It’s been a pretty long time since I picked up the Big Boss PSP bundle back in June. What happened to it? With all of my articles devoted to Starcraft 2 as of late, some of you may be wondering if I had even played it yet. The answer is most definitely yes. I’ve been playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on my hour long commute home from work every day now for the past month, and I’ve actually already gotten the credits to roll but the game has so much post-game that I suspect that I will eventually hit 100 hours in this game. Hit the jump to read the review on what I now consider my favorite Metal Gear Solid game of the franchise.

Solid Snake, Old Snake, Naked Snake, and Big Boss…who?
The Metal Gear Solid games have never had the most straightforward storyline and characters. Jumping right into Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (which was originally titled Metal Gear Solid 5), can confuse even fans of the Metal Gear Solid games with all of the jumps in time and protagonists throughout the Metal Gear Solid series. Those that have not really kept up with the series may not be aware that Metal Gear Solid 3, Portable Ops, and Peace Walker all revolve around Naked Snake, aka Big Boss, while Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 4, all revolve around Naked Snake’s cloned son, Solid Snake (who then ages a lot in Metal Gear Solid 4 and gets the nickname Old Snake).

In a way, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3 and Portable Ops, because it continues the tale of Naked Snake/Big Boss. Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops doesn’t really add much to the storyline and can be skipped without much repercussion. If you want to enjoy Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker’s storyline thoroughly, the only other Metal Gear Solid game you need to have played is Metal Gear Solid 3. Don’t worry about Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 4, Portable Ops or the Acid games.

If you’re in the unfortunate position of not having played Metal Gear Solid 3 (my previous favorite Metal Gear Solid game in the series) and are interested in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, you should wait until you’ve played Metal Gear Solid 3 first. I want to recommend playing through the PS2 version of the game before starting Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, but Metal Gear Solid 3 is being remade for the new Nintendo 3DS system so it may be worth it to simply wait for that and then dive into Peace Walker afterward. But, if you want to just get cracking on Peace Walker (which can still be enjoyed a great deal) without having played Metal Gear Solid 3, I will provide a quick spoiler-filled summary of Metal Gear Solid 3.

SPOILER WARNING: I may not do a great job since the Metal Gear Solid storylines are pretty convoluted, but here goes. Naked Snake’s mentor, The Boss, is secretly commanded by the US Government to defect to the Soviet Union back in the early 1960s. She is given nukes to bring to the Soviet Union, and to maintain the United States’ innocence, they send Naked Snake to kill The Boss to prove the United States’ innocence in the matter. The Boss is aware of everything, and in a way, helps Naked Snake up to the final point in the game when the two battle. Naked Snake kills The Boss, and inherits the nickname Big Boss as a result. Of course, Naked Snake can’t believe what happened to his mentor, and is not happy with the way The Boss was basically sold out by the United States. From there, both Portable Ops and Peace Walker continue the tale of Big Boss after The Boss’s death as he creates his own military force, called the Militaires sans Frontieres (Soldiers without Borders) and Outer Heaven (Big Boss’s base that is referenced in the first Metal Gear Solid game).

While I didn’t find Peace Walker’s storyline to be as deep or interesting as Metal Gear Solid 3, it was still a much better effort than Portable Ops and Peace Walker gets to hold the prize of having the most phenomenal gameplay in the entire series.

The Best Aspects of the Metal Gear Solid Games
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is in the unfortunate situation to be on the PSP – an aging handheld console that most gamers have already forgotten. That means that many gamers and fans of Metal Gear Solid that don’t own PSPs will never get to experience Peace Walker’s culmination of the best gameplay aspects of the Metal Gear Solid games. It takes several of the new base management and army management features introduced in Portable Ops, but refine them to such a level of enjoyment and convenience that the game becomes very addicting while providing interesting missions and enjoyable gameplay of the older Metal Gear Solid games.

The game is broken up into missions comprised of core storyline missions and extra operations. Both mission types can take place in one zone or across several zones as you make your way further into the jungles of Costa Rica. One of the best parts of the mission structure of Peace Walker is the ability to replay any of them to get better rankings, which sometimes unlock new special equipment when you S-rank them. Mission rankings are based on how fast you are, how often you get detected, and how many troops you had to kill. Earning S ranks on missions often require going through the mission quickly without being detected or having to kill anyone. Being able to choose which of the dozens and dozens of missions to replay for a better rank, more gear, more soldiers, and more secrets provide for easy portability and shoot the replay through  the roof.

One of the primary complaints about Portable Ops was that the controls were difficult to use. The PSP’s control system is pretty awkward due to the fact that there is no right analog stick. This makes the traditional 3D game difficult to play since several PSP games (Portable Ops included) force the player to move with the left analog stick and control the camera with the d-pad. Therefore, it is impossible to move and control the camera at the same time since your left thumb can only handle the analog stick or the d-pad at one time. Peace Walker changes things up, so you move with the left analog stick and control the camera with the right face buttons (square, circle, triangle, and x). Aiming and firing is regulated to the left and right triggers, and the menus are accessed with the left d-pad. It feels weird at first, but it’s definitely a better way to play this 3D-based game. For those that did enjoy the Portable Ops control system, it is still an option to use for Peace Walker if you wish.

Gotta Catch ‘Em All
The Pokemon aspect of soldier collecting in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops returns in Peace Walker, but it has been redone to be far more enjoyable. Any soldier you knock out in a mission can be recruited into Big Boss’s army, and unlike the tedious process of dragging a knocked out soldier back to the team’s truck or a teammate, you can simple make use of a new tool called the Fulton Recovery System. All you need to do is go up to the unconscious soldier and use the Fulton – which will deploy a hot air balloon and lift the unconscious soldier back to your base (who will then get convinced until he joins your army). You can even find P.O.W.s out on various levels to recruit as well. As Big Boss’s fame increases over the course of the game, you even have new soldiers showing up at the base who simply want to join because they Big Boss’s fame continues to grow.

What makes the game so Pokemon-like is that every soldier and P.O.W. in the game has a different personality and skills. You can only have a finite number of soldiers at your base devoted to the different departments: combat, R&D, medical, etc. The higher the soldier’s skill level, the higher the level of your department, which often allows for new items and weapons to be designed and unlocked, etc. Some items in the game can only be unlocked if you recruit specific individuals. What makes the game feel so Pokemon-like (besides the deploying the parachute on the unconscious soldier to capture him for your own army) is that your soldiers level up, can be used for missions, and can even be traded with other players. In the game, you can use a tool to analyze the skill level of a soldier out in the field to decide whether to capture him or not, so there’s a lot of fun just going around and finding soldiers that would increase your R&D level so that you can upgrade your gear. It’s almost like a big Easter egg hunt and the army management aspect of the game works very well.

Monster Hunter in my Metal Gear Solid?
I haven’t played too much Monster Hunter (it’s in my PSP backlog pile), but I believe that the core mechanics of what made Monster Hunter so popular in Japan find their way into Metal Gear: Peace Walker. There are some obvious gameplay designs that are a little more Monster Hunter than traditional Metal Gear Solid fare, but there are even actual Monster Hunter missions through a collaboration between Konami and Capcom. The gameplay design that feels like Monster Hunter and adds more replayability to the game is the ability to replay missions over and over, most notably the ones that let you take on bosses such as mechs and tanks. Mechs randomly drop equipment parts and AI pieces, allowing you to construct your own customizable Metal Gear, and smaller sub-bosses like tanks and attack helicopters can be captured for you to deploy in non-playable missions. On top of this, your combat soldiers level up when you take on combat missions, and you level up your skill with weapons whenever you use them. In short, while Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is an action game, it is loaded with RPG-elements and army management elements that make the game last well beyond its 20 hour main storyline.

Final Thoughts
I haven’t written a review in a long time, so I apologize if this one seems all over the place. I feel almost like I haven’t even covered all of Peace Walker’s gameplay features (such as its adversarial and co-op multiplayer), but from everything I’ve gotten to play, this is a Metal Gear Solid fan’s dream come true. It’s unfortunate that this game was made for the PSP instead of the PS3, but as a new PSP owner because of this game, I can certainly say that the game delivered far more than I would have ever expected and I must say that it is worth buying a PSP for any major Metal Gear Solid fan (like myself).

Peace Walker may be tough to get into for those new to Metal Gear Solid, but the enjoyable storyline and meticulously designed gameplay elements more than make the game worth checking out for current PSP owners. Worth buying a PSP for though? Probably not. But as a Metal Gear Solid fan, I don’t know how this game could have been made any better (except maybe better load times) and I plan to continue playing it for dozens more hours to come. The game just keeps on giving. I don’t know how the next Metal Gear Solid can top this.

Grade: A

I can’t stop playing Starcraft 2. It’s an addiction. There were all these games for Xbox that I wanted to try out, but I haven’t turned my Xbox on for almost a month. Limbo is still in limbo, Death Spank has no life, and Final Fantasy is a fantasy. There’s only one game that has a chance to get me away from my mouse and keyboard, and that’s Halo: Reach, so I figured I’d take a look at why.

For those who have been living under a rock, Halo is basically the reason that the Xbox brand still exists today. It was a revolution in first person shooters on the FPS, but the series has been showing signs of age in recent years. Halo: ODST sold a ton of copies but didn’t achieve the staying power of previous entries. I’m cautiously optimistic that Halo: Reach can buck the trend (or at least take me away from Starcraft 2 for a little while) – here’s why.

Epic Story
Spoiler alert: Everybody dies.

At least I’m pretty sure they do. If I have my Halo lore correct, Reach is the planet on which Spartans were trained and it fell to the Covenant in the big war – leading to the death of many Spartans (and the reason why Master Chief is the only Spartan left during the events of Halo). It seems Reach is going to be similar to ODST in the sense that you are following a squad throughout the game. The difference is, instead of ODSTs, you are following Spartans – Noble Team. Amongst the team you have your standard characters – heavy guy, sniper, etc. You assume the rule of a new member of the team (another rookie), but who knows, maybe you’ll get to play as the other guys as well.

I am pretty excited at the stories Reach could present. It’s kind of like 300 – you know the good guys eventually lose, but there is tons of room for EPICNESS along the way. Maybe Reach falls, but I’m looking forward to taking down hordes of Covenant along the way. There is ample opportunity for tie ins to the other Halo games as well which fans of the forwards can look forward to. The nice thing about knowing the end of a story is that the joy is finding out how you get there – I am hoping that Reach can deliver that.

Reworked Multiplayer
I’m not sure if Bungie is going to do a complete working of the multiplayer, but it’s definitely going to be different as players of the beta can attest. Although I thought the new classes added didn’t seem as deep as I’d like, it still provides an interesting twist on the gameplay that I think can revitalize the series. I also wrote during the beta about my disappointment with some of the new gametypes, but I still think they can be a lot of fun.

Classes will be a good way to customize gameplay as well – I’m definitely looking forward to using the different items. Overall, Reach’s multiplayer is definitely going to feel like Halo, but with a new twist. I think it’ll be good for the series and the community.

Swan Song
Last but not least, I’m looking forward to Halo: Reach because it’s Bungie’s Halo swan song. Like the Spartans, Halo: Reach is Bungie’s last stand – they are ending their partnership with Microsoft after this and will be working on new IPs. Although I have no evidence to support this, this leads me to believe that Bungie is going to pull out all the stops. They’ve always been great to the fans and I think with this being the last Bungie entry in the Halo series they are going to make it awesome. EPIC.

So on September 14th, I will be taking at least one day off from Starcraft 2. It’ll be interesting to figure out how to split time after Reach comes out, I’m sure espion4ge and I will be torn. We’ll find out in two weeks!

Considering that several Starcraft 2 3v3 mid-game options can successfully carry into the end-game, I have consolidated the 3v3 end-game for all three races into this one article. I realize that it may be difficult to find the various Starcraft strategy articles that I have written up, so I will link them again here for your convenience:

Starcraft 2 3v3 Strategy – Some Basic Multiplayer Tips
Starcraft 2 3v3 Strategy: Defensive Early Game Builds
Stracraft 2 3v3 Strategy: The Protoss Mid-Game
Starcraft 2 3v3 Strategy: Terran Mid-Game
Starcraft 2 3v3 Strategy: The Zerg Mid-Game
Going Up Against the Protoss’s Overpowered Void Ray

If you’ve read through all of those articles already, hit the jump for my next article on the 3v3 end game.

Carrying from Where We Left Off in the 3v3 Mid-Game
The Starcraft 2 3v3 end-game opens up where all three races’ mid-game left off: you have an expansion, built up a mid-game army, but your army or team’s unit composition wasn’t strong enough to win the game outright. Therefore, you must transition into the end-game to go out with a bang.

As you move through the mid-game and continue to pump out units that require more and more gas, you’ll begin to start noticing a distinct lack of gas and excess supply of minerals as you get towards the end of the mid-game. It is at this point that you need to begin looking for a second expansion – not only to get more gas, but because the workers at your main base are also getting close to finishing off the minerals there and will have nothing to do after that. Starting a second expansion will make the transition easy for you to simply ferry your workers from your main to this second expansion.

Remember to set up defense for your second expansion. Because this is late game, everyone is scouting for those second expansions, so you need to put down cannons if you’re Protoss, both Spine Crawlers and Spore Crawlers if you are Zerg, and missile turrets and the Planetary Fortress upgrade if you are Terran. Try to lay down defense before making your expansion base.

With your second expansion out of the way, let’s see what remains among the choices available for the different races in the 3v3 end game.

Viable 3v3 Protoss End Game Options
1. Mass Mass Stalkers (8 Gateways)
4 Gateways and Mass Stalkers is the conservative mid-game Protoss option, since they do extra damage to Armored units, can attack air, and with Blink, can get in on the pesky Terran Siege Tanks. So, why not make more of them? Make sure to research the Forge upgrades and consider making 2-3 Forges to max out your Stalkers’ bonuses. Protoss players can counter mass mass Stalkers by massing Immortals (just 2 Robotics Facilities and a mixture of Stalkers and Immortals can decimate an army sole comprised of Stalkers greater in number). If a Terran player masses Thors, the Thors will eat up the Stalkers though, but due to the Thors’ slow speed, the Stalkers should rely more on guerrilla tactics to attack bases/expansions where the Thors cannot get to. Zerg’s mass mass Hydralisks can beat mass mass Stalkers in equal supply due to their smaller unit size (and therefore, greater damage output when clumped).

2. Mass Stalkers + Colossi (4 Gateways & 2+ Robotics)
Some Terran players enjoy making infantry all the way through end-game, so mass Stalkers and Colossi is still a very viable mid-game build that can be carried into the end game. If you go against a Zerg opponent in 3v3, their traditional end-game is mass Hydralisks, so the Colossi generally do well against them if you have enough Stalkers to give the Colossi a meat shield (and attack any Zerg air units that go after the Colossi). In general, it’s worth it to go this build against Zerg. Colossi are not really recommended against another Protoss player since they don’t tend to make units in the end game that are susceptible to Colossi.

3. Mass Stalkers + Immortals (4 Gateways & 2+ Robotics)
Against Protoss players that continue to pump out Stalkers or Terran players that primarily go Siege Tanks and Thors, the Immortal becomes your best friend. Because they do not have anti-air, your Stalkers can help some but keep in mind that the Immortals are set into play if you need to hard counter mass mass Stalkers, Thors, Siege Tanks, or even mass Roaches or Marauders. Don’t underestimate the power of Immortals against Armored unit types!

4. Carriers + Mothership (4 Starports + Fleet Beacon)
Carriers are the most expensive capital unit in the Protoss army, and while they see reduced use in Starcraft 2, they are still very strong against ground forces of any kind when enough of them are made. If you can mass 8-10 Carriers, you will most likely be able to take out any type of forces that a Zerg player can come up with for the end-game. However, against Protoss and Terran, it’s not necessarily the best idea to mass Carriers, as the Protoss can mass Void Rays, or the Terran can mass Vikings or Battlecruisers with Yamato Cannon to focus fire the Carriers down very quickly. If you commit to Carriers, make sure that Terran opponents have massed ground first (but I still wouldn’t recommend them since Vikings come out quickly). Carriers are great against ground units where ledges are a concern, because you can keep them far enough away to not get hit by ground but let the dozens of little Interceptors shred through anything on the ground. Throw in a Mothership if you have extra gas for cloaking.

5. Mass Void Rays (4 Starports + Fleet Beacon)
Why go for the more expensive mass Carriers option when you can go with the cheaper and more viable mass Void Rays option? I’ve written an article about how imbalanced the Void Ray is, and well, because Blizzard hasn’t fixed them yet, I will continue to take advantage of the Void Ray’s sheer power. I’ve played several 3v3 games now against Protoss opponents who will get 2-3 Void Rays out early, and then try to harass with them in the mid-game. I’ve never seen that work. For me, I mass Stalkers, get an expansion up, plop down 4 Starports and a Fleet Beacon and crank out Void Rays until I have like 16-20 of them. Generally speaking, if my opponent lets me stay alive long enough to mass Void Rays, it’s over. Their armies may all be rallied near the entrance of my team’s bases, but once my Void Rays fly over to their base and begin destroying buildings and getting the damage multiplier, anything the opponents throw at the Void Rays get destroyed – anti-air and all. My Void Rays will also shred through their bases faster than their armies can get through mine. There is basically no general counter to mass Void Rays that are already attacking someone’s base and have the damage multiplier going. They must be attacked between bases, out in the open, with huge armies of anti-air or Vikings to counter them.

Viable 3v3 Terran End Game Options
1. Thors and Tanks (4 Factories + 1+ Armory)
Most likely, as a good Terran player, you should have been using Tanks throughout the mid-game along with infantry. As you move to end-game, you’ll probably see that your infantry are simply not holding up against units like the Collosi and enemy Siege Tanks. That is where the Thor comes in. The Thor is a heavy ground-based assault unit that you can start adding to your Tank-based army to replace your infantry. With Thors also considered ground-based vehicles, they share the same upgrades as Tanks, so it may be worth it to research both attack and defense upgrades for your Factory units if you go this route. This army’s biggest weakness is its lack of speed. While it is very strong when set up, smarter opponents can attack your other partners instead and you won’t be able to get to them fast enough to assist.

2. Mass Thors (4 Factories + 1+ Armory)
This is similar to Thors and Tanks, but you give up Tanks in order to worry less about micro-ing the Siege mode of the Tanks and simply attack moving with your Thors all the way into your opponents’ bases. Thors can be quite effective, and will dominate anything on land when massed EXCEPT for the Protoss Immortal units. The Immortal unit is a hard counter to the Thor, since it takes reduced damage from the Thor and does extra damage to the Thor. Massed Thors will devastate mass Stalkers if they go toe-to-toe so that matchup is worth noting whether you are a Terran player or a Protoss player. Keep in mind, however, that while the Thor has anti-air capabilities, they are only really strong against light armor air units such as the Mutalisk. The Thor’s rockets do splash damage to grouped light armored units, and therefore demolish Mutalisks. However, heavy air such as Carriers, Void Rays, Battlecruisers, and Brood Lords will take out Thors and are considered their hard counter.

3. Thors and Marines (2 Barracks + 2 Factories + 1 Armory)
Thors take up a lot of gas. Often times you will have excess minerals, so why not just mass marines to go with the Thors? That way the Thors soak up the damage while the massed Marines freely attack. This army composition is situational, but works as a counter to a Protoss who decides to make Immortals among their Stalkers to counter your Thors. The Marines will do full damage to Immortals while the Thors pound the Stalkers. The Marines can also help somewhat against air-based armies as well that look to take out your Thors.

4. Battlecruisers (4 Starports + Fusion Core)
I don’t really see many Battlecruisers in end-game 3v3 as compared to Starcraft 1, but that’s most likely because of the current love-in for Terran’s other end-game unit: the Thor. The Battlecruiser has some great defense, but is so slow that you basically need to really commit with them and expect to win. If you take your group of Battlecruisers to an enemy base, you better make sure they can win because you won’t be able to turn around and retreat. Massing Battlecruisers is very situational – I like them against Terran since Terran tend to go with ground units for the end-game and assume that their Thors can handle capital air ships (big mistake). Against Protoss and Zerg, there’s even less of a possibility I will make Battlecruisers. More often than not, Protoss players will go with mass mass Stalkers and Zerg will go with mass mass Hydralisks – both of those flatten Battlecruisers very easily. It’s worth considering them to go up against mass Carriers though, but any of Terran’s air options can handle Carriers (hence I don’t recommend Carriers against Terran).

5. Mass Mass Vikings (4 Starports with attachment for 8x built at a time)
Mass Vikings was a viable mid-game build to deal with Mutalisks or early Void Rays. But if your opponents are insisting on sticking with a lot of air units in the end-game as well, then simply mass Vikings like there’s no tomorrow. Vikings have excellent range and can switch to become ground units, so they are great at establishing air dominance in the situation that you’d really need it. They’re cheap, effective, and potent. Of course, I do not suggest massing them if your opponents do not have air units.

6. Battlecruisers and Mass Vikings (4 Starports with 1-2 attachments for 2x Vikings, Tech attachment on 2-3 Starports for Battlecruisers)
This build is actually a pretty well rounded Terran air build and it’s starting to become my preferred Terran end-game build. The combo of Vikings and Battlecruisers can beat any combination of air units from any of the three races in the game. When going against a large ground based anti-air army such as Stalkers or Hydralisks, you can transform the Vikings into ground to do more damage while the Battlecruisers tank for you. A pure Battlecruiser squad may not fare so well against Stalkers and Hydralisks, but with Vikings in assault mode, you may have enough to handle them. For any ground dominant forces that have little to no anti-air, you can just keep your Vikings in the air and let the Battlecruisers take care of the ground units for you.

Viable 3v3 Zerg End Game Options
1. Mass Mass Hydralisks (Lair, Hydralisk Den, Nydus Worm)
The most viable end-game army type for Zerg is mass mass Hydralisks. Getting to 200 food cap with them at 3/3 for upgrades and a Nydus Worm is pretty much game over for your opponents. With enough expansions and Hydralisks, consider Nydus Worming all over the map to your various expansions or key areas. The Nydus Worm provides the mobility that your Hydralisks lack, and you can even set rally point from your Hatcheries into a Nydus Worm and a rally point from a Nydus Worm to another location, making the transportation of your dozens of Hydralisks relatively painless. With the exception of mass Siege Tanks, it is very difficult for anyone to deal with mass mass Hydralisks, as they have such great range that they are considered the main ground force to be worried about when going into the end-game in a team-based match that has a Zerg player.

2. Mass Hydralisks + Ultralisks (Hive, Hydralisk Den, Ultralisk Cavern)
If you are going up against heavy ground opposition such as Collosi, Thors, and Siege Tanks and feel that you want some extra protection for your Hydralisks, throw in some Ultralisks to soak up the damage. Ultralisks have great defense, and while they can’t attack air, their ground-based attack does splash damage so they can tear through enemy infantry. The role of the Ultralisks is to soak up damage so your Hydralisks can go after the key opponent units that would do a lot of damage to the Hydralisks such as the Siege Tank and Colossus. Plus, the Ultralisk can do splash damage!

3. Mass Hydralisks + Infestors (Lair, Hydralisk Den, Infestor Pit)
If you want a little more micro with your massed Hydralisks, consider adding in Infestors. These guys have three spells that are all useful in the end game for the major battles ahead.

The first of the Infestor abilities is Fungal Growth. This is an area of effect spell that holds the enemies in place (revealing cloaked or burrowed units as well), and does 36 damage to each unit in the area over 8 seconds. The ability devastates Marines.

The second of the Infestor abilities is Terran Infestation. In my Zerg mid-game article, I discussed how some Zerg players like to make Infestors and sneak them into opponents’ bases to spawn dozens of Infested Terran. The Infested Terran last for about 12 seconds and are very slow but ranged. When sent out in mass, they are very formidable. Against mass mass Stalkers or Hydralisks, sometimes just throwing out dozens of Infested Marines on the battlefield will turn the tide in your favor due to the increased temporary numbers. If the opponents are using Colossi, Tanks, and Thors though, forget about this spell since the Infested Terran will get killed far too quickly. You’re better off saving your mana for the Infestor’s third ability.

The third ability for the Infestor can be quite the game changer for end-game: Neural Parasite. This ability you have to research at the Infestor Pit, but it allows you to take control of any enemy unit except for the Ultralisk (I believe) for something like 10 seconds. While 10 seconds doesn’t seem like a long time, it may just be enough to turn the tide for your ground army. Think about it: your mass Hydras move to engage your opponents that have Colossi and Thors. The Infestors mind control the Colossi and Thors, and work with your Hydralisks in those 10 seconds to take out the rest of the opponents’ army. It’s very potent, but keep in mind that after the time is up, you will have to engage the previously mind-controlled units. If the opponents start running as soon as you’ve started mind controlling their big units, consider simply having your Hydras kill off the mind-controlled units. I’ve whittled away several Colossi in a match this way as my Protoss opponent kept running away with his Colossi because he didn’t want them to get Neural Parasited. Well, the Neural Parasite has very long range so he was bleeding free Colossi to me every time he ran into my army and decided to run.

4. Broodlords (Hive, Greater Spire)
Going Broodlords for end-game 3v3 is very rare due to the enormous amount of gas they take up, their slow speed, their inability to attack air, and the high probability that one of your opponents will have air units. This makes your 1000+ gas investment quite a risk if your opponent simply takes them down with air-based units so I generally advise against Broodlords. Having said that, if you have partners that go mass ground anti-air like Stalkers or Hydras to cover your Brood Lords, they can have some devasting effect off of ledges – especially against a heavy ground-based Terran army. But, this army type is very situational and only worth it if you really have an excess amount of gas and don’t have a Terran or Protoss partner that can make their “better” end game units. As any Zerg player will tell you, it is nearly impossible to have an excess amount of gas as Zerg.

5. Mass Mutalisks and Corruptors (Lair, Spire)
While massed Vikings are the scariest to see if you want to go air, mass Mutalisks and Corruptors still do a decent job against capital air ships as long as you can get the Corruptors to use their ability on the opposing ships for a 20% bonus in damage. With the debuff, Mutalisks definitely have an easier time taking out Battlecruisers, Carriers, and Void Rays. If a Terran opponent masses Vikings, it’s time to forget this army type and go with something ground-based instead since Vikings are too cheap and effective against Zerg air forces.

6. Mass Mass Roaches (Lair, Roach Warren)
I never thought I’d be using Roaches in end-game until I came across Terran opponents that massed Siege Tanks and Vikings. The Hydralisks were far too slow to go against so many Siege Tanks on high ground, and the Vikings would not let me go with an air option. Mass Roaches with burrow became my best friend, as I was able to send my burrowed Roaches up to the Tanks’ blind spot and destroy them. When the Vikings landed in assault mode, my Roaches also easily took them out as well. Sometimes you just need beefier armored ground units, and because they share the same upgrades as Hydralisks, it’s an easy transition.

Summary of End-Game for All Races in 3v3 Matches
0. Mid-game draws to a close with a stalemate
1. Secure second expansion
2. Determine what the opponents are making
3. Make end-game army that counters their units
4. Attack
5. Win

This article should conclude my series of 3v3 strategy articles for Starcraft 2. Now that you’ve read through them all, perhaps you can now play Random as well in your 3v3 games. I’m a strong advocate of playing Random, since you still have to learn each of the three races anyway with regards to how to play against them if you were to stick with just one race. Good luck!

For my series of mid game Starcraft 2 team strategy articles, I’ve saved my most difficult race to play for last: Zerg. Protoss is easy for me to understand, Terran was tough at first but now I understand, and Zerg…well Zerg I now understand as well but like most Starcraft players, feel that even after understanding the Zerg race, it’s still tough to play with them – especially against Terran. But, don’t let that dissuade you as a Zerg team player. Read on for different army types you can go with Zerg in the mid game.

When Does Mid-Game Begin?
This particular text I will most likely paste into each one of the three races’ mid-game entries since it’s important to know when mid-game has begun. Early game consists of the initial quick rushes, followed by a build-up of initial mineral only and minor gas requiring units: Zealots and Stalkers, Marines and Marauders, and Zerglings and Roaches. Once one side has felt that they have built up enough of this early game force, that side will attack the other. If the attacking side is stronger, they will win the game right then. However, if the attack fails (both sides are even, the defending side has too much defense, etc.), that is when the mid-game begins.

The Primary Characteristics of Mid-Game
Unlike the early game when all three races basically have one conservative build to make it into the mid-game, mid-game is where strategy comes most into play. Early game was all about execution: who could rush the best, who could defend the rush the best, etc. The variety in unit types was very little and therefore made the early game more predictable.

Beginning of Mid-Game for Zerg
Zerg have to upgrade their main base in order to have access to more advanced mid-game units. Therefore, once you feel that you are through the early game, you should have definitely teched to Lair by then.

After upgrading your Hatchery to Lair, your next macro activity in mid-game is securing an expansion. This is vital because you should have an excess number of workers by this point as well as a need for more gas to start producing more powerful units and upgrades. Also remember to keep making drones, because you lose drones when you make buildings. One of the reasons why I have difficulty with Zerg is that the Drones and your combat units all spawn from the same larvae. Therefore, it is nowhere near as easy to pump drones continuously while still making combat units.

Anyway, on expanding: consider using the Overlords’ spawn creep ability around an expansion area so that you can lay Spine Crawler defenses down before you start the Hatchery. Also begin laying out creep tumors from your main to the expansion, so that your ground units can move faster between your main and your expansion. I am a fan of creating a second Queen from my main when I have the excess minerals so that the second Queen is a dedicated Creep Tumor layer. Once the expansion is up, the second Queen just goes to the expansion to infuse Larvae.

Carrying from where we left off in the Zerg Build
At the end of the Zerg early game, the Zerg player secured his main with a couple of of Spine Crawlers: one in the front (for Zergling rush/Spine Crawler rush) and one in the back (to protect against Reapers), and created a Queen in order to spawn more larvae. You should have most likely also researched the Zergling speed upgrade, as Zerglings with the speed upgrade (commonly referred to as “Speedlings”) allow them to move quite fast and strongly increase their effectiveness in the early game. But now with a well fortified base and Speedlings, what can you do as a Zerg player for mid-game?

1. Mutalisks (Lair, Spire)
With better Terran and Protoss players walling off their chokepoints, Speedlings don’t work out so well in the early mid-game. Therefore, it is more common to see Mutalisks in the early game from better Zerg players, just because their speed allows them to easily harrass opponents. Many players will dedicate their defense to their chokepoint, so Mutalisks allow the Zerg player to attack their defenseless mineral lines. Mutalisks are the fastest air unit that can come out among all three races, so early Mutalisk harassment can be quite potent and throw your opponents off their game in a defensive stance as your teammates continue to build/expand unfettered. It takes a lot of patience and control though to be able to use Mutalisks effectively, and the amount of micro required for them makes it difficult to work on your macro at the same time. Using Mutalisks for harassment effectively to all your opponents and wrecking their mineral lines without losing them is an art. Sending them right into the opponents anti-air units and structures only to lose them all is not.

2. Speedlings & Mutalisks (Lair, Spire)
Generally if you decide to go Mutalisks, you will be very gas starved and therefore, all of your excess minerals can either go towards making more drones and expanding, or making more Speedlings to provide your Mutalisks with more of a balanced assault if you want to win the game with just one base. Mutalisks by themselves may have trouble against anti-air units like Marines, Stalkers, and Hydralisks, but if you engage them with Speedlings, the anti air units will often attack the Mutalisks and this allows your Speedlings to get in and do a lot of damage without dying. Mutalisks and Speedlings are the fastest units the Zerg have, so both can be used together quite effectively for guerrilla tactics and light skirmishes. The Speedling/Mutalisk combo is classic and comes from the first Starcraft game. You sort of evolve to this combo if you cannot or don’t choose to secure an expansion in the mid-game and can engage the enemy in open areas.

3. Mass Hydralisks (Lair, Hydralisk Den)
This is the most conservative Zerg mid-game approach, and the one I tend to favor as a player that isn’t 100% on top of my Zerg game. Hydralisks are slow, but do a lot of damage and have very good range with their range upgrade researched. This allows them to pretty much stand toe to toe against basically anything in the mid-game, provided you have a good number of Hydralisks. Consider simply massing Hydralisks and researching the range upgrade and damage upgrade when in doubt over what to do since it really does not have any disadvantage against any other infantry units and can hold its own against larger ground and air units as well. The main drawback of the Hydralisk is its reduced movement speed off creep, making it difficult to attack without a Nydus Canal. They also can’t keep up with other Zerg ground unit types – hence, it is often easiest to just focus on only Hydralisks for a mid-game army.

4. Mass Roaches (Lair, Roach Warren)
I specify Lair for this build because you need to get to Lair so that you can research all of the Roach upgrades at Lair as well as the ability for them to burrow from the Lair. This build is situational, and the primary reason you would mass Roaches in mid-game is to deal mass ground infantry from all three races in the early mid-game. Mass Roaches does very well against mass Stalkers when they go toe-to-toe, and does very well against Terran’s massed Infantry as well. Speedlings will fall very easily against both of those general army types. However, the Roach’s biggest problem is that it lacks anti-air. Therefore, if you decide to go mass Roaches, make sure that one of your partners is going anti-air/air or else Mutalisks will demolish your Roach army or early Void Rays will do some damage to your base.

Roaches are also pretty good against Terran mech as well. The Terran mech build is pure Factories pumping out Hellions, Siege Tanks, and eventually Thors. All of these are powerful ground-based Terran units, and when used together, can make a typical Zergling, Mutalisk, or Hydralisk masser experience some definite pain.

If Terran has committed to ground forces with the mech build, you may want to consider committing to mass Roaches (and later throw in Ultralisks) if you want to beat his mech build back. The Roach is armored, and therefore, the strongest mid-game ground unit that the Zerg have, and on top of this, has the researchable ability to move while burrowed. Moving while burrowed is the strongest counter you can have to Terran tanks in siege mode, as they cannot attack anything near them so you can burrow your Roaches, move them to the Siege Tanks, and unburrow to destroy everything.

5. Mutalisks & Corrupters (Lair, Spire)
This army type is very low on the Zerg army totem pole since it is only meant to handle one thing in mid game: Void Rays. When Mutalisks go up against a Void Ray rusher, they will generally get shot out of the sky. However, throwing a few Corrupters into the mix significantly allows for stronger Mutalisk damage.

Against the stronger Void Ray, you will have to use the Corrupter’s special ability that increases damage taken by the affected unit by 20%. Find where the Void Rays are, grab your Corrupters and have each of them cast their ability on a different Void Ray. Since the Corrupters are casting the ability and moving within range of the Void Ray, they will get attacked first. This allows them to tank for a bit, and this is ideal since they are stronger than Mutalisks. Your Mutalisks will then be able to attack and do most of the damage to the Void Rays with the 20% damage bonus. Keep in mind that Corrupters are not the main damage dealer in this army type – the Mutalisks are. Make sure you have 2x or 3x the number of Mutalisks to Corrupters for maximum effectiveness. I have seen Zerg players that just make lots of Corrupters if they perceive an air threat is imminent. You really need to have both unit types (with more Mutalisks than Corrupters) to handle air threats.

6. Mass Speedlings (Hatchery, Spawning Pool with Zergling speed upgrade)
The easiest thing you can do going for Zerg mid game is to keep pumping out Zerglings in mass, and hope that the sheer size of your Speedling army can overwhelm your opponent. Unfortunately, most Starcraft maps have natural chokepoints/ramps, allowing non-Zerg players to fortify them and make it difficult for a large number of Speedlings to be most effective. There are some maps however, that have open areas and if you are able to catch and surround opponents out in these areas, the Speedlings will do their duty. Just keep in mind that they don’t have a lot of life at all, so the more ranged units your opponents make, the less effective massed Speedlings become. Basically, you would only do this if you were passing your excess gas to another Zerg player so he could mass something gas heavy (such as Mutalisks) out of one base, for example. However, as the Zerg player, it’s probably more effective that your non-Zerg partners pass you gas you can mass Mutalisks and they spend all their excess minerals massing Marines or Zealots.

7. Infestors & whatever you can build with little gas (Lair, Infestor building)
I’ve saved the “cute” Zerg mid-game army build for last. And once again, I will define “cute” army builds as those that will work against lower quality opponents, but will simply cripple you against the better ones because your strategy will not work. In the mid-game, Zerg will always be hurting for gas unless they mass Zerglings. If you want to make Infestors early enough, you will have to give up Mutalisks and Hydralisks – two of Zerg’s main mid-game unit types.

The reason why a Zerg player would want to build Infestors so early is due to the Infested Terran ability combined with the fact that if you research the Burrow ability at the Lair, Infestors can automatically move while burrowed. This makes them basically cloaked units, and they can sometimes slip their way into an enemy base. Once in, these Infestors can spawn dozens of Infested Terran – slow moving units which stay alive for 15 seconds but have strong ranged attacks that can eat through basically an entire base when massed. It’s fun to watch, but basically, by investing in Infestors so early, your base will be completely empty and ripe for getting destroyed. While your Infestors are trying to take out an enemy base, yours will probably be taken out as well. Is this worth the trade off? Better players will be have detection at their bases, so the Infestors will get killed before they can even spawn a good number of Infested Terran.

Infested Terran can be fun to use in the late game once you’ve put together a strong army, but to forgo the strong army when mid-game starts to make some Infestors may not be the wisest decision (although, spawning Infested Terran for defense can be quite effective too). It’s fun, but it’s the equivalent of a Terran player wanting to go Ghosts for nuking in mid-game – doable against bad opponents, but better ones should have detection at their bases.

Summary of Zerg Mid-Game for team-based matches
0. Early game draws to a close with a stalemate
1. Upgrade to Lair
2. Decide whether to go air or ground
3. Create required buildings to form your mid-game army
4. Expand
5. Protect expansion
6. Research upgrades
7. Attack!
8. If unsuccessful, read my next article on the end-game

Stay tuned for Monday when I put out the last of my 3v3 strategy articles on the end-game for all three races!

When I was in Japan, I was pleased to see more portable gaming devices being played everywhere, especially on the subway. I hate to admit it, but whenever people were playing on the subway, sometimes I’d try to sneak a peak at what they were playing. It’s like DS stalking. On one particular subway ride, I managed to catch a peek of a kid playing some game that looked like a RPG, but there was something different about it – the protagonist was kicking around a soccer ball. Intriguing… Turns out the kid was playing the third installment of the Inazuma 11 series, a wildly popular soccer RPG series in Japan (and a very popular kids anime). I decided to pick up the first game in the series (in Japanese of course) and ended up playing that for the rest of my trip. What is a soccer RPG? Is the game only for kids? Is it weird to stalk people’s portable gaming choices? (Probably). Hit the jump for answers to all these questions and more!

What is a soccer RPG?
As I mentioned in my gaming in Japan article, the soccer RPG has been a pretty strong genre in Asia for awhile. It all started with Captain Tsubasa, which was a unique take on the traditional sports game. Based on a Japanese manga, Captain Tsubasa had you playing different matches, but it was different from an ordinary soccer game. Whenever you were approached by another player with the ball, the game paused and you were given a list of options – slide tackle, press, hold position, etc. (it was all in Japanese). You could choose one of these options just like you could choose Attack, Magic, or Item in a traditional RPG – hence the term soccer RPG. There were also special moves – special slide tackles, ridiculous shots, goalies propelling themselves off goalposts to make a save, so those kind of served as magic spells. It was an awesome game and there were tons in the series, including a release on DS last year.

These games were and are a lot of fun because they combine a strong storyline with persistent features, your players level up as you continue to play. Thus they learn new techniques, get stronger and faster, and you face more difficult opponents as the game progresses too. The soccer RPG is really a lot of fun, and I loved the Tsubasa games as a kid and am interested in checking out the newest version now.

Inazuma 11 has taken the soccer RPG to a whole new level – adding in the overworld of a regular RPG to the RPG elements of the sports game side of it. You are the talented goalkeeper Endou Mamoru, captain of your junior high school’s soccer side that only has seven members. You start the game by recruiting players to join your team, including Goenji, a star striker who has just transferred to your school, and the story continues from there.

Even if you can’t read the case, there are only three letters you need to understand

So how do you actually play the game?
The overworld will be familiar to anyone who has played a RPG. You walk around the school (and eventually the entire city), talking to people, finding treasure chests, and buying equipment for your players. In addition to the team you start with, there are over 1000 players in the game who you can recruit to play on your team (mind boggling, it’s like Pokemon I guess. No wonder kids like it). You don’t have to recruit players though, since the story helps you build a big enough team to play the matches your team plays.

There are two types of battles in the game – random battles and matches. Random battles occur as they do in any RPG, you walk around and then there is a CRACK and bam you are fighting. You can choose to fight or flee – shocker. The random battles consist of four of your players playing a quick 15 second soccer game with four random enemies. You either have to score a goal, steal the ball from the enemy, or not let them score for the 15 seconds.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward – you can draw lines with your stylus moving players around the map. If a player has the ball, you tap the stylus where you want him to pass the ball, if he is close enough to goal and you tap the goal, your player can shoot. Whenever you shoot or get shot upon, you can choose between different actions (strong shot, chip shot, etc.), or if your players have special techniques you can use those as well. The same thing happens when two players are fighting for the ball. Even though the gameplay is straightforward and can be a little repetitive, it can get pretty addicting, and it is definitely possible to lose these random battles. They don’t result in a game over, you just lose some experience points and money.

The matches are full 11 on 11 soccer matches – you play 30 minute halves and the team with the most goals at the end wins. These matches can get pretty intense, if you haven’t leveled up the players on your team enough, the computer has a distinct advantage, and most of my games have come down to one or two goals. In fact, the team ends up playing in a tournament, and I advanced twice only on penalty kicks. Maybe I’m just not that good at kids’ sports games…

The gameplay is quite strong, and it has to be for me to keep playing the game. I check an FAQ online to keep track of the story, but really, not being able to read a lick of Japanese besides yes or no means the story isn’t really what’s keeping me playing. It’s just a lot of fun to learn new techniques and to use them against harder and harder opponents.

Lost in translation?
The biggest bummer for me is the fact that I generally have no idea what’s going on. I go from battle to battle, and I follow the huge purple arrow telling me where to go in order to figure out who I have to talk to next. Of course, I never have much idea why I’m talking to them, and I’m usually just playing to get to the next match. That being said, I’m really enjoying my time with the game, and would highly recommend it to anyone willing to take a flier on a different type of game. It’s refreshing to play a totally different type of game than what I am used to. It’s tough to find in the US, though you can Ebay it for more than its worth. I got it for less than $20 US in Japan, so if you ever happen to be flying across the Pacific, definitely keep an eye out! I also hear that it’ll be released in Europe soon, that means I might be able to get my hands on an English version! Here’s hoping.

I was planning on posting an entry on the 3v3 Zerg mid-game today, but because I finally hit rank #1 in my division for Diamond League in 3v3 RT I decided I’d just spend some time recounting random stuff on how I got there. It was a long road to the top in my case (132 games to be exact), but of course, now I at least feel a little better writing 3v3 strategy and tips since I have the credentials to prove it. But in today’s entry – I won’t be sharing strategy…just random thoughts.

How Long Did it Take?
Two weeks ago, I shared an entry about making it into the Gold League. I believe I got put in the 10th spot for Gold League in my new Division, and after winning just two games, I got bumped into a Platinum League Division. I was pretty shocked, and quickly made my way to the top. The problem was, I sat for about a week and a half at #1 or #2 in my Platinum Division, and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting promoted to Diamond. I still don’t know the algorithm today, but obviously you have to keep beating Diamond opponents to get promoted to Diamond. I probably went about 50%-60% wins, and honestly thought that it was enough to get moved up.

Finally, yesterday morning, after winning a match, I was promoted to Diamond League. It looked like my division was new since there weren’t 100 people in it yet. With all of Battle.net’s hidden calculations I got seated at #2 in my division, so I played one more game, won it, and moved up to rank #1 as you can see in the screenshot above.

What’s Next?
When I hit #1, I breathed a sigh of relief as I finally made it to the highest spot I cared to attain in Starcraft multiplayer. There will be no 1v1, 2v2, or 4v4 ladders that I plan on climbing. I’m a 3v3 guy, and hitting the top has now given me an opportunity to relax a bit more since there’s nothing else I can do past this. I guess I could try to compete for the #1 spot in my division, but what’s the point? You hold it and then you lose it and so on. It becomes a never-ending battle that I don’t really care to be a part of since I already had my little time in the sun. These other 99 people in my division will become like my family I guess, since this is probably the division I will be settling into. I’ll definitely be playing less 3v3 RT solo going forward – maybe just enough to make use of my bonus pool to stay in a comfortable spot in my division.

I still enjoy playing 3v3 and 4v4 AT though, so for those of you that are worried that I’m hanging up my Starcraft 2 multiplayer hat you need not be concerned. I’ll just spend my 3v3 solo RT time playing the campaign now instead (Starcraft 2 has single player?!). My wife is happy for me too, because over the course of those 132 games, that was about 60 hours or so of me sitting in front of my computer over the last month and not really replying to whatever she said. When I told her I got moved into Diamond, the first thing she asked was if that meant I would stop playing Starcraft 2. Is she kidding? I told her at least that I would certainly be scaling back now.

The 100-Win Portrait
One thing that eluded me when I hit the top was that I was at 99 total quick match wins. At 100 wins, a new Portrait would be unlocked for me, so I proceeded to continue playing 3v3 in the hopes that I would just get one more win to unlock the portrait. I lost the next 5 matches. Talk about frustration! Finally though, it looked like I would be getting the win on my 6th match after being at the top, but with the number of losses I took and new players being added to my new division, I was already tumbling down my division. (I think at this time I’m somewhere in the 30′s for my Division.)

One is cooler than the other. Take a guess which one…

In any case, the 100-win random portrait is a Goliath. I’m actually not happy with the Goliath Starcraft 2 portrait at all. Starcraft 1′s Goliath was pretty cool looking. But in Starcraft 2, the Goliath is some fat bald guy? No offense to the Blizzard employee that the Starcraft II Goliath portrait is modeled after, but this was not my idea of a reward. It sort of ruined my fond memories of the Goliath in the original game, but what can you do. He looked kinda of edgy and had a cool voice in the first game, but in Starcraft 2 he is seriously lacking in coolness. Why does he look like the biggest dork ever? What sucks is the next portrait unlocks at 250 wins, so I guess I’m stuck with this Goliath guy as my portrait until maybe I unlock some more single player Achievement portraits that I can consider.

Argument with a Zerg “Pro”
In one of my recent 3v3 RT games I played, I got partnered with a Zerg player who early expanded. I’m talking expanded pretty much right away before even making any combat units. He got rushed by the other team, and blamed me for not coming to help him. I argued back and said that we lost the game the moment he early expanded. More words were exchanged between us and I told him that I was curious what his rank was for him to pull something like that. Of course, more arguing and then he told me to check his profile after the match and that he would love to compare ranks.

After the game, I looked at his profile – all four game types were Diamond. Obviously the guy was good if he could Diamond 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 as a Zerg player. So yeah I was a lowly Platinum #1 at the time, and even though my argument that his early expand lost us the match was sound in my head, since I wasn’t Diamond I couldn’t debate with him. He told me I didn’t know anything about Zerg and that I had a lot to learn if I wanted to make it to Diamond. Get the heck out of here – I’m Diamond now and I still think the early expand was a bad idea.

I have seen this Zerg opening again a couple times though since my heated argument with the Zerg pro – from an opponent and from a teammate. When we scouted and found an opponent had early expanded right away, we just took it out with our early game units and then went into his base and killed him. That should be exactly what happens – a rush is going to obviously beat a player who decides to expand right away. But then I got a Zerg teammate in a subsequent game who early expanded right away, and miraculously didn’t get rushed. He was late getting started, but had a really strong mid-game of course with units pouring out of both bases. It looks like a gamble to me – you’re just betting that you won’t get hit to reap the benefits later. But as a Zerg player in 3v3, shouldn’t you know that you’re going to get rushed by now against decent opponents since you’re the only race that can’t choke?

Obviously he and I differ in our theories as to what is the best opening for Zerg in 3v3, and well, I guess I just have to leave it at that. Make of it what you will!

Expect my Zerg mid-game strategy article later this week.

Up next in my series of Starcraft 2 strategy articles is how to play Terran’s mid-game effectively for team-based play. Back in the beta, Terran was the hardest race for me to learn, since I felt that the Terran units changed most considerably from the first game to the second compared to the other races. I also didn’t quite embrace the power of tanks back in the beta. But now in retail, playing as random, I think I have more wins as Terran than either Protoss or Zerg, so I have to say I’ve come along way. Hit the jump to read up on the viable strategies for the Terran mid-game.

When Does Mid-Game Begin?
This particular text I will most likely paste into each one of the three races’ mid-game entries since it’s important to know when mid-game has begun. Early game consists of the initial quick rushes, followed by a build-up of initial mineral only and minor gas requiring units: Zealots and Stalkers, Marines and Marauders, and Zerglings and Roaches. Once one side has felt that they have built up enough of this early game force, that side will attack the other. If the attacking side is stronger, they will win the game right then. However, if the attack fails (both sides are even, the defending side has too much defense, etc.), that is when the mid-game begins.

The Primary Characteristics of Mid-Game
Unlike the early game when all three races basically have one conservative build to make it into the mid-game, mid-game is where strategy comes most into play. Early game was all about execution: who could rush the best, who could defend the rush the best, etc. The variety in unit types was very little and therefore made the early game more predictable.

The first thing you need to be aware of for mid-game is securing an expansion. This is vital because you should have an excess number of workers by this point as well as a need for more gas to start producing more powerful units and upgrades. Therefore, the first order of business once the final attack of early game fails is to expand.

Terran have one of the easiest times expanding due to two reasons:

1. The Command Center can be built at home, loaded with some SCVs, and flown to an island expansion or your natural. Being able to create an expansion Command Center in the security of your own base is a definite bonus. Just don’t forget that you can load a few SCVs into the Command Center as well if you are flying it to an island expansion.

2. The Terran have a very strong defensive upgrade for the Command Center. I highly recommend that the first thing you do when you land/build your expansion Command Center is start the Planetary Fortress upgrade (an Engineering Bay is required). This upgrade makes it so you can no longer lift your Command Center, but it outfits the Command Center with a defensive turret that attacks ground-based enemies. If your expansion gets attacked, you can take all of your SCVs mining and repair the Command Center and you can enjoy watching the turret plow through enemies. Of course, it’s not impervious, but it may buy you just enough time to get your forces to your expansion.

Carrying from where we left off in the Terran Build
At the end of the Terran early game, the Terran player has walled off his choke, bunkered his mineral line, started on gas, and has two barracks. You’ve either successfully held off a rush with your marines behind the depots, sent your marines to protect one of your teammates, or your team was unsuccessful in defeating your opponent in the early game. Unlike Protoss where you can easily transition into Stalkers, the Terran player must decide very early on (before mid-game even starts) whether to go mass infantry or marines and tanks. Allow me to explain why as I step through the various Terran mid-game armies, in order of viability/popularity.

1. Mass Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs (3 Barracks, 1 Factory, 1 Starport)
This the most popular Terran army type for those inexperienced with Terran and commonly referred to as “MMM” or “bio”. For new players to Terran, this is also the build that I recommend. Marines are weak yet ranged units, while Marauders are armored ground-only range units that can slow opponents down (with the applicable upgrade). Both units compliment each other strongly, and researching the Stim Pack upgrade allows for both the Marines and Marauders to attack and move faster at the cost of losing life. With no medic infantry units in Starcraft 2 like the first game, the Terran infantry is healed from a Starport unit called the Medivac, which functions as both a dropship and a healer, which also allows for the Terran player to do MMM drops on unsuspecting opponents’ bases/expansions.

After the initial Zergling/Zealot rush period wears off, you should add one of each type of attachment to your two barracks. Pump out Marauders out of one barracks and double the marines out of the other while researching Stimpack, the Marauder concussive shells, and the marine HP upgrade. Once you’ve massed a decent sized army, create a Factory so you can create a Starport to make Medivacs. With excess money, consider starting on a third Barracks as well to pump out more infantry. I recommend about a 1.5 to 1 ratio of Marines to Marauders.

This build is strong in the early mid-game, as it can beat the Protoss Gateway army and Zerg ground units. It is highly recommended if you want be aggressive in early mid game. However, as the game drags on, the infantry units lose their luster due to the introduction of mid-game and late-game units that destroy them. One thing is for sure though: pumping mass Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs is still the most well-rounded and newbie-friendly Terran strategy. It is recommended if you believe that you are going against opponents that are sticking with only early game units for the mid-game such as mass Stalkers.

2. Marines and Siege Tanks (2 Barracks, 2 Factories)
This is my current Terran bread-and-butter build for team-based play, and it is generally what is expected among Platinum and Diamond level Terran team players. Unlike the first army type where you are using gas to make Marauders, researching infantry upgrades, and wasting gas on making a Factory just to get the Starport for Medivacs, this second army type is all about tanks and ground control.

For this build, you will have two barracks with no attachments in the early game. As soon as you save up 100 gas, build your first factory, followed by a second one after that if possible. Then build the attachments for both factories, research the siege mode upgrade, and begin pumping out tanks. With extra gas, build the attachments to your barracks to allow for two marines to build at once. Tanks are very gas heavy, so your excess minerals will be spent simply making marines. The combination of tanks in siege mode and marines surrounding them make it difficult for melee or air to attack this army type since the marines will handle anything air or up close while the tanks destroy any ground forces within range. The extra marines can also defend your main against Mutalisk harassment and such.

I consider the Terran Siege Tank to be the best ground unit in the game. Its range and powerful damage in siege mode allow the Terran player to assert ground control for nearly all of mid-game. Pumping tanks out and having marines cover them while in siege mode makes this particular army type very very difficult to beat for any ground-based army.

The biggest issue with tank usage is that they are an advanced unit that requires pre-planning. Due to the time spent getting them into siege mode, Siege Tanks are not ideally meant to be moved around all over the place. Your goal as a Terran player that makes Siege Tanks is to have them in the right place at the right time in Siege Mode. This means you need to be able to predict the enemy attack patterns and movements so you can have your tanks already sitting in Siege Mode before the enemy gets there. (This may be why tanks aren’t used as often among newer Terran players – they don’t have enough experience with the multiplayer game to have a good grip on timing and attacks.) Tanks on ledges are extremely deadly.

One of the major negatives that can sometimes be a positive is that the Siege Tank has greater attack range than its visibility. It can shoot further than it can see, and therefore, you want to have spotters that extend its visibility. Even a simple scan from your Command Center can give it that extra visibility needed. The reason why this negative can be a positive is that because if your tanks can’t see far enough, they won’t attack, which in turn allows you to set up all of your tanks in siege mode and position your army before you begin attacking – very useful for attacking a defending opponent since your scan or scout determine when you wish to actually begin firing with your tanks that have completed setting up in siege mode.

The strategy of “tank stepping” or whatever it was called in the first Starcraft still remains here. If you are in territory where you feel that you can be attacked at any time, keep half of your tanks in siege mode, while unsieging the other half and moving them forward. Then put those tanks in siege mode, unsiege the other half and move up. You are basically advancing with at least half of your tanks in siege mode to protect your army. Also keep in mind that siege tanks do bonus damage against Armored units (like Stalkers) when they are not in Siege Mode. Sometimes it’s worth it not to siege them up (i.e., if Stalkers get the jump on you before sieging up, don’t go into siege mode, but rather, just attack.)

With two factories, this army type is VERY tank oriented – your goal should be to make around 8 tanks, and set them up with your marines (don’t stop building marines) in key areas that you want to defend, or to simply push into opponents’ bases to blow away their fortified choke points and defensive structures to win the game outright. Anything more than 10 or so tanks that are actually in combat is overkill. (10 tanks is enough to assert ground dominance – after that, you should probably move to air units for the end game since your opponents will probably go air if they can’t go up against your tanks.)

Once you know enough about the game to use Siege Tanks effectively, there are very few joys you will have in life as your Siege Tanks completely devastate armies of infantry units. My favorite is when you can find an unsuspecting enemy with his army grouped and you go up close enough and go into siege mode without your opponent aware. Then you scan to get yourself that extra visibility so your tanks can see, and your tanks obliterate half of his infantry in that first round of shots. THEN the enemy’s infantry moves towards your tanks to engage because they were fired upon, so your tanks get a second round of shots in. All that’s left of the enemy’s army is a gaping hole in the ground.

3. MMM & Tanks (2 Barracks, 1 Factory, 1 Starport)
This third army type is a combination of the two army types above, and while it seems like this would be the best of the three, it’s too gas intensive to allow you to do much. You honestly have to make a decision between tanks or infantry. Not being able to come to terms with marines not getting healed while still wanting tanks is what I consider this build for. Yes – I am making fun of this army type because in the heavy tank build, marines are fodder and should be a mere after-thought compared to the tanks. As a Terran player who masses tanks, I’ve come across Terran opponents who will drop some infantry and two tanks at my base. Then I blow them all away with 5-6 tanks. “Thank you, come again!”

You have to think with this army type: you’ve basically spent several hundreds more gas just to research siege mode and pump out two tanks for the mid-game. Two tanks is not going to make a major difference going against another ground army, and the two tanks will only slow down a more nimble MMM army. You will definitely be gas choked if you want siege tanks, Marauders and infantry upgrades. I don’t really recommend this army type, since it lacks the effectiveness and direction that either of the first two Terran army types provide. With reduced infantry, the enemy forces can swarm your tanks before you kill them, and with reduced tanks, your tanks won’t be able to kill most of the enemy forces before they rush into the tank’s “blind spot” when in siege mode. However, those that are good at doing drops may welcome the range that a couple of Siege Tanks can provide for surgical strikes. This unit combination would probably excel in 1v1, but team games is a different story.

4. Mass Vikings (2 Barracks, 1 Factory, 2 Starports)
This build is situational, but less so than the Protoss’s mass Phoenix build. The Viking is a new Terran Starport unit that is air-to-air only, but can transform to a ground unit for ranged ground-to-ground only damage. With the ability for them to transform to ground-based attackers, it is not the end of the world if you get a Terran teammate who decides to mass Vikings (certainly better than the Terran player who decides to mass Ghosts).

Vikings are a fantastic air-to-air based unit. With the Starport attachment that allows the Starport to pump out two Vikings at once, two Starports will get you 4 Vikings at a time. It is very easy to mass 20+ Vikings in a short period of time and gain air superiority in the mid-game. With the quick ability to pump them out, it is also recommended for the Terran player to switch to mass Vikings if the team is caught with its pants down against opponents massing Mutalisks or Void Rays in mid-game. Vikings will easily tear them apart with enough numbers.

Of course, by going mass Vikings, your role is to dominate the air and land in opponents’ unfortified expansions to shut them down The opportunity cost of losing the ability to have ground control through Siege Tanks is major though, and therefore should be carefully considered before massing Vikings.

5. Banshees (2 Barracks, 1 Factory, 2 Starports)
This particular army type is even more situational than mass Vikings – and by more situational, it means basically limiting your scope considerably in order to take apart a Zerg base. Banshees are Starport units that are only air-to-ground, but you can research Cloaking for them. Their damage is actually pretty good, but again, the problem is, anything air will destroy them, and if anyone has detection, their use drops dramatically.

However, they can be quite effective against Zerg main bases though. Often times, Zerg will not have detection at midgame, because early game they made spine crawlers for defense – which only attack ground. Most zerg players are lazy and will not also put down anti-air towers as well going into mid-game nor with they spend 50 minerals and  100 gas to upgrade an Overlord to an Overseer. Therefore, it is quite possible to send in 6-8 Banshees to destroy all the Drones and even the Zerg player’s Lair before they finish upgrading their Overlord to an Overseer. The problem with this build is that once you’ve done it and the enemies decide to build air and/or detection to counter this, you probably won’t be making many more Banshees and your current Banshees will become useless. In big team games – would you rather have 8 Siege Tanks on the ground or 8 Banshees in the air? If the Zerg player still has an army, he can go with his partners and just overwhelm your side’s land-based army because all you have are Banshees.

6. Mass Marines (4+ Barracks)
Believe it or not, this army type can be effective at times. Since marines are ranged and so cheap, they can be produced by the dozen and can, to a degree, handle opponents that decide to mass Void Rays, Mutalisks, or Stalkers. I’ve played matches where I’ll make tanks, and a smart Protoss opponent will mass Immortals to counter the tanks, and Stalkers to provide the Immortals with support and anti-air. I would have to counter that counter with mass mass marines, since Immortals don’t do bonus damage against Marines, nor do they have bonus defense against them. You primarily need to watch out for tanks and Collossi.

7. Mass Marauders (4 barracks)
Mass Marauders is even more situational than massing Marines, only because Marauders are ground attackers only so you are just asking for an air-based army to attack you if you go that route. However, with them doing bonus damage against armored units, they would be good against opponents that continue to mass Roaches or Stalkers well into the mid-game. Some Protoss players do nothing but power Stalkers out of 4 gateways, so if you have a partner or two that is making air, you may want to consider massing Marauders to simply combat the mass Stalkers while your partner handles anything air-based.

8. Mass Hellions (2 barracks, 2 factories)
Like the Roach’s Lair upgrades, the Hellion unit comes out too late to really be a viable unit in team-based play since most players already move away from light infantry units once the mid-game begins. The Hellion is a Factory based unit that has a flamethrower with pretty good range and excels against light units such as the Zergling, but does not do well against anything else such as Stalkers and enemy buildings. The Factory also allows for an attachment that lets you pump out two Hellions at a time, so it’s possible to mass them. But why would you?

The main reason I would ever go mass Hellions is if I went up against a team consisting of opponents that continue to just mass Zerglings, Zealots, and Marines all the way through the mid-game. Since the Hellion is strong against light armored units, it’s strong against workers as well. Good Terran and Protoss players will wall their choke so you won’t be able to run them into the mineral lines, but you may have success against Zerg if you drive your speedy Hellions into Zerg mineral lines to take out the Drones. But why not just Reaper rush instead of making Hellions to attack your opponents’ mineral lines instead?

Summary of Terran Mid-Game for Team-based Matches
0. Early game draws to a close with a stalemate
1. Decide whether to make Siege Tanks or not – and if not, have a good reason why not.
2. Create required buildings to form your mid-game army
3. Expand
4. Protect expansion
5. Research upgrades
6. Attack!
7. If unsuccessful, read my future article on the Terran End Game

Remember that as Terran, you start the early game by walling off. This buys you the time you need to tech to whatever mid-game strategy that you want to do. On top of that, you are able to scan opponents’ bases if you want to sacrifice some bonus income (from using a M.U.L.E. instead) in order to determine what to mass. Tanks are strong against all early game units. It’s the Immortals and Mutalisks that you need to be more worried about.

Your mid-game as Terran should be to assert ground dominance with tanks and then from there, see if you can win by pushing into your opponents’ bases with them. If it’s not possible, you will have to wait until end-game when you gain the power of Thors or Battlecruisers to give your tanks some massive escorts. Stay tuned for my end-game article to see what to do as Terran if you’ve gone through mid-game and still haven’t won the match yet.

I’ve decided to give in and partake in Leveling Down’s Summer of Starcraft. Not that I haven’t been playing hours and hours of the game (much to my wife’s chagrin), but I wasn’t sure if having six straight articles on Starcraft was what the people wanted. Nevertheless, espion4ge has been focused on multiplayer, so I figured I’d give my single player impressions – especially for those of you considering buying this game that might be a little intimidated by the multiplayer suite. Hit the jump for my impressions!

“Hell, it’s about time!” – The Saga Continues
I’ve been waiting over a decade for the Starcraft story to continue. I know a lot of people don’t care too much about the single player, but I for one have been dying to know what’s transpired since Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, basically took over the entire universe. Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, is the first in a three part trilogy that will tell the story.

Wings of Liberty follows your old buddy Jim Raynor and his buddy Tychus Findlay as they set out to overthrow Arcturus Mengsk, the evil emperor who controls the Terran worlds. Same old same old, right? Not quite. Although you run into a lot of familiar faces, the story introduces some new characters that inject some flavor into the story.

The storyline is standard space saga fare, and most, but not all, of the twists and turns are pretty predictable. Still, it’s a story well worth hearing – one that does a great job resetting the playing field and setting up some killer sequels. I definitely didn’t walk away from the single player campaign disappointed.

“I am here, click me!” – Branched Pathways
The original Starcraft basically had you playing through all of the missions in order. Wings of Liberty introduces a new mechanic – after the initial missions, you are given the choice of branching storylines. There are multiple characters on your ship and each of them has their own unique storyline that you can follow through to the end. A lot of the stories dovetail, but it’s pretty neat how you can choose missions – it makes you feel like the commander of the ship and your army. There is also a short Protoss arc where you get to play as the Protoss, which is a nice diversion.

The other new addition to the gameplay should be familiar to any fan of the Wing Commander series. Between missions, Raynor can travel to different areas of his ship, talking to characters, watching newscasts (they’re pretty funny), and upgrading your units. Each mission you complete earns credits (which doesn’t really make sense if you think about it, but whatever). You can use these credits to buy upgrades for your units or to hire mercenaries that you can use in battle. Again, it gives you the feeling of commanding your troops, especially since you can’t afford all of the available upgrades. Overall, I definitely liked the break in the action that time on the ship gave me, although at times it can break up the action.

“Fight or Flight? Yeah, right” – Varied Gameplay
Compared to the original Starcraft, there are a plethora of mission types in Wings of Liberty. It feels like every single mission is unique. Each battle involves a different scenario, some of which really affect the way you have to play the game. Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting in and out as quickly as possible, at other times you have the time to build up your army and systematically roll through your opponents.

There are a couple of notable missions – there is a secret mission that you can find and play which is a ton of fun. The last Protoss mission is also a blast and a very clever take on a tried and true mission type. You also have missions where you need to move your base multiple times (remember Terran can lift their bases) and there’s even a zombie apocalypse type mission. The gameplay is stellar, even if you don’t care about the story, it’s a lot of fun to see the different things Blizzard throws out you. They did an excellent job of changing the way the game plays without changing too much. I don’t want to spoil too much, but trust me – the campaign is worth it.

“People lose teeth doin’ that” – Achievements
The last thing of note about the single player campaign is the achievements. I know I’ve been trying to kick this achievement habit, but the achievements in Wings of Liberty are downright addicting. Not only do you unlock achievements, but you also unlock portraits that you can add to your profile and use in multiplayer. The achievements definitely affect the way you play the game, but none of them are annoying like kill 200 pigeons or anything like that. It can be pretty difficult, but it feels really rewarding to unlock some of the achievements. Be warned though – they’ll take a lot of time. I probably can’t do half of them, so I’ll just take what I can get.

“The Swarm will consume all” – Parting Thoughts
Even if you’re not interested in the multiplayer, the single player campaign could lock up a good 20 or 30 hours of your life. I literally feel torn between playing single and multiplayer, both are amazing options. For fans of the original story, Wings of Liberty is well worth the wait – too bad we have to wait again for the next installment. For new players to the series, the single player is a great introduction to the different units in the game – just bear in mind that some of the Terran units aren’t available in multiplayer. I love all the new additions and some of the cutscenes are amazing as well. Starcraft, welcome to the 21st century.

Originally I thought that I would fit my 3v3 mid-game strategy writeup for all three races in one entry, but because I have so much to say about each race (and little else to blog about these days), I’ve decided to spread the races out to different entries.

With Protoss being the easiest race for me to play as well as a few buddies interested in learning how to play the Protoss, I decided to write about the Protoss mid-game first. If you’re interested in how to play the Protoss mid-game, take a look!

When Does Mid-Game Begin?
This particular text I will most likely paste into each one of the three races’ mid-game entries since it’s important to know when mid-game has begun. Early game consists of the initial quick rushes, followed by a build-up of initial mineral only and minor gas requiring units: Zealots and Stalkers, Marines and Marauders, and Zerglings and Roaches. Once one side has felt that they have built up enough of this early game force, that side will attack the other. If the attacking side is stronger, they will win the game right then. However, if the attack fails (both sides are even, the defending side has too much defense, etc.), that is when the mid-game begins.

The Primary Characteristics of Mid-Game
Unlike the early game when all three races basically have one conservative build to make it into the mid-game, mid-game is where strategy comes most into play. Early game was all about execution: who could rush the best, who could defend the rush the best, etc. The units were all practically the same.

The first thing you need to be aware of for mid-game is securing an expansion. This is vital because you should have an excess number of workers by this point as well as a need for more gas to start producing more powerful units and upgrades. Therefore, the first order of business once the final attack of early game fails is to expand.

Carrying from where we left off in the Protoss Build
By the end of early game, the Protoss player should have two Gateways, a Cybernetics Core, a Forge, and the ability to make Zealots, Stalkers, and Sentries. I always advocate a double Gateway opener in team games, so I will always assume that you have at least 2 Gateways going into mid-game. Once you get to mid-game, you need to make a decision on what you want to build. Scouting is very important. Starcraft and its sequel is a game of counters, so if you can determine what your opponents are making, you can make the appropriate counter going into mid-game.

Once you get your expansion up (the first thing you should do in mid-game – and make sure you place a few cannons to defend it too!), you have a decision as to what buildings to make next.

I will share the viable Protoss mid-game army compositions available for team-based play, in order of viability (which also correlates to popularity):

1. Mass Stalkers (4 Gateways)
Since you’re already making Stalkers from your two Gateways in the early game, it’s pretty easy to just get 2 more Gateways up and continue massing Stalkers. With the Blink ability researched, Stalkers are beefy anti-air ground units and are actually relatively tough to counter when there’s so many of them. I generally advocate that if you’re in doubt as to what to make, keep building Stalkers.

Many players simply mass Stalkers because there are very few things that actually counter them, and with some players turning to air in the mid game (Mutalisks, Vikings, and Void Rays), mass Stalkers still remain quite strong.

2. Zealots, Stalkers, and Sentries (4 Gateways)
If you simply want a well-rounded army and are unsure what to make but expect to win the game in mid-game, simply making more Gateway units is perfectly reasonable. The Protoss infantry units can be massed and used to win the entire game. While it doesn’t particularly excel versus a particular opponent type, it doesn’t have a real weakness either based on its mixed army.

After you expand, you should create two more Gateways and a Twilight Council in order to research both the Zealot Rush upgrade and the Stalker’s Blink ability. Consider warping in a 2nd or even a 3rd Forge to research multiple upgrades for your ground units at once.

Also, it’s probably worth researching the Warp Gate upgrade at the Cybernetics Core and upgrading all four of your Gateways to Warp Gates so that you can warp your units in at any of your structures on the map (such as a Pylon).

3. Stalkers + Collosi (2 Gateways, 2 Robotics Facilities)
One of the things that Mass Stalkers can have trouble with in an open field is mass Zerglings, mass Hydralisks, and mass Marines. Therefore, some Protoss players opt to build a couple of Robotics Facilities and a Robotics Support Bay in order to create Colossi.

The Colossus unit does devastating damage to light units in mass such as Zerglings and Marines, and are definitely worth considering to counter anything ground based that is unarmored. The Colossus’s main drawback is that it cannot attack air, but air-to-air units can attack it. This is often why Colossi are accompanied by Stalkers – so that the Stalkers can cover any air threats.

4. Stalkers + Immortals (2 Gateways, 2 Robotics Facilities)
This build is very situational, and is actually a counter to opponents that rely on armored units too much. Immortals are interesting units: they take very little damage if they still have shield, and get 20 bonus damage on armored units. Therefore, they are ideally suited to go up against Terran’s Siege Tanks because they do extra damage to the tanks and receive reduced damage from them. Also, their bonus damage allows them to do extra damage against Stalkers, Roaches, and Marauders. You should consider making two Robotics Facilities and Immortals if you suspect that your opponents will be massing any of those heavily armored ground units. I cannot emphasize this enough: Immortals tear apart Stalkers.

5. Void Rays (2 Gateways, 2+ Stargates)
Everyone probably knows about Void Rays by now, and how effective they can be. While some players will skip straight to Void Rays to get them out sooner, a more conservative build order will allow you to make Void Rays without any risk due to a strong ground army up to the point when you want to make Void Rays.

Once the early game comes to a stalemate, you can quickly warp in a couple Stargates, begin cranking out Void Rays, and getting a Fleet Beacon out to research the Void Ray movement speed upgrade. Keep in mind that to use Void Rays effectively, you don’t want to engage enemy units out on the open. Void Rays get beaten by massed anti-air units and Vikings, so their use should be either to assault enemy buildings or as a counter to opponents building capital ships such as the Battlecruiser.

The use of Void Rays should be precision based – moving from base to base and taking out your opponents’ key structures. They should not really be used for fighting smaller infantry anti-air units – a mistake that some newer players make since they think that Void Rays will automatically win the game for them.

6. Zealots and Phoenixes (2 Gateways, 2+ Stargates)
Phoenixes are again a situational unit for the Protoss. With the Blink upgrade, the Protoss Stalker is already a very powerful anti-air unit that makes it tougher to go with Phoenixes.

The primary reason why you may want to go Phoenixes is if your opponent is massing Void Rays, Mutalisks, or Vikings, and you think they can handle guerilla tactics such that your Stalkers cannot ever really engage them. Again, this is very situational and therefore it is very rare for Phoenixes to be made – especially since they cannot attack ground. With all the gas that the Phoenixes take up, you will have an abundance of minerals, so mass those Zealots so you can at least have a ground force as well.

Note, however, that the Phoenix has a very interesting ground unit based ability: it can pick a unit up off the ground, float it in midair while rendering both the unit and itself unable to do anything. Other air units can then engage the suspended enemy unit. Against massed smaller enemies, this ability is not worth it, but against bigger ground units, it can potentially turn the tide.

Higher level Protoss players will opt to make about 8-12 Phoenixes against Zerg players in team games. They are very fast, can go after Overlords, can take on Mutalisks, and hit mineral lines by lifting up drones with their ability and killing them in the air. In fact, I recommend only really making Phoenixes against Zerg, which will then allow you to transition into Carriers for the end game.

7. Dark Templars (4 Gateways)
Dark Templars are cloaked melee-only units that can be warped in from the Gateway after you build a Twilight Council and a Dark Obelisk. They don’t have a ton of life, but do very good damage. However, because the unit is cloaked, these guys are more like a “hail mary” type of unit that should only be used once because once the opponent knows you have Dark Templars, they will pursue detection and the time of your use for Dark Templars will end.

Some players like to make a couple Dark Templars and send them to an opponent that doesn’t have detection at their mineral line. But against good players, you can’t really expect them not to have detection, so I prefer to just power Dark Templars and use them on the battlefield. I like going 4 Gateways, making about 10 Dark Templars, and using them on the mid-game battle. They are very effective when brought to the field, and can cut through dozens of the opponents’ units before they can do anything about them. But once they do, consider the Dark Templars’ time over. Hopefully they made enough of a difference that you won the mid-game skirmish and were able to push your army into the opponents’ bases.

The Summary of Tasks for the Protoss Mid-Game
0. Early Game Draws to a Close with a Stalemate
1. Continue to make units
2. Expand
3. Protect Expansion with defensive structure(s)
4. Scout & coordinate with partners to decide on who is making what
5. Pick an army type from the 7 I have mentioned above
6. Create required buildings and pump units to form your mid-game army
7. Research upgrades
8. Attack!

If your side’s army and coordination is better than your opponents, it is possible that you will win the game after step 8. If the mid game battle turns into another stalemate, you will next enter the End Game – something I will discuss in a future entry.

In previous entries, I have advocated how important it is to rush or prepare to be rushed in team-based games. I will continue to reiterate that here that if you want to get good at Starcraft II in 3v3, there’s actually a pretty standard defensive build with each race that you should follow for the most conservative opening in 3v3. I’m not a 1v1 player, so some of the more hardcore strategies that apply there don’t necessarily work here, but if you want to get good at 3v3, this is the right place to begin reading. For today’s entry, I will focus on the early game and specifically, what you should build if you want to go with the tried and true.

[Updated 8/30/2010 with revised Protoss opening]

First off, let me discuss a couple preface tips before getting into the specific builds for each race:

Cute Stuff Only Works Against Weaker Opponents
There are some builds out there that I would call “cute”. They are considered “all in” type strategies that will cause your team to lose the match in early game because you don’t have an army to go against the 3 opponents’ armies that are attacking you or one of your partners in the early game.

Examples of cute stuff are skipping infantry units as Terran and quick teching right to Banshees (the cloaked air-to-ground helicopters) or skipping Gateway units as Protoss just so you can mass Void Rays. These types of tactics work against weaker opponents, but against stronger ones that actually build defensive structures on their mineral lines, it means your quick tech did not provide your team an advantage if for some reason or another your team was able to withstand the rush from your opponents.

Of course, sometimes these types of strategies work, but if you plan on making it to the big leagues, you should consider playing more conservatively. What does that mean? Allow me to get into the details below.

Major Early Game Threats
There are three major early game threats for team-based games: the 9-pool Zergling rush, which is the fastest assault on your base (consisting of 6 Zerglings), the double-Gateway Zealot rush, a slower, yet more deadly attack (consisting of 4 Zealots), and Terran’s Reaper Rush (2 quick Reapers that jump a cliff to go after your workers before you can make ranged units).

Conservative Terran Early Game
What does it mean to play more conservatively as Terran? That basically means, no early gas. As Terran, your wall-in is the most effective of the three races, so you can potentially cheat to make a Refinery after one Barracks if you spawn on a map with a small enough ramp that two Barracks aren’t needed to completely wall yourself in.

But I am going to assume that you are spawning on a map that has a ramp that would require something like 1 barracks and 3-4 supply depots to wall yourself. Good luck getting all of those up in time before the initial Zergling/Zealot rush and only 1 Marine pumping out at a time from your single Barracks all because you just wanted gas earlier.

In any case, let’s take it back a notch. What is a wall-in anyway? If you note in Starcraft 2, Terran’s supply depots can be raised or lowered and their unit producing buildings can be lifted into the air. Completely blocking your choke with supply depots and barracks at the beginning of the game prevents the quick Zerglings and Zealots from rushing into your base and overwhelming your 2 marines. The wall allows your marines to sit behind the depots and fire upon the quick Zerglings and Zealots. Then when you are ready to attack, you simply lower your depots to leave your base. Having a gate works wonders for Terran in the early game. Therefore, you should always wall.

My recommended early game build is the following: Supply Depot, Barracks, Barracks, Supply Depot, Refinery, Refinery. The combination of Supply Depots and Barracks should be enough to completely block your entrance. It should not matter that you cannot build the attachments to your Barracks in the early game. Those 4 buildings are meant to stop any early Zergling or Zealot attack as you continue to pump Marines from both barracks. Once you start harvesting gas and actually have enough to build the attachments, you can lift your barracks up and fly them a bit further away from the choke. Note that the wall-in is primarily to deter the early game rush. At that time, once the Barracks have been moved back, you can build supply depots at the choke if you still want to feel comfortable about closing off your entrance.

Both refineries should pretty much go up at about the same time, and around then, you should also stop SCV production in order to do the Orbital Command Center upgrade (you should be around 18 or so food). After the Orbital Command Center is upgraded, the first thing you should do is create a M.U.L.E. These orange workers are temporary, but harvest at a much faster rate than the SCVs so you should always be using the 50 mana to create them to give your minerals a major boost. In Starcraft 2, it is commonly accepted that you should not be using the scan, because you could be calling a M.U.L.E. down instead to get more minerals. Continue to pump SCVs until you start building your expansion. This way, you can ferry half of your SCVs from your main to your expansion after it is built.

With regards to the attachments to your Barracks, I recommend building one of each type of attachment on the two barracks. Then you can pump out Marines from one and Marauders from the other. Continue to pump them out and research Stim Pack. Also build a bunker at your mineral line as early as you can in case a Terran opponent is going to try to hit you with Reapers. You do not need to fill the bunker with 4 marines – 1-2 is generally enough to handle the Reaper rush (consider filling it later though to handle drops, Mutalisk harassment, or an early Void Ray). At about the time when you have a good number of Marines and Marauders, your team will either be ready to attack or be attacked. Carry on with your army and once that bloodbath is over, you have made it into the mid-game as Terran!

Major Points of a Conservative Terran Early Game Build:
- Wall-In with Supply Depots and Barracks (to defend Zergling/Zealot Rush)
- Two Barracks Before Any Refineries (to defend Zergling/Zealot Rush)
- Put marines in a bunker at Your Mineral Line Early (to defend against Reaper Rush)
- Upgrade your Command Center to an Orbital Command Center and build M.U.L.E.s.

Conservative Protoss Early Game
The conservative Protoss early game is also very similar to the Terran conservative early game: walling in, two unit producers before any gas, and putting a defensive structure at your mineral line.

My recommended build is: Pylon at your choke, followed by two Gateways at the choke. Ensure that there is a 1 gap space for your units to get through. What you are going to do with your Protoss wall-in is use a Zealot to close that wall by moving him to the spot and telling it to hold position. The Zealot will function as your “gate” against an early Zergling or Zealot rush. Once the initial rush stage is over, your Zealots and Stalkers can easily fit through that 1 unit space to exit your base when necessary.

Anyway, back to the build. After your second Gateway, you want to build a pylon next near your Nexus, followed by a Cybernetics Core and then an Assimilator. It’s your choice whether you want to build a second Assimilator or not at that time, but after the first Assimilator goes up, you will want to get a Forge out along with a Pylon behind your mineral line. All this time, you are pumping Zealots from both Gateways. As soon as the Assimilator completes, harvest gas and when the Forge warps in, create a Photon Cannon behind your mineral line and a second one by the pylon near your Nexus to get good coverage. By now you should also have enough gas to start warping in Stalkers, so switch to them. At this point you should have about 6 Zealots, and then you can just keep pumping out Stalkers after that.

If you get rushed, your Zealot at the choke will hold but if for some reason he doesn’t and the Zerglings slip through (this happens if you do not tell your Zealot to hold position at the choke spot), no problem – two more Zealots should be warping in on both of your Gateways, so they can go and dispatch the Zerglings easily.

With regards to workers – make sure you continue to pump out probes all the way until you expand. That way, once you expand, you can ferry half your Probes to the new expansion as soon as it warps in. Also make sure you consistently use the Chrono Boost ability of your Nexus on your Nexus to pump out Probes faster.

Unlike Terran who has to use the conservative build option to simply survive the early game rushes, the Protoss player makes several Zealots to survive the rushes but then can turn his Zealots into a rush himself. Once you’ve created several Zealots and you have a cannon protecting your mineral line, you can send those Zealots at your opponent to see how they handled their early game. If you come across another Protoss player who decided to go early gas, your Zealots will overwhelm his one Stalker.

In any case, as your Zealots defend or attack the opponent, you should keep pumping Stalkers so by the end of early game, you should have a good mix of Zealots and Stalkers to attack or defend with. This takes you into midgame.

Major Points of a Conservative Protoss Early Game Build:
- Wall-in with a Pylon, 2 Gateways, and a Zealot set to “Hold Position”. (to defend Zergling/Zealot Rush)
- Two Gateways Before Any Assimilators (to defend Zergling/Zealot Rush)
- Use Chrono Boost to keep making Probes
- Get a cannon on your mineral line early (to defend against Reaper Rush)

I have revised my Protoss 3v3 opener due to the amount of grief Terran players can give to a Protoss player that goes 2 Gateways early. The previous Protoss opener I wrote about works very well against Zerg and Protoss, but Terran will make things very difficult for that build due to two units: the Reaper and the Marine. Both of these units are ranged, and therefore, if you were to mass Zealots early on, the right micro from those ranged units would be very difficult for you to handle. Therefore, it is imperative that you get Stalkers. This new opening can handle the Terran reaper rush, and also works fine with the initial Zerg and Protoss rushes as well.

My new recommended Protoss opening for 3v3 is actually the AI’s Protoss opening: Pylon,1 Gateway, Cybernetics Core & Assimilator, Pylon, second Gateway. I don’t recommend the wall-in choke any more, since many of the platforms are so large that your Gateways up front could be powered down with the loss of a Pylon and your probes will be too far to help. Instead, I recommended as Protoss to build a very tight base with your Gateways near your mineral line and Nexus. When the first Gateway is up, you should be able to pump out two Zealots before you can start making Stalkers. Those two Zealots should be enough to handle any initial Zergling or Zealot rush. If you need help, your Probes are right there and can help since your Gateways are now close to your mineral line.

Your priority in a defensive 3v3 Protoss opener is to get 1 Stalker out to handle any Reapers that show up, but never neglect making a couple Zealots first in case of early Zerglings. Once you have a few Stalkers out and the initial rush period is over, rally your Gateway units to the ramp, make a couple Pylons and maybe a cannon at your ramp so that you can close the choke and detect for cloaked units. Don’t forget to also make at least a cannon or two at your mineral line for the mid-game drops/air harassment.

Major Points of a Conservative Protoss Early Game Build:
- 1 Gateway, and 2 Zealots (to defend Zergling/Zealot Rush)
- Cybernetics Core and Assimilator as soon as you can after Gateway warps in (to make Stalkers to defend against Terran Reaper rush or Marine rush)
- Get Stalkers and a second Gateway up Cybernetics and Assimilator are up
- Use Chrono Boost to keep making Probes
- Get a cannon on your mineral line by the end of early game (to defend against mid-game air harassment or drops)

Conservative Zerg Early Game
Zerg is very different than Terran or Protoss, and therefore a conservative build for the Zerg player is not quite the same. For one thing, the Zerg cannot wall-in. However, there is a conservative initial build that will prevent you from becoming a team liability in the early game if you do the following.

The first thing you should build as you get close to your initial food supply is a Spawning Pool. Do not build an Overlord before that Spawning Pool. Once the Spawning Pool has started, next build an Overlord, and then a Drone to bring you back to the 10 food cap. As the Spawning Pool builds, you have a decision to make: Zergling rush or not? If you Zergling rush, you will hurt your economy but you have a chance to attack an unwary opponent early. If you do not Zergling rush, you can harvest resources faster to have a stronger army earlier.

I personally used to use make Zerglings (called a 9pool rush), but I’ve since stopped due to the fact that I’m playing better opponents these days and I don’t want to take the risk of hurting my economy because my opponent(s) can easily withstand the 9pool rush. If you want to 9pool, use 1 Larvae for a drone and you should have 3 Larvae as soon as the Spawning Pool is complete. Once it is complete, create the 6 Zerglings and build a Queen. (You should build a Queen at every one of your Hatcheries because she has the ability to not only heal your buildings, but can spawn more Larvae at the Hatchery, and hold out against a Reaper rush) Once your Zerglings are out, hit an opponent’s base, but at the same time, make a Spine Crawler in front of your Hatchery to protect your base from an offensive Zerg Spine Crawler rush (where the Zerg opponent creates a Spine Crawler on your creep within range of your Hatchery). If the 6 Zerglings are successful, you can decide at that time to make 12 more Zerglings (sacrificing economy) to finish off the opponent, or make 6 Drones instead if you don’t want to push the attack any further.

If you don’t want to rush with Zerg, continue to build Drones as the Spawning Pool is building, and make a Queen when the Spawning Pool is done. As soon as you can, make sure to build at least 1 Spine Crawler in front of your Hatchery. Your Spine Crawler needs to be built before you build an Extractor. This is true whether you decide to rush or not. Since Zerg cannot wall-in, they must have at least 1 static defense structure to combat the early rush. This static defense structure will protect you against a Zergling rush and a Spine Crawler rush. The Queen will protect your mineral line from a Reaper Rush that comes a bit later, but consider a second Spine Crawler for your mineral line for extra security.

Regardless of whether you rush or not, after the first Spine Crawler is out, you can build Extractors on one or both gas, and at that point, decide whether you want to mass Zerglings and get the Speed upgrade for them or to make a Roach Warren and mass Roaches. As you mass this army of Speedlings or Roaches, make another Spine Crawler if you feel you will be targeted in a rush (Zerg often is due to the lack of a wall), upgrade to Lair and consider expanding to take you into the mid-game.

Major Points of a Conservative Zerg Early Game Build:
- Make a Spawning Pool Before an Overlord
- Make a Spine Crawler in front of your Hatchery as soon as your Spawning Pool completes
- Make a Queen whenever you can no longer make drones and have 150 minerals.
- Rushing with Zerglings is optional
- Make a second Spine Crawler to fortify your wall-less base more if you expect to be the target of a rush (and consider putting it at your mineral line)
- Get the Zergling speed upgrade and make a lot of Zerglings or build Roaches to round out your Zerg early game army

Next Time: Mid Game Strategies for Team Based Starcraft II Matches
Hopefully you’ve learned from reading this how to not only survive, but excel in the early game for each of the three races. I’ve gotten Zerg partners that like to build gas early and skip Spine Crawlers altogether, Protoss partners that make just 1 Gateway and early gas to skip to Stalkers or Void Rays, and Terran players who want to mass Marauders only so they skip making Marines early. These major “skips” set the player up for potential failure in the early game. Don’t let player be you! Once you learn these defensive openers, you will most likely not be a liability in the early game, and from there you can decide if you want to continue opening 3v3 games with these traditional conservative builds, or to take on more aggressive offensive minded openers. It’s really up to you.

Stay tuned for my next Starcraft II strategy article that discusses how to handle the mid-game with each of the three races for team-based matches.