age old question

terran seems dominant in practice atm, but does this answer change if there was a computer that played optimally? i am talking about a computer that responds perfectly with the information available to it, perfect micro obv, perfect timings with macro. not the increase gathering rates that the INSANE ai currently has.

my contention is that TERRAN would remain the strongest

terran micro with infinite AI means perfect spreads v zerg in general and protoss storms that crush MMM. huge multi-drops, with perfect micro in 3 locations would rape vs human villain that can only micro 1 spot at once.

i am also tempted by a perfect zerg though given that the macro/micro combination is just too much for lower tier players

terran is the race with the highest ceiling imo, but that said, nobody is perfect. and i think that terran is the most control/micro necessary race relative to apm. it requires constant attention to detail and microing individual unit groups (because terran strength decreases in numbers [relative to other race increases] unlike brood war, which was the inverse wrt tank lines which were basically unbreakable eventually).

so terran has the highest ceiling, but i think we havent really even seen what is possible with terran control tbh. hunter seeker, reapers, bunker play, better response to muta control w/ sensor towers and turret placement. terran will be a very very powerful race eventually, but those who control it will be absurdly good. whereas it might not require as much control to get to a very high level of p/z.

in your hypothetical, terran definitely is the most powerful. simply because of how good their units can perform in small numbers if micro'ed properly. theres zero way to ever simulate this bc it would be a process tree w/ too many decisions to make. think for example, the control required in a simple protoss death ball vs what a terran simulated AI would respond. if protoss is like, 40% zealot, 10% stalker, 30% colossi, 10% templar, 10% sentry, the computer might simulate something like 20% blue flame helion, 10% thor w/ strike cannon, 20% ghost, 5% raven, 15% medivac, 30% bio. the control required to micro blue flame helions kited back, strike cannon colossi, pdd, emp teplar, and stim kite bio, would be absolutely ridiculous. relatively, controlling zealots and stalkers (simple focus firing), colossi (very simple movement), sentry (guardian shield once, plus forcefields once, then nothing), plus templar (some sort of optimal combo of feedback thor/storm bio) would require much smaller required inputs.

From a pure macro perspective, zerg is the hardest. Not only timing your injects right but also remaxing when your opponent is attacking you (setting rally points effectively so units don't suicide in) takes quite a bit of control and APM. And let's not forget creep tumors. However, the race with the highest skill ceiling is terran, i don't play terran anymore so i wont go in specifics but looking at results and gameplay alone.

At the start of starcraft 2, terran was pretty good, but almost always relied on gimmicky strategies: Mass reaper, insane timing pushes, 2 port banshees etc etc. If you look what terrans like MMA are pulling off now, it's honestly quite scary...

Terran obviously has highest ceiling.
with unlimited apm and perfect control, banelings would be 100% ineffective against bio. same for zealots. also while making banes useless, with unlimited apm, you could be dropping, banshee harass, ghost harass, hellion harass.
also imagine perfect hellion micro where you always stop you hellions in a position to hit the most workers possible. perfect emps and snipes would trump perfect storms and fungals.
if you had perfect micro, ghosts counter 100% of zerg units.

a can think of a ton of things perfect micro with Terran can accomplish, i just dont feel the same with zerg, burrow micro, is meh, transfuse micro is meh, mutas should be shut down with perfect marine micro.

for toss, perfect phoenix & voidray micro is pretty deadly. blink micro with perfect apm would be pretty damn impressive.

still think T has the highest skill ceiling, last point, korean ladder.

Perfect control might reward protoss and zerg a little more than you guys have given credit for. A couple of big things that spring to mind are non-overkilling siege tanks and instant-hit marines. These are mainstays of the terran army, and the ai for them is already geared to be "perfect". On the other hand the other two races are mostly projectile-hit units and often overkill. A lot of the terran units also rely on splash damage to get the job done...see this for why that's a bad thing.

couple counter points to pwn.

i'll have to give the overkill some thought, but as far as the video goes:
i don't know if this was determined for sure, but i thought that the guy who made it hacked sc2 to know which units the tanks were targeting, if you have perfect micro, but don't know whats getting targeted, i don't if micro like that can be performed.
second point, with perfect micro i don't think you'd ever use siege tanks vs zerg. you should be using a marine/ghost/medivac army you should be able to micro so banes never hit. without banes, mutas and lings get shredded by marine ghost. You must have ghost in the mix to emp infestors, as this would be the only counter.

marine split for same guy who did the tank vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXUOW...eature=related

What's fungal vs emp range?

emp/snipe range 10
fungal range 9

plus again assuming perfect micro, ghost has the cloak/overseer snipe advantage

the only thing that really falls in the infestors favor is the physical size of the unit.
My micro sucks obviously, but i usually have a hard time emping more than 3-4 infestors because they dont cluster super tight. HTs on the other hand are really small units, and i think i've managed to emp like 12 of them at once.

zerg will still have no idea what units to build or when to stop droning... perfect micro implies denying all Z scouting as well

I think perfect ffs and perfect blink would be pretty strong in PvZ. Although blink is not as widely used in PvT, I think with perfect micro there as well P would be very strong.

better quality responses than i expected to receive itt

those automaton videos are sick btw, curious the story/explanation behind them

i think large t armies would demolish large p and z armies... they could cloak-> snipe the obs during big battles leading to perfect emps but i doubt it ever gets to that point... i think most games wouldnt last long at all since perfect micro assumes every p/z scout is denied therefore we make a perfect unit composition and they make a completely blind one

terran ainec

Protoss imo:

blinkstalker + sentries + HT will demolish every terranarmy(amybe some immortals in the mix who target marauders)

Make perfect FFs and donut the army in, storm on it and there they go. Ghosts will be instafeedbacked and just be useless, hurt stalkers will get blinked back perfectly.

Protoss. Their spellcasters could be insanely microed. Feedbacks, storms, forcefields, archon morphs and blinks all done simultaneous seem impossible to stop. Not to mention perfect use of chrono and never missing a warp in

Well for starters ghosts perfectly microed deny all spellcasting.

i think terran because their early pressure/1 base timings would be insane with good marine/banshee/tank micro against all races.

terran definitely has the highest ceiling (as korea will show you) due to the flexibility and variety of available units, timings and approaches to the game.

Also melee units have a lower skill ceiling and become increasingly bad as micro approaches perfection. Terran has the strongest, sturdiest and most accessible ranged units and so there's no reason that P or Z should be able to reach the midgame against T.

i'd actually like to change my answer to this ^^^

but i still think the lack of scouting with perfect micro'd marines around the perimeter of the base is going to allow a lot of mid/early build order wins for the T

Totally agree with all of this. 7 mins in the game Terrans tech tree is nearly complete. Protoss is super rigid when it comes to tech paths and Zerg is too weak prior to infestors. Once infestors come out then Zerg gets super strong but in TvZ with perfect micro then ghosts will always win in that war.