racofer said:
Play a week or two at battle.net in versus matches. Even if you don't win any of them, you will learn how to properly manage resources and once you go back to the campaign it will be easy as cake.
Nah, that's not true. I played quite a lot on BN and it's a completely different pair of shoes. Much more twitchy, no time for any finesse unless you play with friends. It isn't about who's more clever, it's only about who's faster and who can dish out his swarm of choice fastest.
Mickey, read a couple of strategy guides. Resources management and base building are things that usually require most optimisation. Attach important buildings to hotkeys and use them to produce units or quickly center on your base. Use your units' special abilities. Think of a strategy when starting a map and stick to it. One of AI's flaws is that it always loses in a war of attrition, so if you build and defend your base correctly and bring to a point that the AI's exhausted its resource sites, you win.
Build more recruitment structures! That's really one of the most important things in this game. People make a common error of building one copy of everything, eg. one barracks, one factory etc. Wrong. If you have the resources build three barracks and two factories. This is especially important for the Protoss, as everything goes slow for them, buildings warp in slow, units recruit slow and are rather slow themselves.
When playing protoss remember to have a couple of arbiters handy to be able to cloak your forces. Stick one in your base to be able to beam your army back if they're in a losing position. Always remember that the buildings construct themselves, don't leave that probe there, assign other duties to it. Protoss turrets are really good, but always have a couple of units to reinforce them. The high templar storm and corsair disruption can be very helpful, get some of these.
Playing protoss vs the AI is really easy once you get the dark archon. Use mind control and have fun. Try to get in control of a zerg drone or terran SCV and you can build a completely functional base, and you get another 200 of food limit for your new minions. This means that you're now in position to deliver very serious whopping. Don't count on it when playing against even an average-skilled human. You've got to be very lucky to pull it out then.
Both the terrans and the zerg can munch you in the beginning if they play good. Concentrate on defence at the beginning, get two or three warpgates and build a decent zealot army for defence, backed by a couple of photon cannons. There are some risky tactics like zealot or dragoon rush, but they're useless against the AI.
Protoss are really powerful in the late-game. The templarii, the archons, the carriers, the arbiters are all great units. Just look out if you send archons against the terrans, the EMP blast can get them killed in a second. Getting 12 fully mounted carriers with some support units is usually a win against the AI.
When playing terrans, your defensive line vs the AI should consist of bunkers and missile turrets reinforced by goliaths and siege tanks. The science vessels EMP and ghost's lockdown is great against the Protoss, especially the former. Medics are useful against the Zerg, go ahead and make these hydralisks blind and useless. Don't build vultures as they're virtually useless against the AI, their concussion damage does very little against armored targets. When on offence, use these fucking marines. They're cheap, expendable and the stim pack works wonders. Find a weak spot in enemy's defences, get four or five transports and fill them with marines plus a couple of medics. Use the weak spot to fly into the enemy base and get these marines out, and get them drugged ASAP. Use them to destroy something strategic and to soften the defences. When upgraded and drugged these guys pack quite a punch. Don't bother with firebats.
When making a serious assault, your weapons of choice should be siege tanks, goliaths and battlecruisers, plus some marines to serve as cannon fodder. If your enemy has serious airpower, build valks, they're great against anything that flies and has lots of friends. Goliaths will provide cover for the BC's, siege tanks will blast away land forces as they engage the marines. BC's generally rule and these yamato guns will be priceless to destroy fortifications. Get a science vessel or use comscan station if you think that you may be imperiled with invisible units.
When playing the zerg, use the power of the swarm. Zerglings can be damn great when you upgrade them, and Hydralisks are in my opinion units with the best price to quality ratio in the game. For an attacking force use upgraded zerglings, hydralisks, mutalisks, guardians, whatever really, just make lots of it. Get three hatcheries at least, try to make some close to the enemy base. When attacking set a rally point on the enemy base and swarm zerglings. You'll be delighted when you see that wave, just make sure that you've got enough firepower on the front to protect them from ranged units, especially the siege tanks. For the defence... Geez, you're supposed to attack with the zerg. Zerg suck on defence, really. However, in the campaign you often have to defend yourself, so use these upgraded colonies and a stationery hydralisk base. Lurkers can be useful but don't count on them too much. Get four or five queens when playing against terrans, you'll be thankful that you did. Also useful against the protoss. Also useful when attacking. Actually, spawn broodlings ability is always useful, use the queens wisely and you can wreak some major havoc. Ensnare is also very cool, beside slowing your enemies it also reveals hidden units, I prefer to use queens instead of overlords for detection purposes. Parasites are useful against humans, but hardly so against the AI, though you will sometimes appreciate the fact that you know when you're going to be attacked. Guardians are cool for the defence. Couple mutalisks with devourers to mince any dangerous air force, devourers leave the corrosive acid on targets which reduces their armor and their attack speed. The only zerg unit that's doubtful for me is the ultralisk, you get them late, they're expensive and you have to upgrade them to be able to kick some ass. Better to use hydralisks or zerglings. You can get one or two defilers - dark cloud is good for defence, plague is good to soften up fortifications before an assault. But you don't have to.