This guide will show you how to play the Human race in Grey Goo on a competitive level.

Before we even start to think about strategy we need to talk about the controls and mechanics of the game. It's not complicated but there are some tricks you should know about.

1. Shortcuts: Grey Goo is not as fast as Starcraft2 for example. Still it is very helpful to know at least the most important shortcuts. You don't need to memorize every key. The best way to learn shortcuts is not allowing yourself to click on anything on the construction menu. It is also quite simple. Refineries for example are build by Q, Q, Q.

There are also some keys that are not directly for building units. The most important i will list here:
A + Left Click ---> Attack Move. In most cases it is way better to use the attack move to move your army than right clicking. Also if you Attack the opponent
never right click on the enemy units to attack. Also use attack move for that by A + Left Click on the ground behind the enemy army.
Shift + Production Key ---> Autoproduction. This command is essential for any Human and Beta player. The Product Key is the Hotkey for the unit to produce it.
To auto produce a Trident from a factory you would have to hit Shift + Q. Normally every factory should always auto produce something.
Alt + Right Click --->Attack Ground. With Attack Ground you can attack a position with artillery. This really important since you can attack positions
you can't see with your artillery. If the enemy hides ín bushes for example you can attack them without moving into the range of the units
inside. You can also use this command to predict enemy movement and make it harder to doge your artillery attacks.
Alt + V Stop Production / Resume Production. With this command you can stop the production inside your factories. Usually you want to stop all your
factories if you are construction a refinery. With this command you don't have to reassign the autoproduction for each factory.
J --->Retreat Air Units. With this command you can send all selected air units back to your base to reload.
shift --->Add to selection. If you have units selected and you want to add units from somewhere else to your selection just hit shift and select the units.


2. Hotkeys: Hotkeys are almost as useful as shortcuts are. Normally your hotkeys are the numbers on your keyboard. You can set selected units and buildings on hotkeys. You can set hotkeys with ctrl + number. Then if you select something else you can just hit the number and the units set on this hotkey are selected again. If you have for example a group of 5 Revolvers on your "1" Hotkey and you want to add a Valiant to this group select the Valiant and hit shift + "1" and ctrl + "1" after that. With shift you add the selection from Hotkeygroup 1 to your current selection. With ctrl you override your old control group.

What to hotkey?
It's simple you want to have always those units on one hotkey that should fight together. So always have all your army on the "1" hotkey. Only forces you use separate shouldn't be in that control group. Then each scout should be on its own hotkey. All factories should be on one hotkey. This is so you can easier set rally points with your factories and stop production (Alt + v) whenever you need. The last Hotkey you need is for your teleporter.

This is all for mechanics and controls for now. If you use all these methods correctly you should always be able to keep up with your opponent speed wise. The only thing i left out are the camera hotkeys since i don't think they are necessary even at the highest level. If you are interested just look in the settings.

Before we talk about build orders and so on I want to talk about some of the more important topics so you can understand the reasoning behind the strategies i will show you later. It is also important because a build order almost never leads you through a complete game and is more an opening from which you need to react to your enemy yourself.

1. Time is everything: All strategies have one thing in common. They all try to get somewhere the fastest way possible. They all are different in how risky they are. What i want to make clear with that point is that you should try to never waste any time. For example: Building a turret while you can know through scouting that there is no possibility of a serious attack by an opponent is a huge waste of time. Because if you would have not build the turret you could build your next refinery earlier. This can have a huge snowball effect in the later stages of the game. So before you work on your strategic and micro mistakes look into your macro. Never have 1000/1000 resources (Because all your refineries stop working). Have the correct amount of factories(Stop them to create additional refineries) and build your refineries on time. So whenever you think about a strategie ask yourself what your goal is, how risky it is, how to react on your opponent and how to get there the fastest way possible. It's all a balancing act.

2. Scouting: You cannot make the optimal choices without knowing what your opponent is up to. You scout a 2 ref opening? You can go for 3 safely yourself. But the same strategy will utterly fail if your opponent goes for a 1 ref 2 fac rush. Scouting stays important for a whole game. Always know how many refs your opponent has. Depending on your strategy it could be different but in a normal game try to have the same or one more Refinery than your opponent. Be on the look for what units he builds and what tech he gets. If he builds air get anti air and so on.

In this guide we will have one more or less standard build for each matchup. In some matchups you want to heavily alter your build depending on what you scout.

This matchup can be a bit funny. Since human players like to play really greedy it can take a bit of time until the first Factory is thrown down. You start with at least 2 Refineries. Then depending on your scouting (How many refineries has your opponent?) If your opponent goes for 2 himself you can go for 3 and so on. If both of you continue adding refs you i would recommend stopping at 4 or 5. After that you start building factories depending on how many refineries you have. A rule of thumb is ref*2-1 (Depending on how much tech you want. The more Tech Buildings you want to build the less factories you can afford) After that you add 1 Tank Attachment and 1 Air Attachment to 2 factories each. Until the tech attachments are done you want to auto produce Revolvers from every factory. After the attachments are done you autoproducer 1 Valiant and one Gladius from The 2 factors connected with the Tank Attachment. From the factories with the air attachment you build 2 air scouts.(NOT auto produce. You want to auto produce Revolvers there). When the Air Scouts are done you look for your opponent. Keep in mind with this strategy you want to have at least the same amount of refineries your opponent has. When you have build 2 more refineries you add 1 large factory with a stealth and an artillery attachment. From there you want to auto produce Howitzers. From there you have a good basic production. Add more factories and refineries as you go. You can build a silo at some point in the mid game to research the worker stealth upgrade.
Other useful upgrades are: Repair Upgrade (Tanktech), either Dagger or Airscout stealth(Stealth) and the Howitzer Upgrade (Artillery)

Ref
Ref
(More Refs depending on scouting)
Fac
Fac ---> auto produce Revolver
Fac
(More Facs if you have more Refs)
EarlyGame
-----------------------------------------------------------------
MidGame
(optional)Silo ---> Worker Stealth
Tank Attachment ---> autoproduce Valiant, Gladius (cancel Revolver), research repair upgrade
Air Attachment ---> 2 Air Scouts
Ref
Ref
Large Fac ---> auto produce Howitzers, 1 - 3 dagger
Stealth Attachment ---> Either Dagger or Airscout stealth upgrade
Artillery Attachment> Howitzersupgrade
LateGame
----------------------------------------------------------------
More Refs, More Facs ---> More Revolver, Valiants, Gladius and Howitzer

Things to keep in mind:
If you scout factories (especially Large factories) with Tank and Air Attachments and Airpads your Opponent is going for scythes. Reaction: Valiants + Longbows. Also if you see this strategy its time to apply some pressure. Humanplayer who go mass air have problems securing their Extractors
so don't give your opponent too much time.

If you scout factories (especially Large factories) with Tank and Artillery Attachments and a Teleporter your opponent is going for a Lancier teleport. This strategy tries to kill your Core with teleported Lanciers. Lanciers are expensive and really weak vs other units but they have a really big Healthpool and can kill buildings very quick. It is really bad to lose your core. You can counter that by building some turrets around your core. (Place them carefully because you can't afford to waste any units)Also focus your complete production on Revolver and Gladius since they have the highest dps. You can also stop this rush if you snipe your opponents airscout since a teleporter needs vision to work.

Human vs Beta is similar to Human vs Human. We can use the same basic approach. But the Beta player is forced to build a factory early. Often the Human player can get away with a ref more than the Beta player. On smaller maps this build could be weak to wall rushes.

Ref
Ref
(More Refs depending on scouting)
Fac
Fac ---> auto produce Revolver
Fac
(More Facs if you have more Refs)
EarlyGame
-----------------------------------------------------------------
MidGame
(optional)Silo ---> Worker Stealth
Tank Attachment ---> autoproduce Valiant, Gladius (cancel Revolver), research repair upgrade
Air Attachment ---> 2 Air Scouts
Ref
Ref
Large Fac ---> auto produce Howitzers, 1 - 3 dagger
Stealth Attachment ---> Either Dagger or Airscout stealth upgrade
Artillery Attachment---> Howitzer Upgrade
LateGame
----------------------------------------------------------------
More Refs, More Facs ---> More Revolver, Valiants, Gladius and Howitzer

Things to keep in mind:
If you scout a Hangar: Other than a Human player the Beta can't really go for mass air units. But their Airbomber the Nimbus does heavy aoe damage. So you still want to have some longbows to take them down.

If you scout a Stealth Attachment: Beta players are able to research a stealth upgrade which grants the Beta scouts the ability to cloak all other units around it. If there are 2 scouts with this upgrade they can cloak each other! So if you see a Stealth Attachment make sure you have a few Daggers ready do detect them.

Up to this point the strategies i showed you were a bit more passive.(you can of course attack whenever you feel is right) But you can't allow a Shroud player to spread all over the map. So this strategy will be a bit more Aggressive with an economical follow up. Since you take the initiative with this build scouting isn't that important. You start off with 2 refineries and 4 Factories. After that you build 1 Tank Attachment to 2 Factories. From the 2 Factories without a Tank Attachment you auto produce Revolvers. From the 2 Factories with the Tank Attachment in construction you produce 2 Revolvers each. (Not Auto produce) When the Tank Attachment finishes you auto produce 1 Valiant and 1 Gladius. When the first Gladius and Valiant are done you stop your whole production to Add more Refineries. At the same time you grab all of your units and send them towards the Shroud player. The Goal of this attack is to force out units from the Shroud player and kill some Extractors if you can. You can time your production depending on how your attacking force is doing. There is no reason to stop adding more Refineries as long as your opponent has to handle your attack force. When you resume your Unit production stop building any Revolvers and start building Tridents instead. Otherwise proceed as you would vs Human or Beta.

Ref
Ref
Fac
Fac ---> auto produce Revolver from the Factories without attachment
Fac
Fac
Tank Attachment ---> autoproduce Valiant, Gladius (cancel Revolver), research repair upgrade sometime in the Mid Game
Attack with everything when first Valiant and Gladius are done
Stop producing units
Add Refineries depending on how your attack goes.
EarlyGame
-----------------------------------------------------------------
MidGame
Resume unit production (No Revolver! Tridents instead!)
(optional)Silo ---> Worker Stealth
Air Attachment ---> 2 Air Scouts
Ref
Ref
Large Fac ---> auto produce Howitzers, 1 - 3 dagger
Stealth Attachment ---> Either Dagger or Airscout stealth upgrade
Artillery Attachment---> Haulwitzer upgrade
LateGame
----------------------------------------------------------------
More Refs, More Facs ---> More Revolver, Valiants, Gladius and Howitzer

Things to keep in mind:
If you scout a Zenith: Keep your Howitzers spreaded! They have bombers(Machs) that deal heavy aoe damage. Also keep looking for Shrieks. They are basically flying Lanciers. So if you see them build Longbows and Anti Air Turrets.

Claxon/Torrent: If you see a large amount of Claxons or a Torrent the Shroud player may try to drop your refineries with a bunch of Claxons. If you see a Torrent teleport your refineries around your base. They should be as far away from each other as possible. Claxon deal damage in a small aoe.

The last matchup. And in my opinion the hardest one to learn. Against Goo you have to play very defensive if you don't go for a rush. On most maps it's impossible to go for a 2 Refinery opening. A good opening is going for 1 Refinery, 1 Factory and to build up 2 Revolvers from this one Refinery. After that add a second Refinery and an Air attachment. From the Air Attachment you get an Airscout. Afterwards you add another Refinery. Then you go for 4 more Factories with 1 Tank Attachment connected to 2 Factories. From those Factories with Tank Attachment you start building Valiants on auto produce. From all the other Factories you auto produce Revolver. After that you get your 4th Refinery. When the refinery is done you start building a teleporter. The mid game is mostly as usual. The moment your Teleporter is done start flying around with an airscout and teleport Revolvers + Valiants to unsecured Mother Goo’s. Now vs Goo you can't simply count the amount of Mother Goo’s. You need to know when he starts to build. React with a few Turrets in key positions. You can either choose to go for more units and push out or stay back and get more Units out. Currently i'm not sure if it's worth it to change from Revolvers to Tridents in the later stages. So we keep the Trident production. The main difference to the other matchups are that turrets can be really useful if you see the Goo player stop producing Mother Goo’s. In the later stages you want to add a teleporter. Your main goal is to pull the Goo apart and to damage his Mother Goo’s.

Ref
Fac --->2 Revolvers (No autoproduce)
Ref
Airattachment ---> 1 Airscout
if no attack is coming --->Ref otherwise more units and facs (depending on situation) first.
Fac
Fac
Fac ---> Auto Produce Revolvers from any Factory without Tank Attachment
Fac ---> Auto Produce Valiants from any Factory with Tank Attachment
Tank Attachment ---> research repair upgrade sometime in the Mid Game
Ref
Teleport
EarlyGame
-----------------------------------------------------------------
MidGame
(optional)Silo ---> Worker Stealth
Ref
Ref
Large Fac ---> auto produce Howitzers, 1 - 3 dagger
Stealth Attachment ---> Either Dagger or Airscout stealth upgrade
Artillery Attachment---> Howitzer upgrade
LateGame
----------------------------------------------------------------
More Refs, More Facs ---> More Revolver, Valiants, Gladius and Howitzer

Now this guide was a bit longer than I expected :D
This obviously only scratches the surface. Try out your own strategies. I tried to explain the most default style in any matchup. There are many more ways to play this game! I for example love playing with Scimitars with their Mine Drop upgrade.

I hope you enjoyed this guide. Any feedback is appreciated.

Check out the Grey Goo Community Discord: https://discord.gg/t6N7mva