Secret StarCraft Game Play Tips/Tricks

Advanced tips and tricks to improve your game and dominate the opponent(s) in StarCraft. Written by StarCraft professionals and leaders in the game.

False Surrender Trick

If you have an expansion, and one of your base’s are under attack, press enter, and type in “has left the game” (make sure you have chat on “send to all”), but don’t send it yet! Pause the game and then send the message. People will think you have surrendered! This looks more realistic than the Fake Elimination Trick because the color of the fonts are all the same when the game is paused! I actually got fooled by this trick before!


Nuke Defense Trick - Submitted by Jesse Shuck

If a small group of your units have been chosen for a targeted nuke, and you can’t see where it’s coming from, simply use statis field with an arbiter and the covered units won’t even be scratched.


“Invisible” Supply Depot - Submitted by Snakeab

If you are a newbie or you know you’re gonna lose, and your terran…

When you get money to spare send an SCV behind a mineral patch and build a supply depot right when he starts building it, click on the SCV (not the supply depot) and press cancel. It will almost look as if it weren't there. Then when you lose all your buildings (except the supply depot), your opponent will think the game is messed up and leave. You should probably build a few all around the map. Try to build one behind your enemies minerals.


“Invincible” Tank Glitch (Does not work with 1.08!)

This trick is used to make your siege tank have the hit points of a building! To do this, first hotkey a tank, and put it next to a building that is capable of flying. Lift off the building, and land it. While it’s landing, get your tank, move it under the landing building, and siege it. You must do this VERY QUICKLY. The tank will now have the life of the building and be invincible to melee units! With practice, you can get 5+ tanks hiding under 1 building!


Critter Trick

A VERY easy and cheap way to see your opponent’s base!

This is very simple to do…all it requires is a map with critters (preferably Kakarus because they fly) and you being Zerg. Get a Queen with 75 energy and look for a critter. Parasite the thing, and you can see what it sees! Once the critter walks (or flies) into your opponent’s base, enjoy the view! This is really cool because your opponent will not automatically attack the critter! This is because it’s a neutral unit! This neat little trick will help A LOT in a game.

Note: This will not work very well against comps because comps always kill critters. But most humans just ignore them!


Tips from the Pros:

- ALWAYS expand! Do not be afraid to!

- Against comp, ALWAYS build defense.

- Against human in a no rush game, do not build tower or choke point defense. It wastes time, money, food, and it’s not needed. Just have anti-air detection towers (eg. Missile Turrets) scattered around your base.

- When attacking, ALWAYS leave units behind in your base.

- When attacking, go for the workers, supplies, and key production buildings.

- As Zerg, build Nydus Canals in your expansions. This allows quick back-up against attacks.

- NEVER have more than 2 workers per mineral field, and 4 workers per geyser.

- Attacking with a mix of units is more effective than attacking with bunches of the same unit.

- Combining spells with attacks can greatly increase your chance of winning a battle.

- Go Overlord hunting with Devourers, Corsairs, and Valkyries. Zerg players often put all their Overlords in the back of their bases, near their primary resource area.

- Cloaked units work well against humans early in the game.

- As Terrans, ALWAYS build a comsat on your first Command Center; NEVER a Nuclear Silo.

- Against Zerg, don’t bother attacking Larva or Eggs. Attack eggs only if you have strong units.

- Trick your opponents by doing a small attack with air, and after he/she spends tons of money on anti-air, do a massive ground attack, or vise-versa.

- As Terran, don’t nuke buildings unless you have more than one nuke available. If you only have one, go for units (nuking a bunch of burrowed units kicks pompis!).

- When playing big money maps, always do frequent attacks on your opponent to wear him down.

- Attacking 1 unit at a time is a lot more effective then having all your units attack different things. To do this, use the shift key. Hold down shift while issuing commands, and your units will finish each one before moving on to the next.

- A very cheap, but useful, tactic is to parasite critters (especially kakarus because they fly). The critter will walk around the whole map for you, and when near enemy defense, it will not get attacked!