Hi, Kaminate here. I played a game earlier on Luna. I was T and my opponent was P.

Anyways, when I tried pushing, his goons and zealots destroyed my force (why did my force die?)
So I tried to play defensive and set up my third, but he easily destroyed it (again, why, and how should I have defended it?).

I thought I was macroing pretty well because I always had few minerals, so how come his units always overpowers me?

Because his forces attacked your forces, and caused enough damage to them to deplete your unit's HP to zero, thus causing them to die. And conversely, he was able to do this to your units faster than you were able to do it to his units.


Well, your 3rd was destroyed for the same reason as your earlier push died. He caused enough damage to your units and such, so that they exploded and died. You could have defended it if you had the units in place to kill his units.

Please, someone have give me real advice... watch the replay to see what I'm talking about.

When their third has been up for that long, that means they've got more than enough resources and gateways to outproduce two base Terran. Don't push, take some more (some meaning 1 or more) bases and crawl out when you've got better upgrades.

Also, lay (more) mines when using an FD build to prevent goons from running into your nat. And keep building tanks.

(Also, don't push through the middle like that)

Your FD push really put you behind tbh, you didn't do any damage at all with it. You have to do damage with a strong FD or it isn't worthwhile. If you are going to strong fd, I really think it is best to make 3-4 vultures and have them rallied to your army while they are on the attack. That would have forced the Protoss to work harder and lose units. When you backed off, you basically gave him a free expo while delaying your own.

Next, you said it yourself in the game - you got siege mode way too late. A bunker would have been helpful since you had all those marines along with a depot/rax to help seal the front and keep the toss out longer (would recommend the depot/rax to help seal regardless, but you definitely should have had siege by then.

I'm with Revo on the rest. Since you fell behind, you should just focus on building a really strong army before picking up your third. You also unexplainably push out to the center with a half-assed army (never move out with that kind of army in the first place. When you know the toss is that far ahead, wait till you get a big almost max army before pushing out, or else you'll just get destroyed like you did. Wherever you can, use depots and buildings to help protect your units to give your tanks more bang for their buck, and make sure you get those vults to spot everything ahead of you, mine up in places that toss can possible flank you to keep tabs on them.

Thanks BachHo, that helps a lot! But I have some questions on the specifics~


What counts as "damage" with a FD push? I thought that if I didn't back off, he would have killed my 6 rines + tank, leaving me defenseless.



How big of a army do I need before I can pick up my third? (numbers-wise)

Pretty small actually. You want the squeeze the CC in as early as possible to maximize economy, while producing just enough units so you can't die. Scout out their army/bases with vultures and be the judge yourself.

If they took their third during push timing window (as in you can add a few more facts and push up to their nat or 3rd before it starts running) go ahead and do a timing push. Otherwise, add a couple more facts (2-4 total is enough.. depends on map though. i.e on Destination you can take your third with only 2 facts because the terrain allows for it. fewer facts = faster cc).

Obviously if they have not taken a third by the time you're roaming around with vults then play cautiously because something tricky is coming.