1. There is very limited focus fire.

• No more than 1 melee unit plus 1 ranged unit can ever attack a single unit. Excess units will just watch impassively.
  
• This means that there is no advantage to outnumbering your opponent unless one or both of you have ranged units/healers. Feel free to split your melee units up!
  
• When a melee unit collides with an enemy melee unit, they always fight to the death. This means you can block the movement of enemy melee units with your own.
  
• You generally don't want to split up your ranged units too much. Keep melee units in front of your ranged units to protect them, as they will body block incoming enemies. Ranged units should only be fighting when you are even with or outnumber your enemy, or else enemy melee units will swim past your 1v1-ing melees and wreck your ranged units 1v1.

2. Spawners should usually be taken before (defended) transformers.

• See "Starting the Game" section for details
  
• Note that you can drag the black circle (the "flag") that starts in the center of each of your spawners to anywhere you like. Your units will go to that spot when they spawn. I often put mine on a transformer or chokepoint.

3. Long vs Short Term

• A player who invests SLIGHTLY more in the long term than his opponent will win by attrition.
  
• But a player who invests MUCH LESS in the long term than his opponent will win by gaining an early advantage and snowballing.
  
• In Boid, long term = taking neutral spawners / key transformers so that you can gain units, short term = attacking the enemy's spawners with your units
  
• Ask yourself how much your opponent is committing to taking neutral spawners/transformers. If the answer is "a lot!", attack him instead of the neutrals (ideally, after he clears all the neutrals on a spawner but before he captures it). If the answer is "not very much" try to get and stay 1 (and no more than 1!) spawner ahead of him. You'll get more and more ahead as the game goes on, but still be able to survive an enemy rush.

4. Force even trades when ahead, avoid even trades when behind.

• Like chess or many other games, relative ratios of army size in Boid are more important than absolute differences. It's much better to have 10 units to your opponent's 0 than to have 50 units to his 40, because in the first case: 1. you can freely capture spawners, 2. your opponent can not locally outnumber you.
  
• If you have more spawners or heavier units (crabs vs basics) than your opponent, trade units 1 for 1 until he loses. Just set your spawner flags on enemy spawners and keep a small group of units between your two most vulnerable bases if you fear an enemy scout rush.
  
• If you are behind on spawners, you need to quickly make a play and take a spawner before you fall too far behind.

Key points:
1. You start with 7 basic units.
2. Small neutral spawners have 5 basics, so you need 6 basics to capture them.

Basic Start
On most maps, the optimal start is to immediately send all your starting units to a nearby neutral spawner (spawner A), divert one of those units en route to go scout your opponent, and place your home rally point next to a different nearby neutral spawner (spawner B). You should be able to do all 3 actions before a new unit spawns - if not, practice your micro in a bot game. Use the first new basic made by your home spawner to check the region between spawner B and your enemy. Once you have 5 units waiting by spawner B and 1 more on the way, AND there are no signs that the enemy is moving toward spawner B, go ahead and take it.

If needed, you can pull a second unit off to scout initially, it will only delay your capture of spawner A slightly.


Maps with a crucial and undefended central point, like Freeze
Your goal is to send exactly 1 more unit than your opponent to the central point. Every unit you send after your 2nd unit costs you 1 unit due to delayed production, so weigh the benefits of the central point carefully. Sending 2-3 is a good balance, but if you can predict how many your opponent will send, you can adjust accordingly and profit.


Maps with useful, undefended transformers near a neutral spawner
It's often helpful to capture undefended transformers before taking your first 2 spawners, but almost never worth it if they are defended.

• Bomb: Faster AND more efficient than using basics! Make 2 starting units bombs, then send them (1 at a time may be optimal) into a spawner, quickly followed by a basic unit. On balance, this gives you +3 units relative to using basics, and frees up more of your initial units to scout/contest a central point. There is no downside except the time needed to click. Often still worth it if defended, because one basic will cause all the bombs to explode.
  
• Leeches. More efficient than using basics, but extremely slow unless the leech transformer is near the relevant spawner because they move so slow. Make 5 leeches, keep them together, and you won't take any damage from taking a spawner. The downside is that they are as slow as molasses. Since you can capture even a defended leech spawner by bringing twice as many units as they are leeches, this is another instance where it MAY be worth taking early even if defended.
  
• Medic: More efficient, safer, and slower than using basics. Send 5 units to become medics, then wait to attack the spawner until you have 5 additional basics. You won't lose any units if the basics all move in at the same time! This nets you +2 units over just rushing it with basics (you have to wait for 3 units to spawn, costing you 3 units of production from the neutral spawner). It's also very safe, as you can engage your opponent's rush instead of the neutrals if necessary. And it saves micro later, as you can just send your 5 medics and 5 basics elsewhere (after healing) to take another spawner. The downside is that you can't scout without slowing yourself down significantly. On balance, highly recommended.
  
• Guns. Turn 3-5 units into guns, then park them at max range from a neutral spawner and let them fire. They will take ~1/4-1/2 health bar of damage for each basic they kill, because the basics only have time for 1 good slap before dying after taking a beating closing the distance.
  
• Venoms. With 1 of them parked at max range, you can poison all 5 neutral basics before your venom dies. Then just send a basic in after the neutrals die to poison and collect your free spawner.
  
• Crabs. Only worth it if the crab transformer is right next to the spawner. 4 crabs lose to 5 basics, somehow. 5 crabs survive with a bit of health each.
  
• Scouts. Can be used for getting basics to a transformer that's far away, but please never actually use them in combat against basics.

Rushing
-Rushes are all or nothing. Send ALL your starting units, and place your home spawner rally flag at the destination too so you get reinforcements. Don't touch any neutral units!
Rushes are only possible when:

• 1. The distance between your opponent's base and his closest neutral spawner is not much less than the distance between your base and your opponent's closest neutral spawner / home.
  
• 2. Your opponent is unlikely to see your rush until after he has moved units onto his closest neutral spawner.
  
• 3. You are confident your opponent will try to take a particular base first (unless you are going for his home, but that's hard because you will likely be seen by a scout).
  
  
• If you steal your opponent's spawner with a rush, and you know what you are doing at all, YOU WIN. Hooray!
  
• if you arrive too late and can't take the point, and your opponent is reasonably skilled, YOU LOSE. He'll just charge you with 2 spawners worth of units to your 1.
  
• if you rush the wrong point (you arrive and it's just a bunch of neutrals), and your opponent is reasonably skilled, YOU LOSE. Try taking it and hoping he's blind, though.
  
• if your opponent sees you coming, and is reasonably skilled, YOU LOSE.
  
• Since good players also scout to avoid rushes, rushing in general is rarely a good choice. I would only recommend rushing when you are facing an opponent who will definitely out-micro you and beat you if you play normally, AND you are on a map where there is a good chance he won't see your rush. Good luck.
  P.S.: never rush on maps where your opponent starts with a freeze near his base...

• Keep an eye on the minimap. Don't let your opponent distract you and then capture your spawners with a handful of units that snuck past you! You can also click on the minimap to instantly view that part of the map, which is faster than scrolling on large maps.
  
  
• Use the hotkeys to rapidly select certain types of units. Each unit type has a preassigned key - which you can see in the bar along the right side of your screen in game. For example, crabs are "c". If you press "c" with nothing selected, you will automatically select all the crabs you can see and only those crabs. If you first draw a window with your mouse and select a mixed group of units, pressing "c" will deselect everything that isn't a crab.
  
  
• You can use control groups, if you are a high level Starcraft player and/or in a stalemate. "Control" + "1" sets the selected units to group 1. Pressing "1" later reselects them (and same for other numbers). This is most useful when you have a group of guns/venoms you want to keep behind a group of basics/crabs. Or a stealthy invasion group you want to be able to jump to later to see which spawner to take. I personally recommend hotkeys over control groups in most situations because you usually won't want to select mixed units, setting up control groups takes too much time, and the constant flood of new units rapidly makes groups obsolete.

1. A single unit can capture a spawner that has no units defending it, even if it's producing units. Just move your unit next to the base, wait until an enemy unit has just spawned, then move your unit onto the base. You will capture it before another enemy unit spawns!
-This tactic is easily countered by just keeping 1 unit on any of your bases your opponent might be able to access. With just 1 unit, you will stall the capture long enough for another of your units to spawn and help defend it.

2. You can bait units to attack you (draw aggro) by hitting them with guns/venoms. You can take even a big neutral base with no casualties if you use guns at max range with healers, or minimal casulties with guns at max range with melee units bodyblocking just in front of them. You can also park a group of mixed guns and melees in front of a group of enemy units, then let your guns pull in small groups of them at a time. Be aware that most players react by sending in all their units, so don't do this unless you have a sufficiently large ball of units or backup behind them.

3. During large fights, try to slip scouts or basic units around your enemy's crab/basic frontline and attack his guns/healers. Conversely, body block for your healers/guns with your own crabs/basics.

4. A point that is in the process of being captured instantly reverts to the previous owner whenever there is an allied unit on it.

• As a defender, when hopelessly outnumbered at a point, pull all units off it, then send them back in one at a time.
  
• As an attacker, move most of your conquering army off the base you want to capture and use them to body block defending units arriving 1 by 1.

Basics
Attack: 89
Defense: 100
Speed: 84

Don't believe the tutorial information - basics can be very useful! Basics are the Marios of Boid - they are alright at everything but don't excel at anything. I often leave my units as basics if I don't have the time or attention to transform them, or I don't know if I'll need to use them offensively or defensively.
Uses:

• As scouts: basics are arguably better scouts than real scouts. You can send them off faster (don't need to waste time shift-queuing them onto a scout transformer or even own one), and they are stronger. Enemy basics can't catch up to your basic, and if enemy scouts want to catch up, great, you traded favorably and wasted your opponent's time.
  
• As a scout counter: basics are the most reliable scout counter in the game. They trade favorably with scouts, and have the speed to intercept them if they try to scoot past.
  
• As a frontline to protect ranged units: crabs are arguably the best frontline unit, but basics do just fine. They have the advantage of being much better at intercepting enemy scouts/basics trying to get to your ranged units/spawners, and as such may be a better choice than crabs if your opponent is having a love affair with scouts.
  
• Pressing early advantages: if you manage to get up a spawner on your opponent early, just hammer him with basic units until he loses. Remember that leeches, guns, and healers can be easily beaten if you outnumber your opponent.

Crabs
Attack: 144
Defense: 100
Speed: 59

Crabs aren't tanks. They may move slowly and look armored, but go check that health value again: it's the same as the basic unit! Think of crabs as basics slowed down by huge claws, not armor. With that said, they are strictly better than basics except for their speed, so use them when that speed is unnecessary.
Crabs have two roles, depending on whether their best counter, guns, are present (bombs and leeches can also beat them, but both are reasonably easy to play around):
No guns:
Crabs are concentrated, uncounterable points of strength. In a war of attrition between players with equal numbers of spawners, whoever can transform the highest percent of his units to crabs will win. Initiative, or threatening your opponent's bases, is valuable in these maps mainly because it gives the player with initiative the freedom to give up that initiative to switch to a 100% crab army, while the other player must often fight with basics or scouts to hold points. I generally recommend setting all your spawner flags to crabs, then sending clumps of crabs into your enemy's spawners while retaining enough to defeat an enemy scout rush.
Guns present:
The best way to use crabs is to put them places where your opponent HAS to fight them, so he can't just walk around them with faster units. Such tactics include:

• Trading with basics/scouts, often by moving crabs onto enemy spawners to force a fight when enemy guns are grouped elsewhere. Capturing an enemy crab transformer with scouts or basics and then attacking a spawner is the best of both worlds in terms of mobility and power.
  
• Defending single points. I highly recommend leaving 1 unit on each spawner to avoid ninja captures by single enemy units, and a crab is better than any other unit. Note that this includes your crab transformer!
  
• Protect ranged units in large battles. If you need to recreate a Lord of the Rings scene with hundreds of units, and their guns are too well defended to access directly, crabs are a good choice for a frontline to protect your own guns. It's best to position them just in front of and partly overlapping your guns so that your opponent's basics/scouts can't avoid them if trying to reach your guns (and so your gun aggro pulls enemy units into your crabs).

Scouts
Attack: 89
Defense: 89
Speed: 179

The name "scout" correctly implies that these units are fast and fragile, but their role in Boid is actually much closer to "cavalry" than to a traditional "scout." Here are some guidelines for using them well.
Scouts aren't actually better than basics at scouting
This is because scouting in Boid usually involves queue-queue-queue orders to several units to make them run around on your enemy's side of the map randomly while you forget about them except to glance at the minimap (or steal an empty spawner!). You don't have time to individually micro them away from enemy units. Thus basics are generally a better choice, as you can send them directly from your spawner to the enemy side, they trade evenly with enemy basics, and enemy basics still can't catch up to them.
Scouts beat ranged units and lose to melee units
Scouts will shred guns,venoms, and healers as no other unit can. Whenever your opponent is using ranged units without melees to protect them, consider making some scouts. Conversely, scouts trade unfavorably with basics and get annihilated by crabs. Unless it is absolutely crucial that you hold a spawner or transformer for a few more seconds, scouts should run from crabs. They don't have to run BACK, though - go threaten a different point if you want to keep your opponent guessing! On that note...
Use small to medium (5-20ish) groups of scouts to threaten objectives
If you can pay enough attention to a scout group to prevent it from ever getting caught in an unfavorable trade, it can be very powerful. You can capture lightly defended enemy spawners, capture transformers near enemy spawners (crab spawners especially), and destroy isolated groups of ranged units. Perhaps most importantly, you will often draw your opponent's attention and units. Scout groups can be a potent distraction for a decisive move elsewhere, and you can use your scouts' speed to avoid unfavorable trades afterward.
Let me say this one more time: USE YOUR SCOUTS' SPEED TO AVOID UNFAVORABLE TRADES! I have won literally hundreds of games because people wouldn't retreat their scouts from a stolen spawner in the face of overwhelming numbers of basics or crabs. +2 basic units won't wash the blood of 30 of your scouts off your hands. He who runs away lives to fight another day.

Guns
Attack: 59
Defense: 44
Speed: 64
Range: 220

Guns are the strongest units in the game when used properly. Guns do damage at range, but their defining feature is that a gun can attack a unit that 1 melee unit is also attacking, allowing a primitive form of FOCUS FIRE! Focus fire allows you to take less damage from enemy units because you can reduce the total amount of damage coming your way early in the battle. This means that a mixed group of melee and ranged units will almost always beat an equally sized melee only or ranged only group of enemy units. Guns + melees is basically uncounterable, so you should ALWAYS try to use guns when they are on the map.
How to use guns properly:

• 1. ALWAYS keep melee units between your guns and enemy units. There is no excuse for poor gun safety! Ideally, you want these melee units so close they are overlapping with your guns, so that even if your enemy slips a few scouts into your guns, your melees will break up the fights and save your guns. Crabs, leeches and basics all work well, with basics/scouts preferred if your opponent is trying to sneak by you.
  
• 2. Guns should make up 1/4 to 1/2 of any big ball of units. The more likely your opponent is to be able to reach your guns (by going around or just overwhelming your melee units) the fewer guns you should have.

Bombs
Attack: 100+ to adjacent units, ~50? damage to units further away.
Defense: Any damage will cause them to explode.
Speed: 109
Blast Radius: 80

Bombs are strong against all melee units. The WORST a bomb can do is trade 1 for 1 against a melee, and they can kill an unlimited number of melee units. They are, however, the most micro-intensive unit in the game, as the best way to use them is to move each one individually.

• FRIENDLY FIRE IS ON. Don't ever keep your bombs near your other units!
  
• Never keep more than 2 bombs together, as 2 bombs kill any unit inside the blast radius. When facing a skilled opponent, keep your bombs alone, as your opponent will try to trade a single unit for your bomb(s).
  
• Send in 2 bombs followed by normal units to capture a spawner with many neutral or enemy units.
  
• Guns and venoms hard counter bombs.
  
• To counter bombs with melees, send in units 1 at a time. One easy way to do this is to put one of your spawner flags on the enemy bomb transformer (just don't keep more than 2 units on it if you capture it).

Leeches
Attack: Latch onto a single enemy unit, immobilizing and slowly killing it.
Defense: 32. That's 3 shots by a gun, for reference.
Speed: 50. Zzz...

Leeches are the most snowbally unit in the game. They are fantastic when you equal or outnumber your opponent, bad when you are outnumbered (especially if they have 2x or more), and absolute garbage against guns/venoms. Oddly, when frozen, they die in 1 hit to melee units rather than latching on to them and killing them. This means you should be very careful about using leeches if your opponent has freeze.
Unfortunately for the leech, every single ranked map featuring them also includes guns and/or freeze. I suggest never making leeches if guns are even on the map, because leeches are so slow that your opponent can almost always take guns in response if he sees them and then wipe the
floor with you. This means that despite their potential, the only time you should ever use them is on Extermination, and you have to be careful not to group them up too much if your opponent has freeze.

Next Level Pro Tip: On Extermination, if your opponent freezes your leeches, you can revert your own leeches to basics so they can trade evenly instead of dying.

Venoms
Attack: Poisons an enemy unit.
Defense: 59
Speed: 69, enough to kite leeches and crabs and outrun guns

Venoms do damage over time that will always kill the target unless healed. Poison does not stack; venoms will not fire at units that are already poisoned. Since each venom can fire several times before being killed even if not protected, and much more if you have a front line of melees, you always want to have substantially fewer venoms than your opponent has units.
Venoms are extremely deadly and very hard to counter when your opponent lacks healers. However, since most maps with venoms also include healers, you usually want to spread venoms out as much as possible. Venoms are very efficient when sent alone to harass spawners/transformers that don't have healers, because they'll usually poison ~3 units before they die. They also make great backup for small groups of basics.

Special abilities can be captures from the relevant base by putting at least one unit on it (just as with any spawner or transformer). After capture, a special base recharges at a fixed rate - having units on it does nothing. You can see the progress by the white bars slowly being filled in around the outside. After it has fully recharged, whoever first gets a unit on it captures it. Note that you can not capture a new special ability while you hold one in reserve.

Capturing Special Bases

• If your opponent doesn't capture his special point (on a map where each side gets one) before you get there, you should cast yours randomly and steal his.
  
• Similarly, if you have a "revert to basic" and can capture a freeze or teleporter, just throw your revert to basic away.
  
• Timing your attacks to arrive just before your opponent's special base timers are up so you can steal them is extremely powerful. It's hard to lose with 2 freezes/teleports against none. You can time it based on your own point's recharge rate because your opponent probably took his at about the same time.
  
• Keeping 1 unit on your special base will automatically capture it once it recharges.

Freeze
Freezes all units in the area (including your own) for a long time. Any attack on a frozen unit will end the effect.




Uses:

• Freeze a group of enemy units that are outside a base. Ignore them and capture the base.
  
• Freeze a group of units coming to attack your base to give yourself time to recall / produce units. As long as you have 1 unit on a base, you can freeze the entire base and maintain control of the base until the freeze ends.
  
• Freeze a mixed ball of units (melee + gun/healer) so you can guarentee their melee units won't get support. This is especially deadly if you have guns + melees, because your guns will break one unit at a time out of freeze, and those units will try to run through your melees while already damaged.
  
• Freeze a group of enemy units, then send 2 bombs into the middle of them to kill them all without your opponent being able to bodyblock them. Bonus style (if not cultural sensitivity) points if you type "ALLAHU ACKBAR" in chat while doing this. You can also use venoms if you avoid targeting enemy healers.
  
• Freeze leeches. Oddly, attacking frozen leeches with basics just kills them instantly instead of causing them to latch onto your units.

Teleporter
Teleport all units in a small area (first click) to somewhere you have vision (second click). Note that the ability resolves on the second click, teleporting all units CURRENTLY in the region you specified with the first click.





Uses:

• Teleport a group of your units onto an enemy spawner or key transformer. If going for an undefended spawner, wait until an enemy unit has just left so your capture isn't delayed.
  
• Teleport key enemy units away from the fight. Suddenly losing their guns/healers/frontline-protecting-their-guns-and-healers/half their leeches can very quickly turn an even fight into a massacre.
  
• Teleport enemy support units (guns/healers) into your melee units, or vice versa.
  
• Teleport a small group of enemy units onto a neutral base that you want to capture to kill two birds with one stone! As General Patton is often misquoted as saying: "No man ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his." Note that you need to lead moving enemy groups.
  
• Teleport neutral units from a base you want to take into enemy units. This one is easier to pull off. WARNING: the units will try to return to their home - so place them on the far side of enemy units.
  
• Teleport bombs into a big enemy group. No official map has bombs and teleport, but I want this to be a legitimate tactic so badly I made a map (Bon Voyage) with both.
  
  Revert to basic
  Converts all units in area to basic units. Not as useful as the other abilities. Uses:
  
  • Cast this on swarms of enemy units just before you engage. Wait to cast until you see the whites of their eyes, so your opponent can't react in time and pull them back.
    
  • Revert your guns/healers if your frontline is dead, your leeches if you are outnumbered, or your crabs if you need more speed. Usually casting it on your opponent is better, though.
  
  Turrets
  There are two types of turrets. They both have the same range as guns (220).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • Unit turrets require blood boid sacrifices to become strong. It's very important to get one unit into a neutral unit turret as soon as possible, because otherwise your opponent could steal it. Your unit turret can hold up to 5 units, but there is no rush on the other 4. Each additional boid makes it fire faster, so absolutely fill it up if your opponent gets in range. Takes 3 shots to destroy a basic unit, and has 2000 health.
    
    
  • Gun turrets work fine with no input from you, and are very tough (don't go near enemy or neutral ones, and if you have to, usually walking past is better than trying to destroy them). Neutral ones WILL fire at you. Takes two shots to destroy a basic unit, and has 4000 health.

This section is a wall of text, so feel free to skip ahead if you don't want to hear my ramblings :)

Initiative
When a play you make forces an opponent to react a certain way or lose significant resources, you have the "initiative." A simple example is sending a large group of crabs toward an undefended spawner, in a map with only crabs, basics, and scouts (like Quickdraw). This is beneficial for several reasons:
1. You can usually predict your opponent's response. In our example, your opponent will likely move his main army, plus nearby basics on route to transformers, toward the threatened point to defend it. Knowing where his main army will be, you can plan a followup attack on a distant spawner, or take a neutral spawner and hold it long enough to make up for the units you lost taking it.
2. You can gain an incremental advantage by temporarily holding a spawner/transformer. In our example, holding an enemy spawner for even 10 seconds will gain you several units and prevent your opponent from producing several units.
3. You can gain an incremental advantage by forcing your opponent to make unfavorable trades to protect his spawner/transformer. In our example, if your opponent delays your capture by moving nearby basics to the contested spawner, your opponent will end up losing more basics than you lose crabs.
4. Holding the initiative makes it harder for your opponent to threaten you. In our example, your opponent is unlikely to send crabs to YOUR bases (and if he does, he won't be able to micro them very well) if he is just barely hanging onto his own. This allows you to maintain your initiative and let the incremental advantages you gain add up over time.

The player that holds the initiative generally has an advantage in gaining resources (units/strongly transformed units), but remember that initiative is only valuable if you are actually gaining resources relative to your opponent! If you send your scouts past a neutral turret, capture and hold a spawner for 10 seconds, and then trade with enemy crabs, your opponent has "won" that exchange. You need to capture spawners or transformers elsewhere on the map you can hold or fight an overwhelmingly favorable battle to make such a maneuver worthwhile. Initiative is a TOOL to help you win, not a win condition by itself.


Stalemates
"The skillful commander takes up a position in which he cannot be defeated and misses no opportunity to overcome his enemy." - Sun Tzu. I could make this entire guide based on Sun Tzu quotes (maybe I'll add more in the future), but this one is absolutely crucial in two types of situations:
1. Situations where sending a stream of your basic units to the nearest enemy spawner forces your opponent to trade 1 for 1 rather than attempting to capture a transformation point and break the stalemate with stronger units. Frostbite and Badlands are both prone to this.
2. Situations in which there is a cost to moving first but no benefit. This is true of any contested neutral base, but is the defining feature of maps such as Crossroads or Triple Threat. The first player to attack the neutrals takes damage, while the 2nd players' units will arrive to contest the base before the first player can capture it and gain any benefit. Note that because melee units trade 1 for 1, losing 5 units to neutrals in a perfectly balanced 200 vs 200 fight CAN be decisive in determining who ends up with the base!
If you have put yourself in a situation in which you truly can not lose (THAT INCLUDES A DEFENDING UNIT ON EACH SPAWNER, unless you are super alert) you have several options:
1. wait for your opponent to make a mistake and punish it. Most people will crack and do something stupid (go for a neutral base they can't take, attack you in a way that lets you take their spawner first, etc.) if you wait long enough.
2. Try no-net-cost tactics that rely on your opponent not noticing them to work. The textbook example is sending one basic unit around the edge of the map, and moving it into an undefended spawner just after a unit leaves that spawner. If it fails, well, you traded 1 for 1.
3. Distract your opponent with a suboptimal move (like a scout rush against someone with tons of nearby crabs). If he overcommits in response, you may be able to take and hold the central point. Note that you should pull distracting forces back to safety (or to the fight at the center) before they get mauled by 50 crabs after you have provoked a response! Remember that if you lose more units than your opponent in the distraction, you need to start and win a fight at the center or you will lose the game! This move is very dangerous and obvious to an experienced opponent. If someone tries this on you, stay calm, move only as many units as you need (basics are often better than crabs due to their speed), keep your eyes on the minimap, and be prepared to move everything to the center. Alternatively, if the central point is a laser spawn and you have tons of units, you can actually respond by rushing the central point and giving up all your spawners. You WILL win the initial fight due to numbers, and because a mixed laser/melee army can beat a larger army of only basics, you should be able to hold the central point while recapturing your spawners (or your opponent's spawners) afterward.
4. Bait your opponent into moving first by appearing to be unprepared. For example, make a giant scout swarm, let your opponent see it, then move it to just behind your crab spawner, and turn it into crabs if he goes for the center.
Option 1 is almost always better than 3 and 4.
-Options 3 and 4 usually have a less than 50% success rate.
-Even if you have, say, a 75% chance of succeeding with 3 or 4, if you have a 95% chance of succeding by letting your opponent make the first move, you should wait.

jamodonnell v. :( on Enclave
Features:

• Basic start
  
• My queued commands (hold down shift) to keep scouts alive and distract :(
  
• I wait to engage :( until after he engages neutrals

jamodonnell v. Giles on Enclave
Features:

• Map-specific split start to contest both freezes
  
• Giles winning an early skirmish by using his scouts to protect his guns
  
• Me trying to draw Giles' laser fire onto my basics and then close with bombs, countered by Giles pulling all his units back and tagging my bombs.
  
• Me defending against 2 scout rushes
  
• Occasional notes of "Let Her Go" where Youtube's secret police copyright enforcement software didn't quite scrub my video.

Check out KillerkoUK's stream for more high level gameplay at http://www.twitch.tv/killerkouk/profile/past_broadcasts
Maybe I'll put some more videos up now that multiplayer is free to play.

Please let me know in the comments below or by messaging me if you have any feedback on the guide! I'm always working on improving it.

Also, feel free to add me as a steam friend! Sometimes it's hard to find opponents, so it helps if people in the Boid community are friends and can see when others are playing. I'm happy to play ranked or practice/discuss a particular map in custom games - just ask!