StarCraft!

[Puma]

The original C&C rocked, I wasted quite a few weekends on that thing. Red alert was boring, I even tried it out on the SNES, and then I just forgot about the whole thing.

Starcraft was good, but better with Brood War, and awesome once things got evened out with the patches.

The only problem I had was that the protoss were way too strong in the late game. With a good set of carriers and a terrain barrier of some kind - nothing could stand in their way. If you managed to invade their base, you'd have a hard time killing their buildings - too much shield - unless somehow you managed to keep your tank count low so as to carry more units during the invasion.

The reason BGH is still played so much I think is that younger players love the fact that they can bunker up/ cannon themselves in and then punch out with a flood of carriers/devourers&guardians. Plus they don't have to go after new resources all the time. Bah, no taste for adventure.

Everyone also loved the toss because they were so much easier to manage than terrans and zerg, but I enjoyed playing terrans. I still hated their damn tech tree. It was so spread, and you could not count on one branch alone to overpower opponents like you could do with mass carriers, mass lings/hydra, etc. Those damn ghosts also took too long to regenerate their damn energy. OMG how I hated that part. Those lockdows were too damn expensive. On the other hand I loved those medics.
I stopped playing when school started, and tried picking up the game again one summer; but I got pummelled by BGH players game after game - it was rather depressing So I switched to use map settings games: cat and mice (before things got screwed with 1000 versions of it that made it too easy for the mice), and some insane version of starship troopers with music from the movie that drove one of my friends nuts. Those were fun times.
I don't think i'd play anyone anymore, somehow I have this feeling that I just suck at the game.

The original WC was awesome. I tried WC3, but it just wasn't the same, something about the game made it lame - I never even bothered to figure out what it was lol.
By the way, anyone here remember doom2? I wasted quite a few evenings on that one. We had a little apple network at school.

[Sava]

The only problem I had was that the protoss were way too strong in the late game. With a good set of carriers and a terrain barrier of some kind - nothing could stand in their way. If you managed to invade their base, you'd have a hard time killing their buildings - too much shield - unless somehow you managed to keep your tank count low so as to carry more units during the invasion.

nukes and EMP baby... nukes and EMP...

[Zero]

Originally posted by Sava
I dunno zero... beyond a quick zergling rush, protoss can cannon up and be formidable foes... it depends what type of units you focus on. Carriers with an arbiter can decimate anything.

for most strat talk, i was referring to Ladder games, so no. Carriers will never come out. Even if you teched to carriers, carriers suck so badly in ladder games.

plus, terrans have EMP against toss... so to say terrans are inferior to toss is wrong.

All races have all anti(race) solutions. Terrans have neat things like emp agst toss, zergs have sweet ass unit like defiler agst terrans. But one example rarely makes the whole picture. And in general, Zerg > Pro > terr > zerg. There are seldom ppl who think Pro > zer > terr > pro, and they can make legitimate claims about it because people can judge things differently when theres so much variable in a game like this that has so much variety....

But Pro > Zer? thats crazy IMO.. (explanation under)

I dunno about that setup... any race can kick the **** out of any race. In fact, as a zerg, I usually like to fight terrans rather than Toss...

Thats my favorite match up too. My friend used to be hardcore advocate of terrans. We used to battle out all the time. I plaguing terran bases~ But I still think Terr has adv over zergs even though I can win 50-50 agst him.

but zerg clearly > protoss. Toss cant expand as nearly as well as zergs. And zergs get their power from expanding and inhibiting opponent from expanding. And pros will have extremly hard time keeping up with zerg production power......

I've played every race using every strategy imaginable... I think there is a perfect, harmonious balance between the three.

There can never be a perfect balance in a game as complicated as this. Variety and attaining balance are at an inverse relationship to each other, meaning more variety game has, the harder it is to balance. To perfectly balance complicated game such as starcraft would not only be impossible, but also a waste of time. So yeah, there will always be imbalance that hardcore players will find and exploit. It's just that it would be really difficult and unclear as to how its imbalanced as game becomes more "balanced".


P.S. I dunno how recent patch will correct what i am saying though. I took a glimpse at all the balance changes and holy mother of god..... carrier/ultra/cruiser supply is now 4!!!!!???? Almost made me wanna install the game again to try out the new changes.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Azazel

Nah. not even close. Stealth tanks can ambush harvesters. Bikes are much worse at that,since you can send reinforcements, and ****.

[/q]

IIRC, Original C&C maps were small as hell. Recon bikes were about equivalent to Chronosphere in Red alert in speed.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Puma
The only problem I had was that the protoss were way too strong in the late game. With a good set of carriers and a terrain barrier of some kind - nothing could stand in their way. If you managed to invade their base, you'd have a hard time killing their buildings - too much shield - unless somehow you managed to keep your tank count low so as to carry more units during the invasion.

And this was in BGH games? normal/ladder games? I don't know just how much SC strategy has evolved since I played... but heres what I know.

If you're losing to a late game toss w/ carriers your doing something wrong. Odds are he has more expos and better recon than you. Protoss are the hardest to expand with, so if you're losing agst protoss that badly, odds are he's just outplaying you by expanding so much better.

If its a BGH game, well terrans get rally jipped... cause you cant abuse outproduction outresourcing as one of your advantage as much in this game... Terrans do have some really good BGH units.. Ghosts are good for nuking and lockdowns. (build about 12 and you can lock down an entire air fleet) Watch out for corsair if ur going air VS air. You really have no solution and valks dont do nearly as good job as corsairs awesome splash dmg...

Pros can rush really well in BGH, but it usually requires them to drastically change their play style. So its either rush or late game for pros. Theres no inbetween. So if theyre not rushing, they can be vulernable to quick rush. Go with quick rush with marine, medic and firebat and scout. If it seems improbable add a tank quickly and you might be able to cripple enough to outproduce him the entire game.

[Az]

Originally posted by Zero


IIRC, Original C&C maps were small as hell. Recon bikes were about equivalent to Chronosphere in Red alert in speed.

[JellyBean]

Starcraft was the first RTS game I know of with three distinct [1], balanced sides. [2] Command & Conquer and Red Alert were a bit less certain in their balance [3], and the first two Warcraft games had sides identical apart from spells and a few minor upgrades. To be honest, I find the races in Warcraft 3 a bit too similar, particularly with the Frozen Throne expansion. For example, the night elves were noteworthy in the original version for not having a simple front-line tank - so, in the expansion, they gave them one, erasing another distinction between the races. I also think the game is a bit too complex - with seventeen heroes with four powers each, and about three spellcasters with three spells each per side, there are around a hundred different spells/abilities that you have to learn the effects of if you want to play competitively.

Lately, though, I've been enjoying Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour. [4] The sides are about on par with Starcraft in terms of the difference between them, although the balance could still use some work. Some of the generals [5] are substantially underpowered, and see almost no use in multiplayer games. Still, there are enough reasonably strong generals to have a fun and varied game. It may not be quite as good as Starcraft, but since my friends refuse to play that anymore [6], it's good enough.

[1] I love the way that each race has a form of artillery so different in style to those of the others.

[2] I'll agree that there is a slight paper-scissors-stones imbalance as others have described, but it's narrow enough that the effect is swamped by either player skill or just plain chance.

[3] In the version 1.18 patch of Command & Conquer, the price of Nod turrets was increased from $250 to $600. This suggests that they were seriously imbalanced before the change, after it, or both.

[4] Game names with two colons in them should be taken out and shot.

[5] Variations on each of the sides, with some advantages and restrictions.

[6] (After I beat three of them.)

[Jethro83]

Starcraft was indeed a classic and even maintains its place on the hard drive of my old computer. The only problem I have with it (also with Warcraft III and Blizzard in general) is the state Battle.net is in.

I just completely gave up on it. I go online to have a decent game, to have fun (of course win/lose is irrelevent to that so long as I had fun). Instead I see too many idiotic 14 year olds hurling verbal abuse and abusing a certain imbalance of a particular unit.

Age of Kings and Age of Mythology were much better to play online.

[MattH]

Age of Kings and Age of Mythology were much better to play online.

Are you kidding about AoK? Remember Castle Rush? Tower Rush? Town Hall Rush?

RoN seems to be the current peak of RTS gaming. It is in a 'mature' state- made by designers who know what pitfalls to avoid and what to develop.

[Zero]

Jellybean, WC isnt complex at all. Its too simplified actually.

WC is basically SC 1)minus 100 supply point, 2) scrub friendly auto cast system and other better micro management system.

And no WC hasnt been dulled by FT. Even though every race has same type of "class" of units now, They function very differently. You cant compare aboms to MGs or taurens... They come to play at different times, they have very different sp. abilities and have different HP, dmg, armor etc... Besides, its not like they didnt have a tank at all in original WCs. Ppl used to use werebears as tanks IIRC. Im not so sure about how elves are played in FT cause Im a scrub at Warcraft.

[DrSpike]

WC3 doesn't require less micro just because there are less (more powerful) units..........in fact having laddered on both games a fair bit I'd say WC3 is a more interesting game. Many prefer the way the action starts almost immediately and the introduction of hero micro.

And the races are as dissimilar in terms of playstyles as those in Starcraft.

[Zero]

Originally posted by DrSpike
WC3 doesn't require less micro just because there are less (more powerful) units..........in fact having laddered on both games a fair bit I'd say WC3 is a more interesting game. Many prefer the way the action starts almost immediately and the introduction of hero micro.

And the races are as dissimilar in terms of playstyles as those in Starcraft.

WC3 isnt a less sophisticated game. But it requires less managing, which frees up your ability to multitask/concentrate. That allows you to play a better game by focusing on other things better. That's what I didnt like I said. The fact that everyone plays better than they should. A bit snobby leetish thing to say. Even I said few posts ago that this is a good thing. Im just being sour cause what I know as being the gap in leet player and scrub has be shortened.

I also prefer the immediate action introduced. Hero rush is the greatest thing that has happened to RTS gaming. Blademaster pwnz so hard!!!11!!1!!!

[DrSpike]

I agree with most of that analysis of how the games compare, but I don't see how you draw the conclusion that there is a bigger difference between good and bad players in SC. Good player plays bad at WC it's over with an early rush, or at least after the first battle if the good player doesn't want to rush.

[Zero]

No. Not there is a bigger diffrence in SC. There is a bigger difference in what i know to be the difference between good and bad players.

Im just being sour cause what I know as being the gap in leet player and scrub has be shortened.

I dont know if that makes it clear...

anyway moving on.. (cause it was just a pointless rant from an old sc player)

[DrSpike]

Ok I see. So maybe you should play more WC3. What lvl are you btw?