Life as a Starcraft II Build Order

Hey reader, it’s Allie nice to feel your eyeballs! Also, feel free to ask questions or give constructive criticism. I appreciate others’ thoughts :)

Here’s a song for today: Medicina De Amor - YouTube

Starcraft II is a Real-Time Strategy game that dropped in 2010 at this point. I played the game around release and thought it was okay. I started playing again around 2023 because the hype, at least for spectatorship of the game, has resurged with popular figures like uThermal and Winter etc.

In Starcraft II, you balance a continuous rock, paper, scissors game of offense, defense, and economy. Generally, offense is beaten by defense, defense is beaten by economy, and economy is beaten by offense. Really cool stuff!

Since learning to play the game competitively (I mean simply on the ranked ladder), the concept of a “build order” in Starcraft II has been on my mind. In this post, I’ll be applying the idea of a build order to my personal routine. This is with the hope that I can create more value with my time, even over long periods.

Build Order Basics for Starcraft 2 According to blizzard guides.com:

… a build order is a set of instructions on the order and timing of buildings and units you construct. The timings are usually timed by your supply count. At a set time you should have X supply, and when you have X supply you know its time to build a given building or unit. Its a set of orders and instructions.

Figuratively, a build order is the refinement of an idea. At first you know what you want to do, but you don’t know exactly how to work it into your strategy without sacrificing too much else. You don’t know when you’ll have the [resources] to spare, when you need to start mining gas to time everything perfectly, and you don’t want to go into it without a plan. So you create a build order.

Basically, a build order is a heuristic/guide that provides one a stepwise sequential plan of action that can be iterated or operated on to suit a need. In Starcraft II, the need for a build order is usually to make the most efficient use of limited resources and time in order to outlast your opponent.

Important note: the build order isn’t a set of instructions to follow with no mistakes like a computer does. In the game of Starcraft II (called SC2 from here) There’s a sort of adversarial loop that you’re acting out with your opponent. Based on their reactions to your play, you might need to adapt. I believe this is the core of the fun and gameplay variety, which may not apply the same way to a “real life build order”.

Some core ideas of a build order I’ve identified are:

• Structure - making it easier to execute and practice
• Flexibility - allows a build to be iterated on when mistakes are identified

Here is an example of a relatively basic build order in Starcraft II which works in every matchup:

Supply Timings	Timings	Unit To Build	Notes
13	0:13	Overlord	Overlords add to your maximum supply
17	0:52	Hatchery	Natural, basically build a base/Hatchery at the mineral and gas location that you spawn near
18	1:08	Extractor	Lets you harvest vespene gas with workers from a geyser
17	1:15	Spawning Pool	Allows the production of the basic Zerg unit, the Zergling and its upgrades. Also allows a Queen to be built at the Hatchery
19	1:42	Overlord
20	2:06	Queen	Responsible for early ground/air defense and for producing many units from each Hatchery
20	2:07	Queen
24	2:08	Zergling	Act as scouting units and early defense
25	2:09	Zergling
28	2:18	Metabolic Boost	Makes Zerglings infinitely more useful with a significant speed boost
32	2:48	Hatchery	Take the next closest base
31	2:49	Overlord	After this overlord, we make overlords with every batch of army units we produce so we can have room for the next batch
31	2:59	Queen
48	4:03	Baneling Nest	Or earlier / whenever natural is saturated. Allows Zerglings to morph into powerful AOE suicide units called Banelings
47	4:11	Extractor
47	4:23	Zergling	Round of safety lings
62	4:48	Evolution Chamber x2	Mainly allows stat upgrades for army units
62	4:50	Lair	Tech upgrade for the Hatchery, allows higher tier units
76	5:15	Hatchery x2	Macro Hatcheries - > Non-stop lings
85	5:56	Zerg Ground Armor Level 1, Zerg Melee Weapons Level 1	Use Evolution Chambers for Melee and Ground armor since Zerglings and Banelings are melee units
85	5:58	Centrifugal Hooks	Faster Banelings, similar to Metabolic Boost
85	6:10	Hatchery	Fourth base
85	6:12	Hatchery	Fifth base -> Keep building hatcheries as you float minerals

This is a well-tested generalized Zergling-Baneling build by PiG, a relatively popular SC2 content creator and coach. I won’t go through each instruction of the build order, but I left notes that are more accessible for someone that hasn’t played SC2 or RTS.

You may notice the supply timings don’t include workers (Drones for Zerg), the units responsible for your entire economy in SC2. I believe it’s expected that you’re constantly producing workers until you’ve fully saturated your bases. Building workers is what makes the supply count grow (about 1 worker every 12 seconds) when the build doesn’t tell you to make a unit that costs supply.

In essence, implementing this build gets you, by ~6 minutes, a speedy upgraded army that you can use to smash your opponent or transition into other technology (flexible). Hopefully it’s reasonable that this is relatively easy to practice. If you mess up, you can see your replay and address weaknesses.

That being said, how can this be applied to a real life routine? Especially when the “game” doesn’t have clear victory conditions like SC2 does?

My victory condition is something like Eudaimonia. If I genuinely believe I tried my best and that I’ll be alright sowing these seeds for the future, that is the closest thing I can imagine to victory. For me this implies a few things:

• I’ll be proud of myself professionally
• I’ll be proud of myself personally
• I’ll be content suffering in the pursuit of self-love, life affirmation

For the first iteration of this idea, here is a sort of build order for the beginning of the day. Time starts when I wake up.

Timings (24h)	Conditions	Category	Action	Notes
8:00	If not incredibly tired	Professional/Personal	Get out of bed	Obviously it varies when I go to sleep or when I wake up as well as sleep quality, not a strict timing.
8:10	If I feel greasy	Professional/Personal	Freshen up in the bathroom	This might look like brushing my teeth, waste disposal or washing my face
8:15	If my dog is around	Personal	Take doggo outside to use the bathroom and wipe his feet coming back	Sometimes I listen to music on my phone while walking around
8:25	If I need to meet people today or my body feels unclean	Professional/Personal	Shower, deodorant, moisturizer
9:00	If I have the mental resources to work on these	Professional	Algorithmic practice (LeetCode), Language learning (Farsi, ASL), Typing practice (Touch typing, VIM)	I have a set of “dailies” that I usually do. I try not to force it in-case I hate doing it the next day. Long-term > short-term
12:00	If I have an active project	Professional/Personal	Work on a project, also feed dog	Currently it’s a romhack for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
15:00	If the house isn’t fully tidy	Personal	Dedicated chore/space cleaning/exercise/dog play/bathroom time	Might be dishes, laundry, vacuum, treadmill etc
17:00	If dinner isn’t being made	Personal	Plan Dinner for 19:00
19:00		Personal	Eat Dinner
19:30-		Personal	Do whatever

Leaving that first implementation, I’ll try it out and report back soon. Surely this won’t be the same over time, especially as my responsibilities change with employment, preference, and death.

Thanks for reading, best wishes o7 خدا حافظ !