This is my first RTS, how do I get good at it?

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The Seven Commandments


1. You need to play at least 5-6 months if you want be good
2. you need own tactic (without tactic you'll lost every game)
3. Play Online Matches.
4. Don't play with BOTS AI
5. Join any CLAN (they will help you)
6. Don't use HACKS (no cheats)
7. Team Play
many things to learn, Trees weapons structures etc etc, after year you will be Real Killer

[Giani]

The Seven Commandments
...
2. you need own tactic (without tactic you'll lost every game)
3. Play Online Matches.
4. Don't play with BOTS AI
5. Join any CLAN (they will help you)
...
7. Team Play

First, nobody "needs" a tactic for winning games... But if they are good, they will help a lot.
Second, AIs are not intelligent, but doesn't mean that playing against them will make you a bad player. Playing against an AI might be useful for learning how to hold atacks.
Third, joining a clan helps, but if he doesn't like the clan then he shouldn't join just because he will be helped.
Fourth, playing FFA helps a lot to become a good player, BUT team play too.

[NoQ]

"Own" tactic? I'd rather say learn existing well-known strategies and tactics and micromanagement tricks first. Only a really good player can invent something of his own that will be good enough to use.

AIs don't provide attacks that are any close to real-game attacks. Holding against them will teach you nothing. Skirmish games are only good to get used of the game rules. Once you know the rules well enough, don't play them.

FFA games are much harder for newbies than two team games. They require a lot of clever macromanagement (research and money policy), while in a team game any better ally can lead the macromanagement, while teammates mostly focus on combat strategies and tactics (army positioning etc.)

For me, the best multiplayer practice ever was (and is) 1x1 duels on Startup. By practicing factory-(lab->mg)-cc-factory-factory-gen-gen-gen two-trucks-many-mgviperwheels rushes, a player gets a feel of the game timing and mechanics. Then countering this rush with a (lab->halftracks)-factory-factory-(lab->mg)-command-gen-gen five-trucks-many-mgviperhalftracks tech will teach him a balance between production and technology. Understanding that this balance is based on the size of the map (a truck takes around 1 minute 30 seconds to reach the enemy on Startup; you can easily measure this distance for other maps) will help the player to scale this understanding to any other map (bigger maps will shift the balance towards technology, so they're harder for newbies who are unaware of what are the key points of the tech tree). Etc.

[Iluvalar]

Just to complete the specialization tough from NoQ :

Most of the time I have 1-2 crucial line, 1 main line, 1-2 alt line and sometime one hybrid line.

By crucial, I mean the things that we can't stop to research in standard games (power generator, research labs, armors, propulsion, etc.) because of the shape of the tree.

So... my main line will be one weapon that I'd like to play or one of my other teammate "called". I will follow that path, but I'll be aware of the weakness I have, and therefore I will keep an alt weapon ready to deploy at some decent level of research, and I will constantly search in my enemy units to see if they might start to adapt from my main line. As long as they don't seem to counter my main line (like the AI always do), I will keep with my main line.

You meant that, for example, when you use rockets you research cannons too? If you did, that isn't a good tactic for low oil.

"but I'll be aware of the weakness I have".

Rockets and cannons have the same weakness to cyborgs. Why I would mix those 2 together ?

[The Overlord]

To get familiar with the workings of all the weapons, I recommend playing the high oil map NTW (yes..NTW). This will also help in a team setting to play as a team with your teammates.

Secondly, one more thing: playing T3 tech level also helps you gain understanding of the late-game weapons to help you close out long high oil games. (maybe even low ....that just blew my mind)