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I know ZC is generally considered a newbie map, but me and a few friends have been playing a lot of inhouse ZCs recently and the games have gotten quite competitive. After searching the forums, I only found threads about public game zeroclutter strategies, so hopefully we can get some higher level discussion in this thread.
My initial belief when we began playing ZC was that protoss is the best race. Protoss gets faster money early on because workers don't need to build or morph, and their units tend to be better suited for 200/200 battles.
However, terran mech is extremely powerful with protoss ground support, and zerg is basically unstoppable with darkswarm + hive tech if you allow them to macro up undisturbed. Basically, every race is playable and zeroclutter can become very competitive with 6 smart players in the game.
Here are my current build orders and general strategies for toss/terran/zerg. If you have any suggestions/comments/criticism please post, thanks.
protoss
no rush build
8 pylon
10 nexus
12-13 nexus
15 nexus
17 gate, 17 assim, 17 assim
upgrade +1 air attack, then +2 when its done
tech to 6 stargates and make 12 carriers
immediately stop carrier production after 12 are done and mass gates and begin ground upgrades
tech to goon/arb/templar army
suicide carriers to kill nexus/cc/hive if vulnerable, if not then just use it to force cannon defense and push middle with goon/temp/carriers instead
no rules build
8 pylon
10 gate, 10 gate
11 pylon
12 pylon, 12 gate
14 assim, 14 assim, 14 forge
core after 3 zeals
begin +1 attack
tech to citadel, get leg speed
move out to attack when dts pop out (for counter attack defense), +1 and leg speed should finish right before u reach their base
continue to add gates and tech to arbiters when time allows
terran
i only use one build for all game types
8 depot
10 cc
13 cc
15 cc
16 rax
18 refinery, 18 refinery, 18 refinery, 18 refinery, 18 refinery
tech to tank/gol army, upgrade early, put 1 sci vessel at every base so u can EMP arbiters that try to recall
zerg
no rush build
9 ovie
9 hatch
10 hatch
11 hatch
11 hatch
13 hatch
from here basically tech to hive and start ground upgrades but other than tech buildings, make ONLY drones and hatcheries until map max. at mapmax you can either build 50 mutalisks or hydralisks and a few defilers to help with mid push
no rules build
5 pool
make 3 drones
when pool finishes make an extractor, make 6 lings, cancel extractor
use 6 lings to force top to build defensively
now either revert to the no rush build, or stop after 3 hatch to make an extractor and mass speedling if you team is running a rush strategy. if you went for speedling route, slowly move up to hydra/lurk, then hydra/defiler when 3/3 finishes
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i am guessing you are talking about 128x128 map size with close minerals. for protoss its better to take the pylon when u have 100 min instead of pylon at 8 (its more like 6.5). depending on how the opponents, its good for protoss to go for mass reaver timing drop to hit their econ and/or cc/hatch/nex. timing dt rush can also work on terran players with large ground force distraction.
but really with protoss, unless ur opponent macros u really gotta macro up while making at least zealots from a few gates to dfend any sort of hindering rush or harassment.
for zerg: its good to go fast pool and expand or alternatively throw down 1hatch then pool then another hatch next to the minerals on the left or right to get a good macro up. if the protoss can provide the protection early on and allow the zerg to macro up. zerg is strongest on that map with good recovery of forces. 2-3 groups muta timing attack is also good.
I havent play zero clutter for ages so dont have a recollection of the build order.
should be something like:
lord when u have 100 straight away whilst being able to pump drones.
hatch when u have 300 straight whilst pumping drones as well.
pool whilst pumping drones
hatch again ditto
keep drone up with ling scouts
depending on ur allies and opponent (you can judge how many drones u can make b4 gettin an army oflings - depending if they want to rush or not). 2group muta timing attack can catch heavy macroers off guard
you generally dont want to cheese too badly unless ur allies know how to recoup the disadv lost or defend well while macroing.
thats all i can think of currently
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I don't know if ZC is played like fastest at all, but if it is, Protoss most definitely is the strongest race due to its ability to take out workers very quickly (reaver/storm drops) and the fact that workers can continue mining after they've started building(s). I used to play a lot of fastest. It's almost a different brand of SC, focusing on a different set of skills. Quite a few fastest players have been able to make the jump successfully into melee (low money maps), so I think at least some of those skills are applicable to other styles.
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i have to disagree with the pylon thing. if you build a pylon on 6-7 supply, you are losing 1-2 seconds of mining time which is much more significant than on regular maps because of the amplified sense of time. you want to maximize mining time as much as possible on fastest style maps because every second that a worker is not mining is worth so much.
in fact because of of this, ive been testing out new zerg builds that delay the addition of hatcheries after the 3rd hatch in order to ensure that all drones go toward mining. i havent found a perfect combination yet but it does appear to be better
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i really doubt 1-2 seconds really matters when you're dealing with potentially infinite money o__O
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play with op senmon on east. i dont know if theyre the best anymore but they were very good, as far as that kind of map goes.
and your builds are horrible, especially for no rush.
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On June 03 2008 20:09 IdrA wrote:
play with op senmon on east. i dont know if theyre the best anymore but they were very good, as far as that kind of map goes.
and your builds are horrible, especially for no rush.
thanks for the info, ill definitely check that out
most of my builds are improvised because i cant find serious ZC replays anywhere, so if you know any builds please post them, i would appreciate it very much
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well on brat_ok's replay pack, he has a few games he played on some fastest maps... he goes mass science vessel and dmatrix's allies / erasers enemy works and emps/irradiates incoming templar and shit. sounds like it'd be useless but it's actually quite rape in practice.
that's all i know about fastest really
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I like fast reavers - great to piss off the kids who kick anyone with a +ve win ratio out of their games. It goes something like this:
pylon (when u have 100, at 6 or 7)
gate
2x gas
1 zeal + core (at the same time)
pylon
forge if u think u might be rushed, or if u have 2 noob allies
robotics as soon as core finishes
cannon right next to minerals, so u can defend lings with probes/1 zeal
2nd robotics
start shuttle as soon as 1st robotics is done, put down support bay directly after
some pylons...
as soon as support bay is done, start 2 reavers + shuttle speed
then go on to have fun with the opponents eco ... or play speed shuttle vs mass lots ;-)
whilst killing their eco (2 or 3 opponents if u are fast), before returning to take down the 1st nex/cc, get 1 more reaver at home for defense, and start. also as soon as your shuttle is on the way, put down a citadel and start going dt. Most of the time, once the many zeal counter arrives, you have a reaver and 6 dt so no worries. Go on with dt/reaver/shuttle pushes, templar drops on eco, etc Also if you allies aren't totally useless, they'll be having a field day by now...
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one t build only? for 0c i like to rush firebat/stim...all you need is 2 sec alone with their drones and it's gg
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Carriers are horrible on zero clutter maps because their build time is too long. It matters so much on ZC.
You only lose the 1 second mining time (if that, just build the pylon right next to your probe) until when your later pylon would finish, because you never stop probe production anyway. You can make use of that faster pylon by building the gateway earlier.
On June 03 2008 20:17 Mada_Jiang wrote:
ZC! no one can beat me in that! simply go zerg and then macrosaurus ^^ you can generate troops faster than they can kill it.
So can everyone else.
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I don't have idealized ZC builds. Sorry, but I just don't care enough about ZC to plan out my builds carefully.
However, I have played ZC a few times and some obvious things stand out about the map. The first is the lack of any real terrain, and the wide chokes. Essentially, you have the ability to shove armies down the throats of your opponents and don't have to worry about things like cliff drops. The second is that depending on the version, there's usually just 1 mineral patch that all the workers mine off of. Sometimes you'll have like 8 patches that can each be mined off of by as many probes as you can make, but I won't go into that just yet.
This is why Protoss is truly the best race for ZC: you have two methods that work extremely well for obliterating ALL of someone's workers; storm drop and reaver drop. This is also why versions of ZC that have 8 patches are better than versions with 1 since a Protoss player can decimate your income instantaneously otherwise. Since Protoss are the only race with defensive structures that cover both vs air and ground, you also have the best chance to defend yourself against drops. Meanwhile, Protoss ground armies work extremely well on open, level terrain.
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Builds aren't really that applicable on that map, atleast don't time them with probes. I know for a fact your pylon and gates can come much earlier on ZC/Faster than 8/10 !_!
Just go with the flow of your economy.
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United States24680 Posts
Impression of Chill:
Chill will say:
No. <close>
lol but seriously, zc has more depth to it than I realized until I played it ._.
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On June 04 2008 00:38 micronesia wrote:
lol but seriously, zc has more depth to it than I realized until I played it ._.
lol, to me it always ranked as UMS alternative ... but come to think of it, has anyone considered the strategical impact of the maximum number of units in a given SC game? ie how do you deal best with the situation when SC tells you 'cannot create unit, maximum number of units/buildings exceeded' 
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On June 03 2008 22:49 Wonders wrote:Carriers are horrible on zero clutter maps because their build time is too long. It matters so much on ZC. You only lose the 1 second mining time (if that, just build the pylon right next to your probe) until when your later pylon would finish, because you never stop probe production anyway. You can make use of that faster pylon by building the gateway earlier. Show nested quote +On June 03 2008 20:17 Mada_Jiang wrote:
ZC! no one can beat me in that! simply go zerg and then macrosaurus ^^ you can generate troops faster than they can kill it. So can everyone else.
carriers are bad, BUT 12 of them can kill a nexus really fast and its extremely difficult to kill 12 carriers before they can move in and kill a nexus. thats pretty much why you get them, because it forces the other team to build so much defense that it makes up for the temporary lack of goons (in a no rush setting).
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me and my friends join ZC NR 20 games and 5 pool the other 3 people.
with that said, play zerg and spam multilisks and snipe nexus/hatch/command center, basically cripples them because you can't rebuild them on the same optimal mining spot :D
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i generally think PPT is the best 3on3 128/128 combo. The terran neeeds to just push 3-3 tanks asap and mass them and one protoss goes goon/zeal/temp and the other can do the same or air combo or sair/carrier/arb.
the weakness of a protoss army is to lings an da shit ton of units. The tanks counter that perfectly and are great for slow pushing up the middle. However if theres another terran doing the same thing with mass tanks breaking the middle will be difficult without air, which is the only circumstance which i think justifies using carriers and an air combo.
Otherwise the ground support is too strong, the only thing that can actually hurt it is a shit ton of guardians. Which if one guy just invests in sairs or storm it's easily taken care of.
3Z is also very strong imo. If they all play good and smart with good unit combos 3 Z's massing skills are hard to stop with any combo, imagine 200+ guardians coming down on you, it wouldn't end pretty. There ability to reinforce also makes them strong as hell.
Generally though, just as long as you have a terran in the mix who can mass tanks it helps a lot.
i think for strongest combos i would say PPT then ZZZ. two T's are unnecessary and just create useless clutter. PPZ is also strong beucase guardians with good ground support can break a push pretty easily too.
Note: ZZZ would be very weak in a norules game. Due to it being weak against rushes. Rush weakness also contributres to a weak late game economy as well. Although in theory i guess speedling abuse could work wonders if done right 
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those race and unit combos are ment for both no rush and no rules games. It just is opening varient.
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EPT
