# StarCraft II StarCraft II is a free-to-play real-time strategy video game in which the goal is to defeat your opponent by destroying their base. Each player begins with a main building which can produce workers and a dozen of them. Those workers can gather resources (minerals and gas) which are needed to build other structures and produce an army to eventually conquer the opponent. In StarCraft II, multitasking is king; you have to be able to seamlessly juggle between scouting for information, producing workers and army units, expanding your base and fighting the enemy. This intense mental load, coupled to the sheer amount of units, structures, commands and strategies, can be overwhelming for beginners. Here are a few pointers if you want to get started. ## The Core [The Core](https://tl.net/forum/sc2-strategy/341878-thecore-advanced-keyboard-layout) is a keyboard layout which is designed to be as efficient as possible. It provides an easy access to most StarCraft II keyboard mechanics and maps keys in a very logical manner that makes remembering shortcuts much more straightforward. ## The Staircase [The Staircase](https://tl.net/forum/sc2-strategy/374400-thestaircase-an-alternative-improvement-method) is an improvement method based on deliberate practice. Its motto is very eloquent: > The Goal is not to win now. The Goal is to improve now. > Do not try to win now. Try to improve now, and you will win later. In basketball, you improve much faster at free throw shots by doing shooting drills than by playing in matches. In StarCraft II, the same principle applies: you will improve much faster if you focus on improving your mechanics than if you focus on winning games. The point of the Staircase is to focus on improving your macro-management mechanics: it gives you specific rules, such as limiting your available units, so that you have fewer things to worry about and can allot more of your brain power to your macro. Furthermore, it makes use of a metric called spending quotient which measures how well you managed to spend your resources during the game. Indeed, tangible feedback is very important in deliberate practice, and you can measure how much you improve by tracking the evolution of your spending quotient: the higher the better. ## Hybrid settings [Hybrid settings](https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/498454-hybrid-settings-30-lotv-edition) are custom StarCraft II settings which aim to bring the best compromise between performance and clarity. For instance, it removes unneeded effects which clutter the screen but keeps animations which are relevant to gameplay.