Starcraft Trainer

 I've been playing video games longer than I care to tell you about. Probably too long, as a matter of fact. I couldn't even begin to tally up the number of hours (or money) I've spent on gaming over the last - well - a lot of years. But games are fun and a bit addictive and provide a great escape from the everyday without too much in the way of side effects. Sure, there are those who think that games make people more likely to go on mass murdering sprees and all sorts of other nonsense, and there are probably much better ways to spend your time, like with a good book, but overall I think that's it's a pretty innocuous pastime. But with every new generation of games there are those looking for an unfair advantage, and starcraft trainers are no different.

I went through a stage like that myself actually. Looking up cheat codes and what not on the old original nintendo. It was a lot harder to do in those days to be sure, but the internet has changed all that in a huge way. Now cheat codes and hacks and cracks are available all over the internet at virtually a moment's notice. One quick search and you can figure out how to cheat in way that basically make you a godlike entity in the game. A virtual NPC if you will. Able to easily beat what you once found almost impossible, or maybe even completely impossible to do. But after a year or so of using cheat codes back in the day I quit, for good.

It turns out that using cheats makes the game not a game anymore, but rather a rush to the end. And the end of cheating leaves you with a bit of an unsatisfied feeling. Actually it's completely unsatisfying. There is no challenge to a game if you hack it. That's what made those old huge console games so much fun for so long. They only had three buttons and there was no way around having to play the game against the rules. I'll never forget a friend and I finally beating Rastan (yeah I'm old). We whooped and yelled and jumped around like we had actually done something worth yelling about. But it was fun - playing with cheats and beating the game? Not fun at all in the end.

So when it comes to starcraft trainers you can be sure that they will always be around. But really, what's the point in using a trainer to simply finish the game? You'll rocket through the campaign that you paid good money for and then you'll just be done - and bored more than likely. It's a complete waste of time and has some other negative potential consequences as well.

Many trainer programs are actually viruses or spyware in disguise. No elite programmer is going to sit down and spend several hundred hours hacking a game that's just going to change in a few months without some kind of motivation. Typically that motivation is money. But sometimes it takes the form of simple punkness. THey can get a cheap thrill knowing that they are crashing the computer of every person silly enough to load their little subversive program - a program that probably doesn't do anything to starcraft at all.

So in the end, it's my opinion that starcraft trainers and cheats and hacks in general are just dumb. Why pay money for something and then not get anything out of it? It seems a little weird to me, but only because I already know that I've tried cheating and it was a whole lot less fun than doing it the good old fashioned way - and just beating the game outright all by myself. It's a whole lot more fun and satisfying to win.

Starcraft 2 Protoss Strategy part 2

We looked at a few of the things you're going to have to keep in mind when it comes to starcraft 2 protoss gameplay in part 1. Now let's look a bit more precisely at builds so that you have an better idea of what starcraft 2 protoss gameplay looks like from the inside. Of course, we just don't have enough space here to give you a complete strategy, but there are some excellent guides available to give you all the nitty gritty details.

The nice thing about protoss if you like to micro is that the standard opener is pretty simple to handle on a macro level. With fewer decisions to make everything becomes how you use your smaller unit numbers to defeat your enemy who is probably massing lots of bad guys against you (especially zerg). So the standard opener goes like this:

Probe, Probe, Probe -> Build Pylon

Chrono Nexus, Probe, Probe

10-12 supply, Gateway

That's pretty much all there is to it. Once your gateway is up all that's really left is tactical decisions based on expanding and unit choices or upgrades to counter what your opponent is doing. Effective scouting is a must for protoss strategies of any kind to work well. You have to be able to see what your opponent is up to and try to move before he does so that you have time to get your (typically) slower units into play against his weaker (normally) forces and stomp them out.

One build that will get you shooting up the competition ladders is called a 4 gate push. You won't see it all that much in platinum and diamond leagues, because the players are good enough to know how to stop it with highly coordinated and precisely executed micro, but for anyone who is short of very very good, it's really hard to stop a protoss player who is good at a 4 gate push.

Start just like we outlined before and then go for a cybernetics core. Build one assimilator after that and warp gate tech research as soon as the core is done. Then build a few more probes while the assimilator is finishing and get them working. At 150 minerals after this grab 3 gateways and after that it's just zealots, stalkers and 2 or 3 sentries while the warp gate tech is finishing up. By the time you can use the warp gates you have a nice little army to send through it. This whole time you need to be scouting and get a pylon close to to his main base while not letting him find your extra gateways. If you can get a gate close to both the natural and an expansion you've pretty much won. Pop through one gate and hammer away for a bit, then when you start taking to much of a beating just hop through to the other base and wipe it out.

And that's kind of what protoss strategy is all about. With shields you can use the warp gates to get right up close to an enemy base, run in and fire away while your shields hold and then warp to another location. He will be pulling troops to fight off your attack in one spot, but before he can do much more than break through your shields you can be in another spot where there are little to no troops or reinforcements. It takes a lot of good micro to do this, but if you get it down it's hard to stop.

Starcraft 2 Strategies part 2

The rest of multitasking is execution speed and tactical triage. before you can even think about doing any of this your macro has got to be perfect every single time and completely second nature. You can't do five things at once if you can't do one thing well. Start with great macro and you're more than halfway there - to victory. The next part is perpetual motion through high execution speed.

If you watch matches between good players you'll notice that there is always a LOT going on. There is rarely a time when a unit that is not designed for static defense isn't moving. But if you watch weaker player's games you'll notice things like units sitting around a lot doing nothing, buildings not churning out more units, scouts not scouting. The difference between pros and nubs is how many plates they can keep spinning at once, and how many locations on the map they can keep in constant motion. The micro of all that stuff isn't quite as important as all the stuff moving itself.

Which brings us to tactical triage. You can't ever fall into the trap of watching a battle unless it requires macro in order to turn the tide of the match. And before you enter a battle like that you better make damn sure that you have two or three other attacks already in motion to put pressure on somewhere else in your opponent's bases. Idle troops on one side of the map while you try to win with micro just isn't nearly as good as doing a little bit of micro here and there and keeping all of your troops in perpetual motion. Units should never sit still, even if they are not attacking anything. If anything just to keep your enemy guessing about what the heck you're doing moving all your chess pieces around the board.

If you know what to watch and what to ignore you are well on your way to good tactical triage. Get that little cluster of zerglings moving and never let them stop. It really is like spinning plates. If you are zerg against terran and are relying on your arbiter you need ot be able to get into action before he gets emp'd. That's execution speed and triage. But even if you lose that arbiter you might still be able to win if you've got three other small attack forces already in motion that will hit them where they are not looking and not prepared. The more things you give your opponent to react to, the better chance you have of keeping them playing defense while you get to go on the offensive.

They say defense wins championships, but that's bull. At least in starcraft. In order to win consistently in starcraft 2 you have to keep the pressure up and get ahead of your opponent's economy and unit resources. That means taking things out as often and as widespread as you can. Just a worker here and there along with a marine or two and maybe a building - it all adds up over the course of a match. If you can kill that worker or three in one spot while you also take out a small expeditionary force over there and a building at their expansion - well, the game is practically in the bag because you were able to multitask three attacks at once without dropping the ball on your macro.