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TL, The idea of counter attacking is to use your inferior-size yet superior-mobility force to prevent an attack on your base by threatening (or actually doing) a counter attack if / when your opponent moves out.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but the perfect example of this is when there is a two base terran vs. a 3 base zerg: The zerg's 3rd has not been up long enough to kick in, so the terran has a larger army.
The highly skilled zerg has invested in speed for lings and roaches, making his army more mobile than the marine + thor mix of the terran. If the terran uses this timing window where the zerg's 3rd hasn't paid off yet, and the zerg tries to defend the attack front on, the terran will win.
Therefore, the zerg pokes and prods, flashing his impressive mobility to scare the terran into sitting safely in his base.
This is my problem:
I don't understand the risk for the terran to move out; his army is bigger, and will win in a direct battle with the zerg, so why wouldn't he just push out - disregarding the counter attack on his base, keep pushing, and win with a superior force.
I understand 'what' the threat of the counter attack is, but I don't understand 'why' it is a threat.
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Well, this is one of the biggest problems of ZvT balance. It's also why good players say map size is/may be the main problem. Terran mobility, imo, has increased, while the distance a terran has to travel has gone down. This is problematic for zerg, and makes the fear of counter-attacks less... fearful.
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because if the terran gets the timing wrong, zerg has more than they need to, or if they can't end the game with the push, if the reinforcements from the hatches fight off the thor marine eventually, then the damage done by the counter attack might actually put him behind or worse. and so it is often better to play safe than to risk the game on an attack. the truly great players are able to make the decision to attack in spite of a counter because they can accurately judge the damage they can and need to do and pull out at the perfect time.
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It depends - if he can just CRUSH you, it really wouldn't matter too much. However, if you can just take a rogue group of speedlings and smote his natural's scvs, and at least ALMOST hold off the push, you can remacro from your other bases because you'll have the larva and the resources to back it (You have 3 mining bases and you maybe lose 1 hatchery/mining base - he has 2 mining bases and lost 1, which was probably the one that was most valuable) now he can't remacro and you are far far ahead. It's a threat, but you have to be able to back it up too.
The best thing is to keep it on your opponent's mind, every time you see him actually moving troops have the lings or muta present in the area to run in there to just poke so he get's that, "Your base is under attack." All you are doing is buying the time to get that 3rd up, so even if you get delay him 30 seconds, that's SOO much closer to not dying.
Your opponent can get nervous and can get caught up in the game and lose focus just like you can. You have to toy with that to put yourself in the advantage.
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Regardless of army size, it's still a base trade if he moves out and disregards your army razing his base as SOON as his units have left. So you have a head start on destroying his two bases while he treks to your third and then to your natural/main with SLOW thors in tow; why would T risk the lead he has in army size in the hope he might kill all your buildings before all his are killed?
Seems to me said T should try to expand himself while in that window, or try to whittle down the Z's mobile force so a few defensive structures+sensor towers could minimize damage when he DOES push out.
Silver league theorycrafting confirmed, btw. That's just my thoughts.
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Yeah I'm afraid to do counterattacks or backstabs with anything more than a small group of lings because I will probably lose the base race.
And early game vs. toss, backstabbing I still feel is a bit risky since I usually need every ling I can get to stop a 4 gate.
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So the idea behind the theory is that the zerg will have enough to fend off the attack by the time the attack reaches the base?
If this is the case, then counter attacking doesn't immediately affect the army size of either player, so it's more of an opportunity for to attack, than a solid way to even the playing field if your army is smaller.
EDIT: As zerg, you will almost always lose the base race against the flying fleet of terran buildings, as they have two advantages: - flying buildings - larger army
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it depends on map distance, but counter attacking is viable under most circumstances. if you counter attack as he moves out, and he returns to his base, you can micro your units out of there and you have lost nothing, and he has lost a few scvs or whatever, as well as being delayed. if he proceeds to push, provided your armies were of roughly equal strength (yours is going to be weaker because it it missing a few lings and we are presupposing his army is stronger) while the battle is going on your zlings will be damaging his base, crippling his ability to produce more units. when the battle ends you should army trade, but he will have a few guys left. even if you didn't save larvae and burst produce after the battle, you are still in a base race, except you have gotten a sizable head start. if he just turtles up, you can go for the high tier units that make the matchup even and grab more expos and win.
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In the scenario you give, the zerg player can literally kill the terrans expansion and production buildings by about the time the terran will reach the zergs 3rd/nat. He will likely kill those in time too, however the zerg has been producing the entire time, and will like save his main and nat/3rd(depending on which one wasnt previously killed),leaving the zerg massively ahead, constantly reinforcing, and the terran in shambles...
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It's not so much to base trade, since basetrading against terran is dumb. They will (almost) always win since they can fly away, unless you have air.
So, the hypothetical ling // roach combo wouldnt want a base trade and you might only commit some lings to snipe scvs // production buildings. During this time you are trying to macro out of the other bases so you can stop the army before it gets to (or at) your 2nd. If you can do this, then you have the advantage post battle.
If you have a ling/muta army, then you hypothetically can base trade the terran.
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Another thing zerg can do is nydus. backstab and then make a nydus for retreating, and get back to defend before the slow army even gets to you rbase. so you get free damage. (well 100/100)
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You know what happens when you basetrade with a Terran? He lifts everything away and you lose. Unless you have a bunch of mutas but those kill buildings extremely slowly.
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Terran Supply Depots can lower. Previously, to stop a counter-attack, either a small group would be assigned to hold the choke, or a complete wall-in would be made. Else, it would be completely empty. This allowed counter-attacks to be possible. The complete wall-in with lowered Depot is very secure. This method allowed no reinforcements to arrive, or risk counter-attacks. Lowering Supply Depots completely nullifies this.
Protoss Sentry can Force Field. The Protoss wall-in was previously similar to the Terran's, meaning one unit to block, while the others in the back can hold. A small force must hold the choke at all times. With Force Fields, a team of two Sentries can Force Field a ramp long enough for the army to retreat. Additionally, with the Warp In mechanic, the Protoss can reinforce anywhere he pleases, meaning that even while he's walled off, even walled off completely, he will still have reinforcements.
When you counter-attack, if you are successful (and only successful due to your opponent's mistake, not your skill) the threat lies in sending an insignificant group to deal economic damage, so that the army is caught a third of the way out. Enough time to make him hesitate and maybe send a group of units back, meaning you can crush his main army. Or enough time for you to make more units while he is indecisive for those few seconds. The problem is that backstabbing does not happen to any extent in higher level play due to the maps, and the wall offs.
A reason people lose is because they take a third too early. They take it randomly, because they are under the illusion that a Zerg will lose the second he is a base down on a Terran. When you expand, it's not because there is a necessity to expand, but because you have the opportunity to expand. Too many people confuse the two and assume that to win, you must be a base up.
A Terran army is not superior to a Zerg army in every circumstance. Firstly, Supply will never be exactly the same in a game. Second, positioning matters so much for Zerg that a lesser Supply army can wreck smaller armies. Third, unequal supply units, by which I mean the Baneling and Infestor, can turn the tide in any battle. Thus, stop assuming that a Terran can move out and dominate the Zerg.
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On September 21 2010 13:12 Vedreth wrote: TL, The idea of counter attacking is to use your inferior-size yet superior-mobility force to prevent an attack on your base by threatening (or actually doing) a counter attack if / when your opponent moves out.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but the perfect example of this is when there is a two base terran vs. a 3 base zerg: The zerg's 3rd has not been up long enough to kick in, so the terran has a larger army.
The highly skilled zerg has invested in speed for lings and roaches, making his army more mobile than the marine + thor mix of the terran. If the terran uses this timing window where the zerg's 3rd hasn't paid off yet, and the zerg tries to defend the attack front on, the terran will win.
Therefore, the zerg pokes and prods, flashing his impressive mobility to scare the terran into sitting safely in his base.
This is my problem:
I don't understand the risk for the terran to move out; his army is bigger, and will win in a direct battle with the zerg, so why wouldn't he just push out - disregarding the counter attack on his base, keep pushing, and win with a superior force.
I understand 'what' the threat of the counter attack is, but I don't understand 'why' it is a threat. Because thats not how the threat of a counterattack works.
To threaten a counterattack you will still actually need to have enough forces to semi-hold the push. For example sacking one expansion but stalling the push beyond that or slowing it down enough to grind it to a halt with reinforcements.
If you have so little stuff that your opponent can just move in and rape you then using mutas to counter-attack actually is not a threat and that is why it is not supposed to work.
At a deeper level you can bluff a counter attack by making the counter attack instantly when the opponent moves out in order to make him think that you are actually in a strong enough position to do that and thus pull his push back and get a chance to catch back up. At the same time the element of calling an opponents bluff is also a skill of the game.
Many times especially lesser protoss players who do not understand how to utilize early game voidray harass will go overboard on voidrays against a non teching, non expanding terran.
In many games I have called my opponent doing this, essentially threatening a counterattack when he in reality cannot do so and if I see that then yes I will just walk across the map and fucking kill him. Because he has five voidrays and no ground. That is how the game is supposed to work.
Counter-attack is not a free card to not be attacked when you have no stuff.
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That's a might big assumption that Terran has a bigger army. Just because Zerg is expanding and the 3rd hasn't paid off doesn't mean he has a smaller army. Secondly, the more mobile counter attack units can ideally attack and still get back to base to defend.
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Fast units can kill tons of workers at the natural, and then return to help defend.
Not to mention that there's a huge difference as the attacker between thinking you have enough army to deal significant damage or assume a controlling position, and thinking you have enough army to win immediately without reinforcements.
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