StarCraft Brood War Strategy Guide

This Guide was written for those who wished to use it on a Starcraft Brood War Battle.net online game. All these plans may not work well against some players, or very well against others. The successes of these plans  lie on how well you can adapt these plans to fit your playing style. Also when fighting against other people, depending on their playing style other plans may work more effectively than others.

As we know, Starcraft was released in the year 1998 and still maintains a stronghold in all RTS games. So as a result, there are many different types of battle plans different users have come up with during the years.

Also note I will be using the Fastest Possible Map line up, looking similar to this map :

But keep in mind, this strategy guide was written for people that have played Starcraft before and are not completely new to the game. However I won’t be going into more advanced units,  ( Dark Archons, Queens, Devours, Reavers, Battlecruisers, Nuclear Silos, Carriers etc. ) That is going to be for my advanced tactics guide. Once again keep in mind this is a very simple guide with basic battle plans. You can experiment with all these plans to fit your playing style.

ZERG

First off, we will start with the Zerg. There are a couple of tactics, all depending on the game style.

In a typical, let say 2v2 or 3v3 match, as a Zerg you would require a lot of hatcheries in order to maintain and support a successful offensive army.

An impressive amount of Hatcheries are necessary for a Zerg players Survival.

By building multiple hatcheries you enable the creation of massive armies. An advantage for the Zerg is that they are able to create three units at once as opposed to only one unit at once. This means that when playing as a Zerg, you would want to attack often. When one attack fails, you should already be making more units for a secondary attack. Because the Zerg can create so many units at once, it is overwhelming numbers that will give the Zerg an advantage over their adversaries. Keep in mind:

Building hatcheries too close to gether will result in the death of your larvae, doing you no good!

Because as a Zerg you can amass up a ton of units, it is important to use hotkeys to control your army. You can select up to 12 units in one window. If you press ctrl + 1 this group now becomes assigned to the 1 key. That means every time you press 1 you can control this particular unit. You can assign all the way up to 0, leaving you with the ability to control almost 120 units at once.

Another strength of the Zerg is their Zerglings. These Zerglings can be made during the early stages of the game, which means Zerg players can go on the offensive very quickly in hopes of catching another player off guard. However the drawback to this method is that it leaves your home base relatively undefended. If you try to balance creating Zerglings, and fortifying your base, you can’t create enough Zerglings to overtake an enemy base. This Zergling rush is most useful when facing an opponent 1v1.

One other thing about the Zerg is that from the hatcheries you are able to create both ground and air attack units. This also proves to be a huge advantage over other races because as Protoss or Terran, you require two separate buildings to create your air and ground units.

When you are faced against different enemies it is important to use certain units to counter them. Especially when attacking an opponents base. If you see here there are choke points ( Red Circles ) at the entrance to every base.

For a Terran player, Siege tanks are a good choice to close off the entrance to their base. With a Protoss player, they will close it off with photon cannons. Against another Zerg player they may have Lurkers or sunken colonys. If you try to attack these entrances, only a certain number of Hydralisks are able to attack while the others can’t fit into the entrance. Siege tanks can then just pick off the Hydralisks as they come. Photon Cannons are easier to break through but still will eat through your Hydralisks. If you feel confident enough you can try to break through the defenses go for it. But you must be wary of another player countering you by attacking your home base.

As a Zerg you can break through these defences with the Guardian unit ( I will talk about unit drops in the advanced tactics guide ). Guardians can bypass the siege tanks because siege tanks can only ground units. Not only that, they pack a base 25 attack and with range, they can also take down missile turrets with ease. But keep in mind Guardians can only attack ground units, meaning they are going to be vulnerable to aerial units.

Guardians Lay waste to Enemy Missile Turrets! Use them to Break through Choke Points

Base defending with the Zerg is a bit tricky. Since you can only build on the creep controlling your choke point is difficult. Of course you can build a hatchery near the entrance and construct sunken colonies, but that takes time. One thing you can do is to leave your Hydralisks at the entrance, blocking off the enemy units. That way while you are preparing to attack your base stays defended. Not only that, on your unprotected sides, (which are only accessible by air) you can set up a patrol of scourges, making sure to destroying anything that tries to get by.

A simple soulution to a big problem. Scourge patrols are effective across your weak sides.

PROTOSS

As a Protoss player you must realize that your units cost a whole lot more than other units. But with added cost your units are also that much more powerful. Zealots are expensive, but are very powerful. with double the hit points, and a base 16 attack zealots are not to be messed with. With Zealots, like the Zerg, if you are able to create a mass of units, they will be far more effective.

Protoss are a bit slow in the beginning of the game. To make up for this you need to constantly make more and more Zealots. This should make a constant flow of Zealots allowing you to fend off any attacks. Remember to build enough gateways in the beginning of the game, this will assure your safety later in the game.

Like the Zerg, you require a lot of Gateways in order to maintain an army.

As the game progresses, and as you gather more resources the options start opening up.

Once you get into the game, the Protoss prove to be invaluable but just remember Zealots can’t attack air. Like Hydralisks, Dragoons are powerful anti-air and anti-ground. Now unlike the Zerg, you can use a Dragoon/Zealot combination since both are fairly powerful they can take down enemy units with ease.

Another powerful weapon in the Protoss arsenal is the Dark Templar. Dark Templars are constantly cloaked, and have a base attack of 40! Like any other units a mass of dark Templars prove to be devastating, especially against buildings, or undetected units. And because of their cloak abilities, they prove useful when breaking through a choke point that has no detector units (Science Vessel, Missile Turret, Photon Cannon etc.). This is useful against Terran players rather than Zerg or Protoss because Terran’s don’t get detectors until later in the game. There is another unit called the High Templar. With no real attack of its own, High Templars seem useless.

That is not the case. Once you upgrade the Templar, so that he can cast a psonic storm and a hallucination, the High Templar is a very useful unit. The psonic storm causes damage over a certain region over a little bit of time. This storm is useful when used against units that are grouped close together.

A Psonic Storm is capable of killing multiple units at once, air and ground.

As you can see, the Protoss high Templar casts a psonic storm over the approaching marines, which will cause substantial damage over a short period of time.

Also the Protoss High Templar can create a hallucination. This will create two illusory copies of what ever unit it was you hallucinated.

When you are trying to break through a choke point as a Protoss player it may be helpful to use Reavers, whom are able to break through base defences with ease. Another way would be to send a constant flow of units toward the enemy base. By constantly attacking you can weather down the enemies defenses enough to break through. Also, if the entrance is not completely blocked off Zealots with a speed upgrade can rush past any existing defenses, and is able to attack the base. Also if you see that the base is not guarded with an detector, Dark Templars are extremely useful for a stealth attack.

On top of that, the Protoss are able to create lots of buildings, with only one probe. This comes in handy when you want a group of offensive photon cannons. By building cannons near an enemy base, you can attack units that are trying to get out, effectively choking a player in his own base.

Take a look at the Mini-Map. White’s Cannons are lined up to counter any attack from either Red or Yellow. This is useful when your attack fails, because any enemy units that try to counter your attack, will meet a barrage of cannon fire.

When trying to defend your base, it is important to protect your Nexus from any harm. An easy way to do that would be to set up a few Dragoon patrols on your unprotected sides. Or you could use corsairs, or photon cannons, whichever works best.

When Photon Cannons are used in tandem with other offensive units, you can create a effective base defense.

TERRAN

Unlike the other two races the Terran require a different playing style. The three base Terran units are the Marine, Firebat and the Medic. They can be acquired early on in the game, and are a very dangerous weapon. As a Terran, rather than mass one unit, you must try to balance between the three base units. Firebats are used for close combat, against Zealots and Zerglings. While Marines can counter Hydralisks and Dragoons. But the thing is that Medics are able to heal units as they fight. That means these units don’t die as fast, allowing you to do more damage.

An unbeatable trio. The Marine, Firebat, Medic combo.

Secondly comes the Siege Tanks. A very important weapon for the Terran. Once upgraded with a siege mode, the Siege Tank has the longest range of attack. Allowing you to hit enemies while they can’t. Very very effective for choking off your entrance. Also Siege Tanks can break through a choke point with ease. Because of their long range, they can destroy the enemy units or buildings from afar, without taking any damage (unless you are facing another Terran player of course!).

By placing Siege Tanks by your choke point, you can defend your base against any ground attacks.

Also when used in combination with a squadron of Marines, you can defend against aerial and ground attacks. But keep in mind, the Siege Tank has a ’splash effect’ which means it can damage more than one unit at once. This means you can also harm friendly units, which is why the Firebat/Siege Tank combo never really worked out. Siege Tanks have a slow rate of fire, and have a minimum firing range. This makes them unideal for melee combat, against Zealots, Zerglings, and Firebats.

 In addition to the Siege Tank, you have the Vulture. The Vulture is capable of ‘hit and run’ tactics. They are very fast, but have little health and armor. Also they are able to plant spider mines, which are detectors that pop out of the ground and detonate when nearby enemy units. Because the Vulture is a rather weak unit, they should be used as a form of quick relief. For example, if an army of Hydralisks tried to attack your base, and all but, lets say, two Hydralisks survived, then by using the Vultures speed you can eliminate the threat.

Spidermines are deadly against ground forces! And Spidermines can also detect cloaked units, especially effective against Dark Templars.

Also, the third mechanical Terran unit is the Goliath. The Marine is basically the watered down version of the Goliath. Able to attack both air and ground units. However the Goliaths special talent only kicks in against air units. Once upgraded with the Charon Boosters, the anti-air weaponry wielded by the Goliaths are deadly!

With the Charon Boosters, Goliaths become essential for any base defense.

A group of Goliaths are good for mobile base defending. Because Goliaths can move around, while Missile Turrets can’t Goliaths are very useful, either for offense or defense. But Goliaths are big and bulky, and are hard to squeeze into tight spaces, making them useless when trying to break through a choke point. Also when overwhelmed by a bunch of small units, Zerglings namely, the Goliaths can’t attack against them effectively. Goliaths should be used after the choke point is broken through, or as a way of defending your Siege Tanks from any aerial threats.

FOR ALL RACES

There are a few things to keep in mind no matter what race you play.

First are upgrades. Upgrade Upgrade and Upgrade. The maximum number of upgrades you can get are 3, and depending on the unit, each upgrade will add a specific bonus to their attack and defense values.

Keep in mind, these are not the only upgrade buildings. Many other buildings also can upgrade units. But they don’t upgrade unit attack/defense stats, rather they update specific traits of that certain unit.

Second, if you never use Dragoons. Or if you never use Zerglings, there is no need to use resources on upgrades that give Dragoons more firing range, or Zerglings more speed. Keep it simple by upgrading the units that you will use.

Third, this goes for melee units only, if you tell a group of units to attack a certain unit, but that certain unit is hiding behind other units, your Zealots, or Zerglings won’t attack any other unit that the certain unit you picked. That means while your units are milling around doing nothing, the enemy is able to damage you.

Fourth, to keep from giving you a disadvantage, tell your units to move to an area close to the enemy units. That way you won’t be caught in a situation where all your units try to attack a single unit. Now your units can choose their own targets, causing more widespread damage.

Fifth. A constant supply of Probes, Drones, or SCV’s are necessary to fund your armies later in the game. An average of about 50-70 workers are needed to keep funds high while you are in battle. That doesn’t mean you should make 50 workers right off the bat. You should keep a constant stream of workers until you feel confident in your resource output.

Sixth, If you have enough resources, keep pumping out units. When you attack a base constantly the base will eventually weather down to a beatable state. Same goes for choke points. However there comes a time for common sense when a certain unit isn’t working. Sending masses of Zerglings against a choke point controlled by Siege Tanks is not smart. Either that or the player your attack might just get tired of defending and leave.

Seven. Keep making either Supply Depots, Pylons, Or Overlords. It is a really difficult to create a big army when you can’t support it.

Eight. I have said before that mass a certain type of unit is very effective. But the effectiveness of that unit is usually determined by when they are deployed. In the beginning of the game, melee units are very effective because there are no air units available. As the game progresses, ranged units become more and more important. Then if you want to, you can progress onto air units (which will be covered in my advanced guide) and mass those. If you mass ground units when everybody else is making air units, you will be out of luck.

Lastly, in opposition to #8 if everybody is creating air units, make sure your base is properly guarded, with lots of AA buildings. Then proceed to create a ton of ground units. This way you can storm into an enemy base, which will no longer be making ground units, and destroy all their buildings, which is how you can win. And vis versa, when enemies are still making ground units late into the game, air units will be most effective.

That concludes my guide. I hope you learned something from it, and do wish that you read my advanced guide,  one that will contain lots of more advanced battle techniques and unit overviews.