The StarCraft Primer for newcomers to the universe
"StarCraft: the Board Game" is a massive, complex game, that rewards you with an excellent gaming experience and tons of replayability. The game will always be challenging. The trick is to make it over the 'hump' of the learning curve, otherwise it just seems overwhelming. This strategy article aims to help new players over that hump, and get them to understand the joy of the game.
Other sources cover the mechanics of the game. Check out the excellent 5-minute FFG video if you need to review them.
This article will take a walkthrough approach. As a new player, you can actually stash it in your pocket and read it incrementally as you progress through your first game.
FACTION SELECTION
StarCraft comes equipped with six factions, two each of the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss race.
Know this: the Protoss is a weak faction on Turn 1, and if you're playing 2-player or there are jerks in your group that would rush a new player, it's best to avoid the Protoss and try the Terran or the Zerg. Those races start with a more forgiving military situation.
WINNING
Each faction comes with its own "Special Victory Condition" (SVC). A SVC is a unique way to win for each faction, and is usually the shortest path to victory.
The game also has a system of victory points, called "conquest points" in StarCraft. First to 15 wins. As it turns out, that is usually a slower path than SVC. However, victory points are also a tiebreaker if multiple players simultaneously fulfill their SVC. So you need to pay close attention to victory points too. Turn 2 is not too soon to go to war over VP!
THE THREE RACES
Races are all fundamentally the same in the way they run their economies, mobilize units, and research technologies.
The Zerg are slime creatures from outer space. They have a host of critters, each more disgusting than the last. They're clearly inspired by the bugs in the "Starship Troopers" movie, as well as the "Alien" movies.
The Terrans are humans, sort of. The Terrans in this universe are 95% male and over-muscled like a balloon animal. They really like large armored vehicles with many moving parts.
The Protoss are an ancient race of angry psychic monks. Due to their low numbers they rely more than the other races on small quantities of expensive, highly capable units, not unlike the US military today.
THE CRUX: UNIT TYPES
Where the races diverge is in their selection of units. Each race has about 8 kinds of combat unit. Each kind has unique strengths, weaknesses, and costs. The game is designed so that no unit is preeminent.
For example, one of the most physically imposing units in the game is the Terran Battlecruiser. It's the big space ship with the hammerhead design. It has extremely high combat values, and additionally its flying property makes it invulnerable to most big ground units. However, each race has at least one cheap counter to the Battlecruiser: The Zerg use a 'spellcaster' unit called the Defiler to slow it down and kill it. The Protoss have so many powerful combinations that breaching the BattleCruiser's armor is no problem, and the Terrans themselves can trap and nuke them with Ghosts.
So if there's no ultimate unit, why even have different units? Well here's the fun of the game: as it proceeds you'll notice what units your opponent is building, and you'll have a chance to react by developing counter units. Like in the example above, if my neighbor the Terran is developing Battlecruisers, that may steer me towards developing some Defilers of my own. Or, I may decide that (s)he's invested too much money into developing future units, and not enough to short-term defense, and immediately attack! Perhaps my inferior-except-for-the-fact-that-they-actually-exist units will overwhelm them before their super-units can be brought online. Which is the right play? Well, that's the game.
So, yeah, there are 24 types of units, and they have a wide array of attributes. If this doesn't sound like something you could learn to love, then StarCraft is Not. Your. Game. But honestly: familiarization with the units happens before you realize it's happening, and after the first game you should find yourself thinking something along the lines of "gee, I'd like to try out Reavers next game".
In the opening only about 12 types of units are reachable. You need merely to concern yourself with the starting unit of each race, and the ones that can be built with a single building. I'll cover the needed facts about them in the "Units You Must Know" section.
But before you worry about that, let's look at ...
THE SETUP
The goal in the planet and z-axis setup is: "lets you and him fight". You want to create flashpoints for your foes, while giving yourself a totally safe economic prosperity backfield which you don't need to worry much about defending. If your opponents are reasonably competent, this will be impossible.
The planets with only 2 navigation routes are natural chokepoints, especially the two-region ones. Other planets will become highways against a determined foe, but 2-route planets should result in stalemates with modest effort on the part of a player on either side.
The other thing to realize is that players placing orders after you will have a substantial advantage if they choose to attack you. If you're first player on the first turn, then effectively everyone is capable to rush you! Try to set yourself up far from everyone (good luck with that) or far away from the players that would do such a thing - every game group has an ahhsole. The Protoss are also unlikely to rush, especially Tassadar.
Placing your base on a Conquest Point or Mineral-3 region is the accepted wisdom in our group.
GOALS FOR TURN 1
You have many goals on the first turn. You may not fulfill all of them, but you need to do as many as feasible.
* Get a Potent New Unit into Production * Score Two Easy Conquest Points * Improve Economy * Maybe Rush Weaklings _____
* Get a Potent New Unit into Production
You absolutely must get a building to allow you to build a new type of unit on the very first turn.
You start with 3-4 units of various types, but only the capacity to build one type of unit, the "basic unit" of your race, either Marines, Zerglings, or Zealots. Your other unit types will eventually get killed, and your basic units only have 4-5 combat cards in the combat deck of 18 cards. [quote]At normal rates of card drawing, you will run out of combat cards for your basic units after only one or two combats. Then your units will get slaughtered and inflict no damage because they'll have to use weak minor combat values on random cards.[/quote]
Thus it is imperative that you get another type of unit into play immediately to take the burden off of your basic units. I'll cover which I think you should go for later in the article.
* Score Two Easy Conquest Points
Two CP is the perfect number to score on turn 1. Getting three or more will make your enemies drop what they're doing and pound you into dust. Getting only one is weak. Getting zero is a disaster. Get two.
* Improve Economy
Your economy can be measured by the number of resources (minerals,gas) you can match with workers. Early on, you're unlikely to have enough minerals to match with workers, and gas is almost worthless early on.
The mineral-rich things you want to buy (and their costs) include: transports(1), workers(1), units, buildings, modules, and expansion bases(2).
To expand your economy, you'll want to either expand to a new world, or buy workers, or both.
Also don't overlook the golden order module - it costs two minerals, and when used in its golden build order form gives you one mineral or one gas for free, so in many ways it's better than a worker.
But the most important thing is not to go overboard. If a neighbor sees me buy 6 workers and a base, they're going to think hard about attacking me and blowing up some of my loosely guarded infrastructure before all that new economic power comes online.
* Maybe Rush Weaklings
The flipside of this is, if you have a temporary military advantage over a neighbor with an economic advantage, you should attack them. You're not being mean to them, you're just playing the hand the game has dealt you. Procrastinating will just compound their economic advantage.
The element of surprise matters. Use it.
_____
By accomplishing as many of these turn 1 goals as possible, you will set a firm foundation for the midgame.
AN ASIDE - ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY
The doubling time of an economy in StarCraft is about one turn. 4 workers become 8 workers in one turn. That's an excellent rate of return, so why doesn't everyone just buy workers and bases?
The answer is two fold:
1) It's a small galaxy, and people will bump into each other after the first doubling.
2) The rate of return for military action is even greater than workers. I can buy 4 more workers or 4 Zerglings for the same price. The workers will 'only' double my economy. The military units will go next door and utterly destroy my neighbor's economy, while safeguarding my modest one.
Units You Must Know
THE TERRANS
The Terrans have perhaps the most dizzying array of units for new players. It's important to quickly cut through the chaff and focus on the key units and technologies.
MARINE: The basic unit for the Terran is the Marine. The marine is exceptional as a basic unit for two reasons. Firstly it can attack air units. However, this is not such a big deal as lone marines will not pierce the armor of the flyers you will encounter in practice. Secondly, it possesses the most useful combat card in the game of StarCraft, the 6/6 Marine/Firebat card, which gives Basic Unit Splash Damage. This card makes you a wily foe capable to slice-n-dice on turn 1. Just don't get cocky, make sure it does its extra damage.
VULTURE: The Vulture is basically a Terran zealot. It costs two minerals, and has similar combat values. There is one important difference: for minimal investment you can get the "Spider Mines" combat cards, which give you some ground splash damage and very respectable combat values of 7/7 and 8/7. This gives you overall 6 combat cards, with zero overlap on the Marine combat cards. Thus, the Vulture is probably best early unit to tech to as Terran.
WRAITH: The wraith is the fighter-style flyer for the Terrans. It is the cheapest fighter-style flyer in the game, and also the weakest. With a tech upgrade it can cloak, but this is overkill early since it's very flying nature will make it safe from most foes. The wraith is an essentially defensive unit. When used adeptly it can last you the entire game, and snipe off the odd weak enemy unit or shrugging off a ground-only unit's attack.
FIREBAT: The Firebat is the burliest Terran infantry unit, pictured centered. It costs twice as many resources as the Marine on its left, it can't attack air, and it only has two non-marine combat cards, both of which are shared with Vultures. Firebats are weak. Unless you have a good reason, don't buy Firebats. As a Terran you will start with a Firebat. This one is right handy, because it has a 6/5 splash card that it shares with the Vulture. That card's too weak for a vulture to actually want to play, but it's perfect for allowing the Firebat to go out in a blaze of glory.
THE ZERG
The Zerg have the simplest tech tree of any race. Their early units are straightforward:
ZERGLING: You have nine of these guys, meaning you can really spam them out. And you should. Once you have a second building, you can crank 4/turn. Your planets should swarm with Zerglings. Otherwise you'll never be able to get the throw weight to pierce Zealot's 8-health shields, or the numbers to overcome the Vulture/Marine splash fandango. As the Zerg numbers are your friend, and Zerglings are their core strength in this regard. Also, when driving zerglings, don't overlook to use the 5/2 minor values on combat cards, as they are in practice not much worse than true Zerglings cards. Horde the "powerful" 6/3 Zergling card to surprise and assassinate a key enemy unit.
HYDRALISK: Built from the same building as the Zergling, the Hydra can attack air and has a slightly stronger attack. However, it only has two non-Zergling combat cards, so it does little to improve your deck's health. Hydras are just a stop on the trek towards Ultralisks, if you ask me.
QUEEN: This is the only tier-1 spellcaster unit, and she's cheap to boot - only 1 gas! However, she's expensive in terms of research orders. Without her techs she's just a balloon hovering on the edge of combat. In your first game I'd probably get a pair of queens and 2-3 of her techs, just to get a feel for the usefulness of spellcasters.
SCROUGE: This is a flying unit that kamikazes into enemy air units trying to kill them. This makes economic sense since a Scrouge only costs 1 gas. Unfortunately, Scrouge only really work well on the attack, since on defense the attacker will not match it up with an opponent it will affect. Still, the Scrouge is flying and thus invulnerable to the early units besides Marines. Note: errata on the Scrouge exists in the StarCraft FAQ, that says you can't play the 0/8 Scrouge cards and then fail to sacrifice the Scrouge. Like the Hydralisk, this unit is just a gimmick on the way to the extremely powerful...
MUTALISK: The Mutalisk is hands down the best fighter-style flyer in the game. Once developed, it's as cheap as the Terran Wraith, and as strong as the Protoss Scout. But the real strength of the Mutalisk is that most of its attacks come with Basic Unit Splash Damage. In fact, it's the only front-line air unit with splash damage in the entire game! Just note that it requires you to build two buildings to purchase it.
THE PROTOSS
The Protoss have a racial advantage of two "+1 health" cards, which for historical reasons players sometimes refer to as "shield" cards. (Not to be confused with "Shield Battery", a tech that only affects battles in Protoss bases.) These cards are difficult for the enemy to plan around, because they can be played on any unit. That's why the Protoss units are so bleeding expensive, because they can be insufferably hard to kill. Enemies should card-count your shield cards and will attack you when you're weakest.
ZEALOT: This 2-mineral fella can have health up to 7, or 8 with a shield card. He is extremely good at taking down Zerglings and Marines while on the attack and well-stocked with combat cards. Even when you have other units to build, a good Protoss player should have about half of his new production devoted to Zealots to keep his numbers up. A low-unit Protoss is in very bad shape, no matter how great his few units are. The Zealot is the backbone of the Protoss Army.
DRAGOON: The Dragoon sits atop the Zealot in the same building. It can attack both air and ground targets, and has a medium attack. The Aldaris faction starts with a dragoon, which gives them the most imposing combat unit on the first move of the game. However, the Dragoon shares two of its combat cards with Zelaots, meaning that building Dragoons only gives you two new cards to your deck. That's not good enough, you'll need something else as well, or you'll run out of cards in heavy combat.
REAVER: The Reaver is an anomaly. It's got the power of a Tier-3 unit like a Battlecruiser or a Siege Tank, but it's all alone in Tier-1. Half its combat cards have ground splash, and there's a cheap tech that gives it a few more with even higher values. With shields it can weather an unsupported Vulture's alpha strike, and do even more splash damage in return. However, the Reaver is so powerful and expensive its only weakness becomes defense. Neighbors will happily burn an order to torch a Reaver they couldn't otherwise counter, whereas a Dragoon or Scout doesn't inspire this sort of preemption. Also, the Reaver has no anti-air attack, which practically dares an opponent to tech to air. So it's incredibly powerful, but has a profound effect on the game play and should not be built without serious thought.
SCOUT: The scout is the Protoss fighter-style air unit. It costs four resources, which is more than everyone else's. What you get are slightly higher combat values and the strong defense of being airborne. Properly cared for a Scout can last you the entire game. Additionally, even though its as costly as a Reaver, it doesn't have the explosive power, and thus is less likely to get preemptively attacked.
THE MIDGAME
The midgame begins on turn 2 and ends when players start to reason aloud about who is about to win this or next turn. The midgame is mainly about acquiring conquest points, acquiring a path to your Special Victory Condition, and keeping your opponents from doing the same.
I can't stress this enough: refer early and often to the SVC section on your player reference card. Don't just think about your own SVC, think about your fellow players'. Note that the Queen of Blades' SVC has a typeo - it's 3 bases not 4.
Don't get greedy. Don't think about any given world as "yours". Go for the conquest points and SVC. If you have to step on some poor sap's throat to do it, well, that just limits their own ability to do stuff, and the better for you, eh?
WINNING THE ENDGAME
The endgame starts when players can openly and accurately crunch the numbers on who is winning in what way "unless we do _____". Some volunteer then foils each schemer's scheme. The game ends when the group can't manage to hammer down all the nails. This happens through blunders as often as through superiority. So think about those danged SVC constantly!
Of course, they can't hammer you down if they don't see your threat. Being sneaky pays.
It almost goes without saying that the endgame is not a good time to be investing in long-term return propositions like more workers or extra buildings. Even units themselves are just a means to an end, throw them away if it helps. Everything goes.
That is the gist of the game. The only thing left are a couple of minor issues, best saved for the pizza break during your first game or later. Remember, these higher tech rules are there to please the StarCraft computer game fanbase, and they (we) would not be pleased unless they were needed to win consistently.
SPELLCASTER TRUTHS & MYTHS
Spellcasters are very powerful, but because their powers can't be folded into pure attack/defense values, they're difficult for new players to quantify and so they get under-used.
They're surprisingly good. Just beware these misconceptions:
* I need a lot of the same type of spellcaster Status: False - Spellcasters are very hard to kill, even in the face of total military disaster. You can't make the deck cycle their cards any faster by buying more units. I usually stop with two units of a caster type.
* I need to research each technology associated with my spellcaster Status: False - Some techs just will not make sense for tactical reasons, and they're not cheap.
* The Ghost is an honorary Spellcaster Status: True - the Terran Ghost can stand on the front line as a weaker marine type unit, but its real strength lies in Lockdown, Nuke, Cloak, and Bunker combinations. As with every spellcaster, be very inquisitive when engaging a player with Ghosts and ask what technologies they've researched.
* I Must Get a Spellcaster to be Competitive Status: False - spellcasters can be skipped, but you will come into conflict with enemy casters and you'll need to know what they're capable of. Just ask. People will gladly tell you. A good time to commit these powers to memory is when people announce what power they're researching.
CARD FLOW
By the midgame you should be cycling your whole combat deck almost every turn. This lets you see the good cards (e.g. Marine 6/6 Basic Splash) more often.
Don't weigh your combat deck down with a lot of carp you'll never use. Like if you start as A. Mengsk faction and rush out and get the "Lockdown" ability for your starting ghost, but you never get another ghost all game and pretty soon your first ghost dies, you'll have two zero-value cards clogging up your card draws for the rest of the game.
THINKING ABOUT SKIRMISHES
It is very helpful to be able to reason about the stats you are facing. When you're attacking this can be the difference between victory and defeat.
You should be able to look up the combat cards available to your foes. On the back of the player reference there are "average combat values" for all the units. Unfortunately, this is not enough information, because by reading it you won't know that, for example, a Protoss Zealot can have a whopping 8 health with their best combat card and a Shield card.
The solution to this is the Steve Evans player aid, which is available as a free download here on boardgame geek. Print it out and bring it with you, as it's easier than memorizing the cards. Spend some time studying it. It's the best player aid I've ever seen for any game, ever.
Now that we know how to lookup worst-case combat values and unit statistics, we can decide how to best arrange our skirmishes.
DETAILED SKIRMISH REASONING EXAMPLE
Suppose I am Terran and am on the attack. I have a Wraith with a 7/7 combat card, and a Vulture with a 8/7 "Spider Mines" card (Ground Splash Damage unless Detector). I face a Reaver, and also a Zealot. How should I arrange my units so that I win the battle?
Your response should be: I need more information. In particular, it's key to know if the Protoss has available the "Observers" tech upgrade, which allows him to grant "Detector" ability to all his front line units. If this is the case, then the Ground Splash Damage of the Vulture's combat card will be cancelled at the cost of one gas.
Assuming they don't have the detector, the optimal play is to match the Vulture against the Zealot, and the Wraith against the Reaver. The Vulture's 8 attack will auto-kill the Zealot and trigger Ground Splash Damage, also killing the Reaver. Additionally, the Wraith will be totally safe, since the Reaver can't attack air, and the Vulture will probably be okay since the Zealot's best attack is 7, and perhaps you'll play a Repair card as well to bump it to 8. This is the best case because you've won the battle, wiped out 6 resources of enemy units, and only lost 0-2 resources worth your own self.
But suppose the Protoss wisely researched Observers and has it ready to go. Your primary target is the Reaver, and you'd be willing to sacrifice the Vulture to get it. Consult the player aid and discover the bad news: unfortunately, the Protoss player probably has an 8-health Reaver card and a Shields card available. If you know one of these conditions is not met - say because they let it slip or they just played them in the last battle and haven't reshuffled this turn, then by all means send the 2-resource Vulture on a suicide mission against the 4-resource Reaver, and let the Wraith mop up the Zealot. Otherwise, limit your losses by sending the Wraith against the Reaver, and your Vulture against the Zealot (again with Repair if you have it). They'll lose the 2-resource Zealot and 1 gas, and you'll lose either nothing or the 2-resource Vulture. Plus you'll have to retreat.
A 'GOTCHA' ON EMPTY REGIONS Because the best event cards give you new troops in a "friendly or empty region", there is no such thing as a safely guarded empty region. New players often make the mistake of not garrisoning their backfield with a single Marine/Zergling/Scrouge/whatever, and are surprised when enemy troops materialize out of thin air. So guard your safe regions too, with a base or a unit. Also, many factions SVCs require you to control regions in order to win. Even though you can take resources from an empty region and you have its resource card, the rules are very clear: you do not control empty regions!
BUT WEASELY, WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER 12 UNIT TYPES? Sorry, I'm not going to discuss them here because it would be overwhelming. You need to be able to learn to read the game materials. When you're ready for some reading, be aware that Boardgame Geek does have some handy references for the spellcasters in the form of images - click the text for an actually readable version.
Keep in mind though that Brood War, just out for a month or so, fixes some of the troubles you mentioned. Like, there's no Marine splash damage card in the deck anymore (which makes Firebats slightly more tempting), the Reaver is now a Tier 2 unit, and Aldarchons got less trivial (because Archons are more expensive and have a lower support value).
Add shiny new units and techs into the mix, and you have one very awesome expansion. Like with TI3, FFG has done a very good job at fixing all the shortcomings in the initial release with the expansion and improving balance a huge lot, making the game seemingly incomplete if the expansion isn't factored in...
Particularly because the expansion has Lurkers. Can't play Starcraft without Lurkers.
Terran Science Vessel
Zerg Queen
Protoss High Templar
Protoss Arbiter
Posted Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:23 am
