A good friend of mine is a giant fan of this old school game called Starcraft 64 which I understand has a pretty HUGE following. I enjoy playing with him but I cant hope to defeat him because I know that only some troops can attack certain other troops. Could yall help me understand buildings and troops for the 3 races so that I can put up a legit army?

Buy the PC version, practice a lot. Then own him.

Starcraft has a huge following due to its online multiplayer. Starcraft 64... not so much.

I thought starcraft 64 was just a console version.

It is.

I didn't even think people played it anymore.

The PC version has a huge following due to online multiplayer. The N64 version is pretty rare and unheard of.

Nope its a port from the PC version since it was so huge. Its expansion Broodwar had pro tournaments tht actracted thousands till starcraft 2 was released.

Is there somewhere I can download a free version of it on PC legit?

No buy the brood war battle chest it is like $25 and you can't pirate the online whatsoever thanks to Battlenet so you are going to have to get the game legitimate way .

Lol no.

Nope, but the game is still sold in most game stores. At least it is in my region.

Starcraft 64... :yuck:

It's also not the best port ever, and playing any RTS with a controller is rarely described as better than "wonky". Split-screen multiplayer, I can't even imagine.

As for actual advice, regarding what can attack other things, the main issue there is ground vs air; any air units that can attack ground and run up against some ground units that only hit other ground units, will of course dominate. Been a while since I played, but I'll give some brief race info on what I remember that will hopefully be useful.

Terrans: The "versatile" race. Their weakest units, marines, are the only ones that can attack ground and air out of the 3 races, and many of their buildings can lift off and fly elsewhere, good for making a new base or escaping enemies without anti-air. Terrans have the strongest defense. SCV's can build bunkers, which house infantry units (marines, firebats, ghosts, have to be manually sent inside or out) and protect them while they fire on the enemy from inside. Possibly the unit most worth noting is the siege tank, built from factories. In siege mode (has to be researched and set manually, prevents movement) they have enormous range and damage. Place them behind bunkers to keep them safe from anything that gets close. A substantial amount of siege tanks can annihilate almost any ground force, at greater range than they can fight back from. Terran buildings/vehicles can be repaired by SCV's, and buildings will catch fire when badly damaged, and must be repaired quickly or they'll burn down.

Zerg: Have weaker units but can make them more quickly. All Zerg units are hatched from larvae, which come from hatchery buildings. This can be taken advantage of, in that they can have 3 larvae at once, whereas any other building only trains 1 unit at a time. Zerglings are your cheapest, earliest unit, and can do some serious damage in swarms, but tend to become irrelevant in mid-game. They can be dangerous again later, with an attack-speed upgrade and the capacity to spawn huge numbers with multiple hatcheries. Hydralisks are your next unit, and you'll probably want plenty, since they can attack land and air and are decently strong/cheap in large numbers. All zerg buildings except for hatcheries have to be built on creep, the purple goo that comes from hatcheries and creep colonies. If the source building is destroyed it slowly recedes, but you can rebuilt another colony before it pulls back. Zerg buildings/units heal over time, but can't be made to do so faster. Zerg defensive buildings aren't especially strong, and are best used to hold up enemies with support form units.

Protoss: Strong but expensive units. Zealots are your starting unit, and twice as expensive as marines (4 times as zerglings), but are much stronger. If you have 8 zealots and see the enemy has 8 marines, that's not an equal force, you have a huge advantage. Dragoons come next, and have no particular strengths, but can hit both land and air. Their defensive structure, the photon cannon, is not especially tough but noteworthy as hitting land, air, AND being a detector. You can line your flanks with them to keep out air and infiltration and have backup defenses against any ground troops that get in. Damage to the health of protoss units and buildings cannot be restored, but all protoss units have shields that take damage before health does, and regenerates faster than zerg healing. Archons are very powerful units that run almost entirely on shields, made by combining two high templar, and are notable for their abnormally high gas-to-mineral cost. If you can control multiple geysers, the fact that they keep producing small amounts after being depleted makes archons the most economical late-game units. Protoss buildings have to be built in range of a pylon's energy field, and these pylons double as your population limit, so you'll want plenty. Those buildings will shut down if deprived of energy, so don't put any pylons powering your defenses in a vulnerable spot.

General:
-All races have a long-range siege unit: siege tanks for terran, guardians (upgraded mutalisk) for zerg, and reavers for protoss. Use them to hit enemy defenses from a safe range, as well as to protect your own base from shorter-range units and other siege units.
-All races have cloaked/unseeable units, and detectors that let you spot them. Make sure to have detectors on hand, especially at defenses and with attacking armies, so that invisible units don't tear them apart.
-Try to learn and remember which units can or can't attack ground and air. Hitting a group that can't fight back is a big loss for the enemy, and victory for you.
-Military units aren't the only ones to think about. If an enemy leaves their base undefended on the sides or back, flying units, transports, cloaked infiltrators, and so on can sneak inside and hit their resource gatherers. Wiping out the enemy's income can badly slow them down, and if you wipe out all of them and the building that makes them, you can doom them entirely.

OK Ill learn one Army at a time. I have the Terrans mostly figured out, except I need to know how to detect other invisible units, and which are my own invisible units.

Science Vessal and Missile Turret are detectors for the Terrans.

One of my most fav games on the N64. Starcraft 64.

Read up on some tutorials and watch some competitive games on youtube.

PC/N64, all the same strategies/guides work. I think the N64 version comes with the expansion.

Ghosts (land unit, mechanical disabler, and nuker) and Wraiths (basic air unit) are ya invisible units (upgrades are required, however).

Very cool. I dont care if I can play it online, I more wanted to play through the tutorials. I was hoping it was old enought to be free-ware by now lol.

Nah starcraft broodwar is still selling decant amounts every year. Especially now that starcraft 2 came out.

Ghosts (advanced infantry) and Wraiths (airborne fighters) can cloak, for Terrans. Both need the upgrade to be researched. Their cloak is manual, so you have to turn it on, and it drains energy while active (the unit's personal energy, not resources or anything). Terran detectors are missile turrets, science vessels, and the comsat attachment for the Command Center. Note that units which can detect should have "detector" in their status. Though not really units, spider mines are also cloaked.

Zerg don't technically cloak, but most of them can burrow (also needs to be researched). They can't be seen, and can do it indefinitely, but can't move or attack either. Good for hiding, spying, and ambushing. In return for the limited hiding they have the easiest detection; their plentiful overlords can do it, as can spore colonies. Despite being underground, they can be attacked if detected. Zerg Lurkers (upgraded hydralisks) are the only unit that can attack while burrowed.

For Protoss, Observers and Dark Templar are cloaked. Their cloak is permanent. Detectors are observers and photon cannons.

As a sidenote, cloaked units, if not detected, still leave a blurry effect you can see. They also aren't invincible, so even if you can't see them, you can still hit them with area effect abilities like Psi Storm.


It may be old enough at 13 years, but it still has more active players than a lot of new games, so it won't be free anytime soon.

I read the title as "Starfox 64." I got confused when I came in here and read some of the posts. ^_^

As others have said, buy the PC version. It's so much better.

Yeah it's definitely the PC version that has a huge following and is still being actively played to this day.

Plus, in case you've been living under a rock, Starcraft 2 is out now.

Thank you all very much.

If I remember correctly starcraft 64 has an extra map the pc doesn't.

Actually if you buy a disc copy you can "spawn" a copy of it on your friend's computer so you can play eachother. So you would only have to buy it once. However your friend wouldn't be able to play the campaigns or anything.