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Creating an expensive army, and relevant insights
These are just 3 tables I put together which show the cost of units per supply. I've multipled gas cost x 2, and added it to mineral cost, to give total adjusted cost.
To be fair these tables are not as helpful as others out there such as the one that shows DPS / supply. But it is interesting in light of the current stage of Wings of Liberty. The cost of maxed out armies was not that relevant in the past, as games generally ended on a few bases and maxing out was more uncommon than common. Now, cheeses can be held with appropriate scouting and reactions, and games are going to 3+ bases all the time.
Because games are getting to a late stage, there has been increasing talk of 'creating an expensive army'. One episode of Day9's comes to mind in which he discussed the cost of Spanishiwa's BL-infestor-queen army against the mech army of his opponent (whom I cannot remember). Why max out on cheap units if you can slowly and methodically build up and have an army that has total value twice of that if you played 'traditionally'?
I've included some relevant - although not really groundbreaking in any sense - insights for each race.
TERRAN
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IGHh7.png)
Bio terran is the cheapest composition; mech is more expensive; and sky terran the most fearsome. You get what you pay for. Thus, it is going to be hard to take on lategarm toss or zerg if you stay on bio. You army's cost will just be too cheap.That's why, despite mech being generally considered bad, if you can pull it off, you won't have as much of a problem when you're maxed against maxed. ESCGoody has shown this time and time again.
This also explains why LGIMMvp thought that he could, and viably, constructed an army of 3-3 BCs in the last GSL finals. That army was SO expensive. 25 BCs costs 10,000 minerals and 7,500 gas. THAT IS SO MUCH. And, you get what you pay for. Of course that army was infamously destroyed by an archon toilet, storms, and void rays. However, it also worth noting that, if Mvp had used nuke support (which he had at the time, but forgot about, EMPed the templar and Mothership, and Yamatoed the voids, that battle would have been SO one-sided, in favour of Mvp.
Finally, ravens. I could tell you that they are mobile detection; that they increase in value over time (being spell casters); that the damage output of hunter seeker exponentially increasing with the size of your opponents army (being AoE); and that they absolutely can be the answer to terran woes. But I won't. I'll just tell you that they are the most expensive unit in your arsenal. And expensive is good 
PROTOSS
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1H1AD.png)
There's nothing too surprising here. One of the first things to note though is that toss are mixing their expensive units with any late game army composition. That's one of the reasons why they are so hard to fight. DTs are at the top of the list and are damn expensive. DPS and the fact that they are cloaked aside, if you want to build an expensive army, mix these in. Archons are second, and that's another unit that toss should (and do) mix in to to their lategame armies all the time.
Coming in at third are phoenix which is interesting. Toss more and more are working out how to use phoenix to their advantage. Well, the fact that they're third may give toss even more reason to. If you've played monobattles and managed to build up an army of 3-3 phoenix to max, you'll know how fearsome they can be. You'd think stalkers would be the natural predator of phoenix but when you've invested that much money into maxing out on phoenix stalkers balls actually being to perform laughably. We're talking wiping out a maxed stalker army with a few losses only. Sure, that's never going to happen in a real game, but it goes to show just how viable phoenix are in PvP.
Finally, it is worth noting that SkyToss is pretty damn expensive. People think mass void rays is a bronze league strategy but thanks to a certain TL thread, as well as a partcular proleague game, as well as WhiteRa's stream, we're seeing a resurgance of this and other stargate units. A maxed out, well-upgraded army of Carriers and Voidrays with a Mothership is a costly affair - but once you've built it, it can hardly be stopped.
ZERG
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2MQTH.png)
The first thing that jumps out for zerg is that banelings are their most expensive unit for supply. This speaks volumes about their utility. It's a unit that deals damage instantly, with AoE, and if you're maxed with zerglings mixed in, you can dramatically increase the cost of your army in seconds with a mass morph in. This is at least one of the reasons why TSLSymbol's baneling heavy composition against Oz was so effective. It's also why Dimaga's ling-bling style against P can be so potent. Instead of maxing out on the dirt, dirt cheap roach and zergling, you can really build an expensive army to compete with Toss.
That brings me to the next point. Lings and roaches are so cheap. It is important to bear that in mind when you go Stephano-style roaches. Sure, you're going to max out fast. But the reason why you are doing so is because you're paying for crappy, cheap units. If you don't deny his third or do damage, you're potentially in trouble. All zergs have known since the beta that if you sit on this composition for too long you'll die. But these figures should reinforce that notion. Instead, you want to build an expensive army.
And that brings me to BL-infestor. People complain about this composition and it is very powerful. But look how expensive it is! After banelings, it's the most expensive composition you can build and so gas heavy too. Zergs will know that feeling when you 'free up some supply' by sacrificing roaches to remax on BL-infestor only to find that you simply don't have the money for it and you're sitting at 150 instead of 200. Think about it like this: 50 supply of roaches costs 1875/625; whereas 50 supply of BL-infestor costs 3300/3350 (asumming 8BL-9Infestors). It's not even close. It's worth bearing that in mind if you play toss or terran too, because if you are having trouble with this composition, simply denying zerg's gas on his fourth and fifth base will put a considerable dent in his ability to max out on this composition.
EDIT: Baneling should be 200 adjusted cost. I have it too expensive here.
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Awesome thread Idea, I would however argue that a costefficient army is mor important than an expensive army. For example pure baneling doesn't work vs max sentry colossus without ultra support or overlord drops.
I do applaud you for breaking a lance to encourage lategame endcompositions.
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That is absolutely true and I agree with you. However no single stat is ever going to dictate what units you build. Cost efficiency, i.e. DPS / cost is also going to have deficiencies, because, for example, it does not take into account the HP or armor of your units. So you could create a ball that dishes out tremendous damage but is killed easily.
Thus I put this together only to show one statistic. It should be used merely for what it is - one tool, one statistic, amongst many that should help you approach this game conceptually! But, of course, as you say, there are many other things that you have to take into account when building your army - and that's what we call playing starcraft
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I mean this isn't groundbreaking, but it's still pretty useful. I just fear for the day when Protoss replace all their zealots with DTs late game..............................
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I feel like zergs and protosses have been aware of this for some time (at least it's a factor I take into my lategame compositions), but terrans have yet to effectively incorporate many high cost units into their lategame compositions. They've added ghosts in, which does wonders for their longevity in many late-game fights with 'toss, but I feel like we should see some battlecruisers mixed in, too (and maybe some ravens). It seems odd to pair fast bio with slow battlecruisers, but battlecruisers typically force a reaction out of your protoss opponent that is good news for your bio army (stalkers... yum). Further, it might become reasonable to transition into a more mech focused play late-game after a bio opening with the new options in HoTS. Thanks for the reinforcement/extra insight. Maybe it will help some people see things in a slightly different light.
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On June 25 2012 17:46 CluEleSs_UK wrote:
I mean this isn't groundbreaking, but it's still pretty useful. I just fear for the day when Protoss replace all their zealots with DTs late game..............................
Oh god.... If only DTs had charge.... :D
Nice OP, useful information! Thank you.
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On June 25 2012 19:34 trbot wrote:
I feel like zergs and protosses have been aware of this for some time (at least it's a factor I take into my lategame compositions), but terrans have yet to effectively incorporate many high cost units into their lategame compositions. They've added ghosts in, which does wonders for their longevity in many late-game fights with 'toss, but I feel like we should see some battlecruisers mixed in, too (and maybe some ravens). It seems odd to pair fast bio with slow battlecruisers, but battlecruisers typically force a reaction out of your protoss opponent that is good news for your bio army (stalkers... yum). Further, it might become reasonable to transition into a more mech focused play late-game after a bio opening with the new options in HoTS. Thanks for the reinforcement/extra insight. Maybe it will help some people see things in a slightly different light.
I think this mainly has to do with (in TvZ) the snipe nerf.
Maxed battlecruiser raven is unstoppable, but the problem is getting there.
Unlike zerg and protoss you can't rebuild as fast, you die in the transition.
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You calculated the cost of the baneling wrong btw, they're actually 50/25 because only morph 1 ling into a baneling. Otherwise an Interesting read
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I'm always a fan of threads like this. It helps give clear thoughts and ideas for certain unit compositions.
As for replacing zealots, its much better to replace them with archons rather than DTs but it really depends on the income rate and bank. Archon zealot go well together because of the mineral and gas costs of the units. They are a natural composition to make, but if money is not an issue, DTs are always great to make.
But yeah still a nice thread to keep saved for later use.
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Your stats for Banelings are wrong though... one zergling is 25 mins, and morph for 25/25, so its 50 mins and 25 gas total for one bane, not 75 mins... so the adjusted cost is 100 (50+25*2) and their adjusted value/suply is 200... just for the sake of precision...
any stats like theese should be taken with a grain of salt and employed with great care, since they dont take into account things like durability/suply, critical mass (or the oposite, the point when the units loose effectiveness because of their mass i.e. zerglings) and stuff like that... interesting post though
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but but.... you left out the siege tank!!!!
TBH, I look at these tables and go.. "meh", it just doesn't really help at all and it's just a matter of compiling common knowledge.
What Terrans should look at is going mech switch after securing 3rd and 4th bases as you will need more supply worth of vikings, BCs, tanks and Thors. Bio really starts to become a burden once opponents gets units that have longer range and/or AOE. In the game designers views, they buffed the bio, but nerfed mech to compensate. Either way, you will need to mech switch to keep up lategame.
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On June 25 2012 19:43 Clarity_nl wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2012 19:34 trbot wrote:
I feel like zergs and protosses have been aware of this for some time (at least it's a factor I take into my lategame compositions), but terrans have yet to effectively incorporate many high cost units into their lategame compositions. They've added ghosts in, which does wonders for their longevity in many late-game fights with 'toss, but I feel like we should see some battlecruisers mixed in, too (and maybe some ravens). It seems odd to pair fast bio with slow battlecruisers, but battlecruisers typically force a reaction out of your protoss opponent that is good news for your bio army (stalkers... yum). Further, it might become reasonable to transition into a more mech focused play late-game after a bio opening with the new options in HoTS. Thanks for the reinforcement/extra insight. Maybe it will help some people see things in a slightly different light. I think this mainly has to do with (in TvZ) the snipe nerf. Maxed battlecruiser raven is unstoppable, but the problem is getting there. Unlike zerg and protoss you can't rebuild as fast, you die in the transition.
Tell me how easy it is to get to Carrier, Void and MoShip and rebuild it.. why is 1 Stargate harder to build than 1 startport + techlab? (granted, toss has chrono)
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Units don't fight alone - compositions do. Also methods of production play a big role, however, you're right about Terrans being donkeys and making cheap units for straight up fight vs ultimate compositions 
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Damn. Can't believe I got baneling wrong AND missed seige tank!
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EPT
