Prelude – Orders – Protoss – Zerg – Terrans – Wrapup

Here it is, the final post in this series on possible strategies in StarCraft TBG. The volume of these posts only came natural when I tried to pack as much info as possible into them – the game offers so much depth and breadth everything less wouldn’t touch more than the surface. I hope the posts didn’t get too boring or long-winded.

In this last post I want to tie some loose ends, speak about things that I didn’t have splace for yet, and (very important) say “thank you” to all those who contributed valuable feedback to the previous posts. It’s the shortest of all posts so far, too, and only took me so long because those painkillers make it so damn hard to concentrate properly.

More Things To Consider

Things that didn’t tie in anywhere, but are important for pretty much every game:

• Keep in mind that usually, units that you’re able to build later are stronger. Some people call those “unit tiers“, but that implies that they can be numbered – which I find hard to do. For example, is the Archon a tier 3 unit (as it requires a tier 3 Gateway) or a tier 4 unit (because it also requires tech)? Are Guardians and Defilers and Lurkers tier 2 (tier 2 Spire), tier 3 (2 buildings have to be built after tier 1, the Zergling), or tier 4 (2 buildings and tech)? Anyway. Those higher-tier units have better combat values, so teching up is usually a necessity and you better start it early.
• Rock-paper-scissors, it’s everywhere. Whatever your opponent builds, there is a counter for it – if you have the counter before he’s done building his force, good for you, otherwise you better hurry (as if you don’t have the counter, he can destroy you). Or alternatively, you can build units your opponent doesn’t have a counter to, and destroy him – although, usually those are two sides of the same coin.
• All those strategies I talked about in the race-specific posts: Eventually, it’s nearly always necessary to diversify and build other stuff as well anyway, maintaining a good hand with research orders (because the more you diversify, the more different cards you need, and the larger your deck will be). Unless your opponent doesn’t build the counters he’d need, then feel free to pound his ongoing Zergling rush with Reavers.

Random Artwork

Yeah, I know that picture doesn’t have anything to do with anything (except that it really is StarCraft), it’s from the StarCraft II Fansite Kit again.

Generic Kinda-Advanced Strategies

Some hints for stuff you might want to explore – the more things you have tried out, the better player you potentially are, so don’t be afraid to lose a game due to a mistake. Just make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.

• Recharging is awesome (particularly for assist units) – your opponent’s entire offense can come to a halt if you have a High Templar with recharging Hallucination at the right spot and the right time.
• Cloaking is awesome (particularly for defense) – or rather, particularly if you have somewhere to withdraw to. Some cloaking cards can even be recharged, that’s just evil. Every unit that survives are resources saved, because you won’t have to rebuild it.
• Offense > Defense. This is for three things mostly: Offense gets 2 (or 3 if they’re Zerg and nasty) additional units, draws more combat cards, and can place skirmishes, all of which are a huge benefit. Some exceptions / alterations do exist though – all those make defense stronger, but still not stronger than a good offense:
  • Defensive Strategy, giving you 2 additional combat cards – well, that cancels 1 out of 3 benefits, but still.
  • Protoss, gaining another 2 additional combat cards and having all those shield cards (plus Shield Battery if researched), can hold out where others can’t.
  • A Defensive Module can give you the edge against particular unit combinations, or lets you save that one strong unit that forces the opponent to retreat after the combat.
  • Finally, Guard Orders (of course), bringing everybody on par with the Protoss Shield Battery.
• Splash: Attack the weak to get the strong. For example, you have a Devourer, giving you air splash, and attack a combo of Wraith and Battlecruiser – of course you go for the Wraith, and take the Battlecruiser with you in the splash.
• Special Orders: Since you can use them right away now after building an R&D module, you can surprise your opponent with nice unexpected actions – 3 mobilize orders (one of them gold) in the first turn? Sure, go ahead

(There was something regarding Collateral Damage, but that was clarified by Corey to not work.)

Modules

I’ll mention those here as they really didn’t fit anywhere else so far. Generally, you do want to get modules, but you don’t always want to get the same ones.

All Modules

• The Air Support Module, you want this if you’re in the defense. In fact, if your neighbour is more aggressive than you, this should probably be the first module you get, mainly for the limited orbital defense – it’s a great way to protect your bases.
• R&D Modules, you always want one of those. Gold orders are that much better (and special order areas are rare and usually on not-so-awesome planets), and with the first such module you get to place 3 orders of the same kind if you want. If you have a tech-heavy strategy, getting a second one might be great, a third one is rarely beneficial.
• Supply Modules are the bread and butter of unit production, and you pretty much always want one of them – one more Marine produced is never bad, even if you build Battlecruisers mainly. More are necessary for weaker-unit strategies – and, who’d have thought, the Protoss usually want less of them than the Terrans.
• You want an Offensive Module if your opponent built an air support one and you plan to attack him – or if you want him to believe you plan to attack him. That’s pretty much the only use, but I think it’s the best of the new modules, as it enables tactics that weren’t possible before and reduces base turtling.
• The Defensive Module is necessary if you see your opponent do things like build Scouts and Nukes, or other assist-unit-heavy things like Science Vessel techs, or if you have single strong units that you want to protect from Splash. Weenie strategies benefit less from it.
• Finally, the Assist Module is perfect for most any tech-heavy strategy that also involves many units. Zergling rushes with Defilers, or Zealot waves with High Templar. Or of course later-game things like Battlecruisers with Science Vessels. It’s the most specialized of the three, and has great synergies with recharging tech.

Event Cards

Event Cards

Event cards are probably the biggest source of luck in StarCraft TBG – which is good, some luck is never a bad thing in a game. Even with the cards (of which you can still influence how many you’ll get), it’s probably one of the least luck-based games in my collection. Generally, if you put an order somewhere it’s no use after all, don’t feel bad for getting an event card instead – everybody should have at least one of them at the end of a round anyway, or you’re forfeiting some really powerful options.

In addition to this, since the event card deck also works as game clock, it’s possible to influence the speed with which the end of the game approaches by drawing many or few event cards – if you’re in the lead, you might want to place more than one research order just for maintaining your hand (which in turn allows you to maintain your board position) and advancing the game clock.

The following cards in particular are worth pointing out:

• Strategies. If you have no strategy card in play, and get one, you should probably play it, even if it isn’t what you’re currently after – it might be exactly what you want later, and strategies are the longest-term effects. Replacing a strategy with another one should usually only be done if the new one fits what you plan to do much better, or if you really don’t want to play any of the non-strategy event cards you have.
• Moving Z-Axis can thoroughly re-shape the game board. Make sure you don’t get too many enemies nearby when you use such a card, it might backfire. All the cards of this kind are in stage 1, so by the time you reach stage 2 your neighbours are set.
• Free units – there’s plenty of those, and they all have one thing in common: The units can be placed in empty areas. So, they can also be placed on enemy planets in the one area they left empty. Be mindful of this when you move units away from your own planets, and exploit it when the opponent leaves holes open – the threat alone that forces him to place one of his precious orders there is often enough to make it worthwhile.
• Depleting resources, mostly only do this when they’re already partially depleted – that’s when it really counts.
• Adding / removing transports can open new routes (for a Weasely Retrograde?) and deny enemy access.
• Double Time, I’ve seen more than one game that was decided by smart use of this card. It’s potentially really powerful, don’t underestimate it.
• Clock modifiers – I’m talking about Progressive Strategy, Accelerated Progress and Stalling Tactic. Those allow you to modify the game clock function of the event cards further, make good use of them where appropriate.

Even those cards I haven’t mentioned can thoroughly influence the game. Remember, I translated all cards (including event cards) to German earlier, the list can double as a nice player aid if needed.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the following people for having made this little post series possible and a lot better than I could have made it on my own:

• Christian T. Petersen and Corey Konieczka for creating this wonderful game (and a particular thanks to Corey for commenting here), Thaadd Powell for great customer support, and everybody else at Fantasy Flight Games for being so awesome.
• The folks at Blizzard for creating StarCraft in the first place.
• Everybody on the BoardGameGeek forums, the FFG forums and the older FFG forums.
• Everybody who helped out with comments and additions here on the blog and the aforementioned forums, in particular (but no particular order): Shadowsword, Wolverine, cyb3k, Mark T, blarknob, Stefan, Sheltem, MrSkeletor and MrWeasely. And even, admittedly reluctantly, magic gecko

Prelude – Orders – Protoss – Zerg – Terrans – Wrapup