I played this extensively back in the day and it rivals Warcraft 3 as the best RTS of all time, at least of the ones I have played. I remember playing the campaigns multiple times and plenty of skirmish matches against the AI, including online with others. I played so much that I used to do weird tactics, like having a fleet of 12 science vessels to spam irradiate. I was never into pvp though there was one time I dueled a guy because he apparently insulted my gf of that time and she demanded satisfaction. He likely never knew since I casually suggested the 1vs1. That was a fun game. I was Zerg on the bottom and he was Protoss on top. I only had 1 base with a mixed force of almost everything. I had 1 or 2 queens set up a spy network on his units with parasite so I knew what he was doing. I knew when and where he took a 2nd base near mine, when he built cannons at the choke to my base, and when he amassed his force to attack. I don't remember exactly how many zerglings and hydras I had; maybe 2 control groups of 12 each, or maybe a bit less. I know I had them separated into 3 or 4 control groups with about 2/3 of them borrowed. Then I had I couple ultras milling around, and 12 mutas plus 12 guardians hidden outside my base to the south. He approached my base with a lone scout, only seen that fraction of my forces and committed his to attack. I waited until they were fully committed before hitting unburrow and sending in the flyers. I absolutely decimated his force. Then I quickly moved everything out to take out his expansion and soon after the main base. I took the expansion for my own and set up a tunnel to move troops faster. There was nothing he could do to recover from the loss of so many troops. My swarm fell over his base and it was game over within a few minutes of his attack. I also played custom maps though the only I specifically remember was an elemental rpg. In that map you controlled a single powerful unit to kill weak units and gain xp to evolve into a more powerful unit. I played it multiple times as every element and liked water the most. I believe it had dragoon but I forget what else. I remember fire started with the firebat and spirit started with dark templar, and I think earth ended with ultralisk. Unfortunately at some point in the early 2000s I loaned my CD to my cousin and never got it back. RIP one of my all time favorite games.

Until recently when I learned the game was free on battlenet. So I got it and played through the campaigns again, absolutely loving it. I had forgotten just how amazing the story, characters and cinematics were. I was also impressed with the level design, especially how often the win condition was not destroying every little thing. That got old fast in Warcraft 2. The Terran campaign had excellent story and world building but it was a little on the easy side and had too much Terran vs Terran. Should have been more play vs high level Zerg and especially Protoss, like a final mission being stuck between 2 Zergs and 2 Protoss. Terran is my least favorite faction of the 3. I loved their ability to repair and had an SCV or 2 go along with my attack force to keep hp up. I usually had 8 to 10 workers on minerals and 3 per gas mine, adding 1 or 2 if the mine was further away (this for all factions). Though with Terran's flying buildings I did not have to worry about the command center not being as close as possible to the gas. I pretty much only used flying to move my command center to new resources rather than build a new. I know flying buildings can be used to reveal high ground but I never bothered. Terrans were the best at defense with bunkers being the overall best tower. The only issue was they needed marines inside, which made them expensive and cost supply, plus more for infantry upgrades. I did have to limit how many I built and put missile turrets nearby for detection and along the perimeter in case of air attack. The AI was pretty good at finding weak spots to sneak attack. I very much appreciated how the basic units only cost minerals, which was kinda the equivalent of lumber in Warcraft. Gas was far more limited and slower to gather so it was great to have options to fight without it, though all the basic units were unique enough in their own right to be tactically useful. Much better design that footmen and grunts. Marines were the only basic unit that could attack air and they were very good as a Jack of all style unit. Their flaw was in how many casualties they took, which required a constant stream of replacements, which was best from multiple barracks. But I didn't play like that, rather I wanted to use combined arms and commando tactics to minimize my casualties. I mostly used marines for defense. On 1 map where the enemy was on a different island I used wraiths and an SCV to establish a foothold by their gas mine and put down a couple bunkers of marines. I did not like their stim ability but might as well use it if they will die anyway. I never built any firebats and did not find them all that useful because they pretty much only countered zerglings. Marines tended to get torn apart by zerglings while firebats could hold their own. I guess it could be worth putting a few in with a marine control group when fighting zerg, and put 1 in each bunker that might be swarmed. The best use I got out of them was during the Protoss campaign mission with Tassadar and 2 zealots. Against the huge swarm near the end I set up a choke point with firebats in front, marines behind. I only lost 1 bat.

Terran vehicles were much better than infantry because they could be repaired. Vultures were pretty cool, like a NOD recon bike. They could kill small numbers of zerglings without taking damage by kiting, but did not fare well against ranged attacks. Their 3 mines were very powerful and I seen videos of pro players using them to screen tanks. I did not build many during the campaign and skipped them entirely for the later levels. The goliath was another unit that I entirely skipped. There were a more powerful version of the marine that could be repaired. I remember using them back in the day and they are certainly a cool unit but I just saw no need for them this playthrough. I handled all of my anti air needs with a squadron of wraiths. I could see wanting some goliaths or marines on hand to take out scourges chasing the wraiths, but the wraiths could simply cloak and Zerg detectors could not keep up. I loved having a group of 6 to 12 wraiths as my main tactic was using them to kill air and any ground targets they could pick off while supporting siege tanks. Wraiths might be the best overall fighter craft of the 3 factions given cloak and repair though I ended up not using them in the final Protoss mission. Tanks were the best Terran unit and were a cool way to showcase future tech by combining main battle tank and artillery into the 1 unit. I had some in siege mode (usually those that needed repair) with others in front in tank mode, all in the same control group. The artillery wiped the floor with ground units and out ranged defense structures while the regular tanks output more consistent damage. I added a few battle cruisers during the final mission; they were powerful, expensive and slow. I definitely used mass BCs back in the day but it took a very long time to get that many of them. As a supporting unit they did a lot of precision damage and the yamato cannon could 1 shot problems from long range. Otherwise they did not outrange defenses, and their slow speed made them very vulnerable. Scourges especially countered them. Lastly the 2 spellcaster units. Ghosts were cool but their cloak was of limited use with their low mobility, damage and hp. They could take out weaker units very efficiently (like workers and marines) but were not much use against buildings and vehicles. I barely used them, other than Kerrigan, but the AI certainly annoyed me with its ghost spam. It was easy to counter nukes with the comsat scan or fast science vessel. Zerg had plenty of overlords to detect, so the nuke was probably most viable vs Protoss. I didn't bother to use any nukes. Their lockdown annoyed me when they used it on my lone science vessel that I was using to reveal them. Otherwise though it was just a minor nuisance; paralyze 1 mechanical unit was no big deal in a group but could counter a tiny force. Useless against Zerg, probably best against arbiters, carriers, battle cruisers and science vessels so having a few around could change the tide of a battle. Too bad there was no way to fake the laser dot for the nuke to make it more viable against players. The science vessel was my go to scout since it could detect and was fairly fast. Irradiate was good to pick off units over time, especially queens, ultras, archons and templars. Defense matrix worked like unholy armor, making a unit invulnerable for quite a while. I could do a lot with a lone tank or cruiser that was invincible but more often I used it to save a unit during a big fight. Their last ability EMP drained mana and would be a good way to stop other spellcasters before they used a spell. I'd rather kill them though.

The Zerg campaign had a lot of cool lore and the best movies, but I found the last few missions dragged a bit being all vs Protoss. Would have liked to fight high level Terran, or even better both factions at once. Maybe even do 3vs1 with a combined force of Terran and Protoss ambushing a Zerg civil war. The Zerg were my favorite faction, both conceptually and in how they played. There was just something about the flow of their tech tree and way their units worked together in battle that clicked with me more than the other factions, and I loved how much novel innovation went into their mechanics. Building all units from larvae units created by the town hall equivalent rather than building unit training structures was great and encouraged taking other bases. The overlord unit providing supply instead of a building while tripling as both the mobile detector and transport. Workers turning directly into buildings required more workers overall than the others and put additional pressure on troop production. Passive hp regen for all units and structures worked like free Terran repair albeit much slower. It could be a problem for structures because they took forever to heal. It was usually better to build a new structure rather than rely on regen since a determined attacker will eventually wear it down enough to die. And the creep which mainly just limited how far away defense buildings could be built. Both sunken and spore colonies were adequate for defense but prime examples of needing a new building to protect them when wounded. I built a few of each around the base, often like a wall. Pro players used other buildings in front of them to block melee attacks. I never bothered with that and I would likely rather put a double row of colonies. Zerglings were a lot of fun to use and could output surprising amounts of damage given how easily they died. Attack move was best for melee units while ranged were better told to focus on specific targets. I had 1.5 to 2 control groups of them and they needed frequent replacements. Individual zerglings were also useful to reveal the fog of war when buried. Ultralisks pretty much fulfilled the same role just concentrating the stats into 1 big unit. I liked having a group of 2 to 4 to supplement rather than replace the zerglings, which were easily slaughtered by area attacks like firebats, siege mode and reavers. Hydralisks were one of the best units in the game, despite being individually weaker than a goliath or dragoon. They were fast, vicious, and their smaller size gave better path finding, making them extremely effective. A control group of 12 was a must, and a 2nd group when possible. Mutalisks were the least effective of the fighter units and seemed a bit more focused towards ground attacks than air superiority. I had a group of 12 with others available as replacements. I once sent a group of 12 against 1 carrier, focusing on it rather than killing the interceptors first and lost 3 mutas. So I think they need 2 control groups to be most effective. I cycled wounded ones out of the group to safely regen, or transformed them into guardians (free full heal!), which were probably my favorite unit in the entire game. A lovely long range bomber that decimated all ground forces but could not attack air and were too slow to avoid damage. They absolutely needed solid anti air defense. The scourge was the Zerg anti air unit but I greatly disliked them for being a suicide bomber. They cost quite a bit of gas too, which was all gone once they exploded whereas a muta could perform for as long as it does not die. I would much rather have multiple groups of mutas, hydras and spellcasters working together than invest in scourge. Their best use is probably taking out an arbiter before it can recall drop into a vulnerable position. Carriers and BCs were weak to scourge but faster aircraft could evade and pick them off. Infested terrans were the ground equivalent. Again not a fan of suicide units and never used them, but they could be devastating against any unprepared force. They wreck melee units. I loved queens. They were great for scouting and setting up parasites to reveal the map. I liked infecting transports that often flew around different bases and gave me heads up when they were going to attack. Parasites were also good on workers and powerful combat units. The queen's most powerful ability 1 shot any ground unit and spawned 2 weak units similar to zerglings. Don't think it worked on reavers but it was great against ultras tanks, goliaths, zealots and dragoons. Fucking annoying on the AI. I didn't use it that much unless there was no need for more parasites, and even then it was best used in combined arms to help in a bigger battle. A help message told me that ensnare could reveal invisible units. I did not know that. That made queens a bit more useful and put less reliance on overlords but I never needed to use it. It would be far more useful against a player like me that loves using hit and run with fighters. Their other spellcaster I did not even remember at all, which shows how much I used them back in the day. I played around with defilers a bit but ended up mostly skipping them in the final levels. Being a fairly slow ground unit limited their ability to commando, so they had to be support for full armies. They would be more useful with a faster transport. Plague was kinda like good old death and decay only it was not channeled and could not actually kill. It was best against capitol ships and other very high hp units. Also good against defense structures but guardians were better. Dark cloud prevented ranged attacks from hurting units in it so it comboed very well with zerglings, but hindered the hydras. Could also be put on top of hydras to protect them. I didn't use it at all but can see the potential. It would not be helpful against melee and I think splash damage from vultures, siege and reavers do not count as ranged.

Then was the Protoss campaign. They had the best music and were an incredibly cool culture and species. The final mission was the coolest in the game due to controlling both Terran and Protoss, but the campaign was overall lacking in vs Terran. The Protoss featured stronger more expensive units than the other factions, which meshed well with my style of minimizing casualties. Their main gimmick was regenerating energy shields on every unit and structure, which gave them significantly higher effective hp and some degree of "healing". The actual hp values could never be restored though so it felt less effective than Zerg healing and Terran repair for long term preservation. I really had to micro units out of the fight when their shields went down. Their other main gimmick was warping structures in without workers having to stick around, and needing to build within the radius of pylons. I usually spread my pylons out to give plenty of buildable area and put them in front of cannons to obstruct melee. Photon cannons were a great jack of all defensive structure with good offense, but were easily destroyed. They were important to put around the base to protect vs flank attacks and cloak, and to defend the entrances. I always built 1 shield battery to quickly recharge shields. It worked especially well when defending the main entrance. I did not use them on cannons but apparently they also work on buildings. Definitely will incorporate that into future play because it will significantly improve the durability of cannons. Zealots were by far the most powerful basic unit and a group of 12 was terrifying. They had a bit more trouble than zerglings spreading out so all could attack and were an important tank to draw fire from more vulnerable units. Dragoons were great Jack of all units that could take a few hits with their shields but went down surprisingly quick from concentrated attack. They especially struggled against melee units. I always had a group of 8 or so. Sometimes I rotated wounded zealots and dragoons to base defense as they were less likely to die there. Reavers fulfilled the artillery role with powerful splash damage attacks that could out range towers. Their design was weird though because they looked and moved like insect larvae. Almost like they were originally designed for the Zerg but reskinned to Protoss. They were also weird in that each shot cost minerals and had to be manually built like building a unit from a structure. In that way the reaver was almost more like a mobile building. I used a single reaver paired with a shuttle for commando attacks but overall found them tedious to use. Scouts were one of my favorite units, especially against zerg and with the upgrades from the fleet beacon. They were very good at flying around doing their namesake and at anti air. Their shields even allowed some low risk attacks against ground anti air. I mainly used them for anti air and to pick off defenseless ground targets while luring anti air units to my ground forces. The observer was the Protoss detection unit that was permanently invisible itself. It would be far more useful if it was not so slow and fragile. Not the best at scouting and struggling to keep up with other forces, they were great to just park or patrol somewhere to keep the fog revealed. The carrier was the ultimate Protoss unit and probably the coolest unit in the game. Like the reaver it functioned more like a mobile building with interceptors that cost minerals. It was a 1 time thing though until the little ship was destroyed, which was not easy because of the way they zipped around and went back inside the carrier, which spread the damage out amongst them. Carriers were very powerful and had high shields and hp but could be taken out by concentrated anti air. I liked keeping my group of scouts nearby to screen them. They were also very expensive and slow to build, plus more time to build the interceptors before they were combat ready. I remember using big fleets of 8+ back in the day but the most I had in the campaign was 5, and only 3 during the final mission. Templars were the most mage like of the spellcasters with their psionic storm that functioned very similar to old school blizzard. It only hurt units though. Hallucination created decoys to absorb damage but I only used it during that non base mission with Tassadar and 2 zealots. I hardly used templars at all in favor of air units and a reaver. Their last ability was to merge 2 templars into an archon, which was a powerful short range jack of all unit that had extremely low hp but a ton of shields. This made them more like the regenerating zerg and they countered plague. They were kinda similar to ultralisks in that they did the melee tank role better than basic units. I used lots of them back in the day but I did not use any this playthrough. The arbiter was the most durable spellcaster in the game and had incredibly useful abilities. They had a cloaking field which affected all allies nearby except themselves, which could result in a lot of shenanigans when the enemy had no detector. They could teleport entire groups of units to them which made them much better than shuttles. I did not use recall during the campaign but can see how useful it would be to move units suddenly to a flank or vulnerable position. Or back to base. Their last ability stasis hit a large area and prevented frozen units from doing anything or being attacked, but could also hit your own. Freezing half of an enemy force would lead to 2 overwhelming victories, or freeze the entire force to allow time to muster enough to defeat them. Maybe it could be useful to freeze a near death carrier or other arbiter after moving it away a bit to avoid hitting other friendlies. The last unit was the dark templar but it was not buildable until the expansion. They were permanently invisible melee assassin types that did huge damage but were not very durable. I put them ahead of my base to devastate incoming attacks and to devastate any base uncovered by detection. Unfortunately they did not last long when detected and were not good against the Terran comsat.

The final Protoss mission was the ultimate conclusion to the game. I split my attention and resources between both factions, building up bunkers with marines and missile turrets to defend the Terran base while amassing a force of zealots, dragoons and scouts. I did not secure the left flank of the Terran base and the zerg snuck a force of mutas and ultras along the edge of the map to target my scvs. I lost a few and Jim in his battle cruiser worked overtime defending the base. I made a starport to get a science vessel for each base, and drop ships to move troops around. I got a probe to the Terrans to fill that gap with cannons, and sent siege tanks down to support my Protoss force, which was now at a 2nd base to the west. I had dragoons holding on a ridge above a zerg base, even in range to hit the hive. I rotated them around to give shields a chance to recharge and these dragoons had like 30+ kills each. My scouts continually harassed and lured hydras in range of the ridge while my zealots protected the 2nd base with support from cannons, as some zerg tried to get at my dragoons. The siege tanks helped this strategy immensely with their longer range. With their addition the hatchery was destroyed and I moved everything up. Zeratul and the dark templars kicked a lot of ass and I kept them on the flank away from the main force. Tassadar in his carrier was down to red hp from scourge that flew right over the dragoons and had to spend the rest of the game hiding at base. If he was caught alone he would have died for sure. Most of my zealots died from friendly siege tank fire so I had the survivors hold position next to the tanks. It was not long from when I left that ridge to the overmind being defeated. By the end I think I had 5 tanks, 10 dragoons, 4 zealots, 8 scouts, 2 arbiters, 1 science vessel and 2 carriers with a 3rd built but never seeing action.

I changed the game speed as needed; fast for mundane stuff and slow for battle to better micro. I would have preferred using WSAD to move the map around but that could not be changed from the arrow keys. Using the arrows and mouse to move the camera was a little awkward, and the unit path finding was not great, otherwise the game had such amazing design and production quality that it approaches a perfect 10.

9.5+/10