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Are you struggling to remember all those little housekeeping tasks you need to juggle playing Zerg? I certainly am.
Recently, however, I came up with a mnemonic to help me keep on top of things: CLOUDS.
C is for Creep. Are my creep tumours ripe? Can I put down a new one? Should I send out a queen? Do I need more queens?
L is for Larvae. Are my queens spawning them? What can I make with them?
O is for Overlords. Do I need supply? Do I need an overseer? Are my overlords spread to catch incoming drops? Are they dropping creep?
U is for Upgrades. Do I have evolution chambers? Are they doing anything? Is it time for Lair? Should I be making a spire, or an infestation pit? Do I need burrow? Overlord speed? An expansion?
D is for Drones. Am I saturated? Can I safely drone up? Are my geysers covered after his harrassment?
S is for Scouting. Do I know where his army is? What it's comprised of? Has he expanded? Have I covered the towers? Is there a ling at each expo?
Literally the first time I tried this, I was amazed. I had creep everywhere, my money was lower, I could see his drops, I knew he hadn't sneaked an expansion anywhere, I had my tech in time - every time I had one of those "uh...." moments I thought 'clouds' and I was off doing things again.
Maybe this can help others - I certainly hope so.
Thanks for reading.
 
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Haha interesting stuff. I always wanted to do something like this, but never got to it. I guess it's easier than keeping an unassociated mental checklist (or no mental list at all).
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This is fantastic, I love acronyms! :D
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Canada2480 Posts
and LOUDS even works for BW
nice trick lol
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lol, congrats, this is a pretty darn pro mnemonic. gonna write it down and use it!
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Nice! I'm a sucker for these things.
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Neato neato. Oddly enough things like this will boost your play way more than learning build orders or cute tactics.
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United States1629 Posts
thought this would be a story about iG.Cloud T_T
nice trick, although I've never found acronyms to be personally very useful. If it works for other people, then full steam ahead
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should d be before L? because if you had used your larva, you can't really drone up, or do you think we should drone up the next CLOUD?
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what are you talking about,
v is for overlord
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Stuff like this works amazingly. I was in low Platinum and started cycling my play. The mnemonic is pretty nice! Mine is queen, scout, check minerals/supply, build, upgrade, and tech (but there's no catchy scheme to that  ).
Spitting larva and continuously building units took me from struggling in low Plat to moving up with a fantastic win ratio. And then I got demoted . Still, the cycling keeps me at an almost 100% win rate against players who don't cheese or all-in (about half). Once I get a handle on that I'll be moving back up!
For some practical advice, if you have a mnemonic or list for a gaming cycle it's helpful to write it down and tape it close to your monitor. This will help until the cycle becomes second nature.
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that's great. acronyms like that are a really useful way to remember things like that! I'm going to try this next time I play.
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On November 21 2010 05:00 Lawliver wrote:
should d be before L? because if you had used your larva, you can't really drone up, or do you think we should drone up the next CLOUD?
It's more of a checklist; the order is less important than the fact everything's on there. For instance, you might get to 'c' and think 'no, I can't spread creep because it's time to inject and I need larvae.' Or you might decide against making a queen because considering doing so will remind you that you need to upgrade to lair. The important thing is that, all of a sudden, I'm actually making those decisions instead of being distracted by units trundling around. I really couldn't believe how much busier I seemed to be, constantly; I'd need to go and check but I'm sure my average APM must have doubled in that first game.
Ironically I still managed to lose, but I didn't actually mind so much. Failed infestor micro cost me the game (see my previous blog post for details) but not because I lost the battle. I had so much stuff I still stopped his two-base thor/tank/banshee push (on creep in the middle of Jungle Basin), which I've never before managed, but lost far more than I needed to in the process and couldn't sustain the momentum.
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That is pretty clever, I like it.
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thats actually really awesome, we need more fun acronyms!
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I used this today. Pretty awesome,
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SCOUT also works 
S is for scout
C is for Creep
O is Overlord
U is units
T is tech
u can use that in combo with CLOUDS imo
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.iconarchive.com/icons/pino/sesame-street/32/Cookie-Monster-2-icon.png){kind=icon}
