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While this is a good method to help cure the symptoms of poor play (high floating unspent minerals, high energy levels on your queens), it is far better to address the key underlying issues that are causing such symptoms (overall poor mechanical skill and experience).
If you're a Bronze or Silver player, this method that the OP posts in will help you win specific games, because extra hatcheries to compensate for missed injects is better than missing injects and not compensating, but it won't really help you improve, because its a safety net that is allowing you to make the same macro mistakes over and over again.
By all means if you have a specific game you really want to win (like a tournament or a friend you want to beat or something) and you notice yourself floating minerals and queen energy, make this to fix the problem, but during ladder games directing your effort towards repairing the damage done by fucking up your injects is a poor idea when you could better be focusing on not fucking them up to begin with.
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On January 31 2011 09:10 Bucky0Hare wrote:
remap the townhall key (backspace) to tilde (`) then put queens on 3. spawn mutant larva on grid is X sooo you can inject all your hatches thusly:
`3xCLICK
all you need to do is make sure you click the center of your screen. You can accomplish this so fast that you may need to do a cycle of "`````" ensure that you made the injects work but pretty soon you will know what to look/listen for to determine the success of the maneuver.
Make sure you are looking at a hatch the has a queen other wise you will order a queen to travel to that lone hatch.
I'm a huge fan of this sort of method, but I remap the backspace to tab, and the 10th control group to tilde, and I put my queens on that. Once you get used to it, you can inject so many hatches on time, and it also keeps your injects lined up together.
tab tilde v+click, tab v+click, tab, v+click, repeat as necessary.
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As a bronze* zerg whose macro's actually not to bad (far from perfect though), I'm not to sure about that lot as it sounds more like a cover-up for the issue than an actual fix. Personally, I've worked on macro (as a specific macro-only exercise) by...
Pick a 1v1 pool map, and fire it up against a level of AI I know I can beat blindfolded.
Attempt to execute a build that would be used in a real match.
Focus on never, ever missing an inject, and think "drones" constantly.
Off two hatches, make two overlords per round of injects at the main unless there's an overwhelming reason not to.
As the game goes on (usually around the 10 min mark), take a third the moment there's the minerals to do it, take a fourth if you fancy it.
...and crucially, don't just do a "go kill him" the moment you're in a position to win, keep going until 200/200 (with what you consider to be a reasonable army composition, including upgrades, not just spamming stuff to increase the food count) is hit then go kill him, but keep injecting and replacing units while you do it.
(then go kill him)
Then, fire up the replay and pay specific attention to...
Were hatcheries saturated with drones?
Did I get supply blocked? If so, when and why?
At what point did injecting queen energy top 50? Why?
When was 200/200 hit?
Did any large unspent piles of resources develop? If so, when**?
How many larvae did the hatches have when the AI GG'd?
...then do it again, trying to remedy any obvious flaws, and trying beat previous timings.
Yeah, it sounds a bit dull, but I actually found that approach far, far more useful than attempting to practice straight-up macro in games against real people as the unpredictability of real games tends to detract from the data gained from the replay, and in my case I found it bloody hard to ingrain the actions necessary whilst handling all the weird, cheesey crap that gets thrown at me in ladder matches.
* Okay, so my ratio of practice games to ladder games is probably in the region of 10 to 1, and after three quick ladder experiments over the weekend (the first since before Xmas) I appear to be out-building opponents by about 2.5 to 1, but it says bronze, so bronze I am. Either way, I'm pretty crap.
** The when bit's important here because, to my mind anyway, as long as the size of the resource pile is balanced with the number of larvae available to make stuff with, it's probably not to big. There's nothing more gratifiying than "okay, so you've beaten the army, but gimme a few seconds and I'll have another one just as big, hope your shields are recharged" (yes, I appreciate this is very map-dependent, especially at my level).
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I think it is important to avoid reinforcing bad habits, such as rallying drones to gas long before the extractors are completed, or building excessive overlords/debots/pylons out of order. However, I also think it is important to cultivate in-the-moment decision-making by doing what is best now (for example, building a macro hatch at 1000 minerals). Zerg especially needs to be able to respond situationally to the needs of its economy, so practicing achieving this balance off the cuff (rather than with a more precise build order) is beneficial. Afterward, reviewing the reply to analyze the moment that caused the excess minerals is crucial to improvement is well.
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go roach only  since the roaches are too cost effective in comparison to other zerg units, roaches are even cost effective to damn immortals..
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On January 31 2011 07:15 Herks wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2011 07:06 Fugue wrote:
Over the weekend I've tightened up to the point where in the first 10 minutes of the game I am:
- No longer getting supply blocked
- No longer missing injects
- No longer neglecting to scout
- No longer floating >500 minerals
Are you doing anything specific that helped you tighten that stuff up? How did you teach yourself not to miss injects or get supply blocked?
Train vs a super easy ai. You don´t have to worry about any aggression at all so you can purely concentrate on you macro.
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Thanks to everyone who replied
My macro is improving by the day. Today i held off a 4 gate, then went to 3 bases and crushed him. really starting to feel better about macro. I have just been using 1 extra mac-hatch and concentrating on always injecting.
I had no idea you can hotkey queens then hit V and click mini-map around the hatches. That is actually soooo much easier than what ive been doing.
Also I learned from artosis that whenever i inject my hatches on the minimap, go ahead and spread my creep another round, keeping them on a timer of 30 seconds. My creep is getting sick, sometimes its to my 3rd before i am, or getting close to opponents front door on smaller maps.
I think many of you are right about not wanting to train yourself into bad habits. For this reason I have stopped some of the things i was doing. However I did want to note that when i make 3 eggs to drones and point them to the building extractor, they and the extractor finish at same time, so i dont know why not to do this? it just makes sense and never takes drones off minerals.
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oh, also, can you have all the queens selected then just hit V+click, V+click, V+click, or do you have to tab through, selecting each queen in particular?
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You can select them all and inject click, but I think you have much better control if you hotkey your larvae-injecting queens individually, as this will ensure nothing funny happens, like a queen walking all the way to another base because they one nearby already had larvae on it. Learning to double tap your 3 to 4 queens constantly is a good habit because you'll always know when you can inject, and you'll always see what's going on at your bases. I think it's a lot better than hotkeying all of them together.
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Silver zergling here. I've watched plenty of top zerg players and I've seen plenty of "trustfunds" gathering up if they're allowed to macro. I prefer expanding + as little defense as I can afford and I inevitably reach a high mineral count (not so much with the vespene, especially if I'm going air).
When I do the 200/200 push I have larvas stacked up and can immediately gather up a new force instead with said trustfund. Isn't this how macro zerg should be played, or am I getting things all wrong? :C
P.S. The inject -> shift+space (for hatch cycling) did wonders for my inject rate.
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Can all the zerg players stop pretending there special for playing zerg in this thread? Like seriously, I play Terran not because some think there OP (I don't personally think they are but you opinion is you own).I think it gives people the wrong idea, I played T in brood war and wanted to in SC2 but all the bad reputation they get to me is a lie. Zerg is a very strong race it's just that maps are what screw them over
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Russian Federation823 Posts
Are there any objections to the Queens-SHIFT-method? I'm getting quite used to it, so while i'm still bronze i can get rid of this habit.
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@kusto:
If you can inject properly and on time consistently with that method, you can keep doing it. I personally think individually hotkeying queens is better because you're less likely to have weird errors like a queen walking across the map, and it's really easy to just cycle between them. But again, if you are used to a method and it works well (you never miss injects EVER and queens don't go stray), then stick with it.
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On January 31 2011 06:05 wheelchairs wrote:1. excess money: After i have 2-3 bases, when my minerals are starting to come in faster and have more than 60 drones, my minerals start to add up quickly. I counteract this by making a cluster of 3-4 hatcheries w/ usually 2 queens (i like 1 queen for each 2 hatches, because i generally miss injects and when i hit them i can do 2 hatches at once w/ each)
These clusters of hatcheries help me to make an entire army at once instead of buildup up an army w/ consistent injects and macro.
Also, when i have excess minerals, i often use it to make like 8 overlords at once, for instance making my supply something like 70/150, allowing me to forget about having to make ovies or getting supply blocked and am free to just spam unit keys on my larva w/o stopping.
To echo another poster, you shouldn't need 4 macro hatcheries off of 3 bases. If you do, you're missing a TON of injects, or you're letting larva sit around for a VERY long time at your hatcheries (remember, a hatchery with 3+ larva no longer produces 1 larva every 15 seconds), or likely both. In most cases, you shouldn't need more than 1 if you keep injecting, keep producing, keep expanding, keep upgrading, etc. If you do need them, go ahead and make them, but the goal should be to spend your money without them. Also, don't forget: if you can defend it, you're better off building that hatch at an expansion. Even if you don't mine the minerals, you can put some of your Drones on gas there, which also helps spend your money (since you can use more of your larva for expensive units that inevitably require gas).
2. gas: I will normally select 2 drones, tell them both to build extractors, then i select 6 larva, build 6 drones, rally all 6 of them to the extractor, shiftclick 3 off, tell remaining 3 to go to the other extractor. Then i can leave, forget about it, when the extractors finish and 6 drones build, they will split up and fill both gases, and i go macro/fight elsewhere w/o worry.
When you're building the extractors, you can actually box as many Drones as you want, only the Drones building anything will go anywhere. Shift build to make it a touch easier.
As for assigning Drones to the Extractors, a number of players will box a group of approximately 6 Drones, click on one extractor, shift click off 3, click on the second Extractor, and then either shift click off 3 and assign any remaining back to minerals or grab another Drone and assign it to the Extractor depending on how many you actually boxed. It's essentially the same idea as rallying the Drones the way you do, except it works regardless of whether you're building Drones or not, etc.
3. supply: As said above, i dont normally get supply blocked due to spending my extra minerals on a ton of ovies. With terran i will normally tell my scv that is building a depot to que up another depot build next to it when hes finished, i always come back to him telling him to keep on doing this over and over.
I'm not sure this is the right way to approach this either. A better way (in my opinion) is to make the Overlords you'll need when each inject pops. It depends what you're producing and how tight your macro is, but something like 2 Overlords per hatchery with Queen (and 1 for any hatchery without a Queen) with every inject should keep you safe. You can adjust that as necessary: if you're making nothing but Zerglings, you aren't going to need that many Overlords.
As far as methods for larva injecting, I'm a big fan of "the backspace trick", but I remapped backspace to the ~ key. It lets me keep all my Queens on one hotkey, which I like, and injecting is just a matter of 6 shift+v and then spam ~ leftclick (with shift held) for each hatch, which feels easier when you're on 4 or 5 hatches than 6 6 v click 7 7 v click 8 8 v click 9 9 v click.
Regardless of what you do and how you get there (backspace, double-tapping individually hotkeyed Queens, double-tapping individually hotkeyed Hatcheries, whatever), it's important to look at the progress bar on the Hatchery often: it shows you when the larva inject is going to "pop off", which both means that you need to build units and that you need to inject again. It's also reliable regardless of how badly you screw up injects, unlike checking the Queen's energy, which gets weird if you get behind on any of them.
This is actually one of the things that it took me the longest to realize. I was firmly of the opinion that I didn't need to spam APM to try to look cool (and you don't), but that doesn't mean that there isn't a benefit to quickly checking a number of things frequently. It actually makes it tons easier to macro if you keep checking how long you have till your larva pops, how long till your upgrades finish, how is your Drone saturation, then pop over to some lings and poke them around, check your resources, check your supply, etc. It takes a bit of work, but the better you get at it, the more you get out of it.
edit: fixed some botched quotes.
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On January 31 2011 06:28 Pitrocelli wrote:My tip for bronze/silver zergs would be to switch race as soon as possible. You hadn't invested a lot of time in this game yet. With switch you save yourself a lot of desparation, frustriation, saving your neurons and prolonging your life. Do it now  User was warned for this post
I completely agree.... I know you were warned for it, but I am also a high-zerg who wishes I hadn't invested so much time in this race.
At OP.. I like the tips, especially about the macro hatch which is definitely an important aspect of zerg mid-late game which is helpful to be understood early in a zerg's ladder career
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On January 31 2011 19:34 TearDrop wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2011 07:15 Herks wrote:On January 31 2011 07:06 Fugue wrote:
Over the weekend I've tightened up to the point where in the first 10 minutes of the game I am:
- No longer getting supply blocked
- No longer missing injects
- No longer neglecting to scout
- No longer floating >500 minerals
Are you doing anything specific that helped you tighten that stuff up? How did you teach yourself not to miss injects or get supply blocked? Train vs a super easy ai. You don´t have to worry about any aggression at all so you can purely concentrate on you macro.
Couldn't disagree more. If you want to practice build orders, use YABOT or somesuch. If you play vs super easy Ai, your macro is going to instantly start to slip when you play someone who isn't playing ridiculously passive, and you'll have no sense of the drone/army balance required early game.
If you are going to train with an AI, make it the most difficult Ai that isn't cheating. That way you're learning to scout, hold off aggression, and macro. I'm now on 1v1s against medium fyn Ai, and surviving to the 12 minute mark playing for macro games, holding off 4gates, banshee rushes, and doing my best to keep everything smooth. When I win I feel it's more due to deficiencies in the Ai rather than me performing superbly to get into the midgame, so I'm getting better, but still have a ways to go.
If I could ladder right now I would, but if you're practicing for 1v1 ladder, the closest thing to it is best, I say.
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Can I just add a useful tidbit for lower level Zerg's...?
Macro hatcheries are a great way to help spend your excess money. More lava means more potential drones/units.
I try to drop a macro hatch when my minerals begin to creep towards 1200+. Consistantly doing this will help keep your money low. (Or atleast it does for me)
It's also great casue when you see a push comming (Hopefully you've got ovies spread around and some lings for scouting) you can spend all those Lava to make units, and hopefully hold off the push.
Anywho, hope that helped. Certainly would've helped me had I known that at the begining.
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My silver tip:
Just a-move your army into the battle and forget about it (ok, maybe check opponents unit combo).
Keep the screen at your base and try to never miss an inject and use every larva. As soon as you can't spend all your money anymore it's time to get an additional hatch (expand or marco hatch).
People spend way to much time focusing on the battle IMO.
Once you start winning by purely outmacroing your opponent you can shift your focus back to the battle. By then you should be able to macro "remotely" (i.e. without being in the base).
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2 basic rules I try to follow:
1 keep making overlords as necessary
2 always be making *something*. Don't just go back and make things when injections pop, or after you finish scouting. Say, "I'm making drones" and just keep hammering away 1sd, 1sd while you're doing whatever else you're doing. When you want to kick off army production, same deal, "I'm making roaches" 1sr 1sr 1sr. This will keep your hatcheries from sitting on 3 larva, and dramatically increase your production rate, along with good queen injections.
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EPT
