Starcraft Strategy  Hi and welcome to my little Starcraft page. Before I get on to the heavy stuff I would like to say a few words (obviously) about this... I do not consider myself to be anything special at all in this game and much of this stuff you may already found out by yourself. I do this partly for myself to clean up the mess in my brain about the different aspects in the game. I tried to focus on counter attacks/moves and special little tricks to make it helpful. This is not a complete page since I am not enough  familiar with every race yet. Everyone can help me out by sending  me amail here. Ok ...now lets go braindead. Marines? Defiler! Is your opponent going heavy for marines? Bring a defiler with plague! Until broodling wars arrives it  will be very effective (because of medics). Also research consume and bring a pack of  zerglings as food (defiler gains 50 energy for every eaten unit). Smart FFA Move My friend "Raggmunk" told me of how he used a mutalisk which had been parasited to fool away one of his competitors mutas to the next neighbour and getting them into a fight of their own (except for that single muta). The one who see's a such group coming rather obiously think he is getting attacked and probably also think he is being doubled on too. The High Templar - An awesome dude Ever tried a psionic storm on 36+ mutalisks grouped tight? Then u know what this baby can do. Psionic Strorm is perhaps the best magic in the game. You can erase whole armys with just a couple of these  guys. The other magic hallucinate is not bad either (it makes two fake units of the original). Just remember to keep your templars behind the front, be alert to use them and it could turn out just fine. Zergs have NO way to beat an active templar user when he produced some of these behind photon cannons... and that is a fact no joke or stupidity!! Early Templars Antidote For Zerg especially templars can be a very worky thing. The sollution early on iiis.... Queens and Broodling! Make  a couple of  'em and the guy probably get tired of making  templars. If he doesn't and puts pc's in front, then my  friend you are VERY likely dead as hell. *Special Templar Notice* I found templars to be the unit which brings zerg down from the position as the all through game supreme race. It comes down so simple as if the protoss player gets time enough to warp sone pc's around his base and get a fair amount of templars (3-5 with 3+ gateways pumping more) spreading muta (or whatever) death as they just STAND STORMING behind those pc's without a worry. "But there must be something you forgoten" u maybe say. NO! Lets look at the Zerg units: Zerglings: No, no, NO!... Waay to little energy and tight grouping  to give the templars a match. Hydralisk: Better than zerglings but still they got way to low energy to get through. Money loss is huge. Mutalisks: The proud zerg mutalisk... This is the ultimate target for a templar. The money loss from a well target storm is ENORMOUS. And even if they survive how well spended money was it to kill that one or two templars for the cost of 12 or more mutalisk? Give me nightmares! Guardians: Now we are getting somewhere you may say.. but hell no. Whatever target you choose the templars WILL be able  to storm before they die and make the day. Put them in smaller groups? No the guy will by this time have other units to take  care of the left overs if nessecary. Queens: How bout this one? Noo and the main reason is TIME. It takes time to nestle in a queen to broodling and even if it survives the pc's it will by the time you come back with another fully charged queen even if it is directly after the first there could be three more templars waiting for it. Ultralisks: This is the only unit able to fully whitstand a storm and still shine. But it is late in game and costs are huge. To add to that it is not what you would call agile and simply has no chance in tight areas (like lost tempel) Still it is to this unit my only hope lies of a successfull strategy may arrise someday. Maybe ultras in dark swarm?...hmmm Maybe and hopefully the expansion set "Broodling Wars" will make this situation easier... but to me it seems like it may just be making it even worse with  produceable dark templars and dark archons and all that.. Well future will show..  Hope this showed why you should kill protoss fast and never play FFA  against one if Zerg. As terran it is another deal they got tanks and bc's! Worker Action Remember to always keep the Protoss drones in action! Don't click them away on some building mission! Pick them up right after they started warping the building. Same for Terran but when they are finished building. This may seem like a idiot tip but it is r-e-a-l-l-y important. Luckily the Zergs don't have this problem ;) Overlord Scout With Zerg always directly at start scout with your first overlord and if not to late even the second and third one. When you have found the enemy(s) base(s) stay put and keep checking what they are up to. Just be sure to fly away from upcoming air defense. Keep watch of as much as you can. This is not a very good idea if the opponent is playing Terran (because of the Marines). Rush rush rush... Tired of those rushes or your own rushes don't make it for ya? One really important thing to remember is that it is the worker units (mineral and gas collectors) that makes the game come further and not the attack units. Protect your workers / kill them! For Terrans put up bunkers with marines near your resources to prevent those darn zerglings to kick your workers. Also if you want to survive after your own rush you must keep popping those men's out and build at the same time as you rush or your rush will very likely blow yourself up. Since you should just about always counter rush an opponent which just rushed your workers. If the opponent did build up to much while rushing and you see it before it is to late (remember to keep building while counter rushing to!) turn back. Do not suicide for no outcome. A success for Zerg with 12 zerglings would be to kill 4(!) or more workers because of not only the minerals they cost but for the lost income also. You find out the math for the other two races I guess... Defensive Play Do not play defensive with millions of towers and stuff. YOU W-I-L-L LOOSE (at least you will against a player with something similar to a brain)! When resources are gone so are you. Believe me! I tried it ;) (this does not apply to prot vs zerg or terran in air map) ComSat Your enemy keep spotting your cloaked Terran units without visible detectors? Or do you keep getting nuked? Use a grouped (single) ComSat add on to quickly spot that observer or ghost and kill it off without all that messy scrolling around needed. Arbiter Recall Irritator For quick hit and run attacks use two arbiters with recall in separate groups and  scarab loaded reavers grouped tight. Place one of the arbiters near your reaver group  (not above though) and fly the second to an unguarded spot of the enemy base  and then quickly shift to the other arbiter and use the first arbiters recall in the middle  of the reaver group... Hit as much as you can and when the enemy comes to  whip you out use the second arbiters recall on both reavers and arbiter to disappear  before anything bad happens... Then smile a evil grin ;)  Don't get caught up in this  procedure though. Keep pumping out those bad boys. Zerg Building orders I use these standard ways to build up my army. 5 Drones On small ground map 1vs1 : Build one drone, put the others to work, go scout with the overlord and build spawning pool. While it is being built build two more drones and put them on mineral. When the s.pool is finished you will have just about 150 minerals for 3x2 zerglings. You will start building your 3x2 zerglings around 2.05 into the game if playing on fast speed. Not very much for not saying ANYTHING will beat this except for the same medicine... When your zerglings popped go directly for your opponents base and kick ass. Keep track of your minerals while doing because when you get 100 you want to build another overlord and when its ready another 3x2 with the 150 minerals being at your disposal right at time. Go attack with them to. Alternatively you could  bring along your workers when the first or second group of zerglings hatch. 7 Drones On medium ground map or generaly unknown: Build one drone, put the others to work, go scout with the overlord, build another two drones for minerals and then build spawning pool. While it is being built build drone, overlord and drone (all on minerals). When overlord and pool is ready round 150 minerals will be there for those 3x2 eggs. 8 Drones On large ground map or against newbies (for fun): Build one drone, put the others to work, go scout with the overlord. Build one, two, three drones for minerals and then build spawning pool. While it is being built build drone, drone, overlord (all on minerals). When overlord and pool is ready round 150 minerals will be there for those 3x2 eggs. On Air Map: Same as above in start but build gas instead of s.pool. Then buid s.pool and a couple of drones to collect gas. Try to build as many drones and the extra overlords in sync to when the s.pool is ready so you will have 150 m and 100 g for the lair upgrade (sorry don't got any real b.order for this one). Next sync is the spire (200 m 200 g) for mutalisks and maybe scourges. Under all this time do not build any other units or defence if not having to much cash. Yamato Use your bc's yamato cannon to kill of ground to air installations without getting hurt before you fly in and wreck the place ;) Way to go Keeping your enemy from building expansion bases and building your owns perhaps always should be your number 1 priority. More expansions = more resources = more and greater units = your/his death. Very simple.. very hard. As far as you consider healthy bug his scouting and siege his base. Do everything you can without dying to much yourself to make him to NOT get those well needed extra resources. Distractors As you may know Templar's offensive "magic" psionic storm don't have a  very long range. Therefore taking out those siege tanks or guardians aso.  is not easy. One way being a bit on the gamble is to send in some bait for  the enemy to shoot at while the Templar(s) get close. A group of Zealots for  example would probably do rather good to hold the fire while your templar(s)  gets close without harm and start spitting those sparks of death. Dark Swam - The Complete Story You know everything about this great Defiler magic or is there something left you have been wondering about? Here is what I have found out. As said Dark Swarm is a magic made by the Zerg Defiler unit and costs 100 mp. It creates a wicked gas cloud which makes all your ground troops in it immortal to projectile attacks from both land and air. But as always there are a few exceptions. Tanks in siege mode, Reavers and psi attackers (Archons, Templar's). But even if those units still can shoot you Dark Swarm gives you a great protection so that for example an ultralisk would take out 2 archons easily instead of self getting easily killed... One little drawback though is that for example your own projectile shooting units (hydralisk) can't either attack units on the ground but buildings goes just fine. Watch not guard. Do not spread your units to guard those resources. Just put one single cheap or cloaked unit there. Keep the main force grouped loose (because of "magic" attacks) instead. Since if a large sized attack strike one of those spots or your base before you got your expansions up running good there is a big chance you will loose it all when trying to run there with reinforcements arriving to few at a time. Bring the rest of your force at once instead if that's the case. 2 Hatcherys Building a second hatchery is realy recommended. You need it to make name for the swarm. Best ofcourse if the hatchery is in an expansion but if that is not possible do it "at home". Ugly Hallucinate Hallucination is a realy neat spell. Hallucinate your arbiter to prevent the rest of the force being spotted as fast or hallucinate a neutral critter to scout without anyone thinking about it (enemys do shoot though). Generaly hallucinate all and everything except for when psionic storm will do better (often) :o) More is coming when I stop playing the next time :-) Regular Links - Old Game Stuff - Serious & Fun - Game Help/Nostalgy Midi - Web art & Construction - Movie Quotes - Recorded Music - Game Top List Swedish: !S*V*E*R*I*G*E! - Citat Poolen - Web Galleri "Pixo" ©DIProgan 1998