This was included with the free basic Star Craft on battle net. I never played this expansion back in the day so this was an entirely new experience. First was the Protoss campaign. It was interesting to play them again right on the heel of finishing the base game as them, and see how their new units were from the Dark Templar faction. Dark templars were now buildable but I barely built any because they were not all that useful against AI. They did ok on defense by blocking ground units and quickly killing them, except against terran with their comsat. It was not worth the risk to send them on attack when several scouts could do the same job and fly away if attacked. 2 dark templars could merge into a dark archon, which I only used during the 1 mission that introduced them. They were a spell caster with no basic attack at all. I only used them to mind control a few critters around the base to reveal fog of war, and later steal carriers from the enemy. Mind control was a very cool ability but overpowered in my opinion. I think it should have been temporary and disabled the dark archon while it maintained control. Or sacrificed itself for permanent control. Either way, a mind controlled worker should not be able to construct buildings from the other factions. I didn't try the other 2 abilities but reading online: feedback burns mana and does hp damage equal to mana burned, so an anti caster nuke. Maelstrom disables an area of biological units, much like the ghost's lockdown, which would be useful against all factions during both offense and defense. The other new unit was the corsair, a purely anti air flyer. I kept a small group of them to support my other air units. They countered light air units like scourge and wraiths, but were less effective than scouts against heavy armor Capitol ships. They also had mana to cast disruption web, which disabled a structure or unit for a little while. I used it to disable defense turrets depending on what I was using to attack; disable anti air so scouts could destroy them, or disable anti ground for the zealots and dragoons. I did notice that zealots could not attack disabled buildings through. I could also see disabling power units like siege tanks, reavers, arbiters and Capitol ships, but I never tried using it vs units. I pretty much used the same strategy as ths base game; core forces of zealots and dragoons (control group of 12 each, sometimes with a 2nd group of zealots as backup), supported by a single reaver inside a shuttle, a squadron of 6 or so scouts, and a few carriers as the game went on. I used the scouts to harass and lure enemy units into the dragoons. Sometimes I used arbiters and high templars, mainly when the map terrain prevented land access to the enemy and I had to mostly use air units. I did try to use the shield battery to support cannons but it was unable to target structurs at all. The campaign was good but had a bit too much Protoss vs Protoss. The final mission was epic, defending the ancient temple against massive numbers of Zerg while they also attacked my multiple bases. I surrounded the temple with like 50 photon cannons and left the probe there to replace them. I foolishly lost most of my carriers to the opening swarm by not hiding them behind the cannons as dozens of scourge slammed them. I almost considered loading the save but I still won without much further loss. The biggest threat were the guardians out ranging the cannons, and the enemies attacking my bases. I had to scramble rag tag defenders, replace photon cannons, and fly the scouts back to help. Despite being constantly broke I managed to defend everything and not lose significant probes or structures. I left 2 zerg colors alone, so I wonder if those attacks would be weakened or even stopped altogether by clearing out the entire map. A couple minor lore nitpicks; I didn't like how there was a female Protoss. It would have been cooler if they didn't have gender, or had evolved past it, or at least if the genders were indistinguishable to humans. I was also dubious about terrans arriving from earth since I thought the whole point of sending humans that far away was to never have to deal with them again. This proved to be a major plot point though as you play as the forces from Earth during the Terran campaign.

This campaign was great too, but somewhat lacking in vs Protoss. They used some cinematic gameplay where I had to watch the AI fight with units before I got to control anything. There was even a late no build mission where the enemy color (terran) changed to being rescuable as the Zerg became the new threat. That mission also had marines getting into goliaths, technically deleting the marines while changing the color of the mechs from neutral to rescue. I was impressed with these mechanics. Most of the campaign was vs Terran to take down the empire that was created in the original campaign. 1 mission was about disabling nukes or battle cruisers for the next mission. I ended up taking out the nuke base so I wonder how different the following mission would be with regular nukes. It was tough with battle cruisers because I continually lost missile turrets. I even had to stop scouting with science vessels because I lost a few to yamoto shots, instead relying on the comsat scan and cloaked wraiths. The terrain AI was a massive bitch with ghost and lockdown spam (not just on this mission), and I lost quite a few units from it. However I also used lockdown to help against the battle cruisers. The final mission was another epic one, but in a different way. The starting location was terrible in a wide open area that was difficult to defend. I built a large wall of depots, bunkers and missile turrets, with siege tanks all along. There were untargetable sunken colonies all over the place that prevented me from going outside the base by ground. I knew I had to use air units and drop ships to take out the cerebrate but that was when the hero ultralisk attacked. It attacked on the east front where I had not built any defenses and destroyed my factory, machine shop and several scvs before I finally took it down. Then the game told me it would be coming back regularly, so I abandoned the plan to take out the sunken colony color to disable that ultra permanently. I built another wall of bunkers, depots and tanks while sending a commando force of goliaths and wraiths to clear a path to the brown cerebrate. I landed them on top of an inaccessible ridge that was lined with spore colonies. It was easy at first and the hero ultralisk even got stuck for a while trying to get up there, but once the enemy began flying troops up there I lost several wraiths and goliaths, and had to rebuild the entire force. I had 3 battle cruisers on the way there and they carried the attack as a lone goliath destroyed the last spore colony. Maybe I should have used a force of marines and medics instead. After this the rest of the mission was easy and I was disappointed that there were not regular attacks from the other Zerg hero units, and even more pressure from the regular units. The new terran units were cool. The medic healing marines (and other infantry), removing negative effects (which was annoying during the Zerg campaign due to removing my parasite spy network), and a blind that worked kind of like a disable. It was great against ranged power units like battle cruisers and siege tanks but did not help at all against the hero ultralisk. I did not use the marine + medic strategy on any mission other than the no build ones where it was mandatory. I wonder how differently other missions would go if I did use them. I instead used 5 to 6 siege tanks supported by 4 or 5 goliaths, 6 wraiths, 2 science vessels, 1 medic and a few battle cruisers, with 1 to 5 scvs along for repairs. Marines stayed back to defend in bunkers and I didn't bother with ghosts unless the mission gave them for free. Also no firebats. Valkyries were the other new unit, being entirely anti air with minor area effect. It had the same role as the corsair but traded a mana ability for heavy armor and health. I had no idea that science vessel emp damaged Protoss shields but I didn't get to try it out.

Next was the Zerg campaign and I failed the mission where the scv had a psi disrupter that was intended to take control of passive Zerg units. I took the drones, started building a base, then moved it towards some zerglings when the scv left my control and I failed. Bug I guess because it worked properly the next time. It was fun using the hero ultralisk since I knew from recent experience how deadly it was. The hero units pretty much soloed that entire level. This campaign had a very good mix of opponents and even had levels where Terran and/or Protoss units were mixed with my forces. The last few missions were quite tough. The betrayal mission which 1st introduced lurkers had me up against almost a full map controlled by Terran and Protoss. I took out Terran 1st because their units and abilities were more annoying. I set up lurkers to great effect at bridge checkpoints, where they held off attacks better than defensive structures would. They needed overlord detection and anti air support. Lurkers were like a mix of siege tank and dark templar, in that they only attacked while burrowed, so invisible and stationary. Not enough range to take out defensive structures but they could destroy bunkers and sunken colonies that did not have detection support. Their attacks tended to disrupt enemies, unless they were detected. I found the AI very good at detecting them so I barely used them after this mission. Most that I made were killed due to being on the front lines, where they needed to be to prevent friendly fire. I did not find them all that useful. At least turning a low hp hydra into one usually prevented it from dying mid battle. I killed the enemy heroes as cheaply as possible; multiple plagues for battle cruiser Duke, and spawn brooding for Fenix. The missions against mixed Terran and Zerg forces were interesting because it was the only time I seen the same color AI have units and structures from more than 1 faction. The biggest challenge was having to fight valkyries, scourge, hydras and goliaths all at the same time, and having to breach bases with no land access. It was very difficult to keep my mutas and guardians alive. They needed to be backed up by hydras for anti air, but they in turn were vulnerable to ground attack (especially lurkers and siege tanks). I took the 1st inaccessible base using guardians and airlifted ultras. The middle base was incredibly difficult as there was no safe place to land and they were wiping out my air units. I had to build a useless hatchery on the ridge just before the base, which gave just enough creep to make 3 spore colonies, and my hydras, lurkers and guardians fired into their base from the safety of that ridge. There was a lot of luring their air units into the spores and hydras while doing hit and run with mutas to slowly destroy key buildings. Once their hive was gone I moved my hydras and ultras down and cut a path to the overmind, which was not too difficult. This was the 1st time I significantly used the other new unit, the devourer. It was a tanky anti air flyer made from mutas. Damage output was slow but they debuffed enemy armor, allowing mutas and hydras even more dps. They worked best against heavier air units and I did not find them particularly needed. Just might as well morph a near death muta into 1 if I already had enough guardians. Then there was a timed mission vs Terran and Protoss, which I beat in just over half the time limit using the same strategy as the previous map. I unlocked a bonus mission about Zeratul finding humans doing experiments to make Zerg Protoss hybrids and foreshadowing that there might be a 4th faction in the future. It was an interesting non base mission with free dark archons that I used to mind control some siege tanks, wraiths, science vessels, and battle cruisers. The final campaign mission was against 2 terran and 1 Protoss; no enemy zerg this time. This was a brutal map where all 3 enemies attacked regularly with quite powerful attacks, and I had to replace many defense colonies. They were bastards at using siege tanks, nukes, corsair disruption and irradiate. I must say the AI was very effective at using casters, though the different factions did not coordinate their attacks. I made a 2nd base to the south and used my air units to attack the north Terran. He turned out to be focused on air force and goliaths, with many valkyries and battle cruisers. I was having no success pushing into his base until I built a base next door with 4 spore colonies. I needed the gas too. Then I used mutas to lure their air units into the colonies. It took a long time because they seemed to be pumping out battle cruisers as fast as I could kill them, and I had to replace multiple spores. Eventually it calmed down enough for me to snipe 1 starport, and then air lift 12 hydras to support the full offensive push. I didn't use any ultras but probably should have, however gas was low. So maybe should have used zerglings but I won anyway. By the time I wiped them out I lost all mutas and all but 1 hydra, while having more than 12 guardians and almost full group of devourers. I took 3 new bases as I started attacking the other Terran, who was seriously lacking in anti air and was thus easily steamrolled. Unfortunately I neglected to build proper defenses at 1 new base while I was focusing on the battles and Protoss snuck up to wipe it out. It did not last long and soon I was wiping out their bases. I needed hydra and muta reinforcements because they were using psi storm and archons to get a lot of kills. Even used a dark archon to mind control an overlord, as if I only brought 1.

Most included custom maps were for multiplayer skirmish. There was a mini campaign about pirates controlling Zerg. The 1st mission was a very good challenge with frequent significant attacks and limited resources that forced me to push out. I set up a 2nd base in the middle and barely held off a big attack from the Zerg base behind since I did not put bunkers there. The 2nd mission was more of the same though the starting resources were spread out and I had to build a long line of missile towers to defend everything. There was a choice to kill the Zerg cerebrate or rescue Protoss. I did the former because it was at the center of the map on an island while the Protoss were hidden deep in the Terran base at NE corner. The final mission was then against Protoss and Terran, with the same frequent attacks. I started with some defenses already built so I focused on siege tanks and doubled the bunkers. Then I put tanks and missile turrets on the ridge to the north, which could wipe out the 1st Protoss base. From there I used the usual mixed force to wipe out the Protoss then approached the fortified Terran base from the side, using a drop ship to get up on the ramparts and devastate them. The only problem was ghost lockdown and their battle cruisers using yamato cannon killed 2 of my BCs. The campaign had 2 other missions based on the rescue branch. The 1st was as Protoss with the 2 Terran heroes, starting off non base until rescuing probes from an enemy base. Then the final mission was the same final map only the Protoss were mixed into the starting base with several hero units and the enemies were Zerg and Terran. They sent hero ultralisks much faster than in the final Terran campaign, and again it was a shame that the other hero Zerg units were not included. Those ultras were easier to deal with than in the campaign due to all my own hero units, but I still regularly lost bunkers and cannons. The 1st thing I did was build another cannon at each entrance since they were better than missile turrets, then went for siege tanks to put at each entrance. Next I made 4 dark archons but it took a very long time before they had enough mana to mind control, which was by far the best way to deal with hero ultras. Maelstrom worked very well too. Meanwhile I put 2 tanks and many cannons on the north ridge just like I did the previous time. It took a few attempts to get it just right because the Zerg could easily airlift units up there. I had to save up enough minerals to warp in 4 cannons at the same time, then immediately get the tanks to killing hydras and use my air units to kill mutas and overlords until the cannons could shoot. Then I added a few more cannons. Some hero ultras even got stuck trying to get up there and were easily killed. I used 1 mind controlled hero ultra to wipe out that base, and 2 to destroy the next. I backed them up with 6 medics, 12 marines and the hero Arbiter. By the time I completely wiped out the Zerg and started attacking Terran, I had 10 hero ultralisks and added in those dark archons and 4 ghosts. I mind controlled 2 battle cruisers while putting lock down on the rest. The hero ultras were unstoppable, they just needed help attacking air and the medics worked overtime healing them. The last level I played was the only other map that was not skirmish. Defenders of the galaxy, where I had an Arbiter and 2 powerful dragoons to defend the nexus against waves of air units. It was more like an arcade game and not much fun. I am sure there are 1000s of custom maps available online, so I will eventually play them.

This was a legendary masterpiece just like the base game with some of the best campaign missions and challenging AI of any RTS. I still found the slowest game speed to be too fast when multiple things were happening at different places, but save scumming helped. Pathfinding and my units stupidly chasing enemies into certain death were annoying, but minor nitpicks compared to how great the game was.

9.5+/10