[D] A turtly PvZ strategy

Watched the first rep. I used to pretty much do this exact thing almost every PvZ, namely warpgate aggression without fast tech, relatively fast 3rd, turtle with colossus and cannon, get 4th, get carrier/mothership, make carrier/colossus/archon/ht mothership deathball, win.

However, problems with it include:

1. Fast 3rd with slow tech is unsafe. You need to know if they're trying to mass roach off 3 base to kill you or if they're teching/macroing/getting a 4th. If you have few or no immortals against fast roach max, you will die, if you blindly chrono immortals/more sentries and other defenses you'll be behind going into late game or if they go mutas. I guess in your game you might have reacted differently if you sensed/scouted a fast roach max was coming, but there would be no way you'd survive it doing what you did.

2. Getting a 4th early before you're nearly maxed or have a large number of robo units is unsafe. The zerg should have been maxed at that point, and also his infestor play was sloppy so you were able to defend it (for example he threw infested terrans only after his army died). I'm never able to hold a 4th at that stage of the game though.

3. Slowly transitioning to carriers is awkward. If you have a large ground army you want to vortex broodlords and then burst DPS when units come out. If you have carriers you want to vortex corruptor. If you are slowly transitioning to carriers then you have a period time where you're extremely weak when you only have a few carriers out and a lot of supply tied into making more carriers. At that point your army is still mostly ground but it's significantly smaller, and the few carriers you have are not adding much to your side especially when your own vortex sucks in interceptors. In other words what I'm trying to say is mass carrier with colossus/ht/archon support is strong, mass ground with mothership is not bad, but mostly ground with some carrier support is very bad.

So now my standard PvZ macro/turtle build is a bit different. Here's how I've adapted:

1. Fast robo, fast 3rd but still with the 8 minute 4 gate warpgate timing. My first 100 gas goes to warpgate tech and a stalker, my next 100 gas goes to the robo. Then I add 3 additional gateways, and I can put down my 3rd at around 7:30. I afford this by not getting my +1 upgrade that early (usually I start it after I start my 3rd base), and by delaying my 2nd gas and the 3rd/4th gas until after I start the 3rd base (I know that you also delay your 2nd gas in your games, but most standard PvZ builds get double gas at 19/20 supply). Not only does the fast robo provide me with a fast obs for fast scouting, it also allows me to build up that immortal count fast to defend my 3rd against roaches.

2. I don't take a 4th until I'm nearly maxed and I'm moving out to attack. I typically go for a pre-bl colossus timing, but I still get a mothership behind it so it's not a complete all-in and I have something to fall back on if he is able to defend until BLs come out. Because my 4th is later, I can't afford to get carriers that fast, so I don't. But this leads to my next comment:

3. Carrier transition - the best way I've come up with to transition to air is to prepare for a mass transition - get air upgrades and lay down a lot of stargates, but don't make any carriers yet, just focus on your stalker/colossus/archon/mothership army first. Work on your mothership micro (which is actually quite difficult - you need to control it will since it needs to be fully stopped before it can cast vortex, and also you need to watch it at all times and protect it from neurals), but if you are careful with your mothership although the game may stalemate if he hides behind a spine wall, he shouldn't be able to beat your army until he slowly turns his entire army to ~20 broodlords with some infestors/corruptor support. At this point you should be grabbing a 5th and even more bases and mass cannoning to protect them, while harassing with warp prism/poking with your main army. When he finally attacks you can choose to try to defend it, or go counter into his main. Most likely he'll turn around to try to defend, and then you do your air transition while trying to kill off as much of his base/tech as you can. After he stabilizes, continue to buy time by doing warp prism harass (use 2+ warp prisms). Hopefully you haven't actually killed any of his brood lords so that all his supply is tied into bl when you get air out. It sounds kinda cheesy but it's the best you can do unless you just want to all-in earlier and pray for lucky vortexes, once the zerg gets like 20 broodlords and doesn't stack them all in 1 place there is literally no way for you to kill it with only ground and 2 vortexes.

Note that the carrier transition doesn't always happen - in fact it's actually quite rare for the game to get to that stage, but it's pretty much the best way I can come up to make carriers. I

Here's a replay kinda showing this, it's not too good (some early timings were off especially the late warpgate timing, also I get an early 4th like I say not to, but I get it because I scout his fast hive plus I kill off a group of roaches without taking any losses), but it's the best I can quickly find right now. I'll try to find other reps later. http://drop.sc/261127

Also just as another build you may want to look at is that jangbi fast 3rd build where you just chrono gateway units out of your first gate, and get your 3rd base off of 1 gateway. It's nice if you want to pressure the zerg earlier, since most zergs are just used to defending the 8:00 warpgate timing and can get caught off guard either taking more damage than they should or overbuilding units and then being behind in drones. I personally don't like it because your tech is slower but if you don't mind that you should try it, it's safer than you'd think with a lot more early aggressive potential.