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So here's the story. It's one of the shortest games in my life. I scouted the factory and felt comfortable expanding because I thought those units are slow. It turns out they multiply fast.
I know by now that expanding at this scenario was a terrible idea. But did I have the right idea of using roaches and queens as counter? I was caught off guard by this build to be honest.
I'd post the replay but I don't know how.
Basically at around 4-6 minute mark he started making hellions and vikings and cutting through my miniscule army of roaches, queens and lings. I scouted the factory as it was being constructed but clearly, just scouting without knowing what to do isn't enough. If you were in my place, what would you have done, by this point?
I responded by expanding and quickly making a roach warren. That clearly lost me the game. Any thoughts?
Here's my build (not quite perfect on the timing but
drone
drone
overlord
pool
gas
queen
(sent out a scout) saw the factory
lings to try to harass, wall was finished.
roach warren
hatchery
roaches
sent out another scout and saw a big army on the move
spine crawlers
I guess that's it. Shortest game ever. If you guys have any insight for future improvements, I'd be very happy  Thanks. And if you know of a way for me to upload the replay, I'd happily do so. Cheers!
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Can you upload your replay on here? http://sc2replaystats.com/
Also, probably better to refer to builds via supply, that way it's easier to see. For example, 17 hatch, 18 gas, 17 pool etc.
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without seeing the replay, not expanding at the proper time is probably your downfall here tbh. You had less income and less production capability because of the delayed larvae and delayed drones mining at your natural. Zerg should always expand on 16 or 17. You can hold anything in the game with that timing. The most aggressive thing you can ever see, which is a cannon rush designed to kill a hatch, still lets the hatchery finish to buy time and then get ravagers out. Anyway,
You need the location secured, the creep already spreading out of the hatchery, and drones mining so you can afford to respond. Imagine if your second queen was that much faster and had more energy to transfuse because of your hatch being faster? At around 5 minutes you should be in the 60-70 supply range. Since you're staying on 2 bases and would probably opt for roaches, and they each cost 2 supply, this should be easily obtainable. You don't disclose your rank here(edit: you do in the title, gold, sorry about that) but it's reasonable to assume you're a bit lower, so my best advice to you would be to not even care about what your opponent is doing for the first 4 minutes of the game and focus entirely on your own play. Get your building timings correct, inject timings correct, and saturate your droneline as quickly as possible.
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replay would help but i think LHK is right that your build was too conservative and scared. the build you did was basically an allin because of all your early units and you were using it for defense, which isn't usually how zerg works. when you make all those units early you're doing it to bust a greedy terran. a terran who's hitting you with a 1-1-1 allin (which i think is what your opponent was doing?) is pretty much blindcountering that build. to be honest you should probably be on 3 hatch.
even when you defend aggression as zerg you want to cut workers and bases with a slight economic lead, not even. if you're even or too defensive your opponent is ahead even with no damage. however at gold level it's hard to be certain of the advice we give because there could be very odd/suboptimal things happening on either side that can be fixed
also one thing to remember about hyperaggressive Terran is that often if you have a lot of hatcheries and larvae then you can defend with low worker count and then make like 10 all at once after holding which leaves you with a massive lead
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can you be more specific please? without replay, it's a guessing game. did he attack at 4 or at 6 minutes? with how much?
if he really was going hellion/viking, you could have just made mass queens after scouting. add some blings if he goes hellbat.
but the most important thing is your general opening. do I read correctly that you went pool first? if you do so, you have to harass hard / do damage, otherwise you're behind. you can defend against reapers with hatch first easily, just make queens, spread creep and don't make too many lings. drone hard.
I won't post a complete build, there are tons of guides online.
But at least try:
16 hatch
18 pool
18 gas
19 ovi
2 queens when hatch is done
4 lings after pool
speed @100 gas, pull out 2 drones
drone drone drone drone
3rd hatch around 28-30 supply
3rd queen
2 (important!) ovis around 32 supply
drone until you are afraid to die
then drone some more
rule of thumb for gas:
put back drones sooner if he's on one base
only build 2nd and 3rd extractor after lair, unless you want to go allin on 2 bases.
focus on the first four minutes of the game until you can nail the build every single game.
hit your injects. don't get supply blocked. aim for 60 supply @ 5 minutes.
only build spines as last ditch effort.
the metal leagues are all about macro. once you know how to get out of the early game without messing up too much, you'll be diamond.
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if you see your opponent goin mech, a good response is to mass ravagers. in my experience roach, ling and hydra are garbage vs mech most of the time, you would need very good micro to outplay mech player with that. meanwhile if you have enough ravager, you can just a-move and cast 3 biles on every tank you see. more often than not their tanks will be clumped together so sometimes you can kill even 3 tanks with one set of biles. also ravagers are big blobs so splash damage from tanks is not as effective vs them and they can survive way longer. and if terran goes bc, ravager is still pretty good since bcs are slow. then you just add corruptor with armor upgrades and taste the terran tears. gl!
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mass roach/ling w somewhat fast speed roach, never lose to this again
i should add that you need to still take a fast 3rd for this build to work as it relies on him not knowing that youre just gonna go mass roach/ling and blind counter his build w a +1 timing attack.
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for me you didnt see the attack, didnt drone, missed injects on 3 bases (probably). without replay tho, i mean we cant know for sure
1. when you scouted did u see a reactor or did he attack from solo producing?
2. if you expanded properly you could be up to 6 queens before this 4-6min attack, 3 bases, 2 fully saturated with gas and provided you didnt miss inject 8-12 larva at the push with another 12-18 on the way through inject and regular larva spawn
3. roaches! Just build as many as you can, with 2.5 bases and 3 gas minimum you can produce as many as larva allows.
Thats just how it goes with this. The most important bit is seeing the attack coming out so you stop droning or realise with an early speedLord that what hes doing is allin (was he building a 3rd?) if he was this attack would have been between 6-10 units max at that time, all of which would have been held with 4 roaches and 2 queens if you wall and connected bases with creep.
send replay to site, worth it if you are coming against thissort of play a lot
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Roaches and queens are great units against hellions and vikings, so you know right off the bat that the problem has to be something else.
In this case, the obvious issue is that your build is realllly bad economically. With zerg, you have to think about early game defense as "how do I build the minimum amount of units, as late as possible, to hold off this attack". This is because your chief economic advantage is that you can dedicate all of your resources to building workers (let your money make money, and your economy will grow exponentially while other races can only grow linearly), and you chief economic Disadvantage is that any round of units you build cuts workers off entirely, while terran and protoss can build both simultaneously. In the early game, another significant factor is that you have to spend workers to make buildings. Lets look at your build economically with that in mind
drone
drone - 14 workers
overlord
pool - 1 mining worker lost (~8% of your economy [13/14])
gas - 2 mining workers lost (~17% of your economy [12/14) - When this finishes, 3 workers are no longer mining minerals
queen
(sent out a scout) saw the factory - 3 mining worker lost [11/14]
lings to try to harass, wall was finished.
roach warren - 4 mining workers lost [10/14]
hatchery
roaches
sent out another scout and saw a big army on the move
spine crawlers - minus however many workers you made into spines
unless you made workers you forgot to include in build, you can see here that just as a function of your build, you have crippled your total economy to be substantially smaller than at the start of the game, while terran's has been growing with every SCV they produce. you only end up with 7 workers mining minerals here! That exponential growth I was talking about function in reverse in these scenarios, because insstead of using your money to make drones, you are using your drones to make production, which further hinders your ability to make drones.
TL:DR Make more drones, don't be afraid to take a hatch first or go pool -hatch - gas, and you will be out of gold league in no time
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EPT
