Who here plays Starcraft?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'm not as good as I used to be, but I still dabble from time to time.
Posted by Alex Johansen (Member # 9090) on :
I used to. Then I quit. Then I came back to it. Then I realized everyone just swarmed and I was no good at getting enough units to swarm fast enough. So I quit again. Once I made a replication of evolves.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I played it until WarCraft III came out. Haven't looked back.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I tend to gravitate more towards the premade maps that have fixed settings. Mainly because the swarming that Alex refers to sucks a lot of fun out of the game, and even with a 10 minute NR, it still lacks any sort of pretense at actual tactical skill.
The preset LOTR and World War maps however can be a lot of fun.
Posted by Alex Johansen (Member # 9090) on :
Lyrhawn just reminded me of all the scenario missions, the ones that were actually scenarios! Like the Resident Evil ones, or DBZ, those were fun. But perhaps scenario isn't the word I'm looking for... perhaps RP? Yes, I suppose those are more of a Role Playing scenario. But those were so fun to me!
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
What do you guys mean everyone just swarms? o_O
Have you guys ever watched the professional korean players play? A swarm gets annihilated if its the wrong units. Swarms are easy to crush if you go the right thing. And correct micro of units can cause a small force to devastate a larger one. It just takes time to get to that point. I don't play enough to be there, but I know how to stop most swarms with terrans... problem is it doesn't usually leave me with enough troops to hit back, not safely anyway.
But yeah, I still play some. When I can, which is rather rare these days. But, really, swarming is actually an extremely newbie tactic. The tactics in Starcraft doesn't come from how you control your units so much as what units you get. For example: with terrans, I rush to firebats and medics to fight off first wave swarms. Then you go seige tanks and vultures and grab some expansions. A few seige tanks with about 4 vultures are enough to hold off a lot of attacks. Throw in some firebats and medics if you're nervous about zerglings. Then go Battlecruisers. Doesn't work all the time cause I have really bad micro, but yea. I've heard tales of professional korean players beating each other with things like 12 queens or 12 science vessels just to prove that correctly controlled they can do wonders.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Maybe it wasn't swarming I was thinking of, I honestly don't remember, it's been so long since I've really played a one on one, or even a 2v2 or FFA. I just remember getting very bored with it.
Large groups of zerglings are almost useless though, two siege tanks and a half dozen firebats with medics could hold off any number of zerglins forever. Battlecruisers are good, but I could wipe those out pretty easily with scourges, if controlled effectively so you don't waste them.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Alcon, there's a pretty big difference between a strategy that works in low to mid-level play (which is where I imagine that most of us are, at best) and a strategy that works in professional play.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Alcon, there's a pretty big difference between a strategy that works in low to mid-level play (which is where I imagine that most of us are, at best) and a strategy that works in professional play.
Aye there is. That was mostly in response to someone who said there was no stradegy to it.
quote: Battlecruisers are good, but I could wipe those out pretty easily with scourges, if controlled effectively so you don't waste them
o_O Battlecruisers in my experience walk through scourge with out so much as a dent. I'd like to see that. What normally takes down bcs is clocked carriers or devourers.
Posted by edgardu (Member # 242) on :
I still play a lot. BGH only though.
Posted by 0range7Penguin (Member # 7337) on :
quote: o_O Battlecruisers in my experience walk through scourge with out so much as a dent. I'd like to see that. What normally takes down bcs is clocked carriers or devourers.
-Originally posted by Alcon
Wow. Really? I used to eat BC for breakfast with scourge. I played obsessivly in middle school. Now I just dabble.
My personal favorite though is finding the one spot behind the enemy line where they are missing that one missile turret or something and dropping either about a dozen reavers or three dozen firebats inside there base right after you attack the front with everthing else. If your lucky they wont realize that you did it because when the comp says "your base is under attack" they will think it is just the frontal attack and not see the rear drop in till its too late. Posted by Mean Old Frisco (Member # 6666) on :
Nothing is prettier than trying to watch a dozen Battlecruisers try and run away from a full selection of upgraded scouts.
Where do they think they're going?!?!
I pick SC up every few months or so. Never play BN, because of all the sUXorZ n00bz, but love taking on 4 or 5 computers, or other humans who don't just mass troops.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
I've read some reports from professional championship level games.
Makes for some interesting reading, actually.
From the dozen or so reports I've read, there are two main strategies at the professional level. Out-numbering swarming marco techniques with the Zerg, and fine tuned, precision micro techniques with the Protoss. The Terran players from the reports I've read pretty much all lost, but were able to put up a good fight with mostly micro tactics.
The way the best Protoss player in the championship dealt with the Zerg were by using masterful control of his High Templars with their area of effect lightning attack. He would just tear through the Zerg units like grape shot. Fun to read about .
But I read this years ago, so my memory may be off a bit.
When I had starcraft, I didn't have an internet connection, so I never played online. Much like in Warcraft III, I spent a TON of time using the map editor to create my own campaigns. Or I should say make my own half completed campaigns. I spent probably 300+ hours using the WCIII editor, and never once completely finished any of the projects I started...
Posted by Mindbowels (Member # 7407) on :
Wow, I love starcraft. Still play a bit when I get the chance, most recently I've enjoyed some of hte complex use map settings RPGs. Pretty fun. and yeah, like people have been saying, watching hard-core Korean players is a lot of fun. I was in Korea for a few weeks this summer and watched a lot of SC on TV. An entire channel devoted to SC, how sweet is that?
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Oh wow! That's awesome!
Posted by TrapperKeeper (Member # 7680) on :
I mostly enjoyed the shared bases maps. That way you had truely random teams instead of two or three people who knew each other teaming up against a random group of players.
Biggest problems I had with it was that people wanted to play NR 15 or sometimes even 20, where I used to be able to max the population in about 10. I could max two populations (400) using mind control in about 12-15. As soon as I maxed my population and had decent base defense, the remaining time was just me stagnating while the opponents go stronger.
When was learnign the game, I thought that a full compliment of cruisers or carriers was almost unstoppable. Eventually I enjoyed seeing someone attack me with them cause storm or scourge would tear them apart.
Posted by Mean Old Frisco (Member # 6666) on :
They ARE unstoppable, as long as you Hallucinate a dozen more of them and Recall them into the back of a base.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Carriers are stopable by cloaked wraiths, BCs with lots of scan or scourge.
Bcs are stoppable with devourers, carriers cloaked (if the bcs don't have enough scan), high templar with psionic storm. Psionic storm devastates bcs because of their tendancy to group.
Still, both are nearly unstopable becuase its unlikely that the opponent will have the perfect force to stop em. And if you have enough of them... well yeah.
Bcs eat scourge for breakfast. They have a one hit kill on them, so if the group of bcs is large enough the scourge just melt.
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
Now those folks are dedicated.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Strangely enough, just started playing the game again two days ago.
It's a game that inspires obsession. I can't wait for World of Starcraft to come out and annihlate the South Korean GDP.
Fun question: From my own age of obsessive, high school age play, I became convinced that Stasis Field was arguably the best spell in the game. I lost track of all the situations I actually used it against. I'd have them in groups, always following a healthy distance behind my forces, usually on follow, if not hand-operated.
It's strongest ability, of course, is the ability to divide and conquer units; you can freeze massed units in manageable chunks and take them out piece by piece, or you can freeze them all to remove building defenses.
But I've also used them well for these purposes:
- Freezing a ghost who is nuking wastes the nuke instanly. - Freezing your own units cures Plague. - Freezing clusters of high priority kit, like battlecruiser hordes, allows you to pick them off with prepared, stacked psionic storms. - Freezing reveals and defends against cloaked units, providing time for retreat or observers. - I've lined up probes and frozen them along chokepoints in order to create an impassable land barrier. - Tactical freezing can cause ground forces on a-click to string out unintentionally, so they run into defenses in a slow trickle. - Whenever my scouts clashed with battlecruisers, I'd hair-trigger stasis fields to shut down the cruisers whenever they started Yamato Gun, cancelling the yamato and tragically wasting the energy points. - Science vessels were murderously effective anti-Protoss units, so they were typically always Freeze On Sight. - Whenever you get a group of your vessels locked down by ghosts, you can just freeze them to keep them safe, where otherwise they'd just be sitting ducks. - Whenever an Arbiter strayed too close to the front lines and got locked down, I'd freeze it if it were in any danger. Freezing scourge is trickier (you have to trigger the field in front of the approaching guys) but was quite a lifesaver.
I practically never wasted energy on recalls. The only thing I wish you could do with Arbiters was shut off that annoying ability they have that cloaks every non-Arbiter unit around it, because it is just a convenient no-brainer way to cause the enemy to automatically focus all its energy on the most valuable unit.
Endgame for me saw a majority of my energy and mental investment in a careful micromanagement of arbiters, each keyed to an individual number. So I was awesome at endgame, but tragically easy to beat in the early to mid game. Tanks and stimmed marines will reliably hose me every time when done right.
I never used carriers relied heavily on scouts, dragoons, and high templar, and mostly avoided reavers, because they always required an infuriating amount of attention if you wanted them to be worth anything. They were the most retarded siege unit in the game, but hats off to the first person to figure out the Reaverdrop.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Now I have to reinstall the game we have a whole Hatrack Starcraft Community!
sid_meier@hotmail.com, add me and I'll make a specific "Hatrack" group.
And ya, TossGirl was hot.
Posted by edgardu (Member # 242) on :
Samprimary best post so far.
I'm just discovering how handy it could be to always have an arbiter or 2 around.
Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
I'll only play if it's with the Broodwar Expantion Pack installed.
So where do I sign up?
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
add my email i'll reinstall starcraft and broodwar asap. my goal is to get a 8 way ffa.
Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
Add your email to what?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I don't know what professional SC gamers are like, but I do know that 9/10ths of amateur games never get past mid-game, and if they do it's usually an indication that neither player has mastered the basics of fast production and attack.
It was a very fun game but when it comes to PvP, I wasn't so much of a fan. I think it was because it was so artificial, tactically and economically speaking...obviously almost all games are like that, but for some reason in Starcraft it grated more than most. Maybe because it was close?
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
MSN!
Posted by TrapperKeeper (Member # 7680) on :
bump
Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
It is still one of the greatest games ever, but I only specialized at defence. I just wore out my oponents til they ran out of resources and then wiped them out.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:It is still one of the greatest games ever, but I only specialized at defence. I just wore out my oponents til they ran out of resources and then wiped them out.
A good tactic.. fails miserably on all but small maps though. On the larger maps they'll just get enough resources to hit you with a large enough force that you waste all of your resources, defense and units defeating it. Then, with you defenseless and resourcesless, they rebuild the force, come back and smash you.
Posted by TrapperKeeper (Member # 7680) on :
anyone else think that scourge were a tremendous waste of resources? It always amazed me how many of those things the computer would make at a cost of like 75? gas each.
They only work once, and then only if they are lucky enough not to get killed before reaching their targets.
They werent even an AOE attack I dont think, that would of made them worth the cost.
Posted by Kitsune (Member # 8290) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky: I played it until WarCraft III came out. Haven't looked back.
I KNOW. I forgot about WCIII after WoW came out though. But then my brother took the good computer back to his college and now I'm stuck with this crappy laptop that can only handle SC. Sigh.
I forgot everything!! So I only play UMS games now... but I play noob 3v3 things once in a while
Say, does anyone want to play? Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Add me to msn. look above.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
For those of us who don't use MSN. Why don't we just use a bnet channel?
Channel Hatrack
Whenever we get on agree to pop into that channel and see if anyone's on. We can also use /friends command to friends list each other. I think the bnet id I'm currently using for sc is Skid_Alcon. So just friend me and you'll see when I'm on.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
k, as soon as I reinstal starcraft, and msn isnt hard to install, www.microsoft.com
But ya, I like agreeing to "rules" where say I'm zerg and we agree to do an all land war the resut is that I pump out like a billion zerglings and I keep doing mass wave attacks vs their defences until they crack and I wipe out everything thats left.
[ January 30, 2006, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: Blayne Bradley ]
Posted by edgardu (Member # 242) on :
quote:anyone else think that scourge were a tremendous waste of resources? It always amazed me how many of those things the computer would make at a cost of like 75? gas each.
They only work once, and then only if they are lucky enough not to get killed before reaching their targets.
There are situations when scourge are useful. Scourge are very cost effective. 6 scourge (225 gas) can kill 1 bc or carrier which cost 300 gas. 1 scourge can kill 1 muta (100 gas).
Posted by edgardu (Member # 242) on :
I'm usually on at least once between 8-11pm. If I'm, I'll check out channel Hatrack in US East.
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