Okay fine here’s one. How do I defend my Zerg HQ against Protoss Carriers? I tried building more Spore Colonies, but they waited out of range. Scourges can’t seem to get through either. Do I just have to load up on Hydralisks and Mutalisks?
Spores are nearly useless against Carriers for the reason you mentioned. They’ll just sit beyond your range and snipe, rebuilding interceptors as necessary.
There are a few different answers to this question.
Scourge are the biggest answer. Get enough mutas together that they don’t get murdered instantly, send them in (THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT CARRIERS is to attack each carrier individually. DO NOT send your units in on an attack-move; they’ll waste time hitting the interceptors and get slaughtered. This is particularly important for mutas since you need to maximize the bounce effect of their attack) to attract carrier fire and then have the scourge target the carriers. I think it’s 3 scourge per carrier; I don’t remember. You’ll also want to mix in a defiler with plague; it won’t affect the carriers’ shields but draining their hps will make a big difference. [size=1]Once this makes sense, get me to explain “cloning” to you and you’ll have a much easier time targeting your scourges
However, carriers own zerg in vanilla. What you really want to do is upgrade to bw and get um… devourers, right. Devourers not only have a splash attack, their attack also has a cumulative effect on their victim that I forget how it works. It either reduces the speed of the attacked unit (largely useless in this case), or reduces their defense by some algorithm that I don’t remember, or both. If you’ve got a plague for every 4 or 5 carriers you’re facing, you’ll only need about 1 dev for each carrier, plus a couple of mutas and you’ll roast them. Without plague you’ll need a few more devs, a few more mutas, and don’t forget to use your scourge. Always remember never to morph all your mutas at once; their bounce attack and versatility comes in handy.
Lastly, though, and I realize you’re playing the computer at this point so this doesn’t really apply, the real way to beat carriers as zerg is to prevent your protoss opponent from getting to them. Playing a ZvP is all about controlling the pacing of the game; if you let your opponent get comfortably into the endgame you’ve already lost. By the time he gets temps with storm you’d better have a nice economic cushion or you’re already done.
Seriously, I love this stuff. I miss playing this game. So if you have any questions, of any kind, please ask away.
Oh, and duh – if you can eliminate the terrain from the equation, upgraded hydras eat any number of carriers for lunch and absolutely own them in terms of resource efficiency. Always get the hydra range upgrade in the early midgame (you should be researching the hydra speed upgrade before you’ve hatched your first hydra), and never let up on the attack and armor grades. Unit grades are in this case as in every case one of the more universal keys to being good at this game.
I installed Brood War and played the first level and as luck would have it, it’s a Protoss level. I’ve never played as Protoss before; I died three times. So, I went back to the original. I was only one mission away from finishing the Zerg missions anyway. But that last mission is tough with so many Carriers. Anyway, thanks for your tips; through some tenacity I finished it, and I can get my elementary Protoss skillz developed now.
It doesn’t matter what RTS I’m playing; my strategy is probably more defensive than it should be. I always upgrade like crazy; playing Terrans I typically had two Academies. This is probably much more effective in missions than it is in multiplayer, so I’ll have to practice and refine my timing. I like the Zerg, but if their best modus operandi is rush to victory, I probably would not do well with them.
Defense loses games in sc. Unless
Two academies is a waste – that’s 150 mins that could be much better spent. All the acad gets you is the ability to build bats (and meds) and upgrade rine range and get stim. Stim researches really fast, so it’s sort of silly to have two – you pay 150 mins for the opportunity to research range at the same time as stim.
Engineering Bays, now, those you need two of.
That’s sort of the problem with the singleplayer missions – they teach you to play defensively (especially since it starts you out playing Terran) since you can win them that way. I don’t think they’re particularly useful, personally, but then I had been playing sc on battlenet for months before I bought the game. I’ve never played any of the singleplayer missions for sc or bw.
Well you missed out on a lot of the backstory. 
Yeah, you’re right. It was two Engineering Bays I had. Is the same true of Zerg Evolution Chambers and whatever the Protoss equivalent is?
You know, I really don’t know where that “Unless” came from.
Yeah, evo chambers you actually need three of (zerg has distinct range and melee attack grades as well as armor), and you also need three toss Forges (they have attack, armor, and shields). Note that this doesn’t apply in all situations; on a resource-limited map (and by that I don’t mean non-BGH, I mean low resources, like only 5 or 6 min patches at home, few expansions, etc.). You’ve always got to weigh the benefits of each strategy; but if you can spare the resources you should always researching your unit grades at all times. It is particularly important for terrans as their infantry are useless even as early as the mid-game without grades. And don’t forget that for terrans you may also need armories to get the grades for your non-infantry units (there are seperate grades for ground and air at that point). For zerg you’ve also got your air unit grades in the spire, and for toss there are air unit grades in the, um… the cybernetics core.
Note also that there’s more to it than this as well. We could debate for days whether you should grade your attack or armor first, and whether that would depend on who you’re playing and where. This game gets deep.
I’ll be in only if the game is BroodWars.
Need a better time frame and a channel to meet in. Which server?
USEast server? IP/TCP games? latest version i hope…
I don’t know the changes in the last patch so, I will need to re-learn some strats and build orders.
I must also warn you guys, I was a SC/BW fanatic, even got to be ranked 23rd in ladder one time. (I beat a 3rd ranked ladder player, and he was surprised lol). I am quite powerful on those money maps, but enjoy playing on maps I’ve never actually played on (like those huge maps in the BroodWar file). If this is going to happen I need to know soon, cuz i need to install SC/BW, get a little bit of practice in.
Oh, another thing is I will only play on maps created by Blizzard (i.e. maps within the cd’s). Which means the Blizzard created Big Game Hunters is fine with me. I don’t want to download a new map from other people. It gets quite annoying.
Again, only BroodWars for me. On a Blizzard approved map.
need to know when and where to meet…
My account name ill be on as in USEast battle.net server is Madawc
msg me if you see me online, or meet in channel sdmb, ill be hanging out there from time to time, on as D2 or SC/BW.
For the love of God, it’s Brood War. Singular, y’see.
Oh, and if anyone gets anything organized, I’m eviltyph.
typhoon I’ve never called it anything but ‘bw’ so I don’t know.
Madawc I’d love a 1v1 sometime if you’re up for it. Any real map (ie. not BGH), but of course LT is traditional. By your insistence on Blizzard maps only can I take it that you don’t care for the balanced LT maps?
Or we could hook up and play some 2v2s sometime. Does anybody still play on bnet?
Doesn’t matter what server we play on for the Dope game. We’d want to make it either USEast or USWest. I’ve got accounts on both although I only ever played on USW.
That map was some kind of screwed up. I think it was called The F@$+est M@p Po$$IblE or something like that, if you know what I’m talking about.
Anyway, my question is, how do I practice for this tournament? I suppose I should be using certain maps. Which ones? And are people on Battle.net usually willing to play with an utter newbie like myself?
My impression is that those idiot maps are the only ones played in public games any more on bnet. I can’t really say as I haven’t been there in a year or so, but I’d suggest staying away from every map of that kind (weird/dumb/leet names, no Blizzard logo) and trying to find a Hunters or Lost Temple game. Competition in LT is higher. In general people are unforgiving with newbies. Don’t mention to your partner that you’re new, many people will leave a game if they realize their ally is a newbie (you can leave a game within the first 2 minutes without penalty); better to just let them figure it out and live with it.
I’d be more than happy to play some games with you if you’d like. My email and AIM are in my profile. Some of my old friends still play (or I could probably convince them to) so I could probably get together a game with all cool people. Maybe. Or I wouldn’t mind playing public games; we’d win most of them but it’d still be good practice.
Yup, just played a couple of games to experiment. I’m still better than most bnet players, although not good enough any more to win a high quality 2v2 with a bad partner.
Cthulhu
Larry Mudd
Tomcat
iamthewalrus(:3=
Esprix
Eonwe
gus28
ThatGuyWithPants
All those people are interested, at least from the other thread.
I’d be interested, but I suck.
Esprix
Well, my ‘practice’ games and a few games with Achernar yesterday have sucked me back in. I love this game. I’m rusty as hell though after a year off. If anybody wants to play any time, my AIM is in my profile and it stays on all the time. I’ll probably be playing as soon as I get home from work this evening (between 6-8 pm PDT).
Achernar, I hope you did enjoy our games yesterday. I certainly had a great time.
I guess this means it’s time to either get Brood War or the Battle Chest, eh? 
Esprix
Just poking my nose in-- haven’t checked MPSIMS in a while.
I’m up for it, and y’all are in luck because it’s been months since I’ve obsessively played the game. The blizzard-induced carpal tunnel is even easing off, and my “Starcraft muscle” (the weird little lump that forms where my mouse hand rests on my desk,) seems to have gone down a bit. Which means I probably won’t crush you all like bugs. (Right.)
If my presence from in this thread peters out before we get our collective sh.t together, it’s only because I’m geeking out writing another 13-page essay about a silly fantasy movie. So I’d be grateful if someone would email me if I lose track of the time.
Heh.
White Lightning and I had a great 2v2 versus 2 other people we didn’t know…
End result, rust is deep and permanent.
a well fought match, where we should have won, but with my slow witted skill and slow finger movements, not to mention, the lack of “mage-like” units.
We fell to two terran players. I was toss and white was zerg.
damn it we shouldve won… i watched the replay, and we had one guy on the ropes and we couldve finished him off. We could’ve won if we’d just wiped him out of the occasion.
man, I need some massive practicing.
if we can choose partners, i’d love to be whitelightning’s partner… 'twas a great game, even tho we lost.