Starcraft 2 Vs Starcraft 1 – What is different?

Starcraft 1.5 or Starcraft 2?

There have been many jaded forum users claiming that Starcraft 2 is really just Starcraft 1.5. This will be the topic of this article. I’ll start by listing all the new changes for Starcraft 2 and Battle.net 2.0.

Changes:

Terran:

eliminated units

vulture removed

firebat removed

Goliath eliminated

ghost removed

doctor eliminated

Removed Science Vessel

Valkyrie removed

That’s a lot of units from the terran arsenal that have been removed. Please note this is still beta so everything is subject to change.

units added

suffering soul

thug

Prowl

reaper

medical evacuation

Raven

thor

viking

saved units

SCV

Marine

seat tank

Ghost

battleship

That means 62% of Terran units are brand new.

Terran macro mechanics

The Terran has a unique macromechanic that is used after upgrading the Command Center to an Orbital Command Center. What it does is collect 30 minerals in each charge, but takes about 3 times as much as an SCV per charge. Basically that would mean it independently collects about twice as fast as an SCV.

However, the downside to using MULE is that a player must sacrifice the use of a scanner sweep; both abilities take Energy from your Orbital Command. This has been the cause of some lost games. Terran players must be careful not to get greedy.

Now let’s take a look at the Protoss.

Changes:

Protoss:

eliminated units

removed dragon

Referee eliminated (debatable)

corsair removed

Dark Archon removed

mugger removed

transportation removed

Not that many units were removed from the Protoss arsenal, however, let’s take a look at the units added.

units added

Colossus

immortal

mothership

phoenix

void lightning

warp prism

sentinel

Not bad, just one unit less than the Terran side.

saved units

Research

Fanatic

dark templar

High Templar

Conveyor

Watch

Archon

54% of Protoss units are brand new. However, the mothership is almost exactly like the Arbiter, so there’s room for debate.

Protoss macro mechanics

The Protoss have an ability called Chronos that is available directly from the Nexus. It costs 25 energy and speeds up any building’s production by 30% over a period of time. This is an extremely powerful macromechanic because it can be used to build quick probes early game, it can be used for a fan to harass early game, or it can be used to get some very quick upgrades.

The only downside to Protoss’s macromechanics is where you don’t use it. If you decide to pump a large number of units, then most likely your economy will lag behind the economy of your competition. It could put him in a position to do a push, but if the push misses, he’s probably in trouble.

Now my personal favorite: the Zerg.

Changes:

zerg:

eliminated units

guardian removed

Lurker removed (this has been causing some controversy)

Scourge removed

removed scroll

queen eliminated

devourer removed

Not bad, not bad. I may get some flak for adding the Queen to this list, but I think it’s pretty apparent that the Queen from Starcraft 2 isn’t even close to the original.

units added

Cockroach (wow!)

Queen

baneling

changing

infester

Corrupt

Foreman

brood lord

Infested Terran

The zerg got the most new units. The Infestor is sort of like the Corruptor, and is certainly meant to be its replacement. However, at this point I question the feasibility of it.

saved units

Buzz

zergling

hydralisk

Overlord* – No longer has detection capabilities. This was replaced by the Supervisor.

ultralisk

melancholic

56% of Zerg units are brand new.

zerg macro mechanics

If you were to compare the new Zerg macromech to the other macromechanics, I think you would find that there is less room for debate about which Queen option is the most effective. The Queen has three macro abilities: Spawn Creep Tumor, which extends the creep radius in a spiral out of the tumor. This can be used to connect bases or perhaps to explore. One of the biggest benefits of this is that creep allows for vision and faster movement for your units.

The other ability is to restore a unit’s health or a building’s health. This can be used on defensive structures. However, I think the downside to this is that any mediocre skilled player will attack the Queen relatively quickly. And to save the best for last, the queen also has spawning larvae. For 25 energy (same as her other abilities), the Queen injects larvae into her hatchery and after a period of time, the hatchery will spit out 4 additional larvae. This can be pretty devastating early game, and the only reason I can see players using the other options is if the game goes past early game. This is by far the most effective option for her war camp. More units = more power, more economy, or whatever you want.

updated mechanics

Some of the biggest changes in Starcraft 2 don’t come with the new units. They come in the form of new mechanics. Starcraft 2 is now a real game in 3 dimensions. What this means is that Terrain levels are for more than just looks now. Units like the Reaper and Colossus can actually traverse higher level terrain.

Now this may not sound like much, but it completely changes the effect of ramps in the game. In Starcraft 1, you absolutely had to go through static defenses to storm a base that excludes Nydus falls and canals. This made the ramp an extremely powerful (and sometimes irritating) map feature. Economic poke can now be achieved much earlier in the game if your opponent decides to launch photon cannons off of his ramp.

Another new gameplay mechanic that Starcraft 2 has added is in the form of destructible rocks. These are usually back doors into your opponents’ base, and if they’re not vigilant, you could have a one-way ticket straight into their hand. Or they to yours. These new mechanics have seriously hampered the effect of the turtles, which means you wall in your base (usually a Terran favorite with siege tanks). I consider this to be a very good thing, because turtles are a very bad strategy in that it allows your opponents free reign over the entire map. You might be able to hold them off for a few minutes, but eventually they’ll get enough minerals, gas, and units to crush any kind of defense you can build at a base.

Maynarding

The economy in Starcraft 1 is generally very confusing. It’s an almost organic system that scales disproportionately to the number of workers you’ve gathered. Although the law of diminishing returns was very much in force (each worker past a certain point was less effective than the previous one) [especially due to the bad pathing in Starcraft 1], allowed a viable strategy called Maynarding. Maynarding is credited to a certain player of the same name, where while building an expansion, you could make all the extra workers you needed for the expansion, effectively saturating the ores as soon as the expansion was built.

In Starcraft 2, the worker route and the route in general have been greatly improved. Workers don’t fly around trying to find an available mineral patch. In fact, they will patiently wait the few milliseconds it takes for another worker to finish the extraction. However, what this means is that there is almost a limit to the effective number of workers per base. It is generally believed that there are 2 workers per patch in Starcraft 2. This is a great thing, but it severely hampers Maynarding’s benefits. While the workers you were making in Starcraft 1 would still help your economy while you waited for your expansion, the benefit is severely reduced in Starcraft 2. What this effectively means is that each expansion takes much longer to saturate to be efficient. This also means that losing an expansion early on is devastating because you won’t recoup the cost quickly.

Unit selection limit and multiple building selection

Another widely debated topic among hardcore fans is the new unit selection limit. Starcraft had a limit of 12 units that could be selected at a time due to old UI issues. However, the new game, Starcraft 2, allows you to select up to 255 units at a time. This is a game changer! Instead of 1a2a3a (hotkey, attack, etc.) is mouse click and drag, a. I actually really like this new mechanic as it doesn’t take 150 APM to just raid a base. I think it allows for more strategy as a new player, and I welcome it.

Professional gamers may find a distance for it, because they may assume that it lowers the skill limit between professional gamers and mediocre gamers. I disagree, because sending all your units into an attack can also be a very bad thing; it can cause you to lose your entire army if you don’t pay attention. Pros will still use groups of hotkeys and try to attack from multiple places at once.

Multiple building selection is another thing that can be seen as lowering the overall skill cap of the game. It’s another thing I don’t agree with. MBS allows you to select multiple gateways, hatcheries, or any other production building at once. What I think this really means is fewer hotkeys to worry about. Macro has certainly been made easier (especially with the new rally attack), but it’s not something I feel like has lowered the skill ceiling. If a player makes 400 Zerglings, but his opponent has a good combination of Colossi, Zealots, or Carriers, the player with the Zergling army will be destroyed except for a Nydus channel (with a similar unit cap). And the fact is, you should never let your opponent do 200 of anything!

You can produce units in a more efficient way, but the whole strategy is still there. If a player forgets to use the aforementioned macromechanics, they too will be at a huge disadvantage.

Conclution

I think the game deserves the title Starcraft 2. A lot of the original interface bottlenecks have been fixed, making it a bit easier for players new to the series to jump on. However, Blizzard has also kept esports a very high priority and has maintained a level of multitasking that is certainly not easy to master. I think we will see many exciting games from many Starcraft professionals like Jaedong, Flash, Bisu, etc. in case they decide to change. This game is new, beautiful, has great music, and certainly has a competitive edge. There are more hard counters than the original, so the way strategies need to be implemented is different.

Here are some videos and replays of Starcraft 2 in 1080p! I hope you enjoy it!