In this episode of Achievement Hunters Highlander looks at how to get the 4v4 Kin vs Insane AI and 4v4 vs Insane AI Kin achievements. To clarify, the achievements for being all the same race and for defeating all of the same race against the Insane AI.

This achievement is one which can seem quite challenging, but if you know your way around and a few bits and pieces, it’s really quite easy. The pay off is good too, for if you take the lessons and apply them to each difficulty and the similar 3v3 achievements, you can get a quick sweep of 160 achievement points!

Background

Before I get stuck into the achievements, I’ll let you in on a little interesting fact that should not be used in a balance argument! On all difficulties when the match is even a Terran AI will always beat a Protoss or a Zerg AI, and a Protoss AI will always beat a Zerg AI. Or, simply put.

Terran AI > Protoss AI > Zerg AI

Precisely why this is the case I think has to do with how the AI engages, the challenges for it using melee units and it’s type of air units not giving it the vision it wants of the high ground. But, we won’t go too deep here, you just need to know the principal.

For both of these achievements, we are going to be playing on the map Megaton. Why this map? Well, when you are Protoss it is the best available map for good cannon rushing positions. For when playing as Terran or Zerg on Insane difficulty, it is ideal to have your opponents close together.

How To

The first of these achievements is the 4v4 Kin vs Insane AI.

To achieve this, we need to play as 4 Protoss, 4 Zerg and 4 Terran against any combinations of Insane AI.

The second of these achivements is the 4v4 vs Insane AI Kin

To achieve this, we can use any combination of races but must defeat 4 Protoss, 4 Zerg and 4 Terran.

So, the quickest way to achieve both of these achievements in only three games is to play these as complete mirror matches. That is PPPPvPPPP, ZZZZvZZZZ and TTTTvTTTT.

When playing as Protoss you will be using the Cannon Rush strategy found in the first video in the series: Achievement Hunters: Insane AI 3v3 Co-op Streak (http://learningsc2.com/achievements/achievement-hunters-insane-ai-3v3-co-op-streak/). You will be able to take out one opponent with ease and be able to start putting pressure on a second opponent while you wait for your teammates to build up and come to dominate the rest. Once your Cannon Rush strategy isn’t worth persuing any further, you should transition to Void Rays and be mindful of sticking together with you allies and giving them vision of the high ground when they foolishly don’t try to.

When playing as Zerg, you will need to use the aggro Extractor strategy to distract the enemy. Take a drone or two ASAP and use them to build extractors in the opponents base. They will send Drone’s from miles around to take out such a terrible threat. All you have to do is cancel just before it dies and get your drone back on the geyser as an extractor before it gets killed. Repeating that well should be enough to give your teammates enough of an advantage to win. Once they have Zerglings out or your trick fails, you can transition to either Speedlings or Mutalisks and harass any attempts the enemy makes to expand and be mindful to help your allies out with some high ground vision.

For Terran, it gets a little bit trickier.

When playing as Terran, you’ll want to use a very similar to the aggro Extractor strategy however instead of an Extractor you will use a Supply Depot (or Engineering Bay if you can spare the extra minerals) and put these buildings on the high ground at the main entrance to the enemy base. That will create a reacion from all four enemies, so you need to watch your SCV very closely to use the Halt (T) command at the first sign of trouble and have him run away.

After you cannot persue that strategy further rush to banshees and ask your allies (using the button in the top right hand corner) to send you gas as soon as the game reaches 5mins). Focus your efforts on supporting your allies, harassing expansions/mineral lines and giving vision of the high ground.

I personally found trying to use this strategy significantly harder in a TvT environment than the other mirror match ups.

As a result, instead of playin this as a mirror, for anyone who finds this difficult you can do the following as I did:

For the win playing as all Terran, you can do this playing against four Zerg (TTTTvZZZZ). Still follow the same steps as above, but you won’t need to do this as well as your Terran buddies will have the race advantage over Zerg which I mentioned earlier.

For the win playing against all Terran, retain your Terran allies, but you yourself can select Protoss (PTTTvTTTT) Just use the simple Photon Cannon rush to neutralise one of the Terran opponents. After that, as before, you can just tech to Void Rays to help out.

Other notes

This set of achievements is unique in one way, defeating the Insane AI will not grant you the achievements for the lower difficulties. This was changed in a later patch so that you now have to fight with even allies/opponents at each level.

None of the aggressive tricks to distract workers will work below Insane difficulty however the other strategies remain valid. If you are ever having trouble defeating a Kin team, just remember that the strongest team is TTTP with you as Protoss using a Cannon Rush. If you are having trouble using a Kin team, don’t forget that ZZZZ are the weakest opponents.

When you aren’t using the aggressive trick, Outpost likely becomes the favourite map for a 4v4 as it divides your opponents making them easy to conquer for your more organised team (that is, a team where at least two armies stick together (you and at least one AI)).

For the similar 3v3 achievements you will want to pick Cinder Fortress on Insane difficulty or Frontier on lower difficulties.

Patch 1.4 Update:

As Zerg:

Insane AI Workers no longer react to a gas steal, however for this achievement using an Evolution Chamber is just as effective.

For best results, place it as close to a wall/mineral line chokepoint as possible. It will help it to last longer and make your life easier to keep the drone alive before rebuilding. Don’t forget that if it looks trapped, you can use the Mining-Pathing Trick (by clicking on a mineral patch your workers will not be blocked by enemy units and pass straight through them).

As Terran:

Insane AI Workers will now persue your SCV forever unless they are distracted by another target. Use this to your advantage and run your first SCV all over the map until you or your allies have an army and can trap them. Whilst you are doing that with your first SCV, take a second to distract another wave of workers with the same trick.

Replays

PPPP v PPPP 
ZZZZ v ZZZZ 
TTTT v ZZZZ 
PTTT v TTTT 

If you enjoyed this or any of Highlander’s guides or if you have a suggestion for an achievement you would like to see covered let us know in the comments section below!