Reverse Alphabetical Analysis
I don't know Starcraft as well as I know baseball, but I do have theories. I'm a Protoss but I think mostly about Terran because it's the most interesting and best-designed. I think about Zerg too.

1. Zerg

In many ways, Zerg is the most pure design. The smoothest, most straightforward design. The most powerful macro, the best unit flexibility, and units for every purpose. The best unit is the Queen, and the best building is the Hatchery.

The Hatchery is the best building in the game.

What is Zerg's weakness? The units themselves, especially in the air. And defense, though the economy powers a lot of units to defend with.

2. Terran

Terran has the most interesting design, the most interesting strategic choices. That's what I mean by "best". So my description before was redundant.

It has the right amount of unit flexibility to make unit composition choices interesting. And it has many viable unit compositions, so matching a unit strategy to an opponent is a satisfying challenge.

It has the most interesting units, and the most interesting buildings. Because the buildings make the unit choices interesting, with the add-ons.

If I were to redesign Starcraft, I'd change Terran the least, Zerg a little more, and I would redesign Protoss from the ground up.

3. Protoss

Protoss has the best units. Those best units are all power units though so it has trouble with support, for which it ends up using Stalkers, which have low damage and low health for the cost, but have the best ability in the game when upgraded with Blink. The power units have weaknesses, but are complimented by other power units, so the general result is a ball of power units, with stalkers.

Protoss has shitty macro and shitty buildings. The macro is better than Terran at the very beginning, because of chronoboost, but this is balanced by the shittiness of the early units before they are upgraded.

Except for Force Fields, which are the most broken thing in the game.

Force Fields are no fun because they stop you from doing things. Games are fun when you can do things. Protoss is all about being no fun. But Force Fields are necessary in so many situations, to stop the enemy masses and protect fragile Protoss units.

Storm is also pretty broken.

So you've got a lot of power units with a lot of micro requirements and they're all used at the same time.

That's Protoss.

On the subject of High Templars, Feedback is pretty sweet too. It's like Terran EMP, but it also does damage. But it doesn't do area of effect. But EMP's area of effect is pretty small.

Dark Templars are pretty crappy. Terran has flying Dark Templars, and Dark Templars with range that cast spells. But Dark Templars must be used, because they're the only Protoss cloaked attack (without Mothership), and because all threats must be real.

They're pretty effective against Terran, because they force out Scans, and Scans mean fewer MULEs, and Ravens are easy for Protoss to kill. In certain situations you can maintain a steady rate of Dark Templar production, prohibiting MULEs to maintain an economic as well as material advantage, while a finishing attack is structured.
- posted by julien @ 8:36 PM