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On September 12 2009 05:40 Chill wrote:<font size=4> Macromanagement in Starcraft II </font> How does Blizzard fix the balance of the macro mechanics? Is it a problem? Does it need to be fixed? Step 1: Make the mechanics equal. Assume everyone is going to rush for the mechanics, because that's what they're going to do in the current form. Find the number of larvae that balances the game. Make the Queen have to choose what unit it is going to inject, rather than having a ridiculous amount of choice in uncommitted larvae. Step 2: Make the mechanics cost something. There are two options: lower the benefit of the mechanics or increase the cost. I would prefer to see the latter but both are viable. It needs some way to open up vulnerability in the early game to either timing attacks or tech rushes, so that the player is reacting to the opponent, as opposed to the current situation of rushing for the macro mechanic. Step 3: Open up real choice. If I am giving up 200 minerals for not using my MULE, it had damn well better be doing something other than blinking some lights around for 5 seconds. Players are going to be giving up real income, and a lot of it, if they choose to use something other than the macro mechanics. They need to be given something that makes them think before they reactively slam another 8 larvae into their 2 hatcheries. Step 4: Test it under the premise that good players are going to abuse it. Return to Step 1. This being said, I really did like all three of the macro mechanics. A lot. They fit well and seem like they will eventually open up new timing choices when the game draws closer to balance. I really hope they are slightly tweaked and allowed to remain a fundamental part of the Starcraft II economy. I am confident Blizzard will understand this issue. If they haven't already understood the issue by now, they surely will in the beta. I'm not concerned that it will slip by unnoticed, and you shouldn't be either. I do, however, still think it is an interesting problem in its current form.
I definitely agree with those... points
1 may involve cutting back the Queen's Larva rate (increase energy v. decrease cost) but boosting the Hatcheries
2 only really works if you are talking about the cost of building/teching to the Queen/OC/Obelisk*
Possible Idea... make the Macro mechanics require the Evo chamber/Forge/Engineering bay... so that they are sacrificing a fast military build.
3 is easily done for some with balancing the energy costs of current abilities... make comsat only cost 10 energy and the MULE 100, ... and then its balanced (probably) v. the MULE.
Make the energy recharge 5 energy : 1 Obelisk energy, and its balanced.
Some of the abilities are less likely to be used due to thier nature
The Queen's and Obelisks abilities are slightly less likely to be used because they need to get to the site of battle for maximum utility... (impossible for the Obelisk, hard for the Queen)
There is the problem of the Zerg being able to chase away everyone else's scouts, (including fellow Zerg).... and them getting a scout that the Protoss can't chase away.
Terrans do get a Marine and range can help in getting rid of a Drone....or definitely an Overlord.. but the speed boost gets rid of everything.
ideas to help scout the Zerg.... make Creep speed boost an all unit upgrade, like Burrow... even make it Cheap (25 min, 0 gas)... just have it take time... and require a spawning pool/evo chamber
ideas to help stop the Zerg scout.... make Overlords lose hp very slowly if off the Creep when only Hatchery Tech..... before Lair, the only thing they are useful for is scouting.... so give them a "leash" for that purpose... so that the slow Overlord can only just get across a small map before having to head back.
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On September 12 2009 12:52 DefMatrixUltra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 08:48 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 06:38 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums. True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together. What? You weren't producing zerglings, were you? Why would one race adding in combat unit production make an assessment of the economic potential of the races an even comparison? I understand that larva are equivalent to production buildings, but you were using your larva for drones, not zerglings, so I'm confused. I'm not concerned with the model's accuracy, I'm fond of the saying that "all models are wrong, some are useful", but this model does seem to indicate that protoss and terran have the ability to have a stronger economy IF all they do is focus on workers and their macro mechanics -- which is of course, very unrealistic. Zerg reaches drone saturation earlier, as you point out, but why is that so critical if their economy at saturation is relatively worse than a protoss or terran's economy pre-saturation? [1] Factor in production buildings and the other things terran and protoss would need to do to remain militarily (can military be adverbed?!) comparable and they might be more even, yes, but I do find it interesting. [2] If my point stands and I'm not missing something, the main things to balance are (as you point out) the zerg's ability to 1. gain map control due to early unit production advantage and 2. fluidly switch between what they're producing, which are as far as I can tell the sole reasons why the queen mechanic is better -- NOT that the zerg can outmine the other two races in a "who can mine more minerals faster", as you suggested when you said Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen. This is, of course, just looking at the numbers here. Though psi count and the other factors involved in macro might be higher for zerg initially, unless the ratio of terran/protoss buildings' and units' cost to zerg's buildings' and units' cost is worse than the ratio of their economic advantage, there simply must be an intersection at some point. edited to make the last paragraph more confusing This topic is brought up a lot after this post. I just chose to quote this particular one because it covers the topic well. [1] I don't think the Zerg has worse economy, though. The reason Zerg has fewer minerals is because they have the ability to spend it faster on faster drones. If the Zerg graphs were extended over time to be closer to the other graphs - even if no additional drones were built - Zerg would likely catch up in minerals with the other two races. The horizontal axis is the time (obviously) and Zerg has a higher number of drones than the other two races. After the queen kicks in, they have a waaay higher number of drones. + Show Spoiler [So purely theoretically +
We want to know the number of minerals at time 't'. This has to do with the number of workers and the rate at which they gather.
The rate at which minerals increase ('dM/dt' if familiar with differential calculus) is the gathering rate (some constant 'k', the number of minerals gathered per second) times the number of workers (we'll say 'g' ). So it's just 'dM/dt = kg'. But 'g' is not constant (you build more over time).
So 'g' is some function that increases as 't' increases. Well, 'dg/dt' (the rate at which workers are built) is basically '1/b' where 'b' is the time it takes to build a drone (plus a bit more to factor in overlords and and a bit less to factor in larva and so on and so forth). For example, say that 'b' is 13 seconds. So you get '1/13' or 1 worker every 13 seconds.
So integrating 'dg/dt = 1/b', we get 'g=t/b'. So the number of workers at time 't' is the amount that's passed divided by the amount of time it takes to build a worker. Swell, this is all making sense so far.
So back to 'dM/dt = kg', we now can say 'dM/dt = kt/b = t(k/b) = tC' where 'C' is just whatever number 'k' is divided by whatever number 'b' is (it's just a constant, in other words. Integrating 'dM/dt = tC', we get 'M = (C/2)t^2'.
tldr Minerals are proportional to t^2 (the amount of time passed squared) with one hatchery.
So what happens when the queen kicks in? Well, the time it takes to build a drone is shorter, but more accurately, you can build more drones at the same time than you could before.
What happens to 'dg/dt' if we could double the speed of larva (basically like building a second hatchery)? Well, now you can build 2 drones every 13 seconds, so 'dg/dt = 2/b' so 'g=2t/b'.
So we plug that 'g' back into 'dM/dt = kg = k(2t/b) = t(2k/b) = 2C' and we integrate to get 'M = Ct^2' which is predictably twice the result we got earlier.
tldr So a queen used to make drones will multiply your total minerals by 2.5 times (when compared over the same amount of time with just a single hatchery). I find this interesting because the Protoss mechanic is only multiplying by 1.25 x number of nexuses whereas the Zerg mechanic (if only used for drones) is expansions x 2.5.
Now, these are total minerals mined, not stored in the bank [also this is a purely ideal economy building nothing but drones etc. and using continuous math is dangerous around discrete systems and so on disclaimer yada yada]. So your bank will not grow at this rate, only the total amount of mining you have done. The great thing about Zerg is that you can spend all of your money as fast as possible - and in Starcraft and most RTSs, the more total money you spend, the better your economy is functioning. Yes, the cost of all those drones so fast is expensive, but it will pay ridiculous dividends just seconds later after they all pop and start mining. Would a Terran turn down 2.5 times more SCV's if they had to pay the cost?
Because you can reach your optimal saturation (depends on your build, probably) faster, you can start your actual build sooner and with more money more quickly than the other races. [2] The interesting thing about Zerg in SC is their ability to tech switch rapidly because they need only build one building and then can produce whatever unit up to their maximum capacity. This also has a side-effect of making their macro needs slightly cheaper (even with drone cost figured into buildings). SC2 makes this even more true because the 100 mineral queen is an early replacement for (1.5 x (300+50[+mining time])) ~525 minerals worth of buildings (in terms of production). The Zerg has so few expenses compared to Terran and Protoss in SC2. If a Terran wants to mass marines to counter zergling numbers, they have to invest in more barracks. A Zerg just needs the initial Spawning Pool, and 'saves' the money that the Terran spent throughout the game (though spending a bit of it on extra hatcheries). So I would guess that in a realistic situation, the Zerg would be even better off than they appear in the graphs when compared to the Terran or Protoss. That kind of thing is difficult to say definitively, though. Different builds call for different cost patterns, of course.
I very much appreciate you actually writing out the math, I've lost my grasp of calculus after having not used it for a while. (Actually the other day I was trying to work out the angles of a triangle and had the sudden cold realization that I'd forgotten how to do basic trigonometry, made me feel pretty laughably incompetent.)
You make some very good points about things I ironically overlooked (and why I overlooked it) in a post about not misinterpreting the graphs, notably that zerg is spending faster than terran and protoss and this skews the graph. It's hard to extrapolate from the tail end of that graph whether dM/dt for zerg would be comparable to the terran and protoss curves, but after looking at it again I think that it would, plus it'd be pretty hard to argue that it wouldn't. Protoss' mineral mining rate w/mechanic is going to be 1.2x (not 1.25x, unless 6/5 is now 1.25... but I got the other math wrong so  ) that of normal workers w/o mechanic, which as you point out falls significantly short of the advantage the zerg mechanic gives.
I'd want to factor in build times and building costs to truly graph out a function dM/dt that included expansions, but as it stands I concede to the "zerg queen mechanic also enables faster economy" argument, which makes a few of my prior points invalid. (e.g. that there will be some theoretical intersect at which point the mining rate of protoss and terran would surpass that of the zerg -- and thus a point in the midgame where protoss and terran would reach a greater number of minerals mined overall. This still might happen in a real game due to other limits such as population cap and the typically limited number of mineral patches on starcraft maps, but there is no denying the current advantage zerg has both in theoretical expansion and production capabilities.)
edit: if the unit cost/effectiveness ratios are balanced, dM/dt is what needs to be emphasized and focused on in terms of economy balancing. Any significant imbalance in the dM/dt of unchecked expansion will have to be made up for with other gameplay aspects.
edit two: clarity or lack thereof
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United States47024 Posts
There has been a lot (A LOT) of talk on the forum about the lack of choice between the macro mechanics, and the devastating effects of Terran losing scan. These are unfounded. After playing Starcraft II for 10 games and understanding the mechanics, you will see there is actually no choice. It's an illusion of choice. Given the "choice" between using the MULE and scanning, you will always choose the MULE unless forced otherwise by immediately cloaked units. The return is just too great. Even if I were supply capped, I would bank the MULE minerals while building a supply depot before I used the ability to gain extra supply. You've got to figure the MULE can make a round-trip every 6-8 seconds. And it returns 25-30 minerals every trip (I believe 30 but I'm erring on the safe side). Assuming it stays for 45 seconds (I believe it's actually 60). This yields somewhere between 187 and 300 "extra" minerals per minute. Clearly something that can't be skipped for a convenient scouting scan. This also shows the importance of getting the MULE early, which is a theme common between all the mechanics. The MULE pays for itself in the first minute, after which you are generating around 200 minerals extra every minute. You can see how this compounds.
You may, rarely, use the obelisk's ability to charge mana in a nearby high templar; but at 2 energy for 1 mana, and with your obelisk rarely having more than 25 energy, the options look grim. So you can recharge 12.5 (let's hope they round up to 13!) mana, or boost your probes' mining in case you live the attack. The choice is obvious.
The Queen can... You will never use the Queen for anything other than pumping out a ridiculous amount of larvae.
Thank you for the article, Chill, and especially for this. I feel like this section in particular is something that has been under-discussed.
Ignoring the issues with 1-hatch queen relative to the other races right now, I see two relevant issues:
1) There is almost never any reason to use the macro buildings for their other abilities, unless you forget, and have extra mana to dump (ironically, the mechanic that has the most useful alternatives, the MULE, also is the only one that you can pump multiple times--further solidifying that you'll never use the alternatives).
2) The mechanics are so good (1-hatch queen in particular) that there is almost no reason ever to NOT open with them. From what it looks like so far, hatchery-first builds (or any hatchery-before-saturated-main builds) are basically not viable, because having a queen gives better production than a second hatchery, and the difference outweights the advantage of being able to mine from less saturated minerals (I'm assuming the improved pathing of SC2 also makes it such that a heavily saturated base does not lower the efficiency of individual workers as much--that is the pathing makes it less likely that workers will get stuck on one another between trips). It seems incredibly stale, particularly in ZvZ, if every Zerg build opens spawning pool->queen simply because it's better at both aggression AND economy than any alternative builds.
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very very interesting read
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Calgary25955 Posts
On September 12 2009 12:55 citi.zen wrote:
4. Your "comparison" section gave me pause: T has an early mining edge, but in mid-late game P seems to get a HUGE advantage, as obelisks improve mining in saturated mineral lines. What does this mean for a PvT? Does T now need to out-expand the P in mid-game to keep up?
So many questions, so much excitement! Thanks Chill.
I deleted a section from my article because I wasn't sure, but I think the MULE is better than the obelisk at anytime. The MULE is 25 minerals per trip, regardless of saturation. The obelisk is basically 9 (every probe returning 1 more) plus a little more for every probe returning minerals during the time the MULE is in transit. I deleted it because I'm not entirely convinced yet.
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Thanks for the clarification. At the very least the obelisk effect varies through the game :-)
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On September 12 2009 13:55 Krikkitone wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 12 2009 05:40 Chill wrote:<font size=4> Macromanagement in Starcraft II </font> How does Blizzard fix the balance of the macro mechanics? Is it a problem? Does it need to be fixed? Step 1: Make the mechanics equal. Assume everyone is going to rush for the mechanics, because that's what they're going to do in the current form. Find the number of larvae that balances the game. Make the Queen have to choose what unit it is going to inject, rather than having a ridiculous amount of choice in uncommitted larvae. Step 2: Make the mechanics cost something. There are two options: lower the benefit of the mechanics or increase the cost. I would prefer to see the latter but both are viable. It needs some way to open up vulnerability in the early game to either timing attacks or tech rushes, so that the player is reacting to the opponent, as opposed to the current situation of rushing for the macro mechanic. Step 3: Open up real choice. If I am giving up 200 minerals for not using my MULE, it had damn well better be doing something other than blinking some lights around for 5 seconds. Players are going to be giving up real income, and a lot of it, if they choose to use something other than the macro mechanics. They need to be given something that makes them think before they reactively slam another 8 larvae into their 2 hatcheries. Step 4: Test it under the premise that good players are going to abuse it. Return to Step 1. This being said, I really did like all three of the macro mechanics. A lot. They fit well and seem like they will eventually open up new timing choices when the game draws closer to balance. I really hope they are slightly tweaked and allowed to remain a fundamental part of the Starcraft II economy. I am confident Blizzard will understand this issue. If they haven't already understood the issue by now, they surely will in the beta. I'm not concerned that it will slip by unnoticed, and you shouldn't be either. I do, however, still think it is an interesting problem in its current form. I definitely agree with those... points 1 may involve cutting back the Queen's Larva rate (increase energy v. decrease cost) but boosting the Hatcheries 2 only really works if you are talking about the cost of building/teching to the Queen/OC/Obelisk* Possible Idea... make the Macro mechanics require the Evo chamber/Forge/Engineering bay... so that they are sacrificing a fast military build. 3 is easily done for some with balancing the energy costs of current abilities... make comsat only cost 10 energy and the MULE 100, ... and then its balanced (probably) v. the MULE. Make the energy recharge 5 energy : 1 Obelisk energy, and its balanced. Some of the abilities are less likely to be used due to thier nature The Queen's and Obelisks abilities are slightly less likely to be used because they need to get to the site of battle for maximum utility... (impossible for the Obelisk, hard for the Queen) There is the problem of the Zerg being able to chase away everyone else's scouts, (including fellow Zerg).... and them getting a scout that the Protoss can't chase away. Terrans do get a Marine and range can help in getting rid of a Drone....or definitely an Overlord.. but the speed boost gets rid of everything. ideas to help scout the Zerg.... make Creep speed boost an all unit upgrade, like Burrow... even make it Cheap (25 min, 0 gas)... just have it take time... and require a spawning pool/evo chamber ideas to help stop the Zerg scout.... make Overlords lose hp very slowly if off the Creep when only Hatchery Tech..... before Lair, the only thing they are useful for is scouting.... so give them a "leash" for that purpose... so that the slow Overlord can only just get across a small map before having to head back.
Nice ideas 
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On September 12 2009 14:21 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 12:55 citi.zen wrote:
4. Your "comparison" section gave me pause: T has an early mining edge, but in mid-late game P seems to get a HUGE advantage, as obelisks improve mining in saturated mineral lines. What does this mean for a PvT? Does T now need to out-expand the P in mid-game to keep up?
So many questions, so much excitement! Thanks Chill. I deleted a section from my article because I wasn't sure, but the MULE is better than the obelisk at anytime. The MULE is 25 minerals per trip, regardless of saturation. The obelisk is basically 9 (every probe returning 1 more) plus a little more for every probe returning minerals during the time the MULE is in transit. I deleted it because I'm not entirely convinced yet.
This is a function of the number of mineral patches and the probe saturation within the area of effect. Assuming complete saturation and a mineral return rate where one worker can mine in the space another one is returning (or a 1.5x increase in efficiency relative to the mule unless I really really need to go take math again), there would need to be roughly 17 mineral patches within the AoE to produce the same result. With no saturation at all, there would need to be 25 patches to produce the same result. If I fail at math and saturation is actually 2x greater efficiency, which I'm really struggling to figure out why it wouldn't be, you'd still need 25 probes on 12.5 patches to match the effect of a single MULE.
edit; fuck I'm stupid, it'd only be 1.5x if the mule and two workers started at the same time, mined once and returned once... but since it's a continuous stream, it approaches 2x asymptotically.
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On September 12 2009 13:57 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 12:52 DefMatrixUltra wrote:On September 12 2009 08:48 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 06:38 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums. True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together. What? You weren't producing zerglings, were you? Why would one race adding in combat unit production make an assessment of the economic potential of the races an even comparison? I understand that larva are equivalent to production buildings, but you were using your larva for drones, not zerglings, so I'm confused. I'm not concerned with the model's accuracy, I'm fond of the saying that "all models are wrong, some are useful", but this model does seem to indicate that protoss and terran have the ability to have a stronger economy IF all they do is focus on workers and their macro mechanics -- which is of course, very unrealistic. Zerg reaches drone saturation earlier, as you point out, but why is that so critical if their economy at saturation is relatively worse than a protoss or terran's economy pre-saturation? [1] Factor in production buildings and the other things terran and protoss would need to do to remain militarily (can military be adverbed?!) comparable and they might be more even, yes, but I do find it interesting. [2] If my point stands and I'm not missing something, the main things to balance are (as you point out) the zerg's ability to 1. gain map control due to early unit production advantage and 2. fluidly switch between what they're producing, which are as far as I can tell the sole reasons why the queen mechanic is better -- NOT that the zerg can outmine the other two races in a "who can mine more minerals faster", as you suggested when you said Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen. This is, of course, just looking at the numbers here. Though psi count and the other factors involved in macro might be higher for zerg initially, unless the ratio of terran/protoss buildings' and units' cost to zerg's buildings' and units' cost is worse than the ratio of their economic advantage, there simply must be an intersection at some point. edited to make the last paragraph more confusing This topic is brought up a lot after this post. I just chose to quote this particular one because it covers the topic well. [1] I don't think the Zerg has worse economy, though. The reason Zerg has fewer minerals is because they have the ability to spend it faster on faster drones. If the Zerg graphs were extended over time to be closer to the other graphs - even if no additional drones were built - Zerg would likely catch up in minerals with the other two races. The horizontal axis is the time (obviously) and Zerg has a higher number of drones than the other two races. After the queen kicks in, they have a waaay higher number of drones. + Show Spoiler [So purely theoretically +
We want to know the number of minerals at time 't'. This has to do with the number of workers and the rate at which they gather.
The rate at which minerals increase ('dM/dt' if familiar with differential calculus) is the gathering rate (some constant 'k', the number of minerals gathered per second) times the number of workers (we'll say 'g' ). So it's just 'dM/dt = kg'. But 'g' is not constant (you build more over time).
So 'g' is some function that increases as 't' increases. Well, 'dg/dt' (the rate at which workers are built) is basically '1/b' where 'b' is the time it takes to build a drone (plus a bit more to factor in overlords and and a bit less to factor in larva and so on and so forth). For example, say that 'b' is 13 seconds. So you get '1/13' or 1 worker every 13 seconds.
So integrating 'dg/dt = 1/b', we get 'g=t/b'. So the number of workers at time 't' is the amount that's passed divided by the amount of time it takes to build a worker. Swell, this is all making sense so far.
So back to 'dM/dt = kg', we now can say 'dM/dt = kt/b = t(k/b) = tC' where 'C' is just whatever number 'k' is divided by whatever number 'b' is (it's just a constant, in other words. Integrating 'dM/dt = tC', we get 'M = (C/2)t^2'.
tldr Minerals are proportional to t^2 (the amount of time passed squared) with one hatchery.
So what happens when the queen kicks in? Well, the time it takes to build a drone is shorter, but more accurately, you can build more drones at the same time than you could before.
What happens to 'dg/dt' if we could double the speed of larva (basically like building a second hatchery)? Well, now you can build 2 drones every 13 seconds, so 'dg/dt = 2/b' so 'g=2t/b'.
So we plug that 'g' back into 'dM/dt = kg = k(2t/b) = t(2k/b) = 2C' and we integrate to get 'M = Ct^2' which is predictably twice the result we got earlier.
tldr So a queen used to make drones will multiply your total minerals by 2.5 times (when compared over the same amount of time with just a single hatchery). I find this interesting because the Protoss mechanic is only multiplying by 1.25 x number of nexuses whereas the Zerg mechanic (if only used for drones) is expansions x 2.5.
Now, these are total minerals mined, not stored in the bank [also this is a purely ideal economy building nothing but drones etc. and using continuous math is dangerous around discrete systems and so on disclaimer yada yada]. So your bank will not grow at this rate, only the total amount of mining you have done. The great thing about Zerg is that you can spend all of your money as fast as possible - and in Starcraft and most RTSs, the more total money you spend, the better your economy is functioning. Yes, the cost of all those drones so fast is expensive, but it will pay ridiculous dividends just seconds later after they all pop and start mining. Would a Terran turn down 2.5 times more SCV's if they had to pay the cost?
Because you can reach your optimal saturation (depends on your build, probably) faster, you can start your actual build sooner and with more money more quickly than the other races. [2] The interesting thing about Zerg in SC is their ability to tech switch rapidly because they need only build one building and then can produce whatever unit up to their maximum capacity. This also has a side-effect of making their macro needs slightly cheaper (even with drone cost figured into buildings). SC2 makes this even more true because the 100 mineral queen is an early replacement for (1.5 x (300+50[+mining time])) ~525 minerals worth of buildings (in terms of production). The Zerg has so few expenses compared to Terran and Protoss in SC2. If a Terran wants to mass marines to counter zergling numbers, they have to invest in more barracks. A Zerg just needs the initial Spawning Pool, and 'saves' the money that the Terran spent throughout the game (though spending a bit of it on extra hatcheries). So I would guess that in a realistic situation, the Zerg would be even better off than they appear in the graphs when compared to the Terran or Protoss. That kind of thing is difficult to say definitively, though. Different builds call for different cost patterns, of course. I very much appreciate you actually writing out the math, I've lost my grasp of calculus after having not used it for a while. (Actually the other day I was trying to work out the angles of a triangle and had the sudden cold realization that I'd forgotten how to do basic trigonometry, made me feel pretty laughably incompetent.) You make some very good points about things I ironically overlooked (and why I overlooked it) in a post about not misinterpreting the graphs, notably that zerg is spending faster than terran and protoss and this skews the graph. It's hard to extrapolate from the tail end of that graph whether dM/dt for zerg would be comparable to the terran and protoss curves, but after looking at it again I think that it would, plus it'd be pretty hard to argue that it wouldn't. Protoss' mineral mining rate w/mechanic is going to be 1.2x (not 1.25x, unless 6/5 is now 1.25... but I got the other math wrong so ) that of normal workers w/o mechanic, which as you point out falls significantly short of the advantage the zerg mechanic gives. I'd want to factor in build times and building costs to truly graph out a function dM/dt that included expansions, but as it stands I concede to the "zerg queen mechanic also enables faster economy" argument, which makes a few of my prior points invalid. (e.g. that there will be some theoretical intersect at which point the mining rate of protoss and terran would surpass that of the zerg -- and thus a point in the midgame where protoss and terran would reach a greater number of minerals mined overall. This still might happen in a real game due to other limits such as population cap and the typically limited number of mineral patches on starcraft maps, but there is no denying the current advantage zerg has both in theoretical expansion and production capabilities.) edit: if the unit cost/effectiveness ratios are balanced, dM/dt is what needs to be emphasized and focused on in terms of economy balancing. Any significant imbalance in the dM/dt of unchecked expansion will have to be made up for with other gameplay aspects. edit two: clarity or lack thereof
Wow, I said that earlier in this thread which you ignored.
He breaks out the rate calculus and you accept it.
...
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Minerals from the Proton Charge per trip of a mule should be m * n, where m is the number of mineral patches and n is the number of workers required to fully saturate a patch with optimal pathing - (time to cut minerals + travel time to CC) / (time to cut minerals). I don't know exactly what this would be for SC2 obviously, but it should be somewhere around 2. So calling it 2 for the sake of argument, and figuring 9-10 mineral patches as standard, proton charge should net about 20 minerals in the time that the mule makes a trip. So if the mule is 25/trip its somewhat better, 30/trip would be significantly so.
A thought that popped into my head while reading the end of this: One of the main reasons people talk about the zerg mechanic being a problem is the uncertainty factor, that the enemy can't scout what's coming out of the eggs. What if they changed Zerg eggs so that you could see what they were morphing into? Say you select it and it says "Drone Egg" or "Zergling Egg" for example. Obviously zerg could still power faster per Chill's graph, but would the potential for being punished a bit (for example, I see 7 Drone eggs, I'll move out with the Zealots I made to block my ramp) bring the ability better into balance?
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On September 12 2009 10:33 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:22 eshlow wrote:On September 12 2009 10:21 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 10:18 eshlow wrote:On September 12 2009 10:10 Zato-1 wrote:
My point was, if all you're doing is racing to 30 workers like Chill's model assumes, P and T have a whole bunch of minerals left over- this means the model isn't fair to those 2 races because they can get a whole bunch of stuff with those minerals that the model doesn't consider (one of these things they could get would be an expansion- I'd be interested to see the model in a race to 60 workers or so, assuming the races expand whenever their mineral stores allow). HotBid's article went over this. Zerg gets to 60 workers when toss/terran get to 40. With expansions. They did that test with an irrelevant understanding of how mechanics work in SC2. With the new macro mechanics, # of workers != mineral mining rate. So you're comparing an extra... what 200-300 (x2) minerals per Chill's article with an extra 20 workers? Zerg will have another base by then, so they won't be saturated. They reported solely on the number of workers, not on the minerals mined or spent. You're assuming way more than you can and building a weak model as a result. If you want to point to the number of workers that zerg has while excluding all other factors such as total minerals gathered and the derivative of the income curve, go right ahead, but that argument has no merit.
Quoting myself because I obviously ignored you because you DIDNT do the calculus.
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I think that Blizzard should balance the game so that P or T are able to expand and defend against ling agression without getting behind in terms of economy. All they would have to do is sacrifice the usage of their respective macro mechanic just like the zerg would spend their extra larvae on combat units instead of drones.
In a balanced game, If the zerg decides to not attack from 1-hatch, then a 2-base P/T could out-eco zerg. However, a 2-base zerg should out-eco 2-base terran/toss while being vulnerable to a 1-base rush build like quick 2 gates.
This means that a fast-expanding T would build a Planetary Fortress instead of an Orbital Command in their natural expo if there's a need to. It would be important that T has the ability to salvage the CC's module in order to be able to switch between the two just like how Z can switch between making drones and lings.
I guess that P could build an extra Obelisk in their nat that could be used for defensive purposes. P would have the option to spend mana on Proton Charge, and if zerglings attack then he could spend the mana instead on shield regen. Shield regen should be good enough to allow the protoss player to defend his nat from lings with just a few zeals and cannons.
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nice charts there and good writing 
was an insightful read
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Mule seems so good its silly, making 150minerals/30sec.
In comparison i estimate a good saturated Protoss base to make 80minerals/30sec.
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Something I haven't actually seen answered anywhere but...are these macro mechanics actually fun? Doesn't it feel a little tacked on having to do something to your hatches/min line every however often? Just seems a tad arbitrary and something people might otherwise hate if the benefit wasn't so large. Like it's all fun doubling your larvae but is the actual action of injecting it not tiresome after a while?
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pripple
Finland1714 Posts
excellent writeup, hopefully it get's balanced in the near future..
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good read i agree with most of it
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after reading this article I almost... ALMOST... felt the desire to play SC2
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Great article.
And I agree, the more REAL choices are present in the game, the more levels of skill there are - the game is better.
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EPT
