How to play Tournament Ridge?
So, now that we have some general information on the map, unless you are an experienced TW player you may be wondering "how do I play this". For that purpose, we have prepared a quick tutorial to explain you how to play this map and TW in general. Beginners and lower mid players should be able to significantly improve if they follow our tips. For now, let's take a look at following screenshot.
The image may look a bit confusing at first, but it's really simple. The black numbers 1-10 denote in what order to build what structure. The building icons in left tell you again what to build, and are in accordance with the numbers 1-10. The icons have been added so that you don't have to look all over the map for, let's say, number 5. You can just follow the icons, or the numbers if you prefer that.
1) So we start by building a power plant, denoted with number 1.
2) Immediately after queuing a power plant, we queue an Emissary and send it to the distant expansion in top left. Since the expansion is pretty far away, best option is to claim it early with an outpost. Right of the number 2 you can see where we deploy our Emissary.
3) We make a Hand of Nod and train a Saboteur (Nod Engineer) to take our Tiberium Spike (the green tower - it provides 25 credits per second so obviously we want to take it). On the screenshot you can see it provides 15 credits per second but that is only because the screenshot was taken from a mod, not the original game. What you can also do is make 2-3 Militant Squads to send them as scouts all over the map. You want to have few units everywhere to see where enemy units here and to spot potential rushes as soon as possible.
4) We make a refinery and place it on the EGDE of our build radius. Now you may be wondering "why on the edge". Well, most structures (excluding the Hand of Nod and Power plant) provide you additional build radius (you can build farther than before). If you place them at the center of your current build radius, you will not extend your build radius since the MCV already provides build radius at the center. If you place the refinery on the edge of your current build radius, it extends it, as you clearly see from the screenshot (numbers 4, 5, 6 and 8).
5) We make a War Factory and queue one Raider Buggy and three Harvesters. We send the Raider Buggy into the enemy base to see what our opponent is doing, whether they are rushing us. Obviously, we build the Harvesters to boost our economy.
6) We make a second Refinery and place it as on the screenshot, on the edge of our current build radius to extend it further and slowly "creep" towards our expansion.
7) The third Refinery is placed at our distant expansion, and immediately after placing it we can sell our outpost to get a few credits back. Remember, a Refinery provides build radius, which means we do not need the outpost any more.
8) We make a second War Factory and place it as on the screenshot. Once we have it, we can start making some units to attack our opponent. Scorpion Tanks or Bikes and Buggies... It is up to you.
9) We make a second Refinery on our distant expansion. Reason why we do that is because 2 Refineries per one tiberium field is really the minimum we want. Otherwise we will never harvest that tiberium.
10) If you have followed the build from the screenshot, after placing down your second War Factory you will have build radius at your other expansion without having moved your MCV. You can start placing Refineries there, or you can make a third Refinery, or make tech structures. It's up to you.
TW offers you plenty of different build orders, only important thing to understand is that you should make some Harvesters and Refineries before you start making combat units or going for tech structures. There are certain guidelines you can follow when setting up an economy.
With 5 Harvesters and 2 Refineries you can run two build queues without stalling on money (for example you can build from the MCV and units from the War Factory simultaneously without stalling on money).
With 7 Harvesters and 3 Refineries you can run three build queues without stalling on money.
With 9 Harvesters and 4 Refineries you can run four build queues without stalling on money. And so on and so on.
In other words, as soon as you have 5 Harvesters and 2 Refineries, each additional Refinery and 2 Harvesters can fund you one more build queue. So make sure to boost your economy and make sure to optimize it - in other words, have only as many build queues running as you can afford in accordance with aforementioned guidelines.
