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My Starcraft Strategy Guide Page

SECTION: Introduction

This strategy guide is intended to make you a better player. Whether you're good or bad at Starcraft, you will gain some knowledge from reading this guide. Even if all of the stuff in here you have heard before, it is only good information that I put in it.


SECTION: Rushing

In Starcraft, the definition for a rush: Any situation in which a player critically sacrifices the building up of their town to get fighting units faster than they would normally.

Please note that what you might think are rushes are simply early attacks, not actual rushes. After playing for a while it isn't hard to tell when someone is rushing or just attacking.

In a 1 vs 1 situation (on any normal map), there is not one rush that can actually defeat the enemy if they prepare for it. When a player does rush, they will have sacrificed the building up of their town to get fighting units very quickly. When they do get their units they have to move them to the opponent's town, and even if they know where they are, they won't have enough units to kill all the harvesters and ground units the other person has trained. The only reason for this is because the distance between two towns is always great enough for a player to have enough time to build more units than the enemy, and if the rush happens to be extremely early a few harvesters can be lost without detriment, at least in comparison to the other player.

I'm sure you are thinking "Gee, this guy is stupid. I've rushed tons of players and kicked their asses." Something else you have to think about is whether or not they were good players. Anyone who gets killed by a rush has to learn a better building order or must have seriously screwed up while they were building, or they are simply very slow builders. If you can beat them rushing, you can almost always beat them without rushing unless you have never played any other way. And if you haven't, you're missing out on a lot of fun. And if you won't play any other way, then you're probably also thinking you paid good money for a crappy game. Rushing is a bad way to play if it is all you do.

In 2 vs 2 games, rushing is not as bad as in 1 vs 1 because the two players can rush against one of the opponents, normally killing them. There is a problem with this though, because the rushers are leaving one player alone to build up his town. If the one that's left alone knows any better, he will not save their ally, but will kill one of the rushers - which is not hard to do assuming all the players are of pretty equal skill and the rushers had to sacrifice the building up of their town to get their units. This normally brings it to a 1 vs 1 battle, assuming both of the attacked players got eliminated. If it didn't happen, then it shouldn't take much effort to kill the remains of the town or find where they made their new town.

In larger games most players rush because it is almost impossible to stop it from killing at least one or two players. Rushing doesn't involve much skill or thought, it is just a simple building order with a small amount of units to control early in the game. Even the best players cannot stop a rush in a large game, and if the rushers aren't good in long games, it lets them have a much better chance at winning. In a 4 vs 4 rushing will always give you a better chance of beating your opponents if they are generally better than you. Four players who are exceptionally good, knowing who and when to attack when they get rushed, can win any rush game but it is rare to have 4 exceptionally good players on a team.


SECTION: Basic, non-rush building orders, for normal land maps with 8 or more minerals.

Several rules about the beginning of the game must be followed:

At the very start of the game you have 4 harvester units. Most people group all 4 of them and send them to 1 mineral to have them harvest, but there is a problem with this. There will only be 1 unit harvesting the mineral that the player clicked on, and the other 3 will wait. To gain a few seconds right off the bat in the beginning of the game, have them all walk towards one mineral and one by one pick them off, sending them to separate minerals.

When you have a unit training (an SCV, probe, marine, zealot etc.) Never have more than one on the list until they are about to finish. IF you have two on the list ready to train, you may not be able to build a building or train a unit that actually needs to be trained. When you put extra units on the list, it takes away from the units you currently have, depriving you of minerals you need early in the game to build essential buildings. For example, the first barracks finishes. You start training 3 marines in there, which spends away all of your money. You have to wait about 15 seconds before the SCV starts to build the bunker, and so the enemy zergling rusher comes in and kills the marines who would have been in a bunker otherwise. It's not a good situation… Sure you have another marine coming out of the bunker but what's he going to do against 6 zerglings? You can have both the bunker and the other marine coming quickly enough to fend off any rush.

Never allow a harvester unit to be idle. Even if you're waiting to get enough minerals to build something, you would be better off if that unit was harvesting and you picked one out later to build the building.

Remember to do everything as quickly as possible. Every second you waste or gain adds up with the other seconds you wasted or gained. You can see how well you're doing in the beginning by comparing your statistics with other players if you quit a game before anyone attacks.

Generally, you stop building harvester units when you have almost 2 for each mineral you are harvesting, 3 for each vespene geyser, and 1 for each building you're making (for terran and zerg.)

Note that these build orders are not perfect, no build order can be perfect, but these are extremely good and should work with and against almost any strategy.


Terran:
Send all SCVs to harvest minerals, and begin building them.
Once the 8th SCV is done, send it to build a supply depot. You should have barely enough and you will normally have to wait to build the 9th SCV.
Keep building SCVs, and once you get 150 minerals send one of them to build a barracks. If possible, put the barracks 2 squares north or south of the command center, or 3 squares west or east of it. This way you have enough room to place a bunker in between when you're done. You want to keep the bunker closed to the outside, but open to your SCVs for repair.
Build your 2nd supply depot when your 14th unit is building. Your second barracks should come soon afterwards, as soon as you have enough minerals. If you do not wish to build a 2nd barracks and you want to upgrade quickly, build a refinery instead.
When your barracks is finished, immediately build a bunker with the same SCV who finished the barracks. Try to build it as close to your SCVs as possible without interfering their harvesting.
The 3rd supply depot should be made when the 20th unit is building.
It is your decision on what to do from then on. This building order, if done quickly enough, will always be able to defend even the fastest zergling rush as long as the map is large enough. (It may not work on Blood Bath, for instance) You must repair your bunker while enemies are hitting it, and repair with several SCVs instead of just one.


Protoss:
Send all your probes to minerals, and begin building them.
Once the 8th probe starts building, watch your minerals. As soon as you're about to get 100, take a probe that is going back towards the minerals and make it build a pylon. Don't go too far away from your base doing this, and send it immediately back to the minerals.
Keep training probes, and as soon as you get enough money to do so, build a gateway with a probe from minerals. Always send them back to harvest once they've created the building.
The 2nd pylon should be built right when your 13th probe comes out. Soon afterwards, when you have enough minerals, build a second gateway with one of the probes harvesting. For protoss, it is essential to have at least two gateways early on all land maps.
The 3rd pylon should be made when the 20th unit is building. After this, either an assimilator or another gateway should be built. If the assimilator is built, a cybernetics core should be made afterwards. If you plan on making templars and/or upgrading your zealots, make the cybernetics core right after the assimilator has started building. If you plan on making reavers or scouts, you can make the cybernetics core when your probes have just started harvesting gas.
This building order can defend against the fastest zergling rush as long as you help your 1st zealot attack the zerglings with some probes.


Zerg:
Send all your drones to minerals, and start mutating new ones.
Keep making drones and sending them to minerals until you have maxed out at 9. The next larvae, as soon as you get enough minerals, should become an overlord.
While you wait for the overlord to finish building, send a drone to build a spawning pool as soon as you have enough minerals.
Train a drone, since the one that turned into the spawning pool enables you to build one more.
When the overlord comes out, build more drones and harvest minerals with them. Keep building drones until the spawning pool almost finishes. You should have about 12* drones at that time, and 2 or 3 larvae should be ready to become zerglings when the spawning pool is done. When your unit count hits 15, build another overlord, and train zerglings and more drones until you have 300 minerals accumulated… Then build a second hatchery. It should be close to your first hatchery for easy access when you wish to train units. It isn't bad to place it at your 2nd mine if there is one very close by.
It is a good idea to build a hydralisk den to use along with your zerglings, so make an extractor and build a hydralisk den soon as you have enough money, but do not stop construction of zerglings until your hydralisk den is done.
If you have two hatcheries, an overlord should be built at 3 units below the max. For instance, if your max unit count is 25, build an overlord at 22.
From then on, it's completely up to you what you do. Play based on what happens, and make sure you have enough drones harvesting.
This building order can defend against the fastest zergling rush only if you help your zerglings kill the rushers with your drones.


* On a very large map it would be best to continue making drones until the spawning pool is completely finished. The enemy, if they choose to rush, will not make it to your town in time to kill you even if you delay zergling production a bit (which puts you ahead, in the long run)



SECTION: Playing on other maps

Protoss, on air

Protoss scouts really suck. The only reason to ever get them is for use against battlecruisers, guardians, and carriers. Mutalisks have a bouncing attack and can do a total of 13 damage per attack (16 with one attack upgrade, +1 at each bounce), while the scouts only do 12 against the mutalisks. (24 against large units, but since attacking mutalisks it's divided by 2 because of explosive attack.) Terran wraiths get to cloak. The best way to play protoss on an island map is to get photon cannons quickly, to defend from early mutalisk or wraith attacks, while you upgrade to get templars, archons, and reavers. Observers are also very nice to have. Shuttle upgrade is imperative, or you wouldn't be able to expand seeing that you have nothing to defend your shuttles with. Defend your base with archons and psi storm. When you expand, place an archon and a templar with psi-storm ability on the upgraded shuttle (with two probes) to kill any air units that the enemy uses to keep you from expanding. It helps to put photon cannons at your expansions, too. Drop reavers and archons or templars as often as possible in enemy bases.

Zerg, on air

On an air map, Zerg have a great advantage because of Mutalisks. The most common thing people do with zerg is upgrade to spire as quickly as possible, get mutalisks, and upgrade their attack and armor. There are lots of minerals that are left over from doing this, and those minerals can be spent on anything including spore colonies, zerglings, and hydralisks. Overlord speed and transporting needs to be upgraded eventually, to make expanding possible. As zerg, you must keep your enemy from expanding, using your mutalisks all over the place. Normally it's a bad idea to attack an opponent's base directly, because they will have defenses for air. Eventually upgrading to guardians is necessary, and they should always be accompanied by many mutalisks and overlords if the opponent uses cloak. Queens can be used if an enemy is defending their town with templars. Parasiting shuttles and dropships makes them almost completely useless, so do that often.

Terran, on air

Terran don't seem to work well on air at all. Wraiths rarely destroy an enemy, because they are simply too weak. Detectors should always be made early in the game against a terran, either turrets or photon cannons, and if your enemy doesn't do this they're making a huge mistake. It is good to take advantage of this. Battlecruiser Yamato gun should be used against photon cannons, missile turrets, and spore colonies. Science vessels to irradiate templars, defilers, and other nasty units… otherwise EMP shockwave them, if they are in groups. Constantly hitting the enemy with these energy type attacks will eventually bring them down, as long as you are expanding and keeping them from doing so.


SECTION: Important Information

Use the Attack command when fighting instead of right clicking on where you want your units to go, and never click on an enemy unit when you do this, unless you have range units. Units will go around an entire army to reach the one unit you clicked on if you happen to do that.

Use Waypoints to move, and when fighting. When you are transporting units to a certain location, and there is someone's base in the way, or you are trying to get to the back of their base, use Shift-Right Click and the unit will go to that location. If you Shift-Right Click again somewhere else, the unit will go to the first location then the next. It can be done several times, and can be used to direct units around certain obstacles. It is also excellent to use when trying to scout their base out for the first time, by sending the unit on a waypoint mission from start location to start location. When you have range units such as marines, or air units, you should use this technique to kill enemy units. Shift, ttack and Left Click on each one, one by one, and your units will kill the first one you clicked on, then the second, and the third and so on. This gives an excellent advantage in combat, since units are being taken out one by one, by dropping the amount of damage the enemy can do as a group. It should not be used when you are using hand-to-hand combat units such as firebats or zealots, but works excellently with any air unit and most ground range units.

Use many units. Don't just go for straight marines an entire game, they will do almost no good in late game. When an enemy makes reavers, tanks, guardians, templars, or other higher level units, marines will not do much good at all. Accompany your marines with tanks, firebats, wraiths or science vessels. When a combination of units are used, more damage can be dealt to an enemy. Of course, the units have to be used correctly. Don't put your marines in the front while your firebats are in the back to watch the fight.

Watch your battles. Don't spend too long building up more of your base while you're attacking the enemy. Often there are things you can do in battle that could help your outcome dramatically.

Don't be afraid to run when you attack. If an enemy has several bunkers and siege tanks defending their town, and all you have are zealots, don't attack. Wait till you get reavers, templars, and other units to help take out the stuff. Unless you're desperate to get rid of whatever the enemy is defending, it's not a good idea to fight a battle where you will obviously come out with a greater loss.

Upgrade your units. Don't do it early, because when your units are small in number, upgrades won't help as much as when you have many of them. Upgrade attacks, armors, shields, special abilities and anything else that would be useful. Speed and range upgrades help a lot, often they are even better than a regular attack or armor upgrade. They can really improve units fighting abilities.

Scouting is very important. Put any kind of unit around your town to see when an enemy is coming - even your own construction units can work as scouts outside of your town. When you do see someone coming, arrange units so they fight as efficiently as possible. Use any type of magic abilities possible. Scout expansion spots. To scout more efficiently, use the
atrol command to make a unit move from one location to another, cutting the amount of units needed to scout expansions by half. Burrowed zerglings can be put at an expansion, so can spider mines. Those are great because an enemy can't see them.

Learn to use your units efficiently. Use templars, with psi storm to kill large groups of units. (Don't double up your psi storm in one spot, though) Use plague on bunkers, or even in battle if you can catch the enemy before they get close to your units. Use spider mines, yamato gun, any other special ability as often as possible to get the most out of your units.

Take into account unit damage types and unit sizes. An Ultralisk, for instance, is a large unit. A firebat has a plasma (same as concussive) weapon. Plasma/concussive weapons only do half damage to large units, which makes Firebats extremely weak against Ultralisks.


SECTION: Battle Tactics

In small battles, especially early in the game, you should use these simple tactics to put yourself at an advantage.

As stated earlier, if you are using range units such as hydralisks or marines, use waypoints when killing your enemies. If there aren't many enemies compared to your units, it doesn't matter, and if the battle is too large (over 12 units on your side) it really won't make much of a difference. Hold shift and hit and then click on an enemy, doing this as many times as possible.

With zealots (and this really only works with zealots, possibly with fast air units) you can win a battle of equal proportions using the following tactic. When the zealots get into a fight with against other zealots or zerglings, watch their hitpoints drop. When one zealot's shields die out, and it begins to take hits on its armor, click on it and walk away from the battle a short distance so the enemies target the other zealots that have more hitpoints. Then have it go back to the battle, and do damage while it is not targeted.

Often you will not have enough time to do these things, especially if you are trying to build up and you have several expansions. If you have enough time to spend away from building your base, it is important that you use these tactics to destroy the enemy or defend yourself.


SECTION: Cardinal Rules

Constantly think. Is there anything I can build or upgrade to help me?
If you aren't constantly building up your town, spending your money on stuff, you will put yourself behind. Even when units are attacking the enemy town, unless it's a special situation (such as attacking with reavers, templars, and other units that need special attention) you should make sure your money is being spent on stuff. If you are able to scout the enemy territory, you should build things that would counter whatever they're building.

Are all my buildings making all the units I need?
Similar to above, If you aren't constantly spending money on units you will be behind. You can be ahead in minerals, but that doesn't mean you have more units unless you're spending it. Also you should not have buildings that aren't being used. If you have 5 barracks, and one of them is never training anything, you wasted the money building that barracks.

Is my enemy expanding?
Try your hardest to keep your opponent from expanding. Normally you would be able to send a large force to an opponent's expansion, without them defending it well enough because they have to keep something in their main town to defend from a direct attack there.

Am I harvesting enough?
If you have enough units, enough money, and enough time, you should expand. Defend the expansion well, because if the opponent catches you expanding, they will most likely send something to destroy it.

Do I have enough pylons, supply depots, overlords?
Keep in mind how many units you have. If you are starting to fill up on unit count, build more of these things. If you end up getting stuck, unable to train units, it's quite a setback.

Am I scouting well enough?
Most often there is some way you can completely decimate your opponent's base. If you are scouting well enough, you will be able to catch some kind of flaw in what they're doing and take advantage of the situation easily. Also you should always be able to see all the expansion spots, using any kind of unit that is good at scouting.

Is the enemy going to attack, and am I prepared?
If the enemy is going to attack, you should be prepared. If you're scouting, you can tell when the enemy is approaching. If you aren't scouting, at least have something around your town so you have knowledge of at least knowing where the enemy is coming from.

Should I attack?
In most cases there is some kind of an attack you can do against the enemy that will be well worth the time it took. Scouting helps you with your decision, because you know where to attack and with what units.

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