How Not to Play StarCraft

People often think that StarCraft is just about winning battles, and forget the human/alien side of the war. They also commit serious faux pases in dealing with their units. To remedy the situation, I’ve compiled the following list of tips to make everyone happier.

• When Terran and Zerg units are first trained/mutated, they don’t have very much experience. Build a few Supply Depots/Creep Colonies, and have your soldiers practice their marksmanship hitting them. Then, have your soldiers fight each other–don’t worry if some die, they must not have been as good, and would’ve dragged you down in battle.
• Protoss units warp in from Aiur, so they’re trained all right, but they don’t really know their way around your planet. Have them tour your base(s) extensively, and then take them on a hike through the countryside. If you skip these steps, they’ll be disoriented, and won’t fight well.
• Wraiths should always move in a squad of six, with a Battlecruiser commanding them. Otherwise they won’t have as good leadership or squad dynamics, and won’t fight as well.
• Vultures are too cocky. Send them to the corner of the map for punishment, and don’t do anything fun with them until they get less cheeky. It might go faster if you periodically punish them with Firebats.
• SCVs/Drones/Probes are way too unappreciated. Give them a 5-minute break every ten minutes–they deserve it!
• Any person (Terran) that dies deserves a funeral.  A funeral should be led by the highest-ranking unit you have, and everyone should attend. Don’t forget that there are three people per tank, and several hundred per Battlecruiser.
• All Zerglings are twins (they come out of the same egg, right?) and one twin should never be separated from the other for more  than sixty seconds until they’ve matured past the age of twenty minutes. You have no idea how traumatic that can be.
• Give Zealots one minute to sharpen their swords before and after battle.
• When you don’t look at idle units, they lie down and rest. At least 8 out of every 24 minutes should be dedicated to sleeping to keep everyone healthy, so make sure you stop the activities of units and scroll the screen away from them for the alloted time. Don’t wake them up prematurely!
• People with parasites/the plague/infestation/irradiation might be contagious. Take them out of battle and out of contact with everyone else, and then bring in several Medics to treat them. It might not look like the Medics are doing much, but they are–they’re just respecting the sick unit’s privacy.
• Dropship captains run out of gum every ten minutes. Take them to a Command Center–they’ll get more.

This may seem demanding, but just remember that the better the morale, the better the performance in a fight. Happy hunting.

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Note to people expecting this to be something Linuxy or Pythonic: I’m sorry. Sometimes I need to entertain myself mindlessly. And StarCraft does work very well under Wine.

Note to people who are very confused about their StarCraft strategies now: Read the title.