My friend and I are in a 2v2 team together on battle.net for StarCraft II. We’ve both got a pretty good handle on advanced StarCraft strategies, know the units and their counters and are fairly good at micro. Naturally, we figured we would rise through the ranks without breaking a sweat. We started up our team ladder matches and got smoked in most of them. My friend and I were at a loss as to how this could possibly happen. Two good StarCraft players should equal one good StarCraft team, right? Well, not necessarily. As cliched as it sounds, teamwork needs to be the cornerstone of every good team, and without it, all but the very best of players are doomed to fail.

One of the first things my friend and I noticed was that we were not talking to each other, at all. Naturally, in a competitive StarCraft game, the keyboard is for hotkeys, not chatting, which poses a problem. It also makes for slower communication, and slower response times. StarCraft II is a game of seconds; those lost seconds spent typing are going to cost you. I would recommend an external voice chat client, like Ventrilo, to allow for instant communication between you and your teammate(s) without sacrificing any time on the keyboard. Multitasking has always been vital in StarCraft; being able to multitask team communication with the game itself is a high priority indeed.

Having strategies that complement each other is a no-brainer. I remember one game that I played with my friend. We both played Terran, and both of our opponents selected Zerg. After some early skirmishes between marines and marauders and enemy hydralisks, we decided to tech up. I would build up some vikings to repel air and execute quick attacks on the enemy economy, while my friend would build banshees to dominate the ground. In a pinch against a good anti-air ground force, we could cloak the banshees and turn the vikings into ground walkers. Well, our opponents teched up, too. Soon, we started seeing brood lords and ultralisks. The problem for our opponents should be obvious. Our strategies combined to repel both ground and air; the units our opponents got could only attack ground units. We only had air units. Needless to say, the game did not last very long after that point. The point is, talk about your strategies, and about what units both (or all) of you will be building. Teams have multiple people, which means there is even less of an excuse for not fielding a balanced offensive force.

Lastly, there needs to be a diffusion of responsibilities. There’s no reason both players in a 2v2 team should scout when one can do the job perfectly well. Early-game, one person can scout, while another sets up preliminary defenses. Later in the game, one person can focus on heavy-hitting offense, while the other pumps out support units that can disrupt enemy forces for the big guns. The little things can be split up even more now that you can give your teammate the ability to control your units, useful in a pinch if he or she sees an incoming threat before you do. Of course, that last part requires the most crucial part of teamwork in StarCraft II, and teamwork in general: trust. No trust, and your team won’t be going anywhere.

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I’m no slouch, but I’m certainly no master at the game of StarCraft II. The author of Shokz Guide for StarCraft II is a master, though, and it shows through his elaborate, in depth knowledge of the overall game, its units, and the minute-to-minute strategic decisions that create wins and losses. I know I certainly learned a few things from his expertise, and considering the amount of information packed into this guide, I’m fairly certain just about any reader could stumble across something enlightening, from the lowest of bronze league players to the upper echelons of diamond league.

The Shokz Guide completely ends any confusion about which units are best suited for which situations. The long list of counters for and against each unit are nice, but for most readers of the guide, will be largely known already. What was new to me, and what I’m sure will be new to several others, was the analysis of how each unit does against all three races, as a whole. Sure, each unit can be useful in some way against any race, but this kind of guidance speeds up the process of trying to break down enemy weaknesses over the course of a game. Once you know what race your opponent chooses, you can use the information given in this guide to create a basic game plan for which units you want to produce, and exactly how you want to use them.

I was also impressed by how certain basic elements of the game were explained, and their importance stressed. You can get a good idea of how you should prioritize tasks and goals within the short-term and long-term in every game. The need to expand, and how it affects the game, is in particular made clear. Players are made to understand not only the economic gain made through expansion, but the advantage to be had by denying resources to your opponent. The game is made out to be a game of gaining an advantage, either in army size or resource collection rate, and doing everything you can to preserve that advantage long enough to be able to strike and win the game decisively.

If you’re inclined to pursue the many achievements to be had in StarCraft II, the Shokz Guide has you covered, too. Detailed mission strategies for the Wings of Liberty Campaign are gradually being posted, and if followed, are sure to lead to victories on even brutal difficulty. Specific achievements are addressed in another special section, a solid and welcome addition.

I really benefited from having the game broken down so simply and clearly. Using the information in the guide, I was able to test different strategies and units in actual games and begin to understand the mechanisms at work that determine whether or not my plans end up successful or not. The Shokz Guide is a must read for any StarCraft II player looking to rise in the ranks, or for any player who is just frustrated and tired of losing. It’s an easily accessible read from which even experienced players could learn a thing or two.

PS : Click here to get more information on the Shokz Guide

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Ever since the early builds of StarCraft II were shown to the public, there has been endless debate about the addition of Multiple Building Selection (MBS). MBS marks a departure from the StarCraft I standard, where each building had to be selected separately for unit production. In StarCraft II, several of the same kind of building can be selected, and units will be created evenly across all buildings, though each hotkey must be pressed once for each unit (you can’t select four gateways, press z once and have four zealots on the way). It seems like a minor and convenient change, but it actually does have a significant impact on gameplay, which is why it has been one of the biggest lightning rods of controversy since the game was released. The classic StarCraft training points of micro and macro will be altered in no small way, especially in the coming months, as players get more accustomed to StarCraft II.

Detractors of MBS hold that it takes away from the skill required to play the game, in two ways. First, they claim that being able to select multiple buildings oversimplifies macro. One of the greatest challenges of competitive StarCraft I was the delicate balance that needed to be maintained between micro and macro during battles. In order to keep up unit production, players would need to leave a battle to go back to their bases and individually select buildings to produce units efficiently. Now that entire groups of buildings can be hotkeyed to a number 0-9, shifting attention away from battles is unnecessary. Second, there are claims that StarCraft II, an RTS, is based partly on the skill of mouse speed and effectiveness. As silly as that might sound, it is a fair point. It takes a certain amount of practice and ability to control a mouse and get the most out of each movement of the hand. It is a skill that is difficult to master, and contributes to the learning curve of StarCraft I, but less so to StarCraft II.

Personally, I am on the other side of the fence. I welcome the streamlined unit production that MBS brings, because it allows StarCraft II to have its own unique learning curve. True, macro is easier to manage now, but I think the feeling that this decreases the skill needed to master StarCraft II is misguided. The amount of time players will now have at their disposal when they would have been managing macro will be put to good use by the best, and squandered by the worst. Players will have the freedom to develop new micro tactics that would have been unthinkable or impossible in StarCraft I. Lamenting how things are now seems shortsighted; the masters will apply their ingenuity, and will use MBS to their advantage more than lesser players.

I think the opportunities for micro opened up are the most compelling. StarCraft II has done a much better job of making every unit in your arsenal uniquely important, which means we will see less and less of the “mass one unit and attack” strategies that were prevalent in StarCraft I. The use of abilities by support units can now be managed more effectively, without the cost of not being able to micromanage your attacking units to prolong their lives or lure enemies into traps. I think all battles will become more exciting, and as players realize that, will almost subconsciously develop new strategies to be http://www.starcraft2guidestore.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=128&action=edit&message=1used to gain the upper hand. Perhaps StarCraft II requires less skill to play right now, but give it a few months, and its learning curve will be as steep as StarCraft I’s ever was.

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Playing StarCraft I and StarCraft II, I always thought it was funny that siege tanks were most commonly used for just about everything but what their name implies. That’s not to say they aren’t or weren’t being used effectively; there is no better defensive unit against ground assaults for Terrans, or in the game as a whole, for that matter. As an attacker, they manhandle enemy buildings in the blink of an eye. All that is well and good, but I always had more fun using siege tanks as, well, siege tanks. Making them the backbone of a good siege of an enemy base, especially early game, is a wonderfully satisfying way to get a victory and leave an opponent very frustrated.

I almost feel like the siege in StarCraft is a lost art. So many players are too eager to get battles started, and create showdowns with enemy forces that make or break games in a few seconds. Patience is a virtue, though, and sometimes, letting the battle come to you is the best way to win. After pumping out a few siege tanks early and using them for defense, I like to advance them toward the enemy base. At this point, most of the map should be scouted regularly, so I’ll know whether or not there is an enemy expansion base. If there is, I’ll work on disposing of it, but if my opponent was unwise and failed to expand, then I’m going to go make him pay for it.

I’ll usually start out putting my tanks in siege mode in a semicircle around the enemy choke point, far enough out to where my tanks can just hit the edge of the enemy base’s high ground. Of course, if my opponent is another Terran, I’ll put them a little farther out, so they don’t get hit by enemy siege tanks. The tanks will take care of any workers that try to escape the base to expand or scout, or attack any ground forces that come out to attack, but this will give away my position, so I’ll give the enemy pause by scanning his or her choke point, so my tanks can do some damage at the rim of his or her base.

All that’s left for me to do is to build a couple factories and a couple starports near my tanks, and churn out reinforcements. Patrols of vikings around the base will catch transporters trying to escape, while a small cluster of vikings or marines with medivacs near my tanks will fend off any aerial attacks. At this point, I don’t need to be too concerned about how many units in my siege I lose, as long as I don’t lose all of them. The siege allows me to set up all the expansion bases I want, which means I’ll soon be getting more resources than I can ever use. More importantly, my opponent will soon be running out of resources at his original base, meaning the flow of reinforcements will soon be coming to an abrupt end.

This is why I always make it a point to expand early; the feeling of having your base well-protected and unscathed, yet being completely out of resources with no way to access any more is one of dark, oppressive hopelessness. It might be a little cruel, but I think of it as means to teach an important lesson that will help my opponent in future matches: expand!

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After being saddled with an almost unhealthy addiction to the much anticipated (twelve years!) Starcraft II for the better part of the last two weeks (something that will likely continue for weeks to come), I’ve made some surprising observations. It seems to me that the dark templar and siege tank hordes I always used to see in Starcraft I don’t get churned out nearly as often anymore. The old Terran vs Protoss match-up just doesn’t play out the same way it used to.

At first, I thought this was a little weird, seeing as how dark templars and siege tanks are two of the least changed units in Starcraft II. Upon further reflection, I realized that this makes perfect sense. With so many new toys to play at your disposal, why restrict yourself to the old standards? The more I thought about it, though, the more it seemed that the reasons might be a little more technical than that. It’s more of a reflection of what the Terran vs Protoss match-up is becoming in Starcraft II.

A lot of the counters for these two units have been strengthened, and sometimes they just aren’t worth their risks to produce. The zealot charge ability, for example, has turned what was once cannon fodder into a disaster for a cluster of siege tanks, allowing zealots to close that deadly gap almost instantaneously. With detectors like the sensor tower and less tech needed to add scanning capabilities to a command center, dark templars are a little trickier to use, too. Considering that both counter each other, the decline of one could lead to the decline of the other.

Granted, the siege tank still is used often enough: most Terran wall defenses at choke points have at least two or three as a rule. Offensively, though, they never seem to be leading the way in any sort of assault. The ease of void ray production for Protoss players probably contributed to that. A couple void rays coming across poorly protected siege tanks is going to get very ugly for the Terran player very quickly.

The decline in dark templars strikes me as peculiar, though. Using them forces the Terran player to guard against the cloak sooner than would normally be necessary, at the cost of army or worker production. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to not throw some into the mix, yet I’ve only had them used against me a couple times since the game launched (and let’s just say I’ve played more than a couple games in the past two weeks). Most of the time, the Protoss player will just mass up zealots and stalkers, or tech straight up to colossi or void rays. There have been a few that try to tech straight up to mass carriers, which was popular with some people in Starcraft I. Old habits die hard, but from what I’ve seen in Starcraft II, that habit might not have a very long life ahead of it.

Of course, this is just based on my personal experiences. Maybe I just haven’t found the old diehards who won’t let go of their familiar friends, or maybe I haven’t found great players who can use them in new ways that few have yet imagined. We’ll just have to keep playing to see how the strategies of Starcraft II evolve over time.

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When I finally got my hands on Starcraft II, I couldn’t help but notice that a couple of abilities seen in the immensely popular World of Warcraft made their way into the game, especially on the Protoss side. In Protoss vs Terran matches, these new abilities, mostly assigned to lower tier units, can make a huge impact if they are researched and put into play. With the Terran race being considered by many in the early going to be the strongest race in StarCraft II, Protoss players are going to need all the help they can get, and some clever micro usage with these abilities, can go a long way.

Charge can be researched for zealots, which is incredibly useful. With this ability, a zealot will charge at high speeds toward the nearest enemy ground unit, closing the distance immediately between it and ranged attackers like marines and marauders. Closing the distance on ranged units to avoid getting kited is important enough, but with the marauders’ researched ability for concussive shells, which slow down approaching enemy units, charge becomes an absolute must. A pack of zealots with charge can easily overtake a pack of marauders or marines, but watch out. If you see medivacs, you might want to back off and get some anti-air in the area, like stalkers or void rays.

Next up is blink, an ability that can be researched for stalkers. Blink allows an individual stalker to phase forward through space instantly, to another nearby location. This has a few nice uses. I like to use it to phase my stalkers in between enemy forces, separating the enemy army and making it easier to manage and harder for my opponent to send in reinforcements. Stalkers can also blink across gaps, provided they are small enough. On certain maps, you’ll find you can actually blink stalkers around the map into the back of an unsuspecting enemy’s base, crippling economy and possibly grabbing an easy win. Otherwise, if you have a well-hidden observer, you can blink stalkers from low to high ground, without needing to use a choke point. This is useful if you need to get in behind a well stocked Terran wall, though you will still need to watch out for siege tanks.

Anything to fight off a Terran wall or a full troop of marauders and marines is more than welcome. The once downtrodden Terran race in StarCraft I is now a mighty power in StarCraft II, played by most of the current top players in the world. These familiar little moves highlight a very important thing to remember in StarCraft II: research your upgrades. When playing, you need to err on the side of caution and assume that your enemy will bring fully upgraded units, with researched abilities, to the fore, unless you’ve done some thorough scouting and know for a fact they have not.

With these abilities, good Protoss players can become masters of the quick hit-and-run attack. Blink is great for quick retreats, especially when using the high ground-low ground strategy. This can lead to a decrease in units lost, and a healthier economy. Charge makes zealot strikes lightning quick, and can overwhelm slower Terran players who have not finished building a wall, or who have too few marines to fend off a zealot rush.

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Zeratul’s appearance in StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty was all too brief, but the urgency he brought to the fore more than made up for it. Tidings of Armageddon at the hands of a reawakened ancient race, the Xel’Naga, and claims that Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades leading the Zerg in an effort to destroy the Terrans and Protoss, is the key to stopping it, has turned the plot of the StarCraft saga on its head. With all the stunning plot twists his memories brought to the fore, we can only assume that Zeratul will continue to play a vital role in the coming conflicts.

I think, after being faced with one of the hybrids in action while trying to free the Protoss ancients needed to translate the prophecy, Zeratul will be even more dedicated to his quest of finding these hybrids, and, ultimately, their source. It’s hard to imagine that he could possibly be wrong at this point; the Dark Voice and his minions encountered in Zeratul’s final vision of the Protoss’ destruction almost certainly are Xel’Naga, intent on recreating life in the galaxy once again. After all, claims by the Dark Voice of being the Protoss’ beginning and end lends itself to nothing else but the suggestion that he is a member of the ancient creator race.

Zeratul will also likely keep searching for the mysterious Samir Duran, who seemed absent from Wings of Liberty; however, as some have noted, Dr. Narud of Moebius is Duran spelled backwards, and Kerrigan, during the Moebius mission, mentions that she sees through his “pathetic charade.” Coupled with the secret mission, Piercing the Shroud, it looks like Duran, if he is indeed Narud, has had some influence on Mengsk, and has given him access to hybrids and advanced technology. If Duran truly is an agent of the Xel’Naga, he will likely be doing anything to help anyone who wants Kerrigan dead, as she is the only one who can put a stop to the Xel’Naga plot to destroy all three races, and rebuild the galaxy with the hybrids.

What interests me most is what Zeratul’s reaction will be to the fact that Kerrigan is now a human once again. It seems like her role as the savior against the Xel’Naga was predicated on her being able to control the Zerg swarms, rather than the Dark Voice gaining command. If she cannot fulfill that role as a human, is she as good as dead, as far as the prophecy is concerned? If so, Zeratul’s warnings seem to have been for naught. That is, of course, assuming that Kerrigan is completely human now, which might not be true, considering that her hair still remains as it was when she was the Queen of Blades. With her psionic powers as a ghost, and perhaps remnants of the Zerg infestation left behind, she may still be able to wield influence over the swarms, which could lead to a battle between her and the Dark Voice for control of the Zerg and, ultimately, all life in the galaxy.

What Zeratul’s role will be in the next chapter remains to be seen; likely, it will not be as great as it will be in the third chapter, Legacy of the Void, which will actually be focused on the Protoss. Even still, he figures to be a major player as long as the Dark Voice, and possibly the Xel’Naga, are involved. Besides, any further cinematics featuring Zeratul showing off his fighting prowess would be more than  welcome.

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Out of all three races, the Protoss probably remain the least changed during the early stages of the game. The familiar zealot rush still works in much the same way as it did in Starcraft I, but there are a few other new Starcraft strategies that make the Protoss a little more versatile at the beginning of games.

Zealots essentially remain the same units they were in the first Starcraft. They do have one new ability, charge, that allows an individual zealot to rush toward an enemy unit extremely quickly once every ten seconds, making it much more difficult for opponents to keep the lethal close combat zealots out of attacking range. The charge ability must first be researched at a twilight council.

A new unit that replaces the old Protoss shuttle is the multipurpose warp prism, built at a robotics facility. The warp prism, in addition to the loading function of a shuttle, can be shifted to act as a mobile pylon. When in this mode, the warp prism cannot move, but if threatened, can revert quickly back to transport mode and retreat. Early in the game, this new use is vital because of the ability to upgrade Protoss gateways into warp gates. Warp gates allow the Protoss player to warp their units to any location on the map covered by a psionic matrix. Thus, a player can load up a warp prism, send it to an enemy base, shift the warp prism to phasing mode, and use it to constantly warp in reinforcements. These new Starcraft strategies can overwhelm unprepared opponents.

The classic Protoss dragoon does not return in Starcraft II. Taking its place is the stalker, a more agile unit that, like the dragoon, is both anti-ground and anti-air and requires a cybernetics core to produce. Though they are not as tough or lethal as dragoons, stalkers do have the ability to use blink, which must be researched. Blink allows the stalker to teleport a short distance, which can be used to catch up to fleeing units or to execute a successful retreat.

The Protoss have always been known as the slower race early in the game, in terms of unit cost and production time. This is alleviated by the new chrono boost. Each nexus can, at the cost of 25 energy, speed up unit production or research at a selected building by 50% for 20 seconds. This is perfect for quickly increasing probe production in order to get resources faster, or to create more zealots for a quick rush on an enemy base.

Finally, the Protoss have a very useful new support unit: the sentry. Created at gateways after a cybernetics core is in play, the sentry does minimal damage to air and ground units, and is very fragile. Its three abilities are what makes it a must for any good early Protoss attack. The sentry has inherited hallucination from the high templar of Starcraft I, which must first be researched. If an attack can be executed before an opponent has made detectors, hallucinations can create mass confusion, wasting much of the enemy’s time. The sentry also has two natural abilities: the force field and the guardian shield. The former creates a small force field on the map that obstructs ground troop movement. This is ideal for choke points, allowing a quick Protoss player to cut off a main enemy force from receiving reinforcements, opening a very successful divide-and-conquer tactic. The guardian shield reduces damage received from ranged attacks for all ground units inside the shield by two each, making the already durable Protoss force even harder to kill.

For savvy players, Protoss can be developed much faster than in the original Starcraft. With the importance of charge and force field taking center stage, good micromanagement, which requires a lot of skill and practice to hone, is more important than ever. For those that put in the time, it will prove to be well worth it.

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In 1998, Blizzard released what many believe is the best real time strategy game ever. Fans extract resources, manufacture war units and crush opponents over the internet and local network to this day – twelve years later.

No wonder the expectations of “StarCraft 2″ are high, in other words. And a significant number of hours of multiplayer part of the “StarCraft 2″ during the beta testing, it was primarily the one player part and the main campaign that stood as the biggest question mark when the game was released on Tuesday.

A lot of people will spend hours, days, weeks, months and perhaps years in the tough battle against other players over the net, much of the “StarCraft” experience related to the story and the main campaign.The games is very detailed, every little detail is trained and thoughtful to a degree that only games with seven years of development time can be.

The Plot starts four years after “StarCraft: Brood Wars”. In the center stands the marginalized hero Jim Raynor and the newly released Tychus Findlay. The latter was actually sentenced to life imprisonment and was released in a permanent protection suite under mysterious circumstances.

Together with the idealistic Matt Horner he takes the fight against the oppressive reign of Valerian Mengsk. A match which will be made considerably more complicated by the return of the insect-like “Zerg” forces, led by Raynor former colleague Kerrigan. Kerrigan was poisoned and corrupted by an invading Zerg army as she desperately tried to fight.

The story that unfolds through 25 missions are of high quality. In particular, Raynor and Tychus are wonderful characters who feel real and three-dimensional despite the seemingly stereotypes on respectively “snout rough-but-bottom kind-with-dark-history completely” and “cigar-in-mouth-and-noicy-machinegun hero”.

Between missions you’ll return to Raynor’s spaceship. Here you can chat with people on board, researching technology with technology-earned points, buy upgrades for their devices, hiring mercenaries and a whole host of other things.

Which projects you want to undertake, and what order you choose to do them in, is to some extent up to the player himself. You can skip some missions, but then you’ll go missing money and research points. You’re also sometimes faced with dilemmas in which one must choose which party you want to support in a conflict, with associated positive and negative consequences.

The missions are very varied; each one has its very own character, indeed almost their own personality.

On one mission I suddenly had to take into account the difference between day and night. The aim was to destroy a Zerg-infected colony of well over one hundred tentacle covered buildings.

During the day, which lasted five minutes, the colony was abandoned and where almost frightening still, the night crept thousands upon thousands of infected zombies from the ground and attacked. If I didn’t get my entire army into the base and defense systems in full swing before darkness fell, I would base my struggle to stand against the zombie waves.

On another mission I was on a planet where the lava floods washed over everything from lowlands regularly. Because I had to conduct mining activities on lowlands, had to evacuate the buildings, machinery and get into the air on time.

I could have continued like this for an eternity, the missions were so unique that I remember them all. Not only that, I will also like to play them again.

The number of units and buildings in the main campaign surpasses those available in the multiplayer part with a good margin. It was actually almost a little disappointing to go back to this after having me wait in the arsenal one player section. But it seems to balance considerations as the reason for this, and the selection in the multiplayer part is it does not matter on.

If one is to first find out scrutiny and attempt to find fault, it may be mentioned that the auto-navigation to your devices sometimes selects inappropriate solutions. If the planned road is or becomes impassable, they can choose the long and potentially dangerous detours to reach the target. But it goes much time between each time it happens, and always caused you to have given an extremely low order.

Few games have had more expectations to live up to than “StarCraft 2″, even fewer have done it just as convincing. Good, old “Star Craft” can retire with dignity, the real-time strategy genre has found a new king.

Technorati Tags: Game Review, StarCraft 2 Wings of Liberty