Surface-to-air butt-kicking.
You may not be able to keep all enemy units out of your base, but a combination of Marines and siege tanks never hurt anyone. After the game begins, crank out as many Marines as possible as well as two or three siege tanks. Research the siege mode in the war factory’s tech lab, then position your tanks around your base’s entrance where they can provide artillery support. This may not win the game, but it’ll help make your base that much harder to approach and be able to effectively tear apart both ground and air units that may happen by.
Spawn, my pretties.
While the Zerg may not have the most heavily armored units among the three races, they’re able to crank a fair number of weaker, fast-moving units out to harass their opponents. As the game begins, build additional Drones to harvest minerals, build a spawning pool and begin creating as many Zerglings as possible. These units can then be sent to harangue the enemy as you build stronger units and with any luck, can wreak havoc among their workers, damaging their economy in the short term.
It’s hard work being that annoying, but I have faith that you can do this.
The Terran Medevac unit seems to lack a weight limit as to how much it can transport. And this is a good thing.
Here comes trouble.
Although it may take a while to create the units, create several gigantic Thor battle droids, load them onto Medevac units, and drop them in the middle of an enemy base where they’ll begin killing everything in sight. This isn’t the quickest or cheapest attack, but it serves as a giant hassle to your opponent, who now has to kill several of your most powerful units with whatever military forces they’ve left behind in their base.
Giant robots, a distracted opponent and a killing spree they now have to put an end to in order to attack you. How is any of this a bad thing?
It may be expensive, and it may not be able to target and attack air units, but the Protoss Colossus unit functions as a complete game changer if used correctly. Simply build the Colossus and point it to any location on the map. The unit’s giant legs will allow it to step up and down any cliff surface, allowing it to both invade and retreat from generally inaccessible territory.
COLOSSUS SMASH!
This, combined with a spiffy “War of the Worlds”-esque pair of sweeping lasers allows the Colossus to target any ground unit, making it great for both base invasion as well as pursuit of escaping units.
Let’s face it: robots are amazing. And jet fighters that turn into robots (a la “Robotech”) are that much cooler. For these reasons, the Terran Viking fighter is one of the best purchases you can make, the Viking coming in at a low price point and combining the ability to fight aerial units as a fighter and ground units after transforming into a battle robot.
Transformers, more than meets the eye.
Even if this isn’t quite as practical as a unit that can simultaneously target both air and ground units, there’s added value in the unit’s speed and cost effectiveness. Want to harass your opponent while building a larger invasion force? Fly four or five Vikings into their gas and mineral harvesting areas, have them transform into robots and enjoy watching the carnage as their labor force is cut to shreds.
It’s a great way to annoy someone and with robots involved, even your parents would approve of what you’re doing.
Make no mistake about it: every so often, you WILL get crushed at StarCraft II multiplayer. Odds are, once you start playing, this will happen often enough for you to seriously consider abandoning video games and taking up macramé instead, as you’ll start the game and be overrun so quickly you’ll have almost no idea what just happened.
"Whah happ'nd? I can't do my werrrrk!"
This is where the game’s replay option comes in handy. As painful as it might be to see yourself die again, study your opponent’s strategy, take note of what structures they built in what order, how they attacked you and how they built up their forces. It won’t be pretty, but it may offer you new ideas to add to your arsenal for the future.
'Cause I'm a Creep, I'm a weirdo.
Although the Creep are great at getting cheap, fast units out the door to harry their opponents, they need to build their base structures on Creep land. To do this, send your Overlord units out the door and have them generate Creep on the land they’re hovering over. This will allow your Zerg to move that much faster and expand your current base to where it needs to be.
Rocky Balboa never got anywhere sitting around. That Russian guy he fought never sat back and ate Doritos. And you won’t improve unless you get on Battle.net and go toe to toe with strangers.
Uh, Adrian?
And for nights when you can’t wrangle up a group of friends to play with, you can create a custom game, load several A.I. units into it to play with and against, and try out new ideas and strategies. Once you get a rhythm going, increase the number of opponents you’re fighting against, reduce the number of allies you’re relying on and see how you fare against more difficult opponents. When you’re ready, head back on Battle.net and see if you can’t take someone else’s lunch money for your very own.
As noble as building a gigantic army, marching them across the map and assaulting a well-defended base may be, StarCraft II is also about sneaking around, doing as much damage as possible while remaining undetected and leaving no sign that you were there.
Shhh.
To this end, focus on creating Terran Ghosts, Protoss Dark Templars and Zerg Changelings, which can move through an enemy base cloaked or disguised as an opponent’s units while tearing the base apart. Look into transport units to help bring forces closer to or inside your enemy’s base and if you’re good enough with the Zerg, work on creating a Nydus worm, filling it with units, then having the Nydus worm emerge within your enemy’s base to drop a full-on headache into their laps.
It may not be the most civil way to play, but your opponents would happily do this to you and you should remember that.
Let’s face it; you won’t get very far in StarCraft II without an ample cash reserve. To this end, invest in a prodigious number of workers no matter what race you’re playing and since you can optimally have three workers harvesting a single mineral or vespene gas deposit without interruption; take advantage of this. Be sure to protect these workers with nearby sensors and a small military force so that cloaked enemy units can’t attack them without being noticed and you should be ok.
They don't need 401(k) accounts or anything.
Keep these guys alive and you’ll be able to afford all the cool things you want to build. Let them die, and the road ahead gets that much harder and more expensive.
So, there you have it. 20 StarCraft II tips to hopefully get you on your feet, happily trouncing your opponents as well as learning valuable life lessons upon being trounced and reflecting upon it.
Turn your cell phone off, unplug your land line, tell your significant other you still care for them, reassure your pets that you’ll feed them eventually, and log on to Battle.net.
This should be fun.
MacAddict4Life
August 20, 2010 at 3:37pm
Gramatical errors, typos, superficial analysis, and a lack of understanding game mechanics (you mention overlord creep-pooping, but not creep tumors?)... Kind of unimpressive here...
hypersapien
August 20, 2010 at 2:57pm
Hey nice overview.
I don't know if you personally took these screen shots, but one of them shows your friend's username paired up with their first and last name. Just thought I'd mention it in case they are concerned about their privacy...
