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Unlike my TER or Toss counterparts, we zerg players do not have a specific building dedicated to worker production. So we have to pick either create more workers or create units. Here are two problems that arise in my zerg game play.
1. Strong early economy but weak against early harassment.
2. Strong early army, but weak economy around the 10 min mark of the game which usually results in being over run by void rays or T drop ships.
I would like to know how do you other zerg players decide when to stop producing zerglings/roach/hydras and make more drones?
I've watch some games where Z has a fast expand, saturated his mineral line but is subjected to constant harass by opponent because he doesn't have enough units to defend his base.
On the other hand, an early strong Z army will only lead to a huge economical disadvantage. How can i find the balance between workers production and unit production for Zerg?
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Make drones at every opportunity you get and at the same time always check your opponent production capabilities to be sure you can pump out a big enough army to stop his push when it hits your base.
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well, #1, this is one of the toughest parts about playing zerg.
the trick is to know the other races and their transitions so you get the most out of your scouting info. you need to scout often. often means all the time.
for example... you scout an 8 barracks and refinery. do you already know what they're doing? you should. they're getting a reaper for early harass.
response: get your queen up asap and build 4 zergling. send 2 of the zergling to the xelnaga towers on the map (there are usually 2 towers on the map) and leave the other 2 in your base to chase down the reaper(s). once your queen is up, those 2 zergling should be all u need to keep them from even killing a single drone. this response to their rush should take you almost no time at all to produce. in fact, the only change is those 2 extra ling. this is a time to pump drones.
when do you stop pumping drones? scouting should tell you.
he's still not making troops? pump more drones. only 1 barracks? still building factory? more drones.
it's stimple things like this that will help you. don't get overwhelmed by trying to think of a "drone build order" before the game even starts.
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If you just came out on top in a battle pump drones, if you just deflected some kind of harass and do not expect an attack pump drones. If you are anticipated being attacked, pump units.
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Scouting is key, if you see a 3-4 gate from toss you can make less drones and get a larger army etc. It's a delicate balance and will take a lot of practice to get a better understanding of where the balance lies.
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This is the both the strongest and weakest part of being zerg.But if you're good,it really allows you to do whatever you want to the other player.
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always harass or put pression and u can make as drones as u want
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I would just like to post a replay to demonstrate the significance of this concept.
http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/4556
Zerg's economy multiplies. Therefore, every early drone sacrificed is incredibly important. In this game, I make too many lings to prepare for pressure that never comes(he juked me) and end up crippled for the rest of the game.
While this concept might be the hardest to master as zerg, learning it on new levels will improve your game drastically.
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If you feel like you're being put to hard choices early on you probably don't have 2 hatches 2 queens and perfect timing on spawn larva. Even if you find yourself making a few to many drones at some point you can be prepared if you put a scout in front of their base. I think a good addition to the Starcraft UI would be a production tab that shows build time bars for all the units you have building. Instead you'll just have to remember to keep 2 drones building at all times and only stop this when you see movement from the other player.
I know you can que up 5 drones at a time and go for super economy but if it's to much of a risk don't take it. Stopping drones all together is also a huge risk so don't do that either. Your worker production is the same as the other races. If anything it's better since you can go to the extremes of only workers or only fighters if you want to. Just spawn larva on cooldown!
Here is something to consider in PvZ that may help you. Zerglings take up a lot of larva and they are comparably weak to zealots anytime they can't completely surround them (which is almost always if the protoss is good). So if you make as few zerglings as possible early on you're actually saving larva for later when the protoss does his push. I recommend having a roach den down very early against protoss because roaches don't suffer from these diminishing returns. They will stay strong into late game. They are an investment whereas zerglings are not.
Instead I think zerglings should be used reactively. They build very quickly and are very cheap. Given the choice I think making roaches while you aren't under an immediate threat and then spawning as many zerglings as you can when the protoss moves is the best option. This saves the most larva imo.
Against terran you can do a similar thing with zergling/baneling. You can make zerglings and only morph them to banelings when the terran moves out. Potentially saving you gas and minerals for other things if he decides to expand instead. Or even inducing an attack because he thinks you're weak when you're really not.
The single most important thing you can do as zerg is put a zergling right outside your opponents base. Don't forget that. I hope this helps some.
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There are many response stating that scouting is the key. Since 90% of T players usually block the ramp and Z won't be able to scout until we get fast OL and that is almost mid-game. 1/3rd of the game you won't even know what T is going for. MMM drop, Tank push, banshees. Pick your poison. We Z just have to make hydras/roach and hope we can hold off the initial attack and counter for map control.
Firewater, against a P with 3-4 gate constantly pumping probes, and the Z that has to slow down drone production to make more units. If this game goes longer the Z will get over run.
Rodiel - early and constant harass is what led me to this zerg worker vs unit SC2 mental block.
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Calgary26003 Posts
I think the answer is pretty obvious. Make as few units as possible until you need them. I'm not sure what you want out of this thread...
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On May 11 2010 04:51 Sureshot wrote:
There are many response stating that scouting is the key. Since 90% of T players usually block the ramp and Z won't be able to scout until we get fast OL and that is almost mid-game. 1/3rd of the game you won't even know what T is going for. MMM drop, Tank push, banshees. Pick your poison. We Z just have to make hydras/roach and hope we can hold off the initial attack and counter for map control.
Firewater, against a P with 3-4 gate constantly pumping probes, and the Z that has to slow down drone production to make more units. If this game goes longer the Z will get over run.
Rodiel - early and constant harass is what led me to this zerg worker vs unit SC2 mental block. Dont be afraid to sacrifice a slow overlord.
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I just want a general idea of how other zerg players produce workers and at what rate to keep a balance between strong army and strong economy.
On the score screen chart at the end of the game i usually start off with the fastest economy, until the 5min mark where my opponent usually surpasses me economically due to my switching from drone production to unit production.
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1) Learn the timings of the common timing-pushes, like:
- 4 warpgate-rush
- 3 warpgate+Robo
- VR-rush
- 2-hatch-speedling-all-in
- Mass-Roaches-all-in
- Hellion-rush
- Banshee-rush
and figure out how much drones you can squeeze out and still ahve enough Units to defend.
2) Scout right and get to know the builds so you know what your opponent is up to.
3) practice your macro, cuz you can build drones as long as you want it won't help you macrowise if you miss your inject larva, forget overlords, have larva unused, forget to expand etc.
4) Come up with a solid build that doesn't die to cheese and can benefit from better macro.
oh and btw. - even as Protoss/Terran there is sth called "cut workers", where you don't build worker even though they have their seperate building, to get the additional mins. ^^'
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Gonna post this again because it seems relevant...
On May 02 2010 18:35 Saracen wrote:
Rules of Droning (ZvP/T):
1. You do not talk about droning
2. You DO NOT talk about droning
3. If you kill his fighting units, build drones
4. If you kill his workers, build fighting units
5. When the game begins, start droning
6. If he rushes you, stop droning and defend, then go to 3
7. If he is on one base, you only need a number of drones equal to one base saturation. Then, build fighting units.
8. If he starts expanding, either build all drones or all units.
a) If you build all drones, you are sAviOr. Saturate your second base. Then, build fighting units.
b) If you build all fighting units, you are YellOw. Keep building fighting units. Then kill him.
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On May 11 2010 04:51 Sureshot wrote:
There are many response stating that scouting is the key. Since 90% of T players usually block the ramp and Z won't be able to scout until we get fast OL and that is almost mid-game. 1/3rd of the game you won't even know what T is going for. MMM drop, Tank push, banshees. Pick your poison. We Z just have to make hydras/roach and hope we can hold off the initial attack and counter for map control.
Air can be handled by Queens. Roaches and lings or banelings can handle just about everything else that comes out early. Yes you may want to transition to hydras later but you're not locked into that decision simply because there's a chance your opponent is making air. They cost a ton of gas which means you pull drones off minerals to get extra gas geysers and they definitely cost a lot of minerals too so they're hard to make if you start making them to early. You also have to consider they are 2 supply which means you need to spawn overlords faster further increasing their cost. They can definitely have the opposite effect on your army and temporarily weaken you since they're such low health units.
Also knowing exactly what your opponent is doing is a luxury for all races. Zerg with speedlings are very difficult to scout against. And if you think that scan and observers are easy mode scouting consider this. How many times do you think terrans lose to zergs who use an overlord to puke creep in a corner and build a spire? He has scan but that doesn't mean he knows what you're doing. And protoss observers take a tech building to make which is much more costly than you going to lair and getting overlord speed.
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On May 11 2010 05:08 Saracen wrote:Gonna post this again because it seems relevant... Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 18:35 Saracen wrote:
Rules of Droning (ZvP/T):
1. You do not talk about droning
2. You DO NOT talk about droning
3. If you kill his fighting units, build drones
4. If you kill his workers, build fighting units
5. When the game begins, start droning
6. If he rushes you, stop droning and defend, then go to 3
7. If he is on one base, you only need a number of drones equal to one base saturation. Then, build fighting units.
8. If he starts expanding, either build all drones or all units.
a) If you build all drones, you are sAviOr. Saturate your second base. Then, build fighting units.
b) If you build all fighting units, you are YellOw. Keep building fighting units. Then kill him.
There needs to be a choose your own adventure book starring zergs and drones/units that goes like this with more exposition.
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Gonna post this again because it seems relevant...
On May 02 2010 18:35 Saracen wrote:
Rules of Droning (ZvP/T):
1. You do not talk about droning
2. You DO NOT talk about droning
3. If you kill his fighting units, build drones
4. If you kill his workers, build fighting units
5. When the game begins, start droning
6. If he rushes you, stop droning and defend, then go to 3
7. If he is on one base, you only need a number of drones equal to one base saturation. Then, build fighting units.
8. If he starts expanding, either build all drones or all units.
a) If you build all drones, you are sAviOr. Saturate your second base. Then, build fighting units.
b) If you build all fighting units, you are YellOw. Keep building fighting units. Then kill him.
This!
However, you forgot an important issue:
+ Show Spoiler +
8. c) You do not talk about droning
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This has become a problem for me at platinum. From my perspective, say a protoss has to spend his money somewhere. If he only has one nexus to spend money on probes, then the rest has to either go into a) units, b) production capacity or c) upgrades and tech of some type.
So eventually if he's on one base he's eventually going to have to have 4 gateways just because he has the money for them, and he might need them at some point. But does it mean he's going to attack in the next minute? Hell if I know. If I panic and over produce units then I'll be in a horrible position.
It is getting to the point to where I think I may have to actually play the other races or I'm just going to keep losing badly to unexpected early attacks.
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On May 11 2010 04:54 Chill wrote:
I think the answer is pretty obvious. Make as few units as possible until you need them. I'm not sure what you want out of this thread...
He wants to know what to specificly look for when scouting as well as certain timings in order to properly determine when he can, and when he cannot build drones.
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Most decent/good players I know focus on getting the queen up as fast as possible. Zerg economics are governed by larva production. You usually don't need a good drone pump like in SC1 as much if you were able to start off well.
Some points to note:
1) Scout/find timings your opponent looks to exploit
Instead of churning larva away from drone production, spine crawlers or "static" defense may be a better decision. You can continue drone production while still maintaining some sort of defensive capability. Terrans have the advantage of using hellions or banshees to harass. I've seen players make an additional queen to cope with this type of fast-tech harass (I've seen it work against 1 or 2 void rays, but it may be risky if they bring in the phoenix).
Questions you can ask: What do their buildings point at? Should I be afraid of some reapers, an mmm push, helion harass, banshees, vikings?
These point towards when you should tech, drone pump, and make units.
2) Deciding on your own timing
My earlier zerg games ended up with a ton of minerals (1-2k) when I lost, even though I was using up every bit of larva. I had too many drones, so I needed to move up my own unit-pump mode timing. If you can take initiative in a game (You have this more often first in PvZ, second in TvZ), Your next 2-3 waves of larva pops are going to decide what your tech is at that moment. Then it might be a ping-pong of unit/tech decisions.
ie: You make mass lings, he makes a colossus, you get corrupters, he has stalkers, you then transition to broodlords.
Obviously I'm leaving out quite a bit, but based on your tech, you see you'll need more gas but not as much minerals compared to some builds (ie: Roach/hydra/infestor). This governs how many drones/units and their timings.
TL;DR Make drones when you're not able to make the units you need. Take extra drones and make static defense so you can get the tech you need. Make units to defend stuff if you don't think you have enough.
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On May 11 2010 04:54 Chill wrote:
I think the answer is pretty obvious. Make as few units as possible until you need them. I'm not sure what you want out of this thread...
My immediate reaction. Just scout man. I mean why would you make units if you don't need them.
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On May 11 2010 05:08 Saracen wrote:Gonna post this again because it seems relevant... Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 18:35 Saracen wrote:
Rules of Droning (ZvP/T):
1. You do not talk about droning
2. You DO NOT talk about droning
3. If you kill his fighting units, build drones
4. If you kill his workers, build fighting units
5. When the game begins, start droning
6. If he rushes you, stop droning and defend, then go to 3
7. If he is on one base, you only need a number of drones equal to one base saturation. Then, build fighting units.
8. If he starts expanding, either build all drones or all units.
a) If you build all drones, you are sAviOr. Saturate your second base. Then, build fighting units.
b) If you build all fighting units, you are YellOw. Keep building fighting units. Then kill him.
In my head, Chris Rock is going through this list: "there is no sex in the champaign room..."
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Basically the same as in Brood War. It's pretty instinctual if you've played a lot of Zerg in Brood War at a C- or above level. Not really sure exactly when I switch between production.
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On May 11 2010 05:08 Saracen wrote:
7. If he is on one base, you only need a number of drones equal to one base saturation. Then, build fighting units.
You gotta change this one up if you're playing vs T because of mules. It's more like saturation + some.
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Don't be afraid to build a couple spine crawlers. Those + Queen can stop just about any early stuff they can throw at you. Also remember that Toss and Zerg early units are melee attackers so the less sides of a building that are exposed the harder the time they will have to bring it down.
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On May 11 2010 06:31 OrtegaPeru wrote:
Don't be afraid to build a couple spine crawlers. Those + Queen can stop just about any early stuff they can throw at you. Also remember that Toss and Zerg early units are melee attackers so the less sides of a building that are exposed the harder the time they will have to bring it down.
why build them if you don't need them?
i guess if you're starting and you're having trouble scouting and multi-tasking... but it's still not an ideal way to learn.
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Making spine crawlers you don't need isn't as bad for zerg as other races, you can reposition them later to become useful, such as defending 3rd expos or setting up a contain.
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On May 11 2010 05:08 Saracen wrote:Gonna post this again because it seems relevant... Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 18:35 Saracen wrote:
Rules of Droning (ZvP/T):
1. You do not talk about droning
2. You DO NOT talk about droning
3. If you kill his fighting units, build drones
4. If you kill his workers, build fighting units
5. When the game begins, start droning
6. If he rushes you, stop droning and defend, then go to 3
7. If he is on one base, you only need a number of drones equal to one base saturation. Then, build fighting units.
8. If he starts expanding, either build all drones or all units.
a) If you build all drones, you are sAviOr. Saturate your second base. Then, build fighting units.
b) If you build all fighting units, you are YellOw. Keep building fighting units. Then kill him.
How to play Zerg in 8 simple rules. Nice.
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you made a big error saying that other races don't have to choose whether to make workers or units. if (in a perfect world) everyone is keeping their money at 0, theres going to be a choice where that money goes regardless of race.
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On May 11 2010 07:07 Destro wrote:
you made a big error saying that other races don't have to choose whether to make workers or units. if (in a perfect world) everyone is keeping their money at 0, theres going to be a choice where that money goes regardless of race. If nexus is no longer producing, next 50 minerals goes towards a probe. It's pretty simple.
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for the entire game? i find this hard to believe protoss players do not stop making probes.
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On May 11 2010 07:07 Destro wrote:
you made a big error saying that other races don't have to choose whether to make workers or units. if (in a perfect world) everyone is keeping their money at 0, theres going to be a choice where that money goes regardless of race.
It is different for Zerg. Protoss and Terran can build multiple units plus workers at the same time. Zerg have to decide if they are dedicating their larvae to workers or units. It's a very different dynamic.
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This is actually the first thing I plan on working on when I've finished with this semester and can play consistently. I'm going to set some arbitrary scout timings, and after each game write down what I saw when I scouted, and what came after. Once I start finding consistent patterns and can accurately predict what my opponent is doing, and know the timings, I can start figuring out when to drone, when to get units, and when to tech.
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On May 11 2010 04:54 Chill wrote:
I think the answer is pretty obvious. Make as few units as possible until you need them. I'm not sure what you want out of this thread...
Uh... the answer might be simple but achieving it is a topic worth talking about. I'm not sure what you're contributing to this thread...
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I figure if I losing some drones to harassment is alright if I build 15 more then my opponent.
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Just build drones AND spine crawlers (there's never enought of them and they are your best friends). When you feel confortable build units, attack, GG.
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On May 11 2010 07:23 Destro wrote:
for the entire game? i find this hard to believe protoss players do not stop making probes.
For T or P player the decision to make workers is easy. Do not stop until you have 3 expansions worth of fully saturated mineral, that is around 60-80 workers.
P can constantly produce probes and have three gates constantly pumping out units while teching.
Z mechanics in SC forces players to decide if they want drone or units and the player must factor in many different scenarios to decide. Judging from previous posters the decision seems rather complex for Z players.
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There is a major difference between NA and KR in terms of this, IMO.
Fact is, you can either drone or push at any given juncture. Now, in SC2, I think it is almost always safer to drone unless you're under attack. Many US players choose to press the issue instead, and they end up losing. It's just easier to completely overwhelm your opponent with a hive tech army later on, and all you have to do is keep your opponent from expanding too much or harassing/killing you. Just remember that when you're producing fighters, you're cutting off your worker production--your opponent isn't.
Korean Zerg is SO much more powerful because they buy time with sunkens and speedlings until lair tech, then buy more time with speedlings and hydralisks until hive tech, and they are able to put together a hydralisk/brood lord/infestor combo off of two base play (because they droned so hard), against which Terran and Protoss don't really have a good answer right now, IMO.
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EPT
