Subject: From: Host: Date: Terran strategies Baron Karza 207.112.74.119 Thu Jan 7 15:47:13 Ok, this is a strategy I've used a few times with terrans and I've won every game, but it was against a couple of friends who aren't too experienced with the game yet. Let me know what you think. The last game went like this: The first step was to push for early siege tanks. At the same time, an SCV was sent to the middle of the map. Once an expansion site was found in the middle, I built a bunker. I then sent the SCV on to find my opponent while sending a marine up to the bunker. My goal was to divide the map in half right off the bat with a defensive line of sorts, and from there try and box my opponent in. When my first tank was ready, it went up to the centre and was put in siege mode. After locating my opponent, I then took 2 SCVs and built 2 more bunkers, at expansions as close to the edge of the map as possible, and in such a way that if I connected a line between the three bunkers I'd have more than half the map. I then began pumping out marines and tanks, and began a second command centre. My opponent discovered the central bunker and decided to take it out. He was quite surprised when my siege tank wiped his 8 zerglings out before he could do anything. I then filled all 3 bunkers with marines, and 1 tank in siege mode by each, with more to follow shortly. I then had 2 groups of 6 marines patrol the gaps between the bunkers. This was a risky move, because it left me no defenses at my base except what was in the queues. The second attack on the bunker was with over a dozen zerglings (maybe 15). Fortunately, one of the patrolling groups of marines was in the area and both the bunker and siege tank survived. I sent the second group of 6 at his base, and they managed to take out a few 'lings, a couple hydras, a sunken, and a couple drones before dying. I then replaced both patrols with 4 new groups of 6, got another tank up by each bunker, and began producing vultures, working towards spider mines. My second expansion was also well under way, and the resources began pouring in. I built 2 more bunkers along the line, and began building missile towers flanking the bunkers. I then began laying spider mines all about the line as well, and these paid off well, providing spotters for the siege tanks which were slowly building up along the line, as well as decimating his ground troops a few times. Although he did manage to break through my line a few times, it cost him so much I was able to quickly send in reinforcements and rebuild the defences without any problems. In the end, I had 7 bases built to his 3 (plus 2 failed attempts). The only attacks on my main base were short lived air raids attempting hit and run tactics on my peons, but my air force and air defences made short work of those. Anyway, the point of this strategy was to use the terrans strong defensive capability as an offensive, forcing my opponent to attack in order to expand. PS I wish people would stop whining about imbalances already! Every time Blizzard changes something, people start ranting and raving and suggesting all kinds of stupid changes. Let it be, enjoy the game as it is. It's never going to be perfectly balanced unless you make all the units the same for all the races, and nobody wants that. As it is, I doubt there are any serious imbalances, maybe just a few minor ones which don't matter one way or the other. Every race is capable of winning, it just depends on the players. Subject: From: Host: Date: Re: Terran strategies Rurouni_Kenshin 157-ppp-b.tnt04.agis.net Thu Jan 7 16:01:00 Pretty good, but this is EXTREMELY risky against more experienced players, and it won't even work at all against others. The disadvantage of this is the lack of attacking. If your opponent scouts early, this strat can be screwed right off. And even IF an experienced player doesn't scout around (which I seriously doubt), many are gonna go in the offensive with extreme force because your beginning base has some decent amount of supplies. For Zergs, they can get a couple of guardians and jack you up bad. Or, if they're protoss, they can use decoys to draw siege tank fire, then storm your tanks, and reavering you to death. If Terran, then it is the easiest to counter. Lockdown tanks and use your own tanks. Basically, it's a strat to use against beginners or those that don't scout early. Subject: From: Host: Date: Untested tactic JkShadow spider-wl033.proxy.aol.com Thu Jan 7 16:16:58 One idea to beat corsairs might me to DMatrix 1 or 2 wraiths and send them flying right past the corsairs but stop in firing range. Then come in from the other side with like 10 wraiths and whoop on those corsairs while they are wasting time trying to kill the DMatrix. And since DMatrix = 10 armor and 250 hitpoint (I think) that should hold up a long time against the corsairs weak 6 attack. Just a thought, I'll have to try it sometime :). Subject: From: Host: Date: Good Zerg defense and a question... Flathead bbn-cache-1.cisco.com Thu Jan 7 13:47:49 Hi all, I dreamed up a pretty good early-mid game defense that would not take long to set up, wouldn't be too hard to maintain, and could stand up to a sizeable assault. Here it is: -Put 3 sunken colonies and one spore on your side of the choke/chokes. Bury 2-4 lurkers in front of the colonies. Burrow 12 or 24 zerglings even further out, so that if tanks come they will unburrow right on top of the tanks. -Keep hydras or scourge (or both) rallied well behind the sunkens(or on patrol behind them), to come out in case of attack from the air. -Scatter spore colonies throughout the base (enough to provide detection for the whole base) but do not go overboard. You want scourge or hydras to do most of the anti-air work for you. Also, the spores will detect other cloaked units (ghosts, DT's) and your forces will be able to deal with them more easily. Anyway, I know everything is counterable, so you guys will certainly find a way around that. I am trying to find a way to provide static defenses for my Zerg base and expansions that does not use 13215 control points, doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and will actually protect me for a few if I'm busy somewhere else. Flathead Subject: From: Host: Date: Re: Good Zerg defense and a question... Korasoff[265] POSTE_180 Thu Jan 7 14:00:20 Hey Flathead, Thats a darn good defense. Now if you are talking mid-game, I'll assume Templars are available. If you are up agaisnt a Protoss who went for the templar part of the tech tree, he could have mass Zealots with Templars. An observer would also rock the party. Here is how I see it: 1)Observer moves in searching for your choke, finds it, and sees the Zerglings burrowed. 2) 24 zeals + 2-3 templars move in. 3) Templars kill lings with psi storm. 4) Zealots ram the sunkens. Your lurkers jump in action; seeing this, the observer inches forward to detect them. Templars or zeals attack them. 5) Hydras pop in to say hello. Temps rock em. 6) Scourges and Spores sit around while the place gets trashed. Thats how I see it. If anyone sees flaws, please report them. Its a very general plan, though. Korasoff[265] "The heart has its reasons reason cannot understand." A terran counter:I killed lots of zerg player with this one 1) build about 12 marines and some medics2) get tanks. 3) send a single marine to ur base folllowed by groups of marines(12+-), some medics and 2-3 tanks. (not a large force, isnt it?) this attack will commerce even before u had that kind of defence. 4) the scout marine runs into ur burrowed units and get killed, but i know where they are now. 5) open my tanks near ur burrowed units and use marines to defend them. 6) scan the area and tanks begin to fire on ur burrows units. 7) u pop ur units and rush em at my position and get killed by marines + tanks. 8) send a single marine to ur base again.9) repeat. 10) my tank's fire will reach ur base fairly soon this way. My view: being offensive is better for any race hope this helps CHECK THeSe POSTs OUT Plus the ones under it http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-strategy/posts/pb/142677.htm http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-strategy/posts/ly/142595.htm http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-strategy/posts/sx/142576.htm http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-strategy/posts/ki/142854.htm http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-strategy/posts/gw/142538.htm Subject: From: Host: Date: DAILY STRAT: Spell queueing SHOCKWAVE BOSS-302.sensable.com Thu Jan 7 11:06:20 Hey guys, I actually posted this strat a couple of months ago, but I think it's pretty interesting now that there are some new applications in BW. I call it "Spell Queueing". It works by telling a land spellcaster to target a unit that it cannot currently reach (e.g. if you're on an island and tell a templar to psi a battlecruiser that's out of range). The unit won'be able to cast the spell, but it will "keep trying", keep moving to minimize the distance between itself and the target and cast the spell as soon as the unit's in range. So e.g. in the case of the battlecruiser, the templar will stay at the edge of the island, follow the BC around (even if it can't see the BC; someone noted that once you target a unit, your unit will always know where the other is even if it goes back into fog of war), and psi if the BC ever gets into range, even if it's YEARS later, until you override the command with something else. This can dramatically reduce the micromanagement required for your spellcasters. I'll share some battle reports where this has been successful: 1) Island attack by Terran with wraiths, he was amassing outside my island. I spotted the wraiths with an observor, got a couple of my templars to spell-queue them, then baited them with a scout and ran back toward my island. The templars immediately psi'd once the wraiths followed, meanwhile I was able to micromanaging my scouts during the attack. Needless to say, all the wraiths died :-). 2) Hit-and-runs by mutas. An opponent was doing some micromanage tactics where he'd bring in mutas to an expansion that didn't have photons yet, hit some peons, then run away very very quickly. I had a templar but wasn't quick enough with my templar to get a good psi, so I just spell-queued it to target one of the mutas. The next time the mutas came back, the templar got his psi off (not an ideal psi, but at least it got one off :-b ). 3) Mass BC attack, I saw via comsat that he had a ton of BC's outside my base. I used cloning to target them with lockdown, but the BCs were slightly out of range. The ghosts just waited until the BCs moved forward and all simultaneously locked them down. How's THAT for a surprise for your opponent: He moves 12 BC's forward an inch and they all get locked down AT ONCE. I'd swear someone was cheating if that happened against me :-). 4) Plague. I use this the same way as with psi storm. Spell-queue approaching air units. This worked pretty well against a Terran on an island map because he kept attacking with BCs then withdrawing them to repair after they were damaged. I'd just spell-queue them as they were retreating so that they'd get hit with plague again the next time they got near my island. 5) Using dark archons. How about when you spot a shuttle at your opponent's base (e.g. via comsat from a partner, or an observor) and suspect it's gonna land at your base sometime? Get a DA to spell-queue mind control, and you'll get the shuttle guaranteed whenever it decides to get near your base. You can of course do this with feedback: just spell queue all sci vessels you see. The main balancing issue with MC-ing shuttles is that you have to be "quick" enough to grab the shuttle before it unloads, says Blizzard :-). But this totally bypasses that. 6) Note that you can also do this with normal attack ground units, and they'll behave the same way. Attack-queue a bunch of dragoons at a BC that's out of range, and they'll always try to minimize the distance between them and the BC and thus will attack it as soon as they are possibly able to. This has very very limited usefulness since the direct drawback is that they won't attack anything ELSE that comes into their range since you told them to all target the BC. I can't think of any great situations where I'd need to use this? Here are some limitations/drawbacks: 1) Be careful when using this with indisriminant area-effect spells (i.e. psi & plague). You can get into nasty situations where you accidentily hit your own units, b/c you're NOT micromanaging your spell. In fact, you'll have to choose when this is a better method than targetting the spell manually. I only use spell queueing in situations where I know the spell will be cast soon (i.e. when I spell queue, then immediately bait); but otherwise I count on my own micromanagement to get off a better spell since usually things like psi and plague work better if you attack ground instead of attack unit. 2) This may expose your spellcasters. Your spellcasters will keep hovering near the edge of the island to try to cast the spell, and this leaves them exposed to spells like EMP, yamato, etc. I generally like to keep my spellcasters in the middle of my island to protect them, then bring them toward the edge to cast spells once the attacking units have engaged. On offense, I'll always try to get rid of spellcasters first...there's no way I'll attack an island when I see a dark archon on the perimeter. Of course, a way to get by this is to spell-queue the unit you think will try to counter/ kill your spellcaster. E.G. if I spell-queue MC or feedback on a sci vessel, then I'll get the sci vessel once it comes it to EMP my dark archon, as long as my spell range is longer than his. 3) This also can cluster your units. In the cast of 12 ghosts locking down the BC's, the ghosts all clump up and get extremely susceptable to area effect spells such as EMP. Subject: From: Host: Date: Mine are..... Dark--Templar hil-qbu-ppi-vty38.as.wcom.net Thu Jan 7 10:01:14 Hi, well here goes by the way feel free to use them #1. Early Dark Templar attack works best against terrans or protoss because of zerg overlords, but if you are going for zerg go straight for hive,hatchery or lair and after a few attacks even you loose the dark templars for a while that player will loose his ability to produce unts. #2. Choke defence with protoss put Dark Templars on the ramp and tell them to hold position and put cannons above them and scouts in the back ready to come in and help are good too. #3 If you have allies and you are protoss after you establish your race go and mind control their drone or scv and start another race you can get up to 600 unit cintrol this way #4 Reaver or siege tank(in siege mode) recall is very deadly use rever if you don't have allies but if you have a terran allie get him to siege his tanks in a small spot and recall them into opponents base There are plenty more, but I am tired of typing