StarCraft

[Zero]

LOL i havent played starcraft in 4-5 years until recently.... We had a 4 ppl LAN party where we quickly got bored of Warcraft 3 and decided to play starcraft out of the blue for old time sake.

one thing i noticed after playing FT is that no next idle worker thing is pretty damn useful. And presence of no hero and no creep makes the first 10 min of the game play pretty boring. Unless ur rushing...

We played:

2v2 BGH (BW)
4 FFA BGH (BW)
1v1 ladder (BW)
2v2 ladder (BW)
1v1 ladder (SC)

except for BGH games, I played all zerg. Thats been my main race since all the protoss rage back in the late 90s.... and thru all kinds of patches tweaking hatcheries spawning pool et cetera...

Zergs IMO are too good. cause they have everything that I value in good RTS race. cheap scouts and mobility. Nydus in late game own when you're managing multiple expansions. zerglings burrowed in early to late game can give you intel well worth the measel 25 minerals that they cost (they cost 50 for 2 so its practically nothing) Oh and not to mention blizzard has had long hard time balancing the zergs air unit, despite lacking real heavy flagship class like the other 2 races.... The devourers and lurker are just nice addition to overcome 2 key weakness of the race that already has a sweet system.... i love the hive!~

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Zero

one thing i noticed after playing FT is that no next idle worker thing is pretty damn useful. And presence of no hero and no creep makes the first 10 min of the game play pretty boring. Unless ur rushing...

Yeah, standards have moved on in this regard. Though the classics with this fault (SC and AOC) have already claimed their place in gaming history modern RTS games for the competitive circuit are more towards the TFT end of quick starts. Even AOE3 I hear, though I haven't played it.

And zergs are balanced. All are balanced in BW.

[Elok]

Well, now I'm struggling through Zerg mission 8...like I said, I'm not a terribly good player. Mission eight, for those of you who've forgotten, is the one where you have to guard the three portals to keep any of the Dark Templar from escaping and, at the same time, wipe the Protoss bases off the map. It was thoughtful of them to make the lower beacon basically indefensible by sandwiching it between the two enemy factions, plus surrounding it with unbuildable terrain.

That way you get to struggle continuously to pile up enough units at the beacon to form a good defense against the constant zealots and dragoons, then weep like a little girl when they psionic storm the whole heap, instantly killing any hydralisks who've sustained any damage at all (and butchering the zerglings regardless of damage). Hydralisks will of course fight back, but the genius AI has them do it from inside the storm instead of hurrying to get the hell out.

Since the terrain is riddled with cracks, you can't even build up defensive structures to hold the fort while you rush reinforcements in to replace the ones that get stormed to death. Well, you can build maybe one sunken colony in the area; I tried. It held the fort long enough to be reavered. So much for that idea.

If you try to have Queens ready to broodling the Templar, they'll be chased away or killed by Scouts. Mutalisks are decently effective as guards, but their cost will force you to channel all your resources into defense rather than development. And then, if you manage to hold the beacon for an adequate length of time, the enemy will acquire Archons and butcher everything...I'm gradually beating them back, but it's damnably frustrating.

[Whoha]

The easy answer to that level is to take out the teal base early(the earlier you kill the ai the less of your minerals he can mine). I just took out teal, I have 1 ultra/4 hydras an ol at top left and bottom beacons. 2 hydras/2 lings and an ol at top right. 2 sunkens at both top positions, and I used the 3 hatcheries I started with to pump troops(hydras/lings a few ultras to 80 supply with miners) to take out teal.
I also moved Kerrigan to bottom.

teal has lots of reavers though, so you'll need to rush in and kill them, as well as the robotics bay(an ultra will be quite helpful here).

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Elok
Well, now I'm struggling through Zerg mission 8...

Build twelve hydralisks early and then (using nydus for quick transportation) attack the Protoss outpost in the north, and the one above your southern hatchery quickly after each other. Lightly defended, and you get two vespene gas mines. Then your gas problems are over and you can evove towards Guardians. After getting twelve guardians the game is always over with the Zerg.

I managed to build a hatchery, nydus channel and sunken colony next to the southern beacon btw. I had one psionic storm attack on that southern beacon (before I had queens ). Fortunately I had saved right before it. It took a few tries for me to win without getting my entire force slaughtered, but I managed to saw it through by letting one of those initial Ultralisks storm the templars (followed then by the rest). With their 400 HPs they can survive a psionic storm or two cast right on their heads. Also burrow a zergling somewhat to the southwest of the beacon, so you have advance warning of incoming templars.

[DrSpike]

Bejesus, the game is almost 8 years old and people can still post specific advice on levels. The mark of a true classic.

[GeneralTacticus]

Note: I haven't played against human opponents in years, so all of my advice is geared towards defeating the AI. Also, all of this assumes you're using Brood War.

The Campaign AI does, indeed, suck. And a good thing too, because it starts off with all its bases prebuilt and an absolutely ungodly amount of resources to use against you (~30 000 minerals and gas, IIRC). If it could use them at all sensibly, you'd be buried under the weight of their numbers within the first two minutes.

The skirmish AIs are a rather different matter. While they do have certain patterns that can be exploited to beat them (in particular, they still send periodic attack forces to their deaths, although at least they're larger than in Campaign mode), they're much more aggressive, and they actually expand. Their defects don't really start to show until the late-game, when all the spots have been taken and everyone who's still alive has set up more or less impenetrable defences (that being why they're still alive). At that point, they slowly dritter away their resources sending waves of troops into the meat-grinder until they run out completely.

Speaking of which, I'm a big fan of overkill when it comes to defences. Playing as Terrans, I tend to line the edges of my bases with missile turrets - no gaps if I can help it, just a solid ring of turrets. Practically nothing that flies within range survives, so the only threats are Guardians and things of that nature, which I deal with using Valkyries or Wraiths. This is also a handy way of bleeding the Zerg of resources, since they will frequently fly Overlords into range to scout or drop troops in, but since they will inevitably die before they can land, they're just wasting their money. With Zerg, you can do about the same thing with Spore Colonies; in theory, Protoss Photon Cannons should work about the same, but I don't play Protoss very much, for reasons I'll explain below.

When it comes to ground defences, I go even more overboard. Any chokepoints near my bases will be plugged by two or three bunkers filled with Marines (and sometimes a Firebat or two, if I'm expecting Zerg or Zealots), backed up turrets, several SCVs (to repair damage), Medics (to heal the SCVs and the occupants of any bunkers that are destroyed), and, most importantly, a battery of anywhere from six to twelve Siege Tanks, who will sit there in Siege Mode and reduce anything within range to bloody paste. The AI finds it almost impossible to break this defence, and will waste vast numbers of troops trying.

With Zerg, I do something similar with Sunken Colonies. I often build them in a kind of semicircle in front of a chokepoint, luring enemy troops into a killing ground where they can be attacked from all sides, and, since you need Creep Colonies to build a base anyway, I create as much depth as I can; even if the outer defences are broken, there's still a lot more the enemy has to deal with. Lurkers make excellent additions to this, being invisible when burrowed and absolute murder on closely-packed troops.

With the Protoss, however, such a strategy is very difficult, so I tend not to play them. They have no equivalent to a bunker, they can't repair their buildings, and their closest equivalent to a Siege Tank - the Reaver - requires continual reloading, consuming both minerals and attention. Whereas the other two races can be basically left to run on automatic and kill anything that approaches, a Protoss defence requires constant management. When I do play Protoss, I favour a much more offensive strategy. involving Zealot rushes, High Templar attacks on enemy workers, Reaver drops, Carriers, etc.

When it comes to Terran offensives, I have three major strategies I like; which one I use depends on my mood at the time.

1) Siege Tank steamroller. Get together a dozen or Siege Tanks (NOT the ones defending your base - leave them there and build more). Add some SCVs and Goaliths for support, and maybe a Science Vessel. Build dropships to carry them all. Find somewhere near an enemy base to drop them - high ground is ideal. Have the Goliaths hold position, while the tanks enter Siege mode and demolish everyhting within sight. When they're done, move them forwards (by dropship or on their own, as appropriate), and repeat. Carry on untile very enemy base in rubble.

2) Battlecruiser fleet. Pretty self-explanatory. Build a dozen or more Battlecruisers, send a Science Vessel to support them, and get killing. If you start taking serious damage, retreat to base for repairs, and try again.

3) Nukes. Build a bunch of Command Centres solely to add missile siloes to them. Build nukes. Build Ghosts to fire them and Dropships to transport them. Cloak the ghosts, and start nuking. Best effects can be achieved by sending one pair of Ghosts to nuke a base's defences (which typically hold its detectors), then sending another pair forward to sneak into the middle of the base and hit something vital.

With Zerg, I have another three favoured strategies, although Zerg units are cheap and dispoable enough that you can use several at once.

1) Zergling swarm. Get every possible upgrade for Zerglings (Adrenal Glands are VITAL), and start spawning them in batches of 12 or 24. Attach each group fo 12 to a hotkey, burrow it somewhere where it can get out of the base, and keep spawning. Once you have enough (and by "enough" I mean at least 100), select them by hotkey, unburrow them, and send them to attack an enemy base. Yes, they'll attack in long columns, and the ones in front will be slaughtered - but they'll buy time for the ones behind, who will shread just about any defence you can imagine, and rip the enemy base apart. Even if they fail to completely destroy it, they'll elave it wide open for the next wave.

2) Ultralisk rush. Similar to the above, only with Ultralisks, hence you need less - 12 should do. Get them full upgrades, mass them, and hurl them at the enemy. If you want to be really cruel, mix an Ultralisk rush in with a Zergling swarm.

3) Guardians. Assemble at least 12, back them up with Devourers and/or Mutalisks, and have them start obliterating enemy bases. They have a sufficiently long range that no building will hit them, and in such numbers, they should be able to destroy any ground unit that approaches them. Air units can be dealt with by their backup.

EDIT: Wow. That was long. Mind you, it is about the sum total of my tactical and strategic knowledge of Starcraft, so I'd be worried if it were any shorter.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Bejesus, the game is almost 8 years old and people can still post specific advice on levels. The mark of a true classic.

Playing that level the day before Elok asked that question helped a lot.

[Elok]

Oh, so you have to play super-aggressive right off the bat. I actually said "screw it" and went on to the Protoss missions so I could be the guy using the Archons instead. As I suspected, I like playing Protoss more than Zerg. A few powerful units are much more fun than hordes of expendable vermin, plus they have the advantage in support and infrastructure (best "tower," best transport, best worker, best mobile detector unit). Now, I'm only on mission four, so I've only seen half of them, but they're still fun.

The Reavers' scarab thing is annoying, I'll grant you that, but if it's a choice between Reavers who have to reload, siege tanks that have to constantly switch modes, and Guardians that....uh....are horribly slow just like the Reavers but can't be transported and have a relatively weak if long-ranged attack, it's pretty much even. Reavers just have to be used differently IMO. They're offensive blitzkrieg tools.

For defense, arcs of photon cannons work fine for me, provided they're backed up with zealots (and especially if those zealots are backed up with a shield battery). Or an Archon, of course. No broodlings or most other spell-spamming, and it's hard to drown them in cheap units (the most recommended tactic for whacking Archons other than EMP) when they're sitting next to four or so photon cannon. Against science vessels, well, I haven't run into them yet. I expect I'll wind up crying like a little girl when I do.

[Whoha]

ha, this reminds me of the first time I did the norad 2 crash level. I didn't kill any of the zerg, rather, I built 30 dropships, put raynor in one, put that dropship in the center, saved the game, and sent all 30 past the spore colonies to the trapped ship.

and consider yourself lucky, you won't really face emp in the campaign. Plague on the other hand will hurt a lot.

[GeneralTacticus]

You don't need to worry about Terrans in the Protoss campaign at all, in fact. In Mission 5, you'll run into some if you explore the top right corner of the map, but they're just a distraction from the Zerg, and you can complete the mission just fine without ever encountering them. The rest of the time, Terrans will appear only to fight on your side.

[Elok]

Yeah, I'm on mission five now. I think I'm doing it the "hard" way, just for fun. Sure, I could just blast the one Zerg faction and take Tassadar there, but it's more educational and enjoyable to just take over the whole map. I control the whole top half now.

I don't have sound, but I assume Duke was upset about my destroying his missile turret? If so, that's hardly fair, the thing was shooting at me and I just wanted to get to the minerals he wasn't using. Doesn't matter, I guess. I was surprised how quick his group went down. Four or so photon cannon, four Scouts, and an Archon versus about eight Wraiths and a Battlecruiser, and all I lost was a Scout and one cannon. Actually, that's about 250 damage per volley, plus the Archon's splash, but I'm still used to Terrans being more formidable. I think the Zerg's periodic futile attacks tend to be almost as painful.

[Whoha]

can you turn subtitles on?

[Elok]

Originally posted by Whoha
can you turn subtitles on?

If so, I haven't found the option. All that's listed are game speed, mouse sensitivity, stuff like that.

[Whoha]

It is, perversely enough, in the sound menu.

[GeneralTacticus]

Originally posted by Elok
Yeah, I'm on mission five now. I think I'm doing it the "hard" way, just for fun. Sure, I could just blast the one Zerg faction and take Tassadar there, but it's more educational and enjoyable to just take over the whole map. I control the whole top half now.

I don't have sound, but I assume Duke was upset about my destroying his missile turret? If so, that's hardly fair, the thing was shooting at me and I just wanted to get to the minerals he wasn't using. Doesn't matter, I guess. I was surprised how quick his group went down. Four or so photon cannon, four Scouts, and an Archon versus about eight Wraiths and a Battlecruiser, and all I lost was a Scout and one cannon. Actually, that's about 250 damage per volley, plus the Archon's splash, but I'm still used to Terrans being more formidable. I think the Zerg's periodic futile attacks tend to be almost as painful.

The (very brief) conversation between Duke and Tassadar goes as follows:

DUKE: Protoss Commander, you are in violation of our airspace and have endangered human lives in your reckless attack against the Zerg. I order you to withdraw your ships immediately. If you fail to comply, I will not hesitate to open fire upon your vessels.

TASSADAR: General Duke, I am Tassadar, and you are well-known to me. Whatever leniency I extended to you and your brethren before, may have been in error. If you persist in halting our course, we will burn your pathetic fleet down to the last man.

DUKE: I'm gonna have to assume that was a hostile response...

[Frankychan]

Originally posted by Elok


Yes, I think you use the + and - keys to regulate the speed of events.

I'm enjoying the Zerg more now that I've discovered the fun of building a dozen Zerglings at a time. All those hopping little vermin attacking in swarms... The Hydralisks too.

This is where the infamous "Zerg Rush" comes in to play. When you got 25,000 zergs bum rushing you and you're still trying to get enough minerals to pump out a harvester.

BTW, StarCraft? Excellent game. They's best be pumping out a SC2.

I'm currently hooked on Age of Mythology. Hades and Kronos rules!

[Elok]

In the Sound menu...thanks! I think I'll be taking a little break from it though. I've now come full circle and am being frustrated by the Protoss again, even though I'm playing as them myself too. Mission seven, I think it is. The one where they have Arbiters (and Carriers, but those are surprisingly non-problematic) and the player doesn't. You set up a strong defense, and about six of your Scouts get stasised at once, which allows them to start fighting again just as soon as the Reavers have finished leveling the base they were guarding. I've already figured out that I'm going to have to learn to play aggressively instead of defending and building up my forces, of course; I just feel like complaining right now to lessen the feeling I've got that I'm a bad RTS gamer. I think I'll get back to the game after I've made some decent progress on my novel.

[Barinthus]

Yep there are definitely subtitles. It's one of the first things I look for in a game.

[Elok]

Okay, finally on Protoss mission ten. Thanks for telling me about the subtitles, they do make the game more enjoyable. Now I see what was meant about Defilers making me cry. Against the Protoss, plague is a tedious annoyance at best, at least the way the computer uses it. Now that I've got Terran bases to defend too, though....I have to assume I'm just always busy when it issues the brief "under attack" warning (no sound), because I'm constantly returning to the Terran base to find all my turrets burned down and my bunkers almost there.

I'm wondering if I should bother with missile turrets at all though. Mutalisks are small (and thus take 5 damage), Guardians stay out of their range, and the Zerg can't mount attacks with burrowed units. They've shot down a few Queens, but Queens can't ensnare, parasite or broodling a bunker. Overlords always drop off troops well out of range, and on the rare occasions that the AI used Scourge against a base in the past defensive structures didn't do much against them anyway (besides, they only used the Scourge against my Protoss Carrier defense, before I learned to guard them with Arbiters...I don't use Battlecruisers for defense). Should I just ditch the turrets, folks?

I've already concluded that I'm going to have to learn to use Science Vessels, which I pretty much ignored while playing the Terran campaign. I bet the Ultralisk crowds won't stand up to gunfire so long when they're all radioactive. And that "big crowd of Guardians" tactic is just asking for it too.

[Whoha]

you should keep the turrets(bunker/turret combo), they are cheap, and they do 10 damage to mutas, not 5. they are also detection, so your ghost defense strategy and your defiler defense strategy will look alike.

[Elok]

They do 10? Everything I've read indicates that mutas are considered "small" by the game. Small=.25 damage from explosive missiles (normally 20)=5. Are they actually medium? It's hard to tell because the marines in the bunker are usually firing on the mutas at the same time, plus with the way mutas stack it's hard to select the one currently getting shot.

Against Defilers: the computer just burrows 'em out of my turrets' detection range. It faces the ordeal of having to unburrow, take two steps forward, cast plague, retreat two steps, and then reburrow instead of just popping in and out. I don't think the computer minds at all.

Cheapness: I'm playing the original missions, minus expansion pack or patches. They cost 100 minerals, same as an unmanned bunker, only they die a lot quicker because of their lower HP and inability to defend themselves against ground attacks. I'm not sure I wouldn't rather just spend a little extra and have a solid wall of bunkers. Since I have a surplus of gas in this scenario anyway (most of my gas comes from the Protoss base, which the Zerg have learned not to screw around with), I might as well pay for the Goliaths if I want special air defense.

I've already noticed a big improvement from abandoning the oft-suggested siege tanks in this particular mission; they shot each other and my bunkers as often as they shot the Zerg. I'd rather hurry for the Science Vessels and use Irradiate for crowd control.

[Whoha]

explosives do 50/75/100 to small/medium/large respectively.
concussive does 100/50/25.

and bunkers don't just cost 100, they cost the amount of the soldiers you put in them as well.

and yea the comp will burrow them outside of the turret range, which is why you put the turret way out in front so he cant get to any more valuable buildings.

another thing you can do is fight your way across the bottom and left sides of the map to get a probe to your terran base.

[Whoha]

Tanks work well enough for me. try a setup like this.

[Elok]

Heh, that front's not the one I'm concerned with. They give up trying to attack from there pretty early. It's the southern border of the base that gives me trouble, since it's not protected by a cliff. I gave up my latest attempt after realizing I'd forgotten to fortify the whole bloody border all the way across. They just snuck around the minerals and attacked the base from behind. The most obvious solution would be to wall it all the way this time, but that's a LOT of money and SCVs can only gather so much so fast. Given the scant minerals in Protoss-town, they're effectively mining for two sets of defenses.

But it looks like you didn't build any defenses there at all on your go. I take it you just rushed down to grab the southern cluster of resources and blocked the ramp there before they could attack the starting base? I didn't really consider that, just because it's my experience that you need overwhelming force to take and hold an area for long enough to establish defenses, and tons of resources to build those defenses, in addition to the command center, plus time for the SCVs to spend building it all...I automatically dismissed the concept as economically unfeasible at the beginning. Or am I just misreading the scale of the map? I haven't gotten anywhere near that far yet. Probably I'm trying to climb the tech tree too quick or something.

[Whoha]

I didnt grab it right away, I had Raynor's BC, and tanks on defense, but no bunkers or turrets just yet. and when I did block the ramp I didnt get that resource cluster until later. I expanded to both the spots next to the protoss base first(and put cannons over red's base, giving him something else to think about other then attacking the terran base). there are lots of resources around it actually. you do need to have a mobile defense until you fully secure that cliff.

[Elok]

Okay, I finally beat mission ten, and thus the original StarCraft missions. Hooray. I'm not sure why I had to revive this thread just to announce that, but I did.

I did abandon the turrets and tanks after all. Never missed 'em. The Science Vessels were more than enough for detection, and since the Zerg had no means of removing irradiation (and, in the expansion, still lack it, as I recall), a single dose of the stuff was a guaranteed eventual kill on a Guardian.

I just snagged the perimeter of the map one hot spot at a time, let the computer waste troops and energy destroying bases that had no resources left while I built up the active ones...and then assembled two dozen-ship fleets, BCs and Carriers. A single stabbing rush from the mineral bonanza spot in the SW corner annihilated everything straight through to the center of the map, including the Overmind. I was almost disappointed, really.

I do have to wonder, though, what the AI was smoking. At least towards the end. It made several failed attempts on my "rally point," so it knew the area was guarded by at least a dozen capital ships of both types, and had only a single Command Center and two Pylons on the ground behind them. Naturally, it assembled a mighty strike force of about eight Ultralisks and four Guardians. By that time I had the entire fleet built up and was just about to attack. Never have I seen such total slaughter. You couldn't even see them for the swarms of interceptors and laser blasts, and I didn't lose a single HP or shield from the Pylons, workers, or Command Center. What a staggering waste of resources...

[Barinthus]

Cheers to you!

[Elok]

Yeah, is it just me or is Prima's official strategy guide full of crap on more than one count though? It suggested that I would need MASSIVE numbers of troops....something like a dozen each of Marines, Zealots, Firebats, Dragoons, Tanks, Reavers, Scouts, Wraiths, Archons, Goliaths, BCs, and Carriers. Well, no, only ten of those twelve, just enough to assign one type of troop to each numeric hotkey. Enough troops that I would have to harvest the entire perimeter of the map. I find it difficult to manage large groups of infantry (and the computer uses Scourge very poorly, making air combat decidedly to my advantage), so I just did it my own way, but I decided to try and grab as many resources as possible, figuring I'd need a lot of whatever I wound up using. But of course, by the time I snagged all that stuff, the AI had already wasted everything it had on futile attacks anyway, so I gashed right through effortlessly with just the air force, about a quarter of the army size the book recommended. Is there some unwritten rule that all "official" strategy guides must suck?

[Whoha]

yes the guide is generally full of crap, but remember their goal is to get something out the door on day one, not wait for the actual strategies to come out.