It sounds like you're building a large army and using it to gain map control, but then are falling prey to things like drops and backdooring.
If you have map control your first thought should never be: Crush my opponent, as you're essentially sacrificing an advantage (map control) for an unsure victory (because he doesn't control the map doesn't mean he can't take you). Instead your thought should be: take the map. I think you'll find this change in philosophy will lead to situations where you have a much more powerful economy than him and you're able to kill him with attrition.
Now if you're falling prey to things like BD here is a quick check list for you:
- Are you scouting? an Observer should be the first thing you build out of Robo. If you don't go Robo, a Hallucination works just as well. Sometimes scouting means sacrificing some Zealots in a pointless charge to just get inside his base.
- If you're scouting, are you seeing it coming? Overlords on the edge of your base, Starport with Reactor + 3 Rax, all of these are indicative of certain strategies you should watch out for.
- If you see it coming, how are you responding? If you have map control that means you should be able to respond quickly. Shutting down these back door attempts is often a bigger victory than a straight up conflict
- Finally, Do you have map control? If you don't have map control that means he does, and if he's beating you with map control then your problem is not "how do I deal with a base trade?" but rather, how do I regain the advantage.
So there is no good answer to this question, or it would already appear in the larger build order questions on this site. Unlike the early game (which is well defined) mid to late game doesn't have an easy answer, and anyone who gives you a BO past 20 is a snake oil sales man.
Even in the Zerg question you linked the answer was: What ever feels best.
Let's look at some of the basic Protoss builds and how they progress:
4 Gate
Usually this build is very all-in, and you're banking on winning early. However, if you do enough economic damage with a 4 Gate, but don't win you can still be at an advantage. At this point if you pressure more you're going to end up against a higher tech opposing force and probably lose, so you can expand here and maybe add on a Robo or two more Gateways.
3 Gate
One of the great things people like to do with 3 Gate is provide pressure so that they can expand. This sets them up with a nice little force as they transition into the mid game. Once expanding there are some people who like to progress to 5 Gate + Robo, or 3 Gate + Double Robo, or even (recently) 3 Gate + Double Starport. There is even a nice 4 Gate + Robo to provide pressure so that Protoss can take a third expansion.
You probably notice a number of trends between these two builds, even though I picked two builds that could not be more different there were a number of important ideas:
- Your Production must be proportional to your Income. If you have less production than your income you need to have a plan for it (eg. setting up to expand). If you have more production than your income you need to be aggressive
- Don't over commit. When you're ahead, your number 1 priority should be to get more ahead (ie. expand)
- While you always need to tech (ie. Red Queen Hypothesis) teching takes time, so don't forget that in your calculations.
Now you'll notice that a lot of what's being discussed is Income vs Production and there are a couple tools you can use to help you out:
Remember: To get good at Starcraft you need to get good at Execution and Decision Making, not get good at following a road map.
Best Answer
No, there is no way to choose your nuke. They are launched in sequence. Meaning the nuke you build first gets shoot first.
This means you can choose the order before you build them, but you cannot change it afterwards.
Source: I opened a game, build 2 silos and tried everything to change the order. There just is no UI to change the order. I even tried to select 1 Ghost and 1 Silo while launching, still no effect.