Typical opening

A guide about how to start a game and what your opening moves would typically be.

Location selection phase

In this phase you are shown a green box around a part of the map. You can click somewhere in here to choose in which area your commander will appear. Once all players choose a location(or time runs out), a 3 second countdown will start and your commander will appear.

Picking a good spot

Some maps won't give you much of a choice, but on those that do there are a few general guidelines:

• Pick a location closest to center of map.
  • This allows you to control the map better.
• The spot you pick should have a mex cluster of 3 or 4 mexes.
  • If you start somewhere without a mex cluster you are just putting yourself very behind.

Picking a defensible spot is not very important - your opponent has the same options available as you and isn't going to be able to abuse this. A few LLTs can fix anything, and good radar coverage and unit positioning can deal with anything.

Your first buildings

Before the game starts, you are allowed to queue up to 30 buildings (using shift) that your commander will start to work on when it appears. The general way most people open is:

1. Choose a factory and place it somewhere close to your starting mexes.
   • You want your commander to move around as little as possible for this initial phase - time spent moving is time not spent building.
2. Queue up all your surrounding mexes.
3. Build 3 solar extractors or 5-6 windmills.
   • This should give you enough energy to match the metal you will get from the mexes you just took and next few mexes you will take as you start to expand.
4. Build a radar tower. Preferably in an elevated location.
   • Helps you protect against raids.
5. Build 1 or 2 defensive towers, usually an LLT or MT.
6. Finally, place your commander, and wait for the game to start.

After the game has started - initial moves

Your first units

The first thing your commander should have done is plopped a factory. It is now sitting idle.

1. Queue up a scout unit. This would be a flea, dart, glaive, dirtbag...etc
2. Set its rally point to somewhere near where you think your opponents' base will be.
   • The point of doing this is to see if your opponent is up to something funny or cheesy.
   • The main thing you want to do is check what factory your opponent has.
3. Build a constructor.
4. Queue up 4-5 raiders and another constructor.

Starting to expand

Send your first constructor to a nearby group of mexes and start building them. Use your raiders to either protect this constructor or send them over to your opponents' base to keep them from being too greedy with their expansion.

On a large map, your commander is probably best used by staying in base and building lots of energy; caretakers when necessary. This is because the commander is much slower than any constructor and on large maps it is easy to get a big ball of raiders quickly, and these can overwhelm the commander easily, putting it at much risk.

On small maps, it is generally best to march your commander towards the opponents base, taking mexes and building defense along the way. On smaller maps, the commanders combat strength is relevant for much longer than on other maps, and you can leverage this to gain map control.

What next?

Read about typical game progression here.