Starcraft 2 Guide

Hi Starcraft 2 player,

Thanks for stopping by the Starcraft 2 Guide site which is dedicated to helping players develop stracraft 2 strategies to beat their opponets and climb further up the battle.net ladders.

I never got to play the Beta myself, but have been total engrossed in the game since the launch.  What I have found is that my skills from SC1 well, are not where I thought they were, and soon found myself on the end a few whoppings especially by those annoying Zerg rushes.

But persistance, research and a whole lot of game time has allowed me to quickly develop a number of key strategies to get on the front foot and win games and you can to. 

No matter what the race of the other player you need to know how to use your races traits to full advantage, what counters to use based on the other players tactics and simply a few sneaky moves to really get on your opponents nerves.  I hope that within the pages of this Starcraft 2 strategy guide site you will uncover your winnings tactics also.

Click here for Shokz Starcraft 2 Mastery Guide

For those that are new to Starcraft 2, some background:

The original Starcraft game, along with its expansion called Starcraft Broodwar, remains one of the most popular and impressive games, selling an astonishing 11 million plus copies since its release in 1998. The gaming experience offered by Starcraft was as close as you could possibly get to participating in a real military conflict, with its hero’s and villains, its intriguing plot, hugely complex conflicts and most of all its cinematics that were simply breathtaking for its day.

At long last, the eagerly awaited sequel to this fantastic military strategy game has arrived! Starcraft 2, announced for the first time in 2007 in Korea, was finally released earlier this year to huge acclaim. The game has been released as a trilogy, and the multiplayer version is available for free, although it requires internet access to download and install.

In the first two days of the game being on sale to the general public, Starcraft 2 sold an astounding 1.5  million copies and after one month that number had reached a staggering 3 million, making it July 2010’s best selling game by some distance. The games makers, Blizzard, have said that they will be supporting Starcraft 2 for years to come following its release, with the use of patches to continually update the game.  This is of course great news for us addicts!

The Trilogy

The new game is split into a trilogy of separate games, with one each being devoted to the campaigns of the Zerg, Terran and Protoss respectively. The first game to be released was titled StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. The next in the series is StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, while the third in the series is named StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void.

The makers decided to make the game into a trilogy because of the many difficulties involved in making the separate campaigns. By making a trilogy, it was possible to have more content in each campaign, for example more movies, props, sets, characters and most importantly, missions. In Starcraft 2, each of the main characters has their own storyline, with their own missions and dialogs. Meanwhile, the story unfolds in away that there is no need to have any previous knowledge of StarCraft to enjoy the game.

The campaigns occur in a chronological order, one after the other, rather than taking place simultaneously, with each one starting right after its predecessor. There are around 26-30 missions in each campaign, which includes branch off missions, and each campaign has a set ending as opposed to a cliff-hanger.

Features

Legacy of the Void and Heart of the Swarm are expansion packs of the main game, though they act as sequels from a single player viewpoint. As they are not considered to be full games, they will cost less that the main game, Wings of Liberty.

Each one, when they are released, will expand and upgrade the content for multiplayer campaigns, as well as containing new campaign missions. Updates will include such things as new units, structures and abilities, and they will only be accessible if players buy the expansion packs. Meanwhile, for the multiplayer versions, each of the races will be enhanced with each expansion pack.

Gameplay

The actually gameplay of StarCraft 2 is largely the same as the original game, something that die hard fans of the first StarCraft will no doubt be happy about. Players have to harvest vespene gas and minerals in order to construct buildings or structures, they have to train military units and they need to research new technologies. The research of technologies is vital in order to accomplish mission objectives in the single player mode, while in multiplayer games it is necessary in order to be able to defeat your opponents. There are many new additions to the gameplay though, for example now there are mineral patches of different values, so players can target and fight for the higher value ones. There are also Xel’Naga watchtowers that can be captured, and by doing so players can enhance their lines of sight. Furthermore, the users interface has been improved upon for StarCraft 2, so now it provides a lot more information to players. An example is the idle worker icon, a useful little reminder that will pop up when one of your worker units is not doing anything.

The single player game features many extra layers than before, for example more tactical choices to be made, and many more storytelling tools. In the first game, where you received your mission orders from a small briefing room, this has been replaced and now you receive mission instructions on the bridge of a ship. Here, Jim Raynor, one of the main characters, will interact with the games other characters while preparing for each new mission.

Campaigns are now partly non-linear, another improvement on the original StarCraft. Now, players can often make a choice as to which mission they would like to attempt next, rather than just doing one after the other as before. There are also many more rewards for achieving mission targets, for instance new technologies will be unlocked, or new achievements. Players are also awarded credits after completing missions, and can use these to unlock newer technologies on the Hyperion. The campaigns also feature technologies and units that are not available in the multiplayer version. Some units, for example the Protoss Reaver or the Terran Firebat, that were in the first StarCraft are available for the single player game, but in the multiplayer mode they are unavailable. These new changes serve to make the single player mode much more distinct from the online multiplayer game, whereas in the old version it often just felt like a tutorial.

Races

StarCraft 2 features the Protoss, Terran and Zerg races. Each of these were in the original StarCraft, but now they have been enhanced with many new units, weapons and technologies. The game’s producers, Blizzard, did consider for a long time the possibility of introducing a fourth, new race into StarCraft 2, but eventually decided against it. The reason for not including a new race is that the development team felt that having another race could diminish the overall quality of the game, due to their having only a finite number of ideas. Blizzard felt it best to focus on making the existing races that much better, rather than trying to share their new ideas with 4 races. However, there is hope yet for a fourth race, as one of Blizzard’s key men, Frank Pearce said in 2008 that they may yet discuss adding a new race if and when they decide to make a StarCraft 2 expansion, which of course has yet to be released.

Competitive Play

There is an extensive system of leagues and divisions in StarCraft 2 for tracking player’s progress and then matching them with players of equal caliber. In total, there are five public leagues, with one invitation only league also available. The public leagues are ordered in order of prestige, from the lowest level Bronze, through Silver, Gold and Platinum, up to the highest level, Diamond.

Players can move up through the leagues (and fall back down again!), depending on how well they perform. Points are awarded to or deducted from players based on their performance in matches, if they win or lose. The amount of points that a player can gain or lose depends upon a players record when it is measured against his opponents record. In order to move up through the leagues, a player needs to perform extremely well and wait for a player review. These are done automatically at scheduled times that are hidden from the players. Blizzard will not say when a player’s review might happen, so for the individual players concerned, it may as well be random. The divisions and leagues serve as a great stage for players to showcase their skills and get an idea of how good they are. They are also extremely competitive, and the way they are organized now, players can feel much better about their ranking than before. Instead of saying that your rank is now 192,456 out of 401,392, a player can now state they are a rank 6 player in the Gold league, division 10. Each of the divisions in a league will be made up of 100 equally skilled StarCraft 2 players.

The invitation only league is an elite league that is reserved for the very best players in the game. The Pro League will feature players that have not only shown amazing skill at the game, but also have climbed the league ladder and been victorious in the end of the season tournaments. There are big plans afoot for this exclusive and lucky club, with Blizzard planning to show replays of their battles in the public domain. It’s not sure yet if Blizzard means to show all of the players replays, or just the replays from tournaments, though probably just the latter. However, it is clear that this is something that Blizzard will do, along with some more as yet unannounced features and perks.

StarCraft 2’s multiplayer games will be region locked, meaning that Europeans cannot play against American or Asian based players, though there is an exception for anyone who purchases the Australian/New Zealand/Southeast Asian version of the game. Blizzard has said that players who have bought this version will be allowed to play Americans on the North American server. 

Ready to learn more? Get an overview in the Starcracft 2 Game Guide

Struggling to move up the ladder ranks?

If the answer is yes to the above question then I strongly recommend that you get the #1 Starcraft 2 guide on the planet, Shokz Starcraft 2 Mastery Guide. 

Regularly updated with the latest strategies and tips, you can submit your replay's and get expert advice on how to improve your game and interact with the best SC2 players around.

Click here to check it out now!