[D] The MULE and the Metagame Shift - Page 3

Dragar

United Kingdom971 Posts

December 02 2010 18:06 GMT

#41

The extremely early bio aggression we've seen appearing TvZ is actually a facet of this. Once the first mule appears, it's like the Terran player suddenly gains a huge worker lead over the zerg. At this point, Zerg is behind economically, even (maybe even particularly) if they have gone for a FE. They are also behind in the military, having sensibly been droning to maintain parity with the Terran.

This is a clear and obvious timing window to attack, if not end the game outright if possible. With marines handily defeating slow zerglings off creep, and still being very cost effective on creep, and having excellent synergy with SCVs, it's a very smart decision to attack right then and there. At worst, trading armies with the Zerg unable to drone only results in the Terran spending longer on a higher income.

ScoSteSal

United States54 Posts

May 22 2012 15:43 GMT

#42

The thing is that the other races improve their economy with their increased mineral income (from the extra workers they could churn out) with yet more workers, whereas the terran improves its economy with more OCs to increase SCV production &/or increase mule numbers, thus making the terran stronger economically very early on AND IN THE LATER GAME WHEN SUPPLY MATTERS MORE THAN MINERALS*

*= since 1 well-controlled OC is basically the same as a permanent mule each 550/0/0 OC is the mining equivalent of 3-4 SCVs (150-200/0/3-4), the OC is less mineral efficient in terms of ability to mine but more supply efficient by far: MASS OC LATEGAME (Day9 has been mentioning this offhandedly again and again in dailies that touch on TvX lategame)

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