Overcoming a Protoss player who turtles until carriers
Ok I'm admittedly still a bit of a noob at this game, but I'm fairly experienced in RTS games in general, and feel that I have a decent grasp of early game strategy in SC2. However, I can't seem to beat one friend of mine (I play Terran). Here's usually what happens:
I'll start a couple racks pretty early, and get a group of maybe 8-10 marines & marauders. I'll try to hit him early, but what usually happens is he is protected by a couple well placed photon cannons, which will do a decent amount of damage before I can get in his base. At that point, the couple of units he does have will usually finish me off. I'll try to keep pushing, but it's usually never enough (even more turrets now), and then eventually he'll get Carriers. At that point I usually just stop playing because even if I built up a bunch of Vikings, they are never enough for all the Carriers.
Any good strategies for taking him out early? I realized I could probably expand a bunch and eventually beat him in the resource wars, but that frankly just seems boring and a waste of time.
Remember: if your opponent is turtling, you should expand fast. If you're getting more resources, you can put together a 200 supply army before he can.
Siege Tanks
Siege Tanks have longer range than Photon Cannons. Build some Siege Tanks, set them up in siege mode just out of range of his Photon Cannons, and then use a flying unit (ideally a Raven, for detection) to ensure your Siege Tanks can see his Photon Cannons. A couple shots later the Photon Cannon should be toast.
Widow Mines
Set up a bunch of Widow Mines outside his base. If his Carriers aren't in combat, they won't have any interceptors out, so the mines will hit the Carriers rather than interceptors. When he tries to bring his Carriers to come get you, they'll fly right over a minefield. That should soften them up enough to be easy targets for Vikings.
Battlecruisers
If you think he's rushing to Carriers, go to Battlecruisers. You won't need a huge fleet of them; their Yamato Cannon ability will let you take out the Photon Cannons from a safe distance, so you can make a hole to get in and engage. This is probably the worst solution, though, since rushing to Battlecruisers isn't much faster than rushing to Carriers.
In situations where your opponent sits in 1 base and techs up you really have two options
- Go for a strong push with lower tech units and try to take him out before they get a tehnological advantage.
- Expand to a second or possibly even third base and gain an economic advantage. The disadvantage of this approach is that it leaves you vulnerable to a counter attack after you have expanded until your economic advantage kicks in, however if you can see that your opponent isn't likely to attack for a short while this leaves you in a strong position.
The key to option 1 is timing - obviously if you push too late then your opponent will have teched up and you will be at a technological advantage, however if you push too soon then your forces won't have reached the critical mass required to get past the initial defenses. From the sounds of things you are simply pushing too soon - if you can see that your opponent has enough forces to hold back your attack then rather than sending your forces to their deaths wait until you have stuiable reinforcements, e.g. Medivacs to move your forces around their static defenses, or simply more units!
If you are having problems with option 1 then give option 2 a try - if you can keep your opponent contained in one base while you expand to a second or possibly third base then you can slowly wear him down until they have no more resources left. This is a good approach to use when you see your opponent is very heavy on photon cannons as it essentially nullifies all of the minerals he has invested in his cannons.
I'm not sure what level of play you are at, however for either of the above its important to realise that at the lower levels Starcraft 2 is mostly about having more stuff than your opponent. Proper micromanagement helps and a good unit mix helps even more, however the vast majority of Bronze league games are won because one player built a lot more stuff than their opponent. With this in mind you need to focus on the core Macro essentials
- Constantly build workers
- Don't let your resources build up - make sure you have a suitable number of production buildings for your economy
- Try not to get supply capped at much as possible
Both of the above tactics work because purely because you end up having more stuff than your opponent (either in the early game because your opponent has invested in higher tech, or in the later game because you have expanded and have a stronger economy to support a larger army).
Rush 2-3 Reapers with your first attack and use their mobility to harass probes. It is a safe opening - you will always do some harm to your enemy this way. Use this to fast expand owing to the damage dealt to your enemy. Continue to harass and win.
I saw a few days ago that somehow, INnoVation played with this tactic and outplayed several gamers. The commentators were speechless as to how good this tactic was.