StarCraft II: Terran vs. Hard Terran AI Strategy

My experiments with StarCraft II have revealed a weakness in the hard Terran AI in a custom game.  Simply put, a sufficiently sized army of marines can take out the AI...  Let's look at the specifics, shall we?

First, send every SCV mining the mineral field.  Start training SCVs so that you have exactly 11.  Don't train more, or else 50 minerals will be set aside for the unit - and you want those 50 minerals.

Ok, got 10?  One more is being trained?  Good.  Take an SCV that is mining and get it to build a Supply Depot, and hold shift and right-click the mineral field after giving the order to build the Supply Depot.  This ensures the SCV doesn't need any micromanagement and will automatically returning mining once it's done building.

Have enough for a Vespene Gas Refinery?  Build one!  You'll need it.  And start training 3 more SCVs, sending them to the Vespene Geyser.  You only need one, we'll be more bound to minerals.

As the number of collected minerals increase, keep on building SCVs to collect even more minerals (about 2 per mineral field is ideal with an extra or two to use for building).  At the earliest possible moment, build a barracks, a bunker, and another barracks.  You want two barracks, but need a bunker.  Make sure the entrances to your base have at least one bunker.  Build a reactor on each barrack.

Now, you can produce 4 marines in parallel.  Start building an army.  First fill the bunkers, then just build more marines, Supply Depots, and SCVs...

While all of that is happening, you'll want to build an Orbital Command, an Engineering Bay, a Sensor Tower, and a Factory (with attached reactor).  In that order.  The orbital command allows you to upgrade the Supply Depots for more units (without spending precious minerals that could go towards building more marines) and quickly collect minerals using harvesters...  Also, spying on the enemy is always a good idea.

Ideally, 5 minutes total have passed.  The enemy should be preparing an attack with marines and marauders.  Keep the bunker safe, and away you go!

Try to minimize the casualties on the first attack by the AI - then immediately counter-attack if you can have about 10 to 20 marines.  You might also have a few Hellions by now too.

The strategy essentially boils down to upgrading marines and taking advantage of the ability to produce 4 marines and 2 hellions rather quickly to send into the battle field.  It works against the hard Terran AI, it might also work against Zerg and Protoss.  You also have to admit that you'll lose many units, and that ideally you're on the offensive, and not stuck protecting your base.  Being defensive won't help if the AI progresses too far ahead along the tech tree...  You might want some Medivacs - but I rather enjoy the suicide trips.

The last thing that I do is have an SCV build turrets (just in case) and additional Command Centres.  These Command Centres I like to fly off to rarely checked islands, or nearby mineral fields.  Once landed, transform them into a Planetary Fortress and start mining minerals.  Mine as many as you can!

You'll also be more effective if you focus the fire-power of the marines on specific targets rather than letting them attack and defend what they want (which is, for our purposes, good enough).