It’s more that the campaign upgrades and research are largely down to personal taste. Except for the rate of fire and tech reactors (which far outclass their alternatives), all the research options are about as equally potent, and there’s more than enough money to get the upgrades for all your favorite units, whatever those might be. My first playthrough I went heavily into infantry, spectres and thors, and my second playthrough focused on vehicles and aircraft. Pretty much anything you pick has a strength to exploit Even my firebat upgrades wound up being useful in the nydus worm caves - the hero Queen doesn’t do much damage to something with 4 armor 
I chose something like this:
Zerg research
Protoss research:
Fire speed vs Health : Not all of your units are always getting shot at, but most of your units are attacking in battle.
Instant Supply Depots vs More gas : I went with gas in my first playthrough, and instant supply depots in the second on brutal. The depots were very handy, especially when I forgot to build them early enough in a mission, and hit the supply cap. Depots can also be used to barricade an entrance, and still be lowered to let your own units through. I also found I had enough gas with just automated refineries anyway.
Automated refineries vs double SCVs : I imagine hard core players will prefer double SCVs for fast early starups, but I like not having to micro manage the refineries. Automated refineries meant I had more time to spend on other things, like putting together a defense and building things.
Science Vessel vs Raven : Science vessels are amazing if you use any vehicles at all.
**Tech reactor **vs drop pods : Being able to build double marauders, siege tanks, vikings and battle-cruisers is really great, and drop pods aren’t that useful in defense missions.
Zerg research:
Bunker health vs Bunker turret : The turret is weak, and enemies often focus fire your bunkers. The extra health is very good for keeping the bunkers alive, while the turret is only about as powerful as a single marine.
**Flame turret **vs Planetary Fortress : Flame turrets are very powerful against the zerg, and stay underground when only facing air units. They were extremely handy in the last mission.
Anti-infantry vs Infantry transport : I never really used either very much, though I think the transport could be useful for a few missions. Terrans already have good anti-zerg units, and being melee makes the unit vulnerable to friendly fire.
Regenerating armor vs extra energy : Not sure on this one, though I chose the regeneration the first time around. I never really paid that much attention to it, so can’t say how useful it is. The extra energy will be nice if you use a lot of specialists units like spectres.
Zerg slow vs Zerg mindcontrol : I chose the slowing tower, and then forgot to use it at any point. I’m sure I wouldn’t have remembered to use the mindcontrol either. Having a passive slow on all nearby zerg units seems more useful to me than manually mindcontrolling one enemy zerg though.
I agree with all of your choices except two.
Bunker health vs Bunker turret : I think more DPS is important in a defensive setup. If the enemy can overwhelm me enough to put a bunker into red hit points, an extra 150 points won’t slow them down.
Regenerating armor vs extra energy: If you use a significant number of mech units, this will help you. It compliments the science vessel. Besides, I find that energy regenerates plenty fast in this game, and each unit that needs it has an individual upgrade that benefits its energy usage.
Just did my first co-op vs. AI game, with my brother. That’s probably the most fun I’ve had with SCII so far–really brings back my college days!
I LOVED the original starcraft, it was one of the first pc games I ever purchased and one of the best values. That being said I won’t be purchasing starcraft 2, at least not a new copy. After blizzard’s decision to remove LAN play I was still likely to purchase it, but not after I heard about battle.net 2.0, the removal of independently run tournaments, and the severe restrictions placed on map making. I still will likely pick up a used copy in a couple years, or borrow a friends copy but purely for campaign play. I was really looking forward to SC2 for the last decade too 
I don’t agree with everything in the following link, but it provides insight into the things I mentioned above, as well as cites of its own.
So far, I’m on this path. Except I took Bunker turrets.
Planetary Fortesses might be better for the last mission as they have more hitpoints and you have enough resources there to build them anyway.
I finished the campaign on normal but I found that was a tad to easy for me.
If someone wants a guest pass (can download the game and play for seven hours game time or fourteen days whichever comes first - might be locked to EU region, also got a WoW guest pass) send me a PM.
If someone wants to play a game together on the EU server, in game nick is Natlaw as well (code 901).
Not that I’m trying to sell the game to you or anything but restrictions on map making? Like what? I was quite an avid map maker in SC1 and, especially, WC3 and from what I’ve seen of SC2’s editor it is by far the least restrictive. The whole 10 meg per map up to 25 meg total restriction is largely irrelevant. For one thing it’s only on published maps for another the terrible load times(even on a high end gaming rig with solid state drive) makes the 10 meg map size something no sane map maker is going to want to get within arms reach of anyway. Few to no good map makers are going to be releasing 25 megs/5 maps worth of quality material anyway, at least not any time soon. And it looks like there is some sort of asset pack system where you can create a library of code/assets that can be loaded by a map. Delegating commonly used graphics & code to a separate file, essentially a .dll for SC2 maps, indirectly increasing the file size limitation on maps. WC3 maps had a 4 meg limit and virtually no one came close to it and when they did it was usually a sign of a poorly made map. I’ve read they raised the limit since I last did much map making implying if it ever becomes a common issue Blizz may well raise it for SC2. Hopefully not until they’ve optimized their load times. I haven’t really dug into the map making scene yet though. Planning to finish the campaign first and haven’t quite beat the last level. So I might have missed some restriction.
And on the independently run tourneys… sure it’s against the tou or whatever but it’s not like anyone reads that. And Blizz has little way of enforcing it outside of banning popular and well known gamers & commentators which would give them so much backlash I highly doubt they’d actually do it. It would be somewhat interesting if they did though, just to see what would happen.
This is certainly true. But unless you are skilled or lucky or probably both, if you are forced to misuse one of your flagship units, you are probably going to get boned anyway.
I haven’t exactly arrived at my enthusiasm for voidrays through my own deep thoughts: I’ve watched some of WhiteRa’s games lately and have been especially impressed how his swift and secret use of voidrays often forces terran players into switching into heavy marine builds, which overreaction WhiteRa exploits.
Sure. I did not mean to imply that countering was somehow mechanical or trivial. Terrans don’t have a huge number of anti-air units at their disposal in general, so really I just mean “x is capable of shooting down y”.
Completely agreed. I have not yet played a game where I have had more than three or four rays up at once at most. Shaving a few seconds off razing a supply depot or lasering down a handful of SCVs is not worth the cost. And the more you have, at least for me, the harder it is to maneuver them effectively. I can keep two up against a fair amount of opposition, but if I have a bunch to fly around, I tend to lose them much easier.
You’re right, but at the same time, it really depends on how the game unfolds. When I play an opening voidray gambit, it’s because I want the terran to stop building tech labs and build reactors instead. At all costs I want to avoid the terran from building up marauders because they will crush my basic gateway troops in the early game. If the terran responds to an early ray rush with marines, I heave a sigh of relief and transition to a land-based gateway army that can handle mass marines.
If I start bringing out voidrays in the later game against a terran, it means he does not have strong marines and I have fairly well upgraded ground troops already. If the game goes late, the terran will probably have enough space and tech to use vikings already. I usually just use the rays in the later game to do some sideshow economic damage while the big fights occur elsewhere.
Oh-ho, an excellent point. Certainly, encouraging your opponent to make a mistake is never a bad thing. I confess I hadn’t even thought of that. I play Zerg, and so I’m fuzzy on both TvP in general and the idea that terran infantry wouldn’t have a fairly heavy marine mix to begin with…I wouldn’t have thought zealot/sentry has that much trouble with marauders.
Oh, certainly, in late game all bets are off when it comes to making economic choices. The handful of rays that are such a huge investment early on are almost a throwaway force late, and can do damage far out of proportion to their cost if you can get away with it. They’re pretty vicious if they can come out with any stealth at all. If anything, they’re SC2’s most potent unit in that regard: great mobility with that Fleet Beacon upgrade, no target restriction, and extremely high damage output given half a chance to do their thing.
Marauders absolutely destroy basic gateway troops, more so if they have their slow buff. There is a video out there, perhaps by Husky, that shows 50 marauders against equivalent numbers of zealots, stalkers, sentries, and colossi. The only troops marauders don’t wipe the floor with are the colossi. The circumstances are very abstract: there’s no micro, no tech, no use of special abilities, etc. But it does show that all things being equal, protoss is very vulnerable to an early marauder rush. This can end the game right there.
As an aside, against Zerg, I like to see if the player’s queen leaves the creep to chase down my ray. If so, I am usually in for an easy match or a match against a king of micro.
Yeah, I remember plenty of videos like that in the early beta days when everyone was in the “Marauders are so OP!” phase, but I’ve also seen a counterexample where equivalent supply of plain old zealots beat kiting marauders, despite having to cross the breadth of Metalopolis in the process. Mopped the floor with the Marauders, it wasn’t very close, and that was without charge tech or any forcefields to trap at all. I’m not familiar enough with the matchup to know what the x-factor is between the scenarios.
Yeah, that’s a dangerous game to play. Queens are pretty buff against rays (especially considering how cheap they are, and no larva needed) but they’re so slow off the creep it’s all about positioning to not get run around and charged up on a building. You’ll want to be very careful if another queen shows up on the scene, though, and check how much energy they have. Transfusion can outpace even a charged ray, a tidbit that it seems not many Protoss are aware of yet. On the flip side, if you can find a spare overlord, I think a single ray can charge up on that, and while it might depend on upgrades, I’m pretty sure a queen can’t win a 1v1 with a pre-charged ray. I haven’t seen enough void rays yet to get a good feel for it, everyone’s robo happy against zerg.
Marauders destroy gateway troops… sort of. Zealots will tear up marauders if they can actually get in melee range, and that’s where the sentry force field comes in. It requires a lot more micro and energy management, but it’s a lot more effective than having stalkers. Zealots and sentries are both light armored, so Marauders don’t get their huge +10 bonus damage against either.
A lot of people are attracted to stalkers because of their +4 damage bonus against armored troops like Marauders, but zealots do more damage, have a faster attack speed and can take almost twice as many marauder hits before dying. You just need enough sentries for force fields so your zealots can actually close the distance and attack.
Guardian shield is also outstanding against barracks units. Reducing damage taken by 2 equals a 20% reduction in marauder damage and a 33% reduction in marine damage. This goes a long way to surviving those early marine/marauder pushes.
I think sentries are a very underused unit for most Protoss players right now. I see the top players making good use of them but in my league (mid-plat) almost everyone favors stalkers.
Been enjoying the custom maps after beating the game. I’m not that good at the regular player-vs-player maps but the custom maps let you be really creative with strategies. The most popular one, Nexus wars, is an interesting example of learning what units counter what units.
Marauder’s slow is definitely very useful, and in campaign when put in upgraded bunkers with research bonuses you can have improved range and rate of fire.
Have you tried “Overrun?” Its a fun defense game that focuses on building placement and unit selection. its not finished, but the first two parts are very fun and challenging. The third part is currently just a never ending barrage of archons, that keep increasing their max hit points. eventually, you will fail, but its fun to see how long you last.
Red Circle TD is also fun, but beating it on a high difficulty level requires team work and team mates that know what they are doing.
Marrine Arena is also a blast. its 2v2v2v2, and your units auto-spawn. controlling hundreds of units at a time brings a new level to the micro game.