[algorias]

Killing a worker early is subject to compound interest, so that 17% (or 10% more realistically) of an early worker kill is going to grow exponentially all game long.

[endtime]

>an early worker kill is going to grow exponentially all game long.

That's a very unrealistic claim, though yes, losing a worker very early can have a measurable effect. But that pretty much never happens, outside of all-in cheeses like 6 pool or proxy 2 rax/gate.

Are you defending the original claim that games are decided over affecting 1% of one's opponents economy?

[jasonlotito]

> the original claim that games are decided over affecting 1% of one's opponents economy?

The original claim wasn't that the game was decided over 1% of someones economy. Rather, that games were decided over many small advantages gained, things like affecting someones economy by 1%. You do that 5-10 times throughout the game, and that's a good 5-10% of their economy.

[endtime]

Well that's not actually how games are decided these days. It's often something like "did Z have queens blocking his ramp before the blue flame hellions got there?" or "did P get scout the tech lab on the starport and put down a robo in time?", even at the pro level. A lot of other games end with a two-base timing attack (e.g. fast blink stalkers). Good games will have some eco harass, but more along the lines of dropping 8 marines and killing several workers, or totally taking out an expo with infested terrans. I don't think I've ever seen a single worker kill be significant, or even multiple instances of similarly small magnitude. The APM and attention it costs to harass often isn't worth killing a single worker.

There's a lot of depth to SC2, but I think it's a mischaracterization to say that it's a game of such tiny advantages, at least at the level it's played today.