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Hi, guys. This is smi.lols. I saw a lot of [H] threads where Z complained that in the mid game T and P have a much stronger army, either Z wins early, or Z has to drag the game into the end game and try to come back with ultra/ling. This is a flawed view of the mid game. I believe that Z player who get steamrolled in the mid game have 2 common flaws: first they fail to manage their economy correctly, so they can't produce enough units, secondly they don't really understand the way of combat for Z, and they waste too many units when they fight. It is for these players who struggle in the mid game that I decided to write this guide.
Keep in mind that my highest iccup ranking is only B+, what I believe to be correct may very well be flawed in the eyes of a higher level player. I am only trying to help by sharing what has helped me to get this far. So here we go.
Also, ZvZ is not included because both economy and combat style are unique in that particular match up.
I believe that T and P have two important similarities:
1. Both T and P set up their economy before they maximize production. Starting with the first SCV or probe, T and P generally produce workers nonstop until they reach their desired production capacity. Z, on the other hand, must switch between drones and units, and his economy is trickier to develop.
2. Both T and P depend exclusively on special units for fighting power. T depends on siege tanks and vessels, while P depends on HT and reavers. Without these special units, T/P's army is very weak compared to the Z. I will discuss the implications later.
First, Z needs to set up his economy different from the T/P opponent:
Using TvZ FE into SK build as an example, T goes one rax, cc, academy, second rax, ebay, third rax, factory, startport, science facility + two more rax, second ebay, second starport and another two more rax for 7 rax in total. All the way up to the construction of the last two rax, T produces SCV non-stop, setting up his entire economy first, then simply non-stop army production until he runs out of resources. The only time T will add more economy is if he takes an early third base.
P goes the same way, setting up a full economy first, then produce at max capacity for the rest of the game.
Do you ever get that feeling that the T/P army just keep coming and coming and never gets any smaller no matter how much you kill? That's because they have already set up a full economy and they can produce at max capacity for as long as they have resources. Many Z fall behind in the mid game because they fail to set up their own economy to match that of the T/P opponent, the econ disadvantage lead to less units, and makes the T/P army appear stronger.
Every Z is told on first day "you must power drones in the early game, make as many as you can get away with, then switch to army to defend". And by watching VODs and reps, most Z gets his early BO down fairly easy. The problem occurs after the initial switch to unit production, inexperienced Z don't know what to do after they go through their memorized BO. Once into the mid game their econ management fall apart.
Take a hypothetical ZvP on destination for example: both FE, the Z goes the now standard 3 hatch lair into 5 hatch hydra/ling/lurker, and he does fine in the early-mid game, putting down a 6th hatch at a 4th expo, denying P from taking a third, etc... But as the game progresses he feels that the P gradually started to out produce him. He takes a look at the rep and sees that the P was pumping 9 gateways on 2 bases, and Z screams imbalance, "In the mid game, my 4 bases cannot match P's 2, his army is just stronger, may be that's how the game is designed?" Not true.
What the Z did wrong was that after he replicated the BO, he started to mass only units until he took the 4th expo. He feels that his econ is weak but the P is always attacking so he is pressured into making only units to survive, and finally when he gets some drones for his 4th base, the P is pumping 9 gateways, taking expos everywhere, and just started to out macro him. A close look reveals that despite having 4 bases, he didn't actually have the economy to maintain max production of all his hatcheries, ultimate, because he didn't make enough drones.
So when does Z make units and drones?
Timing is everything:
Drone timing is neither a magic timing that only high level players know, nor a random timing you hope to get lucky with. There is a simple rule that you must follow: you make enough units to meet defense timings, and all other time and resource is devoted to drones. That's it.
What the Z player needed to do, is go back to watch the rep again, and pause at every possible attack timing the P has. When does the first zealot comes out? If P attacks now with 1 zealot do I have 4 lings to defend? When does the second and third zealot comes out? Do I have enough units to defend that those attack timings? When does P gets the corsair out? Does my scourge come out in time? When P finishes +1 and leg speed and rolls out with 1 archon + 11 zealots, how many hydra/ling and sunken do I need to defend at that point?
After figuring out all those defense timings, and knowing how many units you need to defend, you can prepare for them, and devote all other resources to make drones. Now, instead of wondering in the dark if you made too many or too few drones, you know exactly what you are doing!
Listen to the Day[9] audio guide on building triggers, he basically tells you how to design your own BOs based on defense timings. For those lesser mortals who are content with just copying what the Koreans do, you can save a lot of time by watching their reps and write down the defense timings, instead of figuring them out yourselves through practice. Some people believe that takes the fun out of Starcraft, some people have just as much fun playing mapped out Korean builds, whatever suits you.
Let's go back to the ZvP game earlier, the Z player now builds lings based on the early zealot timings, adding sunkens accordingly, and reach a point where he has 45 supply (12 lings), with 39 drones, 6 on gas, 33 on minerals, hydra speed and +1 carapace and overlord speed have started. He makes his first group of hydras knowing that the P is morphing his first archon and has 5 zealots, with 3 more in the gateways. Z knows that after 1 more round of zealot production P will finish +1 attack and leg speed, and will push him with 1 archon and 11 zealots.
Z feels that 2 groups of hydras + lings and sunken should be plenty to defend, but taking account of the P's walking time across the map, he knows that he can make 1 more round of drones and still have just enough hydras when the P arrives, so with 5 hatcheries he makes 5 drones (15% boost to his 33 drones on minerals), and then he adds a second group of hydras. If Z did not get P's attack timing down, he may have unnecessarily made the second group of hydras first, and missed out 15% of his economy for several rounds of production.
If you read my previous guide on Z econ management, you should know that it takes 6 drones on minerals (it's more like 5.5, but I'm sticking to the higher number) + 1 drone on gas to maintain constant hydra production of 1 hatchery. With 33 drones on minerals and 6 on gas, Z barely has enough money for constant hydra, barely any gas for upgrades, and no money to expo again. With 38 drones on minerals, now Z has enough to maintain hydra production and take a third gas and add a 6th hatch at his 4th expo.
Back to timing, with 3 groups of hydras and some lings on the map, lurker research almost done, Z feels that he can defend the bridges if he dodges storm correctly, (remember, destination is used for the example here). So he adds another round of 5 drones, and when he got his first lurkers, with 4 groups of hydra/ling, he added another round of 5 drones. So now he has 43 drones on minerals and 9 on gas, which should comfortable support 7 hatch lurker/hydra/ling + upgrades, which is on par with 9 gateways' production speed. So if at this point P has less than 9 gateways, he will be the one who gets out produced.
So as much as economy goes, Z's mid game production should not be weaker than the P player. If you feel that you keep getting out produced in the mid game, you probably did not add enough drones, or added them too late because you didn't know your defense timing and made too many units early on.
But what about psy storms? Even if Z keeps up the production in numbers, it still seems that his mid game army is weaker...
Rules of engagement:
Referring back to my initial claim that T and P armies depend exclusively on special units for fighting power. This is of course assuming that you have equal production speed. If Z is out macroed, that is an economic issue, not combat.
So what does it mean? All Z strategies and tactics are designed to counter these units.
Since I just rhetorically asked about psy storms, let's use that same ZvP game for example. Try to picture the relative armies in your head, P has 1 archon + 13 zealots + 6 dragoons + 4 HT, Z has 36 hydras + 12 zerglings, who is stronger? It all depends on storms, right? How much max damage can 6-8 psy storms do? That's something a Z never wants to find out.
Now picture again, with the 4 HT removed from the P army, lets say they morphed into 2 archons, now we have 3 archons + 13 zealots + 6 dragoons vs 36 hydras + 12 zerglings, easy fight for the zerg no?
What the above exercise should illustrate, is that without psy storms, P army is always weaker on equal production. Notice I said storms, not HT, because an HT without energy is as useless as a neutral creature on the map. What this means for the Z player is that to win battle, he must either 1. assassinate the HTs or force them into archons, or 2. deplete the energy of those HTs before engagement.
Before we go into how Z should fight, lets analyze how P fights first, knowing your enemy is the key to win combat. Assume that the above zeal/archon/goon/HT army is sitting in a ball in an open area, Z with his hydra/ling army starts the attack with a nice flank from 3 sides, left right and bottom, the P will do 1. storm the incoming Z, 2. fall back, 3. storm the chasing Z, whose spread out flank is starting to cluster as it gives chase, 4. fall back again, 5. storm the remaining Z, and 6. morph the energy depleted HT into archons, and finish off the left over Z with his units. If you said, "hmm, all the major damage in that battle is done with psy storms", you are right. If Z gives up the attack half way and falls back, he loses all those units for nothing, the HTs will recharge their energy and Z must spend resources to replace his lost units.
Now, same fight, but P is the one attacking, Z army is spread out in a small arc. The armies engage, 1 HT is mis-placed and got in front of the army, Z snipes the HT and dodges the desperate storm, the rest of the HT catches on, Z sees that the HTs are in range, and falls back accordingly, a couple storms go off catching only tails of the retreating Z army. Since everything moves faster than HT, Z engages again when the HTs are out of range, and promptly retreats again when HT gets close, dodging yet another round of storms. P has lost many zealots and the archon, and with only 3 storms left he wisely decided to retreat and regroup with his reinforcements.
So Z must rely on defensive advantage and dodge storms, sounds easy? Yes, but to be honest, it's usually not enough...in actual game, storm dodging is extremely difficult to execute when you have to keep up the macro and reinforce your army. It is possible to fight mid game wit hydra/ling, but most Z will recommend otherwise. To fight HT, you need either mutas or lurkers.
1. Way of the mutas:
Many Z players falsely believe that mutas are only useful for offense, to disrupt enemy bases. What they don't realize is that mutas are very effective in eliminating HTs on the map. Sniping HTs off is obviously desirable, but just forcing them into archons is usually good enough.
Player who keeps track of the Korean pros may have noticed the popularity of a muta/hydra build. Z goes his normal 3 hatch lair into 5 hatch, but gets delayed mutas for defense together with some sunkens, then follow up with mass hydra to put pressure on P's third base, some times ending the game right there.
The idea of the build is not to do economic damage to the probe line, (of course do it if you could), but rather to force all the initial HTs into archons, so that when mass hydras are out, Z can over power the zealot/archon army. Indeed, without psy storms, it is very difficult for P to deal with mass hydra. If you are a muta fan, definitely give this build a try, but if your muta micro is sub par, don't panic, there is option 2.
2. Way of the lurkers:
With mutas, the raw power of the archons can pose big problems early on. Timing attacks delivered right when you make your switch into hydras are extremely powerful, and requires good micro from Z to defend. But if you can't micro mutas well, lurkers work just fine, though in completely different style.
Whereas muta/hydra seeks to eliminate HTs and build a stronger mass hydra army to control the map. Lurker builds are defensive in nature aimed to out macro the P. Remember that to deal with HTs the second option is to deplete their energy? Storm dodging with hydra/ling is indeed difficult, but if you have lurkers then it is a whole different story.
Set up the lurker field so that 1 storm hits only 1 lurker. The correct way to play lurker defense is to always keep a small hydra/ling army on the field to take hits for the lurkers, but keep your main army in the back to avoid storms. Let the lurkers absorb the psy storms. A field of 6 lurkers can easily absorb 6 psy storms before P can clean up everything on it. But the real fight begins after P clearing the lurker field! P is still feeling happy that he broke through the lurkers with relative ease, but now he is in a situation where he has used up most of his psy storms, and many units are damaged and lost their shields. Z must take this window and engage with everything he has, surround if possible, to not give P any breathing room to recharge his HT energy or shields. The depleted HTs cannot do anything in this fight, and they must be picked off even if part of the P army escapes.
What if I want to attack?
Well, if you want to play aggressive in the mid game, you have to use mutas to eliminate existing HTs or at least force them into archons. If you have chosen the more defensive lurker strategy, they you do NOT want to attack. Attack is not always necessary, simple as that.
But if I don't attack P will expo everywhere and get too big? Not true.
Before the popularity of the current aggressive muta/hydra build, ZvP is always played under the tradition assumption that it is the P's job to kill Z, not the other way around. Consider that Z can add 5-7 drones every single round of production, if P doesn't attack, Z will get huge much much faster than P can. So if you are worried about P playing turtle, just grow like crazy and get big before he does, that is Z's racial advantage. Usually lurker builds transition much faster into hive for cracklings and defilers, in comparison to muta builds that are more aggressive in the mid game. Drop upgrade is usually researched after hive. What Z wants to do in the mid game is pure defense, and get huge extremely fast. By doing that, you essentially force the P to attack your lurker fields, or he will simply be out macroed.
As to P taking expos, understand that you don't need to launch a major offensive to stop him from taking expos! First you need to have at least one ling at every P expo for both scouting and harassing the probe that tries to build stuff. As the game progresses, keeping 3-5 lings near his expos can quickly kill the probe and delay the expo. When crackling finishes, the sheer mobility of zergling raids become very difficult for P to deal with. And when defiler comes out, zergling raids become simply devastating. 2 swarms to cover the cannons, +2 cracklings can ignore everything and take down the nexus in just a few seconds. Of course when drop finishes you know what do. All this time you are growing your economy and massing units, right?
To sum up, deal with the HTs and the rest of Ps army is trash.
Same goes for reavers, just focusing on shuttle and reaver sniping.
And the Terrans?
Same concepts apply, except muta/hydra doesn't work. With exception to risky drop builds, ZvP can only be play defensively.
The first T push is generally the most dangerous one, because the size of that army is disproportionally larger than his production capacity. What does it mean? It means that if you kept up your economic growth to math T's production capacity, his horded up army will be disproportionally larger than your production capacity the same way it is larger than his.
Therefore, you cannot engage when his army leaves base. You must delay him as much as possible, and not allow any reinforcements to join up, and mean while horde up an army as big as his before he breaks your front door. If T got his timing right, your defilers will not come out for the first push, you must defend it with brute force.
Sounds hard? Not really. Remember that the only units dangerous to you are the tanks and that first vessel? To defend, you don't need to do perfect surrounds and kill his entire army, all you need to do is taking out those siege tanks to buy time for defilers.
Don't panic when T is pounding on your sunkens, that's what those sunkens are for anyway. Let them die to buy time. When you engage, T usually keeps his m&m slightly behind his tanks to avoid getting cornered by lurkers on all sides. Some Z makes the mistake of going in too deep and ends up losing the fight even with superior numbers. The correct thing to do is to attack from both sides, borrow the outside lurkers just in range of the his marines, which is as far away as possible from tanks, and borrow the inside lurkers just in range of his siege tanks, which is as far away as possible from the marines. As long as you take out those tanks, his siege is over. Don't worry if the marines get away, the fact that you lose minimum units in that fight will help you more than those marines can help him. And of course kill that first vessel when you engage.
I'm not going to cover late game because this is a mid game guide. So, that's it. gg
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Awesome guide, but I have one question lets say you didn't catch the protoss expandind and he cannoned up, not the 3rd but lets say you let a 4rth go by mistake, what should you do, try to break the expansion?
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Excellent guide man, indeed Zerg midgame is a pain and there's where most of my losses take place.
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On January 24 2009 05:27 w3jjjj wrote:
I believe that Z player who get steamrolled in the mid game have 2 common flaws: first they fail to manage their economy correctly, so they can't produce enough units, secondly they don't really understand the way of combat for Z, and they waste too many units when they fight.
Well, this pretty much sums my playing experience up.
Thank you for this guide, it contains a lot of (imo) good suggestions, and things to think on.
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On January 24 2009 05:42 imthemaster wrote:
Awesome guide, but I have one question lets say you didn't catch the protoss expandind and he cannoned up, not the 3rd but lets say you let a 4rth go by mistake, what should you do, try to break the expansion?
If you manage to win a fight with units left over, go kill it. If your armies have not clashed, and P is playing defensive with many cannons and he keeps his army near by, leave that expo alone. Allowing too much gas for the P is problematic, but in the mid game when his army is intact, throwing your units on cannons and storms is not a good idea either. You can't do anything to the P at that point in the game. Wait for crackling and dark swarm and just continue to get big yourself. If P took so many expos early on, he should not have too big of an army until his new gateways come in. So he can't put much pressure on you, which means you don't need as many units to defend, just get huge and get huge fast. Everything is easier to deal with when you have a good economy and many hatcheries.
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Thanks so much. 80% roughly of my games that I lose, I lose in the mid-game, so this is incredibly helpful. Ty Ty Ty.
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Great guide. Thanks a ton, this should help me a lot, as you've described my most major problem almost precisely.
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very interesting from a Z perspective in pvz O_o
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Thank you so much. Really brings light to the whole P>Z "imbalance". Great read, and great guide.
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After figuring out all those defense timings, and knowing how many units you need to defend, you can prepare for them, and devote all other resources to make drones. Now, instead of wondering in the dark if you made too many or too few drones, you know exactly what you are doing!
So lets say that P pushes out, and I've built just the right amount to defend. Seeing this, P decides he's not going to suicide his army and instead just pulls back and continues to pump out units - what now? What do you do when you don't know when and if P is going to try and push out?
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On January 24 2009 07:37 Underwhelmed wrote:Show nested quote +After figuring out all those defense timings, and knowing how many units you need to defend, you can prepare for them, and devote all other resources to make drones. Now, instead of wondering in the dark if you made too many or too few drones, you know exactly what you are doing! So lets say that P pushes out, and I've built just the right amount to defend. Seeing this, P decides he's not going to suicide his army and instead just pulls back and continues to pump out units - what now? What do you do when you don't know when and if P is going to try and push out?
You prepare for possible attacks. If he doesn't attack, you just keep growing bigger. It is his job to kill you before you get overwhelmingly big. At some point he has to attack.
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Awesome post. Pure awesomeness.
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Great guide.
I guess a good example of what you're talking about is Bisu vs Zero on Destination in the MSL group stage.
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This guide is amazing and will no doubt help my ZvP
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youre right about the ecomony.
sometimes i assume that because i have 3 bases up and mining and he has 2, that im getting more. a close inspection of the replay reveals that he was mining with far more SCV/Probes than i had Drones.
replace drones that make buildings, that are killed and have at least 2 for each mineral node you are hitting, you can be sure your opponent does.
sometimes its hard to resist just cranking out "attack" units once you start midgame. be it hydra or mut or lurkers, whatever. dont forget to keep your drones comming!!!
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United States17042 Posts
On January 24 2009 07:45 w3jjjj wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2009 07:37 Underwhelmed wrote:After figuring out all those defense timings, and knowing how many units you need to defend, you can prepare for them, and devote all other resources to make drones. Now, instead of wondering in the dark if you made too many or too few drones, you know exactly what you are doing! So lets say that P pushes out, and I've built just the right amount to defend. Seeing this, P decides he's not going to suicide his army and instead just pulls back and continues to pump out units - what now? What do you do when you don't know when and if P is going to try and push out? You prepare for possible attacks. If he doesn't attack, you just keep growing bigger. It is his job to kill you before you get overwhelmingly big. At some point he has to attack.
And keep teching/expanding. Ultra/Ling used to be considered imba, and if you have over double the number of bases/econ that protoss has, you should be able to sauron him to death easily. (realizing that you need both econ and tech, even though zerg usually is forced to make a tradeoff between one or the other at every point in the game).
The guide was a good read, thanks for taking the time to post it up.
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On January 24 2009 09:44 cUrsOr wrote:
youre right about the ecomony.
sometimes i assume that because i have 3 bases up and mining and he has 2, that im getting more. a close inspection of the replay reveals that he was mining with far more SCV/Probes than i had Drones.
replace drones that make buildings, that are killed and have at least 2 for each mineral node you are hitting, you can be sure your opponent does.
sometimes its hard to resist just cranking out "attack" units once you start midgame. be it hydra or mut or lurkers, whatever. dont forget to keep your drones comming!!!
there's no way you're going to be able to have 2 drones/mineral
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I don't play Z anymore but when I did I noticed I failed in many things you pointed out.
Thanks for the guide. It looks like it has really helpful hints for those D- to C- iCC rank zergies.
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Great guide. Helped me a lot. A couple spelling mistakes, but who really cares :p
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Hey I'm still a noob on iccup and i'm still trying to figure out when to get the 3rd hatch. i watch korean pro games and i see Zs getting 3 hatch and then bringing 9 eggs full of mutas up and just demolishing unprepared terrans (even protoss), but i can barely get 6 mutas with 2 hatch and be effective with them.
and if the muta harass does indeed prove to be ineffective, you are supposed to transition to lurkers correct? (versus T) , and save your mutas for defense?
iono, having 3 hatches early and being able to keep up with appropriate defense timings sounds unreasonable. if you have a good replay i could use as an example that'd be great. i lose games 90% of the time, but i still really enjoy the game and getting better at it, i wanna be sharp for SC2.
great post by the way
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
On January 24 2009 15:30 eMbrace wrote:
Hey I'm still a noob on iccup and i'm still trying to figure out when to get the 3rd hatch. i watch korean pro games and i see Zs getting 3 hatch and then bringing 9 eggs full of mutas up and just demolishing unprepared terrans (even protoss), but i can barely get 6 mutas with 2 hatch and be effective with them.
and if the muta harass does indeed prove to be ineffective, you are supposed to transition to lurkers correct? (versus T) , and save your mutas for defense?
iono, having 3 hatches early and being able to keep up with appropriate defense timings sounds unreasonable. if you have a good replay i could use as an example that'd be great. i lose games 90% of the time, but i still really enjoy the game and getting better at it, i wanna be sharp for SC2.
great post by the way
You only get 6 mutas if you 2 hatch. If you 3 hatch, you'll get 9 mutas. You need to make drones nonstop.
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On January 24 2009 15:35 T.O.P. wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2009 15:30 eMbrace wrote:
Hey I'm still a noob on iccup and i'm still trying to figure out when to get the 3rd hatch. i watch korean pro games and i see Zs getting 3 hatch and then bringing 9 eggs full of mutas up and just demolishing unprepared terrans (even protoss), but i can barely get 6 mutas with 2 hatch and be effective with them.
and if the muta harass does indeed prove to be ineffective, you are supposed to transition to lurkers correct? (versus T) , and save your mutas for defense?
iono, having 3 hatches early and being able to keep up with appropriate defense timings sounds unreasonable. if you have a good replay i could use as an example that'd be great. i lose games 90% of the time, but i still really enjoy the game and getting better at it, i wanna be sharp for SC2.
great post by the way You only get 6 mutas if you 2 hatch. If you 3 hatch, you'll get 9 mutas. You need to make drones nonstop.
well obviously 2 hatch = 6 eggs, but i barely manage an economy to support 6 eggs, so to ask for another hatch and 3 more mutas by the time spire is up sounds insane. it's a risk build to me, because there is no way you can have a base defense for all 3 hatches to fend off a T that figures he can just kill you with whatever MnMs he has before you even get your spire up.
as im writing this i know im wrong, but perhaps ill focus more on power droning from now on
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wait so build drone throughout whole game? or just early to mid
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Read the recommended threads. They'll teach you what you want to know. There's a guide on 3 hatch mutas and the timings of when to build what. You usually get hydra den right after the first 9 mutalisks and get lurkers asap.
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On January 24 2009 15:43 eMbrace wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2009 15:35 T.O.P. wrote:On January 24 2009 15:30 eMbrace wrote:
Hey I'm still a noob on iccup and i'm still trying to figure out when to get the 3rd hatch. i watch korean pro games and i see Zs getting 3 hatch and then bringing 9 eggs full of mutas up and just demolishing unprepared terrans (even protoss), but i can barely get 6 mutas with 2 hatch and be effective with them.
and if the muta harass does indeed prove to be ineffective, you are supposed to transition to lurkers correct? (versus T) , and save your mutas for defense?
iono, having 3 hatches early and being able to keep up with appropriate defense timings sounds unreasonable. if you have a good replay i could use as an example that'd be great. i lose games 90% of the time, but i still really enjoy the game and getting better at it, i wanna be sharp for SC2.
great post by the way You only get 6 mutas if you 2 hatch. If you 3 hatch, you'll get 9 mutas. You need to make drones nonstop. well obviously 2 hatch = 6 eggs, but i barely manage an economy to support 6 eggs, so to ask for another hatch and 3 more mutas by the time spire is up sounds insane. it's a risk build to me, because there is no way you can have a base defense for all 3 hatches to fend off a T that figures he can just kill you with whatever MnMs he has before you even get your spire up. as im writing this i know im wrong, but perhaps ill focus more on power droning from now on
3 hatch muta obviously comes later than a 2 hatch muta. The name comes from gas timing; in 2 hatchery muta you get it immediately after the second hatch, in 3 hatch muta immediately after the third one (Although, since it's the current trend to get the 3rd hatch on 13 instead of the old 16, the extractor still only goes down at 15-16 supply). And 3 hatch drone pump > 2 hatch drone pump. The second gas is also earlier in 3 hatch mutas.
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Thanks! I've lost a lot ZvP, even though i killed his nexus or forced 10 cannons in the early game.
This sure explains a lot why
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On January 24 2009 15:30 eMbrace wrote:
Hey I'm still a noob on iccup and i'm still trying to figure out when to get the 3rd hatch. i watch korean pro games and i see Zs getting 3 hatch and then bringing 9 eggs full of mutas up and just demolishing unprepared terrans (even protoss), but i can barely get 6 mutas with 2 hatch and be effective with them.
and if the muta harass does indeed prove to be ineffective, you are supposed to transition to lurkers correct? (versus T) , and save your mutas for defense?
iono, having 3 hatches early and being able to keep up with appropriate defense timings sounds unreasonable. if you have a good replay i could use as an example that'd be great. i lose games 90% of the time, but i still really enjoy the game and getting better at it, i wanna be sharp for SC2.
great post by the way
I follow the "standard" of 12 hatch at nat, 11 pool, 13 hatch when I go muta, and that works out well. You need to keep an eye on the terran to see how many marines he has, and when he looks to be on the move out. It's a bit of trial and error, but you can get the timing down so you add 2-4 sunks and a few lings when needed.
When my spire is up, I usually build 11 mutas (9, wait for larva, add two more), then add the hydra den and evo while they are hatching. You will start lurker aspect and carapace around the time you first engage the terran with your mutas. Have hatcheries hotkeyed, and focus on keeping your mutas alive while building hydras and lings. This is a good time to take an expansion as well.
I find that if I handle my mutas well, they will still be in his base when my lurkers hatch. If I handle them less well, I will usually have to retreat at the time when I start to morph them, which is less desirable, but can be handled.
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Very interesting, but I don't even know how to get on Iccup (or play zerg so I'll never use it), some sort of Iccup launcher?
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On January 24 2009 15:30 eMbrace wrote:
Hey I'm still a noob on iccup and i'm still trying to figure out when to get the 3rd hatch. i watch korean pro games and i see Zs getting 3 hatch and then bringing 9 eggs full of mutas up and just demolishing unprepared terrans (even protoss), but i can barely get 6 mutas with 2 hatch and be effective with them.
and if the muta harass does indeed prove to be ineffective, you are supposed to transition to lurkers correct? (versus T) , and save your mutas for defense?
iono, having 3 hatches early and being able to keep up with appropriate defense timings sounds unreasonable. if you have a good replay i could use as an example that'd be great. i lose games 90% of the time, but i still really enjoy the game and getting better at it, i wanna be sharp for SC2.
great post by the way
I think you're doing something insanely wrong with your build orders.
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I agree wholeheartedly with this; knowing when to pop a few extra drones and large scale battle management is the bread and butter of zerg play.
I would like to share an idea about economy: When in doubt, make more drones! The underlying principle is to make sure the feedback you receive is as clear as possible. If you are a pair of drones behind in economy that little difference will slowly eat you out of the game, but when you finally lose it will be hard to tell what exactly your mistake was. Often the player will make other mistakes too, and these mistakes will steal the spotlight.
On the other hand, if you make too many drones the punishment will come quickly, else your extra drones will turn into an advantage. In this situation it will be much easier to tell whether you made too many drones or if you were spot on. Even when you think you've the timing and number down you might try for an extra one and explore the consequences. In the end this should result in quicker learning, even though you might actually play worse in the individual game.
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On January 25 2009 03:52 ZerG~LegenD wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly with this; knowing when to pop a few extra drones and large scale battle management is the bread and butter of zerg play.
I would like to share an idea about economy: When in doubt, make more drones! The underlying principle is to make sure the feedback you receive is as clear as possible. If you are a pair of drones behind in economy that little difference will slowly eat you out of the game, but when you finally lose it will be hard to tell what exactly your mistake was. Often the player will make other mistakes too, and these mistakes will steal the spotlight.
On the other hand, if you make too many drones the punishment will come quickly, else your extra drones will turn into an advantage. In this situation it will be much easier to tell whether you made too many drones or if you were spot on. Even when you think you've the timing and number down you might try for an extra one and explore the consequences. In the end this should result in quicker learning, even though you might actually play worse in the individual game.
Spoken like a true Zerg lol. Yeah, I agree, try to get some more drones and see if you get punished for it, that's good play in general. And it puts pressure on your opponent to get his attack timing perfect or you will have an advantage. It is more applicable later in the game though, since early mid game is usually pretty mapped out already.
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great guide, thanks for sharing Lols
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On January 24 2009 07:37 Underwhelmed wrote:Show nested quote +After figuring out all those defense timings, and knowing how many units you need to defend, you can prepare for them, and devote all other resources to make drones. Now, instead of wondering in the dark if you made too many or too few drones, you know exactly what you are doing! So lets say that P pushes out, and I've built just the right amount to defend. Seeing this, P decides he's not going to suicide his army and instead just pulls back and continues to pump out units - what now? What do you do when you don't know when and if P is going to try and push out?
Protoss is built around timing attacks. A good example made was his 1archon/11zlot +1 attack + legspeed. If he decides not to attack with this army, he is slowly losing the advantage of his tech. That timing attack is built on attacking you before your army macro and Lair technology really kicks in. If he fails to execute an attack during this timing window, he's going to slowly fall behind.
His guide (which is really good) mostly focused on macro issues based on army size. The thing you have to realize is that technology plays an important role in that as well. You can power anytime your army is strong enough to defend and withstand his attack. You can also power when you use your tech to gain a decisive advantage in army composition.
Going back to the previous example, lets say he gets his 1 archon / 11zlots, pushes out into the middle but decides to retreat back into his natural. If you went 3 hatch lair --> 5 hatch hydra/lurk. Once your lurker tech kicks in, the advantage swings towards your direction. Chances are he does not have obs and zlots are very ineffective at dealing with many lurkers. Thus you can expo, make an extra round of drone production, increase economy and further your advantage. By utilizing your tech and expoing, you force him to attack you, hopefully on terms less than favorable for him.
Long story short, if toss does not push out, scout him, use your tech to create a favorable army composition to engage him when he does push out and use that advantage to power more.
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I think what wins me like 90% of my ZvT is going 12 hat 11 pool 14 hat instead of 12 hat 11 pool 13 hat. You make an extra drone (a total of four) after you pool, then use that to make your third hatch. Spawn four lings and set one to chase the scv and 3 to bases. Suicide one on the ramp to check his build and rine count, put one in his natural to gauge his expo timing, and keep one in front of his choke to check for him moving out. After the scv is dead, set the ling on expo patrol or suicide it at the ramp to keep tabs on his rine count.
3 hat in ZvT is completely different from 3 hat in ZvP.
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Great guide, just finished reading this
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Could you provide some reps to ilustrate?
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On January 31 2009 21:12 skindzer wrote:
Could you provide some reps to ilustrate?
Actually, any good zerg will do this. It's just that it's hard to notice what's going on behind the scenes at the hatcheries and not in the battlefield.
Look up any good Zerg player's replay and pay attention to when he masses drones.
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ooo awesome guide
very good job
quality writeup
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Thank you for this superb guide.
I see much clearer now what (partially) my intuition led me towards.
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On January 28 2009 17:05 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:
I think what wins me like 90% of my ZvT is going 12 hat 11 pool 14 hat instead of 12 hat 11 pool 13 hat. You make an extra drone (a total of four) after you pool, then use that to make your third hatch. Spawn four lings and set one to chase the scv and 3 to bases. Suicide one on the ramp to check his build and rine count, put one in his natural to gauge his expo timing, and keep one in front of his choke to check for him moving out. After the scv is dead, set the ling on expo patrol or suicide it at the ramp to keep tabs on his rine count.
3 hat in ZvT is completely different from 3 hat in ZvP.
thats why you win in zvt? because you make an extra drone before your 3rd hatch?
REALLY?
anyway sick guide
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Awesome guide. This is a barrier I've had at C- and why I haven't been playing. I make almost entirely units at the start of midgame and my production/hatchery count suffers because of it. I'm definitely going to look analyze my play differently from now on and play a more defensive ZvP.
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God it's like you've been watching my iccup replays. It just seems like such a slippery slope in zvp. If I try to make a ton of drones early on, I get rolled by the first zealot archon push, if I make hydras earlier I'm fine in the mid game but can never stop making hydras and eventually lose map control and the P army wears me down.
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I'm going to post in this "old thread" for two reasons:
1) To thank you deeply for this guide. Your logic is extremely easy for me to understand, and yet it talks about concepts that are the reason I cannot come higher up in the ranks. Zerg mid-game economy is something i struggle so hard with.
2) To bring more attention to this guide. I have seen some help threads that could use this thread as guidance. It's pretty awesome, thats all.
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This is old stuff, the section about zvp timings was before the 4 gate zeal/archon attack was invented, don't follow that section anymore. Other things look fine.
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thanks for this, smi.lols :D
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Yeah, thanks for this. I started playing Zerg 2 weeks ago after a 3 year break(I played Protoss since release, so it was a major change). I was struggling after getting my 4th down and not making enough drones to keep up my macro against other players. While I must improve other things like mechanics, scouting, denying 3rd's, this has help quite a bit!
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going to bump this for those who havent read and to add
this has helped my zerg so fucking much against protoss
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United States755 Posts
Thanks a lot helps me to understand my opponent =]
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Thank you. Really helpful. God bless you.
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I cannot put into words how much I love sMi.lols
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EPT
