posted 11-05-2000 09:02 PM               

Over 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote a book called The Art of War, in which he told us to divide and conquer the enemy, and to concentrate our firepower. Over one year ago, Zileas wrote a webpage called The Zilean School of AssKicking, in which he told us to do basically the same thing.

Zileas was talking about Starcraft and Tzu was talking actual war, but since real-time strategy (RTS) games are (arguably) simulations of actual war, it’s not surprising that great minds have thought (thunk?) alike here. What’s interesting is that while Tzu wrote mostly about the large, macro scale, Zileas wrote about the very same concepts on the small, micro scale. Ironically, Zileas made his fame in the Starcraft world by developing and writing about his “new school” approach to the game where he focuses on dividing and conquering and concentrating firepower on the micro level, rather than the “old school” approach of concentrating on the macro level. In case you missed the irony, it’s that the old school that Zileas argued against was just another interpretation of the very same concepts his own school was based on, all straight from The Art of War.

On the most zoomed out level, Tzu tells us when to attack, based on the sheer size of the armies involved:

“It is the rule in war: If our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two, one to meet the enemy in front, and one to fall upon his rear; if he replies to the frontal attack. he may be crushed from behind; if to the rearward attack, he may be crushed in front.

“If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him. Though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force.”

On the most zoomed out level, Zileas tells us when (in Starcraft) we are losing:

“If your kill ratio multiplied by the ratio of your production to their production is less than 1, you are losing. If their economy is gaining speed, and yours is stationary, and this number is close to but over 1, you are still probably losing.

When I say kill ratio I do not mean units killed/units lost; I mean RESOURCES killed/RESOURCES lost both in terms of unit production, miscellaneous upkeep costs (scarabs) and building production/loss.”

The Art of War

One of Tzu’s main points is to attack an inferior force with a superior one. Even if both armies are of the same size and power, this can easily be done by looking at smaller pieces of the whole. If the enemy only defends one piece of his empire—and we know this—then the rest of his empire is wide open. We can send but a fraction of our troops to dismantle any number of his undefended spots. The more spots he defends, the weaker each spot becomes. If he defends all ten of his outposts equally and we concentrate the attack of but half our army at one spot, we outnumber him 5 to 1! We have concentrated our firepower, while the enemy’s has been divided and weakened.

All of this rests upon the shoulders of secrecy and reconnaissance. Without these, Tzu’s method of divide and conquer would not be possible.

“The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known, for then the enemy will have to prepare against a possible attack at several different points; and his forces being thus distributed in many directions, the numbers we shall have to face at any given point will be proportionately few.

“…Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us. Knowing the place and time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight. But if neither time nor place be known, then the left wing will be impotent to succor the right, the right equally impotent to succor the left, the van unable to relieve the rear, or the rear to support the van.”

So Tzu tells us to keep our own positions and intentions secret. He tells us to discover the positions and intentions of the enemy. Through this we can concentrate our firepower on the enemy’s weakest points, even at the expense of our own defense; if our weak points are secret from the enemy, he will not know where to attack. And our intentions being secret force the enemy to divide his own force for us, in effect, conquering himself, since he cannot hope to defend with parts of an army against the whole concentration of attack from ours.

Starcraft: The “Old School”

Tzu’s ways are the ways of the best Starcraft players in what Zileas calls the “old school.” These players strive to build a strong economy to finance overwhelming hordes of units. When they outnumber the enemy 10 to 1, they attack; 5 to 1, they surround…you get the idea. Individual battles matter little to these players, since it’s more important to build a large mobile force capable of attacking the opponent’s weak spots.

Most of these players come from the days of Warcraft 2, Starcraft’s predecessor. Warcraft’s interface and units didn’t allow players to gain much benefit from micromanaging individual battles. Warcraft’s units were more…homogeneous…meaning you didn’t see kill ratios of 50:1 like Templars and Reavers are capable of in Starcraft. In short, macromanagement was the only way to go. Build a large army. Divide the enemy’s army. Concentrate the firepower of your army.

Starcraft: The “New School”

And then there was Zileas. He came along and pointed out the amazing effects micromanagement of individual battles can have in Starcraft, and he preached the revolutionary ideas of…divide and conquer and concentration of firepower…on the small scale, that is.

Lesson 1: Shift queue to concentrate firepower. When enemy forces engage, say 10 marines versus 10 marines, they will fire at each other in a mostly random distribution, so units will only start dying towards the end of the battle. The better player will select all his marines and concentrate their firepower on a single enemy marine, then (hold shift to) queue the next command to concentrate firepower on the second enemy marine, and so forth. All 10 of the first players marines will kill one of the enemy’s units right way, reducing his firepower. The 10 marines will then automatically (through shift queuing) concentrate their fire on the next enemy unit, then the next one, and so on. The enemy is dividing his own fire but the better player concentrates it.

Lesson 2: Use formation to concentrate firepower. When two enemy forces engage, say 10 marines versus 10 marines, formation can be everything. If one player marches his single file line of marines into a horizontal line of enemy marines, the horizontal line formation will be able to concentrate its fire on the first marine in the single file line, then the second, and so on. The last marines in the single file line won’t even be close enough to fire until all their friends are dead. Even better than a horizontal line is “shallow encirclement,” a crescent shaped formation that maximizes the firepower one can apply to a point.

Lesson 3: Use choke points (narrow passes) to divide the enemy’s units. When a large enemy force must pass through a narrow choke point (either naturally created by terrain or artificially by your buildings) he is dividing his own force for you. You can concentrate your firepower on each unit as it passes by.

There are more lessons, but his point is the concentration of firepower on the small scale of an individual battle. I cannot leave out Zileas’s most extreme and signature use of concentration of firepower: his “Doom Drop.”

Zileas is known for playing the Protoss race, the race smallest in numbers and most powerful in punch. Notice that they are already concentrated before he even got a hold of them. A so-called Doom Drop is when you fill 4 or 5 shuttles (flying transports that carry other units) full of amazingly powerful Protoss attack units such as Reavers, Templars, and Archons. (These shuttles are accompanied by Scouts, heavily armored air units.) This superabundance of force—this concentration of firepower—is enough to overwhelm nearly anything, so long as it is applied instantly at a single point. When 1 Archon, 3 Reavers, 4 Zealots, and 3 Templars suddenly appear in the middle of your base, the sheer force of it all applied to your surely badly positioned units is usually too much.

Even more devastating is what Zileas calls his “Extra Crispy with Slaw” version of the Doom Drop, where he uses hallucinated (illusionary) units to draw fire. Flying 4 shuttles into an enemy base is not an easy task, since they’ll probably be shot down easily whatever anti-air happens to be scattered about. 4 Shuttles accompanied by, say, 5 scouts is another matter. Now the anti-air fire has been divided among more targets. Better still if all these targets are accompanied by, say, 10 illusionary Scouts. The illusions can’t attack, but they draw fire enemy fire giving the real units more time to act. In effect, the illusions divide and conquer the enemy’s anti-air fire.

Micro and Macro

Why not apply Tzu’s teachings of divide and conquer and concentration of firepower on the large scale as well as the small? Must one choose one over the other? The answer in Starcraft, realistically, is yes. One only has so much attention which must be divided between micro Extra Crispy with Slaw Doom Drops and macro economy and horde-building. Zileas explains:

The Third Resource: Concentration

“Minerals and Gas are the resources that most players think in terms of. Although these are central to the game, you also need to think in terms of concentration. I define concentration as time that a player has to spend focusing on a task during the game. Expanding is a high concentration task, especially if you are Protoss. Attacking certainly has a high concentration level, and the more concentration you put into an attack, the higher the effect. Even scouting carries a high associated cost. One big difference between "Someone who is really good" and someone who is #1 is knowing when you need to watch a battle, and when you don’t, and recognizing that your opponent also has a finite amount of concentration to draw from. There are a number of techniques for minimizing concentration costs (i.e. hot-keying buildings, using magic spell hot keys, queuing attacks, etc.), but everything you do has some intangible concentration cost. I would argue that as you get better at Starcraft, you go into a match with a larger innate concentration income/second. :P It is very possible when doing multiple coordinated attacks at different locations to use your superior concentration reserve (if you have it) to decimate an enemy who is tied with you in terms of unit control and tangible resources. Although I'm sorry to say this, concentration is basically talent. Playing a lot of games slowly raises it, but its something some people have a lot of and some people don’t. It’s kinda like fast sprint ability in running: you can train up and become a great long distance runner, but for sprinting, there’s always that talent based barrier–you can slowly improve it, but everyone has a limit. I’m sure that someone will push me off #1 who has more innate talent, along with the same skills...

“The best way to train concentration, as Visage has reminded me just now over MIT chat, is to play 2 on 1s and 3 on 1s (multiple opponents vs. you). I can often pull 3 on 1s, and certainly 2 on 1s, and really the only reason I can do this is my ability to multitask. Also, team melee is an interesting game as it involves doubled concentration reserves on both sides... well almost doubled since its not one mind thinking at once and they have to communicate...”

Whether you, as a player, spend your concentration resources on the large scale or the small depends on which game is at hand and your personal style. In either case, the same principles are at work. On one level or another, thou shalt concentrate thy fire and divide and conquer thine enemy!

Postscript

In an odd footnote of history, I was a senior at MIT when Zileas, who apparently has a real name (Tom Cadwell), was a freshman. I never actually met him, though. Zileas leveraged his success as a Starcraft player to help form an independent game development company called Ethermoon. The release of his first title, an rts called Strifeshadow: Tournament Edition, is due for release shortly.

posted 12-21-2001 01:49 PM               

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Zileas is known for playing the Protoss race, the race smallest in numbers and most powerful in punch

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Most powerful, yes. Smallest, by no means are they. Have you seen a bijillion Zealots coming at you?

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Starcraft: The “New School”

And then there was Zileas. He came along and pointed out the amazing effects micromanagement of individual battles can have in Starcraft, and he preached the revolutionary ideas of…divide and conquer and concentration of firepower…on the small scale, that is.

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Whats so special about him? It makes him sound like some holy man or something. He didnt come up with anything new.

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A so-called Doom Drop is when you fill 4 or 5 shuttles (flying transports that carry other units) full of amazingly powerful Protoss attack units such as Reavers, Templars, and Archons. (These shuttles are accompanied by Scouts, heavily armored air units.)

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And when they drop someone will have EMP shockwave waiting for them. Easy kill

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This superabundance of force—this concentration of firepower—is enough to overwhelm nearly anything, so long as it is applied instantly at a single point. When 1 Archon, 3 Reavers, 4 Zealots, and 3 Templars suddenly appear in the middle of your base, the sheer force of it all applied to your surely badly positioned units is usually too much.

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When that many drop on you its so easy to kill them. Its nothing special. Hydralisks can take that out. Even in the middle of the base. If units aren't badly positioned then that "Doom Drop" won't even get in or nearly in.

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A Doom Drop in Starcraft, Zileas style

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Since i can't post the pic...its either 2 things: 1. He's hacking in a multiplayer game or 2.he's playing against a lame computer. In that case its EASY to get a "Doom Drop" on it.

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Even more devastating is what Zileas calls his “Extra Crispy with Slaw” version of the Doom Drop, where he uses hallucinated (illusionary) units to draw fire. Flying 4 shuttles into an enemy base is not an easy task, since they’ll probably be shot down easily whatever anti-air happens to be scattered about. 4 Shuttles accompanied by, say, 5 scouts is another matter.

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You have to factor in the time it takes to make the High Templars and get their MP up AND the time it takes to build Stargates AND make the Scouts! Thats a TON of gas!

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Now the anti-air fire has been divided among more targets. Better still if all these targets are accompanied by, say, 10 illusionary Scouts. The illusions can’t attack, but they draw fire enemy fire giving the real units more time to act. In effect, the illusions divide and conquer the enemy’s anti-air fire.

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The illusionary Scouts will die quickly. They may draw fire but not for very long. You may divide the anti-air fire but you haven't conquered it.

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Preparations for a Doom Drop, Extra Crispy with Slaw

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Again i can't show the pic but, you see how much stuff is in that PORTION of the pic?! That would take alot of gas AND minerals. Plus the time to build all that and develop the MP to Hallucinate!

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I’m sure that someone will push me off #1 who has more innate talent, along with the same skills...

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He was never #1! People have LONG surpassed him! Practically NOBODY has even most likely HEARD of him! He's nothing special.

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I can often pull 3 on 1s, and certainly 2 on 1s, and really the only reason I can do this is my ability to multitask

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Ok 2v1 I can EASILY see do-able, but 3 on 1!? 3 on 1 WHAT!? Computers!? THATS easy! 3-1 HUMANS!? Thats POSSIBLE, IF he's playing NEWBIES. GOOD players will stomp him flat. Nobody on earth can beat 3-1 against humans. Its IMPOSSIBLE!

In short, he's not special. He's not great. He hasn't done anything spectacular. His "Doom Drop" and "Extra Crispy With Slaw" is totally beatable and totally pretty much not do-able on a land map. On that island map i can see why it would work. But on a land map it wouldnt work at all unless his opponent is a turtler.

posted 12-21-2001 02:41 PM               

The point wasn't that he was good (which he was), but that there was more than one way to play the game.

posted 12-21-2001 02:48 PM               

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Zileas' major contribution was demonstrating that microing a small number of units was as effective (if not more effective) than simply sending wave after wave of massed units

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posted 12-21-2001 08:49 PM               

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Over one year ago, Zileas wrote a webpage called The Zilean School of AssKicking, in which he told us to do basically the same thing

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If your kill ratio multiplied by the ratio of your production to their production is less than 1, you are losing. If their economy is gaining speed, and yours is stationary, and this number is close to but over 1, you are still probably losing

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If the enemy only defends one piece of his empire—and we know this—then the rest of his empire is wide open. We can send but a fraction of our troops to dismantle any number of his undefended spots. The more spots he defends, the weaker each spot becomes. If he defends all ten of his outposts equally and we concentrate the attack of but half our army at one spot, we outnumber him 5 to 1! We have concentrated our firepower, while the enemy’s has been divided and weakened.

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if our weak points are secret from the enemy, he will not know where to attack.

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And then there was Zileas. He came along and pointed out the amazing effects micromanagement of individual battles can have in Starcraft, and he preached the revolutionary ideas of…divide and conquer and concentration of firepower…on the small scale, that is.

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Lesson 1: Shift queue to concentrate firepower. When enemy forces engage, say 10 marines versus 10 marines, they will fire at each other in a mostly random distribution, so units will only start dying towards the end of the battle. The better player will select all his marines and concentrate their firepower on a single enemy marine, then (hold shift to) queue the next command to concentrate firepower on the second enemy marine, and so forth. All 10 of the first players marines will kill one of the enemy’s units right way, reducing his firepower. The 10 marines will then automatically (through shift queuing) concentrate their fire on the next enemy unit, then the next one, and so on. The enemy is dividing his own fire but the better player concentrates it.

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Zileas is known for playing the Protoss race, the race smallest in numbers and most powerful in punch. Notice that they are already concentrated before he even got a hold of them. A so-called Doom Drop is when you fill 4 or 5 shuttles (flying transports that carry other units) full of amazingly powerful Protoss attack units such as Reavers, Templars, and Archons. (These shuttles are accompanied by Scouts, heavily armored air units.) This superabundance of force—this concentration of firepower—is enough to overwhelm nearly anything, so long as it is applied instantly at a single point. When 1 Archon, 3 Reavers, 4 Zealots, and 3 Templars suddenly appear in the middle of your base, the sheer force of it all applied to your surely badly positioned units is usually too much.

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The illusions can’t attack, but they draw fire enemy fire giving the real units more time to act.

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I’m sure that someone will push me off #1 who has more innate talent, along with the same skills

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I can often pull 3 on 1s, and certainly 2 on 1s, and really the only reason I can do this is my ability to multitask.

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posted 01-07-2002 11:19 AM               

Robyrt, Zileas is a good SC player because he uses all of the tools available to him, whereas most people ignore the spellcasters as a waste of time and resources. Plus he wins most of the games he plays, and that's hard to argue with.

Hey Myit, are you going to contribute or just insult people? Make up your mind.

Crapguy, you make some good points, but you don't need to sound so smug about it. It takes away from your credibility.

posted 01-07-2002 09:15 PM               

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Robyrt, Zileas is a good SC player because he uses all of the tools available to him, whereas most people ignore the spellcasters as a waste of time and resources. Plus he wins most of the games he plays, and that's hard to argue with.

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I believe the term should be WAS a good SC player. I dont think he'd last long now. So much has changed since those times long ago.

Many ppl use spellcasters, if someone thinks they arent good then maybe thats why they lose alot.

posted 01-08-2002 10:54 AM               

Sure, people use spellcasters, but in the old days it was thought that quantity was the *only* way to win. This was back when people thought Zerg were unstoppable. Hmmm, now that I think about it, SC is a really old game (from 1998). Yikes!

posted 11-01-2002 08:26 AM            

1. Zileas WAS the number one player for quite a while.

2. Zileas now works for Blizzard, so I'd assume that he at least knows SOMETHING about strategy games.

3. Zileas was involved with a game called Strifeshadow which looked better (strategy and playability wise) than any other (other than starcraft, ofcourse) RTS around. Plus, it was damn cheap. I remember some game called 7th legion which was the cheapest crap game ever and it was like 60 bucks. The #*^$'s.

Anyway, those 2 morons in this thread clearly don't have a clue about Starcraft. Zileas didn't 'hack'. Zileas was good and won. Won a lot. The fact that you guys are badmouthing him shows all about your jealousy and incompetence.

posted 11-01-2002 08:30 AM            

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Originally posted by You're full of crap:
Zelias was like the beta champion. Not the champion of all SC. He thought he was good later than that, but couldn't win against the better players, so he quit.
SC's older than 98'.

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