EPTJust an update to to let those of you wondering what the future of this guide is, it isn't slowly dissapearing into obscurity, its meerly, like all good zerg, in a cocoon stage, ready to pop into a whole other level of beast
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![[image loading]](http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1613/sneakpeakj.jpg)
A note about this guide:
Allot of this, if not all of it is not new material. I have written this (apart from the request for help from a bronze level player, i believe) as when watching low to mid level replays in general, i have noticed a regular trend in their play-styles. Specifically their lack of using one/two or a collection of the fundamentals i have listed in this guide, and/or a lack of understanding the relationships between these different concepts.
What this guide attempts to provide is a coherent and progressive system on developing an underlying cognitive structure at integrating each of the important elements of macro efficiency into a unified and communicating system of thought triggers and critical thinking.
The lack of this, in my opinion, is the defining reason allot of the players in the lower leagues are still in the lower leagues. They may be able to intellectualize and know about the concepts in question, but what they lack is an integration of these into their overall game awareness and reflex response while playing. Which is why this guide is written in a specific manner, as a progressive guide based on steps that build upon each other and rely on previous steps in increasingly complex relationships.
I simply want a more competitive and higher skilled community, and giving people a process through which they can transcend their current mental blocks in improvement, will make this gaming community a better and more interesting place for all of us.
I originally wrote this guide as a reply to someones request for help with Zerg, so when reading you will notice a few comments in relation to said persons position of skill. as it has grown into a pretty comprehensive guide for zerg macro i have decided to post it as a stand alone guide in its own thread. It is the first guide i have written for any game, and i am quite proud of it really
This guide is intended for low to mid level (bronze/silver/gold) zerg players who intend to improve their macro and meta-game efficiency, although i feel allot of the concepts explained in the guide may be seen by some people as being applicable to higher skilled level players aswell.
Please feel free to check out the guide and leave me some feedback as a reply as to what i could change, remove or add to it (as long as it is within my current level of understanding of the game mechanics and relevant to Macro/meta-gaming efficiency)
I will leave the majority of the guide in its original state, purely because its to long to go through and change certain bits.
I hope you enjoy it and find this helpful!
*********A comprehensive Guide to Becoming Macro Efficient with Zerg***********
Firstly and probably most importantly, you don't need to be 'fast' as such to be a good player, its not about having 100+ APM and physically quick and accurate movements in-order to win (yet...) Really really get this point into your head, that Starcraft 2 is much more predominantly a game of timing, not speed. So slow down!! (if you're scattering your clarity of mind by being 'pulled along' by the perspective you need to 'keep up' with the game, something I fall for sometimes.) The idea here is to develop a robust sense of when to do things, not how to do things quickly (that will come later).
The importance of 'good timing' will become more prominent to you as your knowledge of the underlying game mechanics improve. Arguably everything, and especially for zerg, essentially revolves through a repetitive rota, in which you need to apply manual input as close to the very beginning of each round of that rota for each element of game-play. Further to this, each 'rota' is mutually interdependent on other rotas, a good example of this is unit/drone production and Supply cap. Your supply will increase as you create drones/units, so as you make drones/units you need to also keep tabs on your supply cap, this is related to your larva production, which you have to administer manually at the right timing window, which is the most fundamentally important rota to become efficient at when playing zerg. You may be thinking 'why are you telling me this, i already know', but believe me when i say there is a difference between intellectualizing this point (to which you can already do) and having that aspect of the game mechanics ingrained into your play-style, to which you are currently lacking.
As you want to improve, you seriously need to become more consciously aware of the timings and relationships between the different macro fundamentals, and seriously tighten and improve your ability at implementing them into your play-style in a punctual, and ultimately a manner as efficient as the game mechanics allow. This is at present your biggest short fall. Before you begin to think about strategy and unit composition, hell, even build orders, you need to learn to walk before you learn to jog, let alone run.
Here i will break down each of the fundamental aspects of Macro, allot of these points can be translated over for any race, but it is written from and for the perspective of zerg. When you play, try your very hardest to follow these steps and act on the knowledge you will gain from reading this guide.
Larva
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At the very root of zerg is larva, focus almost purely on injecting as the larva drops, or as close to as possible, every time. (A tip here is to listen for a little 'splutch' noise when you are near your base, this is the sound of larva dropping). Just stick to that one fundamental every time, until you can inject literally as that 'rota' resets (the larva drops and you can inject again). You ideally need to be at a point of doing it so quickly that when u go to inject (and should be able to) that you cannot as your queen hasn't got enough energy for the first 1/2 second you try after the larva drops (this only happens for the first few injects as the energy reserves gradually build up over time naturally) This is keeping the rota fluent, it needs to be a constant motion, as missing the timing window for an inject is essentially 'staggering' the fluency at your ability to produce units, ergo increase your presence (and ultimately attempt at dominance) on the map and in the mind of your opponent.
When you reach a point where you are returning to the hatcheries to inject and hitting your timing mark accurately every-time almost without fail, you will notice how much more consistently you are thinking about your state of larva production (and amount of larva currently available). This is your aim and the reason for you focusing on larva production so much for the time being, as this specific element of 'game awareness' is a fundamental prerequisite to thinking in practical terms about your drone and unit capacity/production. I.E. Your awareness of larva production will (and in a practical context, when you know your larva has just dropped and it is time to inject) will (and should) motivate you to make units, right at that very point. Which has created for you the grounds on which you can practically and/or tactically think about 'which type of unit' you need to produce.
You need the former in-order to have clear direction and punctuality for the latter.
Further to this, this basic rota of queen injection and larva production is the fundamentally underlying concept to good zerg macro, it is the carnal beat maintaining the rhythm of zergs growth in the game, and which you must use as an anchor to time the rest of your macro-based responsibilities around, and use as a tool to place trigger events in game to force your mind to remember certain periodic responsibilities of developing and maintaining your macro. This point will become clearer to you as you read on.
When you reach a point where you are returning to the hatcheries to inject and hitting your timing mark accurately every-time almost without fail, you will notice how much more consistently you are thinking about your state of larva production (and amount of larva currently available). This is your aim and the reason for you focusing on larva production so much for the time being, as this specific element of 'game awareness' is a fundamental prerequisite to thinking in practical terms about your drone and unit capacity/production. I.E. Your awareness of larva production will (and in a practical context, when you know your larva has just dropped and it is time to inject) will (and should) motivate you to make units, right at that very point. Which has created for you the grounds on which you can practically and/or tactically think about 'which type of unit' you need to produce.
You need the former in-order to have clear direction and punctuality for the latter.
Further to this, this basic rota of queen injection and larva production is the fundamentally underlying concept to good zerg macro, it is the carnal beat maintaining the rhythm of zergs growth in the game, and which you must use as an anchor to time the rest of your macro-based responsibilities around, and use as a tool to place trigger events in game to force your mind to remember certain periodic responsibilities of developing and maintaining your macro. This point will become clearer to you as you read on.
Unit Production
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You next need to think about Unit Production, more importantly, as an extension of your prior development of play-style: Efficient Unit Production, the ability to produce units as your larva pop, every time. (or as close to as possible, again this will become more situational as your strategical play improves in higher leagues, for the moment learning the fundamental process in its pure state is your highest priority.) This can be most easily achieved by a wonderful technique coined by Day9. Its is the concept of following the rule: When > Then.
In this case it will be [when] i inject > [then] i make units. How you actually do this is to physically think at the point you inject "i'm injecting (when inject); I need to make units (then make units)" Every single time you inject. Until it is literally ingrained into your play-style as deeply as your awareness of larva production and injection. You should be developing these concepts to the degree that in amongst your other elements of gameplay, if you are missing a timing window to administer part of this fundamental, your mind should be screaming at you "I need to inject! I need to inject! [or]"I need to use my larva! "I need to create units!" (later, upon this base rota of triggered memory and action you will be placing decision making tasks in regards to the creation of assets tied to a resource cost based on the timings created by this system.)
Until you have reached this point in ability and awareness you should focus first and foremost on these fundamentals.
A prominent thought in your mind will also be "which units do i need to make". Aside from following a set pattern of build orders that instruct the type of unit you should make, it is important to develop an understanding of why these build orders/unit compositions exist as certain strategies in the first place. The obvious answer is that they counter your opponents strategy and/or have inherent strengths able to exploit weaknesses in your opponents strategy. again though, there is a major difference in being able to intellectualize this concept, and being educated in its intricacies. The latter allowing you a much more self empowering, reactive and emergent ability at strategical planning in matches, the former (simply following build orders) restricting you to an often rigid play style that (without the reflexive attributes of the latter) will not cater for emergent scenarios presented to you in real time while playing.
The heart of this concept lies in unit counters, this subject is simply too intricate and complex to go into in any great detail here, so i will link you to the resource you need to begin learning which units counter which units. refer to this page, scroll to the bottom zerg section and use the links to access the unit information pages for zerg units. On each unit page, pay close attention to the 'strong against' and 'weak against' listings in the info box to the right on each page in-order to learn which units to build and/or engage in response to your enemies units, and which units to avoid when controlling said units on the field/in battles. Also spend allot of time becoming familiar what is written in the 'Competitive Usage' section at the bottom of each unit page as these are a great resource on learning when specific units can be situationaly efficient. It is also advisable to spend arguably as much of your time researching into the strengths, weaknesses and 'Competitive Usage' of all of the units for each of the other races: "If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles. - Sun Tzu" Knowing Thy Enemy, so to speak, is as important as knowing the intricacies of your own race.
This research, twinned with your practical practice in game of what to do when in regards to unit composition and build orders (tech/production building necessities) will almost solely dramatically improve your competency in matches, as this knowledge will instruct your direction in game and motivate your actions towards a coherent and unified aim, so rather than flitting about with moments of confusion as to what to do next and adding buildings, teching up or making units in slight contradiction to or simply not complimenting each-others strength (as is inevitable when in a state of naivety), lowering your APM and weakening your potentiality in the process. Once you take time to get really comfortable with this information, you will be much more fluent and reactive to your opponent, knowing immediately what to do and how to react, while building a focused force based on your pool of information about the game mechanics. Its a no-brainer.
In this case it will be [when] i inject > [then] i make units. How you actually do this is to physically think at the point you inject "i'm injecting (when inject); I need to make units (then make units)" Every single time you inject. Until it is literally ingrained into your play-style as deeply as your awareness of larva production and injection. You should be developing these concepts to the degree that in amongst your other elements of gameplay, if you are missing a timing window to administer part of this fundamental, your mind should be screaming at you "I need to inject! I need to inject! [or]"I need to use my larva! "I need to create units!" (later, upon this base rota of triggered memory and action you will be placing decision making tasks in regards to the creation of assets tied to a resource cost based on the timings created by this system.)
Until you have reached this point in ability and awareness you should focus first and foremost on these fundamentals.
A prominent thought in your mind will also be "which units do i need to make". Aside from following a set pattern of build orders that instruct the type of unit you should make, it is important to develop an understanding of why these build orders/unit compositions exist as certain strategies in the first place. The obvious answer is that they counter your opponents strategy and/or have inherent strengths able to exploit weaknesses in your opponents strategy. again though, there is a major difference in being able to intellectualize this concept, and being educated in its intricacies. The latter allowing you a much more self empowering, reactive and emergent ability at strategical planning in matches, the former (simply following build orders) restricting you to an often rigid play style that (without the reflexive attributes of the latter) will not cater for emergent scenarios presented to you in real time while playing.
The heart of this concept lies in unit counters, this subject is simply too intricate and complex to go into in any great detail here, so i will link you to the resource you need to begin learning which units counter which units. refer to this page, scroll to the bottom zerg section and use the links to access the unit information pages for zerg units. On each unit page, pay close attention to the 'strong against' and 'weak against' listings in the info box to the right on each page in-order to learn which units to build and/or engage in response to your enemies units, and which units to avoid when controlling said units on the field/in battles. Also spend allot of time becoming familiar what is written in the 'Competitive Usage' section at the bottom of each unit page as these are a great resource on learning when specific units can be situationaly efficient. It is also advisable to spend arguably as much of your time researching into the strengths, weaknesses and 'Competitive Usage' of all of the units for each of the other races: "If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles. - Sun Tzu" Knowing Thy Enemy, so to speak, is as important as knowing the intricacies of your own race.
This research, twinned with your practical practice in game of what to do when in regards to unit composition and build orders (tech/production building necessities) will almost solely dramatically improve your competency in matches, as this knowledge will instruct your direction in game and motivate your actions towards a coherent and unified aim, so rather than flitting about with moments of confusion as to what to do next and adding buildings, teching up or making units in slight contradiction to or simply not complimenting each-others strength (as is inevitable when in a state of naivety), lowering your APM and weakening your potentiality in the process. Once you take time to get really comfortable with this information, you will be much more fluent and reactive to your opponent, knowing immediately what to do and how to react, while building a focused force based on your pool of information about the game mechanics. Its a no-brainer.
Supply Cap
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Intimately related to your larva production (ergo unit production) is your supply cap. This point may seem obvious, but understanding it properly is easily equally important as the prior fundamental mechanics. Getting supply capped more than staggers the fluency of your unit production, it completely halts it. So it should be very close to the forefront of your mind to keep your supply cap comfortably above your current (and soon to be current!) unit population. This again can be developed using the technique of [when] > [then].
In this case, as an extension to your previously developed skills as stated above, you should begin to use the rule of: [when] I make units > [then] I check my supply cap. This means that at the point you are physically making your units, you need to train your eye to look at your supply cap. every single time you make units (further to this eventually you will ideally be looking at the state of your unit cap just after battles, as at this time you may not need to make overlords due to a drop in capacity use (essentially checking any time your unit capacity will change) and when any of your overlords are in danger or being attacked, eventually you should reflexively set 1 or 2 overlords to build any time a current overlord i being attacked and seems to be about to die).
To get good at this you need to develop the underlying awareness of how your unit production is related to your supply cap on a conscious and constant level in matches. This awareness is important to have your mind develop a motivation to produce Overlords in response to your unit capacity needs by constantly updating your awareness of the state of your unit capacity at the specific point that information is the most important, I.E. when you make units. I know that sounds a little complicated, what it essentially means is, along with your larva injection and use, and unit production, you also need to develop into your game awareness the constant checking of how these actions are effecting your supply cap and administering the production of Overlords in response to such.
You would be surprised how often this point is overlooked once our twice, even by top level players. This is because some of the time they have not put conscious energy into integrating their need for Overlords into a communicating system of lateral thinking tied to the underlying rhythm of zergs unit production. Whereas the idea i am explaining here is to develop a mental trigger you can rely on, so you don't have to worry about remembering to make overlords as this concept will ideally eventually be ingrained into your awareness. (which i have to point out is different than relying on memory)
Getting a little deeper into this, you need to be ideally pre-empting your unit capacity in relation to the capacity needs of the units currently, or soon to be, in production. This developed act of physically looking at your supply cap as you are making units should instruct you on how many overlords you need to put into production in this round of your larva production rota along with your army and/or economic units, remembering the rule that you need to pre-empt where your supply cap is roughly going to need to be around the time your next unit production burst/larva inject timing window arrives.
This is often case sensitive as it will almost always depend on the supply needs of the specific units you are intending to make. This is simply something you will have to learn over time, please refer to this page, scroll to the zerg section at the bottom and use the various linked unit names to access the information page for each unit type then refer to the 'cost' listing on the info box to the right of each unit page. Look at the number beside the little overlord looking symbol, this is the supply cost for that unit. Get to learn these well as this is the source of information you need in mind when pre-empting the amount of overlords you will need to produce as part of the macro aspect we are currently working. on.
In this case, as an extension to your previously developed skills as stated above, you should begin to use the rule of: [when] I make units > [then] I check my supply cap. This means that at the point you are physically making your units, you need to train your eye to look at your supply cap. every single time you make units (further to this eventually you will ideally be looking at the state of your unit cap just after battles, as at this time you may not need to make overlords due to a drop in capacity use (essentially checking any time your unit capacity will change) and when any of your overlords are in danger or being attacked, eventually you should reflexively set 1 or 2 overlords to build any time a current overlord i being attacked and seems to be about to die).
To get good at this you need to develop the underlying awareness of how your unit production is related to your supply cap on a conscious and constant level in matches. This awareness is important to have your mind develop a motivation to produce Overlords in response to your unit capacity needs by constantly updating your awareness of the state of your unit capacity at the specific point that information is the most important, I.E. when you make units. I know that sounds a little complicated, what it essentially means is, along with your larva injection and use, and unit production, you also need to develop into your game awareness the constant checking of how these actions are effecting your supply cap and administering the production of Overlords in response to such.
You would be surprised how often this point is overlooked once our twice, even by top level players. This is because some of the time they have not put conscious energy into integrating their need for Overlords into a communicating system of lateral thinking tied to the underlying rhythm of zergs unit production. Whereas the idea i am explaining here is to develop a mental trigger you can rely on, so you don't have to worry about remembering to make overlords as this concept will ideally eventually be ingrained into your awareness. (which i have to point out is different than relying on memory)
Getting a little deeper into this, you need to be ideally pre-empting your unit capacity in relation to the capacity needs of the units currently, or soon to be, in production. This developed act of physically looking at your supply cap as you are making units should instruct you on how many overlords you need to put into production in this round of your larva production rota along with your army and/or economic units, remembering the rule that you need to pre-empt where your supply cap is roughly going to need to be around the time your next unit production burst/larva inject timing window arrives.
This is often case sensitive as it will almost always depend on the supply needs of the specific units you are intending to make. This is simply something you will have to learn over time, please refer to this page, scroll to the zerg section at the bottom and use the various linked unit names to access the information page for each unit type then refer to the 'cost' listing on the info box to the right of each unit page. Look at the number beside the little overlord looking symbol, this is the supply cost for that unit. Get to learn these well as this is the source of information you need in mind when pre-empting the amount of overlords you will need to produce as part of the macro aspect we are currently working. on.
Resource and Economy.
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even when efficiently producing larva and maintaining your supply cap, you cannot build units if you do not have the economic integrity to do so. This is quite a fluent subject and often practically has a close mathematical relationship to the specific resource needs of the units you intend to make. This is a slightly more advanced aspect of economy that i will go into a little more later on, for now we need to focus on the fundamentals of developing and maintaining an economy.
As part of administering you unit (army and overlord) production that we have looked into previously, you also need to develop the ability to constantly add to your drone count on each round of larva production/injection. This is simply a matter of setting some of the larva created to produce drones.
How to do this is remembering to always (along with hitting 'V' a number of times as defined by the information you receive by looking at your unit cap), hit 'D' a number of times defined by the visual input you will receive from going round your hatcheries while injecting and while doing this looking at the state of the saturation at each of your bases (this also will in-turn trigger another decision based on the possibility of expanding, which is also essentially tied to other inputs based on your current strategical position in the match and wether or not it is viable for you to expand, this, again will be explained in more detail later). Each of these processes will supply you with the information you need to, with practice, make an informed decision as to the ratio of Drones, Overlords and army units you will need to make for this rota of larva production, translated eventually into an instinctual reflex with your hand at hitting D and V respectively a number of times connected to the visual input received.
This concept sounds amazingly simple and no-brainer, but you would be surprised how easily and often it is overlooked in the heat of matches! Especially with the common psychological pressure of possible imminent attack, an over production of army units and a failure to administer drones to economy is a surprisingly common occurrence, even through the obviously counter productive nature of this when looked at critically. Developing a really self reliant ability with this process will almost by itself sort out your economic problems. It has been said that it is better to loose a game to an overproduction of drones, than a lack of ability to produce units through a lack of economy because you are too busy focusing on making army units to protect yourself, as if this is the case your strategical development will be being dominated by fear, this is never a good thing. Learning how to intelligently apply a ratio to drone/army production based on your current strategical position in game is another major thing you need to be really focusing on in your play-style development.
There are strategically effective and ineffective times to create drones, for example, just after you have taken out a large portion of your enemies army is a good time to produce purely drones (not forgetting the 1 or 2 overlords) for the next round of your larva rota. Concurrently, it is also a good time to produce almost purely drones when you have scouted that your opponent is expanding. It is obviously not a good time to produce just drones if your enemy is about to push, in which case you need to produce the unit counter for his unit type, if applicable, which you hopefully should be able to, which is reliant on good scouting to set up the capabilities to counter the push enough in advance for it to be effective. As scouting is essentially a micro mechanic i will not be going into it as micro is mutually exclusive to macro and as you are trying to learn macro, learning micro will detract from your macro efficiency, by this i mean you only have a finite ability at doing things in game, microing units round the map is going to take up mental room and physical time, detracting from your development of macro integrity, which is the point of this post... phew!
Tangents aside, another good use of the [when]>[then] technique is to use the system of: [when] i hotkey to my hatchery (explained in more detail later) > [then] i look at my drone saturation. At that point ask yourself 'do i need to make more drones', if your drone saturation looks low then you have (some of the) the input needed to decide how many drones you may need to make in your next larva rota, the other input would be strategical elements based on intel (from scouting) and possible imminent threats or wether your opponent is expanding e.t.c.
The reason you should use the 'when i hotkey to my hatchery' trigger, and not the 'when i inject' trigger is you are already using that trigger and it may get confusing for you to cross reference triggers. I find it easier to get me to remind myself through the action of hitting the relevant hotkey for that hatchery (again explained later), to look at my drone saturation for 'that' base, then as i'm going round my hatcheries (which literally takes less than 2 seconds) As i know i'm about to make units ([when] make units > [then] check supply) i'm looking at my supply while thinking about the current strategical situation as an indicator of what units i need to make with the larva that has just popped. Part of that is how many drones i may need to make based on how saturated my bases are. This is the thinking process you should be using to maintain your economy
Gas is another important factor in maintaining your economy. Out of all the races ( i may be wrong on this point ) i believe Zerg can be the most gas heavy, so it is absolutely important you get gas running quickly. Gas is out of the three possible resources (including larva) the most situational, yet also the most important. The amount of gas you will need for a specific build, and how quickly you will need it will always be situational to that build. In regards to attaining a more accurate balance of the mineral gas ratio needed for your unit composition i would advise again to use liquipedia and look at the cost tab for each unit. Your aim here is to develop an ability to see the potential mineral/gas ratio (cost) for that unit composition, pre-emptively, ideally before you even begin the build. Here it is integral to develop an awareness of and become familiar with the potential mineral/gas and supply cost of the sum total of the specific unit composition in question and build the logistical capabilities of attaining and maintaining that, in advance. Obviously not forgetting to build an adequate defense while catering for your build. Your ultimate aim here is to find that perfect balance between defensive/offensive capabilities and economic sustainability.
For example if you are going for a muta heavy build, you should already know that the supply cost of mutas is 2, that they have a mineral cost of 100 and a gas cost of 100. As this is relatively gas heavy, as units go, you should add as part of your strategy 2 extractors early on, and begin to build the gas reserves in advance, ready for when a spire is up. You should also be making extra overlords in advance to prepare for the supply strain massing mutas will have on your supply cap. Setting up the grounds for builds is one of the most important aspects of good macro.
Anyway,there comes a point in your base saturation where you feel like its time to expand (amongst other reasons, another time that is stated as good to expand is when you are attacking, although this takes allot more competence at multitasking). You ideally want to set your expansion up slightly before your base is over saturated so you have a minimal window of resource collection deficiency due to over saturation. More than 3 drones will deliver exponentially diminishing returns the more over 3 drones you have on each mineral rock. To explain this concept further, i have pulled a quote from another thread on TL addressing the issue of drone over saturation.
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In laymen terms, as stated, it is a much better idea to try to accurately assess when the best time to expand is based on your drone saturation (which should be steadily increasing all game) and expand then. Keep tabs on when your expansion is about to pop and Maynard (< link) over to your expansion, ideally so the drones get there as the hatchery pops, when you rally the drones to the new hatchery, while you have your drones selected and your POV over the new expansion, you should hit B > E and then shift click the two vespeine geisers, it is a good idea to do this now as you may forget to do this later, also never forget to set 3 drones on each extractor, developing a systematic approach to expanding, where you follow these basic rules will mean you become allot more self reliant on economic efficiency. I presume currently it is this lack of basic systematics that is causing you to forget to do simple things like this. It is also a good idea at this point to set a queen into production as soon as the hatchery pops.
A note on expanding: It is very important when deciding to expand to ensure you are able to geographically cater for the possible protection of your expansion. As you grow across the map, you should always be thinking about the layout of the map in regards to expanding, keeping tabs on strategical points. The idea is to gradually increase the amount of the map on your end you have secured, and not really expand until you know you can effectively defend that expansion. This is allot to do with map control and unit placement/rallying to ensure you have strategical dominance at certain points, securing areas of the map where you are wanting to expand. You should never try to over stretch yourself by expanding somewhere that will be too strategically un-realistic to defend. This concept should govern the geographical shape of your growth across the map, which is dependent and unique to each map. Therre is an exception to this rule, and that is hidden bases. Later on when you are a better player, it is sometimes on bigger maps an option to place a hidden expansion somewhere far away from your main growth of presence on the map, you can also use Nydus worms to aid this process, but beleive me when i state that this technique causes various control and unit rally problems that may give you more grief than its worth, so try and leave out this strategy until you are much more comfortable with unit control and game mechanics.
Another important pointer about expansions is that with Zerg, you need to ideally expand away from your opponent. Keep that in mind and always try to follow this rule.
As part of administering you unit (army and overlord) production that we have looked into previously, you also need to develop the ability to constantly add to your drone count on each round of larva production/injection. This is simply a matter of setting some of the larva created to produce drones.
How to do this is remembering to always (along with hitting 'V' a number of times as defined by the information you receive by looking at your unit cap), hit 'D' a number of times defined by the visual input you will receive from going round your hatcheries while injecting and while doing this looking at the state of the saturation at each of your bases (this also will in-turn trigger another decision based on the possibility of expanding, which is also essentially tied to other inputs based on your current strategical position in the match and wether or not it is viable for you to expand, this, again will be explained in more detail later). Each of these processes will supply you with the information you need to, with practice, make an informed decision as to the ratio of Drones, Overlords and army units you will need to make for this rota of larva production, translated eventually into an instinctual reflex with your hand at hitting D and V respectively a number of times connected to the visual input received.
This concept sounds amazingly simple and no-brainer, but you would be surprised how easily and often it is overlooked in the heat of matches! Especially with the common psychological pressure of possible imminent attack, an over production of army units and a failure to administer drones to economy is a surprisingly common occurrence, even through the obviously counter productive nature of this when looked at critically. Developing a really self reliant ability with this process will almost by itself sort out your economic problems. It has been said that it is better to loose a game to an overproduction of drones, than a lack of ability to produce units through a lack of economy because you are too busy focusing on making army units to protect yourself, as if this is the case your strategical development will be being dominated by fear, this is never a good thing. Learning how to intelligently apply a ratio to drone/army production based on your current strategical position in game is another major thing you need to be really focusing on in your play-style development.
There are strategically effective and ineffective times to create drones, for example, just after you have taken out a large portion of your enemies army is a good time to produce purely drones (not forgetting the 1 or 2 overlords) for the next round of your larva rota. Concurrently, it is also a good time to produce almost purely drones when you have scouted that your opponent is expanding. It is obviously not a good time to produce just drones if your enemy is about to push, in which case you need to produce the unit counter for his unit type, if applicable, which you hopefully should be able to, which is reliant on good scouting to set up the capabilities to counter the push enough in advance for it to be effective. As scouting is essentially a micro mechanic i will not be going into it as micro is mutually exclusive to macro and as you are trying to learn macro, learning micro will detract from your macro efficiency, by this i mean you only have a finite ability at doing things in game, microing units round the map is going to take up mental room and physical time, detracting from your development of macro integrity, which is the point of this post... phew!
Tangents aside, another good use of the [when]>[then] technique is to use the system of: [when] i hotkey to my hatchery (explained in more detail later) > [then] i look at my drone saturation. At that point ask yourself 'do i need to make more drones', if your drone saturation looks low then you have (some of the) the input needed to decide how many drones you may need to make in your next larva rota, the other input would be strategical elements based on intel (from scouting) and possible imminent threats or wether your opponent is expanding e.t.c.
The reason you should use the 'when i hotkey to my hatchery' trigger, and not the 'when i inject' trigger is you are already using that trigger and it may get confusing for you to cross reference triggers. I find it easier to get me to remind myself through the action of hitting the relevant hotkey for that hatchery (again explained later), to look at my drone saturation for 'that' base, then as i'm going round my hatcheries (which literally takes less than 2 seconds) As i know i'm about to make units ([when] make units > [then] check supply) i'm looking at my supply while thinking about the current strategical situation as an indicator of what units i need to make with the larva that has just popped. Part of that is how many drones i may need to make based on how saturated my bases are. This is the thinking process you should be using to maintain your economy
Gas is another important factor in maintaining your economy. Out of all the races ( i may be wrong on this point ) i believe Zerg can be the most gas heavy, so it is absolutely important you get gas running quickly. Gas is out of the three possible resources (including larva) the most situational, yet also the most important. The amount of gas you will need for a specific build, and how quickly you will need it will always be situational to that build. In regards to attaining a more accurate balance of the mineral gas ratio needed for your unit composition i would advise again to use liquipedia and look at the cost tab for each unit. Your aim here is to develop an ability to see the potential mineral/gas ratio (cost) for that unit composition, pre-emptively, ideally before you even begin the build. Here it is integral to develop an awareness of and become familiar with the potential mineral/gas and supply cost of the sum total of the specific unit composition in question and build the logistical capabilities of attaining and maintaining that, in advance. Obviously not forgetting to build an adequate defense while catering for your build. Your ultimate aim here is to find that perfect balance between defensive/offensive capabilities and economic sustainability.
For example if you are going for a muta heavy build, you should already know that the supply cost of mutas is 2, that they have a mineral cost of 100 and a gas cost of 100. As this is relatively gas heavy, as units go, you should add as part of your strategy 2 extractors early on, and begin to build the gas reserves in advance, ready for when a spire is up. You should also be making extra overlords in advance to prepare for the supply strain massing mutas will have on your supply cap. Setting up the grounds for builds is one of the most important aspects of good macro.
Anyway,there comes a point in your base saturation where you feel like its time to expand (amongst other reasons, another time that is stated as good to expand is when you are attacking, although this takes allot more competence at multitasking). You ideally want to set your expansion up slightly before your base is over saturated so you have a minimal window of resource collection deficiency due to over saturation. More than 3 drones will deliver exponentially diminishing returns the more over 3 drones you have on each mineral rock. To explain this concept further, i have pulled a quote from another thread on TL addressing the issue of drone over saturation.
+ Show Spoiler +
ctOph wrote
Have somewhere between 16-24 workers on minerals, 6 on gas.
<15? Make more workers
16-23? You can make more if you like, but beware that anything after the 16th worker is subject to diminishing returns, and will have less minerals mined per minute than the first 16 workers.
24? You've reached the cap. Any more workers after this would be stupid, unless you have an expo about to pop and you can move some off. Any more workers after 24 on minerals will be either subject to very very harsh diminishing returns, or even not increase your minerals per minute AT ALL, since once you have too many, there will always be a worker wandering around for an open patch of minerals that it will never find.
That's pretty much it. You will see an increase in minerals per minute by adding workers past 16, while still keeping them under 24. The only thing is, like I already said, any workers past 16 will be subject to diminishing returns, since they will be wandering part of the time looking for an open patch. When you have 16 workers, one will mine the patch, then return to the HQ, as its returning, a second worker will mine the same patch, by the time its done, the first worker will be returning, leaving a very short amount of time for a third worker to come in and mine that patch. That is why you should have at least 16, but no more than 24.
edit: Also, I'd like to point out that if you expand, take off workers from your main to your expo, but don't bring your main down to less than 16 workers. Having a main w/ 16 workers, and an expo w/ 16 workers is better than having 24 at your main and 8 at your expo. Kind of common sense but I thought I'd point it out. If you take a third, you should probably only have 16 workers on minerals per base, because having full saturation (30 per base, 24 on min and 6 on gas) cuts into your food supply hard. Creating workers into diminishing returns while having more than 2 bases seems pretty illogical to me. Then again, if you need the minerals, go for it, but at that point in the game you might want to have a bigger army to defend your economy.
Have somewhere between 16-24 workers on minerals, 6 on gas.
<15? Make more workers
16-23? You can make more if you like, but beware that anything after the 16th worker is subject to diminishing returns, and will have less minerals mined per minute than the first 16 workers.
24? You've reached the cap. Any more workers after this would be stupid, unless you have an expo about to pop and you can move some off. Any more workers after 24 on minerals will be either subject to very very harsh diminishing returns, or even not increase your minerals per minute AT ALL, since once you have too many, there will always be a worker wandering around for an open patch of minerals that it will never find.
That's pretty much it. You will see an increase in minerals per minute by adding workers past 16, while still keeping them under 24. The only thing is, like I already said, any workers past 16 will be subject to diminishing returns, since they will be wandering part of the time looking for an open patch. When you have 16 workers, one will mine the patch, then return to the HQ, as its returning, a second worker will mine the same patch, by the time its done, the first worker will be returning, leaving a very short amount of time for a third worker to come in and mine that patch. That is why you should have at least 16, but no more than 24.
edit: Also, I'd like to point out that if you expand, take off workers from your main to your expo, but don't bring your main down to less than 16 workers. Having a main w/ 16 workers, and an expo w/ 16 workers is better than having 24 at your main and 8 at your expo. Kind of common sense but I thought I'd point it out. If you take a third, you should probably only have 16 workers on minerals per base, because having full saturation (30 per base, 24 on min and 6 on gas) cuts into your food supply hard. Creating workers into diminishing returns while having more than 2 bases seems pretty illogical to me. Then again, if you need the minerals, go for it, but at that point in the game you might want to have a bigger army to defend your economy.
In laymen terms, as stated, it is a much better idea to try to accurately assess when the best time to expand is based on your drone saturation (which should be steadily increasing all game) and expand then. Keep tabs on when your expansion is about to pop and Maynard (< link) over to your expansion, ideally so the drones get there as the hatchery pops, when you rally the drones to the new hatchery, while you have your drones selected and your POV over the new expansion, you should hit B > E and then shift click the two vespeine geisers, it is a good idea to do this now as you may forget to do this later, also never forget to set 3 drones on each extractor, developing a systematic approach to expanding, where you follow these basic rules will mean you become allot more self reliant on economic efficiency. I presume currently it is this lack of basic systematics that is causing you to forget to do simple things like this. It is also a good idea at this point to set a queen into production as soon as the hatchery pops.
A note on expanding: It is very important when deciding to expand to ensure you are able to geographically cater for the possible protection of your expansion. As you grow across the map, you should always be thinking about the layout of the map in regards to expanding, keeping tabs on strategical points. The idea is to gradually increase the amount of the map on your end you have secured, and not really expand until you know you can effectively defend that expansion. This is allot to do with map control and unit placement/rallying to ensure you have strategical dominance at certain points, securing areas of the map where you are wanting to expand. You should never try to over stretch yourself by expanding somewhere that will be too strategically un-realistic to defend. This concept should govern the geographical shape of your growth across the map, which is dependent and unique to each map. Therre is an exception to this rule, and that is hidden bases. Later on when you are a better player, it is sometimes on bigger maps an option to place a hidden expansion somewhere far away from your main growth of presence on the map, you can also use Nydus worms to aid this process, but beleive me when i state that this technique causes various control and unit rally problems that may give you more grief than its worth, so try and leave out this strategy until you are much more comfortable with unit control and game mechanics.
Another important pointer about expansions is that with Zerg, you need to ideally expand away from your opponent. Keep that in mind and always try to follow this rule.
Control Groups, Rally Points and Controlling Efficiency.
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As with getting to grips with in game mechanics is important, so is developing a meta-game system that is comfortable for you. By meta-game i mean how you are physically pressing buttons, setting control groups, rally points and so forth. Even if you have perfect timing and systematic thinking, if you have bad meta-game mechanics, you will always fail, hard. As units will be running off across the map, you will be loosing units all over the place, you may have drones sat at hatcheries as you forgot to set rally points for them, so on and so forth. Not to mention the dramatic increase in APM and the massive cut down of complex thinking needed when your trying to collect units from all over the map. If you have everything structured and ordered smoothly and you follow set routines of meta-game mechanics, you are freeing up allot of that much needed mental space to think about things that should have conscious priority in the heat of a match.
This is what works for me, it is i believe the current 'standard' control group system for zerg. It works. Because it is simple and catered to the nature of play-style needed with Zerg.
When using control groups (and you should always, always always use control groups) it is important to get used to developing a robust and familiar system for yourself. It is also very important to bind the relevant buildings/units e.t.c.to its control group at the soonest possible opportunity, then get used to flicking between control groups on the fly, accurately. This will dramatically increase your APM and ability to be in multiple places at once. It is possible,by using a combination of control groups, hotkeys and the shift+click function, to efficiently multitask any number of elements in your play style. For example: scouting, harassing, injecting, expanding, building units and microing your army at the same time. This is obviously pro level gameplay, but the concept is essentially the same. It is the intelligent and organized use of meta-game mechanics that allows the pro's tho do this so well.
control groups 1 > 2 > 3 : this is your basic army control groups. I always have lings/primary 'upfront' units on 1, roaches/banelings (never at the same time), basically slightly more situational units on 2, and mutas/flying/harass units on 3. This isn't set in stone (i sometimes have lings on 1 roaches on 2 and banelings on 3, or lings and mutas on 1, roaches and hydras on 2 and infestors on 3... you get the idea) . The idea here is to develop a vague 'tactical vibe' for a hotkey, and stick units on that hotkey that are relevent to that 'vibe', which units you actually put on that hotkey is dependent on your unit composition. Experiment with this concept and get used to hitting the first 3 hotkeys to jump between and control individual unit compositions in your army. This is also essentially the beginnings of micro. (I will go into more detail about control strategies and fundamentals in a moment but first i will finish the hotkey list)
Control Group 4 > All Hatcheries : This is an important one for quick production of all of your units, and also the ability to set a rally point for all of your hatcheries by right clicking with this control group selected. It is a good idea to remember to do this to somewhere relevant at the very least every time you add a hatchery to your all hatcheries control group.
As soon as you have set a new hatchery to be built and it begins its embryonic phase, follow these steps:
Click Hatchery > SHIFT+4 ... its that simple!
Please note that the SHIFT+# technique only works for adding new elements to an already created control group. In the beginning of the game, you will need to select your hatchery and hit CTRL+4 (then 5 as you will be adding the queen to this control group later).
With all of your hatcheries set to one hotkey you can simply hit 4>S>[DDDDD : VV : [unit hotkey however many times applicable] (for example). Which will begin building units from all hatcheries, while accessing the sum total of all larva produced by your queen injects. Remember to hit 4 once as hitting it twice will set your POV at the last added hatchery to that control group. Simply hitting 4 once and then administering your unit production will send those units to the rally point you have set, meaning you don't have to worry about where they are going or having to find those units later on.
Remember the rule: that this process of unit creation should ideally be done as your larva drops and just after you have injected (by which time you should have ideally taken in the relevant information about base saturation and supply cap and have hotkeyed back to your army/scout/harass units, then followed with 4>[unit hotkeys]), and the specific drone/unit/overlord ratio should be an informed decision based on the various input parameters explained through the duration of this guide.
Control Groups 5 > 6 > 7 > 8 (>9&0 if needed) : These are your individual hatchery + Queen control groups. This setup gives you optimal coverage for injecting all your hatcheries extremely quickly, it also gives you the advantage of being able to check the state of your bases, looking at building production times, the state of drone saturation e.t.c.
These hotkeys are your meta-game mechanics used to administer your inject rounds. This is the mechanical core of managing your macro efficiency! These control groups are what you will have ideally ingrained into your reflex response based on your mental triggers to administer your larva inject at the exact point it is efficient to do so.
In relation to the control group 4 comment about adding a new hatchery to it, an extention of that rule applies to this control group. As soon as you place a hatchery follow these steps:
click hatchery > SHIFT+4 (adding to your all hatcheries control group > CTRL+#[5/6/7/8] > right click minerals > Hit 4 > right click somewhere to set rally point for the newly updated 'all hatcheries' [ > ? > PROFIT! ].
you must also remember to return periodically to catch it as it pops and set a queen into production, as this queen pops [hit spacebar as you hear the screech] then: select Queen > shift+#[5/6/7/8] You should do this as soon as possible (as with any control group binding).
My general rule is i have my main on 5, my natural on 6, my third on 7 and my 4th on 8, it is very rare i am running off more than 4 bases, and if i move to a 5th, by that time in the game i am usually mined out from my main anyway, so i have never really needed any more than 4 hotkeys for all of my hatcheries.
It is also worth noting here that setting your drone rally point now is the best time to do it, as you are setting up the control groups for your new hatchery. Also, depending on the state of the saturation at your other bases, it may be a good idea to (after adding this hatchery to your control group 4) first hit 4 and then place the drone rally from ALL of your hatcheries to the new expansion, this is also of course situational based on wether you are capable of defending the traveling drones from your other bases.
Now you have this control group - Hatchery&Queen setup when you need to inject, it takes you literally 2 seconds to position your mouse pointer in the middle of the screen and go 55vClick>66vClick.77vClick e.t.c.
Remember earlier on where i was explaining the visual input you will be receiving from checking your overlord count and state of drone saturation. This is the physical action that triggers your need to look at your drone saturation and supply cap ready for you to make your unit composition decision in a few moments when you use the larva that has just been created, remembering that the army unit choices should be strategically chosen based on the various points raised in the unit production section of this guide, keeping in mind the potential relative resource use of said unit production that we looked at in the resource and economy section of this guide. Furthermore all of this in turn should be attached intimately to the rhythm created by your developed systematic approach to punctual Queen injection and larva production.
Control groups 9 & 0 : I personally use 9 for Nydus Worm and 0 for Creep Tumours, these are optional of course.
Allot of Zerg use these hotkeys on a very situational basis, think of them as your reserve hotkeys for things like creep tumors, extra Queens, Nydus worm, tech buildings e.t.c. A good strategy to use with one of these extra hotkeys is to bind an overlord and an extra queen to one of them and use that overlord to spread creep especially for that queen to drop tumors, this is an amazingly quick and effective way of spreading creep!
Another element of meta-game mechanics is adding units to control groups already established, if you are controlling units and, for instance you see just hatched units running on the minimap to your rally, it is sometimes an idea to click the mini map to center POV over where they are running, hit the relevant control group ONCE (as hitting it twice centers the POV over the control group) then follow these steps:
box select the units on screen > SHIFT+relevant control group number. This is only really effective if one unit type is running and you are adding it to the control group you are using for that unit type.
+ Show Spoiler +
(I have sectioned this part out as i believe there is a better way of doing this although i need to clarify what the exact steps are, hence this little bit is due to be altered and put back into the guide proper.)
You May find an issue with units being 'lost' or hard to click under or in amongst overlords if you have recently massed them for supply reasons, to solve this always get into the habit of remembering that you have just set overlords to spawn and as you hear them popping from your hatcheries select them at your base/rally point and send them around the map (and if you have lair tech, spread creep very quickly) by following these steps:
CTRL+Click an overlord to select all on screen > (if you have lair tech hit g to begin generating creep) > right click somewhere on mini map > SHIFT+Click the wireframe box at the bottom of the screen (the thing with the little unit icons you have selected) this de-selects an overlord from the selection > right click another point on the minimap > Shift Click Wireframe > repeat steps as many times as applicable.
This will very quickly spreads your overlords. Find time to do this, (and ideally place them in optimally strategical positions, obviously) it clears the air over your rally point and spreads creep not to mention gives you eyes all over the map.
A similar process can be used for appending individual units from a defined control group for strategical/scouting reasons. A good example of this is sending 2 of your first 4 zerglings to each of the Xel-Naga towers (obviously this example is for a map with only 2 towers) after you have bound them to control group 1 right as they initially pop (which you should get into the practice of doing), I will use said example of towers and lings to explain the process, which is as follows:
Hit 1 (or the relevant C-group number) > right click eye on minimap to send all lings to the tower > SHIFT+click an icon in the wireframe box > click second eye on minimap > shift click wireframe box > hit CTRL+1 (or relevant C-group number) to re-define the control group. If you do not do this last step, the next time you issue a move command the two lings at the towers will run to your move command point. keep that in mind and remember in any case like this you have to re-define the control group after you have appended units from it.
This technique can be very powerful when used with scouting parties e.t.c. You should practice to get comfortable with adding and appending individual units or groups of units from defined control groups. It will increase your ability to multitask and add to your overall unit organization.
Another important point is as you are making units from larva (after hitting 4 and then administering your units into production) and while you have the eggs selected, by right clicking you can set a rally point that is separate from your hatcheries rally point. Be very careful with this as you can often get quite messy with where you're sending units through forgetting where you set their rally point. A general rule is unless you are rallying units into your enemies base and have a clear tactical advantage, or are rallying units to an outpost where you are pushing with your army further forward than the rally point you just set, only use your hatcheries base rally point, the one you set by right clicking while you have the 4th control group selected. This stops you placing manual rally points for the eggs and forgetting where you placed them. It is generally also quite a messy technique to rally units to another unit, as ( i may be wrong with this but it seems to happen to me) If that unit dies, any units traveling to it stop in a random point of the map! this is obviously a bad mechanic so try to avoid it as much as possible. Be clever about rally points, try to predominantly use the rally point u can set with control group 4 selected, set them somewhere strategically advantageous in an obvious point mid way between your bases, or in the middle of the map if applicable, basically be intelligent about it. You get the idea.
Using control groups should be second nature to you, practice with hopping from one thing to another, from your Army unit control groups to your hatcheries and back again, practice using this in conjunction with the shift+click function with your army units to keep them on the move (or attacking) while you fly round your hatcheries injecting or placing buildings, spreading creep or using other units to harass/scout. As important as using control groups is accurately and punctually setting, altering and maintaining them. Which in turn is as important as setting your rally points every time you build a new hatchery or secure a new strategical point on the map.
Practice the various SHIFT+Click/CTRL+click/CTRL+SHIFT+click/box select e.t.c. techniques i have mentioned and get used to using control groups, rally points and hotkeys in general. Using these in conjunction with the techniques you have been developing through the duration of this guide will enable you to effectively and eventually easily manage the many overlapping responsibilities in maintaining your macro efficiency and intelligently developing your army and presence on the map while simultaneously keeping yourself on the front line of battle, microing your units around the map.
It is also highly important to develop the ability to use the already hard-coded hotkeys for units and buildings in the game. Refer to this page as a reference for developing your understanding and ability at hotkeys.
This is what works for me, it is i believe the current 'standard' control group system for zerg. It works. Because it is simple and catered to the nature of play-style needed with Zerg.
When using control groups (and you should always, always always use control groups) it is important to get used to developing a robust and familiar system for yourself. It is also very important to bind the relevant buildings/units e.t.c.to its control group at the soonest possible opportunity, then get used to flicking between control groups on the fly, accurately. This will dramatically increase your APM and ability to be in multiple places at once. It is possible,by using a combination of control groups, hotkeys and the shift+click function, to efficiently multitask any number of elements in your play style. For example: scouting, harassing, injecting, expanding, building units and microing your army at the same time. This is obviously pro level gameplay, but the concept is essentially the same. It is the intelligent and organized use of meta-game mechanics that allows the pro's tho do this so well.
control groups 1 > 2 > 3 : this is your basic army control groups. I always have lings/primary 'upfront' units on 1, roaches/banelings (never at the same time), basically slightly more situational units on 2, and mutas/flying/harass units on 3. This isn't set in stone (i sometimes have lings on 1 roaches on 2 and banelings on 3, or lings and mutas on 1, roaches and hydras on 2 and infestors on 3... you get the idea) . The idea here is to develop a vague 'tactical vibe' for a hotkey, and stick units on that hotkey that are relevent to that 'vibe', which units you actually put on that hotkey is dependent on your unit composition. Experiment with this concept and get used to hitting the first 3 hotkeys to jump between and control individual unit compositions in your army. This is also essentially the beginnings of micro. (I will go into more detail about control strategies and fundamentals in a moment but first i will finish the hotkey list)
Control Group 4 > All Hatcheries : This is an important one for quick production of all of your units, and also the ability to set a rally point for all of your hatcheries by right clicking with this control group selected. It is a good idea to remember to do this to somewhere relevant at the very least every time you add a hatchery to your all hatcheries control group.
As soon as you have set a new hatchery to be built and it begins its embryonic phase, follow these steps:
Click Hatchery > SHIFT+4 ... its that simple!
Please note that the SHIFT+# technique only works for adding new elements to an already created control group. In the beginning of the game, you will need to select your hatchery and hit CTRL+4 (then 5 as you will be adding the queen to this control group later).
With all of your hatcheries set to one hotkey you can simply hit 4>S>[DDDDD : VV : [unit hotkey however many times applicable] (for example). Which will begin building units from all hatcheries, while accessing the sum total of all larva produced by your queen injects. Remember to hit 4 once as hitting it twice will set your POV at the last added hatchery to that control group. Simply hitting 4 once and then administering your unit production will send those units to the rally point you have set, meaning you don't have to worry about where they are going or having to find those units later on.
Remember the rule: that this process of unit creation should ideally be done as your larva drops and just after you have injected (by which time you should have ideally taken in the relevant information about base saturation and supply cap and have hotkeyed back to your army/scout/harass units, then followed with 4>[unit hotkeys]), and the specific drone/unit/overlord ratio should be an informed decision based on the various input parameters explained through the duration of this guide.
Control Groups 5 > 6 > 7 > 8 (>9&0 if needed) : These are your individual hatchery + Queen control groups. This setup gives you optimal coverage for injecting all your hatcheries extremely quickly, it also gives you the advantage of being able to check the state of your bases, looking at building production times, the state of drone saturation e.t.c.
These hotkeys are your meta-game mechanics used to administer your inject rounds. This is the mechanical core of managing your macro efficiency! These control groups are what you will have ideally ingrained into your reflex response based on your mental triggers to administer your larva inject at the exact point it is efficient to do so.
In relation to the control group 4 comment about adding a new hatchery to it, an extention of that rule applies to this control group. As soon as you place a hatchery follow these steps:
click hatchery > SHIFT+4 (adding to your all hatcheries control group > CTRL+#[5/6/7/8] > right click minerals > Hit 4 > right click somewhere to set rally point for the newly updated 'all hatcheries' [ > ? > PROFIT! ].
you must also remember to return periodically to catch it as it pops and set a queen into production, as this queen pops [hit spacebar as you hear the screech] then: select Queen > shift+#[5/6/7/8] You should do this as soon as possible (as with any control group binding).
My general rule is i have my main on 5, my natural on 6, my third on 7 and my 4th on 8, it is very rare i am running off more than 4 bases, and if i move to a 5th, by that time in the game i am usually mined out from my main anyway, so i have never really needed any more than 4 hotkeys for all of my hatcheries.
It is also worth noting here that setting your drone rally point now is the best time to do it, as you are setting up the control groups for your new hatchery. Also, depending on the state of the saturation at your other bases, it may be a good idea to (after adding this hatchery to your control group 4) first hit 4 and then place the drone rally from ALL of your hatcheries to the new expansion, this is also of course situational based on wether you are capable of defending the traveling drones from your other bases.
Now you have this control group - Hatchery&Queen setup when you need to inject, it takes you literally 2 seconds to position your mouse pointer in the middle of the screen and go 55vClick>66vClick.77vClick e.t.c.
Remember earlier on where i was explaining the visual input you will be receiving from checking your overlord count and state of drone saturation. This is the physical action that triggers your need to look at your drone saturation and supply cap ready for you to make your unit composition decision in a few moments when you use the larva that has just been created, remembering that the army unit choices should be strategically chosen based on the various points raised in the unit production section of this guide, keeping in mind the potential relative resource use of said unit production that we looked at in the resource and economy section of this guide. Furthermore all of this in turn should be attached intimately to the rhythm created by your developed systematic approach to punctual Queen injection and larva production.
Control groups 9 & 0 : I personally use 9 for Nydus Worm and 0 for Creep Tumours, these are optional of course.
Allot of Zerg use these hotkeys on a very situational basis, think of them as your reserve hotkeys for things like creep tumors, extra Queens, Nydus worm, tech buildings e.t.c. A good strategy to use with one of these extra hotkeys is to bind an overlord and an extra queen to one of them and use that overlord to spread creep especially for that queen to drop tumors, this is an amazingly quick and effective way of spreading creep!
Another element of meta-game mechanics is adding units to control groups already established, if you are controlling units and, for instance you see just hatched units running on the minimap to your rally, it is sometimes an idea to click the mini map to center POV over where they are running, hit the relevant control group ONCE (as hitting it twice centers the POV over the control group) then follow these steps:
box select the units on screen > SHIFT+relevant control group number. This is only really effective if one unit type is running and you are adding it to the control group you are using for that unit type.
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Another way of doing this is simply to CTRL+SHIFT+Click one of the units (as it will select all units of that type on screen) > ctrl+relevant control group number. holding CTRL+SHIFT selects all of that unit type and adds it to the currently selected group, you then need to 'set' that group by hitting CTRL+the C-group #
(I have sectioned this part out as i believe there is a better way of doing this although i need to clarify what the exact steps are, hence this little bit is due to be altered and put back into the guide proper.)
You May find an issue with units being 'lost' or hard to click under or in amongst overlords if you have recently massed them for supply reasons, to solve this always get into the habit of remembering that you have just set overlords to spawn and as you hear them popping from your hatcheries select them at your base/rally point and send them around the map (and if you have lair tech, spread creep very quickly) by following these steps:
CTRL+Click an overlord to select all on screen > (if you have lair tech hit g to begin generating creep) > right click somewhere on mini map > SHIFT+Click the wireframe box at the bottom of the screen (the thing with the little unit icons you have selected) this de-selects an overlord from the selection > right click another point on the minimap > Shift Click Wireframe > repeat steps as many times as applicable.
This will very quickly spreads your overlords. Find time to do this, (and ideally place them in optimally strategical positions, obviously) it clears the air over your rally point and spreads creep not to mention gives you eyes all over the map.
A similar process can be used for appending individual units from a defined control group for strategical/scouting reasons. A good example of this is sending 2 of your first 4 zerglings to each of the Xel-Naga towers (obviously this example is for a map with only 2 towers) after you have bound them to control group 1 right as they initially pop (which you should get into the practice of doing), I will use said example of towers and lings to explain the process, which is as follows:
Hit 1 (or the relevant C-group number) > right click eye on minimap to send all lings to the tower > SHIFT+click an icon in the wireframe box > click second eye on minimap > shift click wireframe box > hit CTRL+1 (or relevant C-group number) to re-define the control group. If you do not do this last step, the next time you issue a move command the two lings at the towers will run to your move command point. keep that in mind and remember in any case like this you have to re-define the control group after you have appended units from it.
This technique can be very powerful when used with scouting parties e.t.c. You should practice to get comfortable with adding and appending individual units or groups of units from defined control groups. It will increase your ability to multitask and add to your overall unit organization.
Another important point is as you are making units from larva (after hitting 4 and then administering your units into production) and while you have the eggs selected, by right clicking you can set a rally point that is separate from your hatcheries rally point. Be very careful with this as you can often get quite messy with where you're sending units through forgetting where you set their rally point. A general rule is unless you are rallying units into your enemies base and have a clear tactical advantage, or are rallying units to an outpost where you are pushing with your army further forward than the rally point you just set, only use your hatcheries base rally point, the one you set by right clicking while you have the 4th control group selected. This stops you placing manual rally points for the eggs and forgetting where you placed them. It is generally also quite a messy technique to rally units to another unit, as ( i may be wrong with this but it seems to happen to me) If that unit dies, any units traveling to it stop in a random point of the map! this is obviously a bad mechanic so try to avoid it as much as possible. Be clever about rally points, try to predominantly use the rally point u can set with control group 4 selected, set them somewhere strategically advantageous in an obvious point mid way between your bases, or in the middle of the map if applicable, basically be intelligent about it. You get the idea.
Using control groups should be second nature to you, practice with hopping from one thing to another, from your Army unit control groups to your hatcheries and back again, practice using this in conjunction with the shift+click function with your army units to keep them on the move (or attacking) while you fly round your hatcheries injecting or placing buildings, spreading creep or using other units to harass/scout. As important as using control groups is accurately and punctually setting, altering and maintaining them. Which in turn is as important as setting your rally points every time you build a new hatchery or secure a new strategical point on the map.
Practice the various SHIFT+Click/CTRL+click/CTRL+SHIFT+click/box select e.t.c. techniques i have mentioned and get used to using control groups, rally points and hotkeys in general. Using these in conjunction with the techniques you have been developing through the duration of this guide will enable you to effectively and eventually easily manage the many overlapping responsibilities in maintaining your macro efficiency and intelligently developing your army and presence on the map while simultaneously keeping yourself on the front line of battle, microing your units around the map.
It is also highly important to develop the ability to use the already hard-coded hotkeys for units and buildings in the game. Refer to this page as a reference for developing your understanding and ability at hotkeys.
Everything that i have written here should be taken as a system of mutually interdependent elements that when used together will dramatically improve your gameplay. Use this guide as a resource, work from the top and work on each element down the list.
I hope this guide is of use to you.
Peace out. Xios.
