they already started. If you place your mill in a way that it's adjacent to multiple trees, then make sure you chop the trees right next to the mill first. Otherwise you'll find your peons running around and wasting time.
A tip about farms is specifically for going 1 rax early. I like to stay slightly ahead of farms more than necessary right from the early game. One thing you can do is to make a farm with the smith peon, and have 2 farms building simultainously. Then the peon making the first farm can go to mine, make a mill or 2nd rax, depending on how hard you want to rush. This is especially good if you rep rush, cause you will get farm blocked for a few seconds without repairing a farm. Even the best players get farm blocked from time to time, so that's something to pay a lot of attention to. Make sure to repair farms with 1 to 3 peons if you get farm blocked. Late game you want to build 2 farms at once when pumping off of 2-3 halls and 3-5 raxes + temples. This is important when both players play defensively and there are not a lot of trades.
In my opinion you should always prioritize making peons over grunts or ogres unless you have a neighbor.
The only time you may want to pause making peons is when you go lvl4 while powering to lust.
It is vital that you get the 2nd attack upgrade finishing right as you are lusting your ogres. To do this you have to start lvl4 when ogremage is upgrade is 40% done at the very latest. However I recommend going lvl4 while going hold for safety, or perhaps even while hall in some situations. Having lvl4 is more important than having 2 or even 3 raxes. The number of raxes you make while powering should depend on how long the early game was. If the enemy walls himself in you can tech with 4 grunts, and then you'll want one rax while powering. If you went up to 9 grunts, you can make 2 raxes while powering, and so on.
When the rush phase of the game is over and you're getting lust, I don't recommend throwing away your grunts into the enemy base. Sure it frees up farm space, but there are better uses for grunts. If you're 12/2/6 you can keep them in your choke where they do good against lusted ogres, especially with towers behind them. Alternatively, which I think is the better option and works for any spot, is you can place single grunts at key positions. You want to cover the main attack paths which will enable you to move out with your ogres, and expand. This is cheaper and safer than making scout farms. You can also use grunts to scout for proxy temples in 1s or 2s. Some people like to do sneak attacks from weird angles either leaving themselves open or turtling with a small choke and a ct/cat, so it's important to place scout grunts to side paths as well. After the grunts are cleared, you will need scout farms or low hp ogres for scouting. Make sure you place ogres far away enough from the scouts that you're able to lust in time even if the enemy just runs past.
If you click on a critter 50 times it dies.
The latest point when you want to expand is when your mine has 5k gold left in it. The earliest point is when it has 20k left. I don't recommed expanding earlier than that, because it rarely makes sense and it's hard to execute. With spots like 4, 11 and 8 you will want to pre-chop around the mine for future gold flow. 4 needs the most chops if you plan to mine it hard and not take s5/3. Even if you don't need to chop it's still good to bring over more than 1 peon while expanding. You can repair the hall and pump peons from it faster. More importantly, you want to keep transfering peons even before your main mine blows. If you were on top of peon production then your gold flow in your main will start being sub-optimal for example at 12. Likewise, if you take 12 from 2, it's good to place hall in the middle 4 squares away instead of the top if you mine it hard and not take 3/5/11.
In neighbor wars, try to stay 2-3 peons above your opponent. You can get a read about peon stops by scouting their enterance and around their base. Defend until the extra peons pay off and hit back harder later.
The defender always has an advantage in unit count. While the enemy units are coming to your base, you will have more extra units popping out of your barracks. If there's 7 lusted ogres coming at your 9, you will have about 4 left over. If another attack comes you will be far ahead and you're free to kill your opponent. Instead, aggression should be about eliminating scouts and forcing your opponent to sit defensively and not attack, while you're free to expand, and he has to gain control around his base.
A sapper tactic is to surprise your opponent sapping through trees instead of his buildings. You can do it at the back of 5 when it's chopped into already, or if 9 is taken you can sapp under the hall to the left and run ogres in. If it's sealed with a ct and dks, your opponent won't be able to get into his own base. You can also have a hasted dk ready with a sapp opening a path for example at s12 and dk 11.
When you're rushing, try to go for the 2nd attack upgade over the armor one. Although you can get armor faster, your farms/3rd rax and mill come easier with the attack upgarde. Just save up for it.
Try to time your attacks with upgrades finishing.
If you get 1 temple, I recommend making 2 dks first to save up mana, then haste and only then dnd. You can haste your dk(s) while dnd is researching and hit with them as dnd is done.
When your choke is getting broken into, pull back the grunt that is focused on.
If you break a choke, run through and try to force a building block that keeps their choppers safe, and try to take out their miners. Focus on the peons that have gold bags on their backs. Try to stand in the middle of the area between the mine and the hall to force peons to run around your grunts.
Almost every time you're outnumbered, you should run away and regroup. One potential exception is when you are farm blocked with resources stocked up.
You want to chop several trees, when chopping out of a walled-in base. This allows for smoother ogre movement out of your base, and more importantly you can transfer peons much easier. The only time you should only chop 1 square is when you plan to go very aggressive and have minimal defensive units at home.
Don't dual in 4s.
If you use flyers, the most important flyer is the one that keeps track of their main army. Depending on how many ogres you see, you can anticipate random attacks and intercept them, potentially catching them unlusted mid-motion. The 2nd flyer should be at middle. Flyers also notify you of dk timings so you can prepare for them.
Defending against incoming hasted dks, you need 3-4 lusted ogres in narrow paths waiting for it with building blocks at other places.
In passive games, hasted dks should focus on groups of ogres, not peons or towers.
If you attack a base with a dk and meele units, you should dnd the choke, not towers or cats as some people do...
In team games, one ct is not enough to defend vs lusted ogres. You need to pair it up with another, or a cat, or with dks.
If you're 2/12, towering up your main expansion is useless. You should have units close enough instead. You can get static defenses in future expansions tho.
Copying good players' builds is not enough. You should come up with your own variations and understand the thought process behind them. You can experiment in map editor if you want to get better.
Learning to hotkey units and buildings with ctrl+1 ctrl+2 etc is vital. It takes about 20 games to get used to it so start if you hadn't yet.
Unique hotkeys, and the HD patch give a huge advantage, so use them.
With duals you have to place your 2nd rax and farms in a way where you'll be able to block after getting sapped into. Also try to have a chopper or two at potential sapp locations for a quick block.
Another thing with 9/11 duals is you want to have at least 1 gt to fall back into with your grunts and potential cat(s). Your main tower will get broken.
Don't dual 4/5. It only works vs another dual or a scoutless power, but dies to everything else.
If you have an exploding economy, don't be afraid of mixing in a couple of dragons. They do great with lust+haste. For example they can instantly one-shot a hasted dk or distrupt enemy ogres.
Attacking an open enemy base with grunts and cats you want to focus on hitting grunts instead of hitting towers or the enemy cat. On the other side, you want to pull your grunts before they get hit so that the enemy grunts run into their own cats' fire.
You can apply a lot of pressure to 4/6 with a ct or two, with 2-3 peons repairing it. One cat is not enough to defend that.
If you over produced grunts, try to cat, double cat, tower or sapp your opponent. Otherwise they just kill you with lust and maybe a dk.
When attacking with grunts, you want to cover 3 paths. Otherwise you risk getting hit while unprepared.
I recommend going for a 4th rax, right after the 3rd with the same peon. If you made peons you will still easily keep your resources low.
You should often pre-scout the base you're planning to hit, so you're prepared to go for the main weakness or know if they have enough defenses.
If you're 2/12 and you get hit with an axer and a seemingly stronger grunt army, don't leave your choke right away. Set up 2 gts and repair them instead and start making a grunt. Maybe cancel your hold.
In team games, pay attention to who spawns where. You can invest less into taking out weaker players, and be careful about suiciding into stronger players.
If you want to learn, play 1v1s vs better players.
If you have a choke that will break, but you also have a tower or something, pull your peons into the choke.
You can hold position dks or peons, if you select them together with another unit.
While scouting with a grunt, you may run into 2-3 grunts. You want to pull it before it takes a hit.
If an enemy cat is 7-8 squares away under the hall at 9, you can shoot it for free. It either keeps running away and takes splash damage or turns around and takes a full hit.
Try to identify if players tend to move their cats in a straight line and use ground attack ahead of them if they do. I once hit a hasted dk like that.
You want to repair your mound with 1 peon, and then add a second peon as it pops out of your hold. You can make 2 peons this way without downtime. Alternatively if you have more resources, have 4 peons lined up and repair the mound, this way you can get 1 peon out of your hold before going fort. Altar should be repaired with 4-7 peons depending on your resources and tech timing, just have to peons lined up right next to where the altar will be. Don't pull choppers if they are already chopping unless you're in a crisis.
Run a circle around ships to make them misfire.
If you haste or invis, you have to be a bit close to the target area, otherwise it won't last long enough. You can't go from base to base.
Clear out paths for your dks.
Trust in your abilities and stay relaxed.
Tower bugs works if there are 3 squares between 2 gts. The gt on the right or bottom will hit the peons repairing the gt on the top or left. Your tower has to be upgraded for it to work. If you have a tower upgraded several squares away from another peon you want to repair, your peons will still get focused, although this is a rare case.
The fastest you can lust without macros looks like 2 ogres lusting simultainously and a 3rd one right after. When you start seeing that happen you got it down. Avoid lusting twice with same ogre because unless you trade them into enemy ogres it will mess up subsequent lusting. I find the easiest way to lust fast is if you have ogres lined up vertically so you only move your hand in one direction.
Do you have any random tips?
