============================================================================== Kronikle's StarCraft Brood War Strategy Guide v3.5 ============================================================================== ___ _____ _ ____ __ ____ _ _____ _____ / /|_ _| / \ | \ / \ | \ / \ | ___||_ _| / / | | / \ | |> \ / /\ \ | |> \ / \ | |__ | | \ \ | | / /_\ \ | / / / \_\| / / /_\ \ | __| | | \ \ | | / /___\ \ | |\ \ \ \ __ | |\ \ / /___\ \ | | | | / / | | / / \ \ | | \ \ \ \/ / | | \ \ / / \ \ | | | | /__/ |_|/_/ \_\|_| \_\ \__/ |_| \_\/_/ \_\|_| |_| DISCLAIMER BEFORE READING ANY FURTHER IN THIS GUIDE, READ THIS 1) I, Ryan Kurlish (Kronikle), the author of this guide, am not in any way liable for harm that came from reading this. 2) If you are to use some of the strategies in this guide, you must at least give me partial credit. 3) This guide may not be sold. If any companies want to buy this I must get part of the money and must be first informed. In no ways may anyone make money or any kind of profit off of this guide without informing me and getting my approval. 4) I allow permission for websites to post up this strategy guide if you e-mail me and I say it's fine (I usually do). 5) In no way at all may anyone steal and/or take credit for writing this guide. Including taking sections of this guide and not giving me due credit. Appropriate legal actions will be taken upon breach of this disclaimer. END OF DISCLAIMER --------------------------------------- Note, I deleted quite a bit from my last version. and changed quite a bit too. Some chapters aren't even in this guide. It's all for the better. I removed All of the really newbie sections such as "Computer Killing" and "Awards Section". What I want you to do is read Chapters 9, 14, and 24. Those are updated. Chapter 24 is a new chapter of another guide I wrote and was planning on posting on gamefaqs.com but apparently I decided just to post it here. --------------------------------------- 1. Introduction 2. Version Changes 3. Race Overviews 4. General Strategies 5. Multiplayer 6. Terran Units and Buildings 7. Zerg Units and Bulidings 8. Protoss Units and Buildings 9. How to win 10. Terran Strategy 11. Zerg Strategy 12. Protoss Strategy 13. **DELETED** Computer Killing **DELETED** 14. Winning on Lost Temple 15. Kronikle's Most Useful Strategies 16. Cheats 17. Secrets (glitches included) 18. Learning Center 19. Miscellaneous 20. Campaign Editor Creation Guide 21. Campaign Editor Idea Guide 22. Other StarCraft Games 23. Other Strategy Games 24. Psychology and Starcraft 25. Credit ============================================================================== 1. Introduction ============================================================================== If you have e-mailed RyanK55@aol.com about StarCraft from an internet account, I couldn't read it. Now e-mail Kronikle@hotmail.com. My old e-mail address is RyanK55@aol.com. I hate AOL. But now I got a new one! My new e-mail address is Kronikle@hotmail.com. E-mail me strategies, corrections, or hints. Title the subject "Starcraft Guide", that's how I know it is not trash and I will not delete it immediatly. I go online about 10 times a month or more. You can also tell me strategies, hints, tips, or errors in this guide, just not anything stupid or not involved with StarCraft. Besides, how many people are actually reading this guide? I am Kronikle, the maker of this strategy guide. This is my first one. I will not be updating this too often. I really don't know too much more I can add. I'd be suprised if the versions go past 3.0 because each of my updates contains so much more info then the last. I don't know what to add next! Don't expect me to put up a guide on each mission, cause 1, this is a STRATEGY guide, and 2, I simply don't have enough time. Ive noticed lately ive been somewhat of a hypocrite on this. I mean I write stupid stuff here like Award Section and Other Strategy Games. Pretty much unrelated crap. So dont spam me about this im sorry but im still not giving strategy on the missions. I have never been beaten by any of my close friends and after awhile 7 Comps Melee (I can easily take out 7 comps in free-for-all). I still don't consider myself a master or god of StarCraft. On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the master, I am about a 8. But there are some pros that can beat me in a hearbeat! Everyone is Zerg and you build sunkens all around the bases. That is the cheapest way. I am using Battle.net much more. My name is changing constantly. My AOL Instant Messenger name is Kronikle66. You can challenge me anytime when I'm on Aol Instant Messenger. Actually if you want REAL training, do 10 public 1v1 Lost Temple games in a row. If you win all 10 of those, you probably dont need the training :P. But whenever you lose, watch the replay and see what you did wrong, and how you could've improved. If you think you are a StarCraft god and have never been on Battle.net, then you are not even close to being god. Battle.net will teach you so many new things and how to improve old things. Another way of training if you are multiplayer lacked is on custom maps. Choose 3 opponents, 1 of each race. Then, set your race to random. It's hard, espescially when you're trying a new strategy. For all of you who want to learn quick, goto the StarCraft University (in the credit sections), and take the classes. Once you've mastered a strategy that you can beat 3 comps with ease. Don't continue using the same strat. Try mixed strats. Zerg is the easiest computer race to beat. Terran and Protoss are the hardest! They strategically use Tanks to their advantage, they cloak their Wraiths, they Nuke, and their early swarm is 15 marines 5 Firebats and 5 Medics, while Protoss use Psi Storm twice, Statis Field to stop you, then Psi Storm some more! Their early rush is about 12 Zealots! I am writing this version for currently 1.10, the worst patch ever made. ============================================================================== 2. Version Changes ============================================================================== 1.0 - First release! 1.1 - Added Learning Center, Multiplayer, and Version Changes. Polished everything up. 1.2 - Added Miscellaneous, Race Overviews, Campaign Editor Idea Guide, and Other StarCraft Games. Made it easier to find chapters. Polished everything up. 1.3 - Added counters to the rushes. Added Campaign Editor Creation Guide. Changed e-mail address to Kronikle@hotmail.com. Fixed some typos and errors. Added a secret about a new mission. 1.4 - Added Super Annoyance trick. Got another e-mail address Kronikle218@aol.com. Added some more in the Intro. Added Set Rally Point in General Strategies. Added more in Campaign Editor Creation Guide. Added Kronikle's most useful strategies. Added tons of other stuff. 1.5 - Fixed a few typos. Added tons of stuff. I add too much to remember. Added Award Section. 1.6 - Added Ascii Art and some additional crap. I renamed the the "Strongest Rushes" to what they are. I fixed some errors. I added a few more build order strats. 1.7 - PsychicProdigy gave me a Zealot Rush and a few errors to fix. I added a few more stuff to random sections and of course, fixed some errors. 1.8 - Changed some strats around to make them more non-money map related. Added more counters to each race. 1.9 - Added correction by Supremal. Added a few more stuff to learning center. Added more stuff everywhere i think. 2.0 - Added How to Win section and fixed intro. 2.1 - Added "and Buildings" to the race units section. 3.5 - Got rid of several sections. Changed almost every section is some way. Added Psychology and Starcraft section. ============================================================================== 3. Race Overviews ============================================================================== Terran ****** Pros Build anywhere Basic attack unit is long range Basic attack unit can attack air Mechanical Units and Buildings can be repaired Liftoff The Nuke Longest attacking range unit the Siege Tank Battle Cruiser Great Defense EMP Shockwave Some Cloakable units Medium to Strong Mid-late game units Medium early game units Cons Too much space taken up Buildings on fire get HP taken away A lot of units are useless without abilities A lot of units can't be created without addons Zerg **** Pros All units are made in one building Units can be made by the threes Everything is cheap Immune to mechanical only spells Burrowing ability Regeneration of HPs No non-Zerg enemy can build in your territory if you have your creep Start with a flying Detector Extremely powerful early game Infested Terrans Enemies other than Zerg may not build on creep. Cons All buildings except hatchery must be built on Creep Drones must sacrafice their selves to create buildings Crappy long game strength No Capital Ship Protoss ******* Pros Shields Strongest basic attack unit Strongest units in game In my opinion, best spells Psionic Storm Carriers Arbiter, best cloaker Dark Templar Archon Ability to control all three races Photon Cannon best attack building Warp multiple buildings at the same time Best Scout and Spy, Observer Cons Expensive Slow Must build near Pylon Hardest to master No way to recover Life (not shields) Too many building requirements EMP Shockwave kills Protoss swarms instantly espescially when aided by Plague Terran Rely On Mixed Units to win. Zerg Rely On Mass Units to win. Protoss Rely on Power Units to win. Overall, if you are starting it is good to play as Terran. Then Zerg. Once you have mastered their basics try to learn about Protoss. My favorite race now is terran 1v1 because I can own in Lost Temple. My best multiplayer race is Protoss. I am currently improving with Zerg. ============================================================================== 4. General Strategies ============================================================================== Drops - One of the best strategies there are. A drop can be used with any race. A drop is when someone transports a deadly unit in the back or side of a base. If done correctly the unit will most likely kill off most/all of the enemy workers, more than likely putting them really behind. Not only can drops wipe out all the workers, they can also wipe out an opponent! Escort Drops too! A Shuttle with Reavers escorted by Scouts can help significantly in wether or not the drop actually works. Aiding a Shuttle while say Mutalisk come to attack the shuttle. Scouts will work those muts and you'll be able to continue your drop. The best drops are as follows: Terran - siege Tank in siege Mode - You must drop on hills or cliffs like in challenger or bgh. Ghost with armed Nuke - You drop, cloak and nuke either their frontline defense so ground units can come in, or use it to nuke every worker. Zerg - Lurkers - Drop behind mineral lines and burrow. Insta worker crush for people without detectors and most likely will work even if you have detectors. Protoss - Reaver - Drop and watch the 100 (maybe even 125) splash damage crush their workers and maybe even finish them off! High Templar - Only good on workers or grouped up units such as muts. Drop a few and hit all the mining spots to take em out. Dark Templar - Most people don't have detectors in back, so... If the enemy is Terran, hit straight at the ComSat Station if they have it. Drop Protection - It's not as hard as some might think just create a group of Scourges/Scouts/Wraiths and have them patrol your side entrances. That way, when the transport comes, they will easily blast down it. Also, placing lots of Spores, Turrets, and Cannons around your parimeter can almost every time, scare your opponent out of dropping. How to Successfully Drop - Ever try to drop from every little spot on the map, but it never seemed to work? Here's some help: First off, aid the drop with basic air units (Mutalisk, Wraith, Scout). Attack buildings and units automatically priortize the attackers if they are left to deal with by the computer. Second, drop while you launch your main force. Usually the enemy will send his forces to the air that is being attacked. Perfect for a drop. Third, Launch diversion attacks. Now, magic plays a role too: Terran - Defensive Matrix the Dropship. Protoss - Make lots of Hallucinations, Disruption Web a path. Zerg - Parasite a Unit to see possible entrances, Ensnare defending units. Alternate Drops - Instead of using the same old transport, you could always sneak units into the enemy base a different way. Zerg - Start a Nydus Canal at an enemy entrance (sneak drone at beginning to burrow in their base and you'll be able to find entrances. Protoss - Recall Terran - No Clue. Workers - At the beginning send your workers to seperate patches. Once you have all of your workers mining on different patches start another base. If it's gonna be a long game you should have 50+ workers for non-stop rushing. Allied Chat - A useful strategy. You can convince your opponents that you are going Zerglings and you can convince them to defend against that, while sercretly dropping Hydras from one side and mut rushing from another. Intentionally not use Allied Chat and give out false information. Show some truth by sending like 12 Zerglings. Start off with "So what's everyone going?". They'll be in allied chat and tell you. Follow it up with, "Cool! I'm goin mass Zerglings". Switch back to ally chat and explain. Outposting - I mostly see this with Terran. What it is is basically building a mini fort either at a choke point, or in the center of a map, or maybe even in the unexplored region of an enemy base. I also see people place outposts in the enemies entrance so he can't get out. A usual Terran outpost consists of a few Bunkers, a few missile turrets and tanks in siege mode. Protoss consists of Photon Cannons aided by a few Reavers, an observer, a High Templar, and maybe a few Zealots or Dragoons. Zerg have a hard time making outposts. The best for zerg would be starting another Hatchery outside and putting Sunkens, Spores, and Hydralisk with maybe a few Zerglings. If an enemy can't take out an outpost, you most likely have the win. Multiple Bases - If you are going mass units non-stop multiple bases are nessesary if you want to keep pumping if your current base does not have enough room. Multiple bases should be used for mining and gas collecting, or if you need more space. On most official maps the maps only have 1500 mins and 5000 gas, which you'll definetly need at least a second base unless you are doing a rush. Official maps (excluding bgh) have very few patches of minerals and one geyser all with limited amount. If you are playing a game with mass patches and geysers you probably dont need a second base. Once you have around 600 minerals left in a base, it is due time for an expansion. Cloak Detection - How many ways have you found out how to uncloak a unit? -EMP Shockwave to lower magic to make em uncloak (Wraith or Ghost) -Maelstrom -Acid Spores (Wraith) -Statis Field -Defensive Matrix -Detectors -Ensnare -Plague -Spider Mines sorta. Spider Mines will attack cloaked units. -Scanner Sweep -Waiting for energy to drop to zero -Splash Damage and Psi Storm (for damage purposes) My Perfered Rushes - Here are my top favorite rushes for each race. Terran - Tank Push - Move in with the tanks and when they come out, have your Goliaths and Wraiths or Valkyries show them the ropes.. Zerg - The Inferno Hydras - One of the best zerg rushes ever (in my opinion)! Hit em with 6 control groups of upgraded hydras in ten minutes. Protoss - Dark Templar Extreme - Unless the enemy is going strict air (and usually if they do), I can dominate them. Set Rally Point - This command is VERY useful. Say you click a Barracks and then you hit Set Rally Point. Then you move the cursor to where you want all produced units to come out of. It's espescially useful if you are non-stop rushing. You could set the Rally Point inside the enemy base. The Gas we Pass - If you are relitively new to StarCraft you must know how many workers should go to each Refinery, Extractor, or Assimilator. You should have 3 and only 3 at each gas extractor. If you have more the extras will just wait outside waiting for a chance to go in. If you have less than 3 workers, your gas flow will be drastically reduced (if that is your only gas extractor). Chris Lorden made a helpful note to me. I chose 3 only from experience on MOST maps. There are some maps where the vespene geyser is farther away than normal. Put workers on your geyser so that enough mine so that there is no time between workers waiting outside the geyser. Thank you Chris Lorden! When to Attack - Playing Defense isn't the best move. Say you are begining attacked by a strong army. You can leave that attack alone, defend against that attack, or you could send your forces attacking. Chances are, the opponent used a good chunk of his force. That leaves his base vulnerable. I see everyone out there trying to defend and afterwards try to rebuild. That is how I Nuke Rush. I have no defense and everyone just rebuilds what the nukes did. That gives me more time to launch again! Split Focus - Often, the only way to pull of a nice attack is if the enemy's defenses are gone. Say you had a nice Hydra force but the enemy has too many dragoons to deal with. Drop 8 Lings into the mineral line. Not only will that take out lots of workers, but it will also move your enemy's defense to the mineral field, giving you time to launch your attack. Spider Mines now land mines - Usually Spider Mines unburrow and attack any unit in the range of about 3. Now any non-melee unit can take out one of these before they explode on the enemy. If you blind them, as soon as someone walks over them, then they explode. This is also bad for you cause the enemy can walk around them. 1 at a time - When attacking in groups and defending against groups have your group always attack one unit at a time. It may seem unimportant but it certainly is. Imagine a group of marines attacking each different units. Now, imagine a group of units attacking the same unit. The ones attacking different units damage each of the units, but they are still attacking. The ones attacking the same unit get him out of the way leaving less enemies dealing damage to you, making you live longer and deal more damage. Training Trouble - When I said to train by putting your race on random and have three opponents of each different race, I meant in version 1.04 or higher. Below that, the comp is just way too easy. If you can't beat three comps, try 1 at a time until they can barely even touch you. Once you reach to three comps, you'll have to be fast and fierce! I built a defense with 8 Cannons and 8 Zealots very early, but the computer easily overwhelmed by triple-teaming with Hydras, Lings, Zots, and Marines galore. Playing opponents better than you are also a good way to train. Kill? - When you know you can eliminate an enemy don't hesitate to do it! Unless there are rules set at the beginning like "no rush for 15 minutes", take him out. However, if some other enemy is constantly attacking you and your offense is your only defense. Wait til the end of his last attack then send your fleet. I have learned a very effective tactic through-out my entire playing experience. Be agressive. Be the first to launch that attack. Be the first to drop. Non-stop swarming is essential. Free for all - Games like Free for all are sooo easy! Just build up a good defense and offense and just let the computers take eachother out. If they do for some reason attack you, their attack squad will most likely be weaken by the other comps. As long as you don't anger them, they won't bother you. Build up your army and when there are around 3 to 4 comps left that can't kill eachother, then you should attack. Protection - Don't just build protection at the front of the base. Make it surround your parimeter. You don't know what side he's gonna attack from (most of the time) if he uses air. Also, protect your mineral field in case of worker hunts or drops. Putting a little defense in the middle is not a bad idea, but it could get in your way. Trees - Most people don't even know what trees can do in StarCraft. They hide units. It's best to put small long-ranged units (Marine, Hydralisk, Dragoons) behind these because their long range can easily hit units without blowing their cover. Detectors don't cut it here. Cliffs - You can easily take the advantage on a mountainous map. All units on cliffs do what they do better than what the people on the ground do. Put up say a tank on top of a cliff. The tank can now see everything far away. Now say you put him in Siege Mode. If he attacks someone standing still they will not know where you are. They will run away. If they decide elsewise they will head towards the mountain. While on the ground they can not see what is above them unless they scale the mountain and reach the very top or have vision up there by some kind of air unit or something. Not only that, say you have a vulture attacking that tank, the vulture's attacks half of the time will miss. By then your tank could easily take him out. This can be countered if an air unit comes by. Choke Points - These are the connecters. They connect the bases or whatever. They are usually bridges but can turn the tide of war. If you block them off as well as you do your front-line defense usually noone can enter your base by ground (and if the choke point is huge enough and well protected, even by air!). For Terran block it off with Bunkers filled with 3 Marines and a Firebat, backed up by Siege Tanks, a few Ghosts if the big boys come in, and some Missile Turrets for detection and air protection. Zerg should mostly consist of Sunken Colonies with some Spores for air defense and detection added with tons of burrowed Hydralisk and Lurkers. Protoss uses Photon Cannons blocking entrance backed up with High Templars ready to Psionic Storm them. Don't forget Carriers. Basically, use these as outposts. Choke points can also be defeated. This is espescially easy with Zerg. Their Guardians can take out the ground forces from a far enough distance away. Send in about 5 Siege Tanks in Siege mode backed up with Valkyries. For Protoss mind control a heavy flying unit and send in some Reavers. Build Order - If you've done strategies a lot you should not rely strictly on build orders so much cause over time the enemy will know you're strategies and counter them. Also, you never know if the situation will be different and they actually attack before you are ready. Try to do long strategies with a sort of freestyle. Since I don't know what map you are using, if it is a short build order, it is better to do it freestyle. How to win long money map games - This strategy has almost never failed me since money maps dont take much skill to win at. It is the most effective long game strategy ever! First off, build TONS of workers, usually through multiple Nexus/CC/Hatcheries. Second, build tons of buildings that pump your units. Third, upgrade. While attacking, an important strategy: NEVER STOP! Pausing between attacks allows better defense to be built. Say I was Goon rushing. I send my forces and they do a good amount of damage before wiped out. If I sent back-up, the reinforcements would keep the army alive longer, allowing more time to build more reinforcements. Keep at it and you will win (most likely). I have seen a Zerg player max out on fully upgraded hydras, with at least 20 Hatcheries. He basically sent a maxed out swarm wiped out that player. He then moved the swarm to the next enemy and started taking him out when he finally took care of the attack. In minutes, he sent another maxed out swarm. He was gone. The point is, building around 60 workers allows for non-stop production, allowing you to build tons of unit pumpers, meaning maxed out population every wave. Having 100 workers means you can pump out non-stop Dragoons out of 40 Gateways and probably wipe out 4 players. Although I only recommend 60-70. Don't Be Scared - When Attacking with, say, Guardians and you see a Wraith come in stay there. Keep attacking! You'll do greater damage if you continue! If you decide to run say good-bye to that rush. It's best to scare, also, instead of being scared. What I mean is, attacking with your only Scout can convince your opponent you are going air and will get Valkyries/Corsairs/Devourers. Then just finish him off with Dark Templars! Attacking buildings - With structures like Photon Cannons, Sunken/Spore Colonies and bunkers, a lot of people will mass produce them for protection without units. The biggest problem with these is that they can't move, making them an easy target for Disruption Web, long-range units, or if the building specifically attacks ground or air only, use the opposite. I swear I see people all over who build about 40 Sunkens (with no Spores) or 40 Cannons. Then I see one Siege Mode tank take them out. An experienced player would use attack buildings mixed with units. A nuke in the center of a group of these buildings is probably enough, use Tanks, or Yamato Gun them. With Zerg, use Guardians. With Protoss use Reavers, or use Carriers (AI really only attacks Interceptors). Use them along with units. If I were playing a human I would only put up about 4 to 5 Sunken Colonies/Photon Cannons at most for early rush protection. Sometimes after a rush attack, the human may rely mainly on air. So then I would build some Spores about 8 all around and about 2 more sunkens. All together about 4 or 5 Photon Cannons (they have air and ground and not as much life as the colonies). I would also build up on units. If I was fighting computer, I would put up some more because they repeatidly perform the same rushes over and over until they get higher in the Tech Tree. The Terran Bunkers, now they are the best attack building. If someone's hitting you long range you can get out and attack them. Also, you can repair these buildings so they don't go down so easily. Parasite Detected - If you find a parasite on a unit, immediatly send it attacking. A parasite can mean the downfall of your base. They can watch your every move, prepare for an attack, and find a flaw in your defense (yet, so can map hackers >:|). Don't worry if computer casts it on you as they can see the whole map anyway, so it's basically useless. If you hide a unit in a bunker then you are fine. Medics can also use Restoration. Upgrades - Attack speed upgrades are usually the best. Certainly better than attack or defense. With capacity upgrades, you should always get them first. Don't Be Dissin The Comps - I ask some people how many comps they can beat. Most say that comps suck and they don't play against them. Yet right after they say that, the person declares a No Rush rule... (If you didn't get that, comps will rush anytime they want). Besides, Computers are hard when there are a lot of them all against you. Annoyance - In a very early game, you can send a worker by your enemies base and start attacking his buildings. Now, unless this person sends their SCVs to kill the worker, that worker's gonna take out the building. So the opponent sends his workers after it. Now, just run away! His workers will follow. If you go far enough it will tremoundously slow down their production. When they go back to working, start attacking again! :) Super Annoyance - If you want to slow down their production a lot, move a worker into his base and bulid a gas collector on his geyser! They will spend a while trying to take out the geyser with their workers! While they're busy, you could be building up a good rush. This strategy is effective with all races. You can rush easier if you are Protoss and you do this trick. ============================================================================== 5. Multiplayer ============================================================================== Multi player intro - I used to not use Battle.net much. My computer was VERY slow (66 mhz), but now I am using it often on a 400 mhz comp.! My new name is Dark_Kronikle or InTen$e_KroN. My old record was around 30-10-40 Now I know what everyone's thinking "I'm a dropper". Not really. 36 of those disconnects were from Gay-oh-hell (aol). The rest were from trying new hacks which I dont use now. You can challenge me anytime when I'm on Battle.net. I don't play ladder games for a few reasons. One, the speed is so slow. Two, I dont want to risk my damn 28.8 lines disconnecting on me. Three, I am not the best player in the world or even close, so playing on ladder is a big risk, on my outlook, such as people see a 900 ladder score and see me as a loser yet in melee they only see the average 5 stars. Records - When I see records like 400-30-50 I know that they always play ally against computer or have a hack to always win. The only reason I could ever think of people joining a 7vs1 comp stomp game would be to gain wins. I joined like two of them just to get my ten wins to play ladder. When I see records like 110-10-200 I know they are hackers and always disconnect before they lose. My friend online sambear has a 286-14-5 record and I know for a fact that he plays only against humans. I also know that he doesn't like non-money maps, but will own anyone on a money map. Someone I heard of (chanmanx I think was his name) has a record close to this 10000-20-210 Ladder Hall of Fame - I have seen people with over 500 wins and no losses or disconnects. This is... IMPOSSIBLE! These people must be really bored hackers/backstabbers/pansie rushers or comp stompers. Strategies - Some of my losses are by trying new strategies. Overall, I benefited from those losses. I learned what not to do next time. Eventually I perfected those strategies and now I have new awesome strategies in my arsonal instead of the same old capital ship rush or hydralisk rush. I tried the Cannon Rush for the first time and failed miserably. He saw my Probe. Now I have mastered it! I now know where to hide him, when to send him, and what to build first. I also learned the Arbiter Warp Attack, the Scout rush, the Reaver Drop, the Hydralisk rush, Mutalisk rush, Ultralisk, Zerlgling rush, Nuke rush (ghost rush), and the Tank Push. What I'm trying to say is try new strategies. If someone knows how to counter your capital ship rush, your screwed unless you know some different strats. Multi-Player Messages - If alliances are to be set within the game say something direct but not too mean to make him say no, just nicely be direct and ask a tough lookin player for an alliance. If they reject in a mean way, take him out first. If they say they are not sure, help them out. If they say yes but they sound fishy, don't rely on them much, they may be backstabbers, but if they are very helpful and nice later on don't worry much about their loyalty. If someone offers you alliance always accept. Sometimes acting like a newbie will be a good chance of winning! Yeah, say something like "How do you get those ships?" or "What do the colors on the map at the bottom mean?". This may work in 2 ways. One, they will feel pity for you and slaken their defense, or two they will bully you and send in light swarms, and once they see you were lying, kill that bastard! The funniest and probably best use for messaging is to get in a 2-vs-2 or 3-vs-3 game and set messaging to everyone. Then get a message to say "has left the game" and send. If my name was Master5, what will come up is "Master5: has left the game". This rarely works. It worked with my friend a few times. The opponent will most likely leave you alone now if you don't make any activity. Use this on big maps so they don't pass by you by chance. Set Messaging back to Allies. Explain you were just taunting. 95% of the time this wont work. True alliance - If all of your allies are playing Zerg or all your allies aren't playing Zerg, you might want to start a base within his base. If you have two bases controlled by 2 people you should have a very good advantage as long as there is enough money to go around. If you don't want to share then at least send in 1 worker in his base if you get overrun, so you can start up a new base, making sharing a last resort. Sharing should only be used on money maps (e.g. BGH). Team - For games like Team Free-for-all or Team Melee or anything team. You must cooperate if you even want a chance at winning. The fact that more than one person controls a single base is hard. One person can be a complete newbie who thinks hes god another can be an expert. The expert will be building the base right, but not to the standards of the newbie and the newbie would try to fix it and fail miserably. I recommend you be on the phone with the person you are playing with. If you can't then message a lot! (if you can). Dont get me wrong, team games ROCK!! You can have one person build defense, one build offense, one build workers, and one do something else releaving stress off you. You can also do stuff the other player(s) forgot, or fix a mistake you see. You dont need to pause cause your ally can take over. You can read about some of my team games in the Learning Center. Although, I often have problems, because I am teamed up with newbies. That just plain sucks when I hear the message "Not Enough Minerals" and they wait for enough to build the attack unit instead of a few more workers. Modifications - Don't distribute modified maps! Just create games with the real maps. Big Game Hunters for example. Many of the game creaters out there use modified BGH maps. Why would you need modified maps? Because they give 50,000 minerals and gas instead of 20,000? Ha! That's lame! 20,000 should be more than enough for at least 2 or 3 hours! Not to mention, people spend hours creating maps and thinking of new ideas and when people just backspace their name and put in their own, that pisses me off. Training - For all of you who have just begun starcraft and REALLY need training out there, I recommend you play a 2vs2comp games on random. Watch your ally and see his strategies. If he pulls off some crazy kick ass chit (yes I know what I spelled) then ask him how he did it and most likely he will tell. I learned a good deal of my strats by watching a person by the name of ComputerMaster. I think that was his name. He was the one who taught me the BattleCruiser rush, blocking your entance with Supply Depots, and he told me if I want to train I should play games on Random until I can win anytime with any race. This was when i first began. He most likely will not remember me. Team Attacks - I talked with a guy who's 44-0 on lost temple 2v2 with his friend. I asked him how, and he offered to game. Me and Jon were playing vs. him and his friend. Him and his ally both attacked Jon at the same time with a grueling M&M/Zealot/Goon combo. Needless to say he was out. Then I was stuck with the pressure of two people to deal with. I took out one person but the other one took advantage of my attack force not being there and finished me off. ============================================================================== 6. Terran Units ============================================================================== SCV - The strongest worker of the 3 races. Still this is just a worker. It has the ability to repair which is different. Marines - Longest range basic unit. Since it can attack both air and ground, these are actually ok. If you are going to mass produce these in mid games, research Stim Packs and have Medics backing the marines up. Although, in a one-on-one fight marines will lose against almost anything. Firebats - I have found Firebats only work really good on Zerg and OK on Protoss. These also have Stim Packs. When Zerglings or Zealots come in, Firebats are your ace in the hole. These guys have line splash damage. Against heavy armor, these attacks are reduced to 4. Medics - They are good with marine swarms. They have 3 spells, Heal, Restoration, and Optic Flare. Heal is the most useful and used. Heal automatically heals any in range organic unit 2 life per 1 energy very fast until they are completely healed. Restoration restores status. Optic Flare makes the targeted unit have a sight range of 1 and makes them become blind. If you ask me this is a lot more useful if you use it on a Spider Mine. Usually Spider Mines unburrow and attack any unit in the range of about 3. Now any non-melee unit can take out one of these before they explode on the enemy. If you blind them, as soon as somewhat walks over them, then they explode. Put Medics in the back line ready to heal. Have your marines use Stim Packs. The medics can heal them right after. Ghosts - I only use them for their spells because, lets face it, the time it takes to get ghosts, should be more than enough for all of your enemies units to be heavy weights, reducing 10 attack down to 2. 1) Personnel Cloaking - This is awesome! You can sneak in a base invisible (assuming there is no detectors). 2) Lockdown - This is the best strategy for Battle Cruiser/Carrier swarm prevention. It makes all non-biological units unable to do anything. It's better than statis field in the fact that you can actually kill the unit that is locked down. 3) Nuke - :-) This is best used with the help of their other 2 spells. The nuke is the strongest attack in the game (500 damage) and has the widest splash (about 6 spaces in every direction). The only problem with it is that nukes need the help of ghosts and they can only be created 1 at a time if you have only one Nuclear Silo. ***Ive recieved word from Supremal that the Nuke does either 500 Damage OR 2/3 of the units health, whichever does more damage. For instance a Command Center hit with a Nuke would be brought down to 500 instead of 1000. Thanks Supremal*** Vultures - Use them as scouts or for base defense. With defense, plant spider mines around the outside of your base. Spider Mines hit with an extremely strong 125 splash damage. Not only that, the mine chases you down. When a marine rush hits one of these, laugh. Vultures do fair to be useful in the beginning espescially against Terran, who mainly marine swarm. 20 Vulture Damage against light weight could be very useful. Siege Tanks - These are the bomb! This is the long range unit for the Terran and when in Siege mode the longest attack unit in the game! Their attack range (13) is farther than their sight (12)! Put them in Siege mode and they are unstoppable (almost)! They are awesome in base defense with their long range, splash damage, and powerful blasts. In offense, back them up with Goliaths and you got a nice team. Siege Tanks are, however, easily destroyed alone. An air unit could easily take one out alone or a quick Zealot or Zergling (something that attacks close up). Goliaths - Use them for air defense. Ground attack is a little too slow for me. A deadly combo are Goliaths backed up by Siege Tanks in the mode. Upgrade the Goliath's air attack and they can attack air from range as far as the Guardians'. Wraith - These would be a much better unit if there were no detectors (obviously). Their air-to-air attack is great but their ground attack... well it's not so good. Use their cloaking to defend your base if someone foolishly didn't add a detector in their swarm. Cloaking doesn't do much against mid/late Terran computer or any Zerg. The Terran computer uses the Comsat Station and the Zerg have that Overlord (very easy target for picking :]), not to mention Protoss have lots of Observers. Dropship - Simply a transport. Nothing special about it. This is the only transport where speed can't be upgraded. For strategies with it, defensive matrix it, if you are going for a drop. Science Vessel - A detector and spell caster makes a great combo. They have 3 spells: Defensive Matrix, EMP Shockwave, and Irradiate. 1. Defensive Matrix - This is awesome. The Vessel comes with this, and it makes any unit used on, have a shield that will prevent against damage lower than 260 (I don't know if the shield can wear down)! 2. EMP Shockwave - Really only useful on the Protoss. This drains shields and magic down to zero. Use it on Archons, as they are 97% Shields. 3. Irradiate - Only truly useful on Zerg. Hit a swarm. This damages the biological unit hit and every biological unit around it, along with making the units go crazy and start running off somewhere. Valkyrie - My favorite air-to-air unit. Upgrade maximumly (air attack first). 25 of these fully upgraded can take out 100 bunched mutalisks not upgraded. They hit about a 3x3 space. Most Terran players never use these. What a shame... Battle Cruiser - The absolute best air unit in the game. They are better than Carriers, because they have the Yamato Gun and they fire a hell of a lot faster! These can take out Photon Cannons in one hit if you use the Yamato Gun! Scourges are almost useless against 12 Battle Cruisers, unless they are heavily mass produced. The only flaws with the Battle Cruiser is it is slow in moving, EXPENSIVE, and is at the very end of the tech tree. Command Center - My favorite basic starting building. It has plentiful HP, makes SCVs, gives 10 supply (more than any other), repairable, has 2 add-ons, and can liftoff. The CC can add two additions to its side, a Nuclear Silo and a Comsat Station. The Nuclear Silo is for making expensive (200 minerals 200 gas 8 supply) Nukes, but the cost is often worth it when you hit the right place. Nukes MUST be fired from the Nuclear Silo, meaning if the Nuclear Silo is not there, no Nuke can be fired, even if one has already been built. Comsat Stations are more used than Nuclear Silos, because with these you can scan any area of the map you want every 50 seconds. This scan also acts as a detector which is VERY helpful. The comsat station is the best spy since it reveals a rather large area on the map for quite a while. I strongly recommend you control group this add-on! Barracks - This building makes all your infantry units, marines, medics, firebats, and ghosts. This can liftoff and repair (i'm gonna stop saying this because it applies to all Terran buildings). Supply Depot - These are used as a source for 9 more supply. These can also be used as a cheap blockade. Engineering Bay - This building gives access to missile turrets and is able to upgrade infantry weapons and armor with. Many pros use these as scouts inside an enemy base. Build it outside their base for a cheap 125 minerals and liftoff and move around their base. They'll survive awhile because of their high life, and you'll get to see what the enemy has. Missile Turret - A very fast, very cheap anti air building. This also serves as a detector. All in all, a nice building to lay a few around your base. Bunker - Hide up to 4 infantry units inside this sturdy building. If the conditions allow it, the units able to attack hiding in the bunker will attack. Refinery - Gas Collector for Terran. Academy - A building that unlocks Comsat Station, Firebats, Medics, and eventually Ghosts. You can upgrade Marine bullet range and the Stim Packs (recommended). Stim packs are awesome! I suggest you upgrade them and throw in some Medics for a strong combo. Factory - This is where most Lost Temple Terran players build their units. The Factory homes the ultra-fast Vulture, the extremely strong Tank, and the multi-purpose (mainly air defense tho) Goliath. These 3 units make up an incredibly strong team with spider mines thrown in. The Factory has a Machine Shop add-on that can be built immediatly. The machine shop researches and upgrades many things such as Spider Mines, Siege Mode, Vulture Speed, and Goliath air attack range. Starport - This is where the air units for Terran pop out of! In here you can make the versatile stealth fighter Wraiths, the dropship, the non-attacking but useful spell-carrying Science Vessel, the air-to-air fighter Valkyries, and the Terran capital ship the Battlecruiser! A Starport adds on to research Cloak for Wraiths and increase the Wraith energy capacity. Science Facility - The Terran Science Facility unlocks the Science Vessel, 2 of the Science Vessel's abilities, and an upgrade to the Science Vessel energy supply. You can add-on a Physics Lab or a Covert Ops. The Physics Lab opens the door to the strongest Terran unit, the capital ship Battlecruiser. In the Physics Lab you can upgrade the BC energy stroage maximum and the Yamato Gun. The Covert Ops opens the door to the most devistating attack in Starcraft... the nuke... well actually it unlocks the Ghost and 4 upgrades for him. The upgrades are cloaking, lockdown, maximum energy storage increase, and sight increase. ============================================================================== 7. Zerg Units ============================================================================== Larva - These are the core of the Zerg. If you have the right buildings, these can morph into any Zerg unit available (except for ones that must evolve e.g. Lurkers, Guardians)! Drone - The basic worker. Relies on mutating itself into a building, sacrificing it. Overlord - A pretty good non-attacking unit if ya ask me! It is the only supply holder that can actually move. Not only that, they are detectors too! So you start the game off with a detector and a flying scout! Use them in the beginning of the game as a scout (if the map is not too big). These guys are also your transport. If you are getting the crap beat out of you by someone, use your Overlord to pick up some Drones and move to an allies base or a safe spot in the map. Overlords are however the slowest air unit in the game and if not upgraded, the slowest unit in the game. Zergling - The quickest attacking ground unit in the game. They are very fast and for 50 minerals, 2 are produced making it very cheap. Fully upgrade these, and they can take out units and buildings extremely fast. These are great in mass swarms, when defending against tanks or when using Dark Swarm. Zerglings can burrow. Hydralisk - These are pretty damn good. Hydralisks are the most versatile unit in the game. They can attack air and ground quite fast, they can burrow, they have nice HP and decent damage with a nice 75 mineral and 25 gas cost. These get destroyed quite quickly alone. Unless you mass produce these by the 30s or more, don't rely on them so much for late attacking. Lurker - These are awesome! These are perminently cloaked when burrowed (of course, all units are cloaked while burrowed). They can use the hydralisk range upgrade to their advantage. They are very strong. They come with burrow. They are the Lurkers, the burrowed, portable sunken colony! (sorta) Mutalisk - Weakest air unit (besides interceptors). If I were to only use these units, I wouldn't even think of trying to win a long game with less than 40 of these unupgraded. Use these as worker hunters or produce these by the 50s and swarm! Even though these are the weakest air units, they are still pretty good mainly because of their speed and ability to attack mutiple targets at once. Early on they are very powerful. Guardian - Ohh... yeah!! These are awesome. They are like a Siege Tank in Siege Mode but airborne. These are out of the range of all the attack buildings, making them great on newbies (who only rely on attack buildings). They have an attack of 20 (unupgraded) dealing some heavy damage. The only problem with these are that they don't have any air support. Devourer - A cool air-to-air unit. So slow in attacking, though. They do have a useful ability, their Spores slow down the enemy's firing rate down 1/8. The coolest thing about this is that the spores on an enemy can build up, but are not perminent. Scourge - These are the best air-to-air unit in the game in my opinion. They are produced in doubles for the cheap 25 minerals and 75 gas! They are excellent scouts. Their damage is 110 without any upgrades! Use these on transports or Carriers. These can wipe out Carriers fast! Don't attack a group of 6 Battle Cruisers or more with these unless you send them 10 or more. Battle Cruiser attacks are much too fast for Scourges. The big problem with these, is that mass air units can take almost any number of these out, while Valkyries can hit the whole batch. Queen - OK spell caster. They have 4 spells, Infest Command Center, Spawn Broodlings, Parasite, and Ensnare. Infest Command Center is very useful. You can pump out some of the best ground units in the game, but if you destroyed enough of their base to infest this, chances are their won't be much left to destroy. That's why you should secretly drop a defiler, Plague it a few times and then infest it. A nice feature about Infested Command Centers is that they can liftoff! So you can infest it then move it back to your base. This can be useful if you are allied with a Terran player and he allows you to infest his Command Center. Spawn Broodlings is an okay to good spell. It turns targeted organic ground unit into 2 broodlings (it works on tanks too!). Use this on heavy artillery (tanks, Ultralisks, or ) or on workers. Parasite is a great spell but is useless if it is spotted. It lets you see everything that is in the sight range of the targeted unit. Ensnare is not that bad. For every unit it hits, it halves their speed and, more importantly, their attack speed. Meaning that you can about halve the damage they do and double the time you have to run away if you have to (thanks Psychic Prodigy). Ultralisk - Good if used correctly. With a price 200 minerals, 200 gas and 6 supply, you'd think that they'd be great. Somewhat. They can't burrow, they take too much time to make, they can only attack ground units, and they are fat so they can't fit between gaps in yours or the enemies base. If you plan on maximumly upgrading them, then they are outstanding. With life of 400 and fully upgraded armor of 6, any damage 6 or under is reduced to 1 (haha Carriers, Marines, Zerglings, Broodlings!). Combined with a Dark Swarmed area, they are awesome! In a previous game, I made 5 of these fully upgraded, sent them attacking only the enemy command center. This was very late game so they had a great defense. They rushed in ignoring the air attacks, tanks, and infantry and went straight in and destroyed the Command Center and all of the workers before they got destroyed. Defilers - These have great spells, Consume, Dark Swarm, and Plague. Consume which destroys one of your ground units to gain 50 magic energy, and Plague which brings life (Unit and Building) down, sometimes to 1 (if the life is low enough), but this will never kill. Hatch a few Zerglings and use Consume to gain tons of energy. Then use Plague on units or what is really cool, is use Plague on Terran buildings. Terran buildings in red gradually lose life, so if you Plague the building to 1 life, it will destroy itself in one second. Dark Swarm makes long-range attacks in the orange area useless, making Zerg rushes very useful. The Dark Swarm will only work if there are ground units in it. Dark Swarm does not work on buildings hit from the air. Also, siege tanks shoot right through it. Reavers hit because scarabs are short range (thanks Psychic Prodigy). Ultralisks with a Dark Swarm is extremely powerful same with Zerglings. Infested Terran - These are some of the best ground units in StarCraft. They attack with as much damage as a Nuke! They are fast. They regenerate life. They can burrow. The only things I don't like about them are that they can only attack ground and you must infest a command center to get them. Broodling - Worst unit in the game. They have the worst attack, lowest life, and they eventually run out of life even if they don't get attacked. The only good part about them is if you Spawn Broodling it destroys the unit and makes 2 Broodlings. Spawn Broodlings on a group of sieged tanks for some mayhem. Or use it on workers. ============================================================================== 8. Protoss Units ============================================================================== Drone - Average worker. These, however, can build multiple buildings at the same time. Zealot - Strongest basic attack unit in the game. These are about as good as a Firebat strength wise. But, Zealots are better than Firebats because they don't need gas, have shields and are a bit stronger. These are awesome with the speed upgrade! Dragoon - These are popular among protoss players in mass numbers. Why not? They have lots of life, good attack air and ground support. They are like portable Photon Cannons with more life. These are espescially good as heavy aircraft destroyers. 4 of these can take out a Carrier or Battle Cruiser (I'm pretty sure). Upgrade their range and they become a lot more useful. High Templar - My favorite spell user! These have 3 awesome spells, Psionic Storm, Hallucination, and Summon Archon. Psionic Storm, the swarm stopper. This spell is incredible! For only 75 energy you attack a 3 by 3 space with 127 damage quite quickly! Hallucination creates two duplicates of the targeted unit. The duplicates only look different to you, with a blueish shadow. What your opponent sees looks exactly like the real unit. They eventually lose power and get destroyed. All normal attacks do double damage on hallucinations. Hallucinations will attack but they will never deal any damage. This is good to scare your opponent. Send in about 50 (hallucinated) Carriers and it might just scare him to quit. Or, use on Shuttles. Make about 11 duplicates of these and put the real one in the middle. Drop it in his base. You can do this with Arbiters and Recall. You can also make tons of hallucinated Probes to go into an open spot on the map, making sure your opponent sees you. Your opponent will most likely follow a group of Probes with some Wraiths, Scouts, or Mutalisks. Now, while some of his fleet is attacking hallucinations, send in an attack swarm. Hallucinations are definetly a Pro choice. Hallucintated Armies along with real armies really can confuse your enemies and give you a major advantage. The third spell is Summon Archon. This is good if you are in mid battle and your Templars have run out of magic. Turn your non-attackers into killer ground and air attacking units. Dark Templar - One of my favorite ground units! This is the true assassin of StarCraft. They are perminently cloaked and they attack with 40 damage unupgraded! They do have a few features I don't like about them. Their attacks are melee. They have only ground attacks. They require a lot of structures before you can begin construction of them. They are practically useless on Zerg, as their detectors are flying. Dark Archon - My second favorite spell caster. They have 3 spells, Mind Control, Maelstrom, and Feedback, but only 1 of them make them the most feared unit in the game, Mind Control. Instead of killing a unit, you actually make him join your fleets. Use this on an Arbiter supporting a gigantic fleet, a different race worker, or any vital unit your opponent has. If you use it on an Arbiter all the fleets will be uncloaked. The fleet will now worry about the Arbiter and take it out, buying you time to either run or attack them. If you Mind Control a worker of a different race, you can actually start up a new base of a different race. Imagine having a fleet of Carriers, Battle Cruisers, and Guardians! Use this on a transport to gain everything that's inside the transport. Maelstrom freezes an area of biological units for about 5 seconds. Use this on Zerg, as all of their units are biological. Feedback is quite deadly. It drains all energy down to zero and uses the amount of magic the target had as damage inflicted upon them. On science vessels or Wraiths, feedback will most likely kill them. This hits only 1 unit at a time (thanks Psychic Prodigy). Archon - One of the best ground units ever! These have ground and air attack of 30! Mass production is not recommended. Recall these units and you have an awesome attack. These are great melee unit killers. Watch out for the EMP Shockwave. If you get hit you're screwed! Shuttle - Just a transport. With the speed upgrade, they are the fastest transport. Reaver - Yeah! These are killer! These are also the best droppers in the game! They have a 100 damage that splashes almost 3 spaces! With a good number (4+) of Reavers, it only takes a few scarabs to wipe out all of your opponent's workers. These do have a few problems though. They can only attack on their elevation and can't attack over water, they are slowest unit in StarCraft (besides an unupgraded Overlord), they can't attack air, and they require you to build ammo. These should be used with Shuttles unless you want to be there waiting an hour. They are the slowest ground unit in the game! Observer - The best spies in the game! They are perminently cloaked, they fly, they are detectors and they are fast (upgraded)! These should be your primary scout/spy and detector. Scout - Pretty damn good flying unit. This is the fastest basic flying unit (Mutalisk, Wraith, Scout) and the strongest. Even though these can't cloak, they are still awesome. If you have over 40 of these in the sky you will most likely win. Bring an observer and Arbiter and you have a wicked army. Corsair - Pretty good air-to-air flyer. Even though their attack is 5, they are very fast. In fact, I think they are the fastest attackers. They have a spell called Disruption Web. This is pretty useless on units unless you run away right after. It freezes all ground units' weapons in the web and buildings' weapon system. The unit can however walk out of the web and continue normally. These should only be used on attacking buildings. Attacking bulidings will be useless for a long time. Carrier - Capital Ship. Above average heavy air fighter. The problem with this is that they are slow and have to launch Interceptors which you must build. Once you get Carriers available, then you (should) upgrade the capacity. As soon as you get the most expensive unit in StarCraft online, they are useless. You have to buy 200 minerals worth of interceptors to fully maximize the Carrier's strength. If you have less than 6 then they are practically useless. Say you have a Carrier filled with 8 Interceptors and you want to attack. You send him in and then you click on an enemy unit to see what upgrades they have. You see their armor strength at 6 (an upgraded Ultralisk for example). You launch your Interceptors and all of them hit with their 6 damage. 6 damage for all 8 Interceptors makes forty-eight damage right? Wrong the armor reduces all unupgraded Interceptor attacks to 1, so all your Interceptors deal 8 damage total. A Zergling can only be upgraded to 3 armor, so it would take 2 rounds of 8 Interceptors to take out one measly Zergling! Arbiter - A must for almost any late game Protoss swarm! These are the best support units. Arbiters have 3 abilities, Recall, Statis Field, and they can cloak all of your units I think 5 spaces away. Recall warps a group right next to your Arbiter. Sneak your Arbiter into the enemy base and then Recall an army (that should at least consist of about 4 Reavers and tons of other units) and you have all of your army cloaked inside the enemy base! Statis Field can be good depending on who you use it on. It freezes a group of units for a little bit. These units can't be hurt, can't move, and can't attack. Use it on some attacking Carriers or Battle Cruiesers to stop them, then charge up some magic and kill them. If you are attacking and you see some group of units you know you can't take out (about 80 Hydras), statis field a bunch so less are attacking you at the same time. Or use it on workers to severely slow down mineral production. Lockdown can be better except it only attacks one mechanical unit. Their ability to cloak all units within 5 spaces away rocks! Send in a couple Arbiters with a massive Carrier fleet and you have a nice cloaked army. Then recall an army. ============================================================================== 9. How to win ============================================================================== Let's start off basic. The goal is to destroy your opponent's buildings. There are thousands of ways this can be achieved. The way to do it is with money. Money is the biggest factor to winning. When you start off send all your workers to the same mineral patch, build a worker, then seperate the workers. Do this everytime you begin. This make take some practice but it will help early on. As time passes you'll need to build an expansion (your due for an expansion if any of your mineral deposits reach lower than 600 minerals). I usually try to expand really early to get some quick money, but that leaves my base vulnerable early on. A pro WILL take advantage of this. Now lets say you've got a good money flow going. Now we're in another situation. Spending all of it. This is a major flaw I see in players now. They have over one thousand minerals and yet dont spend it. Say you have LOTS of minerals and gas and your toss. You'll need a force that requires both minerals and gas. If you're toss you can throw up an Archon/Zealot/Dragoon army. That is a very powerful mix of range, speed, power, and it should be within your budjet if you have alot of minerals and gas, then your min and gas flow should go down pretty much equally. If you're terran you can use units that require similiar amounts of gas and minerals such as Wraiths, Goliaths, and Tanks, throwing in the occasional science vessel to even things out. Zerg tend to use Guardian/Devourer/Mutalisk swarms which will bring down your money flow equally or you can go with Zergling/Lurker/Hydralisk combos. Now let's say you have good defense and good money flow. Next step, expand again. Take as many expansions as you can but be sure to have them guarded. Take first expansion and your money flow will come in twice as fast. Take the next one and youll be getting even more. With all this money you could take every expansion on the map... well thats not really a bad idea. Your opponent will probably only have 2 expansions by the time you finish off the map. Note: Trying to take all expansions is not a good idea unless you have your opponent contained. Now with your rich money flow find out we're up the the dilema again on what to spend it on. Tip: Combos work better than using lots of 1 unit. Now we're in a whole different situation on spending money. If you spend all your money on Zealots/Archons/Goons and you see the enemy going mega mass tanks... you're screwed! So instead find out through anyway possible what your enemy is building. I know from experience that when I'm protoss on lost temple and am fighting a Terran opponent chances are hes got too many tanks to go in through ground so I resort to the only decent air to ground unit, the Carrier. But Wraiths finish em off easy right? Not with corsairs and observers thrown into the mix. So they see this and immediatly tech into mass goliaths, giving your archons/zealots/dragoons a use once more :). Keeping an eye on your opponent at all times gives you a huge advantage! If you see your opponent loading units into transports kill the transports on the way. Try keeping at least one unit on each possible expansion. That way whenever they expand you'll know and can immediatly take care of the expansion. Another thing, never have an idle worker. That worker could be doing something productive instead of waiting such as mining or building. Next thing I would like to talk about are walls. A terran player early on will usually wall in allowing no melee units access. This is great if you use a Barracks instead of all supply depots because if you use a Barracks you can liftoff and get out as soon as you want. Although walls are vulnerable early on before tanks come out to ranged units. I once built a wall and a marine came by and started to clobber my supply depot (of course I repaired...). A 10 Siege tank, 3 Bunker, 10 Turret wall is almost unbreakable yet if you wall in that much you tend to lose in the money war because your opponent probably has expanded a thousand times already. Counters are another big thing. Lets say you have that "unbeatable" hydra swarm. If you see your opponent is going reavers, then dont be stubborn. Change your strat because Reavers will run through Hydras. Instead, say go Guard, Devo. Next topic, outposts. This is very annoying when done to you. Imagine you're building up and getting ready for an exp. Well you move your worker to meet 10 Cannons, zealots, goons and even reavers inside your base! They move in your done. Well letting this happen in the first place is quite stupid but it happens every now and then. If you're gonna try it, try it in a spot where they most likely wont look. Terran tend to do this alot and it is VERY hard to stop. They will sneak an SCV outside your base and build 2 bunkers and fill them with marines, then put mass tanks, some goliaths, and some turrets around the bunkers. Now these are annoying as %#@$ if you dont know what to do. Goliath, bunker, tank, turret combo is almost unbreakable, but it is still breakable. Carriers and Guardians in fact can take out goliaths if the Carriers and Guardians have the height advantage. Lots of zealots and cracklings will also serve you well IF YOU DONT ATTACK IN A LINE and use spells! This is a huge problem I see now. People have 10 hatcheries pumping out mass cracklings non stop sending them in a line to the enemy base immediatly. Now think about this. 1 Zergling over again and again. If the people have almost any defense, the lings wont even get a chance to hit. Now lets group them up and attack. OH MY GOSH HERE COMES 60 CRACKLINGS CHARGING AT ME! Hehe, that has a better reaction than HAHAHAHA YOU STUPID NEWBIE! With that terran outpost, I come to another point, spells. Using the right spells you can conquer almost any situation. Zerg - Spawn Broodling on a few tanks to weaken the area then Dark Swarm + Zergling charge the area. Terran - Lockdown the tanks, and put up a few of your own. Protoss - Disruption web the outpost and hit em with goons or create a few hallucinations of zealots and let them take the fire while the real 20 zealots finish off the opponents, or send a few distractions to take tank fire and sneak in your Templars and Psi Storm. Probably the best tip is to practice. If you want to become good then play alot. See what you did or didnt do or how you died and what you could have done to prevent it. Goodluck! ============================================================================== 10. Terran Strategies ============================================================================== NOTE: RUSHES ARE NOT FULL! DONT COMPLAIN THEY ARE THERE TO GIVE YOU A START Mass production - If someone does not use this strategy they are sad. Simply put, build more producing structures if you are going to mass produce! If you are going all out marines, build up about 6-10 Barracks. Nuke Prevention - Cast Defensive Matrix on your cruisers to reduce their lives only by about half. Postition detectors (Turrets, Vessels, Comsats) all around your base. Once you detect then destroy! Or run if you have no detectors and you see the flashing red light. If it is a building that can liftoff, move it as close as the enemy base as possible. *************************************** SCV Rush - On a computer opponent this will always win if you have perfected it. Practice this a lot! Completely useless if not used at the very beginning of the game, on a small map, and know where your opponent is: -Build one SCV -Send 3 SCVs in and start attacking an enemy worker so the AI will react and send every unit attacking. -Start mining with the 4th -When you have enough money build the 5th SCV -Have the forth mine -Use the 5th SCV to repair -Run all your SCVs back to your base (The computer will follow!) -If you have enough minerals make another SCV and send the mining one helping out the attack Once the workers are down send them in and take out their main structure. Don't worry about more workers. If you did this quick enough they won't have enough minerals to make any! COUNTERING - Choose a larger map. Nothing more to really say. This is almost impossible to counter espescially on a small map. *************************************** Marine Rush - This is a rush! This is to be used at the beginning of the game. Anytime after is pratically useless. This is different from the Marine Drop. -Build fifth SCV -Gather with four other SCVs -Gather with fifth SCV -Build sixth SCV -Build seventh SCV -Gather with sixth SCV -Gather with seventh SCV & build first Barracks -Build eight SCV & build first Supply Depot -Train first and second marine -Send 1st Marine scouting if you don't know where your opponent is located -Train third marine & build second Barracks -Start Marine pumping and attack! COUNTERING - Zerg should easily be able to counter this as they should have a stronger force (more Zerglings). Terrans can stay at their base and wait for the rush with an army of their own Marines. While the enemy is attacking you can be producing more Marines giving you the advantage. Or use the SCV rush. With Protoss it's a little more tricky. You might want to send in a Probe into your enemies base and have him hit the enemy's workers to make them follow you. Keep doing this and you will have a major speed advantage. Cannon Rush also is faster than Marine Rush. Marine Drop - This is not the marine rush. Use this in medium length games. - Send SCVs mining - Build 4 more SCVs - Have SCV 8 build a supply depot - Build 2 more SCVs - Once SD done build barracks - SCV 10 build refinery - Build 3 SCVs - Send 2 of them to the Refinery and the third to making another supply depot - Build 1 SCV. Send him to work on Factory - Barracks should now be done - Have SCV 8 (finished barracks) build bunker - Train 5 marines - Add a machine shop to the factory and have that SCV build a starport - Build 3 SCVs - 1st SCV builds barracks - 2nd builds academy - 3rd builds barracks - Control Tower on Starport - Pump out lots of marines and six medics - Build 3 dropships each filled with 6 marines and two medics - Drop into open spot in enemy base This trick works very well on human opponent long games. Don't try it on computer, as they will have already attacked by then. COUNTERING - With Zerg, attack early to corrupt his production. You could also build tons of Spores guarding your parimeter. Lurkers burrowed are probably your best bet. With Terran a nice thick row of Turrets can block off the attack or you might be able to lockdown the Dropships and then take em out. If they land you should have cloaked Wraiths or a bunch of bunkers filled with Marines and Firebats. Protoss should be easier. A simple Psionic Storm is enough or a few Reavers should do the trick. Psychic Prodigy's Marine/Med/Bat Kill - This is VERY good. Psychic Prodigy actually beat me with this. -7th SCV supply depot, barrax, supply depot, gather -12th SCV barrax, refinery, gather -14th SCV barrax, academy, gather -15th SCV supply depot, supply depot, supply depot, gather -upgrade stim w/academy -make groups of 9 marines/3 meds, thro in Fbats as needed Ghost Rush - Don't even think this rush is for attacking only! This is mid-late game. Use this for a nice early nuke along with a cloaked (weak) attack. -Build fifth SCV -Gather with four other SCVs -Gather with fifth SCV -Build sixth SCV -Build seventh SCV -Gather with sixth SCV -Gather with seventh SCV & build first Barracks -Build eight SCV & build first Supply Depot -Build Refinery & build Academy -Build ninth and tenth SCV -Gather with ninth and tenth SCV -Build eleventh and twelfth SCV -Gather gas with eleventh and twelfth SCV -Build second Supply Depot & build Factory -Build thirteenth and fourteenth SCV -Gather with thirteenth SCV -Gather gas with fourteenth SCV & build Starport -Train first and second marine & build Bunker -Train third and fourth marine & build Science Facility -Enter marines into Bunker & build second Bunker -Train fifth and sixth marine & build Covert Ops -Train seventh and eight marine & build third Supply Depot -Upgrade Personnel Cloaking & build Nuclear Silo -Enter marines into Bunker & train first ghost -Arm Nuclear Silo & upgrade Ocular Implants Use the nuke to take out detectors or important structures or units, and then send in the Ghost cloaked to make an attack. COUNTERING - This is a difficult rush to defend against espescially if you have no detectors. Your best bet would be to attack before your opponent is ready. If you are defending, Zerg have Overlords which should make detecting easy. Then it's up to you how you want to kill them. Terrans have the worst detectors. If you have a Science Vessel you can decloak and use EMP Shockwave but they are vulnerable to lockdown. If not then put a turret at the front of your base. When the ghost comes by to nuke it you'll be glad to know he wasted a nuke on a single Missile Turret. With Protoss, an Observer is enough to detect, then just kill the bastard (be sure to do it when he summons the nuke, so when you kill him the Nuke will go too). If you have no Observers, just wait for the speech "Nuclear Launch Detected", then look for the red dot and cast a psionic storm next to it. The Psionic Storm can hit cloaked units. The 7 Minute Nuke Rush! - A rush to nuke an opponent in 7 minutes. Although this has one flaw. Your base has no defense at all when you do this. Take note on how many SCVs I tell you to build. In the end you should have 8 total SCVs. After the Nuke I strongly suggest get up some defense, more SCVs, and another Nuke. -Bulid fifth SCV -Gather with four other SCVs -Gather with fifth SCV -Build Barracks -While Barracks is building, build Refinery -Build 2 more SCVs to work in the refinery so you have total 3 SCVs in the Refinery -Build Factory -Build StarPort and Supply Depot -Buld Science Vessel and Academy -Add Nuclear Silo and Covert Ops -Upgrade Cloaking -Arm Nuke At this point you can either nuke the enemy base or you can build a supply depot, and Control Tower and get up a dropship to do a drop nuke. COUNTERING - Not so hard to counter if you have anything that can attack. If you attack first he is dead, or after the nuke, you can attack and he is dead. This strategy only works against people who are scared to fight. Vulture Rush - Use this in mid games. Best used as a worker hunt. -Build fifth SCV -Gather with four other SCVs -Gather with fifth SCV -Build sixth SCV -Build seventh SCV -Gather with sixth SCV -Bather with seventh SCV & build first Barracks -Build eight SCV & build first Supply Depot -Build Refinery -Build ninth and tenth SCV -Gather with ninth and tenth SCV -Build eleventh and twelfth SCV -Gather gas with eleventh and twelfth SCV & build Factory -Build second Supply Depot & build second Factory -Build first vulture & build Machine Shop -Build second and third vulture & research Spider Mines -Build fourth and fifth vulture & build third Factory -Build third Supply Depot & research Ion Thrusters -Build sixth, seventh, and eight vulture & plant spider mines COUNTERING - A few Lurkers or air units is enough for Zerg. Terrans can set spidermines at the front of their base or get a Wraith. Protoss can easily take out Vultures with almost any unit. Siege Tank Rush - Use in mid-long games. -Build fifth SCV -Gather with four other SCVs -Gather with fifth SCV -Build sixth SCV -Build seventh SCV -Gather with sixth SCV -Gather with seventh SCV & build first Barracks -Build a Marine and scout. Kill him after he's done. -Build eight SCV & build first Supply Depot -Build Refinery -Build ninth and tenth SCV -Gather with ninth and tenth SCV -Build eleventh and twelfth SCV -Gather gas with eleventh and twelfth SCV & build Factory -Build second Supply Depot & build second Factory -Build first Machine Shop -Research Siege Tech & build first siege tank -Build third Supply Depot & build second Machine Shop -Build second and third siege tank -Build forth and fifth siege tank COUNTERING - This is a tough rush. Try to get air units as soon as possible. Lurkers, Dark Templars, and Ghosts do well. Wraith Rush - Use in mid-long games. Best used as a worker hunt -Build fifth SCV -Gather with four other SCVs -Gather with fifth SCVBuild sixth SCV -Build seventh SCV -Gather with sixth SCV -Gather with seventh SCV & build first Barracks -Build eight SCV & build first Supply Depot -Build Refinery -Build ninth and tenth SCV -Gather with ninth and tenth SCV -Build eleventh and twelfth SCV -Gather gas with eleventh and twelfth SCV & build Factory -Build second Supply Depot -Build thirteenth and fourteenth SCV -Gather with thirteenth and fourteenth SCV -Build first and second Starport -Build third Supply Depot -Build first wraith & build first Control Tower -Send first Wraith scouting if needed -Build second and third wraith & research Cloaking Field -Build fourth and fifth wraith -Build sixth and seventh wraith COUNTERING - Detectors are big here. Zerg have it easy with natural detectors. Terrans should rely on Missile Turrets. Protoss have Observers and cannons. Also units that work good against air units (goliaths, dragoons, hydralisks) will do fine (with detection). Depot Defense Trick - Very useful strategy. A lot of people say "Oh, if I put my supply depots blocking my entrance the computer will just destroy them!" (newbies). True, to some extent if you don't put any defense behind it! You should put 2 supply depots BLOCKING your entrance to your base with a liftable Barracks (if your scv gets trapped outside your base use him as a scout). (Most important part) Build a bunker or two behind them, filled with marines and put about two to six siege tanks in siege mode next to the bunkers. Last step, put 2 missile turrets behind the supply depots to detect for any cloaked units (also helps defend airborne wise). This however doesn't work all the time. Worker Hunt - Get about 1 tank, 3 dropships, and 3 science vessels. Fill the first Dropship with 4 Goliaths, the second with 5 marines, 2 medics and a ghost with a nuke, and the third with 2 Siege Tanks. Defense Matrix the three Dropships and send in your tank (attack in Siege Mode). This should keep him busy for a few seconds. At that time drop your units in the back of his base (where the minerals are). You could also drop a tank on a hill in the back of the enemies base (Challenger) or use some cloaked Wraiths can do the job against Terran. There's usually no need for the nuke but, use it if you want for extra damage. Big ship prevention - If they have no detectors simply cloak and destroy, use Lockdown for help. If the enemy is Protoss and they have a detector, it is obviously an Observer. Try to find it's outline and use your Comsat Station to decloak it, then destroy it! If it's Terran then it gets a little bit more tricky. Cloak a ghost and try to Lockdown the Science Vessel from far away. Then cloak and destroy and use Lockdown to your advantage. Wraiths are very effective against capital ships. Mass swarm prevention - About 10 Tanks in siege mode should do it. Nuke front of your base if you must. Zealot Prevention - Block off your entrance with bunkers filled with 1 Marine and 3 Firebats. Or don't even let it happen at all. Rush in with 6 Marines and you can probably take him out before they can do anything. At least hit the pylon. Super Early Air Prevention - To defend against those pesky early mutalisks/wraiths send a few marines to scout to first see if they are even doing it. If they are, simply build turrets around your mineral line if they are terran, and do the same with Zerg, except with Zerg get some valkyries too. After the valkyries are up you can own any air and if they are zerg, finish off their overlords :) Tank Push Prevention - Simply put, put tanks in seigemode where the range reaches any other tanks coming in. Easiest with this race. Also, put firebats/medics around your tanks for protection against the tank killers. ATTACK Against Terran - Dropping Tanks and Goliaths work very well. Putting a siege Tank outside an enemy base backed up with Goliaths aint a bad idea. A good strategy here is to send a bunch of cloaked Wraiths to target only the Comsat Station and then take out the workers. I will say, Nuking is easiest on this race. TvT is the most micro-intensive matchup as it requires much Dropship/Tank manuevers to win. Cloaked Wraiths work wonder with control in this matchup. Against Zerg - I would suggest get lots of science vessels with Irridate. Hehe... Irridate two of your vessels and run them in the back of their base. Watch the vessels take out ALL OF THEIR WORKERS!! Outposting a Tank/Marine/Turret post outside their base works well while doing this. Marines and medics work WONDERS vs Zerg. Marine/Medic/Tank/Turret outposts outside their base wins most all TvZ games. Against Protoss - EMP Shockwave a group of bunched up enemies to make your attacks MUCH easier. Terran vs Protoss makes Terran utilize factories to the max. 3 Factories pumping out non-stop Vultures with spider-mines and tanks with seige mode is great. If protoss utilizes air, bring out the Goliaths. DEFENSE Against Terran - Throw up a turret or two around your base as Terran tend to drop and use Wraiths quite frequently vs Terran. Know this, whenever you expand, the Terran player will most likely drop a tank onto your cliff to kill it. Prepare adequitely. Against Zerg - Lurkers, drops, and Guardians are your major concerns here. Get science vessels ASAP. Turrets will do before Vessels can come up. Against Protoss - Spider mines and tanks. That's all you need vs most all of Protoss. When carriers come, bring Goliaths. Spread your spider mines apart. ============================================================================== 11. Zerg Strategies ============================================================================== NOTE: RUSHES ARE NOT FULL! DONT COMPLAIN THEY ARE THERE TO GIVE YOU A START Build mutiple Hatchery/Hive/Lairs if you are going to mass produce. If you are going for mass Zergling Hydralisk production try this: After morphing in your ninth drone, you normally would not be able to morph another one till you morph in your second overlord. But that is so untrue. Morph your ninth drone into an Extractor to decrease your "supplies used" by one. NOW morph in your tenth drone, then CANCEL the creation of the Extractor. Proceed as you normally would. Zergling Rush - This is the most used rush in StarCraft b/c it is so easy. Remember, this is useless in games other than rush games. -Send Drones to minerals -Hatch Drone and send mining -Send Overlord as scout (not on big maps) -Once 150 minerals start spawning pool -Hatch 6th Drone to mine -After Spawning pool pump out about 6 Zerglings -While they attack, build 6 more Zerglings and send If you can't master this then you are sad... COUNTERING - No way to defend if you are Protoss on a small map except with Probes. Zerg can simply match the Zerglings with more and sunkens. Terran can liftoff buildings if they are in trouble. You might be able to get in about 3 Marines when they have their 6. If that's the case wait while building more Marines. SCVs can easily handle this threat though. Hydralisk Rush - This is not as fast as the Zergling rush. In fact, this will probably take three times longer. -Morph fifth drone -Gather with four other drones -Scout with overlord -Gather with fifth drone -Morph sixth, seventh, and eight drone -Gather with sixth drone -Morph Spawning Pool with seventh drone -Gather with eight drone -Morph ninth drone -Morph Extractor with ninth drone -Morph second overlord & morph tenth drone -Scout with second overlord & morph eleventh and twelfth drone -Gather gas with tenth, eleventh, and twelfth drone. -Morph thirteenth and fourteenth drone -Morph Hydralisk Den with thirteenth drone -Morph second Hatchery with fourteenth drone -Morph third overlord & morph first and second hydralisk -Morph fifteenth Drone and have him turn into third Hatchery -Have any extra Geysers? Extract them with three drones -Upgrade Hydralisk Range then Speed -Morph 16-22 Drone and mine -Morph fourth Overlord -Pump out Hydralisks from all Hatcheries -Everytime you have excess minerals (600+) build another Hatchery -After you start pumpin 15 Hyrdalisks (5 Hatcheries) at a time, send each wave by the thirties COUNTERING - A very strong rush. Zerg might be able to block off their entrance with Lurkers. Terran could block off their entrance with Supply Depots and then back them up with Siege Tanks. Dark Templars are good, if they don't have Overlords in their attack, other than that Reavers should do the trick. Lurker Rush - Not to be used against Zerg. Not to be used in early rush games either. This takes about 7 minutes. -1st to 6th drones go to minerals -7th does Spawning Pool -Get an Overlord -8th Drone transforms into Extractor -Get 6 to 12 Zerglings for defense -9th to 12th drones mine gas -Get two more Drones and a Lair -15th Drone makes Hydralisk Den -Get a few Drones, about 6 Hydralisks, and evolve Lurker Aspect -Turn 4 Hyrdralisks into Lurkers -Evolve range for Hydralisks -Attack! Burrow in the longest range and the Terrans don't have a chance and most likely the Protoss don't either. COUNTERING - Zerg can easily counter with their Overlords. Terran will have a problem. If you have a comsat station, that will probably be your best bet. Protoss should try to get up an Observer ASAP or a cannon. The Lurkers could easily burrow and attack Turrets or Cannons without being detected. Mutalisk Rush - Not for early rushes. This is just a start. Do whatever you want after you follow these steps: -Morph fifth drone -Gather with four other drones -Scout with overlord -Gather with fifth drone -Morph sixth, seventh, and eight drone -Gather with sixth drone -Morph Spawning Pool with seventh drone -Gather with eight drone -Morph ninth drone -Morph Extractor with ninth drone -Morph second overlord & morph tenth drone -Scout with second overlord & morph eleventh and twelfth drone -Gather gas with tenth, eleventh, and twelfth drone. -Morph thirteenth and fourteenth drone -Morph Lair from Hatchery -Gather with thirteenth and fourteenth drone -Morph second Hatchery with thirteenth drone -Morph Spire with fourteenth drone -Morph first three mutalisks -Morph next three mutalisks -Keep morphing until you think you have a strong enough force COUNTERING - Zerg just can use Spores or Scourges. Terrans should use Cloaked Wraiths and Missile Turrets. Protoss should use Cannons, Dragoons, or Scouts. Guardian Rush - One of the coolest rushes. This is best used against the Protoss. The Photon Cannons are no match for this long-range rush, basic Zealot defense is nothing to this, Dragoons don't even have a great chance at survival cause of the Guardian range. Templars won't be able to get in close enough to launch a storm. This is also great on Terran and Zerg. Only if the enemy is going strictly air will this be a problem. -Morph fifth drone -Gather with four other drones -Scout with overlord -Gather with fifth drone -Morph sixth, seventh, and eight drone -Gather with sixth drone -Morph Spawning Pool with seventh drone -Gather with eight drone -Morph ninth drone -Morph Extractor with ninth drone -Morph second overlord & morph tenth drone -Scout with second overlord & morph eleventh and twelfth drone -Gather gas with tenth, eleventh, and twelfth drone. -Morph thirteenth and fourteenth drone -Morph Lair from Hatchery -Gather with thirteenth and fourteenth drone -Morph Spire with thirteenth -Morph Queen's Nest with fourteenth drone -Morph Hive from Lair -Morph first three mutalisks & morph Greater Spire from Spire -Morph next three mutalisks -Morph mutalisks into Guardian -Attack from a distance and you may win COUNTERING - Simply get up some air units. 1 Wraith, Mutalisk, or Scout can take out every Guardian (but get more than one to minimize the destruction of the Guardians). Ultralisk rush - I use Ultralisks as rushing in to destroy the main structure (they can take a lot of beating!). Here it is: -Morph fifth drone -Gather with four other drones -Scout with overlord -Gather with fifth drone -Morph sixth, seventh, and eight drone -Gather with sixth drone -Morph Spawning Pool with seventh drone -Gather with eight drone -Morph ninth drone -Morph Extractor with ninth drone -Morph second overlord & morph tenth drone -Scout with second overlord & morph eleventh and twelfth drone -Gather gas with tenth, eleventh, and twelfth drone. -Morph thirteenth and fourteenth drone -Morph Lair from Hatchery -Gather with thirteenth and fourteenth drone -Morph Queen's Nest with thirteenth drone -Morph Creep Colony with fourteenth drone -Morph Hive from Lair & morph Sunken Colony from Creep Colony -Morph fifteenth and sixteenth drone & morph third overlord -Morph fifteenth and sixteenth drone into Creep Colonies -Morph seventeenth drone -Morph Sunken Colonies from Creep Colonies -Morph Ultralisk Cavern with seventeenth drone -Morph first six zerglings -Morph first three ultralisks -Morph until you think you have a big enough strike force COUNTERING - Air units can easily do the trick. Ultralisks are hopeless to the Terran Supply Depot trick. Guardians and Lurkers do well against Ultralisks. Dark Templars and High Templars should do fairly well against Ultralisks too. Lurker D into Guard/Devo Strat (best used on lost temple) - Early Lurkers to stop Zealots/Marines/Firebats/Medics/Dragoons/Zerglings (not early zerglings) and Hydras. With that, you can go immediately into a Guardian Devourer push. -Build up to 9/9 Drones -9th Builds Extractor -Rebiuld 9th and make that drone morph Spawning Pool and make an overlord -Rebuild Drone and have him goto gas -Build 3 more Drones -2 to Extractor -Make Lair -Make Hydra Den with the third Drone -Morph 5 Hydras and an Overlord and Research Lurker aspect -Morph into Lurkers and put outside expansion -Build Hatchery at expansion and make a Lair -Make Queens Nest then upgrade into Hive -Make 2 more Hatcheries at main base and fill up expansion with drones -Upgrade to Greater Spire and make Mutalisk at main base -Upgrade into Guardians (if you have the gas) -Upgrade some more into Devourers -Once your force consists of 24 Guardians and 12 Devourers, attack! COUNTERING - Rushing can beat this, and Tanks with comsat can run through the Lurkers. Protoss can ignore all the Lurkers and just run in with Zealots. Zerg can get early air or so. Dropping counters this and mass anti-air counters this. 3 Hatch Lings Into Hydra Into Drop - This used to be my favorite Zerg Strategy. -Build drones to 8/9 -Spawning Pool -2 Drones -Hatchery -Drone and Overlord -Hatchery -3 Drones -Lings out first and second hatch -Overlord -More lings outta each hatch -Send ling scouting their base to see if 20 lings can beat it. If it can build lings outta all 3 hatches and win. If not... -Send 10 of the Zerglings as a worker hunt if their mineral line is accessible. -Extractor -6 Drones, 3 Drones on Gas, 2 on minerals, 1 expands -Take mining drone for Hydra Den -Build Hydras outta the hatches -When your expansion is almost done, move zerglings to the hatch and create drones out of all the hatcheries. Send around 10 Drones mining at exp. -Now Hydra pumping should be faster, even fast enuf to build an extra 1 or 2 Hatcheries -With Hydras pumping send a ling to see what they got now. -Upgrade to Lair -Expand again -Get 2 Evolution Chambers and upgrade Missile and Armor -Research Overlord Transporting then speed -USUALLY hydras will easily win. If they dont build more hydras and drop them at the enemies mineral line. -If this doesnt work try to tech up to Guardians clear a path and drop again. -If that doesn't work... well its always worked for me :). Adapt to the situation is all I can say. COUNTERING - Very hard. Dropping wont work too well. Mass goons wont work too well cuz you pump hydras faster. Mass tanks tho, will easily counter the ground hydras but maybe not the drop... Lots of lurkers will easily stop the ground hydras, but not the drop. For the dropping part, putting Turrets/Cannons/Spores around the parimeter will easily stop it, until guardians come. When Guardians come use Anti-Air. ****Due to popular demand I will keep this strategy up even though it is for money maps.**** The Inferno Hydras - In 8 minutes you build up massive amounts of workers and hatcheries and after that you can send hydras by the hundreds. To be safe, try to set a no rush 10 minute rule, but its not nescessary. This can only work on mass money maps with lots of patches and geysers (like Blue Night in Seoul or Ice Hunters). -Build your drones to 8/9 -Make Hatchery and rebuild drone -With the new drone, make Spawning Pool -Overlord -2 Drones to make 2 sunkens at entrance of mining field for 6 ling rush protection -Extractor with 3 drones -With both Hatcheries make drones until you run out of patches -As soon as you get enough for a Hydralisk Den, make it! -Start 3rd Hatchery -Upgrade Hydra range then speed -2 Evolution Chambers to upgrade armor and missile attacks -Make 2 more Extractors -From you second hatchery start making hydras non-stop -Research Burrow -Start 4th and 5th Hatchery -Morph first and second hatcheries into Lairs and research faster overlord movement then sight then transporting -With 3rd hatchery make drones -1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th Hatch makes drones -Extractor -When you got a good portion covered with drones, set rally point to where you second hatchery's rally point is and start making non-stop Hydralisk through those. -2 more Extractors -When you have 6 control groups, you should have range and speed upgraded, and weapon and armor to level 2 or so. -Attack -At this point you usually win, but just to be sure, make hydras at your base while you attack. You should have minerals and gas VERY high. If you don't succeed, make 5 more Hatcheries and pump hydras faster. If, say, the enemy has too many tanks or something like that, and you can't break through, throw up a spire and queens nest. Upgrade every hatchery to Lairs, then morph to Hive your first and second hatcheries. Make Greater Spire. Make muts instead and change half to Guardians, half to Devourers. Attack again. After every base you destroy burrow a hydra at the starting locations so noone can build there. COUNTERING - Mass Lurkers might do it if they dont bring an Overlord with em, except when they go air, you're gone. Speed Mutalisks/Wraiths/Scouts might do it. Terran can have Mass tanks and Wraiths but that doesn't always work. Protoss can Zealot rush. That I am pretty sure will counter this. Lost Temple Lurker Drop - After awhile I finally found a good Lost Temple Strategy. -Build up to 9 Drones -Tell 9th to Make an Extractor -Replace 9th and build Spawning Pool -Build Overlord and another drone -Use that drone to extract gas -After Overlord comes up, build 3 more Drones -2 on gas 1 waits to build Hydra Den -After your hydra den is in construction upgrade to Lair -While these are buliding build like 3 drones to mine -Once your hydra den is done, build 5 Hydras -Once your Lair is done, research Lurkers -Turn your Hydras into Lurkers and plant them outside your expansion so it blocks both your base and your expansion from ground attacks -Research Transporting for Overlords. -Now, take a mining drone and start a hatchery at the expansion -Start a Spire and 2 more Hatcheries -Build Drones at expansion to extract gas then mine -Build around 12 Mutalisks while upgrading Overlord Speed -Make some more Lurkers (around 7 more) <<>> IF YOU ATTACK NOW AND CHANCE IT READ ON -Load your Lurkers into some newly made Overlords and send them to the bottom of an enemy base. Split your Mutalisk attack force into half and attack one half of the enemy base and hit another half too. This should divert their attention allowing you to drop your Lurkers. IF YOU WANT TO WAIT TO MAKE IT MORE SUCCESSFUL READ ON -Make a Queens Nest and upgrade into Hive, then Greater Spire -Save your gas -Morph into Guardians -Load Lurkers and send them to the side of the enemy base where they mine. -Divide your forces by 4 so you have 3 Guardians per group. Hit from each angle of the enemy base and drop your lurkers at his mineral line (which is probably depleted by now so just go on and hit his buildings). <<>> -Hopefully Win Worker Hunt - Mutalisks are the best worker hunters in the game. They have their acid which hits multiple units at a time. They are also pretty quick to get up. Upgrade speed and transporting ability for Overlords and enter through the side of their base with a drop of Hydralisks. Big ship prevention - Plague the bastards! Or Dark Swarm and hit em with hydras along with scourges to back em up. Slow them down with Devourers or Ensnare. Capital Ships are the hardest to counter on Zerg. Mass swarm prevention - Lurkers, Sunkens, Spores should do it. Plague or Dark Swarm will also help. Use Guardians to attack out of the range of the Hydralisks or Dragoons. Zealot Prevention - Prevent it! Send in 12 Zerglings before they can rush you. Super Early Air Prevention - Send lings to see if they are even going early air. If they are, build spores around your mineral line to defend against wraiths and mutalisks. Thats enuf if they are terran. If they are Zerg then it will be a bit hard. They probably teched up to devourers before you so i would recommend ignoring the next attack that will most likely be guardians with a few devourers and go Hydras to finish off his weak base. Tank Push Prevention - Hardest with this race. Your best bet would be to flank him. If you have Lurkers thats really good. Tell your lurkers to NOT attack the upcoming tanks and marines UNTIL THEY ARE STANDING ON YOUR LURKER!! That way they'll not see it coming and get blasted away before they know it. If you dont have Lurkers send lings/hydras to the side of your entrance. When they enter swarm from your main base and from the side you put them on. ATTACK Against Terran - Lurkers > Marines and Medics. Cracklings and Ultralisks > Tanks. Scourges > Science Vessels. Against Zerg - Mutalisks all the way! Muta'ling is the most popular attack in Zerg vs Zerg. Against Protoss - Hydra'Ling is the most popular way to win ZvP. Lurkers do wonders here too. Mutalisks mid-way can distract your opponent and split his forces. DEFENSE Against Terran - If they are using a Tank swarm, a very large number of Zerglings should work. Or, you can use Ultralisks. If they are going straight Battle Cruiser then Ensnare them and/or use your Devourers to slow them down. Then send in some Scourges. If they use Marine rush, Lurkers are more than enough. If it's Wraith, try to get up a bunch of Devourers and Overlords around each side of your base. Wraiths are strongest against Zerg. Against Zerg - Mutalisks, scourges, spore colonies, zerglings, and sunkens is all you'll ever need. Most zerg tend to go Mutalisks vs other zerg. Scourge with Mutalisks can help defend this easily. Tip: Always fight next to your spore colonies when you can. Against Protoss - Split up when you defend. Psi Storm is brutal. ============================================================================== 12. Protoss Strategies ============================================================================== NOTE: RUSHES ARE NOT FULL! DONT COMPLAIN THEY ARE THERE TO GIVE YOU A START Swarm Prevention - Simply put, High Templars can easily eliminate swarms with their Psionic Storm. Reavers are also good in their long range, high attack, but mainly their splash damage. Nuke Prevention - If a nuke is coming at your probes, either run, or use Statis Field. Statis Field prevents ANY thing. No spells, damage, or abilities affect Statis Field units. Zealot Rush - Once again this is an early game rush. Don't try this late in a game. -Warp fifth probe -Gather with four other probes -Gather with fifth probe -Warp sixth probe -Warp seventh probe -Gather with sixth probe -Warp first Pylon & gather with seventh probe -Warp eight probe & warp first Gateway -Warp second Gateway & gather with eight probe -Warp first and second zealot & warp second Pylon -Scout with first -Warp third and fourth zealot -Warp second Pylon & warp fourth and fifth zealot COUNTERING - Zerg and Terran should have a sizable force by the time this rush is finally executed. Protoss can use Zealots and Cannons to hold back them. If you are Terran and losing simply liftoff. Lurks can lay waste to these. That is, if you get em that quickly. PsychicProdigy's Zealot Rush - I recieved an e-mail of a very effective Zealot Rush. Try it out! Honestly this is the strongest zealot rush ive ever seen. -build up to 7th probe and order all to mine -tell 7th probe to build pylon and mine -build up to 9th probe -tell 9th probe to build gateway and mine -build 10th probe, tell to mine -build 11th probe, queue 12th probe -build 2nd pylon and 2nd gateway -build 1 zealot with original gateway -tell 11th probe to mine and 12th probe to mine -build 13th probe, tell to mine -search for enemy with 1st zealot, build 2 more -build 14th probe, tell to mine -build 15th probe, hotkey, build 2 more gateways and 2 more pylons -build 2 more zealots -when you have 4 gateways, build zealots until you have twelve, keep searching with zealot -build 2 more gateways and a forge -build photon cannons while continuing to pump out zealots -when 12 zealots are had, and the enemy is found, attack unless you think you will lose COUNTERING - This is a very good strategy. Protoss can go early Dark Templar, Dragoon Dance, or get up more Zealots with Cannons. Zerg can go early Lurker (must be VERY early), Hydra/Ling Dance, or get up a bunch of Sunkens. Terran can throw up around 4 Bunkers filled with Firebats along with 1 or 2 marines or block off entrance with bunkers behind filled with marines. Of course, you could always try speed air units to defend. Dragoon Rush - If you are playing Terran, sometimes they just lift there buildings and let allies rid of you. This rush is more effective, since it attacks both air and ground units. -Build fifth probe -Gather with four other probes -Gather with fifth probe -Build sixth probe -Build seventh probe -Gather with sixth probe -Warp first Pylon & gather with seventh probe -Build eight probe & warp first Gateway -Gather with eight probe & warp Assimilator -Build ninth probe & warp Cybernetics Core -Build tenth and eleventh probe -Gather gas with ninth, tenth, and eleventh probeWarp first and second dragoon & warp second Gateway -Warp second Pylon & warp third and fourth dragoon COUNTERING - Pretty normal rushing unit. Just put up a baracade of attacking buildings backed up by attack units. Archon Rush - A cool rush, but often hard to pull. -Build fifth probe -Gather with four other probes -Gather with fifth probe -Build sixth probe -Build seventh probe -Gather with sixth probe -Warp first Pylon & gather with seventh probe -Build eight probe & warp first Assimilator -Build ninth, tenth, and eleventh probe -Warp second Assimilator & warp first Gateway -Gather gas with ninth, tenth, and eleventh probe -Build twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth probe -Warp Cybernetics Core & warp second Pylon -Gather gas with twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth probe -Warp first zealot & warp Citadel of Adun -Warp second zealot & warp second Gateway -Warp third Pylon & warp Templar Archives -Warp third and fourth zealot & warp fourth Pylon -Warp third Gateway & train first and second high templar -Summon first archon & warp third and fourth high templar -Warp fifth zealot & warp fifth and sixth high templar -Summon second archon & warp seventh and eighth high templar -Summon third archon & warp first Shield Battery -Summon fourth archon & warp second Shield Battery -Warp ninth and tenth high templar & warp sixth zealot COUNTERING - Zerg should use Sunkens, Guardians, or Lurkers. Terran should use the Supply Depot trick. Protoss can use Dark Templars or Reavers (or better yet Psi Storm). Reaver Rush - Pretty cool. Don't use it in early rushes. -Build fifth probe -Gather with four other probes -Gather with fifth probe -Build sixth probe -Build seventh probe -Gather with sixth probe -Gather with seventh probe & warp first Pylon -Build eight probe & build first Gateway -Build Assimilator -Build ninth and tenth probe -Gather with ninth and tenth probe -Build eleventh and twelfth probe & build Cybernetics Core -Gather gas with eleventh and twelfth probe -Build second and third Pylon -Build Robotics Facility -Warp first zealot -Build Robotics Support Bay & warp shuttle -Warp second zealot -Warp first and second reaver -Keep pumpin until you're ready COUNTERING - Any air-to-ground unit will work. Lurkers, Tanks, and Templars (High and Dark) are good ground units. Scout Rush - This works only really works good on Zerg. Take out their Overlords and you have a giant advantage over them. -Build fifth probe -Gather with four other probes -Gather with fifth probe -Build sixth probe -Build seventh probe -Gather with sixth probe -Gather with seventh probe & warp first Pylon -Build eight probe & build first Gateway -Build Assimilator -Build ninth and tenth probe -Gather with ninth and tenth probe -Build eleventh and twelfth probe & build Cybernetics Core -Gather gas with eleventh and twelfth probe -Build second and third Pylon -Build build first Stargate -Upgrade air weapons -Warp first scout & build second Stargate -Warp second and third scout COUNTERING - Terran and Protoss can build up some turrets or cannons (espescially near your mining field). Zerg should move their Overlords behind your heavy defense or strike force (Hydralisks, Scourges, and Spores do good.). Corsair Rush - Use this on big island maps against Zerg only. -Probes 1-6 mine -Have 7th build Pylon then mine -While Pylon building build probe 8 and 9 -Send 8 mining and 9 to build a Gateway -Build about 3 probes for mining -Once you obtain 100 minerals build an Assimilator -Build 2 probes for Assimilator -Build a Cybernetics Core -Don't stop constructing Probes (building Pylons when necessary) -Build a Stargate -Construct 1 or 2 Dragoons -Construct about 3 or more Corsairs -Scout -Make a Robotics Facility -Build 2 shuttles filled with Dragoons -After Corsairs find the enemy attack their Overlords -If they have no air defense stay in their base taking out any new Overlords, but if they do have air defense take out Overlords and run -Once Overlords out drop Dragoons COUNTERING - Easily done by Terran or Protoss cause this rush is not meant to be used against them! Zerg should have lots of Hydralisks or Spores. Don't let your Overlords get out of the Spore firing range. Arbiter Warp Attack - This is a strategy designed for safetly getting a cloaked army into the enemy base. To do this build an Observer and sneak him into your enemy's base. Build up an army (Dark Templars/Carriers/Reavers/ Archons/High Templars) and rush your Arbiter (If you have Terran allies Defense Matrix it) into the middle of the base or to the back of the base with all the workers. Now quickly use Recall on your army. Your army will warp in next to your Arbiter. All your units will be cloaked! When the calvary arrives, use a quick Status field (Arbiter has to be at full magic with the enhancement). At that point, use your Dark Templars to take out workers, Carriers to take out units, Reavers take out attack buildings, Archons take out detectors or units, and High Templars use Psionic Storm on bunches of units. An optional tactic would be to send in Carriers with your Arbiter or send mass hallucinated Arbiters. COUNTERING - This one's hard. If you can block out entrance to your base from the Arbiter then he couldn't do it. If they warp into your base immediatly take out the Arbiter. Zerg should then try to use Plaque on the center of the group. This will reduce their life significantly! Then try to use Sunkens to take out the lowered life enemies (using Overlords to detect). If they drop in your Terran base, use a Science Vessel to decloak the Observer, then take it out. Now you are invincible if you have cloaking units. Siege Tanks and Spider Mines should be useful. Protoss should try to use a Psi Storm in the center of the enemy group. Massive Carrier swarms might be able to defend well, along with many Reavers. If you take out the Observer, you then could use Dark Templars to take out the rest. Cannon Rush - This strategy is much feared. It's quite a cheap way to win, even worse than rushing. The idea is to sneak a probe into your opponent's base unnoticed at the very start of a game. You want to make sure you go with the forge first build order. Quickly throw up a pylon, and construct 3 or 4 cannons when your forge is done. Don't neglect your own base, so you want to put 2 or so cannons up at home too. Each cannon you create should be a little closer to your opponent's mineral patch (if you came in through the back door). Once you have 2 cannons up, you can build cannons right next to their working probes, and once finished, these will open fire, disrupting the player's economy and forcing him to either quit or flee. One very important thing to remember is NOT to lose the probe. If you see resistance coming, make sure you move your probe to a hard-to-access spot so your opponents zealots/marines/zerglings can't get to it. You may also consider sending additional probes later on. YOU CAN'T LET YOUR OPPONENT SEE YOU OR ELSE YOU'LL SCREW THE WHOLE THING UP!!! -Obtained from SCU COUNTERING - Find the Probe. That's all. You could put a worker at the front of your base so when they walk by you can find them. The Infamous Reaver Drop - I have taken out some strong players using this simple strategy. This works excellent on Lost Temple -Build up to 7/9 Probes and make Pylon -Tell 9th to build Gateway. -Tell 10th to build Assimilator and make 11th and 12th mine from there -Make Zealots -Make Probes -Send a Zealot scouting -Build Cybernetics Core -Build Robotics Facility -Start Shuttle -Start Robotics Support Bay -Make 2 Reavers and upgrade Reaver capacity then Shuttle speed and then Reaver damage -Drop in back of base COUNTERING - Putting attack buildings around the parimeter can easily do the trick. Worker Hunt - Use the Arbiter Warp Attack, drop Reavers or Templars to use Psionic Storm, or use Scouts. Big ship prevention - Psionic Storm and Dragoons. Mass swarm prevention - Psionic Storm and Reavers Zealot prevention - Get more Zealots than him! Use Photons to help. Super Early Air Prevention - Send around 10 Zealots to attack his Spire to demolish his attempts. They will rebuild the Spire giving you time to get Corsairs and Dragoons and some cannons around your parimeter. If they are Terran, get up some cannons around your parimeter with goons. Cannons will detect, goons will kill. Tank Push Prevention - Zealots mainly. Zealots will kill tanks easily. Its those pesky Marines/Medics and espescially Firebats that will screw you up. If you can run in some Dragoons right next to the tanks it will not only make the tanks useless, but the firebats will also be useless. Try using a zealot goon combo. Its better if you attack from each end. ATTACK Against Terran - Early on speed goons are the best way to hit a Terran. Get robotics facilities fast for either Reavers or Observers to take out spider mines. You must adjust to Terran. Mass tanks calls for mass Zealots. Mass vultures calls for mass dragoons. Don't expect BCs. Against Zerg - Zealots early on to stop early expansions are to be used. From there on out get mass Dragoons/Templar and some Zealots. Adapt mainly. If they have mostly melee units, opt for Zealots and Dark Templar. If they go air, Dragoons and Corsairs should do. Against Protoss - Mass gateways. Expand alot and build mass gateways and you'll win. Just keep your expansions alive! To do this never stop harrassing them. Dragoons are your best bet PvP. Get reavers too! Reavers and Dragoons are what win PvPs. DEFENSE Against Terran - Observers should be able to see spider mines while Dragoons can take them out (if they have range upgrade). If they try to wall you in, load shuttles full of Zealots and drop on tank clusters. Psi Storm also can help take out tank clusters. Against Zerg - Psionic storm is the best way to deal with most zerg units. Usually Hydralisks and Lurkers are the most common units employed by Zerg. Reavers and Dragoons can easily handle these. Be sure to have observers. Against Protoss - En Masse Dragoons and Reavers. ============================================================================== 13. Computer Killing ============================================================================== ============================================================================== 14. Winning on Lost Temple ============================================================================== This is the most important section if you want to learn how to win those grueling no rules 1v1 Lost Temple maps. NOTE: These wont work all the time. NOTE: Sorry, I haven't gone into detail with Terran. Haven't had much time. ***Terran vs Terran*** No need for a super fast bunker because marines aren't too hard to fend off espescially with a bunker. I would suggest get vultures for their 20 damage against light weights (marines/firebats/medics). But anyway, if you're going some mass Marine/Medic/Firebats start an expansion Command Center at your outside expansion when you have around 15 SCVs. Create like 3 to 4 Barracks and an Academy. For every three marines/firebats make one medic, occasionally making 2. Research Stim Packs and Marine Range. When you have the money, start up a Factory and make some Vultures and one Siege Tank with Siege Mode. Place the Siege Moded tank outside the enemy base to blast some kind of defense, probably bunkers, while Vultures/Marines/Firebats/Medics back it up. While the defenses protect your marines, you should easily be able to wipe out opposition unless they have lots of siege tanks in siege mode. If they have lots of siege tanks, try to stim a few marines and run them in right up to the tanks to be outta their range and starting gunning em down. If that doesn't work try to reget your swarm and start a few StarPorts build 4 dropships filled with 2 Siege Tanks, 6 Marines 2 medics, 6 Firebats 2 medics, and 6 Marines 2 medics. Comsat for a perfect drop point and run in from that side and try to get in the middle and drop. If tanks come in cloaked wraiths should be enuf. ***Terran vs Zerg*** Start Barracks and Bunker quick in case of Ling rushers. Get a Bunker up against the Command Center to fill in Marines and put a Turret right next to the bunker for Lurker protection. Throw up some quick Factories and Barracks and an Academy along with a fast expansion. Upgrade Stim then range. Make SCVs. A lot of SCVs. Pump out Tanks in Siege Mode and Marines/Medics/Firebats. Pump em around the middle and entrance of your base. When you have around 5 to 10 tanks and around 20 Marines/Medics/Firebats, post your tanks outside the enemy base backed up by your infantry. Tanks should do substantial damage. When enemy forces come out, the tanks should get Hydras, while the infantry should easily cover lings and Mutalisk. When you have cleared an area, keep moving in until you win. ***Terran vs Protoss*** A bit different here. This time, build up on your SCVs and start a barracks on the ramp and supply depots so it completely blocks off the entrance. Place 2 Bunkers with Marines behind the Barracks. This should give you good enough defense against Zealots. Now for the Dragoons, get up some 6 Siege Tanks in Siege Mode. Start Expansion after you have like 15 SCVs. Get up a StarPort with Control Tower and build a dropship to expand at an island expansion. Place Turrets around some of the edges for drops (those Dark Templar and Reaver drops are way too popular). Now time for offense! Get up as much StarPorts you can afford and start Wraith pumping like mad. Once you get enough Wraiths (24 at Minimum), hit him from the side of the base to enter his mineral line and this should easily blast down every one of his Probes. Now send them out and attack his expansion's Probes. Now start attacking where there are no detectors. Note, if you see some Observers try and Scanner Sweep the area and take them out fast. If you can, take out his Nexuses (is that right?). That way, with his Probes out and Nexuses out, building and buildings, Probes, or mining and minerals and gas will be eliminated. Now, if your Wraiths get battered after this, lift off your Command Center and move in your tanks and Marines. This should assure you a win. Usually if you lose, it's because of either, some kind of drop or mass Dragoons. Theres another way you can do this thats cheaper and faster. Use about 12 Wraiths ONLY as hit and run crafts. Goto every exp and hit every one of his probes then run to the next EXP. With no money, drop tanks and goliaths on their cliff and blast down any goons or anything. Then, just tank/wraith push to win. ***Zerg vs Terran*** This is easily the hardest match-up for Zerg. I personally HATE this match-up. Terran are incredibly difficult to beat. Well, let's begin... Start off with a very early expansion (before pool). 3 things can happen now. 1, he sends down some marines to attack your hatchery before it finishes. 2, he builds a bunker right next to your hatchery and marines start coming down. 3, he ignores that and continues teching. If he sends down just plain marines, you SHOULD be practically done with your spawning pool by the time they start amassing. What you'll want to do at your expansion is make sunkens 2 at least. Sunkens > Infantry. So as soon as your expansion finishes, make a drone to build sunken, preferably in the middle of your passageway, but if the marines are proving to be too much to keep up with, simply build the creep colony where you first hatch, and send zerglings to keep the marines at bay. That threat shouldn't be THAT hard. If he sends down an scv to build a bunker, you should instantly take 3 drones from your main and attack the shit out of that SCV. HE MUST NOT FINISH THE BUNKER AT ALL COSTS! Use lings as soon as you get them! If you can hold him off for that, you're next goal will be to make some sunkens and increase your money flow. If he does nothing... worry. You have to see what he's doing! Use an Overlord, use some zlings, you just have to see what hes doing. Keep a constant eye on him and what he is doing. 80% of the time, the Terran player will tech straight into every Zerg player's most feared weakness, M&M/Tank Push. This is possibly the most difficult thing to counter, despite what people might say. What you want to do right away, is tech into Lurkers, after your initial expansion. You also have another, rarely seen choice, Muta'ling to Guard'Devo. If your micro is really good, you can conquer the push. Before you do anything else, immediately research burrowing! Burrowing is one of the best Zerg skills there are. Burrow 1 zergling outside his base, and 1 zergling where his command center would land at his expansion. When his tank push runs out to attack you, get set-up for your counter. The counter. This is my favorite thing to do with this. Control group at least 24 Zerglings (2 Control Groups). Send 12 zerglings right outside your natural where the tank push would normally be set up, and your other 12 zerglings to the side of the base (unburrowed but beyond visible range). Right after the tanks seige, send your second group of zlings (unburrowed) attacking the push and right before they arrive, unburrow your other lings. While they are in this chaos, attack with any remaining Hydras/Mutas/Lurkers you have. It is around this time that the Terran player usually expands. If you can contain him, you've got the incredible advantage. After the M&M/Tank Push, your next step is to expand again twice. Yes twice, take an open place noones at and the natural to it. Even if terran does eventually find out and destroys it, you will have already mined out more than the cost of making the hatcheries. Now research Overlord Transporting and Speed, or get a Hive/Greater Spire. Guardian and Devourers work best on Terran, as do Lurkers/Hydras. Next step, attack. Ground attacking. For your attack, you must NEVER attack head on. Terrans have the best defense and usually tanks will clobber your ground forces. Instead, use your overlords that you upgraded and drop a shit load of shit = right in the center of his base, or right over his tanks at the entrance. If this does not kill him, it will injure him alot... that is if you used ALOT of overlords filled completely (minimum 10). Your overlords should be filled with Zerglings, Hydras, and Lurkers. You also have one other option which is quite useful at times. If everything you seem to do does not work, simply tech into Cracklings (fully upgraded zerglings). 60 fully upgraded zerglings attacking at once (not in a line) are a force to be reckoned with. Move to Countering section. Air Attacking. Hmm.. this could go well or horrible. If your enemy has plenty of Science Vessels, expect ALOT of irradiate. What I usually do before I attack is send many swarms of Scourge killing off all Valkyries, Wriaths, Science Vessels. Makes it MUCH easier to attack. Remember, your using Guardian/Devourers not Mutalisks alone. Now, guardians will own any terran ground unit. If the terran say, has a bunch of stimmed M&Ms charging in at once, step back and attack with your guardians out of the marine gun range. If the terran say, has a bunch of Goliaths, do the same. Wraiths are no sweat if you bring along alot of Ovies (don't worry. Bring along at least 6 or so overlords. His wraiths cannot kill all of them by the time your scourge/devourers crush them.). Countering. This tends to happen quite often in Terran games. The Terran player sees you go Hydra/Ling so he techs to M&Ms and crushes you. The Terran player sees you go Hydra/Lurker so he goes Tanks/Vultures/M&Ms (possibly Science Vessels too). Terran player sees you go Muta to guardian/devourer and builds up valkyries, science vessels, wraiths, and lings. Make sure if you see them countering, either completely overpower with what they're countering with, fool them doing light attacks of another nature, or simply change the attack all together. This is a really tough matchup so play hard and expand plenty. Did I mention, expand ALOT? ***Zerg vs Zerg*** ZvZ is possibly the most structured matchup. If you know that they are Zerg then your instinct should be immediately to go Mutas NOT hydras. And possibly the worst thing I see people do in this matchup, is when they learn their enemy is going Mutas, counter with Hydras... Let's think this through logically. 1 Hatchery = 3 Larvae Each larvae can spawn one unit. For 300 minerals and 300 gas you can pump 3 Mutas waiting to kill. As opposed to 225 minerals and 75 gas for 3 Hydras. The money difference does not compare at all, but you have to take into account major points. Hydras require only 25 gas, meaning that most likely you will have plenty of excess gas to spare that are going to go to waste. For the extra 25 minerals, why not use some of that gas to make a better unit. Mutas also make the best worker hunters in BW. Not only that, they are faster, attack more, have more life, stronger, can fly, and have the chain splash damage. Don't expand until much later when you go ZvZ, you want a compact base and speed is your top priority. Keep a close eye on him, and if you sense ground attacks, get up a few sunkens and possibly lings. Your main goal is to tech into Spire ASAP. By the time my spire hatchs, I usually have 17 or so drones mining/gas collecting, 1 Lair, 1 Hatchery, 1 Extractor, 2 sunkens, and around 6 or so lings.. If you know that your opponent is going speed ground, throw up another sunken or two. 1 Sunken > at least 2-3 Hydra or 4 lings. You should focus mainly on the Spire! After the Spire comes, immediately make mutalisks from both your hatcheries/lairs (6 Mutas building at same time). After the initial mutas open up, immediately send em expansion hunting. You should have more minerals/gas to make more mutas as the larvae arrive, so do so. If they expanded to natural, this should clearly be an easy target, unless of course they set up spore colonies. If they did, move around and check inside their base. You must use Mutas right and Hit-and-Run. Find their unguarded structures and start attacking. If they come with hydras or mutas, stop and move to next place. If you can easily take the attacker, do it. Keep making mutas. Eventually you'll have excess money to make a Hatchery. Do it! As long as you keep him under heavy pressure, you have nothing to worry about. He knows that if he does attack, hes open. When you have at least 12+ mutas, don't be afraid of spore colonies if theres 1 or 2. You can knock em out! Just keep pumping mutas and you'll have enough backup. That is how ZvZ is won Lost Temple. ***Zerg vs Protoss*** Possibly the most interesting matchup with Zerg. ZvP usually moves into action quite rapidly. You will want an early expansion, but that's not always easy. For one thing, almost EVERY time, Protoss will rush you with zealots before you can get up defense, so we're going to change the build a little. You'll want to begin with getting a pool ASAP, followed by a Hatchery at your choke. Make sure its your choke and not just your natural. Although, on the 9 and 6 positions on Lost Temple, your natural is your choke. After the initial builds, build overlord and resume production. Your pool should finish first and as soon as it does, get some lings for defense. All you need is your lings to stall the zealots long enough for 2-3 sunkens to finish. Build more lings if neccesary. Now mid-game has begun. Your Protoss opponent will 50% of the time, tech straight into Corsairs, 40% of the time expand and continue ground, and 10% of the time not expand and continue teching into either templar archives or dropping (reavers most likely). Your major goal ZvP is to contain your opponent. How is this most easily done? Through hydralisks. After your initial zlot threat is over, expand to your natural (if your choke was not your natural). If your natural is your expansion, just build another hatchery on your cliff. Get gas and tech into a Hydralisk den. By the time your hydra den finishes, you should have plenty of money flow coming from both expansions so build another hatchery. Heres where it gets tough. You have 4 hatcheries pumping non-stop Hydralisks and usually that will be enough to crack any protoss player. If he didn't expand say GG right now, because you have won, unless you play horribly or he does something crazy that really messes you up. If he didn't expand, take advantage of your situation and take another expansion and continue to harrass him non-stop with Hydras. DO NOT WORRY IF THERE ARE PSI STORMS! Simply move your hydras out of the way (you should have upgraded their speed). Now keep up the pressure and DO NOT LET HIM EXPAND! He is as good as yours. If the protoss player DID expand, you may have some trouble. Now is when the true challenge of ZvP begins. Keep a constant eye on his forces and when hes getting ready to attack. If you see that he's expanded, you might have a hard time trying to take out that expansion (if you can, DO IT NOW!). If you can't you must out-expand him. Make your expansions close to your main (your second natural). Probably now, your Protoss opponent will be teching into heavy gateways. If so, you may be in trouble, so you're going to change your strategy a little. Instead of pure hydras, you're going to have to tech into a few Lurkers and get a Spire. You may not neccessarily need the spire, but if he techs reavers or tries to expand, you will be ready. Make sure you have at least 2 expansions for every one of his. If he has expanded twice, you should have 4 expansions. Your main goal is to disrupt his money flow, so try Lurker drops and Muta probe hunts. Now, DONT LET HIM EXPAND AGAIN! Keep lurkers spread out around his outside. Make him waste Psi Storms. If he decides to go observer goon killing, use muta'lings. Most likely, your opponent will have a few Corsairs scouting around, and plenty of Zealots and Dragoons to give you more than a hard enough time. Not to mention, the psi storming Templar. When you get ready to attack you must micro well and your attack should ALWAYS be geared to counter his units. What I find works incredibly well is splitting your forces and dropping his backline of his natural WHILE attacking his natural from the main entrance. As for your economy, late game you should have an incredible advantage economicly compared to your opponent. Every expansion should have 1-2 workers on every patch. NEVER EVER HAVE MORE THAN 500 MINERALS!! You must ALWAYS be spending. If you have way more minerals than you need, take off a bunch of drones from an expansion and start building alot of hatcheries until your back down on your moeny supply. Zerg vs Protoss is a very interesting matchup. If he has expanded, then the game becomes a challenge, so try what I say and be sure to not let him expand again. ***Protoss vs Terran*** Despite popular belief, Protoss actually have the advantage in this matchup. Early on Zealots have supreme advantage over marines, until medics can come. Although, most all PvT matchups begin with both players ignoring early attack and teching straight into Factories and Dragoon/Dark Templar. 80% of the time, Terran will NOT go M&M, so you shouldn't worry that much about it. What you should do PvT is not early expand. Terran tech quite fast into dropship tanks. Now you have some choices to work with to start. One option, is to tech into speed Goons with some zeals to get rid of the worry of speed tank/vultures. Another option, is to tech into dropship/dark templar. You have some other options, but the final option that I will give, is to get speed Carriers. Now, for speed goons with zeals. Your threat of M&Ms is almost completly gone with goons and zeals. You'll want to try to expand somewhere, probably at a far-away expansion so you don't get caught too early. Goons can easily take out vultures and the zealot/dragoon combo CAN take out tanks. Probably your biggest threat is complete mass sieged tanks with spider mines. Get a shuttle. Even if you don't use it right away, Terran always have some way to harrass you with dropships and tanks. Also, dropping dark templar/Zealots into tank clusters is a great strategy. Now, the easiest way you'll be able to win something like this, is probably by taking plenty of expansions. Get at least a few cannons at each expansion. Cannons can take out M&Ms, so once that threat is over, you got those incredibly slow tanks which will take out your expansions way too slowly. Imagine this, you make 2 expansions with cannons. Before the first one finishes, Terran finds it. It finishes and tanks and vultures are positioned outside blasting the cannons. =) While they're busy taking their time, your two expansions are mining more than enough money to make up for the loss. Dark Templar are terrans most feared weakness vs Protoss. Terrans have the worst detection of any race. TAKE ADVANTAGE! I know this is going to be hard dropping Dark Templar into a base with 8 missile turrets and mass tanks, but trust me, you will want to, if not for microing and hitting detected spots (such as remote supply depots), but you also keep him at bay. Shuttles and dark templar easily allow you to early expand, so take advantage. Dark templar and shuttles works only as an opening. You will have a hard time winning using only dark templar and shuttles (although dropping 30 or so dark templar in the back of the base seems quite likely to create a win for ya). Anyway, so after you open like this, I'd suggest then teching into carriers or goon/zeals. Carriers work best vs Terran. Simply put. What works best with carriers are some corsairs, observers, and possibly dark templar/zealots vs goliaths. You will NOT make it very far either teching straight into carriers, not expanding, and/or letting him expand too much. Carriers are really a second option, as you should never go straight Carriers. Use carriers only if everything else is failing and you have excess money. When attacking, you MUST ALWAYS ATTACK GOLIATHS WHILE YOU ARE OVER WATER OR UNPASSABLE TERRAIN! Interceptors CAN outrange goliaths, so do NOT attack if you are on level terraign with a goliath. This is a very hard matchup for both races, but protoss do have the advantage. Sorry If I'm not being as specific and detailed as Zerg. ***Protoss vs Zerg*** PROTOSS VS ZERG Quite an interesting matchup. This is my favorite matchup (other way around though). Zerg will usually NOT attack early on, in risk of Zealot strength over the weak lings. Take advangtage. The major thing to do, is build up at least two gateways and start spamming zealots to harrass the Zerg. If the Zerg built up a hatchery before pool, you have a MUCH better chance of winning right there! If not, then you'll have to harass them and contain them. Try to stop expansion too. Now Protoss can almost always win IF they get an expansion early enough, and if they can contain Zerg. Some tossers may opt to go 1 gateway to Nexus. This does seem to work pretty well, but just remember, Zerg will take advantage if they see this and expand a lot. If you do 2 gateway/zealots, he will have less of a chance to do stuff, but then again, so will you. If you do 1 gateway/zeal/Nexus then you will have more options open, and so will he. Regardless, you must get an expansion early if you want to keep up with production. As soon as you get the added money flow from your expansion, you next step is to eliminate Zerg's expanding capabilities. Tech hard and fast. Templars are a must. Reavers/Corsairs are optional but are helpful. Word of advice, if they are going strict air (mutas to guardian/devo) tech to corsairs, if they are going strict ground (lurkers/lings/hydras) tech to reavers. Your main goal is to stop their expanding capabilities. Drop reavers, run goons/zealots, do whatever. I found that vs Zerg, surprisingly Dark Templar work very well, espescially when teamed with corsairs. They work best attacking newly made expansions. Now, we have a steady money flow, and to the best of your abilities, Zerg is contained. If he is contained, expand again and say a heart-felt GG. If he has broken through containment and expanded all over the place, (shame on you) start destroying the expansions. Zerg expansions are usually quite easy to destroy, as most don't put much defense on each expansion. By now, you SHOULD have around 5-6 gateways, possible a stargate or two, and possible a robotics facility. Take an island expansion if you can, and get some cannons around the perimeter. If you can get enough cannons, Guardians are the only thing that can crack through that defense (by which time you should have been ready for). Try to bring your money flow down evenly. By this I mean, if you have 1000 minerals and 150 gas, build primarily Zealots until your gas comes up, or if you have 200 minerals and 800 gas, build primarily Templar/Archon. You want to bring your money down evenly since pretty much every unit made from gateway can be very useful vs any race. Probably the best tip I can give you though, is aggressiveness. Most protoss vs zerg players tend to turtle and slowly move out, only to find that Zerg have every other expansion on the map. Skirmishes. Aha... the real fun starts. When your forces come in contact, your templar should be the first up. You must psi storm WHERE THEY ARE GOING TO MOVE! DO NOT STORM WHERE THEY ARE NOW! I've dodged 4 psi storms before with a hydra because the idiot did not predict where I would move. Do not spread your forces out too much. Zerglings can and will rape you, if you give them more angles to attack from. Use spells. I know it's quite hard besides Psi Storm, but there are plenty of useful spells, Maelstrom, Disruption Web, are one of the better, unused spells. Now comes a matter of debate. Micro or Macro? Either way, one will effect the other. You can micro and use spells and move your forces around, or you can reinforce your units with 12 more dragoons. I prefer building 12 more dragoons over microing my current 12. Doing both at the same time is the most preferable action to take, although very difficult. Stopping Zerg's aggressive tendencies to expand and attack, while expanding yourself is the key to winning Protoss vs Zerg. Good Game! ***Protoss vs Protoss*** Ah.. yes. PvP. It's been a long time since I played a PvP matchup so, you guys might need to correct some of the things I may be saying. PvP is a match of who can get more faster. The game mostly consists of who can overpower with ground units the best and fastest. This game usually starts off as a skirmish between Zealots. 2 or more Gateways start mass producing Zealots early on for constant pressure. Quite an easy task of figuring out a counter... GET MORE THAN HIM. But, you must be sure to keep your flow of economy right. Here lies the problem. PvP is never a relaxing game. You are ALWAYS on your toes. Expanding becomes one of those iffy questions. On one hand, if you expand successfully, you'll have almost double your forces in minutes. On the other hand, you have the loss of 400 minerals which is quite crucial when protecting yourself from non-stop skirmishes, and not to mention, the probes required and the risk of it being destroyed. I simply recommend to expand when you feel you have him contained and controlled. Next, the opening usually starts off like i said, with the 7th probe making pylon, 9th on gateway, 11th on second gateway (I think that's it.). There is however another way you can do this, but it will put you at another disadvantage. You could opt to get 3-4 gateways instead of the standard 2. The problem with that is, you would have to spend practically all your minerals as they came in order to make efficient use of your extra gateways... he will be outnumbered though =). Another strategy used often, is the Gateway/Expansion opening. This is done by doing the same opening as your standard Protoss player would, except instead of the 2nd gateway, save up for a natural expansion. This puts you at great risk, so I'd suggest that if you use this, you build another gateway immedietly afterward and to never let your gateway Zealot que list to be empty. If you can get this working, you have a tremendous advantage. Mid-game. Mid-game plays similiarly to early game. You have to keep up the pressure of ground forces and keep the enemy contained as long as possible. Mid-game, however, varies economically, and technologically. You should have plenty more money to work with mid-game than in early, so make use of it. NEVER HAVE MORE THAN 500 MINERALS AT ONE TIME. Always spend, wether it be on Pylons, Gateways, Robotics Facilities, or Photon Cannons, whatever you need. For your attack force, I'd suggest you mass out with multiple lines of gateways and use whatever is draining your money equally. For example, if you have 500 minerals and 75 gas, you would be making more Zealots than anything else. ============================================================================== 15. Kronikle's Most Useful Strategies ============================================================================== Most of these strategies are for experts only. Terran The Science Vessel, mainly because of EMP Shockwave. Protoss can die very easily with this. Terran get their energy drained down to nothing as with zerg. If you cant use EMP Shockwave on Zerg, use Irradiate. Hit a swarm of units for laughter. It does a bunch of damage to the unit and every biological unit around it! Dropping is often hard. Defensive Matrix a dropship and you got a good drop. Also, lots of the time, the ONLY way i can win is through drops. Most people just dont expect it and will simply fall. How to put up an unstoppable defense - Load up on 5 marine filled bunkers and around 15 siege Tanks and I guarantee you nothing ground will get in. As for air, get up around 30 Upgraded Valkyries patrolling the parimeter and the entrance and that should easily cover that. Zerg Defilers. A Dark Swarm outside his base and rushing in with multiple hydras or lings or even ultras is simply awesome. Nothing long range can come in! Plague is a real killer. Secretly drop a Defiler around a gathering swarm and plague their asses. 1 MEASLY LIFE!! HA HA! Then just kill him! Protoss Psi Storm. What else? You can launch a psi storm at the front of his base to lure his men to you (which you should be ready for). Or, you can drop him at a mineral field... (you do know what to do... right?). Defensive use is the most useful. Imagine you have 4 cheap templars and they are rushing in with a group of Carriers and Cruisers grouped up. Hmmm? What to do now...? Cast away with Psi Storm to completely waste tons of minerals and gas. Disruption web is also fairly useful mostly on newbies. You can use it on all the attacking bulidings for a more tranquil rush... (yeah!). Recall is also one of the greastest strategies. Recalling dragoons is useful since dragoons have good life and attack. Statis Field can also split your opposition into two forces making it considerably easier. Hallucinations are the most overlooked spell. Why should it be? With a High Templar you could make around 4 additional units to take the place of the real unit. Imagine making a fleet of 10 Scouts along with 10 Templar. If every one casts 2 Hallucinations on a scout, you'll have 40 extra scouts to take damage. General Expand early like on the 9th worker. This doesnt work all the time but then again nothing works everytime. Well, you might ask me about defense. Once you get the money flow from your exp you can pump defense MUCH faster. This also heavily depends on the map, race line-ups and the proximity you are towards your enemy. Try different strats often. Most players only win one way, but if someone counters it they're screwed. Just saying, try new stuff and if it works good for you, you've got a new strategy to add into your aresnal. To get better NEVER EVER play money maps. They dont improve your skill. Ive played money maps for 2 years and until recently have been a loser newbie. Play maps you've never played before like blizzard maps. This increases your skill to adapt to a foreign map, and helps you understand non-money maps better. 10 General Tips: 1) Goto Start>Settings>Control Panel>Mouse and change mouse speed to maximum. Then in Starcraft, set the speed to the highest possible. Don't worry, you will be uncomfortable for the first week or two, but once you get used to it, your speed and micro will increase dramatically! 2) Hotkey your main buildings. Zerg hotkeys hatcheries, Terran hotkeys Command Center and Barracks/Starports/Factories, Protoss hotkeys Nexus and Gateways/Stargates/Robotics Facilities. That way, in the middle of a tense battle, you can just press a few keys and have backup in minutes. This is macro in its purest form. Learn to macro, because micro is nothing without macro. You may be able to kill 5 zealots with 3 goons microing your a$s off, but it doesn't make a difference at all when he's building mass goons while your sitting on your a$s dancing. 3) Along the same lines of microing, NEVER have more than 500 minerals or gas. Keep a constant eye on your income. If you have excess minerals or gas, put units in que. No excues! If he's coming in with carriers and you have no gas, build Turrets, Spores, Cannons, if you have excess minerals. Carriers will kill them, but they severly limit mobility. And while they're busy wasting their time on killing the ground defense, you should be gathering more gas to build your Goliath/Scourge/Wraith/Dragoon w/e you want army to kill them. If you have over 500 minerals, build something, whether it be another Hatchery, an upgrade center, an expansion, cannons, putting units in que, WHATEVER. Learn this and use this. One of the most valuable tips I can give. Use along tip #2. 4) Take advantage of open opportunities. In a recent (incredibly good game if I might add) match TvP, me vs Flash, he started the game with mass ground strikes and I was struggling to keep up. About the time I noticed the ground strikes stopped, I saw he had Carriers, en masse! All of his attention was on Carriers, so when they were in my base waiting for my Goliaths to move, I waltzed in with 20 tanks and started pummeling his base. He was forced to move his Carriers back as I arranged a counter attack. To take advantage of these opportunities, always send a light, cheap, unit to see how fast he can kill it. Send one of these like once every two minutes at least. 5) Know where and when he expands at all times. Zerg vs Protoss I almost always win except if I let them take expansions without resistance or without me knowing. If they start an expansion without me knowing and it becomes thriving, chances of winning are slim, espescially if they are Protoss or Terran. By the time you would find it, the expansion would be so heavily defended, it would be pointless wasting all your units trying to take it out. I recommend keeping a burrowed zergling on every expansion if you're Zerg, an Observer/probe/zealot on every expansion if you're Toss, and an SCV/Marine on every exp if your Terran. And what I don't see often is defense on islands. Always keep something there, either a constant comsat, an overlord, or an observer, just know when he's there. Anyway, back to the main point. Become a map hack. No, I'm not endorsing hacks in any way, what I'm saying is, have a vigilant eye on everything on the map at all times. Have at least 1 unit outside his base at all times to know when he's attacking and with what. 6) Know your opponent's money. Usually skills like this come with much practice and time, but you should generally have a good idea of how much money your opponent has at all times. You should know how many workers he has mining, where he's minding, and what he's spending on. If you see a Protoss user go all out Zealots, chances are, hes either spending his gas on tech, or is very low. 7) Play vs people your skill level or better. My best training came when I first started non-money maps many years ago, and this person played me like 10 games in a row. The first 3 games I lost. The next 3 games I still lost, but were good. The last 3 games I won but it was close. The last game, I won hands down. No, you probably won't learn that fast, but after knowing an opponent, you get a feel of what he's doing. Races... I don't know what to say here. A few days ago, I would tell you to choose one race, and stick with it til the end, going random makes it too hard to master every race. But recently, taking up Terran, I want to take back that statement. My terran has taught me multi-tasking, micro, and macro, well enough that all my other races have improved. Do what you feel is right. I personally recommend that everyone becomes a Terran user first, before becoming some other race user. 9) Research spells. All spells in the game are useful, period. Even the most underused spells, if used by the right hands, can be gosu. In a recent ZvT, the terran had Optic Flare researched by his medics, which is really unheard of by most people. With marines and medics, before marching in head-on vs my Lurkers, he split up his marines, upgraded armor, and cast blind on all my lurkers and Overlords. I remember I had 5 Lurkers, he had about 12 Marines and 4 Medics... he won the fight. Later on in that match, I came into the side of his base with guardians... they were all blind by the end, so I had to get super close to hit anything which really nulifies the use of Guardians. Maelstrom is a great spell to use, one of the key reasons to get Dark Archons. Feedback owns BattleCruisers. Ensnare will practically double your chances of winning a skirmish. Spawn Broodling can wipe out all Tanks without hesitation. Dark Swarm with melee units makes them invincible practically. Plague leaves your opponent's units with next to no life making an easy kill. Parasite lets you know where their units are going. Hallucination can make attacking a breeze as your hallucinations take all the opening fire. Lockdown makes Terran vs Terran games soooo much easier. I could go on with every spell... except Recovery for the Medic. This spell, to me, is useless. 10) Learn the hotkeys. Hotkeying everything can double your speed, easily. I know the hotkey for ALMOST everything... well besides some of the stuff like, Ultralisk Movement or medic Recovery. Using this with step 2, helps you macro alot. ============================================================================== 16. Cheats ============================================================================== To use these cheats start a single player game. Press enter and a text will come up at the bottom of the playing screen that looks like "Message:". Enter a cheat then press enter and a text message saying "Cheat Enabled" will appear if you typed it in correctly. Type in the cheat again and press enter to disable the cheat. A message will say if you successfully disabled it. The computer automatically has the map cheat. Cheats are very cheap. They take the fun out of the game. Unless you are starting out and don't know much about the game, I don't recommend using cheats. If you are training don't use cheats as you will not get any better using them. If you get rushed too early for you to be ready, and you become invincible, you are not going to get any better. Well here they are: Power Overwhelming - The Computer can not do any damage. This includes computer attacking you and computer attacking other computers. Black Sheep Wall - Reaveal the entire map Operation cwal - Upgrades and researches done immediatly. Units and buildings construct super fast! Show me the money - Gives you an additional 10,000 minerals and gas Breathe deep - Gives you an additional 500 gas Food for thought - Supply limit ignored (still can not go over 200 supplies). Modify the phase variance - Build anything Noglues - No magic allowed for enemy Medieval man - Have all spells Something for nothing - Upgrade weapons, armor, and all other upgrades besides spells up one level The gathering - Unlimited energy Game over man - Instant loss for you There is no cow level - Instant win for you Staying alive - No end to the game Ophelia - Warp to any level. After you have entered in Ophelia type in the race then a space then the number of the level you want to be warped to. E.G. "Terran 5" warps you to the 5th Terran level in the campaigns. "Zerg 11" warps you to the 11th Zerg level, and "Protoss 8" warps you to the 8th Protoss level. I think for broodwar it's "xterran 4" or "xProtosss 12". War aint what it used to be - No Fog of War Radio Free Zerg - If you are playing as Zerg you hear some funny music. This is the only Brood War cheat. ============================================================================== 17. Secrets ============================================================================== NOTE: For this section practically no bugs work anymore. Sorry =(. On the very first mission for Terran, Boot Camp, wait for a while at the mission screen (you know the one where all the people talk and you get your objectives) and messages will start appearing. Here's what they are: 1) End of Briefing. 2) End of Briefing. (Really.) 3) End of Briefing. (This time I mean it!) 4) End of Briefing (Hey it's your dime anyway) 5) End of Briefing CHINESE LEMON CHICKEN 1 pound sliced chicken brst. 6) CHINESE LEMON CHICKEN 1 pound sliced chicken brst. 1 tbsp corn starch. 3 tbsp soy sauce (dark). 1 sliced lemon Invisible Tanks - This is a hard trick to master. If you have tanks with Siege mode you can do this. First put a control group on your tank and a liftable structure. Switch to your structure and lift off. Switch to your tank and make it get near the airborne structure. Take a deep breath now. Are you ready? Switch to the structure and make him land. QUICKLY switch back to the tank and have him move underneath where the structure is going to land and immediatly put him in Siege mode. If done fast enough the tank will remain under the structure able to blast enemies long distances away. If the enemy attacks, they will have to take out the structure the tank is underneath before the tank can be harmed. Although, this only works against melee units. I am pretty sure this'll work for any version. These bugs do not work anymore because they have been fixed...they only work with version 1.00. Sliding Command Center: And now for the amazing sliding comm center trick! Uh, ok, play as terran. now, lift off the command center, and land it as close to the nearest minerals as you can, right as its doing it's landing animations, hold shift+s+m (really hard on ergo keyboards:( ) and click closer to the minerals. Your comm center will slide over to the minerals and start mining. Here's a screen shot. Notice I'm building an SCV in the comm center so it's not floating there. If you don't believe me, go try it yourself, it may take a couple tries to get it just right, but sliding the comm center around is fun! :) this CC slide is very easy to do, and can be done on the first try with a some practice. However it messes up the game. If you slide, you cannot build on the land where your CC was. Meaning you can really abuse this by sliding all over the map, therefore making it impossible to build any structure at expansions, especially islands. - Obtained from SCU Zergling to Mutalisk: taken from the GX forum........... Extremely important bug discovered. This is most serious among the bugs ever founded. All units & structures can morp into Lurkers and Mutas. I'm NOT kidding and this is NOT a StarDraft patch. You can use this bug in Multiplayer games like IPX or Battle.net. To use this bug, you must have Hydralisk Den(with Lurker developed) and some Hydralisks. First, make some zerglings and set them to group #1. Second, select one or more hydralisks. At last, press L and number 1 at the same time. If it is successful, Those group #1 zerglings will be Cocoons(not zerg egg) and they will become Lurkers. And if you cancel Cocoons, they will become Mutalisks. This applies to any units and any structures. you can morp even 'Protoss Nexus' and 'Zerg Hatchery' into Lurker and Mutalisks. More seriously, this bug doesn't costs any resources and bug units have abilities of original units. For example, if you make Lurkers or Mutas with cloaked wraiths, they can use cloaking. If you use Arbiters with this bug, the bug units makes cloaking fields for other units. If you use observers, the bug units have full-cloaking ability and observer's speed. If you use 'Zerg Hatchery', the bug unit have even 'Larvaes'. As I said above, This bug is NOT KIDDING. This bug is discovered by one of Korean players, and already known to many many Korean players. Maybe you had better avoid Zerg(or even Protoss) players until the patch released. Yes it does work.... - [o]Qwerty Remember! Sliding Command Center and Zergling to Mutalisk only work on earlier versions of Starcraft! I think up to 1.04. -obtained from SCU Secret Zerg Mission - Win Zerg mission 9 "The Reckoning" in under 20 minutes to unlock a secret level. You can easily do this using cheats. It does not perminently appear on the level list though. Save at the start of this secret level to easily play again. Building a CC next to minerals - First get the mins. Then cast Blind onto a SCV. Now, in order to do this, you must REALLY know the map like the back of your hand (or like a hack ;)). Now your blinded SCV must explore new territory or this wont work. Now, tell your SCV to build RIGHT next to the minerals, but... YOU CAN NOT BE ABLE TO CURRENTLY SEE THE MINERALS!!!! Move him just out of blind range. Then build your CC and you will notice will he moves around building you should be VERY close to minerals. Build Anywhere - This will work in single or multi-player. It's best to test it in single. I heard that this will work in any level, anywhere, but I have not been able to work it in any other level that big game hunters. I've only been able to work it in the bottom right corner of big game hunters. Ok. First take two workers down to the corner. Move the first into the little space in the mountain. You should be able to fit only one. The exit should be at the top, and the other 3 sides should be mountains. Ok, fit the first one into the slot as tight as you can. Then move the second over to the first and try to block him in. Move the second as close as possible so the first can't move. Then, click the first and tell him to move a little to the left. He should turn to the edge of the map (right). Now, tell that guy to build, and he will build anywhere you can see. The advantages to this, are that you can tell a worker to build, and immediatly the construction will start without the worker even moving. Zerg must build on creep and will lose the drone when you build. Terran will start building and run towards ANYTHING to reach the site. I mean it will glide across water, minerals, mountains in a straight path to the destination. Usually the structure will be done by the time he arrives. Useful for building a sunken in the back of the mineral line. All ya need to do is scout with your overlord. Protoss can have an observer in the enemy base and bulid a little Pylon and Cannon out of sight range. Terran can always build the Barracks in the back and since the SCV follows, bulid a bunker right after. This is, however, an extremely cheap way to win. Even worse than 6 Ling Rushing! ============================================================================== 18. Learning Center ============================================================================== ============================================================================== 19. Miscellaneous ============================================================================== Mutalisk flies the highest and the Science Vessel flies the lowest. Upgraded Vultures are the fastest units in StarCraft while unupgraded Overlords are the slowest. Carriers are the most expensive unit in the game while Zerglings are the cheapest (considering that 2 come in each 50 minerals). Every worker can use Vespene Geyser extractors (Refinery, Extractor, Assimilator) to their advantage. Meaning an SCV can mine from an Extractor or Assimilator, a Drone can mine from a Refinery etc. No here's the thing. It has to be Team Melee. Terran buildings which have addons can be destroyed and you can drop your buildings next to these addons to have complete control over them. Say you take out a Starport with attatached Control Tower. You can drop a Starport next to the Control Tower to gain control over the Tower. Fastest ways to win: Terran (fastest): SCV rush Zerg: 6 Ling Rush Protoss: Cannon Rush/Zealot Rush Some symptoms for how to determine rank: Hated Loser: Backstabs, doesn't play by agreed rules, and drops out of games before losing. Newbie: Massing Capital Ships from one producer. Has to cheat to win. Can't beat the game. Has trouble beating a comp. Never tries any new strats. Killed by one cloaked Wraith. Never knows spells exist. Claims they rock. Build more attack buildings than units. Slow. Barely any workers. Put defense only at entrance. Intermediate: Can beat a comp with no problem. Scarcely uses spells. Occasionly tries new strats. Asks for rematches for pride. Claims they rock. Put defense at entrance and around with cannons. Mastered Tech Tree. Advanced: Can beat 3 comps melee. Uses spells a good deal. Learns new strats and masters them. Can beat the game. Asks for rematches to learn from mistakes. Claim they're OK. Hotkeys. Expert: Can beat 4 comps melee. Uses spells often. Knows about heavy armor and light. Plays some Ladder. Evolved past BGH. Knows almost every rush. Pro: Can beat 5 comps melee. Uses spells with almost anything they do. Knows tech tree, every hotkey, can counter any attack, builds a variety of stuff. Nothing surprises them. Knows when everything will finish. Uses annoyance. Can't learn anything new. Attacks from multiple sides at the same time. Never brags. Here are some example of these: Pro: Protoss vs Terran Protoss started out by annoying them and building in their gas collector. Next, he sent in Dark Templar swarms to weaken him and see what he was building. Terran had a detector though and used it to find him. Protoss then used a statis field on a group of Goliaths guarding the side of the base, then dropped some Reavers and a Dark Archon, which he mind controlled an SCV. He then loaded it back in his Shuttle. He then put some Scouts underneath the cloaking field of the Arbiter for air support. Then, while toss was dropping, he launched an Archon Arbiter attack from the main entrance, a Recall with Archons and Reavers in the center of the base and a Scout attack from the other side. Vocabulary - gg = Good Game gl = Good Luck hf = Have Fun ka = Kick Ass dd = Dont Die toss = Protoss lot = Zealot ling = Zergling bat = Firebat DT = Dark Templar BC = Battle Cruiser DA = Dark Archon Psi Storm = Psionic Storm Mut/Muta = Mutalisk ultra = Ultralisk M&Ms = Marines and Medics Valk = Valkyrie hydra = Hydralisk CC = Command Center ============================================================================== 20. Campaign Editor Creation Guide ============================================================================== In this chapter I will not tell you everything about Campaign Editor, I will just guide you or tell you how to make some cool stuff. I am currently telling you these triggers by my memory as I don't have enough room on this computer to reinstall StarCraft. I will constantly add to this section. Preserve Trigger - This is commonly overlooked or not understood by new map creators. The "Preserve Trigger" action makes the new Trigger you created able to work over and over again non-stop. Timing - The Timing trigger is useful for stalled action or how long a trigger acts for. Remember 1,000 Miliseconds makes one second, so 60,000 miliseconds makes 1 minute. An example: Set timer for 120,000 miliseconds. Create 6 Zerglings at location 4 (at entrance of your base). Preserve Trigger. This will create non-stop 6 Zergling rushes at your base every 2 minutes. A great Zergling rush trainer. Locations - These are very useful for beacons or movement. I will explain the triggers used in the No Rush game in the next chapter. One trigger would say: When Player1 brings any unit to Location1 (at entrance of the base), send unit to Location2 (a few feet back). Preserve Trigger (so that it is constant). I forget the timed event for how long the barrier is on. Properties - In custom maps set the Unit and Hero properties to change the names, strengh, abilities, price, etc. Forces - Set the forces to know which side everyone is on. Keeping the computer opponents from attacking you when you don't want them to. Set yours and the computers property to Invincible so you can't attack eachother. ADVANCED **** RPG Leveling. Say you want to level-up an Arc Swordsman to Master Swordsman. You would create a location (we'll call Loc1), then put it aside. You would also have kill points. By my memory the trigger would read: Conditions If score for kills is at least 6000 points Player1 commands at least 1 Arc Swordsman Actions Move Loc1 to center Arc Swordsman at anywhere Display for current player "CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR LEVEL-UP! YOU HAVE REACHED MASTER SWORDSMAN, LEVEL 2 SWORDSMAN." Kill all Arc Swordsman at Loc1 Create 1 Master Swordsman at Loc1 **** Making different races join the same side. Simply: Conditions Always Actions Create (the unit you want on player... lets say 1's side) at location (the place where you want him) for player1. ************************************** HOW TO MAKE EACH KILL GIVE MONEY!!! TRIGGER 1: Conditions Current Player's Kill Score is exactly 1 Actions Modify Resources to Add (how much money E.G.: 5) Ore and Gas. Set Kill Score to 0 ************************************** ============================================================================== 21. Campaign Editor Idea Guide ============================================================================== **DONT READ THIS IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO OPERATE CAMPAIGN EDITOR FULLY** The Campaign Editor is one of the coolest things in StarCraft! It is not nearly as powerful as StarDraft or StarGraft, but it is still cool! You have the possibility to turn this strategy game into RPGs, adventure games, mini-games, etc. Here are some guidelines or ideas on how to make some cool maps. This is not explaining step by step. I will include what I think of how fun the map would be on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the best. I will also explain a little bit why. Campaign Editor is the easiest programming language to learn. If you need help look in the help file. Most of these I thought up of on my own. RPGs - My favorite. You should definently change the stats and names of everything like turning medics into White Wizards, Marines into Archers, Zealots or Firebats into Fighters, Templars into Black Wizards, Archons into gods, most any Zerg unit as an Imp or Demon, Dark Templars as Ninjas or Assassins, etc. For leveling have a kill point score and if they achieve a certain number of points move a location to the leveler and kill all of that unit in the location and create a stronger unit in that location. Or each unit you kill give a certain amount of resources. Like if you kill an Imp (Zergling) then you gain 12 Minerals. Then you could create a Forge or Engineering Bay (renamed as Blacksmith or something) and once you acquire 100 minerals you can upgrade. Make the upgrades ultra fast though, and make the upgrades more useful. Don't have the archer's upgrade in weapon damage only up 1 or 2 make it like 10. They could really only gain 6 levels that way. I'd suggest using both. 10/10 - I love RPGs that's why they get a 10! But, this really depends on the makers imagination to make it good. Survival - I have already seen many survival maps (Art of Survival, Art of Defense, Terran Team Defense). Basically your goal is to build up a defense and see how well you can defend against non-stop rushes. Every 3 minutes a rush comes in stronger than the last. First 3 minutes 50 Zerglings with 2 HPs each come in. Next 3 minutes 30 Hydralisks. Next 30 Zealots. Next 20 Guardians and 20 Firebats and 20 Dragoons. Stronger and stronger units come until there are 12 Norad IIs and 9 Scouts. It is really cool. You can get graded on how well you survived. I played this and won after my 3rd try. I was protoss and built a nexus blocking my base then put a ton of cannons all over the perimiter with Scouts and Corsairs to help. When the Cruisers came my corsairs, scouts, and cannons did a lot of the defending while the cannons helped. Then the final huge infested terrans swarm came, but they don't space out enough and blew eachother up before they took out everything. Anyway, this is cool. 9/10 - This is challenging fun and an excellent way to train. New Units - I made map that completely changed every unit. Marines were Lightgunners. They were produced quickly for 10 minerals but only had 10 life and 2 attack. I also made Ghosts Assassins. They cost the most (somewhere around 500 minerals and gas) and took the longest to make but they came with Cloak, Lockdown, life of 200 and their attack was 80. I changed BattleCruisers so their ground attack was around 30 and air was around 15. I changed every unit but I lost the map. It was pretty cool. It was also funny seeing the comp rush in with 24 Light Gunners when I was defending with 10 Assassins. 6/10 - Pretty boring. I have seen something like this (I think) called Super Altered Starcraft. The Assassination - This is an idea that I have. What would happen is that the comp has an unbelievably strong force. You have one Dark Templar and 10 lives. You have to make it across the map without being detected. Overlords are stationed all around. You have to manuever around them. Say you get busted, siege mode tanks will then start gunning you. If you survive and make it past that group you can reach a beacon and get restored to full health. Your goal is to assassinate the Infested Kerrigan (Hell Demon). If she sees you her attack is 1000 and kills you instantly and you start back at the last beacon you were at. You have to get 5 hits off her to kill her. 6/10 - Neat but somewhat boring. Of Light and Dark - I had an idea where you can put a Civilian and put him in the middle of two beacons one, the Dark Beacon turns him into a Red ultra powerful Dark Templar. The Light Beacon turns him into a White ultra powerful Zealot. Once you choose you gain control units depending on who you choose. The Dark Side gets Archons, Dark Archons, siege Tanks, Wraiths, Ultralisks, Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Overlords (invincible) and Lurkers. The Light Side gets Templars, Dragoons, Reavers, Scouts, Ghosts, Medics, Shuttles and Observers (Invincible). You can't produce anymore units. Your only building is an Ion Cannon at the back of the base. Each player has to destroy eachothers Ion Cannon. I just thought of this at the top of my head. You may think this is stupid which probably is. 4/10 - Not so good. Gods of War - In the StarCraft and Broodwar guide by Prima they have a guide to making a map called Gods of War. 1 race (Protoss) can warp anywhere on the map through beacons. Another race (Terran) gets a hero after every 10 kills. If the third race (Zerg) has the least amount of units, they get Zerglings until they don't have the least amount of units. 7/10 - Pretty cool considering each race has different abilities! Rescue Mission - An idea I had was to make a 4 player map, each starting location in each corner, where a beacon was placed in the middle of the map. Every minute 2 of each worker are created at the center of the map as rescuable units. This gives every race the chance to create a base for every race early on. You might want to put some barracade of units to protect the workers from the 4 people. 6/10 - Sort of cool. Gets useless after mid-late game. Betrayal - You could have a 3 of each race vs 1 incredibly strong comp mixed race. The three start at the bottom allied and the comp starts at the top (taking half of the top). The comp has the whole bag, Tanks, Carriers, Cruisers, Guardians, Lurkers, everything! If you are Terran you start out with a Command Center and 4 SCVs and 2 Marines. Zerg starts with Hatchery, 4 Drones, and 4 Zerglings. Protoss, 1 Nexus, 4 Probes, 1 Zealot. Each starting location has a beacon at the back of the base where units come out of. After 3 minutes the comp sends each base a marine, 2 Zerglings, and after 4 minutes a Zealot. Now if you kill this Marine you get another one. Basically whatever unit you kill you gain what you killed on your side completely healed. Make it work for your own units because then if they have an injured unit they'dd kill it to make it fully revived. All the comp workers have their mixed workers in the very top of the base mining. Now worker hunts would be a lot more useful. You could also have your attacking units kill one of all your allies' worker to start off with a base of all three races. Pokemon maps are like this yet I got the idea before I even played one of those maps. 10/10 - This is cool! You could also replace the comp with 3 more spaces and go 3 on 3. This is a definite must play! One for One - This game is the opposite of the previous game. When you kill the unit, both of you die! This is a real difficult game. I bet noone could make this and beat it if the comp is strong enough. The only strategy I could think of for this is to mass produce rush (like Hydralisk). Or, you could send a worker in next to a BattleCruiser or Carrier and let it die so the Cruiser or Carrier dies too. 8/10 - The most challenging map I have thought of. Try it all you StarCraft Gurus. Unit Count - Every 2 minutes, the player with the most amount of units loses all of their workers. 7/10 - This will make people think more about mass producing. Total Immortal - Everytime you lose 10 units all of your units become invincible for 1 minute. 7/10 - Pretty neat. Mercenary Force - You have no resources in the board. Every 10 seconds enemies or critters start appearing in beacons all around. For every enemy you kill you gain money. The stronger the enemy the more the money (like a Zergling would give 25 minerals and gas while an Ultralisk would give 300 minerals and gas). You automatically start with 4 workers (Builders) and a few attack units. 8/10 - Once again another cool challenge. Leader of the Pack - There is 1 leader for each race. The objective is to kill eachother's leader. If you kill the leader it ends in defeat for the player who lost their leader. Of course, the leader can defend. I suggest making leaders Archons, Goliaths, or Ultralisks. 8/10 - Pretty realistic since you have the leader actually on the battle field, and if they die then chaos breaks loose. Chosen Fate - Put 3 beacons at the start. Have a civilian move onto one of these. Depending on what they choose certain rewards will be given. Beacon 1: Everything is half priced. Beacon 2: Everything is created twice as fast. Beacon 3: Have 100 supply and price is reduced by 1 forth and speed is increased by 1 fourth. 8/10 - Cool because of the neat abilities. A really cool map. The Swarm - 2 to 4 humans vs. 4 comps. Players are allied up. After 30 minutes a massive swarm comes in. We're talking 60 Hydras, 12 Cruisers, 12 Carriers, 50 Mutalisks, 30 Guardians, 30 Archons, 20 Ultralisks, 20 Scouts, etc. Just make sure it is extremely strong but defendable. After the swarm is done the timer would time out and you'dd win if you survived. Oh yeah, there are barriers making sure noone can rush in before the time is up (including the comp). 9/10 - A good challenge. Join up with 4 allies to maximize the fun! Warriors and Merchants - I talk about this from playing a popular game called Warriors and Merchants. It is a definite favorite. The Merchants (who are untouchable and invinicible), create units with unlimited resources and half the time. Then they could send five of the same units to an Ion Cannon (Atom Splitter) and create super units (heros with double strength). Then they move all the units they create to the color beacon of the player they wish to give the units. The units appear next to the Warrior. Now, as far as money goes, Warriors mine resources and send a Civilian to certain beacons which give certain amounts of money to the color that corresponds to the Merchant who he wants to pay. The Merchants may then choose if they want to accept it or whatever. If they accept they will move the units onto the Warriors beacon. Now, the Merchant's goal is to get the most amount of money from the Warriors. The Warriors goal is to kill the other Warriors. 10/10 - Extremely fun, espescially if you are Merchant. Madness - These games are all over Battle.net! What happens, is the players are split into teams or free-for-all. Now, depending on what they chose, different units appear every second. You should get some building protection in the back of each base. Basically the point is now to send those units to kill the other teams. Every certain amount of kills you get heros and maybe better units start pumping out each second. 8/10 - Pretty cool if there is lots of variety. My favorite one is Zelda 64 Madness. It is however very unfair if one person reaches the strongest unit before the rest and then have the power to kill anyone (like in DBZ Saiyan Pride/Madness). Ranchers - I see these all the time too. It is based on Monster Rancher. They might have Marine Rancher or Zealot Rancher, but I have Hydralisk Rancher. It resembles Madness in where you get units each second. You enter battle and you get kills for money. With the money, you upgrade your units with Forges, Evolution Chambers, or Engineering Bays. 8/10 - This does take on an RPGish element. It is a mix of Madness and RPGs. God's Land - I have a bunch of these. There is one slot for God and maybe one for God's Assistant. Everyone else is battling eachother (well, you could ally). God may give units if he wishes, take units by killing them with his immortal units, take money, give money, or even wipe out a player completely. The combatants can sacrafice their units in the middle of the map that might please god. 10/10 - Sorta like Warriors and Merchants but instead of money there are units. God vs Satan - This is also popular. God is Protoss, Satan is Zerg, and the 3 servants for each are Terran. The 3 servants on each team are allied and fight against the three servants on the opposing team. Satan and Protoss give units to the people, and can upgrade their units to become stronger if they sacrafice a lot of the same units. God and Satan send their units to the beacon of their choice. On later versions there are 255 upgrades you can do. If all of the servants die for a team, the game ends in a loss for their ruler and them. 9/10 - Like God's Land except no sacrafices just gifts to help win. ============================================================================== 22. Other StarCraft Games ============================================================================== StarCraft 64 - Don't get this one unless you don't have a computer and don't have StarCraft or BroodWar for the comp. It requires an Expansion Pack to fully play it to the maximum, single player you can only play scenario, no Campaign Editor, multiplayer was poorly done, and controlling on the 64 is a hell of a lot harder than on the computer. Sure they claim to have Multiplayer and BroodWar missions. I don't think they tell you that you must buy an expansion pack to get them! Single player in StarCraft is all about the Custom Maps. Can't do that! Campaign Editor, one of the key elements of StarCraft... gone! The Multiplayer I must say was the worst thing you could think of. I mean, you can look at the other player's screen and see what technology he has, where he is located, when he is going to rush, if he has air or ground units, what type of rush he is going to use, where are his flaws in his defense, etc. Imagine how hard to control a game of StarCraft on an N64! With a mouse, you can move it as fast as you want to go. With a joystick you'dd probably go too fast or too slow or whatever to screw you up or slow you down. Not only that, you can't Hotkey! If you haven't experienced the phenomenon called StarCraft (and don't have a 90 mhz or better computer), then get this one. If you have a 90 mhz or better computer with about 100 mb of disk free space then you should buy the battlechest. Insurrection - A very crappy add-on. All it is, is new poorly constructed maps for single and multi-player. Retribution - Another very crappy add-on. All it is, is new poorly constructed maps for single and multi-player. ============================================================================== 23. Other Strategy Games ============================================================================== In this section we compare StarCraft to other rts games. Command and Conquers - As far as visual and audio wise C&C win, but as far as gameplay, variety, depth and fun StarCraft more than conquers C&C. C&C 1 has no skirmish mode (custom map). For variety StarCraft totally conquers C&C. StarCraft has 3 completely different races and new strategies for each race. C&C only has 1 race, human, but each human is slightly modified in what weapons they have. Also, StarCraft has cheats! Depth is a big factor. C&C there is not as much depth. You don't start off with a worker, every unit comes out of one building so you if you build 2 barracks you still will only be allowed to create one at a time. The workers are so expensive and slow. However, C&C does win in visual and audio. It is so cool seeing this awesome Techno environment! Not only that, C&C has tons more movies. WarCrafts 1 and 2 - How many units are there per race in WarCraft 2? 16 units per race. There are only 2 races each are exactly the same except for picture and spells. Only Death Knight and Ogre-Mage are different just because of their spells so that's 18 units in the entire game! StarCraft has 13 units for Terran, 14 units for Protoss, and 13 units for Zerg. Each are completely Different. Add em up and there's 40 different units in StarCraft. Not to mention there's about 12 more total missions, about 50 more starting maps, Campaign Editor much better, and every race is different in buildings, where you can build, and strengths and weaknesses. Age of Empires 2 - Age of Empires 2 has better 3-d Graphics, more depth, larger variety, more realistic sounds, and a good training course. While StarCraft may seem lost, StarCraft does have more fun. Age of Empires 2 is just WAY too complicated and complex. It'dd take a month to fully understand all the controls and crap. StarCraft only takes about a week. StarCraft is a lot more entertaining too. Age of Empires 2 gets boring after a while. Diablos - While the Diablos are not strategy I thought I should include them since they are by the great Blizzard. Anyway, Diablo one was a great RPG. You choose from 3 classes, Knight, Rouge, and Sorcerer and start off in a town with a blacksmith, a bartender, a maid, a healer, a drunk, a black market item seller, and an elder. The point is to kill Diablo who is in the bottom of this dungeon. Oh yeah, the entire game is based around 1 big dungeon. There are only 2 places a town and a dungeon! But, the dungeon is randomly generated each time which is cool. One thing I have noted about the equipment buying besides the fact that it is terribly expensive. You can only see 7 items at a time. So if you are an archer and all they have is swords, axes, and other Knight equipment, you have to buy one of those to take a chance if the next item's gonna be a bow. Diablo 2 is great. There are 5 classes, Paladin, Barbarian, Rouge, Sorcerer, and Amazon. In Diablo, 90% of the game was in the dungeon. In Diablo 2 only 65% is in the dungeons. There are other parts that are outside the dungeon! Note, before you go out and buy this game you must have more than a Gig of free space to play. It takes up 1.5 Gigs for a full installation! That's just insane if you ask me but not out of my league. Diablo 2 is very good, one of the best RPGs. Strengthining your character is done in the same fashion as Diablo where you level and upgrade 5 points, but this time you can learn or upgrade one of MANY spells or abilities for each character. Awesome long movies. Tons of dialouge. This is, however, much much better on Battle.net. ============================================================================== 24. Psychology and Starcraft ============================================================================== I know what you're probably thinking: "What the hell is this guy talking about?" or "This guy takes Starcraft WAAAAAY too seriously!". Well I must admit, I DO take Starcraft very seriously and game for hours a day practically everyday. As far as this whole psychology thing goes, I really have never seen any psychology guides on the internet for games. Since I already wrote my own strategy guide on the game, I decided to be original and come up with a new idea for a guide. Let's get rolling shall we? For my guide, I will represent a scale factor -5 to 5 on psyche levels. -5 being incredibly stressed and negative overall playing like shit, 0 being neutral, 5 being relaxed and positive and playing godlike. I will relate various conflicts and solutions with psyche points. Pre-game: "The battle had been won before it even began." That's where this whole idea comes from. I will present to you a few different situations. ***Your Opponent*** ^^Arrogance^^ Player1 (p1): So, you up for a game? Player2 (p2): Haha, with you? Newb. Go play with your little newbie friends. --------BREAK-------- Why do I break here? Simply because the battle could end here. You can either let this sink in and curse back to him adding a grueling -3 psyche points, you could walk away adding -1 psyche points, or you can be completely nonchalant about the whole thing and smile adding 1 psyche point. Taking offense to his statement really hits hard inside. Your whole playing style will be ruined trying to prove him wrong and shut him up. Walking away seems like a logical choice, but after you leave, there is still a slight hint of anger and disappointment. If you remain cool about it, make a few smilies and (not outright, but by the nature of your response) reverse his entire plan, making him think that you're being too cocky to want to fight him. --------BREAK-------- p1: =) p2: WTF are you smiling at newb, you suck ass. p1: Hehe p2: Haha, your so gay! Go play with your newbie friends. p1: I am =) p2: WHAT DID YOU SAY?!? LETS GO! 1v1 RIGHT NOW! If your situation turns out like this, give yourself +2 psyche points total and subtract 4 from your opponent. Your opponent is in a bad state to game in. ^^Modesty^^ p1: So, you up for a game? p2: Haha, you'd own me. p1: ? p2: I'm like horrible, everyone in this channel has owned me at least twice, and hard at that. --------BREAK-------- Not quite as harmful as arrogance can be, but you still have some factors working against you. You can acknowledge him as a complete newb adding 0 psyche points, you can also ignore his whole newbie attitude adding 0 psyche points, you can take what hes saying as a lie and prepare for a long, brutal game adding -1 psyche points, or finally, you can outright say you are a newbie too, adding 2 psyche points. Acknowledging him as a newbie has pros and cons that I think level themselves out. You play a little bit more relaxed, helping your game, but at the same time, your underestimating your opponent. Ignoring his attitude and everything he said has no effect on the psyche levels at all. Taking what he said as a lie puts you on a slight state of nervousness, expecting him to out mass your guys 7:1 or to tech to reavers by the time your building your cybernetics core. If you take this the wrong way and say that he is a liar and is really good, you put yourself at the most risk for this situation which isn't that much anyway. If you laugh and say that you're a newbie too, generally, you can take a more relaxed approach to this game and then he himself, will be faced with the same dilemna. --------BREAK-------- p1: Twice? That's nothing! p2: Wha? p1: I'm so newb, I've lost count how many times everyone has beaten me in this channel. So here we are, you should end with +1 psyche points while your opponent is at -1. If the opponent decides to ask around about you, no matter what is said, if you're newbie or if you're pro, it will work against him. If that happens, subract 1 from his psyche level. ***Pre-Game*** Not much to say here really. Most of pre-game takes places when you first join a game but it hasn't started. Race is the only factor here. ^^Race^^ If you choose your race, read on, otherwise move onto next paragraph. Ok, you chose your race, now all that matters is your opponent's race. If you each choose a race many things can happen. If it's your most feared matchup or somewhere around there, give -2 psyche points. If it's your best matchup, give yourself +2 psyche points. If you could care less either way, give yourself 0 psyche points. If your opponent goes random, give -2 psyche points and him +2 psyche points. If you went random, read on, otherwise move onto next paragraph. Random works well with psychology, but luck may not always be on your side and you may end up with your worst matchup. Add +2 psyche points if you went random and he chose a race you are alright at fighting. Add +1 psyche points if you went random and he chose a race you hate fighting. Both times, add -2 psyche points to your opponent. If you both went random, give -2 psyche points to both of you. Pre-game can often be a deciding factor in the fate of the game. ^^History^^ If you know about your opponent or have had a few games with them, it creates a whole new ball park. If this game is a rematch from a game you lost, give yourself -5 psyche points and your opponent +3. If this game is a rematch from a game you won, give yourself +3 psyche points and your opponent -5. Rematching from a loss TOTALLY messes up your game play. The best advice I can give is to relax a bit, take a break, watch the replay, laugh at your mistakes, and challenge him again later. ============================================================================== 25. Credit ============================================================================== First off I would like to thank Blizzard with this game and Starcraft.org for some rushes. StarCraft University (http://starcraft.strategy-gaming.com/) gave me half of the secrets and a few strategies. Visit the site it is awesome! I would like to thank Joseph Christopher for most of the Learning Center games used in this. My biggest thanks goes to Scott Lee as he stated in his guide some really effective strategies I used in this guide. Get Joseph Christopher's and Scott Lee's guide at Gamefaqs.com. I would like to thank cheatcc.com (Cheat Code Central) for the Zerg secret mission. I would also like to thank Code for the Invisible tank trick. Last, I would like to thank my friend Jon for helping me out through the whole thing. Kronikle's StarCraft BroodWar Strategy Guide Copyright 2000 Ryan Kurlish