Starcraft 2

How are there not any threads for Starcraft? Anyway, lets start this.

To those of you that play, what is you're handle?

En Taro Fenix and En Taro Tassadar, original poster. I always choose Tosh when doing the campaign. Haven't finished the Colonist missions as I await finishing Media Blitz on Brutal before doing them, simply because the UNN's commentary for the colonists changes after Media Blitz during the Colonist Missions. I have 5 missions completed on Brutal and am doing the Covert missions first (Devil's Playground is laughably easy, even on Brutal). If I ever do the Haven mission myself, I shall choose Selendis, because that choice is more in-character for Raynor than Hanson is. Not only that, but Selendis herself is okay with Raynor's decision regardless of the choice being made. Furthermore, you never really know if the Zerg virus is actually cured even if you side with Hanson.

As for multiplayer, since Ghosts aren't Spectres, I shrug and go Thor/Cruiser (with Viking support, if I feel it is appropriate) for Terran (in the original I'd go Nukes and possibly Wraiths), a well-rounded force of Brood Lords, Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Corruptors, Ultralisks, and (optionally) Roaches (in the original I'd just go Muta/Devourer/Guardians, or Lurker defense then air assault). For Protoss, either I go 13 gate or go Immortal/Stalker, Void/Carrier, Dark Templar, or a mixture of all three (Dragoons in original, with Dark Templar and Carrier support).

You need additional Pylons.

Zergs don't need pylons.

But they do need creep. Lots of creep.

I like to do teams vs computers with Terran. I usually either Thor and Seige tank rush or just use Reapers. There guns work well vs everything on the ground in large numbers.

Anyway my handle is Nuke Neo. I wish that there was more room so I could have my complete name.

Do it for the emperor I guess, and beware of the Orks.

Terran player. Obsessed with stupid builds. First it was a desire to spam Thors, now it is a desire to spam Ghosts.

I only play SCII either in the campaign or with friends. Quickly got sick of the online scene. Too many players worried about their ranking and rushing you right off the bat, the game speed is just waaaay too fast online (really, is there no way at all to at least slow it down somewhat?!) and it actually seems to be even MORE micro-oriented than I remember the original Starcraft being.

And I found the campaign ending to be rather disappointing. There was a PERFECT opportunity to turn the way things were going near the end into a classic Blizzard style dark ending. Think about it; every single one of Mengk's biggest enemies were on the surface of Char that day. All Valerian would've had to do was just wait for Kerrigan and Raynor to burn out their forces against each other, and then orbitally bombard the hell out of the survivors. And why is it that all of a sudden Kerrigan's nature is turned from a person who willingly committed the atrocities she did (and enjoyed it at that!) into someone who was merely the slave of the Zerg's influence? That was another wasted opportunity; not only would it have preserved Kerrigan's character if she were to say to Raynor that she was nobody's puppet, but also made more sense since Kerrigan's gonna be the player character in the next game anyways!

Hi. I'm Ef Hiro.145 online and I'm hardcore Zerg player.

I honestly couldn't care less about the campaign. The plot's pretty crappy, the features are cool but I cleared it once, went through again for some achievements and haven't touched it since.

Starcraft's gameplay is just really deep and that's what I enjoy about it. I actually prefer Starcraft: Brood War over SC 2 because how much the strategy and playstye's been refined over 12 years. I play SC 2 though since it's so much easier and I'm actually half-decent at it.

Starcraft's also pretty much the only game I play =D. Anyone go to teamliquid.net?

edited 27th Mar '11 9:38:31 AM by neobowman

Never heard of it.

Does anyone else play the Cortex map?

I read the articles on teamliquid occasionally to see if there's anything mind-bendingly stupid about my strategies.

I'll be playing a lot more SC 2 this summer, I think. Exam month isn't good for wasting time.

edited 8th Apr '11 1:12:02 PM by Barcode711

Nearly a year of buying the game, I finally returned to (try to) finish story mode. I didn't get too far. This game is difficult. I am, however, confident I can do it all when I get down to it.

I like story mode in this game, however hard it is, though. In the first game, you could beat near every mission by hunkering down, amassing all the resources available, creating an enormous army and going on a rampage with one or two waves.

Here, every mission is a timed mission, even if it doesn't say so. You don't get an army and defenses up in two minutes, you'll fail later for sure. Every unit lost means lost time which will cost you big time later, especially if it's mechanical.

I suppose it's more training for the multiplayer aspect, which is good - I didn't play multiplayer on the original Starcraft because it was so different from single player, and I was barely competent at that.

I'm much better at this game than I was at Starcraft 1, though... which unfortunately isn't too much of a boon, considering this game is harder than it's predecessor.

You're playing on the hard mode then, I take it?

Even on Brutal, it isn't too hard to keep up a good defense early on. Generally, I'd recommend getting one or two bunkers (since you can always salvage later) at the main choke point when minerals allow. Also, keep making SC Vs until you have three to a patch. Non-stop scv production is really important, especially when transitioning over to multiplayer.

For most of the missions, you can pretty much just make marine medic marauder and win. You just need a lot of barracks.

Oh, and I found Starcraft 1 to be so much harder than SC 2

edited 12th Apr '11 1:56:36 AM by neobowman

Personally I gave up on the hard difficulty after the Zerg started using a crapload of Nydus Worms to attack my rear on the "Zero Hour" mission. Normal difficulty doesn't feature that kind of bull.

BTW, is it true that on Brutal difficulty the game gets units that are way past your tech level, such as siege tanks on the 2nd level of the game?

edited 12th Apr '11 3:13:41 AM by SgtRicko

That's probably because of the retarded AI in SC 1.

Sgt: Nope, but it does get insanely high health.

Well, normal units are all multiplayer-level health. Some campaign only units are buffed to the max and become pretty hard to kill.

Sc1 was just harder in general. AI was stupid, but macro was so much harder. Actually, doing anything in SC 1 was harder than in SC 2. It was a lot better competitive game in that regard.

Also, just make a lot of marines in Zero hour. Add two rax and just keep making lots and lots of marines. And medics.

My recommendation for zero hour? Block off the two entrances to your base with bunkers, station a few SC Vs behind them, and fill them up with marines. Assign two medics to each entrance so mutalisk AOE won't take them or the SC Vs down, and get some missile towers or marines to shoot the mutalisks that eventually show up.

But it doesn't account for when the Nydus worms start showing up in the back of your base. That, and the speed at which the Zerg start pumping out their units near the end is what got me.

I'd post up a replay but you can't post reps of campaign.

There actually aren't any nydus worms. Just zerg pods dropping from the air and a few mutas, even on brutal. Just keep around 10 marines and medics aroudn sniping off the lings. At the end, if you're still alive, you've probably already won. Pull back to the ramp and survive till the end.

Oh, and ALWAYS salvage your ramp bunkers at the beginning. Constantly produce SC Vs, get upgrades asap (cut marine production if you have to). Get gas asap too. 1 tech lab rax and 1 reactor barracks. Add 1 more normal rax too. You'll uusally have a gas surplus in the mission. Keep an eye on the minimap and move your ball of marines to the choke depending on where they're attacking. You don't need bunkers but they help and it's fine. Once you have 21 scvs mining, make scvs rallied to the front to repair bunkers.

Shouldn't be too hard.

You're playing on the hard mode then, I take it?

Yup. Hurts so good...

Just finished Cutthroat, which is another one where you can't win unless you immediately take offensive action. Now I'm choosing between Safe Haven, the laser drill mission, and the Goliath/Terrazine mission, all of which kicked my ass in various ways before I decided to stop and choose deliberately. I've also got the next Adjetant mission, but I don't want to do that just yet.

edited 15th Apr '11 3:23:23 PM by KnownUnknown

Remember the branch before that, though? It looks like Ricko took the other path and got rid of the Mutalisks instead of the worms.

I think we're talking about the early mission where you defend until Matt comes and saves you in the Hyperion.

...

Oh.

It's... it's been a while.