[G] The Cycle method for Zerg macro - Page 3

On October 12 2011 18:01 baba44713 wrote:
I'm going to try this, although my concern with stuff like this is that whenever I pick up a useful tip/method and start practicing it my overskill just crashes down. For example, I tried to switch from my "all hatches/all queens" hotkey setup to the more elegant Idra-like setup, and I managed to demote myself from Plat to Gold in literally no time at all. Had I not switched back to the hotkey scheme I grew comfortable with, I think I had a great chance to end up in Silver.

I have some practical questions however:
1) If my natural larva is OL larva, what do I do with the leftover natural larva? You (the OP) said that I should build 1 OL if I plan to build 1-sup units, or 2 OL if I playn 2-sup units.. but wouldn't I be leftover with a few larva which would "desynchronize" this cycle?

2) What about the Zerg general principle of having "spare" supply mid-game if you can afford it, just in case you failed to scout and get hit by a nasty timing push? Or any other time when you either get supply-blocked or have surplus supply? Should you stick with the cycle or should you skip the OL-producing phase?

On October 12 2011 12:38 Nemireck wrote:
And yes, pros use tapping to stay on top of their injects. Many pros don't hotkey their queens, they hotkey their individual hatcheries instead and tap them regularly, when an inject is ready, they 55, box queen, inject. Others work off larva counts like we do, but if, for instance, they have a maxed army, you still see them tapping their hatcheries even with no units to make, and a player like Idra, who uses the All Hatcheries on 4, individual queens on 5/6/7 (interestingly, he never makes more than 3 queens, or at least didn't at IEM), will check his hatch key regularly when his army is maxed, I assume to keep an eye on larva counts on his hatcheries and hit his injects. (by the way, his setup not allowing for individual hatchery tapping may be one of the reasons he often misses late-game injects).

On October 13 2011 03:08 Mitosis. wrote:
This was definitely an interesting read and I will consider invorporating this in my play. I do have some concern with your OL management though. An inject cycle is 40s, and natural larvae time is 15s. Add to this 25s (unsure about this, but I think that this was your nummer ) for the OL and it looks very tight. Unless you build the OL right as the larva appears it seems like you will be supply blocked as the inject spawns. This means you can't spend the popping larva, and furthermore delays the next natural larva spawn since you have unspent inject larva, which delays the next OL leading to a negative spiral.

Is this something you have found to be a problem or is it just a matter of getting into the rythm of not missing the overlords?

On October 13 2011 01:41 w3jjjj wrote:


Thanks, there is always room to learn from the pros, although Idra doesn't do it is not adding much weight, seeing he's one of the better pros.. Anyway, do you know specifically which pros do it and if there's a stream available? I'll definitely check it out.

On October 14 2011 17:37 baba44713 wrote:
I've been practicing this against AI yesterday (I'm Plat btw). Well here are my findings.

Pros
- my macro improved drastically, particularly my injects and creep spreading. Before I always seemed to lack larva, now I had trouble actually finding what to do with all the larva I have (and only on two base!). In fact, merely by clumsily practicing this method I was outmacroing Very Hard AI so much it was ridiculous.
- there is something eerily zen in going through the motions and see your gameplay improve seemingly without trying too much.
- hatch-as-timer and creep-camera-save are terrific. I think that those techniques alone can improve every Zerg's gameplay immensely, even though if they opt not to adapt the entire "cycle" thingie.

Cons
- my game awareness plummeted. My scouting was worse, my strategic thinking was non-existent, my reaction time was horrible. Against AI it's not a problem, what with it being so predictable and downright moronic, but I'm pretty scared how it would look against real people who won't merely politely attack every 2 minutes.
- it seems very easy to mess up a cycle if you get just a little bit late with your natural OL production, since you get inject larva but have no space to spend it. I got around this by slightly overproducing OLs in the beginning so I have more leeway, but that feels suboptimal and kinda ruins the point of the cycle.

So basically, I think this cycle is giving me Diamond-level macro while pushing my overall skill down towards Gold or Silver. I can't say I'm not enjoying this technique, I'm just unsure whether I will be able to stick with it too long, especially if I see a drastic decrease of my ladder status.