Improving Macro

[chris1089]

I've been focussing on trying to improve my macro recently. In order to do this, I watched a few recorded games and a guide by top Brit players and tried to copy the BO against the computer until I was within a few seconds of the pro's time to X amount of musk/manors, fortress etc. Going further I could consider resource stockpiles too.
I have found this helpful for the first 10 minutes, and has really helped me defend timings or have more stuff. How could I go about improving my midgame macro? Also, are there useful tools for improving the basic build order? Do you think practising macro with 1 civ and 2-3 build orders is the best way to improve macro generally?

[Scroogie]

From what i grasp midgame macro depends on good habits regarding checking bank, villager allocations regularly.

[yoda611]

Play team game

[Challenger_Marco]

Learn math ,I have my own theory of doing the macro

[chris1089]

If I play team games, how can I do that in a way that will improve macro efficiently? What should I be trying to do and not do? Also, my experience of team games is that they are pretty poor, unless you are talking about scuffling with the majors when I barely know what I'm doing in team.

Lol that's a coincidence since I just got an offer from Cambridge to study math today.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Best way is to play the same civ and do the same BOs again and again. With time your macro will improve.
Also playing against the computer until the first 7 minutes of your build are perfect is very effective from my experience. Team games are good for the middle/late game but I'm not sure they help to improve your macro that much. Frankly, the macro in team games is very different as you will boom much more and make mostly the same unit.

[flontier]

yes team games wont help you to improve your macro directly, but they will help you to improve your multitasking skills.
=>Then improve your multitask will help you to improve your macro in midgame/late 1v1.

That is the mechanical part, then macro in midgame and later is basically anticipation to find ressources, focus on having the less villagers idless during the game and minimizing every walking time.
Like small tips such as shift your vills from a gold mine to another when it almost run out before you are going to take a fight to not have 15 idle vills for 1min or send a vills back a hunt at the right moment to not having 20vills moving on, can save you a ton of ress.
Or small stuffs like moving vills from wood to food/gold before a fight (cause no need more house pop space if you lose units in that fight) to re-build army faster.

[chris1089]

Also @Diarouga , if you are doing Virginia company with intention to follow up to fortress, and you get a 300 wood start, would you get a to and send Virginia company, get a to and send 3 vil and Virginia company, not get a to or get a to after the boom?

[chris1089]

Here is what I would consider to be a representative sample of my macro in a scrappy, busy game.
I feel like I was very lucky to survive as I didn't have enough units out at the right time (and perhaps the right ones.) Even a slightly better player would have won the game.
Other than putting too many vils on coin early on in colonial, how could I have improved my macro (in terms of my mistakes and the solutions.) Also how could I have improved my build order? If there are any other basic problems not relating to macro, I would appreciate diagnosis and treatment.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Also @Diarouga , if you are doing Virginia company with intention to follow up to fortress, and you get a 300 wood start, would you get a to and send Virginia company, get a to and send 3 vil and Virginia company, not get a to or get a to after the boom?

I'm still not sure.
On the one hand, TP feels great because you get an extra 3v and more wood so more manors, but on the other you'll often age later to colo and even if you age in time you will have to wait for your shipments and you'll get the 700c 30sec later so you'll age to fortress 30sec later...

[TheNameDaniel]

If I play team games, how can I do that in a way that will improve macro efficiently? What should I be trying to do and not do? Also, my experience of team games is that they are pretty poor, unless you are talking about scuffling with the majors when I barely know what I'm doing in team.

Lol that's a coincidence since I just got an offer from Cambridge to study math today.

Team games usually improve your macro since they usually last longer so you're able to experience the mid-late macro and all of this is done whilst having to defend 500000000 million cav raids which improves your apm.

Also congrats on your offer to Cambridge, I managed to get one for Economics at Oxford.

[chris1089]

Any feedback on the game I submitted?

[Mr_Bramboy]

I've watched the rec and here are some tips and tops.

• [0:00] Great crate split
• [0:30] With a 100c start you'll want to start with a market and 1 house - especially if you have a 50c treasure in base. Get hunting dogs and buy 100w from the market to build the house.
• [1:10] Getting a 95w treasure in the middle of the map against a civ with two explorers is very risky. It's better to stay in the area and to not try to take it unless you're certain his explorers are somewhere else.
• [2:00] I'm not too familiar with the VC build - but I believe you should never skip 3v. This hurts your economy too much.
• [3:00] Again, not too familiar with the VC build, but aging with 13v and idling at 650f seems pretty bad. These things are worth pointing out because they impact your mid-game economy by a lot.
• [5:30] As soon as 700w in you should be dropping houses, especially with VC. You have 550w stacked. You also forgot hunting dogs. This should've been queued a full minute earlier, right after gang saw. That would've allowed you to queue steel traps with 700w.
• [5:45] With a VC build I would always ship 600w, not 5v as my second colonial card. Not only do you gain (600/88 = 6) villagers from it as opposed to 5, but you also get more XP which allows you to get your next shipment in faster. The only downside is that you spend villager seconds building the 6 houses.
• [6:10] Starting with pikemen blindly is a bad idea. You haven't scouted his base ever since he was aging. There could be ashi out. Getting the 100w treasure mid map is nice but at this point I would value scouting information more. Luckily for you your opponent drops his first barracks with 600w at 6:00.
• [8:00] Bad trades. Keep an eye on your military flags and always pop longbow as far away from enemy units as possible. Those 10 pikemen you wasted could've been sent to some shrines on the other side of the map instead of dying needlessly. You're forced to send 6lb to compensate for this while this could've been 700c for an ageup.
• [9:00] You're gathering too much gold for your game plan. Hussars aren't an option here and you are behind militarily. Switch villagers from gold, drop a 3rd rax, and start massing the units you need to defend your greedy build.
• [9:30] With all this gold, training musketeers would've been better here. You're at a point in the game where pikemen really fall off. Pikemen are not going to do anything vs ashi/nagi. Musketeers are much better for that purpose. Since you've colonized most of the map with manors, you know there aren't that many shrines for the pikemen either.
• [11:00] You have 1k gold stacked and 8v on gold with no real purpose. Aging doesn't seem like an option here as you have 300f and you're training units.
• [12:00] 600f 700w 1400c stacked. That's 2700 resources. That's 27 musketeers, which would've easily crushed his 15 ashi 10 nagi army together with your lb. You really needed a 3rd rax a few minutes ago. Overall you're obviously very ahead in this game. Your opponent has no shrines and you're beating his army with almost 3000 resources stacked.
• [15:00] After some fights which were way too close for my liking, the game is over. As I said I don't understand why you would train hussar or pikemen here. If you do have pikemen, put them in cover mode vs the ashi. Going full (vet) musk here would've been better rather than trying to find a good lb/pike composition.

One thing I noticed in general is that you don't queue your military batches after one has finished. Always train units ASAP. You also need to keep an eye on your macro. Removing all villagers from coin is fine if you're stacking 1000c. That being said, brit is one of the hardest civs to macro in my experience, especially with VC.

[chris1089]

@Mr_Bramboy thank you very much for the advice, and particularly for your time in compiling it. I shall rewatch the recording, bearing those things in mind, and then try and put them into practise.
On the VC build, it is definitely viable to just send VC, see goodspeed's guide or massive thread on this. I don't know if I should idle for a bit on 13 or age 14. Normally it would be better to age 14 for sure, but since you boom so fast with vc, my inclination would be to say that you are better off having half a vil of idle time.
I would like to hear what a better Brit VC player thinks about this.

[chris1089]

Could you also clarify what you mean by not queuing my military batches after 1 has finished? Do you mean that I don't start the next one quickly, or that once I start a batch, I don't fill it quickly?

[vividlyplain]

i read this as improving marco... can we improve this bot (@Challenger_Marco plz?

[Challenger_Marco]

yes im macro you should pm me