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I have been sifting through many posts recently about the imbalance of T v anything and it has actually made me want to switch from playing terran to another race. While most players have gotten to the point of despair playing against the terran race that they desire to switch to them to have a "more enjoyable time", it has actually made me a little disgusted to be playing something so "easy" and has increased my desire to learn about the other races.
I played zerg in BW so ive decided to first start off my research into the area of the Zerg.
The fascinating thing that I love about the zerg is their ability to make multiple units at once from one production facility. After building the associated creatures structure, any unit can be built from any single hatchery on the map at once. You could literally produce 33 ultralisks at the exact same time that would all pop out at almost the exact same time! That is such an amazing ability. A Terran player would have to have 33 individual Starports to have this same thing happen with Battlecruisers. However it has its drawbacks. Since larvae are produced only one at a time up to a maximum of three (speaking before a queen comes into play of course) it provides an interesting but complex dynamic of determining whether to build drones for economy or units to attack/defend. (overlords as well but those are a necessity to produce other units. still a factor but not an important part of said discussion.)
Now the other races have to build additional structures to make additional units. Barracks/Factories/Starports all have to be made in duplicate otherwise the terran player falls behind in macro and accumulates excess minerals and gas. Its part of how they are played. IE: units building at each structure but have 300/300 build X structure that will help increase production. This goes for the protoss as well. Gateways/robos/and stargates are all necessary for them to compete. The trick is that they get to build their units all from different structures so it does not hamper their economy. The Zerg have to decide whether or not they want economy or army and this has been up for discussion in many topics i have read recently and for some reason it has been the complaint for many people. I do actually understand their reasons but I have tried to think of ways around it and it leads to some interesting conclusions that allow zerg to be played a little more like they were in BW.
In BW you had to have multiple hatcheries to keep up with the opponent. This did not mean get hatcheries only at minerals. It meant that since you only got three larvae, you needed to put more hatcheries in your main base just to be able to produce the units needed to compete. SC2 has actually influenced people to stray from this trend with the ability to create a unit that allows you to mass larvae on one structure. However this requires you to add an additional form of macro to your list of things to do and is often forgotten by lower level players. This causes build up of energy which is often a waste of resources. Now this solution has been presented. Build an additional hatchery in your main so that the extra energy can be put to use. This however puts people in a mindset that they should only build an extra hatchery if they fall behind on macro. I however believe that an extra hatchery in the main regardless of a queen or not would provide the zerg player with several opportunities.
First of all the presence of extra hatcheries in the main allows for a player to not have to decide between economy and army. In the most basic form, you could simply devote one hatchery to producing drones only, while the other hatchery produces units. This actually makes the zerg player a little more like Toss and Terran by having multiple unit producing structures. Allowing for a less difficult decision between econ and army would allow the zerg player a few more mistakes rather than being punished simply cuz they droned too hard and lost all their larvae or made too many army units so that their economy suffered. This addresses complaints i have seen regarding being punished to easy simply because they wanted a better economy because you have a whole extra unit producing structure to produce from.
Secondly, the queen issue. If a zerg player falls behind on their macro mechanic of constantly producing larvae with Spawn Larva, they will be less punished because A: they can use extra energy on the extra hatchery and B: The game itself provides a continuous production of larva up to three per hatchery. This means you have a base of six larva in your main at all times regardless of queen usage or not (of course their is larva spawn time but if your slipping on Spawn Larva you can slip on unit production which means you would have six larva just waiting for you there ready to be used). This addresses the issue of being punished for falling behind on your macro skill because you have the extra larva waiting for you and not just three larva because you forgot to 66vclick.
Finally, one of the biggest issues that zerg players have is no way to dump minerals. All of their units are so gas intensive and the only true mineral dump are queens/lings/drones/or spine crawlers. For simply 300 minerals you have a way to provide you with a little more breathing room for error in your entire macro playstyle.
I would like to know what actual main zerg players think about this concept. It leans a little back toward BW while still allowing SC2 to maintain its new mechanics. I dont have any replays to post of me using it because as I said Im a terran player who is trying to switch to a different race. Maybe everyone is already doing this but i rarely see anyone trying it early on in replays and usually only end up with extra hatcheries toward the end of the game.
TL:DR Building extra hatcheries in your main provides the zerg player with a mineral dump as well as extra safeguards towards slip ups in macro. It also allows them to be played more like other races having multiple unit producing structures instead of simply multiple structures allowing for the production of units from a single building. What do you think of adding extra hatcheries not just at expansions but in your main or natural to allow for the production of army and units at once with less punishment for using up larvae?
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Yep, i usually build 1 extra hatchery in my main, maybe 2-3 more if the game last long and i have at least 3-4 expansions, each hatchery with a queen.
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ive been making my 3rd hatch in my main after my 2nd at my nate lately in zvt, seems to help out quite a bit around the 8-10 minute mark.
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I find this an interesting concept. Having a second hatch in your main would allow the queen to do some creep tumoring during the beginning.
Also, once the bases have been saturated the extra larva can go towards unit production.
I'm not conviced the extra 350 minerals would be worth it though. (I'd prefer to rely on a good sense of drone vs army count)
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Was thinking how this would play out in a game really. Since personally only time I feel I need extra dump nowadays is when it comes to mid/late midgame, do anyone of you have any replays to share ? Would like to see some of it !
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Sounds great, ill have to try this
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I always do this after my third or 4th base. Allows me to ignore spawn larvae and focus on micro in important fights, and spam zerglings. Except i actually put the extra hatchery by my natural cuz thats a better position.
i dont know if you're thinking of also doing this early or midgame, but thats definitely a bad idea, and its generally pointless since you get that same larvae benefit and an expansion if you build further away.
Basically its useful as a mineral dump since now you have a bunch of extra larvae. And it also helps as a cushion late game so you can focus more on micro.
Also i suppose really late game you could completely replace your queens with hatcheries for the supply.
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U forgot one alternative. Maybe u can edit ur post. One more advantage is that u can wall off (block ur ramp) as zerg with an extra hatchery, a spine crawler and a queen as doors.  Has anyone tried that also? (im a toss player btw, but i play with all races from time to time).
And also u can compare production. (lets take protoss as an example).
Queen = cyber core 150min, 150 min
One extra hatchery = 2 gateways + 50 min
The most usuall openings for a toss are like 3 gateways + some tech so maybe zerg players can emulate that. I never understood why zerg players have a need to expand so early. U wont get economical advantage because u will be under constant pressure and spend more than u would gain. Also with this u match other races with unit production and is not costing anything extra.
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On August 23 2010 16:31 Acidlineup wrote:U forgot one alternative. Maybe u can edit ur post. One more advantage is that u can wall off (block ur ramp) as zerg with an extra hatchery, a spine crawler and a queen as doors. Has anyone tried that also? (im a toss player btw, but i play with all races from time to time). And also u can compare production. (lets take protoss as an example). Queen = cyber core 150min, 150 min One extra hatchery = 2 gateways + 50 min The most usuall openings for a toss are like 3 gateways + some tech so maybe zerg players can emulate that. I never understood why zerg players have a need to expand so early. U wont get economical advantage because u will be under constant pressure and spend more than u would gain. Also with this u match other races with unit production and is not costing anything extra.
Day 9 did a daily I think with a block off with a hatch for mass queens, but the problem with walling off is that you have only roaches to shoot out of the wall, but there range is so short its almost negligable. However, spine crawlers could use this wall to just destroy any kind of army, even the wall breakers (marauders especially)
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I've been experimenting with some of the popular FE openers, but instead of taking the expo, i simply put a hatch at the top of my ramp.
Let's just think about what a fast expo should get you: 1) access to more resources, 2) more larva.
I don't know about you guys, but, generally, I don't need the first part of this equation, early game. More larva is nice, but I don't need access to a second mineral field 14 supply into the game.
I think it might be better to simply wall off your ramp with a hatch and 2 spine crawlers, then expand when it's a good time to expand. It beats the hell out of living off of just 1 hatch in 1 base.
Of course, if you can expo into your natural without any negative consequences, you should do that. But if you're not sure you can defend a natural, why not wall off with a hatch in the main and have 2 hatch 1 base play? You can, of course, expand at your leisure, when you have the army to defend it. And when that time comes, you can fully saturate the expo in like 40 seconds or less, depending on how much larva you have banked.
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In my experience, the problem with a 2hatch one base play arise when you actually take your natural. At that point, you are behind 7 drones (350 minerals) compared to a regular fast expansion, and unless you produce only zerglings you are wasting larvae so you do not take full advantage of the additional hatch. So in essence if the opponent forces you to go 2hatch one base his harass was already successful.
The theoretical option of doing a big one-base push with 2 hatches fails at the opponents wall, only some hydra timing push against a toss player can have some success. But Hydras are so slow off creep that it is impossible to retreat, so you better do a lot of damage.
It is just that a hatchery is so expensive that you basically need to place it at your natural to not be behind. Once you have 2 saturated bases and have excess minerals an additional hatchery can be a good idea however. typically at that point it also becomes more difficult to not miss a spawn larva timing, so the extra hatchery is useful for stored queen energy as well.
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two hatch in base can produce soooooooo many early speedlings, it's quite scary.
ZT v ZZ in 2v2, both opponents double hatched in main and we were attacked by about 80 lings after ~6 minutes...
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Hi,
I also experimented with that. Especially when playing one base muta lower APM players often forget to use the queen's larva ability.
I am currently figuring out the exact timings, but with the first test builds (one base muta with 2 hatches) where quite promising, since by the time of ~6 minutes the inreased larva count seems to even out the initial investment and i was able to muta harass at ~8:00 to 9:00 with 4+ mutas.
Current variant:
Early gas (10) while OL is building (put only one drone inittially, add more as the 2cnd hatch is there).
Then 2cnd in base hatch (~14)
Then pool (~13)
2cnd extractor
build no queen, no speedlings, go lair as soon 100 gas is finished.
pump drones and get at least 2..3 spines since your queen will be late and late speedlings).
then speedlings,
as soon 2cnd hatch finishes, build queen in the scnd.
as soon lair finishes build spire while punping drones, some zerglings, make baneling nest or roach warren.
as soon mutas are out, expand to natural or somewhere on the map (good against lower level players).
As beeing said, this is not exact still (have to wait for gas 2 times: before lair and before spire, have to do some refinement). But even then i had better eco, better defense and better production capabilities compared to normal one-base play.
The only problem may be extreme early reapers, it might be necessary to squeeze in an early spine to defend against 4'xx reaper.
by cutting the queen and early speed (150+100 mins, 100 gas), the cost of the 2cnd hatch is not that hard to afford. Later on you have enough money to afford queen and speed, since you can pump drones faster with 2 hatches compared to one hatch+queen spawn larva.
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I generally go by the rule 'if you can't spend all your money, then make an extra hatch in your main'. Also, if I get a gold, I always throw down an extra hatch in my main at the same time.
This is even more important if you are, like me, a low APM player -- The ability to offset your deficiencies for 350 minerals is a huuuuge bargain. I started figuring that out after I was losing games with a lot of money in the bank. (700+ Diamond here)
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A 2nd hatch at your ramp might work in ZvP or even ZvZ, but i don't see this being effective in the current ZvT, simply because of the metagame emphasis on reapers at the moment. Would work against other forms of early ground harass though (early bio push, hellion harass), so when the meta game shifts away from reapers again this might become viable. You will need additional spine crawlers though, which can be spread further towards your natural later in the game. I usually make more than 1 queen per hatch anyway (i try to go for 3 queens on 2 bases, adding more when i scout air tech), so when i feel i have enough creep tumors, the additional energy could actually be spent.
I might try this out soon against a protoss looking towards an early timing push, see how it turns out.
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I usually do it in late game if I am so far ahead that I have alot of moneyz to spend.
It helps more then you would think.
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adding larva continously is sometimes pretty hard as zerg especially when you have to deal with early harrass. so i usually put down a extra hatch after my 1 expansion if it`s to tough to get a 2nd expo. the extra larva wins matches.
but i still think Z needs a better mineral dump late game apart from spine crawlers mass lings and queens -.-
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The moment I find I have too many minerals, additional hatcheries are dropped down. If I have map control and a likely expansion, I take it. If not, I build additional hatches in my main or natural.
The additional hatch in the main is nice because your main's queen can usually handle spawn larvae for it until the new queen is out.
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On August 23 2010 23:12 Demus wrote:
A 2nd hatch at your ramp might work in ZvP or even ZvZ, but i don't see this being effective in the current ZvT, simply because of the metagame emphasis on reapers at the moment. Would work against other forms of early ground harass though (early bio push, hellion harass), so when the meta game shifts away from reapers again this might become viable. You will need additional spine crawlers though, which can be spread further towards your natural later in the game. I usually make more than 1 queen per hatch anyway (i try to go for 3 queens on 2 bases, adding more when i scout air tech), so when i feel i have enough creep tumors, the additional energy could actually be spent.
I might try this out soon against a protoss looking towards an early timing push, see how it turns out.
I wouldn't even build it at the ramp, just place it next to your main. This way it is not hard to defend (creep), so a reaper harass is easy to fend off.
The main use of an early Expand is not getting access to more minerals (at the time of FE usually the main is not drone saturated), but to have extra production capabilities to pump out drones and units quickly. I sometimes 'over'-saturate my main, so when i finally expand, i can saturate the expansion immediately. Frequently i am doing a double expand then (while doing muta harrass). One major draw back is, that you do not gain access to additonal gas early on, so you should think carefully about your gas investments early on.
Basically its a rather safe not-so-bad-eco-build, which enables you to fend of early harrass (cliff drops, reaper, helions, zealots) easily and prepare to explode (double expo) once you got muta's (which nullify reapers, cliff drops and somewhat hellions).
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This is useful for lower players to cushion the whole queen spawn larva thing, but it isn't really cost effective as early game, as long as you consistently use spawn larva, you have enough larva for your early game anyway. Later on it can be useful, but getting the natural hatch first is going to be better.
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EPT
