StarCraft: Brood War/Zerg Mission 3: The Kel-Morian Combine

Getting Started
You begin with 2 Ultralisks, 5 Hydralisks, 7 Zerglings, 8 Drones, 4 Overlords, a queen and Fenix. You need to fight the Yellow Terrans up north. To do that, an ideal solution is to have your Ultralisks take the lead, backed up by Fenix and your Hydralisks. Have your Ultralisks take on the Goliaths, and have the Hydralisks also attack from the back. It is a good idea for Ultralisks to take the most damage at this time. Have Fenix attack the bunker alone; only he can fire outside the Marines' range. After that is done, send in your Zerglings and Hydralisks to fight the Marines. If you did this correctly, all your units should have survived. Bring in your Drones, and build two Hatcheries and one Extractor. Be on guard for Goliaths and Marines that come at you early in the game.

When your hatcheries finish, it is important to get mining. Whether you are aiming for 10,000 minerals or gathering up forces to infest the command centers, you need to start with many drones. Once you have enough creep, build Sunken Colonies both to the north and to the south of your base; you will face a number of attacks involving Marines, Goliaths and Siege Tanks. Remember that if a tank attacks you in siege mode, Zerglings are the ideal solution for them. For this reason, always replace Zerglings when you need to.

Main Objective: Gathering 10,000 Minerals
If you did the above, you are already well on your way. You do, however, need a minimum of one other expansion, since the minerals on your front base will be barely enough, unless you were really conservative with your minerals. If you can spend less than 4,000 minerals after building the hatcheries, you can definitely try this; it will be boring and difficult, however.

Your first expansion should be to your east, where a red force guards. It isn't much, but will definitely speed your way to your goal. This base is prone to Wraith attacks. Build a few Spore Colonies and keep a few Hydralisks there, but don't be tempted to go far down. If you do, you will face annoying Siege Tank attacks. Red won't bring his tanks up the cliff, but he can definitely hit your base with them.

A second expansion is to the northeast, across a straight, undefended path. You will find a Vespene Geyser here, along with a few more mineral fields. Protect it lightly, along with a few overlords. Depending on how fast you can rack up 10,000 minerals, you need to be prepared against the more serious threats. If you can do this in less than 20 minutes, you probably will not be attacked at all by Blue and White. Just keep this base safe from Goliaths, Wraiths and Siege tanks. On all three of your bases, keep two drones to a mineral patch, and that will get you to the fastest way to win.

This walkthrough should not limit you to where you should expand, however. You may also choose to take over a computer's base for their resources also. The two expansions described above are only two of the most easy-to-reach locations on the map.

Side objective: Infesting Command Centers
If you're feeling a little more adventurous as to take over the computer's own land, this objective may interest you. However, it does require a lot more work and conscientiousness. What you need to do is to take over the brown base (the one northwest) quickly. You will need many units, especially Hydralisks and Zerglings. Due to the fact that they have so many Goliaths, Vultures and Marines, you may need more than a few waves to clear the base out. Take an overlord with you to find any spider mines the computer may have placed.

Once you have infested the first command center, just relax while you take out the surrounding buildings. Expand here, since you will need another geyser and more minerals. Start building mutalisks and use them to protect your new base. If you need more gas, there is a geyser down south on a plateau inaccessible from the ground. Take out the little defense they have, and you will then have 3 geysers. Tech your way up to a Greater Spire, while you are building more Mutalisks.

When your Greater spire is ready, create at least 10-12 Guardians. Since the enemy has placed many Turrets, Goliaths and Siege Tanks, Guardians will really be effective against them. Have Spore Colonies and Mutalisks defend both bases against Wraith attacks.

Go attack the orange base, which should be surprisingly easy to take. Replace any air units you may have lost. Your next target should be the blue base, since they will nuke at you if you haven't touched them in about 30 minutes or so. For this base, also bring four Overlords or so in order to detect cloaked Ghosts and Wraiths. If any base should not be attacked by ground, IT'S THIS ONE. This base is the best defended against the ground, but it is also poorly designed against the air. Once you clear this base, it is time to take a little break and rebuild your lost Mutalisks; the other two bases will require you to use even more mutalisks.

Build three to four groups of 12 Mutalisks to take on the white base. Here, your existing group of Guardians should be enough. The white base is notorious for its number of Wraiths and the use of Battlecruisers. When you attack this base, it is important to have your Mutalisks specifically target the air units; they are the biggest of your concern. Once you take out this base, the rest of the game should be easy.

The red base in this map has the most Goliaths and Missile Turrets combined out of all five bases, which means you definitely need more Guardians. For this, you may just turn your existing Mutalisks into Guardians without making any more units. However, you do need to keep a few Mutalisks with you to fight against their Wraiths. Do not forget to bring your Overlords to this base as well.

During the game, don't worry if you lost your Infested Command Centers or if you destroyed the Command Centers without infesting them. You won't have as many for the next mission, but all that matters for victory is that the computers have LOST all of their command centers. Besides, you can also infest more Command Centers during the next mission if you want to.

Attacks from the Enemy
If this is your first time playing this level and hearing that there are FIVE Terran bases in total, do not panic; the attacks are poorly coordinated and rather light and manageable.

Brown and Orange The first two to attack you. They come in small numbers, using Marines and a few Goliaths. About 10 minutes into the game, expect to see Siege Tanks (which usually come one at a time, until Brown pushes it to two at a time). Brown likes to harass your main base by sending many of its units down the choke point, since this is the fastest route by land to his base.

Red Like Brown and Orange, the Red base uses Goliaths and Marines as a main attack force. They start later than Brown and Orange, however. Expect to see cloaking Wraiths a bit into the game.

White White is known best for his air threats, but does not hit you for a pretty long time. Soon after Red sends his Wraiths at you, White will send a few of his. His Wraiths, however, do not cloak. If you let him live long enough, he will eventually send you Battlecruisers.

Blue Blue is the one with the Nuclear Silo. He will leave you alone until you have lots of resources, when he starts to hit you with a moderate size group of Marines/Firebats/Ghosts. He will also later use nuclear attacks unless you clean him out early enough.