On the Ball: A Shoddy (Star)Craftsman
- Thread starter Jordan Deam
- Start date
The sequel has brought about a lot of changes. Don't be so quick to assume that strategies that did or didn't work before won't now. For example, reactors mean you can churn out a lot more marines from a smaller number of barracks then you could previously. Simply being able to select all 60-70 marines in a single unit to hit at once gives them a boon. There are certainly still ways to shut down large masses of marines though, but often it means going on the offensive because you'll be fighting a loosing battle trying to defend against those numbers. And even if you really dig in, I can simply use the marines to deny you expanding while I tech into other units to break down your defense. I will agree that often any strategy work best with a feint or distraction.Pendragon9 said:
Apparently my memory of it wasn't quite right. The AI levels can be chosen in the map editor, from easy, medium, hard, insane. I'm not sure if you can select them in game, but I still thought you could, maybe it required brood wars? I'll have to reinstall and see if I can't figure it out.Playbahnosh said:
I remember hearing a lot about the new Insane AI when it came out because it let the computer try new strategies like reaver drops and made it much more aggressive.
I did not mess around in the level editor too much, I prefer the map-packs floating around, and play on ready made maps. I really had no idea you can set difficulty in the map-editor. As for the in-game difficulty settings, I didn't find anything that even remotely resembles a difficulty switch, in SC or BW, so I guess that feature never really got implemented. It would be a very welcome addition, though.TomBeraha said:
SCII beta is very new so as day[9] from Team Liquid has been saying people will be one-base rushing until they figure out the more complicated strategies- tech builds, fast expansions, timing pushes, etc.sunpop said:
But if your talking about SC BW, then I would disagree that it is only zerg rushing. Sure there is the Zerg 9pool rush or the Protoss 2Gate rush, or the Terran bunker rush, but people have figure out how to counter those rushes and are now considered all-in builds. If you succeed, you win, if not you'll get steam-rolled by a superior economy. On ICCUP or the Korean proleagues, there is still early aggression to force players off their gameplan, but much of the strategies revolve around expanding while attacking, timing an attack while your opponent is expanding, harassing mineral lines, etc, etc.
There is so much subtly to the original SC then simply rushing. Often it's the matter of gaining a slight advantage and using that to gain a bigger advantage by expanding or teching. Rather than simply successfully defending one push and then trying to immediately push into your opponents base, lose your force and get chased back to your own base again. (A common mistake observed by day[9] on all RTS games.)
And yes positional play in SC BW is hugely important- where spider mines are placed, lurker and dark swarm hopping. Often there opponents are trying to force the other's armies out of position by knocking out expansions, cutting off reinforcements, knocking out production facilities, destroying supply depots to supply block them, destroying key tech buildings etc.
Can you tell I love SC? Pretty excited about SCII.
Playbahnosh said:
