Intergalactic Advice sought

[Occhidiangela]

After about 2 years away from it, I re installed Starcraft onto my new PC.

Gosh, it is still plenty of fun. However, I am once again reminded that as a Zerg Player, I suck like a Hoover vacuum cleaner. No, make that an industrial strength shop vac. :huh:

Lurkers all, what are the top three Starcraft Strat sites that are not Blizzard's?

I remember the WC II site, Dark Portal that GF ran, and I am sure there are some of similar quality, or better, out there.


I never hit SC strat sites, as I usually played SP only, but my older brother has FINALLY installed the game on his machine. So, since he is about 8 times smarter than me, I expect to need to have my stuff in one sock when we eventually play on line.

What are your fave Starcraft Strat sites?

Rogue who prefers Terrans, particularly ruggedly handsome Terrans like Jimmy Raynor . . . hey, get that alter ego back into her box, I have not had two cups of coffee yet! (I have a weakness for Siege Tanks, I confess. I love the way they make things go BOOM!)

[NiteFox]

I'm not the best Zerg player in the world, but I'm learning.

Okay, chances are that you're getting rushed early with Zerg. The key to warding off Zealot rushes, M&Ms, Zergling rushes, whatever, is the same - Fast Lurkers.

6pool (Which means building a Spawning Pool with your sixth morphed Drone), the Overlord, Extractor, two (Or three, if your resources are available) Sunkens, Hydralisk Den, Upgrade to Lair, build second Hatch. Research Lurker, manufacture three Hydras (While researching), then morph them into Lurkers. While morphing, three more Hydras, then place the Lurkers around your Hatchery. By now, you should be getting rushed.

Works pretty well, and as long as you keep pumping Lurkers (No more than a dozen on base defence), you should be pretty tight. Find any available chokepoints and burrow three Lurkers there, and then get a small hotkeyed force of Hydras and Zerglings a small distance outside the base. Not only can you backstab any massed forces (Buahahahaah!) But Terrans will use Siege Tanks and Protoss will use Reavers when they see you using Lurker defence.

If the map is open, and there are no chokepoints, keep a loose perimiter of Hydras and Zergling buried outside your base, and a tight overlapping network of Lurkers and Sunken Colonies.

Zerg benefit faster from early expansion than any other race. More Hive Clusters equate to more Larvae being spawned which means more units. Every base should have two or three Hatcheries, and expansions can be mutually supportive from the moment you get your first Hive and Nydus Canals. If an expansion comes under attack, pull the Drones out via Canal (Keep Canals near the supply line rather than the front line) and put them to work elsewhere.

When scouting for expansions, use Zerglings. Burrow one at each expansion (Amongst the minerals, not where the player will be forced to put his resource center, because a big red square in the middle of a legit building point is a clue.), so you can tell if any expansions have been claimed by other players. Later, substitute the Zerglings at unclaimed expansions with Lurkers, since this is almost guaranteed to destroy the building worker and the young building before they have a chance. Your opponent will dedicate resources to flushing out the Lurkers from expansions, you'll still be gathering, in the end you'll have an edge and know where your enemies are moving too, and if you decide to claim the expansion for yourself you'll also have a small defensive unit at each expansion too.

Mutalisks, Guardians, or Devourers? I'd say Mutas, myself. They can swarm bases in moments, and if you attack with three dozen Mutas you could then switch six or so into Devourers (In preperation for an air retaliation) or Guardians (To raze the base) while the remaining Mutas cover their morph. Leave Guardians at razed bases and morph new ones, since they move much slower than your other forces.

And, when all else fails, swarm the buggers with as many Hydras and Cracklings As you can. Five full squads of fully-upgraded Zerglings, and three squads of Hydras is a pretty scary sight :)

[Sir_Die_alot]

I've never been into a strat site but with something like a 4:1 win/loss rec and my favorite race being zerg I think I can offer some useful advice. :D

First are the obvious things: every worker on a different mineral patch and pump out workers like crazy throughout the game. You can't have too many minerals or enough gas! (No not that kind keep your lima beens out of this!)

Something less obvious is hide your defensive structures. Most newbs like to put them out front because they do damage so they can take it. Right? Wrong! They are easily swarmed and die. Put them behind some other building. For instance I nearly always build at least 1 sunken for early rushes (I play team where this is very common). I build my spawning pool 2 squares away (the size of a sunken) from my hatchery and put the sunken between them (careful about larva if you build your pool south of your hatch). Now it is more difficult to swarm and kill. For even more rush defense (especially versus zerg and protoss) have a couple zerglings surround and guard the sunken. Don't get carried away with defense though, zerg's power is offense. If you have more than 4 sunkens (this is pushing it still) you have over done it. One exception to this is you have become the "decoy". Sometimes teams will really focus on one player sending masses of troops trying to kill that one person. If this is you then build defense like crazy, it takes skill but if you get good at playing the "lame duck" who "almost" lost the fight you can often win the game by giving your allys time to build up.

Another common newbie mistake is having only a couple hatcheries. Zerg win by sheer numbers. Often I've won because my enemy and I came out of a battle with even losses, but because zerg can pump out troops so quickly I was able to rebuild my army faster.

Good combinations:

Mutalisks and zerglings. Surprisingly effective because of the AI auto targeting. Works great if someone went hard one type of unit (like mass hydralisks).

Ultras and defilers. Mix in some cheap zerglings as battle fodder. Unless the enemy has enough air to smash your base faster than you his he is in deep trouble. If you really cought someone off guard ultras alone can do the job alone sometimes. (great for terran with mass infantry)

Hydras + lurkers. Almost impossible to take from the ground if used properly. Still difficult from the air. If you have defilers this is a very powerful army even very late game.

Some things to look out for:

Mass/early corsairs. They eat up your overlords quite quickly. Keep a devourer or 2 near your overlords and/or spread them out. Often there is a dark templar follow up (no overlords often means no detection for zerg) so keep a spore colony around areas where you would need detection for such cases.

Terran tanks. Keep an eye on terran don't let him mass these. Once a good terran gets tanks going it's very hard to push off as zerg. Queens can take out key tanks with broodling but by themselves are not an adequate defense against them. If terran has a good tank push going often your only recourse is to cripple them with a lurker drop/muta run through their own base.

Marines and medics. Often a key part of tanks (above). If the game is late enough plauge is good for confusing the medics (which one to heal? They are ALL taking damage)

Mass zealots. Wach for it because it can be hard to fend off. If you see it coming get a few more sunkens (behind buildings as above) and try to work tward lurkers. Also have some zerglings to delay the zealots and give your sunkens more time to work their magic.

Good zerg rushes to use:

As someone else said the 6 pool. It's cheesy (not as much so as it used to be) but works sometimes, especially with a zerg ally so you have 12 zerglings going. If you are rushing another zerg player bring 1 or 2 drones and build sunken colonies on his own creep. (yes you can do that!)

Lurkers. Getting lurkers before someone is ready is probably one of the most frequent reasons for a zerg win, especially versus terran. If they have no detection ,and you have a clear path, stick them in range of their mineral workers. That will be the end of the game 19 games out of 20. Also protoss players often follow the hide the defensive structure rule (not wrongfully mind you) and puts them behind their gateways. Plop your lurkers in front of the gateway out of range of the photon cannon and you can kill his gateways. On island maps (or maps with small rivers between starting areas) if you have someone close to you the "slow ass drop", as a friend of mine calls it, is to put your overlord right next to the waters edge on your island, get lurkers and overlord carry, load the lurkers, and slowly fly to a nearby island.

Mutalisks. Cheap, fast, and strong in numbers. Getting them early can give you some good hit and runs on workers or other units (good way to take out unguarded tanks). I wached a replay once where someone hit and ran a whole mob of marines and medics and by the time they got to the zerg's base there weren't marines left for the attack. :lol:

Nydus canal. Great for an enemy zerg. Paracite one of his units and build a canal somewhere in the back of his base that it won't be noticed (if you are blue next to a mineral, brown can be just about anywyere, otherwise use your own judgement) have a big mob of ground units ready to jump in the canal when it's done. Bring a defiler for more evil. To really catch them off guard have an ally do a frontal attack at the same time so they are occupied there and don't notice you are thrashing the back of their base. If you have burrow, burrow a zergling or something. Often they won't build defenses they will just wach for another paracite but the zergling can see. :) This also works with a terran ally that can scan a region for you (you just need vision of that creeped area).

That's all I can think of off the top of my head but should be more than enough to play with. You know my accounts feel free to find me for a game. If nothing else we can smash some comps and I drive you crazy telling you every bad move you make. B)

[kandrathe]

I never hit SC strat sites, as I usually played SP only, but my older brother has FINALLY installed the game on his machine. So, since he is about 8 times smarter than me, I expect to need to have my stuff in one sock when we eventually play on line.

I still play weekly, or is that weakly? :)

Some tips; I like to practice playing Zerg against two opponents ala. Melee on 3 Kingdoms map. I find Zerg vs two Protoss or vs two Terran equally difficult.

Some things I've learned, and they might be newb :) but they work for me.

- You can build sunken colonies very early, so get your mineral supply going (8 drones, then build a spawning pool, then fortify around your hatchery. On 3 kingdoms I frequently have over 20 sunken colonies around my hatchery.
- I've rarely ever succeed with a zergling rush, and then I find myself behind if it fails. A risky strategy, but quite a surprise once in awhile.
- Getting and placing some lurkers (6 or so) and spore colonies further defends the hatchery from ground - but requires hydralisk den, and an upgrade to the hatchery, and then lurker research. I use them in groups of 3 or 4 against waves of ground forces. You need to keep their location secret, so well placed spore colonies can keep away observers, or science vessels. Not much one can do against terren scans. I try to place the lurkers so that all 3 or 4 can combine fire, but so that any one scan will reveal only one lurker.
- My next best strategy usually after at least one expansion base, is to move to a squad of guardians, defended by a squad of devourers. I build two spires, just becase upgrading to a greater spire takes so long. I have the devourers follow the guardians, and two of three overlords following the devourers. More devourers than guardians is best. Target your worst threats, first and if air forces appear turn and run thru your guardians. If you see templars decide to either run, or kill them quickly. I hate them, and their psychic storm worst.
-I've never found ultralisks, or defilers worth the extra effort. I've only done them when I team up with another zerg player, and we split ground and air responsibilites.

Of course, research upgrades as you can afford them -- its always a balance between having the forces and having trained forces. I research firepower before defense.

[pakman]

I always found that Overlords were helpful because ghosts can get pretty darn annoying...especially a cloaked army of them which is what I used to do whne Terran. I would send a squad of ghosts and then off to the side I would send a nuke. The squad would keep them distracted until they heard "Nuclear Launch Detected." I would also have siege tanks set up with spider mines all around the base with bunkers to pretect me from rushes, it usually worked pretty well. When I played the Protoss, I would always set up fields of cannons with zealots behind them along with those interceptor ships. You will have to be prepared for things like that. The protoss can build incredibly fast.

[NiteFox]

As someone else said the 6 pool. It's cheesy (not as much so as it used to be) but works sometimes, especially with a zerg ally so you have 12 zerglings going. If you are rushing another zerg player bring 1 or 2 drones and build sunken colonies on his own creep. (yes you can do that!)

Damn right. I remember when Pools cost only 150 minerals (As opposed to 200 now), so you could 4pool easily. Bam, Zergling rush, game over. Guaranteed way to make friends.

Or Drone rush. Whatever floats your boat :)

The problem with Zerg is that they're highly inflexible when it comes to building placements. Protoss even more so, but with Terran you can literally block a chokepoint with Supply Depots for some fast and impassable (If you place them right) barricade. Slap a Bunker or two behind the wall, Siege Tanks on higher ground, and some SCVs to maintain the wall, and your base is sealed.

Don't try it with Protoss Cannons (And buildings), or most Zerg structures. Marines, Zerglings, Zealots, other small units can weave between buildings as if they weren't there.

[Artega]

Blockading is a horrible idea. Don't do it, unless you're blocking your enemies in, which is a GOOD idea. If you blockade your entrance, your enemy can pick your walls down with long-range units (siege tanks and lurkers come to mind), and you'll be helpless to stop it.

Zerglings and Terran infantry are the small units, in that they can sneak between buildings. Zealots are too big for that.

Zerglings are the underestimated units in the Zerg horde. They're excellent cannon fodder, and Zerglings with the Adrenal Glands upgrade can tear down buildings faster than any unit in the game. Use Zerglings liberally if your enemy is using large units, like Ultralisks, Goliaths, Tanks, or Dragoons. Keep them away from High Templar, Reavers, and Vultures.

If faced with a Mutalisk-heavy offensive, make Valkyries with reckless abandon. Valkyries kill Mutalisks faster than anything else out there; four Valkyries can EASILY put down thirty-six Mutalisks. Corsairs are only slightly less effective.

Make sure to use Dark Archons if you're playing as Protoss, especially if your enemy is going for the mega-units (Battlecruisers, Carriers, Ultralisks.) Maelstrom stops infantry, Zealot, and ANY Zerg rushes cold. It's especially devastating to the Zerg, as EVERY Zerg unit is biological. It also works on air units. Use a couple of Maelstroms, and follow up with Psionic Storms and Reavers. Mind Control the ultra-units (your enemy loses the unit, and you gain it), and Feedback spellcasters (High Templar, Science Vessels, Wraiths, Medics, and even Battlecruisers; Feedback on a fully-charged Battlecruiser instantly halves its HP.)

Use Hallucination. Hallucinate Zealots, Dragoons, and High Templar. Use a Psionic Storm and leave the Hallucination there while the real Templar escapes. Your enemy will concentrate on your Hallucination(s) while your forces batter on them. Use Hallucinations as cannon fodder, so your real units can close in.

Against Zerg, use Archons. The Zerg have no way of killing the shields, unlike the Terrans' EMP Shockwave ability.

Use Lockdown if your enemy seems to be using lots of mechanical units. A couple of Ghosts using Lockdown can ruin a person's rush, especially if it's hinging on Battlecruisers or Siege Tanks.

[Sir_Die_alot]

Protoss can block pretty well, the pylons are not that limiting. Zerg can too but need time to get the hatchery in place. Only versus mass comps do you need that so tight nothing can get by not even a zerling seal. In fact having an imperfect one often entices your enemy to attempt to run past (meaning you usually slaughter them without even taking damage :) ) A couple units to stand in their way usually messes them up enough. Blocking chokes works great versus comps, but if you rely on it for anything but early anti ground versus a human player they will just shurg their shoulders build air/drops and slaughter you. :ph34r:

Oh and don't use just supply depots to block. Use a depot and a flying building (usually barraks) so you can unbock when you are ready. I groan/quit the game when I see someone use multiple depots to block because I know they don't just suck, they REALLY suck, and I won't be having any help in the game until they have their 24 battle cruisers. :wacko:

[Sir_Die_alot]

If faced with a Mutalisk-heavy offensive, make Valkyries with reckless abandon. Valkyries kill Mutalisks faster than anything else out there; four Valkyries can EASILY put down thirty-six Mutalisks. Corsairs are only slightly less effective.

In theory this is true, however valks suffer from buggy projectiles. As the game goes on (when you would actually HAVE a valk to use...) the sprite limit is often filled and valks can't shoot (DOH!). Also their missiles have a tendancy to fly around and miss, unlike corsairs which hit instantly. When it comes to air to air combat the cheap, fast, high attack rate, low food cost, and splash damage corsair comes out on top. <_<

[Artega]

Not necessarily. The Valkyries' Halo rockets have a slightly wider and longer range than the Corsairs' Neutron Flare. The rockets also do slightly more damage than the Neutron Flare.

However, in terms of overall usefulness, the Corsair is most definitely better. It's cheaper and it comes with the uber-useful Disruption Web ability. Use Disruption Web to temporarily stop Tanks from firing their cannons, as well as disable any kind of defensive emplacement. A few Corsairs can stop even the ugliest, scariest Terran defensive blockade long enough for heavy fighters to close the gap.

Goliaths make up for this, however, by being the best Surface-to-Air unit in the game, bar none. Their Hellfire Missile Packs do upwards of 30 damage a hit, they fire reasonably fast, and the have the same range of a Guardian with the Charon Boosters upgrade. A group of twelve Goliaths can easily stop two, and possibly three, Battlecruisers, or back up a company or two of Marines in a ground assault.

[Occhidiangela]

Great advice, and what I already knew:

Lurkers in the offensive (with a spoiling attack elsewhere to distract the foe) can close down an enemy base.

As to the rest, some outstanding advice!

I am a real fan of, if I can turtle for a while with 4 barracks (healed by SCV's) of the 9 battle cruisers with 3 science vehicle assault. I use the defensive shield to make the first three battle cruisers survive, and the trouble is . . . getting to that time that I can make BC's. Siege tanks are still a fave, with Goliath support and lots of Comm Sats to keep the invisos and Ghosts honest. Lockdown suxors, but at least medics can solve it.

BC's and Marines and Science vehicles, plus medics in Brood War, seem to do well for me. It took me a long time to really love Marines and their Caffeine, sorry, stim packs . . . :lol: but I love them now.

Thanks for the strat tips, a lot. Some great pointers, thanks and thanks again.

What sites again? :)

Is there no Starcraft equivalent of the LL? It is one of the best games I have ever played, surely there must be a couple of uber strat sites.

[Archon_Wing]

I demand you to step down. The title of the world's worst Zerg player belongs to none other than me! Seriously, I'll actualy leave the game if I accidentialy get zerg. :D

But since Starcraft is the only game I really play these days, maybe I should *try* to help. I'm still pretty crapp though :o


I think one of the best way to learn the game is to watch the "experts" play the game. With patch 1.08 and above, one can download replays:
http://ygclan.vgaclub.co.kr/?m=replay Move them to your "replays" folder found somewhere in your starcraft maps directory.

Is there no Starcraft equivalent of the LL? It is one of the best games I have ever played, surely there must be a couple of uber strat sites.

To tell you the truth, I don't know of many starcraft sites, but http://www.sclegacy.com is one I remember. Unfortuantely, I know nothing about the equavilent about here. The forums I see discussing Starcraft seems to be dominated by certain egos who would rather talk smack. -_-

On actual game strategy:

One thing to realize that playing against humans requires to be fairly agressive, and early on. You must also expand fairly often too. A good time to expand is often after you win a decisive battle, either defending or attacking.

Your strat depends on what race you play against. There is no universal strategy against all races, as the game would be dull. :D

I have no idea how you play, (unless you are willing to upload a replay of you playing somewhere ;)) so let me think of general things. Don't blame me for being to "n00b" here, for I am not gosu :)

In general, you should build a Supply depot on your 9th scv and a barracks on your 11th. This is for a map of average size (128x128) Don't ask me why, as it's the calculations and experiments made from work of underground mad scientists. I usually don't like regurgutating build orders, so no more of that. :P Everything is situational, and the game is not static. Based on these workings (most likely assisted by 12 monkeys) and my own experience, I have wrriten this pile of uhh... strats below for the rogue who has a preference for siege tanks. :)

Terran V. Zerg (TvZ)
There is no need to block off your choke point here. Build your base as compact as possible. You do not want zerglings or whatnot running around in your base attacking your unprotected buildings. You will feel the pain if you have poor building placement and you get zergling rushed. You will want to build marine and medics throughout the whole game. Use a marine to scout the mineral areas to check if the zerg is expanding. If so, crush it right away. You usually can't stop the zerg's first expansion on certain maps, but do try to limit the zerg's money supply.

It's kinda frsutrating, because Marine/medic (or m+m) is difficult to control. It's a good idea to hotkey your marines. If you want the medics to follow, stim pack the marines and run ahead. The medics will run after the marines trying to cure the junkies.

You would want a comsat soon to see what your enemy is doing. He may be going either to mutalisks or lurkers. He may also be going hydralisks, but M+M in decent numbers destroys them thus making mass hydras a suicidal venture. If you think he's building lurkers, go get tanks. If you think he's going air, head towards a science facility for science vessels. and build turrets near your mining area. Hotkey your comsat station in case lurkers are err...lurking.

You should get science vessels in any case eventually to detect lurkers, and also irradiate. Irradiate will be your answer to zerg air. Use it without restraint. I do not like or use valkyries because they are too expensive for what they do.

If your opponent went lurkers try using dropships and drop your forces in undefended parts of the zerg base. This works soooo well if your opponent tried to heavily defend the front. Watch out for the lurkers of course.

A lot of it is about micromanagement. That I can't tell you about, because my micro blows and thus my TvZ blows too.

Terran V. Terran(TvT)

Oohh! I like this a lot. When two newer players play, this is boring as hell because they will turtle like mad. You should go straight to a factory, two of them in fact, skipping infantry units mostly. Make a marine and fly your barracks off to scout the enemy. If your enemy actualy wants to marine rush, build a bunker at your choke point and have some SCvs ready to repair. (You might actualy want to make more marines in these cases) Let your scouting Scv decide it.
Use vultures and mines to fight marines. Supported, they will wipe the marines out. It's most likely that your enemy would have lost should his marine rush fails, which is why almost nobody does that.

In general, it's either tanks, goliaths, or a drop. Tanks are necessary. Drops are to take advantage of tank imbolity and goliaths are anti air.

Wraiths are also good here, but do not mass them. Just use them to annoy and slow down your enemy.

Eventualy push towards your enemy's base. Creep your tanks slowly and graduly and take some expansions at the same time. Once you have the resources, start making battlecruisers.

Terran V. Protoss (TvP)

Ok, I think I know the most about this because my best matchup (which is still bad) is Protoss vs. Terran.

Like against a terran, get factories ASAP. You will want to create a barricade (Block off your entrance with supply depots and a barracks) most of the time. Make several marines for defense. Your marines, the wall, and incoming vultures and tanks will stop most zealot rushes. Remember to use multiple scvs to repair the wall. Most good protoss players do not zealot rush against terran, unless it's an open map. But those maps are usually considered to be imbalanced anyways. Main thing here is tanks and vultures with siege mode and mines, respectively.

Oh yea, terminate any probe you see that tries to get into your base. Hunt it down and destroy it. Check your base every now and then for hidden probes. Probes can do plenty of terrible things if you let it.

Scout the dude's base. Does he have a citadel of adun ? A citadel that fast could mean dark templars. Respond as such to building an enginerring bay and missile turrets. Make about two around your mining area because a Dark Templar drop will end you. Anyhow vultures and mines do fairly well against dark templar as mines provide "detection" (well, not really they just aim for dark templar). One little trick you can do is to lift off your engineering bay and fly it over a missile turret. The dark templar will still auto-attack the turret, but if you have other units, the templar will go for those instead. The Protoss can't manually target the turret because the engineering bay is obstructing the view.

A robotics facility is far more common, to get the spies known as observers. It might also mean a devestating reaver drop. Keep an eye out for your mining area and be prepared to evactuate your scvs. Build a few turrets on the edges of your base as advance warning. For the most part, it will be observers, because a Protoss without observers falls easy prey to spider mines.

When you have built up an army, lift off your barracks. You can always "close your door" if it gets nasty.

Most of the time your opponent will be making plently of dragoons and zealots. Like against a terran, you'll probaly have to start the push towards their base.. Lay mines ahead of them tanks and siege behind. Build turrets to drive away observers. Push towards your enemy's base by repeating the process.

Do not be too agressive, or your force will be smashed into pieces. Go too slow, and your enemy may have 10 carriers all of a sudden. Spread out those damned tanks, because psonic storm is deadly! Don't let the protoss outexpand you! Try loading about 3 dropships worth of units and travel around to find expansions.

I don't know, does that help?

Edit: so many people around here actualy play this game still? I guess that's a good thing.

[Archon_Wing]

Of course, research upgrades as you can afford them -- its always a balance between having the forces and having trained forces. I research firepower before defense.

Oh yea... especialy well taking in account that reducing one damage from a siege tank blast isn't really that great. :P Usually the attack upgrade benifits all your units, rather than just the ones that are getting hit. Also good for destroying buildings faster.

But i guess armor might work against units who do small amounts really fast, like zerglings and marines.

[Scalefang]

Man, it's been awhile since I played Starcraft...

Back in the day I believe that www.gamers.com had a decent Starcraft section, that's about the only place that I remember looking at strats.

That has to be the best thing about Starcraft, is that with a little bit of insperation you can come up with a decent strat since most things go together. You're probably gonna hate the "zen" comment I am about to make so I'll skip it.

My favorite ploy was lings/ultras. It worked great on most turtlers as the ultras were the decoys and the lings were the acutal force. I once had a build order that would get me Ultras in six minutes...whew...scary...

The only downfall to this strat is that it really was strictly one-on-one, splitting up the focus was killer, as it had to keep up the pressure in both the early game and later on. Along with expanding and making sure they didnt get air....

I go deeper indepth except...I just cannot for the life of me remember the precise details of it...worked great though....

One last comment: Warcraft III just doesn't measure up to Starcraft.

[Archon_Wing]

Folks on battle.net tend to only play on several types of maps. (ie. Lost Temple, Hunters, etc.) There's also maps that contain excessive resources (money maps) such as big game hunters, but I wouldn't recomond those.

The most popular non money map is probaly Lost Temple. It's probaly the least imbalanced of the Blizzard maps, but there are still some really cheesy gimmicks on that map..(also someone found out the bottom base doesn't mine as fast- how do you notice that!?) which is why there are many edited versions of Lost Temple. You probaly want to learn to play this map first. I do advocate learning to play the game over learning to play a map, but I think you might end up fighting over that temple quite a few times. :)

You can download the "improved" versions of Temple and a horde of other maps if you want some variety here: http://www.wgtour.com/map.php?datab=broodwar

These maps are in general more balanced than the ones originally released by Blizzard (although one might contest that) (Note: maps with "obs" in them need to be played with the setting use map settings These are maps that allow observers)

Finally, get ready to lose. You will lose many times, and that's a good thing. Just remember every loss is a learning experience. Well, that's what I tell myself. B)

[AtomicKitKat]

Been getting my ass handed to me by the CPU in Warcraft 3 so many times it's not funny. It seems like no matter WHAT I pick, the CPU goes for the CHEAPEST POSSIBLE ATTACK, and rushes me. If I fend that off(20% success), it comes back at me with catapults(and in the case of an elf CPU, Mountain Giants, which are IMO, extremely unbalanced, now that piercing no longer breaks heavy armour, and also because something that big being immune to things like possession just pisses me off) :(

[roguebanshee]

Try looking at www.battlereports.com for some StarCraft battle reports. You may be able to pick up some good tips and be entertained while doing so if you keep to those that score 7+.

[Raz]

Mountain Giants aren't really that unbalanced. They are expensive, and their damage/second input is really low. Their mission is basically to absorb damage; however, by the time you get them AND the damage upgrade AND the magic resistance, chances are your enemy (if he scouted) has tier 3 units (knights, tauren, etc) that are the counter for mountain giants. The only unbalanced aspect of them is taunt, and it is only useful when you can spam it (3 or more giants), making the other player unable to attack another unit.

Three or four mountain giants plus archers, druids of the talon, and dryads are a force to be feared.

[Walkiry]

Well, I'm not going to add anything useful to this thread, but if you ever want to score a few sure consecutive wins drop me a line and I'll reinstall the game. I *am* the worst SC player ever ^_^

[NiteFox]

I *am* the worst SC player ever ^_^

Betcha never was forced to SCV rush an enemy because the spine of your base was ripped out in an early rush :)

*Sigh* Good times.