The goal of this guide is to provide a basic outline of a 2v2 Protoss + Terran money feeding strategy that I've been having success with so that people don't have to start from scratch when experimenting with money feeding.
Introduction I am a diamond (1v1, and 2v2 random) Zerg player, recently I started playing 2v2 as T using money feeding (sending my resources to my partner) with diamond P players as partners. The strategy revolves around the Terran building early defense, and then sending all his money to the P, saving enough only for expanding, and constant scv/supply production until the late midgame.
Why I believe this strategy is the future: in brief I and my partners are diamond players, yet with this strategy we consistently place in the master league for 2v2 and are able to beat players that are better than us with relatively simple play, which to me is indicative of using something that is overpowered. A more detailed rationale is in the body.
Replays Here is a replay pack of 25 games of myself and my partner Draek as we go through placement matches and play in the 2v2 master league. The games showcase typical winning scenarios, as well as multiple losses that helped us develop our strategy. The games are numbered in the order we played them; you can try follow the games and our ingame chat in that order to see how we learn how to play this combination. All the games except for the first four placement matches are against players who are masters in either 2v2 or 1v1. Mirror 1: http://www.4shared.com/file/SgkXNoZC/2v2_Jagd_Draek.html Mirror 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?a2k6si39ii36e0g
Why is money feeding better than regular 2v2 strategies? 1. Tech savings. Suppose you had PP that went double 4gate. To achieve a certain timing they both needed to spend 50/50 on wg research, so what you may ask it's only 50/50. Well that's one thing but they also spend chronoboosts on their wg research. In the case of a money feed we have TP where we only need one player to spend chronoboost on wg, whereas the other player spends 'chronoboost', i.e. MULEs on economy. Similarly for upgrades to get a PP army of size X with +1 if it's combined from 2 players costs 100/100*2 whereas with money dump it's only 1*100/100, etc. Similarly with tech such as robo support bay, only one is needed, and so on. Thus a money dump build will either a) hit earlier or b) hit stronger than the same build executed by two players.
Furthermore, since P only builds 24 probes and can sack them, his army population is ideally very close to a true 200/200 max. Since an upgrade is more beneficial if you have 20 units rather than 10, the upgrades we get are more beneficial.
It is my belief that this very real advantage is usually more valuable than the versatility of having units of 2 different races.
2. Expansions. Terran has the ability to lift expansions off. This lets them float orbitals to new expansions rather than building new orbitals. MULEs are able to mine bases, especially gold, very quickly so that they are a liability for less time.
3. Money spending is a logarithmic function of income. This is something that I have discovered rather than something I expected (e.g. point 1). It is hypothesized and somewhat verified that even for pro players like IdrA average unspent resources increases logarithmically with average income. However, as a money feeder, the feeder's unspent resources grow less quickly as his income increases than for a regular player, since he is spending most of his APM sending to his partner. His partner's unspent will still be logarithmic, but overall the spending is better than two players who have spending that is logarithmic in their income rate.
The Terran perspective (feeder) The Terran's job is to secure early defense, and let the P partner mine as much minerals as possible. This means T will scout, and build a refinery for the P. Here is an outline of the typical opening build order:
10 supply at wall -> send scv to scout -> if it's a map where your opponents have an inbase expansion try to block with an engineering bay, do not let the engineering bay complete, cancel as they are about to destroy it. 12 rax at wall 13 refinery at Protoss main (share control so he can mine from it) 16 OC -> save scans after dropping 2 mules until P's obs is out 16 supply depot
Variations: 1. If you presume early pressure you can choose to open 9supply depo 11rax and then bunker. I believe this is safe against most early marine builds. This may be necessary to be completely safe, since you can't scout before this. 2. If you scout a very early pool, you want to put down a second barracks to complete the wall in. 3. After this initial opening there are several options. Either build a bunker at the front, or 2 bunkers, or build a second CC (I've started preferring this, but don't interrupt marine/scv production to build this). After the second CC is done you can get a 2nd OC and double gas at your main. Tip: you may want to lift & replace the barracks with a bunker, or you may not if you expect banelings.
Terran responsibilities: In the early game (3-6m) the marines built from the one (possibly two) barracks along with bunkers and scvs are what is keeping your team alive. 1. Scout your base with your first two marines to make sure there are no proxy buildings inside. 2. Scout the edges of your base with marines to spot for overlords and pylons that enable highground warp in. Also place supply depots in likely places where highground warp in can happen so that you can see the overlords or at least pylons. 3. Send an scv to patrol in front of your opponent's base so that you can send your own scvs to repair your bunker in time (6-7 scvs is usually the maximum that will fit if the bunker is part of the wall and between two depots).
Protoss perspective (receiver) I don't have as much experience with this as I usually let a more competent player play protoss, but there is some important things here that I do know. 0. The opening build should be 10pylon 10gateway to give you ability to get sentries out for early defense. 1. Terran will build your first gas in time for you to get enough gas for warp gate. Ask him to build you a second gas as your cyber core is finishing if you so desire. 2. As soon as your cybernetics core finishes build a sentry and spend 1 chronoboost on it. You may choose to get a second sentry and spend another chronoboost on it (two will be out around 4:20). These are important for defending sub 5minute attacks. 2. At 5:00 you will receive slight more than 700minerals, and 100 gas (assuming bunker was built). With this there are several options: 6gate+colossus, 7gate + blink or charge (we find charge is better in most situations), 8-9 gate. These are in order of aggressiveness (8-9 is most aggressive). There may be other options but these are the ones we've had success with. 3. On maps that have backdoor rocks use your gateways to block off the entrances into your base. 4. You should only build 24 probes to saturate your 1 base, and never expand except if your base is mining out, even then you may just want to sack your probes. 5. After the 6minute mark you are responsible for the defense of the base as well as all of T's expansions. 6. Use your army to kill off rocks so that T can expand (many 2v2 maps have rocks at gold) and use your army to deny the opponent's expos. 7. Be careful with how you position your army so that you don't leave your base vulnerable to counter attack or your army getting flanked and surrounded. 8. If the game is lost after 6m it is almost entirely the P's fault. That said the T player should be patient since the P's job is much harder, they are practically play a 1v2 and that is mentally exhausting.
Variations 1.If T chooses to get a second CC early, you will only receive about 400 minerals and 50 gas. This goes will with a build such as 6gate+colossus. It is the least aggressive of the builds and also the safest because you also get an observer and colossus to help you defend.
The late midgame The late midgame is the phase where T has approximately 100 supply, mostly SCVs, and P has approximately 170 supply mostly units. In this phase P must notify T to start building production facilities, and P must use his large army to defend until T's production kicks in. In our games this has involved barracks for ghosts (against PP or PX), vikings (against PX or TX), or siege tanks.
Additionally T may wish to build marauders and medivacs to use for denying opponent's outlying expos since T is most likely sitting on spare APM while P is already at their APM limit.
This phase of the game is arguably the most dangerous for a TP money feeding team, yet I believe it is possible to successfully survive it relying on the fact that P doesn't have probes taking up supply in his population count, and thus his army scales better with the tech and upgrades that he has.
Sometimes it may be necessary for the feeder to add production sooner than what I'v defined here. This transitional part of the strategy is the one I understand least.
Maps: On the ladder it is important to play on maps where you share a base with your partner since you are relying on marines and a couple sentries until 6min. I vetoed 1. High orbit (hard to expand, long term dislike), 2. Scorched haven (separate base), 3. Magma core (unfamiliar with it).
In tournaments where you are forced to play on separate base maps you may choose to not money dump on those maps, or to change your builds.
Questions 1.Is there something unclear, or simply wrong in my writeup?
2.We encountered a money feeding strategy similar to ours on the ladder once, so I imagine some of you have experimented with feeding, and in that case what kind of strategies did you use? Also if you have experimented with this and decided it to not be viable I would love to hear your experience.
3.Otherwise I'm happy to hear your thoughts as long as you're reasonable (i.e. if you claim this strategy will always die to X, please argue thoroughly about why X would be done, and why changing our strategy to deal with it would be unreasonable or not possible).
Excellent guide. Ever since the Day9 funday monday something similar to this has been my standard 2v2 strategy, albeit much less developed and refined.
For the terran player, I find that it helps immensely to get multiple in base OCs after a push or pinning the opponent back. Though it sacrifices minerals for protoss in the short term, the huge burst capacity of 3-4 orbital commands helps immensely later on in the game.
As for strategies, I find that warp prism harass works very well with the usually gateway heavy style that the Protoss follows in this situation, as the capability to warp in 10 zealots at 2-3 different points on the map is incredibly powerful against an immobile death-ball type army
Just one comment but your math in the section "3. Money spending is a logarithmic function of income" is reveresed. Two people spending the log (base whatever) of their income will spend better than one person spending the log (base the same thing) of the combined income. As an example, two people with income 10 each spend 2.3 resources (for natural log) for a total of 4.6 spent. However, a player with income 20 will spend only 2.99 resources - a significant decrease.
Of course, there's plenty of other differences that might make it so that money feeding leads to better spending, but to do so it will need to break this logarithmic rule-of-thumb, not be caused by it. The logarithmic rule-of-thumb suggests that we should distribute income equally between teammates.
When I play 2v2 me and my partner both go zerg and do this exact stratagy, the reason we both use zerg, is the wicked easy tech switches and insane amount of macro hatches. I've had more then one person rage at me for throwing away maxed armies just to have another one waiting when he counters.
There was a similar thread about pooling Zerg (in 3v3, I believe), simply because their production is ridiculously cheap (450 min if you add a Queen + Hatch) and their ability to tech switch, as Fallians mentioned early.
The general strategy they used was fast Ultras with pooling, due to the fact that Zerg can create a huge amount of units at once with the larva mechanic. For example, a Zerg off of just one hatch can build at least 7 Ultras at once, for the initial cost of 450 minerals (assuming 3 standard larva + one inject's worth of larva). A Terran making something like BCs would first need 7 Startports with Tech Labs, which is over 1000 minerals and 700 gas, not even counting the TL cost. It goes without saying that this production power is ridiculous when multiple Hatcheries are taken into account.
Anyway, very interesting and detailed post. I think Protoss being fed money in a 2v2 situation might be better than Zerg, because they are inherently more cost efficient, and can be made even more so with good positioning and forcefields (and you have the potential of two people's micro via shared control, essentially).
money feeding is always a great strat because of the aspect of saving tech costs. Protoss actually seems to be the best feeder race as they can use their economic bonus (chrono boost) without having access to their tier 1 unit building, zergs and terran both need a pool/rax first to get access to that.
Still playing unfun tactics like this for 2v2 kind of defeats the purpose, 2v2 is degenerate and unbalanced anyway.. Just play 1v1 if you are really into playing competetively.
Very interesting - it's a pity that competitive (i.e. pro) 2v2 doesn't exist for it's a whole new dynamic - however, balancing would of course be a nightmare.
On October 29 2011 17:25 dmtran87 wrote: Interesting. I wouldn't say it's the future of 2v2s... my friend and I don't do money feeding strats but we were #1 masters on 2s...
a lot of people who beat us don't do feeding strats either... mostly just all in builds and a good timing with it.
You are probably better 1v1 or 2v2 players than us. We got rank 2 masters using this strategy, but have since fallen down to about rank 10 as we are learning more of its intricacies. I would be really curious to see stronger players than myself and my partner try it. You may feel that whatever you're doing right now is fine, since you're doing well, but this could be stronger, or it could not be, and your experience would be valuable.
tgb: I think the way I worded it is confusing. The log tells you how much resources are left unspent, not how much is spent. Log is valid in your example, and in general since log(2X) < log X+log X. This is supposing the income generated by one player is X. It even works for nonperfect feeding (i.e. real world).
Falians: I've tried feeding with zerg, but the difficulty was the early game defense that the feeder is responsible for. I also had the problem of having too much larva (if I spent all of it, I wouldn't have enough resources to send) whereas the T the barracks and CC are able to constantly produce and still have significant resources go to my ally. Also the saved scans lets us defend cloak banshee or DT for a small cost than lair + ov, and the scans can be spent on mules once obs is out. How did you solve the early game defense situation?
Kitetsu: We tried feeding to zerg to hit early roach timings, but because their units are not as versatile as protoss, we weren't able to have success as easily, and thus I'm not sure how to do it. Since 2v2 and 3v3 have significant differences, I don't thinking teching to ultras would be safe enough. In several games of the replay pack my partner's first warp in of 7 stalkers came in just as my bunker was falling. There may be a way to work this out for zerg, though.
Markwerf: I don't think protoss is a good feeder race because they lack the ability to set up early defense cost efficiently. With T I can build marines that I then send with the P army if we go for an aggressive timing, and I can salvage bunkers. Since mules and scans are so good, it's good to have them. Finally once it comes time for the feeder to add production, it's good to have terran units for versatility (ofc. this doesn't apply if the receiver is something other than P).
Azzur & Herfelt: I believe since that match the 5:00 time limit for resource sharing has been introduced, partly in recognition of its strength. If resource feeding indeed turns out to be overpowered I believe all that blizzard needs to do is limit the amount sent per game to some value like 2000.
mmm i wouldn't say its the future, more like its already used successfully now. Its a nice to see that as a guide. Its good to have people concentrate on their tasks fully. But i guess this strategie will soon evolve into more, while there will still be a lil feeding, since races eco is different (toss extractor on gas etc, orbitals on most expos). It will be a normal build up, one player controls the main army, while the other controls harassment. So both players can optimize their 400 supply and 2 races, where the pure feeding system is at one point supply blocked on the teched side, and you will have an unteched 60 free supply floating around. While the other 2 can build up an army out of 2 races to conter the ball of just 1 race and harass with stuff of 2 races.
But yeah the feeding is the basis of this. Hope the clanwar system from warcraft3 will make it over into sc2. Sadly korean system doesn't invovle 2v2, so it will be really hard. While balance isn't such a great issue, since you can make maps with just one ramp, making the defender advantage really high and impossible to break early game.
On October 30 2011 02:13 FeyFey wrote: the pure feeding system is at one point supply blocked on the teched side, and you will have an unteched 60 free supply floating around. While the other 2 can build up an army out of 2 races to conter the ball of just 1 race and harass with stuff of 2 races.
Yes at this point this is the part of the build that my partner and I are working on. In the OP (see 'late midgame section') I suggest that the feeder adds production and tech as the receiver is about 170 supply, or perhaps even 160 supply. Doing this hopefully doesn't significantly slow down the rate at which the receiver gets 200/200, but it allows for a somewhat smooth transition into feeder also having lots of production to reach 200/200. Also the receivers 200/200 should be stronger than a 100+100 army since he should be ahead on tech/upgrades; this gives more time for feeder to get production going. I believe this transition problem can be overcome, so that even full money feed will work.
On October 30 2011 02:37 DMII wrote: Something very strong is also using your partner for mineral dump. It's like going Muta/Marine, but the one with the marines is your ally.
I think partial money feeding could be stronger than pure feeding, since you are also able to defend and be aggressive.
I've also heard of sentry/marine. I see the merit of being able to use my own units to defend and harass while my partner is doing something else, but the more that you invest into your own tech or production, the less of an advantage you have from saved costs in money dumping. That said, perhaps keeping your 1 barracks actively producing marines & marauders will be significant enough for the midgame.
Feeding is very powerful, that's a fact. But blindly feeding his mate is not the best option as you give up lot of powerful synergies & co...
Why do a 8 gates when you can 4 gates + 3 rax stim? Observer + sieged tanks? Vikings + void rays?
And moreover, hard feeding is not really fun to play for the feeder but well. Whatever it takes to get the win huh
Better to develop some strategies with an active ally... like with a T+Z, doing 3/3 full marines for the terran and giving all gas to Zerg in a late game scenario to get brood/ultra... that kind of feed can be game breaking and the terran plays, too.
On October 30 2011 06:19 yanot wrote: Feeding is very powerful, that's a fact. But blindly feeding his mate is not the best option as you give up lot of powerful synergies & co...
Why do a 8 gates when you can 4 gates + 3 rax stim? Observer + sieged tanks? Vikings + void rays?
And moreover, hard feeding is not really fun to play for the feeder but well. Whatever it takes to get the win huh
Better to develop some strategies with an active ally... like with a T+Z, doing 3/3 full marines for the terran and giving all gas to Zerg in a late game scenario to get brood/ultra... that kind of feed can be game breaking and the terran plays, too.
Can you prove that 3rax + stim + 4gates is better than 8 gates? The evidence on the side of 8 gates is that there is a lower tech cost, what is the evidence on the side of 3rax+ stim+4gates?
This post is about a strategy, that relies on in game mechanics, fun is subjective and not relevant to this discussion. Yes whatever it takes to get a (easy) win so long as it's in the game and reliable is my opinion.
After playing 10 games with money feeding, I will vouch that this strategy is good. We beat 4-gate with tanks, mutas, roaches, etc. with a blink stalker varient. Also, this map is somewhat hard on Magma core as it's very hard to expand (and that lunar map)
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ynhnM.jpg)
