Strategy Guide - Guide for StarCraft: Brood War
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============================================================================== Kronikle's StarCraft Brood War Strategy Guide v1.6 ============================================================================== ___ _____ _ ____ __ ____ _ _____ _____ / /|_ _| / \ | \ / \ | \ / \ | ___||_ _| / / | | / \ | |> \ / /\ \ | |> \ / \ | |__ | | \ \ | | / /_\ \ | / / / \_\| / / /_\ \ | __| | | \ \ | | / /___\ \ | |\ \ \ \ __ | |\ \ / /___\ \ | | | | / / | | / / \ \ | | \ \ \ \/ / | | \ \ / / \ \ | | | | /__/ |_|/_/ \_\|_| \_\ \__/ |_| \_\/_/ \_\|_| |_| 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 most be first informed. In no ways may anyone make money off this 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). END OF DISCLAIMER 1. Introduction 2. Version Changes 3. Race Overviews 4. General Strategies 5. Multiplayer 6. Terran Units 7. Zerg Units 8. Protoss Units 9. Terran Strategy 10. Zerg Strategy 11. Protoss Strategy 12. Computer Killing 13. Kronikle's Most Useful Strategies 14. Cheats 15. Secrets (glitches included) 16. Learning Center 17. Miscellaneous 18. Campaign Editor Creation Guide 19. Campaign Editor Idea Guide 20. Other StarCraft Games 21. Other Strategy Games 22. Award Section 23. Credit ============================================================================== 1. Introduction ============================================================================== If you have e-mailed [email protected] about StarCraft from an internet account, I couldn't read it. Now e-mail [email protected]. My old e-mail address is [email protected]. I hate AOL. But now I got a new one! My new e-mail address is [email protected]. 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 6 times a month or more. You may ask questions about this game because I have only gotten 1 e-mail about this guide, so I have plenty of time. 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. This is version 1.6. 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. I have never been beaten by any of my friends and after awhile 4 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 or 9. I have beaten 7 computers yet the very cheap way. Everyone is Zerg and you build sunkens all around the bases. I am using Battle.net much more. My computer is VERY slow (66 mhz), but now I am using a 400 mhz comp. My old name is Kronikle66. My record for that name was somewhere around 30-9-15. a third of the 15 were backstabbers, another third was when I was a newbie and there was the last third when I was just careless or was trying new strategies. When I was a newbie and was going to rush I always built 9 workers before I even thought about building my attack unit producer then built 12 of the units. My new name is {bA}~Kronikle~. I am in the popular extremely strong warring clan Blood Angels. You can challenge me anytime when I'm on Battle.net. I don't play ladder games because I hate the fact that if you lose you lose points, and Battle.net doesn't perminently store your points. I also HATE the maps they supply you with, because I don't enjoy expanding. Read the Learning Center and find my only game (it's under Terran vs. Terran). Ladder games do however show true skill cause your actually fighting a human and not allying up against computer. For all of you who need training out there, I recommend you read this guide or play a 2vs2comp games on random. Watch your ally and see his strategies. If he pulls off some crazy kick ass chit 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. He most likely will not remember me. 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 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 10 Medics, while Protoss use Psi Storm twice, Statis Field to stop you, then Psi Storm some more! Their early rush is about 10 Zealots! By the way, do any of you people out there have Gundam Century? That is phreaking awesome!! Terran and Protoss are completely different! The start-up screen is cooler, the units are WAY cooler, and the strength is WAY better. Although sucks for Zerg, they have no changes. If you can, e-mail me if there are any other patches for StarCraft or BroodWar. I am writing this version right before patch 1.08 is released. I have downloaded the beta and it rocks! Corsairs fire faster, BattleCruisers and Reavers are faster (I think), you have the ability to watch the mission you just beat over and over in the Replay function, Dragoons take longer to make, Scouts are cheaper, Spawn Broodling is cheaper. These are the things I remember. ============================================================================== 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 [email protected]. Fixed some typos and errors. Added a secret about a new mission. 1.4 - Added Super Annoyance trick. Got another e-mail address [email protected]. 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. ============================================================================== 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 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 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 Protoss because I can beat large amounts of computers with them and humans are reduced to nothing with my Dark Templar Attacks. I am currently improving with Zerg and a little with Terran. My least favorite race is Terran, as I have found no very strong and reliable strategy with them. If any of you wanna teach some Terran crap, go right ahead. I'll give you credit in my guide for it. ============================================================================== 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 - Seige Tank in Seige 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 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. 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. 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 seige 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. 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. 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 marines 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). When to Attack - Playing Defense isn't too bad. 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. 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. HA HA!! By then your tank could easily take him out. This can be countered if an air unit comes by. DAMN!! 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. 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 games - This strategy has almost never failed me. 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). 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 is VERY slow (66 mhz), but now I am using it often on a 400 mhz comp.! My new name is {bA}~Kronikle~. I am in the one of the strongest warring clans there is, The Blood Angels! My record is now somewhere around 30 wins 10 losses and 10 disconnects. My old record was around 30-10-40 Now I know what everyone's thinking "I'm a dropper". Not really. 30 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 because I hate the fact that if you lose, you lose points, and Battle.net doesn't perminently store your points. I don't play those games. You can read about one of my ladder games at the Learning Center. Ladder games do however prove true skill since you are actually playing against a human not allied to take out a comp on a map that requires expansion. 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. 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. 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. 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 both of you control one single base is hard. 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. 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 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. He most likely will not remember me. ============================================================================== 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. 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 an organic unit 2 life per 1 energy 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. 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. 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. 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! 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 from range as far as the Guardians'. Wraith - These would be a much better unit if there were no detectors. 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. Dropship - Simply a transport. Nothing special about it. 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. 25 of these fully upgraded can take out 100 mutalisks not upgraded. They hit about a 3x3 space. 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 flaw with the Battle Cruiser is it is slow in moving. ============================================================================== 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 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. 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. 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, Carriers, and other slow attacking air unit. 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. 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. The best part 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 good! All it does is slow down a unit to half it's speed temporarily. Whoopie!! 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 units to gain 50 magic energy, and Plague which brings life (Unit and Building) down, somtimes to 1, 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 ground long-range attacks in the orange area useless, making Zerg rushes very useful. 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 multiple units. 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. 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. *************************************** The Never Ending Wraiths - Non-stop mass fully upgraded Wraiths. Pretty dang strong. You can wipe em out in 20 minutes. -Send workers mining -Build up to 8 SCVs and build a supply depot -Build more SCVs until 12 and build a Refinery -After you have about 15 SCVs mining make another Command Center -Keep pumping non-stop SCVs -Build 3 more Refineries filled -Barracks -Stop building SCVs at around 60 -Build a factory and 2 Armories -Of course, start upgrading -Bulid 12 to 24 StarPorts -Max out Supply Depot population -Build 2 Science Facilities and Covert Ops and Physics Lab -Upgrade -Set Rally point and do some non-stop Wraith production -Once you get 5 control groups, cloak and attack from the side -If the attack does not win for ya, build more Wraiths -Attack when you get Wraiths from every StarPort -Win COUNTERING - You MUST have detectors. Missile Turrets do pretty good on this. Mass dragoons or Hydralisks can take this out, but if you non-stop rush with your 24 StarPorts they shouldn't be a problem. 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. 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. The Never Ending Nuke - One of my personal favorite Terran attack. In 10 to 15 minutes you can can pretty much nuke infinitly. -Build up to 9 SCVs and then Barracks -On 10th SCV build Supply Depot -Build 1 Marine to scout -Make em mine when they're done -Click the SCV button 5 times -Have the first and second that come out, mine -Have the third and fourth make Refineries -Have fifth and sixth mine to one Refinery and seventh and eighth to other -Build a Supply Depot or two -Build Factory and Academy -Build a few more SCVs -Keep Making Supply Depots until you're supply can go up to above 70 -Build Starport and 2 Command Centers -When Starport done add control tower and build Dropship then a Wraith -Make Science Facility and Covert Ops -Make 3 Nuclear Silos and a ghost -Research cloaking then range -Build Nukes -Scout with Wraith for possible dropping spots. Try to find a cliff next to the mineral field or a batch of Supply Depots. -Drop Ghost and cloak and nuke -Build another ghost and dropship at main base -Once Nuke done, load in dropship and hit different target. -Keep at it I have done this against Zerg opponents and it has worked perfectly. Now, if your nukes don't go right, hit from every nook and cranny you can. COUNTERING - Turrets/Cannons/Spores around the outskirts of the entire base will do it. For front line, put long range unit next to a detector to blast the ghost. The Tank/Goliath Push - Seige Tanks in seige mode are pretty much (if not) the best ground attack unit in the game. Not only that, Goliaths are pretty much (if not) the best ground to air unit. I have never tried this rush but have seen it win countless times. You'll need 3 Refineries each with 3 SCVs on em and lots of SCVs working. I saw around 6 Factories up with 2 Armories upgrading. Don't forget, Cloaking Wraiths will also aid that force and you never wanna forget your Science Vessel to detect and EMP Shockwave the forces. 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. 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 make two layers of supply depots BLOCKING your entrance to your base (if your scv gets trapped outside your base use him as a scout). (Most important part) Build two bunkers behind them, filled with marines and put about four to six Seige tanks in Seige 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. This strategy should really only be used against the computer. If you need help, read the Battle Cruiser rush. Battle Cruiser rush - This is a pretty good strategy! Within about fifteen minutes you can be rushing in with twelve BCs. This is GREAT for computer and great for an inexperienced human opponent. This strat should only be used on custom maps (ones with 50,000 minerals and gas and lots of mineral patches and vespene geysers). - Send workers to mineral patches and build an SCV - Send that SCV mining and keep building SCVs until you have 9 - Send 9 to build a supply depot blocking entrance. - Build 10th and have him construct a barracks - After 9 is done, pump out a few more SCVs and build more supply depots until your entrance is blocked double layered - After 10 is done have him build a bunker behind your Supply Depots - Build another SCV and have him build a refinery. - After refinery, if you have more geysers build refineries over them. - Start pumping out marines until you have 8 - 3 SCVs (if you have enough supply depots, if not take a mining SCV and have him build one) and send them to the refinery(s) if you have more refineries than one, send three more to each other refinery. - After 10 is done have him build another bunker next to your other one - Fill bunkers - By now the computer already attacked so if needed repair anything damaged. - If 9 is done and is inside your base have him move to an open area and keep building supply depots - Some SCVs - Once enough cash for Factory, build! - While factory building, pump out more SCVs - After Factory build machine shop - After machine shop build 4 tanks, research Siege mode and build more SCVs. - Put tanks at front of base in Siege mode - Build SCVs and stop at around 40. - Take 6 SCVs and have each one build a Starport (leaving enough room for control towers) - Attatch Control Towers - Send 5 finished SCVs mining and have the 6th build a Science Facility with attatched Physics Lab. - Research Yamato Cannon - Start pumping out BCs! - Once you have about 12 attack - While attacking build 6 more BCs or until you run out of supplies - If you were fast enough you should be able to creame the enemy. If not, send the six at your base to attack and build twelve more BCs (6 for defense the other 6 for attacking). COUNTERING - This is a very strong rush! With Zerg, 6 Scourges won't cut it. You'll have to use about 20 Scourges, 7+ Devourers, and/or groups of 20s Hyrdalisks per 4 BattleCruisers (if they are all in a group). If you know he's going to do this, simply build up an army of Scourges. Terrans have an advantage with Lockdown. You can Lockdown them and send in some Valkyries, Wraiths, or BattleCruisers of your own. As a final resort you might want to nuke the part of the base where the BCs are attacking. Protoss only need Psi Storm, Mind Control, and the Arbiters Cloak Field. Tank Push - One my personal favorite Terran rush. In my opinion, this is the rush that doesn't make Terran suck. -SCV 1-7 Minerals -8 on Barracks -9 on Supply Depot -10-12 mine -Pump Marines -13-15 minerals -Supply Depot -2 More Barracks -Keep pumping marines -2 Refineries with three SCVS each -6 more SCVs to mine -2 Factories and one more Barracks -Academy and StarPort -Add Machine Shop and research seige mode and make tanks -Add Medics into your marine group -Research Stim Packs then marine range -Comsat Station and scout with Scanner Sweep -Add Control Tower and Science Facility -Get a Science Vessel and EMP Shockwave -Attack when you have 12 Tanks and 2 Control groups of Marines and Medics -At this point, if the enemy is Terran, you should have a nice win cause all they probably have are maybe Tanks behind bunkers. You should be able to hit the bunker from a range, When the tanks come in, yours should finish theirs. If it's zerg it should be a bit harder cause if they mass zerglings, you may be out for the count. If zlings come out, unseige so your tanks dont kill eachother then hit em with tanks and stimmed marines. Protoss should be no prob. Hit em with an EMP Shockwave and Templars should have zero magic so no Psi Storm. Also, your Shockwave should make the enemies easy to kill with no shields. COUNTERING - Air units and cloaked units are the key. Zerg can use Guardians if you can get em that quick guardians are perfect against these rushes. Mutalisks may die in the hands of the marines but try to get some. Toss should take out the Science Vessel quick so Dark Templar may come in. Distruption Web is very useful against seiged tanks. Terran can put tanks on the outside of the bunkers. Terran can also use Wraiths to finish off the Science Vessel then cloak. Scanner Sweep is always there so watch out. 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. 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. ATTACK Against Terran - Dropping Tanks, Goliaths and Marines work very well. Putting a Seige 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. Against Zerg - Nukes are not very effective here unless you can hit the Hive/Lair/Hatchery. All the units reproduce fast with Zerg also, their buildings gain life, not to mention the Overlords suck cause they detect you too easily. BC rush is pretty good here and the Wraith Rush is good. A good strat here is to take about 6 tanks in Siege mode and put them outside the Zerg base. Right behind the tanks have your BC's (and a science vessel to uncloak Lurkers) ready to gun. While your tanks blast away, you should be able to do a good amount of damage when the enemy starts coming out. When the enemy starts pouring out, have your tanks take care of some of it, and have your BC's take care of the rest. If the enemy is too overwhelming, run away, repair, build greater numbers and attack again. Also, try to Wraith attack from the side while you do that. Against Protoss - Nuking is most effective on this race. EMP Shockwave a group of bunched up enemies to make your attacks MUCH easier. Using a Shockwave followed up by a Tank Push will almost always win. Worker Hunts should be easiest on this race. Hitting their workers will greatly limit those expensive unit productions. DEFENSE Against Terran - No real strategy here. If you have cloakable units cloak them and defend. Try not to use Firebats. Build some Turrets around your base they can defend against and Battle Cruisers and some drops. If you know you are going to lose, use your comsat station and make a sweep then lift all your buildings and land on a safe spot. Send an SCV or two to every building and be ready to repair. This may or may not work depending on who you're defending against. Have Ghosts ready to use lockdown to disable Battle Cruisers. Against Zerg - If they are attacking with Zerglings and you have air units just blast each unit once and they'll go away. If you have tons of attacking air units try to take all the zerg units out. If you have no air units and you know you will lose, lift up your buildings and either wait till they run away or move to another spot. If they do a Lurker rush, 90% of the time you are screwed. If you know they are going to do it, build a think layer of supply depots at the entrance of base. This should give you about a minute to prepare your defense. A typical Lurker rush is very early in the game, so chances are you won't have any air units along with science vessels. If the attack is late and you have a comsat station or Science Vessel and some air units, the comsat or Science Vessel decloak while the air units take out the Lurkers. If it's any other unit have a group of defending units all attack one unit at a time. Against Protoss - A VERY USEFUL strategy is to have a science vessel with EMP Shockwave. It brings Protoss shields and Magic down to 0. Archon's shields are 97% of it's life, Templars need magic to attack, and Arbiters need magic etc. If they are attacking with Zealots just put 3 Firebats in the Bunkers and a marine in each bunker. When the Zealots get hit with the gun fire, they will move towards the bunker and get burned by the Firebats. Be prepared to have lots of missile turrets around your base. This will protect against the Carrier Swipe pretty good but mainly against the Arbiter Warp Attack. You may want to build defense near the back of your base. Reaver drops, Arbiter Warp Attack, and other attacks that go for specifically SCVs will be useless if you are cautious. If you have cloaked units use them to hit the enemy once to make him run. If they have an Observer in your base try to find it's outline and use comsat to destroy it (or Missile Turrets). Have ghosts ready to use Lockdown to disable Carriers. If mass/heavy units are attacking a nuke in the middle of the swarm isnt a bad idea. ============================================================================== 10. 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. Except I think you might be able to get in some Cannons before a Zergling force can hit you. 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. 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 (lots a) Siege Tanks. Dark Templars are good, if they don't have Overlords in their attack, other than that, tons of 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. 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. 24 Lair Assualt - If noone rushes you, (and if you are smart) you have a win. This takes a while and may not seem worth it, but trust me, do this and you will see how worth it, this is. This must be used on maps with mucho money and patches. Anything less is stupid. -1-9 Drones mine -Morph Overlord -Bulid a few more drones -Start pumpin non-stop Overlords until you have 60+ supply -Morph about 6 drones -Make 6 Hatcheries (some at expansions or second bases if you dont have enough room) -Morph 4 more drones -Make 4 Extractors -Fill each Extractor with 3 Drones each -Keep pumping Drones until you have about 60 in all -Keep making Hatcheries until you have 20+ -Bulid Overlords until you have 200 Supply Limit -Make a few drones -Build a Spawning Pool -Make 3 Evolution Chambers -Upgrade EVERYTHING you see -After Spawning Pool done, morph every Hatchery into a Lair -Bulid some more Drones -Make a Hydralisk Den, 3 Spires, and a Queen's Nest -Upgrade 2 Lairs into Hives -Keep Upgrading EVERYTHING!!! -Bulid 2 more drones -Make a Defiler Mound and Ultralisk Cavern -Set rally point to your entrance for every Lair and Hive -In total you should have at around 25 Lairs -Make Muts and Hydralisks from every Lair/Hive -Make two Defilers with Dark Swarm and Plague -Max population with whatever else you want -Gather outside enemy base -Split Attack Force in half each with a Defiler -Attack! -Use Dark Swarm on each of the attacking areas -Win COUNTERING - Rushing is the best strategy. But, you'dd be stupid not to set a no-rush rule. I have found only one strategy that has conquered this. That is the Arbiter/Carrier rush. Your extremely dumb hydralisks attack only the interceptors (mainly because the Carriers are out of the Hydralisks range. Your muts are nothing compared to this swarm. But, if you however build more Lairs you can probably send more waves of Mutalisks. The Inferno Hydras - This is it ladies and gentlemen. I have finally made my mind. This is basically like the above except you can have no rules and get up 72 upgraded Hydras in ten minutes. 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. 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. ATTACK Against Terran - Try not to use the Zergling rush, as the Terran tend to lift buildings. Instead, use the Hydralisk rush. Guardians do wonders espescially teamed up with Scourges or Devourers. Their long range and air attack should be able to take out SCVs or tanks from good distances away. Lurkers are the best against Terran. Early on, take about 6 Lurkers upgrade their range and they are almost invincible. If you attack from far enough the Turrets can't decloak you. The only problem with this is if they have a comsat station or a Science Vessel and air units. The comsat or Science Vessel decloak while the air units take out the Lurkers. To prevent this bring about 14 Scourges. Best used early. Spawn Broodlings on workers. Plauge is awesome here on buildings! Once your Mutalisks take out the Starport and all air units, replace them with Guardians. Against Zerg - Use Guardians backed up with Scourges to attack the front line to distract them. Then drop some Lurkers and Hydralisks in the back of their base. Or, build about 10 Hatcheries and pump out Hydralisks by the 30's. But, you must have about 50 workers on rich maps. I also suggest build more Lairs than him to pump Hydras/Muts faster. Guardian/Devourer rushes are always a good bet on zerg. Probably the best measure is putting up a Nydus Canal in the enemy creep. Put it by the mining field and you can transport your entire army in! Against Protoss - Attack early! Don't worry about defense too much, just keep attacking. Most likely the Protoss will be too busy to attack you. After attack after attack, your opponent will finally not be able to keep up and you will eventually win (most of the time). If it is going to be a long game. Use Dark Swarm with Ultralisk or tons of fully upgraded Lings. Or, use Guardians to take out Photons and then rush in with Zerglings. Plague is not good on this race. It reduces life (not shields) down to 1 and Protoss life can't be recovered. If you have Terran allies, a simple plague and EMP Shockwave is almost instant death. 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 - Air attacks are useless against Scourges. No unit can take out a Scourge in one hit. For ground defense, Plague usually doesn't work because of the speed of Zerg units. Try to Spawn Broodlings on their strong units. If they are swarming, other units around them will be attacking the Broodlings giving you time to get in a Plague. Usually Zerg go Hydras or Muts in the mass so I suggest you build up some Lurkers or Devourers. Against Protoss - Most of the time they will use mass Carrier rushes or mass goon rushes. Don't worry about this too much. Just upgrade the Zerg armor to maximum and charge the Carriers with Scourges! If they are not going straight Carrier, put Guardians behind your baracade of Sunkens/Spores to block better. Sunkens are really effective against Protoss. Plague is good too. ============================================================================== 11. 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. Infinite Scout Wave rush - This is a full on fully upgraded Scout rush non-stop. I can not explain detail by detail as this is way too long. This can ONLY work in games where the people dont rush for 20 minutes or so. I get up this force in about 20 minutes. -Build up to the ninth probe -Bulid a pylon -Build more probes and build an assimilator -Bulid more and more probes -Start up a second Nexus -Build probes non-stop from each -Get about 3 more assimilators filled with 3 probes each -Make another Nexus -Keep building probes and pylons -Have a probe build a Gateway, 2 Cybernetics Cores, and 3 Forges -Upgrade Air Attack and Defense, along with shields, armor, and weapons -Dont stop with probes -Build about 2 more Assimilators filled -Build 12 StarGates powered by multiple Pylons -Build a Fleet Beacon -Bulid pylons until you have 200 supply -Keep upgrading -Build a Citadel of Adun, Templar Archives, and Arbiter Tribunal -Upgrading everything you see -Stop building probes when you have at least 60 and about 6 assimilators filled -By now you should have fully upgraded scouts -Pump from each StarGate non-stop Scouts with an Arbiter in there -You should make about 4 or so control groups or until your supply runs out and attack -Often this might not work so keep pumping while your fleets attack -If you Scouts die you should already have another wave -Fill up your supply and attack again -If you wish build more StarGates to keep non-stop sending in Scouts -Keep attacking until they die -Win Countering - Very hard. If its no rules just rush em. Other wise, just try to build up some air d or better yet ground. Scouts are very strong to air and weak to ground. If it's late game and you dont have a formidable force your probably screwed. Zerg cant take this attack very well. Terran can perhaps build mass fully upgraded Valkyries. They do well. Protoss can Psi Storm or use mass goons. Mass goons or Hydras are the only defense I have known to exterimnate my force. The Dark Templar Extreme Rush - One of my favs! I was just screwing around trying new rushes and lookie what I came up with :)! This can either work two ways: 1, you send non-stop through the main entrance or 2, you send one huge force in the back of the base. This works perfectly on Shared Base Maps. -Probes to 8/9 -Pylon then mine -Warp another probe and have him build another Nexus at an expansion -Pump Probes -Get 2 more Pylons -Keep pumping Probes! -Make 2 Assimilators filled with 3 Probes each -Start another Nexus -Still pump probes -Make 2 more Assimilators -When you have around 40+ probes take one to be your builder -Make about 10 more Pylons and about 10+ Gateways -Build a Cyber core and 3 Forges -Upgrade -Get Citadel of Adun -Build more Pylons -Warp Templar Archives and 5 Robotics Facilities along with one Robotic Support Bay -Research Psi Storm and make never ending Dark Templar -Upgrade Ground units and Shuttle Speed -Send a batch of 24 Dark Templar to hit main entrance -If they don't have a lot of Detectors and defense, send in your remaining Dark Temps and win -If they have too strong of a fortress to crack through the main entrance, read on! -Throw up 5 Stargates and make Dragoons along with Dark Templars -Get up a bunch of Shuttles and fill em with Dark Templars (I had 12 filled Shuttles) -Get an Arbiter Tribunal and Research Recall. Make 5 Arbiters -After Shuttles done, build Reavers -Group up Shuttles and run em in the side of the base with Arbiter Support -Now where are those goons? Recall all of your goons you made and Reavers if you made any. -Drop your Dark Temps and massacre them I have used this strat to take out 4 players solo! Set a No Rush 15 rule for this. COUNTERING - If you build Turrets/Cannons/Spores around your parimeter, you can easily stop the drop part. If you block entrance with detectors and good defense that will be through with. 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. 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. 10 Gate Push - Every 50 seconds you rush in with 6 Zealots and 4 Dragoons. This is a VERY good rush! I can not tell you step by step as it would take way too long! - Block off entrance with Photons leaving enough room for ground units to leave - Build Gateways, Probes, and Pylons - Put up about 6 cannons in the back of the base for protection against worker hunts - Stop at 5 Gateways, 3 Forges, 40 Probes, and about 20 Pylons - Build Observatory and Templar Archieves - When you feel safe get another base and another 40 Probes and 5 Gateways - Upgrade Zealot speed then Dragoon range then weapons and armor - Get 12 Zealots and scout - When enemy found, attack and maybe it might be enough to kill your enemy - Get Observers and Zealots at every expansion to make it hard for your enemy to expand - Start pumping up 6 Zealots and 4 Dragoons and attack every time you get all of them - Take out any expansions if they have them first - Don't stop attacking COUNTERING - Unless you take them out before they have a chance to do this, I really don't know of another way to counter this. Zerg could try using a thick wall of Lurkers (plaque can help). Terran can use cloaked Wraiths or Ghosts. Protoss can defend with Massive Carrier swarms, High Templars, and/or Dark Templars. 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. Worker Hunt - Use the Arbiter Warp Attack, drop Reavers or Templars to use Psionic Storm, or use Scouts. Big ship prevention - Psionic Storm Mass swarm prevention - Psionic Storm and Reavers Zealot prevention - Get more Zealots than him! Use Photons to help. If it is later then use air units. ATTACK Against Terran - Try not to use the Zealot rush here. They can easily lift up buildings and let allies finish you off. Use the Dragoon rush. Or, you can fill the air with Scouts. A large number of Scouts can take out any air unit. Use your Scouts to take out any air units and then have them take out their Starport(s). Then use them to take out tanks. After that rush in with Zealots. Carriers are weaker than BattleCruisers so if you plan on Carrier rushing be sure to get up more Carriers than his BCs. Try Reaver Drops. Against Zerg - Use Corsairs early on to take out Overlords. Once that is done, then you have an easy win! For more info on that read the Corsair rush. Don't want to play like that? Then, try sending in Reavers to take out Sunkens and when the calvary arrives use Templars Psionic Storm to take out the units. Carrier Rushes are very effective if ranged right. Dragoon rushes are my fav. rush against Zerg. Scout rushes work well if the enemy is going Guard/Devo. Dragoon Rushes work best if the enemy is going Hydra/Ling. Against Protoss - If you are playing against Photon Cannon obsessed people, then use Reavers to open up a path. Then rush in with Zealots. If not, use the Ultimate Protoss Strategy. Protoss are a tough race to beat so use the strongest strats you got. Worker hunts are good because Protoss MUST have workers to get all the money needed for their high costs. Most Toss players can be beaten 2 ways. Scout swarm or Goon swarm. Scout swarms will win against any air such as Carriers. Goons will win against any ground and most any air. I have been beaten by mass carriers with goon swarms. So if they are going Carrier go Scout. DEFENSE Against Terran - Most players who use Terran only use Battle Cruiser rushes. Now get ready for a laugh when you hear how easy it is to counter this. OK, build an Arbiter, 5 High Templars, and research Psionic Storm. Done! Your Arbiters far away should just be able to cloak your High Templars. Have your Templars use Psionic Storm until they run out. The Cruisers are worrying about the Arbiter and what's underneath it's Cloaking field. The Arbiter should not move because the BCs will move right after it. When they destroy the Arbiter the storms will be halfway done already. The BCs will most likely try to chase down the High Templars but are not fast enough. If they survive, by the time they get out of the storm they will not be surviving. If anything gets past this just send a few Scouts. By the time it takes to get another few BCs you should be recharged. This however can be countered with Science Vessels. The Science Vessels decloak the Templars and EMP Shockwave them. But if you see Science Vessels try to blast them with Psionic Storm before they can Shockwave you. If they are doing a tank push then try to send in some speed upgraded Zealots. If they are going straight Wraith get up an Observer and take em out with Psionic Storm and Scouts. Try and Hallucinate Carriers for some laughs. Against Zerg - Block your entrance with Photons just to detect Lurkers and stall attackers then use Psionic Storm and you have defense. Reavers may also prove to be useful. Against Protoss - Use Psionic Storm to prevent against any rush. If it's too early to get up Templars, use Reavers. If it's too early to get them then just use Photons or Zealots. ============================================================================== 12. Computer Killing ============================================================================== This section is devoted to training people on how to kill 3 to 5 computers, with the comps as diversified as possible. BTW I only train by letting the comps build up (except for some 4 and mainly 5 computers). My last point will be on letting the computer build. This section may or may not actually help you, but it is how I usually win. Killing comps usually distinquishes rank. I fought a player who couldn't beat three and guess what? He sucked! Note: I am not as good with Terran as I am Protoss and Zerg. To use these you must be good. And, the strategies in this section are very similiar to eachother. 3 Computers Terran: -Rush Protoss and Zerg, and do a tank push on Terran. -Rush Zerg, block defense with supply depots backed up by bunkers and tanks. Get up cloaked Wraiths quickly and take out Terran or Protoss. Get up some more Wraiths and take out the other enemy -Block defense with supply depots backed up by bunkers, tanks (seiged) and a turret or two. Your main goal is to get tons of SCVs so you can pump non-stop units, so I suggest you get another Command Center. Keep an SCV or two at your defense post to repair. Get up Wraiths asap so you can counter enemy seige tanks in seige mode. Upgrade your Wraiths. Build up on supply depots and StarPorts until you have maxed out supply depots and around 12 StarPorts. Pump non-stop Wraiths. By now your defense should be getting a bit overran, so use your Wraiths as your defense. Get up a Science Vessel. Post Wraith scouts around to see if anyone is about to attack. Once the coast is clear, attack Protoss. Expect to lose a bunch of Wraiths from the Psi Storms. Pump more Wraiths and attack again! Once Protoss is out, build any lost Wraiths and attack again, this time Terran. Be sure to keep your Science Vessel alive. Once Terran is out, take out Zerg. Zerg: -Rush Protoss with Zerglings and rush Zerg with a Sunken Colony in their mineral line. Finish Terran with waves of hydras. -Rush Protoss and get a sunken wall. Early Guardians to take out Zerg. Build up some hydra force for Terran. -Build a thick wall of sunkens (around 12). Build up with tons of Drones and get up some Lurkers. Attack or drop Terran. This should take them out or severely injure them. Always replace fallen sunken colonies. Your main goal is to get up a swarm of Guardians/Devourers. Get up 2 Spires, around 10 Hatcheries and max your population. By now, you should now where every computer is. If you can not build non-stop Guardians/Devourers get more Drones! Get your fleet up and wipe out the other comps. Protoss: -Do the Cannon rush on Protoss and do a zealot rush on Zerg. Finish Terran with Zealots. -Rush Protoss and get a photon wall. Get some Dark Templars to finish Terran and Overrun Zerg with mass goons. -Build a thick wall of cannons (around 16). Build up with tons of Probes and get up a few Dark Templars to drop next to the ComSat Station (for obvious reasons) and finish off Terran. Build up around 10 or so StarGates and non-stop pump Scouts (upgraded). Get an Arbiter and Observer in your fleet too. Once you've got 4 complete control groups, attack! 4 Computers Terran: -Rush Protoss and Zerg, and do a tank push on Terran and the other. -Rush Zerg, block defense with supply depots backed up by bunkers and tanks. Get up cloaked Wraiths quickly and take out Terran or Protoss. Get up some more Wraiths and take out the other enemies. -Rush the fourth. Block defense with supply depots backed up by bunkers, tanks (seiged) and a turret or two. Your main goal is to get tons of SCVs so you can pump non-stop units, so I suggest you get another Command Center. Keep an SCV or two at your defense post to repair. Get up Wraiths asap so you can counter enemy seige tanks in seige mode. Upgrade your Wraiths. Build up on supply depots and StarPorts until you have maxed out supply depots and around 12 StarPorts. Pump non-stop Wraiths. By now your defense should be getting a bit overran, so use your Wraiths as your defense. Get up a Science Vessel. Post Wraith scouts around to see if anyone is about to attack. Once the coast is clear, attack Protoss. Expect to lose a bunch of Wraiths from the Psi Storms. Pump more Wraiths and attack again! Once Protoss is out, build any lost Wraiths and attack again, this time Terran. Be sure to keep your Science Vessel alive. Once Terran is out, take out Zerg. Zerg: -Rush Protoss with Zerglings and rush Zerg with a Sunken Colony in their mineral line. Finish Terran and the fourth with waves of hydras. -Rush Protoss and get a sunken wall. Early Guardians to take out Zerg. Build up some hydra force for Terran and the fourth. -Rush the fourth. Build a thick wall of sunkens (around 12). Build up with tons of Drones and get up some Lurkers. Attack or drop Terran. This should take them out or severely injure them. Always replace fallen sunken colonies. Your main goal is to get up a swarm of Guardians/Devourers. Get up 2 Spires, around 10 Hatcheries and max your population. By now, you should now where every computer is. If you can not build non-stop Guardians/Devourers get more Drones! Get your fleet up and wipe out the other comps. Protoss: -Do the Cannon rush on Protoss and do a zealot rush on Zerg. Finish Terran with Zealots. Get up a goon force on the fourth. -Rush Protoss and get a photon wall. Get some Dark Templars to finish Terran and Overrun Zerg and the fourth with mass goons. -Rush the fourth. Build a thick wall of cannons (around 16). Build up with tons of Probes and get up a few Dark Templars to drop next to the ComSat Station (for obvious reasons) and finish off Terran. Build up around 10 or so StarGates and non-stop pump Scouts (upgraded). Get an Arbiter and Observer in your fleet too. Once you've got 4 complete control groups, attack! 5 Computers Terran: I can't do this! I'm not that great with Terran. Zerg: -Rush Protoss with Zerglings and rush Zerg with a Sunken Colony in their mineral line. Finish Terran and the fourth with waves of hydras. Hit the fifth with Guardians and Devourers. -Rush Protoss and get a sunken wall. Early Guardians to take out Zerg and the fifth. Build up some hydra force for Terran and the fourth. -Rush the fourth and fifth. Build a thick wall of sunkens (around 12). Build up with tons of Drones and get up some Lurkers. Attack or drop Terran. This should take them out or severely injure them. Always replace fallen sunken colonies. Your main goal is to get up a swarm of Guardians/Devourers. Get up 2 Spires, around 10 Hatcheries and max your population. By now, you should now where every computer is. If you can not build non-stop Guardians/Devourers get more Drones! Get your fleet up and wipe out the other comps. Protoss: -Do the Cannon rush on Protoss and do a zealot rush on Zerg. Finish Terran with Zealots. Get up a goon force on the fourth and fifth. -Rush Protoss and get a photon wall. Get some Dark Templars to finish Terran and Overrun Zerg and the fourth with mass goons. Attack the fifth with a Reaver drop finished with goons. You must have Templars. -Rush the fourth. Build a thick wall of cannons (around 16). Build up with tons of Probes and get up a few Dark Templars to drop next to the ComSat Station (for obvious reasons) and finish off Terran. Build up around 10 or so StarGates and non-stop pump Scouts (upgraded). Get an Arbiter and Observer in your fleet too. Once you've got 4 complete control groups, attack! Rebuild when you attack. You must have Templars. 7 COMPUTERS!! Yep! No BS! Beating 7 computers isn't as hard as you think. Well, it is sorta cheap the way you do it, but still, you beat 7 comps! I can only do this with Zerg. Every race should be Zerg. This should be used on a map where the back of everyone's base is easiy accessed, but doesnt need to. Zerg: -Quickly get up a sunken or two along with some Zerglings for defense from early rushes. -Take out two to three comps by building sunkens in the worker line. -Get up some Lurkers quick for some heavy defense. -Try to take out another one with sunkens. -Your Lurkers should be enough to buy you time to upgrade dropping. -Drop around 4 to 8 Lurkers in the mineral line of an enemy to destroy them. -Do this again on another. -Now it is due time to get Mutalisks. -Get up some muts and turn them into Devourers and Guardians. -Take out another 2 comps. -If you have any left, finish em with your forces. If it is a mini 8 player bloodbath, then just go sunken all the way. ============================================================================== 13. 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. How to put up an unstoppable defense - Load up on 5 marine filled bunkers and around 15 Seige Tanks and I guarantee you nothing ground will get in. As for air, get up around 30 Upgraded Valkyries 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. ============================================================================== 14. 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. ============================================================================== 15. Secrets ============================================================================== I need a lot of help with this. What I'm looking for is glitches that can make you do extraordinary things or some mini-secrets. Please e-mail me with any secrets you have! I will give you credit! 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. 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. 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! ============================================================================== 16. Learning Center ============================================================================== Here you learn tactics from the games I've played or have heard of that were played. Send in anything like these. I am also adding some of my losses so you people can learn from losses too. If you have any memorable games send them in and I will give you credit. Terran 1 Terran and 1 Protoss vs 1 Terran comp rush I was getting my ten wins for Battle.net at this time. I chose my best rushing race, Terran. We started and I was massacering the comp with my endless Marines. I look at my ally who wasn't doing a thing to help. He was making Cannons! I told him this was a rush! He said "Yeah I know, I'm gonna hit them with something strong!". What did he mean by that? All that was left was a Refinery and a Command Center. Then he arrives with 4 Dark Templars. Well, I'll let him take care of it. I stepped back. He just completely passed the enemy base and entered my base! He started taking out MY Barracks!! I yelled at him that I was blue! He says "I thought the comp was blue!". I yell "STOP!! I AM BLUE!!". Then he ignores me. Then I figure I could finish the Command Center and Refinery before he takes out my Command Center and Supply Depot and I will be declared winner! I started attacking. Almost done! I checked my base. All I had left was a refinery in yellow! The comps Command Center was all that was left and it was in red. At the last second I got the final hit RIGHT before mine blew up. Then I remembered, he probably took off allied victory! That was my first run with a backstabber. I lost. I forgot about liftoff. You backstabbers SUCK! Terran vs Terran My first time I played ladder on Battle.net was when I fought 2 opponents. One quit, the other one wasn't very good and it was also his first time on ladder. We were both Terran. Suddenly in the game he messages me "I'm going to have to watch out for those 3 BattleCruisers!". I realized he used his Comsat Station and I just ignored him. It was a no rush for 30 minutes (I was pretty new back then) game. I built up 12 BattleCruisers and swarmed into his base. I saw him on the way with only 12 Wraiths. He didn't want to fight me so we passed each other and started destroying eachothers base. For some reason he cloaked all of his units when I had no defense. I had so many supply depots it took him awhile, while I obbliterated his base in seconds. Then I couldn't find his other base. I searched all around but I had SLOW BattleCruisers. I had only 4 Supply Depots left. Suddenly I found his base in the center and blew it to shreds right before he finished my last supply depot. Terran vs. Protoss This is part two of my battle against my friend's brother. This battle was right after the last battle. He picked my race again and he said this time it is a rush. How stupid that he picked my best rush race. We began. I built my 2 Barracks and started scouting for him. My first guess was right to the left of me. I looked in but I found no advancement so I skipped that place. I tried the other 6 locations but found nothing. I checked back at the first base I scouted at and found a cannon. Oh my god... what a newbie... I yelled at him that this was a rush game! I attacked with my 15 marines. He had already made about 7 cannons which took out my marines. Then I kept sending them in but all he did was make more cannons. I got pissed. I built some tanks but he was right next to my base and he destroyed my tanks with a few Dragoons. Then I started protecting my parimeter with Turrets cause I knew what was coming. I also built a few Wraiths with cloaked to defend. He kept sending in the same rush, 12 Dragoons. My Wraiths took them out everytime with no trouble. Then I finally saw his Carrier enter my base. I took that out easily. Then I got my Nuclear Silo and Ghost. Hmm... what to do now? I built up a fleet of about 4 Cruisers and sent my nuke to take out 1 pylon in front of my base that was powering every photon. The Nuke hit the middle of all the cannons (the pylon) wiping out every cannon and pylon. Then he only had a few more Cannons. I used the rest of my tanks to seige them and take them out. After they were out my Cruisers wiped out the StarGate. No more Carriers, to worry about. Then the Cruisers took out the Nexus. He made about 10 Dragoons and took them out. He rebuilt his Nexus and by then I had another Nuke. I nuked his Nexus and all of his Probes were wiped out. I had about 2 more tanks that finished the Nexus. Those tanks took out everything else. For part three look for Protoss vs. Protoss Zerg Zerg vs. Zerg We played 2 games. I entered a game called "i vs 2 experts". I joined and was alone when we started. He said no rules so naturally I would rush. I rushed and won. This guy was really layed back. He was cool through-out the entire thing. I offered to ally and he agreed. We got a draw and redid. This time when I rushed, he just finished a few sunkens. After I unsuccessfully Zergling rush, I usually lose. I tried to get up some quick Muts. I did and he gave me shared vision for a second. I saw 5 Hatcheries, 2 Evolution Chambers, Spawning Pool, and mass workers. Damn! Its only been like 8 or so minutes! I attacked. He sent out his 12 or so Hydras. I rushed back to defend but couldn't with 4 muts. He offered to ally and I accepted. This was one of those games I very muched enjoyed losing. My Zerg skill before this game was about a 85, now its a 95. He taught me an extremely strong strategy. Check in the Zerg strategy section for Kronikle's Strongest Rush Ever. Zerg vs. 3 Terran, 2 Zerg, and 2 Protoss comp Free for all In a 7 comp free for all game, I made 150 Hydralisks for protection, about 4 Guardians, 3 Queens and Defilers and sat back until there was only 2 Terran, 1 Zerg, and 1 Protoss. Oh yeah, I had only 1 sunken colony which was never used and no Spores and noone could get through! I used Spawn Broodlings on one of the Terran's SCVs and that took about 3 workers. Then I transported a Defiler around their Command Center and used Plague. When it got low, I infested it and sent in my Guardians to keep the Infested Command Center alive while I produced Infested Terrans. The Infested Terrans took out the rest of that Terran and most of the Zerg (Zerglings and Ultralisks finished Zerg). When I was fighting the second Terran I made 5 fully upgraded Ultralisks and rushed into their base telling them to only attack the Command Center. After some tight squeezing they finally got through and took it out. They were stupid enough not to make any more Command Centers. Protoss started attacking them now and really put some dents in their defense. After they were done I sent in 24 fully upgraded Zerglings. They were taken out. When Protoss was the only race left, I rushed in with my Hydras and some Zerglings after, and won! 1 Zerg (me), 1 Terran, 1 Protoss vs 1 Zerg, 1 Terran, 1 Protoss comp rush I started away from my allies. I quickly got up my 6 lings and attacked Terran. It was no good. They were so far away they were able to get up more Marines than I could take on. Then my base was crippled since I unsuccessfully rushed. I tried to get up some Sunkens cause I knew what was coming. I got up about 4 and a Hydralisk Den to try to defend with Hydras. No point. The 3 comps attacked at the same time, one person who managed to start another base in the Terran base. Then I thought I could handle it. No way! They reinforced their swarm with even more units. I tried to take a Probe into my allies base but they quickly wiped them all out. I lost. Although it was partly my allies' fault because they didn't want to help me rush. Zerg vs. Terran One and a half years ago when I never played StarCraft against anybody, I was a complete newbie. I was as newbie as you could be. I saw a 6 ling rush performed by my friend and it looked easy. I was going to do that! I was playing against a staff member of a cool gaming place in Las Vegas. At that time, I barely knew any Zerg or Protoss units. All I knew for Zerg were their Zerglings and Drones (I didn't know what the Overlords did). We started and I built 9 workers and was very slow on building my spawning pool. After I got my pool I built my 6 lings then waited. I waited for 3 more larvae and made 6 more lings. Then I attacked with 12 lings. At that time, he already had 2 filled bunkers so those lings died VERY fast. Then I thought "The reason why they lost was because I didn't make enough of them. So out of only 1 Hatchery I waited and made about 40 Zerglings and then I stopped. I thought "Hmmm... Let me test out units I've never used before." I built an Extractor and sent only 1 worker to it. After a while I finally got enough for a Hydralisk Den. I built it and made about 5 Hydras. Then I see a cloaked Wraith come in. "Shoot! I don't have any detectors!!". Somehow my Hydralisks could see them. Then he started targeting my Overlord. "Why would he do that?". I lost my Overlord and then he turned invisible (I was such a newbie!). Then 3 more Wraiths came in. Then... I saw his true fleet... About 40 Marines, 20 Medics, 20 Firebats, 5 more Wraiths, and about 10 Tanks. My Zerglings went down sooo fast! I am going to play him again in about a month when I go back to Vegas (assuming he still works there). I will post the results in a later verion. This time, I ain't considered a newbie... Results - The damn place ran out of buisness. Zerg vs Terran Ahh... I was trying the Inferno Hydras but it didn't work! This guy pulled off the most wicked marine rush ever! He had around 30 marines and around 10 Firebats and 10 Medics along with 10 tanks. I only had 20 hydras by that time so you could guess who the winner was :(. Zerg vs Terran, Protoss, Protoss, and Zerg Easy win. This was when I learned how to do a 25 Hive assualt. It was a 4vs4 game. The game started and a player left on my team. Screw him. My other ally was fairing fine until two of the enemies rushed him. My last ally thought this was unfair and left. Everyone else would not agree to 2vs2. After about 20 minutes of no-rushing I had an unbelieveable base. 60 Drones, 25 Lairs, 200 Supply, everything fully upgraded, 50 Mutalisks, 2 Defilers, and 34 Hydralisks. I sneaked in my Mutalisks from the side of a Protoss base and started clobbering him until he started using Corsairs and Carriers. Then, I used a Dark Swarm at the entrance of his base and attacked away with my Hydralisks. When his Carriers arrived I Plagued them with my other Defiler. My Hydras took out all of his Cannons and most of everything else. By then, I had rebuilt all of my lost Mutalisks and sent them in finishing him. What's this? Guardian and Devourer rush! I rushed my Defiler back and used another Dark Swarm on my buildings he was attacking. My mutalisks and Hydras went in and took out about half of the swarm, and mass Scourges took out the rest. I quickly rebuilt my original force. This time I changed 25 Muts into Guardians and the other 25 into Devourers. I rushed into whatever base I found first (which was Terran) and starting delivering blows with my Guardians. Valkyries in MASS came and started wiping out my Devourers. Dark Swarm time! In the same matter I rushed in my Dark Swarmed Hydras in and started taking out him. I also Lured my Valkyries into the Hydralisk swarm. Done with those damn Valkyries. I took out about half more of that base when mass Carriers and Arbiters attacked from the side of my base. Usually your dead now, but I had a plan. I rushed back my Defilers, consumed a few Hydras and Plagued and Dark Swarmed that rush. Now, they were attacking from far so I started attacking far with more Devourers. This slowed them down tremendously so I rushed in Scourges galore. I lost a few buildings but rebuilt them quickly. Again I built my swarm and finished Terran. Two more left. I continued scouting until I reach Zerg. It seems they only had 3 Hives pumping out units and only had half of their previous army rebuilt so I took them out no problem. The last Protoss was the strongest of all. He had a ton of Corsairs and some Carriers. So I decided to disapoint those Corsairs by sending Lurkers and Hydralisks. The Corsairs left his base and started attacking my Overlords. I had only about 100 supply left. My army was getting drained out. I had another base and rebuilt all my lost Overlords. He, thinking this was the end of me, rushed in with a few Carriers. You should have seen him when he started seeing my fleets of Mutalisks regrow at my base. I rushed in my Mutalisks and finished him off. My hardest earned victory ever. Zerg vs. Terran Very easy win. It was a 1 on 1 game playing shared bases. Little did he know I was right next to him. He was a newbie (you could tell by him building a refinery before a barracks). His build order was Refinery, 6 SCVs (I think), Barracks, Factory, Starport, Armory. Crap! I knew he was going Battlecruiser so Guardians would fry. So, instead of 24 Guardians I went 36 Mutalisks. His force was in the middle of the map ready to attack. Patheticly the force was 8 Marines and 2 Wraiths. I wiped out his colony completely! Too easy. Zerg, Terran, Protoss vs. Terran, Terran, Protoss The BIGGEST come-from-behind game I have ever played. The game was shared bases. My allies were pretty good. One was going BattleCruiser rush, the other was going Dragoon rush. I was going Guardian Rush. One of my allies trying to scare my opponents said No Rules. Little did he know how stupid that remark was. My protoss ally was supposed to build defense but all he built were cannons. The enemies teamed up. After he said No Rules, I quickly started to get defense up but it was futile. They rushed with mass Marines and Tanks. All I was left with was limited supply, 1 drone, and a Hatchery. I was basically out. At our exits, they built missile turrets, had tanks, Goliaths, Battle Cruisers, Dark Templars, and Wraiths. "We are dead!" I kept saying, but we pulled it off! The Protoss enemy quit. My terran ally put up tanks of his own and built a few BattleCruisers. My protoss ally finally got some Templars. He secretly cast a Psi Storm on the group of tanks. They were gone. Next the enemy Battlecruisers started rushing. Crap. My protoss ally was Psi Storming 'em while my Terran ally was hitting them with Valkyries. Amazing! We survived! But... they kept non-stoped building more and more installments like that. They wiped out a good part of our colonies. I decided to take some action. I snuck a Drone in his base and build a Hatchery followed by many Creep Colonies. I rebuilt my Spawning Pool, built a few Zerglings and immedialtly made Sunkens. I wiped out all of an enemy Terran's Supply Depots. No more battlecruisers from him. While I did this, my allies attacked from the opposite side with the last of their forces. They almost did it! Then, I heard the dreaded words "Nuclear Launch Detected". Ahh crap! I hurried my Overlord over, found the Ghost, but it was too late. Down went all of my Terran allies' SCVs. Then he attacked with mass Wraiths. Luckily my Overlord detected the Wraiths. The Protoss ally bulit a good number of Dragoons. He wiped em out. Another Terran enemy quit. 3 vs 1. Everyone just attacked and won. Zerg vs Terran Right after the game above. I was fighting my previous Terran ally in a one on one fight. He said quote "ya sorta look like a newby". He was going down. I said no rush for fifteen minutes. I started building Hatcheries to get ready for a Guardian swarm. He said mid-game "So, I see ya got a Spire. Going for Mutalisks?". No. I ignored him but he kept talking about his comsat station seeing all of my base. When he said "So your going Guardian?" I was immediatly shocked to see he had no air defense besides Marines and a few Turrets. He was going down. I rushed with my Guardians. This makes me laugh. He said "Getting ready to do another comsat sweep.". I said "No your not.". He responded with "HOLY SHIT!" as I totally demolished his Comsat Station in a flow of Guardian attacks. He sent a few Goliaths and marines which were taken care of. Then, he sends in some Wraiths. Devourers took them out. I took out his Starports and Command Center when he finally yelled "OK OK!! I GIVE UP!! ALLY! PLEASE!!!!!". I gave him the ally. What a loser. Zerg vs. Protoss I was facing Jon's brother who is 3 years older than me. His girlfriend was over and he had only been playing for 2 months while I was playing for 2 years. I didn't want to embarrass him in front of his girl so I asked him if he wanted to play another day when she wasn't around. He said as long as you go easy on me I can take you out. Whatever. This was before I made this guide. He picked my race for me and he picked his. I agreed not to rush until he was ready. Protoss has a 80% chance of winning in a long game against Zerg. Major advantage for him. We began. After a while I had about 50 Scourges, 20 Hydralisks, 25 Guardians, 25 Devourers, 40 Mutalisks, sunkens and Spores surrounding my entire base. I send in a Scourge and found his base. That scourge was eliminated quickly by his 14 layer wall of cannons. His entire base was cannons! He made about 1 or 2 Zealots but then destroyed them because he didn't have enough room for them. He had no upgrades. Then I sent 1 Guardian to take out the cannons. Then he killed it with 7 Carriers underneath the cloaking field of an Arbiter. After about one more minute he finally said that I can attack. So I sent my Guardians, that took about 5 Cannons when he started defending with his Carriers and Arbiter. My Scourges, Mutalisks, and Devourers easily took them out. My Guardians finished up the rest of his poor base. See part two of my battles with him in Terran vs Protoss. Zerg vs. Protoss and Zerg Easy win. It was a 5 player shared bases. 3 vs 2 when we started. I was on the side with 3 people. What happened then was one quit, the other did nothing then eventually quit. I was up against 2 people. I built up some muts and Guardians and started wiping out their base. Then they sent their Zealots to take out my Greater Spire but it was too late. They yelled "ALLY UP PLZ!!!" I did. What a bunch of losers. Protoss Protoss vs Zerg A one on one battle against a pro. He had a good force up by the no rush time was off. I too had tons of Scouts and some cannons at my entrance. He came in to attack but my cannons took that out. He sent more Hydras but once again, taken out. The next time my cannons were getting weakened so I Psi Stormed. I then sent in mass Scouts. Wiped him out. Protoss, Zerg, and Terran vs Protoss and Terran My only involvance with a backstab. It was shared bases with me and red (terran) against white protoss and purple terran. Blue Zerg was Jon. He was on their side but he decided to backstab. He got up tons of lurkers and moved all around the entire base. He allied with us. I sent a large swarm of Dragoons into white's base but he had tons of Carriers and BattleCruisers which took them out. Crap! I got up some more Templars. I sent them in the main entrance along with an Arbiter and Dragoon. Red attacked purple's base. Jon unallied with his Lurkers scattered around their base and the Nukes, the goons, the Lurkers were a sight to see... Purple was just about out. White on the other hand had some more work to do. White took out all of Blue's base and Lurkers, but Jon started a base within our section. I started Psi Storming the Carriers and Cruisers. It did a good job but they simply over ran me. They moved their units into our base and started annhilating us. I had no defense in my base and neither did Jon or red. I finished off White's bulidings but he wasn't out. I searched around and found a Nexus. I quickly wiped that out. Still not out... Purple was nothing. I started searching again and met up with red who was nuking a group of Pylons. I helped with my goons. My base was being overran rapidly so I quickly started a new Nexus. I checked back with my swarms and found one Pylon left! I gotta take it out! I ran towards it, but it was too late for Jon! He had no money to start another base, and he lost his final Hatchery. I determindly killed the Pylon with pleasure then ran and found purple's Supply Depot. I took it out and we were declared the victors! Protoss vs Terran I was trying a strategy I just learned from SCU, the Cannon Rush. This was my first time trying it. I was playing Challenger. We started and I sent a Probe into his base. I tried to find his minerals. I moved closer and closer and then when I found it, 5 Probes were on me. I ran away. I secretly went to his entrance and blocked it off with Cannons. He amazingly fast got up some Tanks and blasted them. Then he did a Tank drop. He dropped his Tank on a cliff at the back of my base where no ground unit could reach. I tried to retaliate by sending in some Zealots but it was no good, his tank took out the Gateway. I was screwed. I let him have a win. So remember... DON'T LET YOUR OPPONENT SEE YOUR PROBE IF YOUR GOING FOR A CANNON RUSH!!! Protoss vs Terran A very hard win against a pro. One on one. He was saying how he was gonna easily kill me in 20 minutes. I doubted him. He said his guide was also on GameFaqs.com yet when I checked it wasn't. I built up a goon army. He spent most of his supply on his defense. His defense was outstanding. He had Supply Depots at his entrance with an arc of Seige Tanks and Bunkers behind it, with a few turrets in between. The time was up. He sent about 24 cloaked Wraiths to my mineral line. It took out a third of my workers before I moved in my observer and attacked him with Goons. I attacked with my goons. No good for him. It was easily destroyed. I sent my Observer Scouting and he did another Wraith attack. I took that out with a little bit of trouble. I found an opening and snuck an Arbiter in. The opening had no protection, just his Command Center. Hehe. I recalled a group of Dragoons while his BattleCruisers attacked. I took out the BCs with goons. His base was being leveled. He moved his tanks to the right side of his base to hit my goons. That was the end of them. He launched another BC attack that I Psi Stormed to death. Then I Recalled again from the left side, while carrying a Templar that Psi Stormed his tanks. Then I attacked from his main entrance (which was being overrun at this point) and dropped from his right side. I asked him who's winning and all he said was "LOL". A hard but memorable game against a pro. Protoss and Protoss vs Terran and Zerg comp My most brutal win. Me and Jon (if you have been reading my guide you should know who he is) were playing team melee. We were both protoss to increase our supply to 400 and were fighting terran and zerg comps. I took control of probes and he took control of cannons. He got up a bunch of cannons and we switched jobs. I made 2 cybernetics cores and 3 forges. Then I made about 10 Stargates and a fleet beacon. By now we had about 30 probes and 3 assimilators. Now we needed another Nexus. The comp attacked a few times with mass hydras and tanks and marines but we took it easily. In time we had about 100 fully upgraded Scouts. The Terrans were getting better so we rushed in and wiped them out clean, but not before we stole an SCV. By now we had about 60 probes, 7 assimilators filled, 400 supply of pylons, and EVERYTHING fully upgraded. We took the SCV and built a BattleCruiser/Wraith army fully upgraded. To rub it in more, we mind controlled a Drone and made a Guardian army, fully upgraded. In the end, I had too many control groups and so did he. I took half of the Scouts and the Guardians and he took the other half of the Scouts and the BattleCruisers/Wraiths and we attacked similtaneously. In about thirty seconds we were declared winner with no casualties! That was fun but entirely too easy! Team Melee rocks! Protoss vs Protoss This is the third part of my battle with my Jon's brother. This was two months later when he claimed to have gotten much better. This was when I completed v1.0 of this guide. He picked my race again, as Protoss and once again he was Protoss too. I got fet up with the length of the last 2 battles so when he said no rush til I say, I said no! I finally agreed to not to early rush. We began. I was really light on my defense because of past experience playing him. I built up about only 5 Cannons. I was planning on doing a Reaver drop, but then I changed my strat to worker hunt with my Scout. I found his base and rushed in. He had gotten much better. He was building his Stargate and already had 5 Zealots scouting for me. Although he did flaw in that he only had Photons at the front of his base. I took out about half of his workers when he used a Dragoon and Scout to take out my Scout. Well at least that helped. I couldn't believe he still couldn't find my base! I used my 2 Reavers and started wiping out Cannons one by one. 2 of his Scouts took that out. I didn't know what to do. He got better but not as good as me. I had to outsmart him, but I didn't want to perform the same old Carrier rush. Then it hit me! I remembered a strategy in this guide called the 10 Gate Push. I pumped out some reavers and made a suprise attack taking out 4 cannons making the rush easier. I rushed in with 24 Zealots and 16 Dragoons half upgraded. All 6 of his Scouts were wiped out and his Carrier was too. That took out a lot of his base but still not enough, just enough to let some shuttles into his base. He still had enough Photons to give me a headache. I finally tried a Reaver drop and it worked. The drop blasted his Nexus, then his Gateway, then his StarGate, then his cannons. Luckily he had no defense because of the push. The reavers took out his 1st base. He was getting really cocky so I sent a scout to find his second base. All he had was a Nexus, a Forge, and 5 Cannons. My Reavers took them out. By the way, he still never found my base. This was the most challenging game against him I ever played, but it still wasn't that difficult. Protoss vs. Protoss A one on one against a pro. He was definetly a pro but would not admit it. No one else would use spells as much and as effectively as him. He was going Archons with Arbiters (is that a newbie rush!?!?). He attacked but it was quickly reduced when my statis field split his force in half, and my Psi Storm finished it. I decided to counter with my goons. Didn't do a good job. We started exchanging attacks back and forth but none were truly successful. Then I realized I was making units faster. I attacked with another set of Dragoons and I started taking a good part of them out when my goons started to fall. I quickly sent my next fleet to aid them. I kept doing this until I won. Strategy Learned: Never stop sending in forces if you are about equal in strengths. Protoss and Protoss vs Terran and Terran A Battle.net game I loved winning. I learned how to mass produce Dragoons and taught my friend Jon this rush. We started attacking with mass Zealots (their defense was 3 Marines) but they lifted off their buildings and went into their allies' base. I made some Dragoons, but Jon was already ahead of me with 5 Scouts wiping out the floating buildings while I destroyed some of them through my Dragoons. Overall a very cool game. Not exactly a rush (little past rush time) but still very very effective. Protoss vs Protoss vs Terran A very beloved win. I single-handedly took out 2 opponents at a time. It was originally Me and Ryan (my friend who I taught in one day) were fighting my friend Fred (who Jon taught) and Jon. At the start, Jon had CD problems so Ryan announced that him and Fred were to fight me. I started a ten lot rush and attacked Ryan knowing that he is very good. He knew I was gonna rush and built cannons with 1 pylon behind it. I rushed all my men to only take out the pylon. Done! But, his stupid probe kept rebuilding pylons faster than I could handle. Aww... forget him! I built another ten lot rush out my 4 Gateways. I attacked Fred and what a newbie... he had about 10 marines and 2 tanks without seige mode. So I easily started taking him down. After awhile Fred lifted off his buildings and ran into Ryan's base. Mid-late game has started. I taught Ryan the Dragoon rush so he used that. He had about 20 Zealots and about 25 dragoons ready to attack and fred had about 5 siege mode tanks and about 10 wraiths. For defense I had 6 full carriers with an Arbiter, about 20 Dragoons, 5 Zealots, and a wall of cannons. I decided to try and disrupt his base so I did a Reaver drop. The drop took about 3/4 of Ryan's Nexus but Fred attacked with 3 Wraiths. I tryed again and wiped out his Nexus right before Fred's 8 Wraiths attacked. Fred was taking up Ryan's room and refused to move. They attacked with their full force. My Carriers and photons did the job with ease. Fred was basically giving up so he tried landing a Barracks, Factory and Command Center in my base and start pumping marines. Did he think I was stupid? I easily wiped out his buildings. Then I saw Ryan got a Dark Archon. Crap! But in reality he was trying to Mind Control one of Fred's SCVs but Fred already given up, rushed his SCVs in my base pissing the hell out of Ryan. Now, with a full 11 Carrier and an Arbiter Fleet with upgraded air weapons, I attacked and won. One of my favorite games. I killed 2 human opponents at once. ============================================================================== 17. 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 My best ways of winning: Terran Early: Marine rush or Nuke rush Medium: Tank Push Late: Mass Wraith attack Zerg Early: Inferno Hydras Medium: Early Guardians and quick Muts Late: 24 Lair Assualt Protoss Early: Cannon rush or Dark Templar rush Medium: Quick Scouts Late: Mass Goon rush Some symptoms for how to determine rank: Fag: Backstabs, doesn't play by agreed rules, and drops out of games. 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. Expert: Terran vs Protoss Protoss went straight dragoon into dark templar. He sent out a Dark Templar Drop and did some good damage but not fatal. Terran launched a light tank/marine force that didn't do much. Protoss tried the old drop again but with less success. Protoss then loaded up a few Scouts. Next Terran dropped some 8 tanks, 16 marines 8 firebats/medics aided by cloaking Wraiths and a Science Vessel. Needless to say Terran had around 10 dropships. Terran finished off Protoss easy. Newbie: Terran vs Terran No rush 30 minutes. Terran one had twelve BattleCruisers, Terran two had twelve Wraiths. Terran one was Newbie, Terran two was super newbie. ============================================================================== 18. 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 ************************************** ============================================================================== 19. 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, Seige 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. No rush - This game ensures noone can early game rush so when you say "No rush" you can't have backstabbers ignoring you. I'd suggest that you modify Big Game Hunters. Most people use that map anyway. You'll want to put a location at the entrance of each base and if anyone walks into them it'll transport them back a few feet. A timer should countdown 5 minutes where it is mid-game. Then the triggers moving people back should be canceled. 4/10 - The reason this gets a 4 is because if this is a rush game then this is annoying. If this wasn't a rush I'd give it a 10 cause it'dd make sure there were no cheaters. 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 my favorite map of all time. 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. ============================================================================== 20. Other StarCraft Games ============================================================================== StarCraft 2: The Return - I don't know too much about this. There are (I'm pretty sure) at least two more races, the Xel'Naga and the Hybrid race of Zerg and Protoss. Each original race will have much more units. There are some wild rumors about the Orcs being a playable race. BS. I have seen beta screenshots and they rock. Units are 3-d and are very detailed. The portraits are also a sight. I know some of the new units. Terran have the Bomber, Zerg have the Walker, and thats all I am sure of SO FAR. Blizzard so heavily denies that they are making StarCraft 2 which is disappointing. 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. Gundam Century - This is a total conversion patch for BroodWar. A VERY kick ass patch. Just about every unit and building is changed for Terran and Protoss. I think only Shield Battery and Photon Cannon is the same. A lot more versatility. Missile Turrets (Beam Defense Turret or Cannon, I forget) attack both air and ground. Valkyries (Core Fighters I think) attacks air and ground. Firebats attack air and ground long-range with an attack of 38! These are Gundam's that's why there is so much versatility. A Marine attacks with 11 damage, a BattleCruiser (Pegasus Whitebase) attacks for I think somewhere in the 30s. Every unit starts out with armor. The upgrades can upgrade up to 6 everytime! Almost every graphic is changed. The startup screen is way cooler. The next screen where you choose what you are going to use (Multiplayer, Singleplayer, Campaign Editor etc.), I only remember the single player button changed. When you get into the game you start out with workers that have different sprite graphics, weapon graphics, frame graphics and more. Terran have Ball Workers that are big balls with some kind of stick attatched to it (it doesn't sound right, but I think it's their gun). Protoss have robot-like creatures for workers. Every single building for Terran and 90% of the buildings for Protoss are changed. When I say changed, I mean sprite, name, buttons, abilities, and more! The only thing that is truely the same is the portrait graphics. You can get this patch at gundamcentury.rtsfan.com. ============================================================================== 21. 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 - Don't even compare the WarCrafts until 3 comes out! 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 dungeon. 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 except the fact that it is almost impossible to obtain money in single player. 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. ============================================================================== 22. Award Section ============================================================================== Welcome to the first annual StarCraft Awards. Here we list the top answers to the questions we ask! *Top 10 Most Widely Used Units* 1) Workers 2) Hydralisks 3) BattleCruisers 4) Carriers 5) Dragoons 6) Mutalisks 7) Guardian and Devourer 8) Early Rushers 9) High Templars 10) Reavers and Seige Tanks *Top 10 Most Unwidely Used Units* 1) Infested Terrans 2) Vultures 3) Firebats 4) Archons 5) Ultralisk 6) Science Vessels 7) Defiler 8) Dark Archons 9) Goliath 10) Queens *Top 10 Worst Rushes* 1) Late Game Worker Rush 2) Observer Rush 3) Medic Rush 4) Unloaded Transport Rush 5) Unburrowed Lurker Rush 6) Arbiter Rush 7) Unloaded Carriers and Reavers Rush 8) Irradiate Rush against BattleCruisers 9) EMP Shockwave and Lockdown attacks VS Zerg 10) Hallucinated Rush *Top 10 Newbie Units* 1) Photon Cannon 2) Sunken Colony 3) Bunker 4) Photon Cannon 5) Spore Colony 6) Marine 7) Scarce Workers 8) Photon Cannon 9) Sunken Colony 10) Photon Cannon *Top 10 Pro Units* 1) Defiler 2) Mass Workers 3) Arbiter 4) Ghost 5) High Templar 6) Dark Archon 7) Reaver/Shuttle 8) Corsair With Distruption Web 9) Archon 10) Dragoon *Top 10 Most Annoying Stuff that happens* 1) Ya get backstabbed 2) Photon Cannon Rush 3) Zergling Rush 4) Having Workers Build attack your buildings early 5) That damn early Dark Templar attack 6) Ally claims he thought you were on the enemy side 7) Someone Spawns Broodlings on your workers 8) Seige Tanks in Seige Mode outside your base 9) Having your swarm reduced to nothing by a few Psi Storms 10) Enemy doesnt play by set rules *Top 10 Funniest Ways to beat a Newbie* 1) Use a Seige Tank 2) Use an air unit 3) Use something that cloaks 4) Hit the mineral line with a Spawned Broodling 5) If he's that bad late game worker rush 6) Infest their Command Center and run away with it, producing Infests after 7) Dark Swarm an area, confuse them and attack from a different angle 8) Type in Power Overwhelming then attack with a Defensive Matrixed army to trick them 9) Type in:" has left the game" to make them think you left yet you still attack them 10) Block him in so he can't do anything *Top 10 Most Used Rushes* 1) Hydralisk Rush 2) BattleCruiser Rush 3) Carrier Rush 4) Mutalisk Rush 5) Dragoon Rush 6) Guardian/Devourer 7) Early Rushes 8) Tank Push 9) Dark Templar Rush 10) Cannon Rush ============================================================================== 23. 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