Art of Protoss

This section is for Starcraft: Broodwar novices, so if your familiar with the game feel free to skip this section. If you are not familiar with the game, check out this link for background information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft

If you are a new player to Starcraft, you are probably not really sure how to start a game. What I am about to impart to you is a basic part of the game that all good players know and do, but almost no one actually tells new players. I'll show you how to start games on a pro map. That is, a map with limited mineral patches (8-10 main) with 1500 minerals a piece and 5000 gas vespian geysers. An example of a map like this would be Lost Temple (LT).

I’ll use Protoss for simplicity, this can basically be applied to all 3 races. The first thing to do at the start of a game is to produce a probe and send your probes to mineral patches.

 
This is a good way to do it:

- Select your nexus (left mouse button click on it). For most maps, when you start the game most of the time you can just click, no need to move the mouse.

- Build a probe, hit “p” because it's faster then using the mouse and hitting the probe icon.

- Select the 4 probes  that you have already. I like to do this by drag selecting. This is done by left clicking (hold it) and make sure the 4probes are inside the box. You could double click on one probe if you like though.

- When you have the 4 probes selected right click on a min patch. Some patches are better than others, in that it is closer to the nexus and/or easier to split.  Do whatever you discover is fastest to get all 4 probes mining the quickest.

-  Left Click on one probe and send it to a diffrent patch then the one you told all 4 to go to.

- Left Click on a different probe and right click to send to a different mineral patch.

- Left Click on a different probe and right click to send to a different mineral patch.

- Select nexus. Set a rally by selecting your Nexus and right clicking where you want the rally point. Set the rally near the mineral patch you want to send your next probe to, one that does not have a probe on it.

- Hotkey your Nexus. When your nexus is selecting hit Ctrl + (#1-0). Now whenever you hit that number key your nexus will be selected. I generally suggest either 1, 4, or 0.

- Just after the probe completes, select it with the left mouse button and right click the mineral patch you’re rallied near/to.

- After you have 50 minerals, build another probe. Rally to a diffrent patch. Repeat several times.

- Once you have 8/9 psi, build a pylon. A typical place to warp it in is about half way from your Nexus to your ramp. Look to the top right to see your psi/mineral/gas count. In some cases you may want to build an earlier pylon, but 8/9 is the standard.

Note that there are other ways to split, this is just the easiest. Some involve shift unselecting. Most pros use a style of sending all four to one patch, then two one, then one to one, then one to one (sometimes auto). You only need to have 3 return quickly to build a pylon at 8 quick, so a slow 4th does not matter all that much.

If you actually read all of that it’s likely you are a new player.  You’ve finished what I would call the beginning part of the game, which you will go though every single game, but it will go by fast. Now you can build buildings, units, attack, etc.  Its going to be awhile before you will be able to win many games but keep at it and familiarize yourself with the controls, units, buildings, and so on. Make games such as “new players 1:1” for practice. I don't recommend money maps (Fastest Possible) or big game hunters simply because these maps are not played at the highest level. Check out these links to start:

Fundamentals: www.battle.net/scc/GS/
http://www.sclegacy.com/features/tech_trees.php

Recommended Beginners Guides:
www.entropyzero.org/physician10com.html
www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?FN=sc-general&T=28522&P=1&ReplyCount=80#post28522