Replay Analysis: Hello Four-Gate!

In today's analysis, we take a brief look at the Protoss "four-gate" strategy, and players' reactions when they know a four-gate is coming.

Rather than just analyzing a replay and coming up with my own strategies, I thought it might be fun to do an experiment on the ladder and try my hand at using the four-gate strategy against other players and seeing what their response is.

The results were pretty interesting - regardless of their skill level!

Special thanks to MxMstrSwtch for showing me a great four-gate, and Sambaa, Whisk, GalodelCielo, and Skybound for playing along with my ladder experiment!

Note: It may sound like I was casting 100 mph - I was close to getting this cast under the 15 min YouTube limit, so this was actually my 3rd attempt at getting under 15 mins!





The bullet points: (and a few extras for the blog readers!)

What is the "four-gate" strategy?

• The Protoss player researches Warp Gate technology as fast as possible, and builds 4 Gateways. Next, they take a small attacking force with a probe to the opponent's base, build a "proxy" Pylon near the base, warp in a round of units, and attack. Using the proxy Pylon, they warp in reinforcements constantly. This can happen as soon as 7-8 minutes. (Maybe even sooner!)

What can I look for when scouting?

• Early sign you might see with a scout: A single Gateway, one early Assimlator (1 gas resource), and a Cybernetics Core being Chrono-boosted.
• Four Gateways being built.
• A Pylon near your base ("proxy" Pylon).
• A small group of units coming towards your base fairly early in the game, with a probe.

What are some defense options?
Protoss

• Go defensive - build a wall (it's ok to leave a 1-unit space open) and Photon Cannons and as many army units as you can. Don't forget you can direct your cannons to focus fire on specific targets.
• Do a defensive Four-Gate. Many Protoss vs. Protoss games turn into who can execute a Four-Gate better.
• Do a "Three-Gate-Robo" build - just like Four-Gate, but build a Robotics Facility instead of the 4th Gateway and build an Immortal - they are super strong vs. Stalkers.

Terran

• Go defensive - build a wall and add Bunkers. When the attack comes, pull some SCVs off the mineral line to repair the bunkers. Don't forget that Bunkers can be told to focus fire on specific targets.
• Rush in return - build 3-4 barracks and train lots of marines (and some marauders if possible).
• Go preventative - kill the first force that comes with the probe before it builds the proxy Pylon. Make sure to kill the probe.
• Do a preventative timing attack - send a small force timed to hit the Protoss base as the Gateways are building. At this time, they have invested in the Gateways, but haven't reaped the benefit in army count yet!
  

Note that Four-Gate is simply a form of early aggression, once you believe any form of early aggression is coming, these are all general defense strategies. Note also that many of these strategies involve building a force that can be used for defense - or offense. Units are more flexible than defensive structures, so if your opponent isn't doing a four-gate (or at least an offensive one) or you survive the four-gate attack, you can transition into either a counter-attack, or expand with a defensive force. Have fun, and good luck with countering a Four-Gate or executing you own!

Update 11/1/2011: I updated the video to point at my new YouTube channel.