EPT[G] zerg mechanics: handling eggs efficiently - Page 2
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Schnullerbacke13
Germany1199 Posts
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jaguarz
Hong Kong21 Posts
pros: lets say ur doing ling infestor which this style is really good for u just use all hatchery hot key "s" then spam zzzzzzz. then just quickly control click one of the eggs then "shift1" then u will have happy lings going straight to where ur moving ur existing ling. the next best thing with this is for ovis rally them as they r made n u wont run into the problem when ur opponent chase u all the way to ur rally point n u lose all ur ovis then proceed to lose from being massively supply blocked. con: ur newly hatched army runs into opposing forces n die without even a fight. when i first started using this when doing mutaling, fresh mutas will just fly to their death when ur harassing their base. all in all if ur winning a fight u wanna keep pushing use this, when harassing just let them get rallied to their hatch rally point b4 grouping them. to me its still quite a usful methed of handling armies. | ||
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Bastilol
Germany129 Posts
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Asolmanx
Italy141 Posts
You don't ALWAYS have to add eggs to groups. If you are under siedge in shakuras, and he has his units between the natural and your third, then you just rally your hatches and stop adding eggs to groups. It might take a while to get used to switching between doing it and not doing it when it becomes an habit, but it's totally doable. One more example could be mutas: you generally don't want them with your group because they will take strange routes and might die trying to get to the group. So when you make mutas, you change the hatches rally instead of adding eggs. If you can do both adding eggs and using "traditional" method, which you should, this is just an amazing skill to have in your arsenal when playing zerg | ||
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Epoxxyy
20 Posts
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paradoxOO9
United Kingdom1123 Posts
The only problem is that for a player in the low leagues like myself you are a lot slower at getting the units/drones out on to the field. Other than that it is fantastic since you never have units not in a control group. | ||
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Hossinaut
United States453 Posts
If you want to do waves of units, this is bad. You want your units to all be in one place once you've made them, and you don't want them bumbling around the map. If you want to always have a maxed army, this is gonna be useful. I think both have their place. I was playing a game on Arid Plateau or whatever it is (the new desert map) ZvP and was lazy and didn't build units to fend off a 3gate, instead just expecting he'd go 6gate allin. Lo and behold, he 3gates me. I get back into the game after a while of my ramp being FF'd (which is ragey as anything, btw). I figure, the only way I can win is if I either a) harass to death, he probably doesn't know how to deal with mutas very well or b) use my much more mobile army to swing around and hit his 3rd and then his nat over and over and over until he has no more resources or until he just can't take the strain of having to do so much at once (he took the back third which I personally believe to be ill-advised). I ended up winning because I would send one wave in, snipe a nexus, retreat, gather the new forces and attack the other location, and just over and over. The waves of units coming in ceaselessly was what broke him in the end. My ZvT i prefer to have all my units together and so i hotkey eggs, etc. ZvZ its similar. I think the tactic or strategy you are employing has more to do with if you use this or how you use this rather than it being good overall. Similarly, i have the APM to just select 3 workers and put them in gas, and I'd rather not have to wait 17 seconds to do so. Its little, but it can make a big difference. Great write up though :D I do appreciate the references to a pro game to validate the argument, it is well made. | ||
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Apaquin
United States27 Posts
It feels so fluid and smooth that I feel bad for the zergs who don't do it. Poor people, madly boxing units for seconds at a time, trying to accomplish something which could have already been done beforehand. Not to mention the fact that after you're used to it, it takes less than half a second to complete. This is also part of the reason I always try (unsuccessfully I might add) to get people to think about how they're going to control their units and macro BEFORE actually learning a method. Think first and you don't have to relearn later on. There are also a host of other cool tricks you can do with this as well. Nobody does them yet, but soon every top zerg will be. The multitasking will be intense. Baneling worker drops: 1. make 2 ling sets and one overlord (3 actions) 2. ctrl add to control group (1 action) 3. rally to convenient location (1 action) . . (continue playing as normal) . 4. double select ctrl group (1 action) 5. make 4 banes, rally them to the overlord (2 actions) . . . 6.drop on workers Using this method, you have a baneling drop ready and waiting in a control group. Notice that it only requires 8 actions to set all this up. The only drawback is the need to remember to morph banelings. Also note that for 200 minerals and 2 supply you can have potential baneling drops setup all over the map. If they get destroyed in route, its only a small loss. If you do this in 3 separate locations (only 24 actions to setup!), its hard not to get at least some worker kills. And of course you can do this with other types of units as well. But that is just the tip of the ice berg. | ||
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jumai
Canada115 Posts
A lot of people seem to raise points concerning the various ways that using this technique can lead to rallying reinforcements through enemy units. While this can happen, I personally feel that the optimal way to play around this danger is to expand on your use of this technique, not to abandon it. To illustrate what I mean, I'm going to share here (and add to the op) some of my personal techniques for handling these sorts of situations; I feel they are solid and recommendeable, but I post them mainly as example ideas. 1) right-click near your army, then shift-a-click to move it + Show Spoiler + For example: you're playing bottom position on xel'naga caverns. Your opponent has static defense at his gold. You have a control group (let's say roaches) sitting on the left tower, including some units still in eggs as well as some units walking up from your hatcheries. You want to attack his natural. Right-click the tower your roaches are at, then queue up an attack move towards his natural. Your roaches at the tower will simply a-move, but your eggs will be rallied to the tower, and your reinforcements will go to the tower (and around the gold expansion) before moving up to join your army. 2) box or ctrl-click the units actually present + Show Spoiler + So simple it should seem obvious: issue the "safe" commands to the whole control group, then select the units already in place before issuing further commands. In the first example, you might box the roaches on your screen immediately after issuing the queue'd a-click, ready to control them as they fight... or ready to re-select the whole control group for more broad repositioning. Similarly, if I plan to dance my muta flock back and forth across a cliff, I'll usually right-click the control group to the "safe" side, then ctrl-click the mutas (deselecting the eggs) before moving them across. Then when I see fresh mutas arriving, I simply re-select the control group to add them to the fun. 3) make a new control group + Show Spoiler + Another thing that probably seems bonehead obvious, if I *really* don't want the units I'm building to try to join up with any of my control groups (perhaps there are seiged tanks in between), I simply start a new control group. Genius strategy? Maybe not, but at least I can see what's waiting at my rally point with the tap of a key, send them in without minimapping around, or add them into an existing control group once that becomes safe. If you find you run out of army hotkeys, I recommend using alt-1 through alt-5 as alternate binds for 0 through 6 (you can also set shift-alt-# and ctrl-alt-# for adding or making groups on these numbers. Just don't make alt-binds for camera hotkeys... trust me, you will accidentally alt-F4). | ||
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Hairy
United Kingdom1169 Posts
1) Mutalisk micro. You are in a situation where freshly hatched mutalisks may take an unsafe path to join your existing mutalisk flock. SOLUTION: A- Add mutalisk eggs to a NEW control group and give them a good rally point (eg existing mutalisks on 5, mutalisk eggs on 6). When it is possible for your mutalisks to safely join the others, join them by simply doing: 6, shift+5. This is preferable as you never have any mutalisks that are not part of a hotkey group, which means that you will NEVER have "forgotten" units left at old rally points and you never even need to move your screen to the new mutalisks' location to grab them. If you are really pro, you could even use the extra mutalisk group to simultaneously harass elsewhere that is more 'rally-friendly'. B- Temporarily go back to the "standard" method. 2) An opponent is likely to breach an area between your hatcheries, causing freshly spawned units to be given dangerous commands. SOLUTION: A- temporarily go back to the "standard" method. In such a circumstance, regardless of what method you use to manage your units, you will need to micro-manage production and rally points to keep your units safe - hotkeying eggs does not change this. EDIT: forgot about this: On January 14 2012 20:59 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: another drawback is, that reinforcements will also stop if you stutter step or if you do hold yur lings in the mineral line .. This is simply another circumstance where you would want to temporarily use a different method of managing those units; the WORST case being that you go back to the "standard" method of gathering units at rally points. There is no 'drawback'. Just because the technique cannot be used 100% of the time does not mean it is bad. | ||
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Hairy
United Kingdom1169 Posts
On January 15 2012 07:37 Apaquin wrote: Baneling worker drops: 1. make 2 ling sets and one overlord (3 actions) 2. ctrl add to control group (1 action) 3. rally to convenient location (1 action) . . (continue playing as normal) . 4. double select ctrl group (1 action) 5. make 4 banes, rally them to the overlord (2 actions) . . . 6.drop on workers Genius. So simple, so easy. I'll be using this next time I am in a bling bomb game! (or at least I will try to remember to use it). Share more! | ||
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vsportsguy
United States118 Posts
On January 15 2012 08:10 jumai wrote: For people saying this adds actions: it adds less than you'd think, since you'd otherwise do basically the same thing once your units hatch. A lot of people seem to raise points concerning the various ways that using this technique can lead to rallying reinforcements through enemy units. While this can happen, I personally feel that the optimal way to play around this danger is to expand on your use of this technique, not to abandon it. To illustrate what I mean, I'm going to share here (and add to the op) some of my personal techniques for handling these sorts of situations; I feel they are solid and recommendeable, but I post them mainly as example ideas. 1) right-click near your army, then shift-a-click to move it + Show Spoiler + For example: you're playing bottom position on xel'naga caverns. Your opponent has static defense at his gold. You have a control group (let's say roaches) sitting on the left tower, including some units still in eggs as well as some units walking up from your hatcheries. You want to attack his natural. Right-click the tower your roaches are at, then queue up an attack move towards his natural. Your roaches at the tower will simply a-move, but your eggs will be rallied to the tower, and your reinforcements will go to the tower (and around the gold expansion) before moving up to join your army. 2) box or ctrl-click the units actually present + Show Spoiler + So simple it should seem obvious: issue the "safe" commands to the whole control group, then select the units already in place before issuing further commands. In the first example, you might box the roaches on your screen immediately after issuing the queue'd a-click, ready to control them as they fight... or ready to re-select the whole control group for more broad repositioning. Similarly, if I plan to dance my muta flock back and forth across a cliff, I'll usually right-click the control group to the "safe" side, then ctrl-click the mutas (deselecting the eggs) before moving them across. Then when I see fresh mutas arriving, I simply re-select the control group to add them to the fun. 3) make a new control group + Show Spoiler + Another thing that probably seems bonehead obvious, if I *really* don't want the units I'm building to try to join up with any of my control groups (perhaps there are seiged tanks in between), I simply start a new control group. Genius strategy? Maybe not, but at least I can see what's waiting at my rally point with the tap of a key, send them in without minimapping around, or add them into an existing control group once that becomes safe. If you find you run out of army hotkeys, I recommend using alt-1 through alt-5 as alternate binds for 0 through 6 (you can also set shift-alt-# and ctrl-alt-# for adding or making groups on these numbers. Just don't make alt-binds for camera hotkeys... trust me, you will accidentally alt-F4). All this shift-clicking and new control groups is making things much more confusing than they need to be. All 3 of these methods would definately add actions over standard rally point. I believe that there are many standard macro situations that can add actions as well; such as the following example. Good zergs are constantly producing units (keeping their money low). So they are producing these units in very small numbers. 4 lings here, 2 mutas there... You get the point. For the sake of convience lets say that adding any amount of units to a control group takes 1 second. Lets assume the zerg player produces lings 5 separate times during a minute period. Every time he produces these lings, he adds the eggs to his control groups. He would spend 5 seconds of that minute adding his eggs to his control groups. Now, imagine he uses the standard rally method. He could group all the lings together at the end of the minute and that would only take 1 second. He saved himself 4 seconds. Over the course of a game, you may be adding eggs to your control groups 100s of times. While the time saved may not be significant for any one time, it can definately add up to something noticable, especially in situations where you are stressed for time (late game). This game is all about personal preferance and what you are comfortable with. This technique works very well in many situations, and as others have said, you can simply use the standard rally technique in situations where this doesn't work. The standard rally technique has many downsides as well. I have gotten so used to adding eggs to my control groups that I often have trouble converting over to the standard rally technique in the situations where I shouldn't be grouping my eggs (it's a hard habit for me to break). The only point I'm trying to make is that I think each player has to find his own comfort zone with his mechanics. As I said earlier, I feel like my macro is better late game when using the standard rally method. I find myself getting supply blocked less, being able to split my army easier, and I make a greater balance between drones/units as well as a greater variety of units. I think having less of a dependence on control groups is a fantastic thing to work on. I would say it's my biggest limiting factor in my mechanics at the moment. Sometimes you just have to go with things on the fly. | ||
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Hairy
United Kingdom1169 Posts
On January 16 2012 12:06 vsportsguy wrote: Good zergs are constantly producing units (keeping their money low). So they are producing these units in very small numbers. 4 lings here, 2 mutas there... You get the point. For the sake of convience lets say that adding any amount of units to a control group takes 1 second. Lets assume the zerg player produces lings 5 separate times during a minute period. Every time he produces these lings, he adds the eggs to his control groups. He would spend 5 seconds of that minute adding his eggs to his control groups. Now, imagine he uses the standard rally method. He could group all the lings together at the end of the minute and that would only take 1 second. He saved himself 4 seconds. Over the course of a game, you may be adding eggs to your control groups 100s of times. While the time saved may not be significant for any one time, it can definately add up to something noticable, especially in situations where you are stressed for time (late game). You could also argue it the other way; your new units will be immediately moving to assist in battles where otherwise they would be hanging around idle at a rally point for up to a minute. While the | ||
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kkeke
Finland14 Posts
On January 16 2012 12:06 vsportsguy wrote: Good zergs are constantly producing units (keeping their money low). So they are producing these units in very small numbers. 4 lings here, 2 mutas there... You get the point. This is little flawed. The point in keeping your money low is not keeping your money low. In most cases having 2 mutas at your rally at x seconds and 2 more at x+10 seconds is not better than having 4 mutas at x+10. In low larva situations where the hatchery wouldn't produce larva for 10 seconds having the eggs morph earlier is better but adding the eggs doesn't require ctrl-clicking either. Like others already said this technique needs to be used according to the situation. Its best utilized in late game when you're making lots of units at a time and in attacking situations when you have map control and want all your units in battle as fast as possible. Also I see a lot of pros set their hatchery rallies across the map while attacking and furiously box units running around when retreating. Using this method would make retreating easier. | ||
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_-NoMaN-_
Canada250 Posts
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Apaquin
United States27 Posts
[B]Good zergs are constantly producing units (keeping their money low). So they are producing these units in very small numbers. 4 lings here, 2 mutas there... You get the point. For the sake of convience lets say that adding any amount of units to a control group takes 1 second. Lets assume the zerg player produces lings 5 separate times during a minute period. Every time he produces these lings, he adds the eggs to his control groups. He would spend 5 seconds of that minute adding his eggs to his control groups. Now, imagine he uses the standard rally method. He could group all the lings together at the end of the minute and that would only take 1 second. He saved himself 4 seconds. Lets do some unsimplification for moment. Boxing rallied units, could take anywhere from 1 to 5 seconds because you have to: 1. Move the screen to get all the units (if its a stream of units coming in, its going to take longer) 2. Add them to the control group 3. You would possibly then need to issue addition orders to attack or move into position 4. Move the screen back to wherever you need it Adding eggs to control groups would require: 1.Holding control and clicking on the eggs. 2. Pressing shift+1 That should only take about .2 to .4 seconds after you're comfortable with it. Even less if you're a top player. If you add eggs to control groups 5 times it adds up to 1 to 2 seconds of time. So it might even take less time than the other method and you won't have to move the screen at all. Obviously if you add units 20 times it would take up 4 to 8 seconds of time and perhaps not be as quick. But once you're getting up to that number of units you wouldn't be making them all individually anyway. | ||
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Apaquin
United States27 Posts
On January 15 2012 15:08 Hairy wrote: Genius. So simple, so easy. I'll be using this next time I am in a bling bomb game! (or at least I will try to remember to use it). Share more! I'm glad you like it. I stopped playing due to injury and typing is difficult for me as well, but I will try to write up the methods I used in relation to this. I think the most important part of the control group egg adding method is perfecting it. There is a technique that simplifies the process and integrates extremely well into traditional hotkey configurations. The basic idea is to add alternate hotkeys for adding units to control groups. So lets say we add some hotkeys such that shift+1 and control+Q add selected units to control group 1. Compare Method A (traditionally used at this point) 1. Hold control and click on the eggs 2. Press shift+1 Method B 1. Hold control and click on the eggs 2. Keep holding control and press "Q" To some, this might seem like a small difference but considering the time frame involved, its actually huge. One iteration of the control group egg adding method can take anywhere from about .15 to 1 seconds depending on the player. Top players will obviously be doing it faster. I personally perform Method B about 3 times faster than Method A. For me, that's saving around .4 seconds each time I add eggs. Considering you might repeat this method 1000's of times per game, you may be saving several minutes worth of time that would otherwise be wasted. And in the heat of battle .1 seconds can make a significant difference. Obviously you'd also want to add the alternate hotkeys such that: shift+1 = control+Q shift+2 = control+W shift+3 = control+E shift+4 = control+R shift+5 = control+T and so on for whichever control groups you'd like. I'm relatively sure this is the simplest and fastest and therefore the best way to add eggs to control groups. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
shift-ctrl-clicking one of the unit portraits in the group selection frame will remove all units of the same unit type from your current selection (ie "without these ones") Thanks, I didn't know about this. This is really useful! In ZvP I go baneling rain about 80% of my games (roach/banerain/infestor). A big problem is that after a battle, when all my overlords have dumped the banes, I can't get rid of the overlords in my control group, and if I have corruptors/broodlrods coming, which I normally put on 3, they are mixed with the overlords, and what happens is: 1. All my overlords follow the 5 roaches or so that are still alive afterwards when I went them to press on to do damage after the entire toss army is gone and I lose too many overlords fumbling around. 2. I need to remax instantly and add new roaches to the control group (through discussed larva adding methods of course) but then the overlords are still there, most usually in the yellow or red, and I lose a ton of them, as the majority of these roaches are back home or being rallied across the map and the overlords just run into the toss base way forward (because they are remants of the previous army) and just die or: 3. I need to remax and attack asap when toss has no army but I spend too long screwing around my hotkeys that I miss my indow. 4. I remake the control group by hitting ctrl+click on the roach portrait, so leave out the overlords, but then get raped by DTs because I excluded the overseers as well. With this tip, I can just move command 1 (army+overlords) to home, then ctrl+shift+click the overlords, remap hotkey, and then press on with roach+overseer+etc. edit: As for the issue of adding eggs to control groups, like mutas, which you don't want running over marines or turrets, like when your harassing with mutas... What I do is add eggs of mutas to my control group, and move them to a 'forward position' that's safe and out of the way. Then, I box select the mutas that are actually out already and I'm flying around with, and just remap them as a new hotkey. The eggs will fly out to that position, and I can add them to the group. However, it's really just time and place. Sometimes, adding units to the hotkey is best, othertimes it's not. Often times I won't add muta-larva to my hotkey group. It's just information that can be helpful. When you are rallying roaches in a roach/ling all-in against Protoss, this is EXTREMELY useful, for example, as you won't be stuck with ling/roaches just sitting there doing nothing. I always morph larva, then ctrl click the morphed eggs and add them to hotkeys, or rally them somewhere. It has a use in certain situations. edit2: As for stutter step micro, well for one it's better to have fresh units on their way and stuttering instead of just sitting there and not coming at all (coming over stuttering and slow is better than not coming over at all), but you can change your stutter step micro from hold/move/hold/move to move/a-move behind/move/a-move behind. This way, your forward units will attack towards the enemy, while rallied units will move toward that location, since both a-move and the move command are 'forward' of them anyways. You don't need to stutter using only the Hold command, attack works just fine too. | ||
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Shousan
Mexico92 Posts
I tend to add eggs to my current control group, but there's a small problem with that, whenever there's an egg in a control group (e.g. zerglings and zergling eggs) if you a-move your lings don't attack until the eggs have hatched, don't know if I'm doing it wrong or this actually happens... I tried to defend a 6 pool with drones and ling eggs on the same control group so that the lings went where my drones were when they hatched and when I attacked the drones just moved... If you hit A and select any unit they will attack, but just hitting A and selecting somewhere in the map won't help... :S | ||
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Samtastic
United States46 Posts
If your units get cut off from reinforcements it's really difficult to keep them separate and stuff ends up running in too soon This method is helpful sometimes, but as much as it helps with simple things, I think it would be better to skip it so splitting up units is easier. Still a good trick to know though. | ||
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