Start-up strategy

[Kingo]

What's your strategy for starting up on a map?
First, I pause the game, choose a location (I always move the city to more advantageous location), build a few collectors, and a blaster. I then speed up the game (I can't stand playing at normal speed, it is too slow for me) and wait while the collectors build up, activating the blaster when there is extra energy and deactivating when there is less energy. Then I build blasters (they are cheaper than mortars and work just as well as them when you are on high ground near a pool) until I have enough to safely hold my position, then I build reactors and energy storage, to buffer energy and be able to power and build multiple weps at once. After that, my gameplay shifts to the unique aspects of the map.

[2b3o4o]

After that, my gameplay shifts to the unique aspects of the map.

[Kithros]

There isn't really any simple way to judge this - for *most* maps you want to build up collectors (or reactors if there isn't enough space) and ignore the creeper for as long as possible before building any weapons at all, or until you have enough energy to beat the map quickly already. There are many maps with obscure strategies and such though, where just trying to connect the totems really quickly can be faster, or in some cases even flying the LS over with a few blasters to cap an emitter early on instead of trying to build up a defense.

This is of course, assuming you're aiming for a good time, not just to beat a map (since all the story maps and most custom/chronom maps are extremely easy when you play well anyway)

[F0R]

I genrally test the map to see how many reacotrs i can put down if it is a hard map and then build my defences.

[phaedrusz]

ignore the creeper for as long as possible before building any weapons at all

This is always my strategy on hard maps. I will run it once, just building collectors (and/or reactors). Then I can see what I call the threshold point, the point in which the creeper runs into collectors that aren't built yet.