Yesterday I played my second game of Starcraft. Both this and my first game were 3 player games, and in both of the games all three factions were represented. Whereas last time I was the green Zerg (Overmind), this time I chose the yellow Protoss faction.

The Protagonists
Adam: Tassadar [Yellow Protoss]
Paul: Jim Raynor [Blue Terran]
Don: Queen of Blades [Purple Zerg]

While both Paul and I had a single game of previous experience under our belts, it took a while to get Don up to speed. But before too long he was up and running.

To start, I had pretty much the best planet. It had a single territory/area of 2 control points, and 4 total areas. I only had two exits from it, a z-axis that Don had set up from a planet between all 3 of our homeworlds, and a neutral planet between Paul and me.

I *foolishly* chose to to try establish a foothold on the central planet on my first turn. I was able to get in there before Don, and hence was the "defender", trying to leverage the Protoss defensive advantage. Unfortunately, he came in and whipped my butt, killing both my guys. So now I was left with only 2 guys on my main planet, and the next turn was pretty much building up my forces to try and keep my homeworld safe from Don's advances.

Paul, on the other hand, was starting to get into it with Don. He'd explored into a neutral planet that only he had access to, and captured a control point there. As far as CPs were going, we were each getting 2 per turn.

I built a gold order token early on, and started trying to get air superiority. Man, are those Protoss units expensive compared to the Zergs! I was getting some techs, but they weren't very useful.

Don was building up his forces and building all different kinds of buildings, trying to get a large unit build limit. Both he and Paul were soon maxing their workers, while I had a dearth of workers. I found that I just barely had enough resources to get enough protection out, but found myself lacking resources to build more workers!

Lesson: Get workers to feed the build machine
Lesson: Get bases to get resources to get workers to feed the build machine.

It's like this: First you get the bases, then you get the resources, then you get the workers. Power and women come later.

I don't think Protoss need very many "build extra units" orders. I mean, with a single gold build order you can build 3, and you're doing well if you can afford to build them all (amongst workers, buildings, modules, and tech upgrades)! So what are you supposed to use all those module spaces for? I figure gold order tokens.

As the game ran on, I made a number of other mistakes. Chief amongst them was not keeping track of how many cards were left in the stack. I think we'll start making the second event stage cards perpendicular to the first and third. That way you'll get a visual idea of when the special victory conditions will start popping up.

So I had this planet in between Paul and me, and it was flush with resoruces. A 3 and a couple of 2s, I think. No control points on it. Nobody was going after it, not even me, until I realised that I was hurting for resources.

Of course, Paul started to think "I need to control 6 resource territories to win the game" and he started to move in and expand in there. What I should have done early on is build a base there and expanded so he couldn't just walk in without a fight, and let him and Don have their cock-fight over on the central planet. Don, even as Zerg, can't wage war on two fronts at once all that successfully.

It seemed like the game end snuck up on us. Don had build up a pretty massive force over in his corner of the universe, and Paul had like 3 Battle Cruisers sitting on his home planet. Don could have come at me via the z-axis, but he saw that Paul was going to win via special victory condition and chose not to weaken himself like that. Then, when we saw that Paul's victory was inevitable, we just passed on the fighting, let the round end, and conceded victory gracefully to Paul (well, maybe not that *that* gracefully).

I think I'm beginning to understand the game a little more. At least this time I didn't screw up my order placements! I mean, sure, I screwed them up, but at least I *knew* I screwed them up! Last time I was like "Who put my order token there?!".

I'm looking forward to playing again. I want to try Terran =)