Simple Questions Simple Answers - Page 447

I cant really give a surefire conditional for this "If N do X OR If Y do Z" type of thing, but i'll offer some points to think about when considering pool and gas. One thing to consider is the size of the map, and what your Z opponent typically does there. Shakuras is a big map with a relatively secure natural, so alot of zerg either fast expand right away or speedling expand, with lots of drones. So with a 14 pool you should be safe from pretty much anything, due to the distance between you and your opponent. Furthermore, when your opponent FE's you'll always have ling speed before him, regardless of pool or gas first. Also, you get your queen out slightly faster. This is miniscule but having slightly quicker injects than your opponent can add up in ling or drone counts.

If I may elaborate on my previous post, I dont like hatch-first unless its close by air as you'll recall. And I'll explain why now. If I saw a hatch first with my first set of lings I'll run them immediately into his main, my lings usually get there as his are popping. From there I can see if he's getting gas, how much gas he's gotten, if there's a roach warren etc. You can float around his base for a bit dodging queens and his lings, so you should be able to prepare for virtually anything assuming you deduce correctly. But typically, you'll see one of three things right? He stops getting gas at 100(he's gonna rely on slings), he'll continue getting gas after speed(banelings are probable, but come much slower than speed first build blings), or he's getting roaches immediately. With this you also see a few spines go up at times.
Most of the time a hatch first is defensive posturing, they want to make drones with their setup as their tech is overall slower. (sidenote:if they stop getting gas all together you should drop a bling nest as they may choose to allin) With these assumptions lets take stock of the situation as your first 4-6 scouting lings run around. We have our expansion on the way, speeds almost done, we have a queen and injects rolling. He has slow slings, 2 hatches and speeds just started, or a roach warren is put down and he has virtually no scouting of our main and tech(he shouldnt at this point, our lings were out first). What does it mean? Our opponent cant really attack, so he wants to make drones. We have the option to put a little bit of pressure on because a counter attack is unlikely.

SO, generally its a good idea to make 6-10 more lings to join up with your inital lings(they shouldnt die when scouting). The goal is to have them pop from their eggs around the time speed finishes, as that allows a few more drones first and they skyrocket in effectiveness once speeds done. From there gather up your lings and poke their natural. If they played too greedy, you win outright with a little bit of micro. Isolate the queens, continue macroing, scout tech and snag a few drones. Thats obviously best case, other times you'll run up the ramp say on shakuras, and see 2 spines, and roaches blocking the ramp. He's defended. In this scenario, you're still in a decent spot. Roach openings in zvz IMO are not the way to do it. There are ways to make them work, but roaches are just too static early game. Roaches combined with spines is even more cumbersome. Investing in early roaches and spines after a FE leaves our opponent with no zerg speed, lower drone count, and less sensible options. So in this case try and skirt around the edges with your lings, try and get a drone if you can, or lure the queen away from the ramp. Other than that you dont really want to commit with your lings. Continuing droning. I like to drop one or two spines and really lay on the D key when I see roaches. You should get your own roach warren eventually, or mutas, whatever you like. Either way, the goal is that you have map control, and full intel on your opponents natural, you want to make more drones than him because you can safely. If he's morphing blings in, or has a few ready you can try and micro against him to waste banes, get a drone or two, and distract him attacking you. And if he's making tons of slings, make sure you have a bling nest, dont overcommit, and make a spine or two at home.

The way I play I like to sneak more drones in than most spling expanding zergs anyway. So generally I wont have enough larva to utilize all my minerals on just zerglings anyway. Because of this, I find it better to leave one drone on gas in case I need that quick bling nest. However, if I know my opponent is going roaches, taking all three off gas is a fine idea. You can use a couple spines to be safe(assuming you're sure its not a roach ling allin).

From what I gather if I read write, you go 14 gas 14 pool, 4 lings, expansion, spine, then speed, then queen. This sounds very inefficient and wonky. There's no point in going 14 gas if you plan to do so much before grabbing ling speed. The goal of the speedling expand is to posture for map control, while having an economic mindset, and harassing your opponent Z to keep him honest. If you get a blind spine, you may not need that spine for another 3-5 minutes for whatever reason(opponent plays passive). All of a sudden you're out the 150 minerals and additional mining time. Never drop a spinecrawler that early unless you're positive its necessary. Furthermore, with 14 gas you should be able to buffer any sort of attack with your speed lings because you have the option of map control.