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I've been wondering for months why people in all levels of play spread their creep the way they do even though there are circumstances where an alternative creep-spreading method is superior. Nestea? Inferior creep spreader. Idra? Inferior creep spreader. (watching his stream just now is what urged me to finally write about it)
There isn't too much to say about it, so I'll keep it simple:
As it stands right now, people like to put their queens out there, lay new tumors at the front of the creep, and consistently spread their creep.This is what a conventional creep spread looks like.
![[image loading]](http://s13.postimage.org/dapvlql53/Conventional_Creep_Spread.jpg)
I want to emphasize how ALL of the creep tumors have spawned new creep tumors.
Now, what happens when an enemy terran player scans and kills that creep at the front and you are left with only creep tumors that cannot spawn additional tumors? Well, you grab your spare queens and you send em back out onto the field to replace the creep. What if your creep-tumor spreading queen dies? Can you afford to wait for a new one to build?
Wouldn't it be a time saver (and creep saver) if you already had creep tumors that had not yet spawned additional creep tumors scattered throughout, so that if a Terran scans and kills some creep you could immediately replace it from tumors you had already laid?
![[image loading]](http://s13.postimage.org/lc9ipweiv/proposed_creep_spread.jpg)
It is such a simple thing, yet nobody does it. I think that almost every zerg player has the creep spreading philosophy: "more creep tumors pushing outwards = faster creep spread". There are obvious benefits to that, but the creep spreading philosophy can be developed further. So here is what you should do:
1. Keep pushing creep tumors out like you always have, but evaluate whether you really need all 5 tumors pushing in the same direction. If not, tuck a fresh creep tumor here or there so that you can rapidly replace creep tumors that get killed off.
2. When you have decent creep spread already, consider having a queen running around placing fresh tumors in the middle of your creep spread instead of just at the edges.
3. When you are mid/late game and you have queens sitting at your hatcheries with lots of energy (from inefficient injects, which seem to always happen later on), consider using those queens to do what the queen in suggestion #2 would do. (note that you may want the energy for transfuses, so don't just do it indiscriminately)
4. Crush puny terrans.
+ Show Spoiler +I learned long ago that you need to clarify some of these more nuanced things multiple times on TL. Thanks to the few people who have posted correctly clarifying what I was going for.
I am not saying that this type of creep spreading should replace the creep spreading as we know it. There is no doubt that spreading your creep outwards quickly is hugely important - more important than the advantages that this approach provides.
However, there are circumstances where you can do both, or when this is more advantageous. For instance:
1) What if you already have enough tumors pushing down each lane? You can use your current creep-spreading queen to plant a few fall-back tumors down.
2) What if you have already pushed your creep most or all of the way?
3) What if you have 8 queens because you just defended 2-port banshee?
4) What if you have a couple extra queens because you used them to defend hellions?
When you watch the pros spread creep, for example Idra all day today on his stream, they just grab any active creep tumors wherever they may be and move them towards the edge of the creep. They do this even when it provides no actual benefit, clumping their active creep tumors together on the edges. They do this even when leaving the creep tumor alone would create the superior effect I am describing, while also reducing their APM. This, to me, means that they simply haven't put a lot of in depth thought into it. I'm not blaming them, there are 1000 other things they need to learn, which are in all likelihood more important than this. But that doesn't mean that what they are doing is the best way to go about doing it.
Don't think of this as a replacement method for spreading creep. Think of it as another tool in the tool-box.
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On March 29 2012 05:48 Gnial wrote:
"more creep tumors pushing outwards = faster creep spread".
You answered your own question there, why would you sacrifice creep spread now to compensate for being lazy (not bringing a queen down to replace that creep) later?
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But I believe that slows down the creep spread speed.
Gonna have to study it deeper to check if it is worth it.
Maybe you need the creep to spread faster so you have it closer to your opponent when the first push comes.. of course there is a point where the number of creep tumors increases the speed of the creep so much that you are at max distance before the CD is over, but I think that is achieved with over 5 tumors, not sure.
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The new tumours will just get killed alongside the used tumours when the opponent scans or uses observer, before they have accomplished as much as the used ones. It's important to replace your creep tumours once you've lost them, but keeping unused tumours around that will just get killed anyway is kind of a waste.
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On March 29 2012 05:59 NeonFox wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 05:48 Gnial wrote:
"more creep tumors pushing outwards = faster creep spread". You answered your own question there, why would you sacrifice creep spread now to compensate for being lazy (not bringing a queen down to replace that creep) later?
1. Creep-spreading queens have a habit of being the first to die. So you may not always have that spare queen.
2. This method replaces the creep faster.
3. You shouldn't ALWAYS sacrifice creep spreading speed for this. If you only have 2 tumors, you are probably best off spreading both of them. This is more for once you've built up a ton of creep tumors or queen energy for whatever reason (hellion harass, it being mid/late game, etc.) I just saw Idra spawning creep tumors just to follow his front-line creep tumors. They weren't doing anything but getting close to the front so that they would die in the same scan as all of his other active creep tumors. If he had thought critically about why he was doing it, I don't think he would have followed it that way. It is just something to think about now, so that you don't just blindly push outwards like so many pro zergs seem to do. That is why I titled it "philosophy" instead of build, or strategy, or whatever else. This is something that people do not even consider to be an option at all.
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Gnial? Inferior troll bashing the most proficient Zerg players using faulty reasoning. This is pretty hilarious for a number of reasons. One, let's assume you make an extra queen to spread creep. With your method, instead of expediting creep spread you'd lay extra tumors in the middle of creep that won't benefit from another tumor generating creep. You know what this creates? Inferior creep spread. When the Terran pushes out your creep won't be anywhere near as far as it could be with the "inferior" professional method. Two, the term you've failed to use is creep conservation. Wasting extra tumors that could be spreading creep only to theoretically replace destroyed tumors 5-10 minutes in the future isn't doing anything. So what are you going to do, waste 150 minerals on a *fourth* queen to waste tumors? Four queens can be a part of a good strategy but you aren't accomplishing anything this way. Three, the biggest point: waiting for the Terran player to run back so you have breathing room to plant a tumor from a queen versus a tumor that's already there would be a difference of what, five seconds? Plus when he scans he's going to be killing your active tumors as well, which means you'd need to be wasting a hell of a lot more fresh creep tumors to achieve what the professional "inferior creep" spreaders already do.
Please think a little bit more about your arguments before you bash the highest-level Zerg players. They do what they do for a reason, and if that doesn't make sense to you, think about it. Tl;dr: your method is actually inferior because you won't be spreading creep much at all!
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On March 29 2012 06:07 Areon wrote:
Gnial? Inferior troll bashing the most proficient Zerg players using faulty reasoning. This is pretty hilarious for a number of reasons. One, let's assume you make an extra queen to spread creep. With your method, instead of expediting creep spread you'd lay extra tumors in the middle of creep that won't benefit from another tumor generating creep. You know what this creates? Inferior creep spread. When the Terran pushes out your creep won't be anywhere near as far as it could be with the "inferior" professional method. Two, the term you've failed to use is creep conservation. Wasting extra tumors that could be spreading creep only to theoretically replace destroyed tumors 5-10 minutes in the future isn't doing anything. So what are you going to do, waste 150 minerals on a *fourth* queen to waste tumors? Four queens can be a part of a good strategy but you aren't accomplishing anything this way. Three, the biggest point: waiting for the Terran player to run back so you have breathing room to plant a tumor from a queen versus a tumor that's already there would be a difference of what, five seconds? Plus when he scans he's going to be killing your active tumors as well, which means you'd need to be wasting a hell of a lot more fresh creep tumors to achieve what the professional "inferior creep" spreaders already do.
Please think a little bit more about your arguments before you bash the highest-level Zerg players. They do what they do for a reason, and if that doesn't make sense to you, think about it. Tl;dr: your method is actually inferior because you won't be spreading creep much at all!
Once again, as I posted just a couple posts earlier, you shouldn't always spread like this. Take a moment to read it because I think you were typing this before I made that post.
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Master zerg here. This is actually really intelligent. Especially since these days people are getting more than just 2 queens vs terran or protoss. If i'm not mistaken someone awhile back did a test on creep spread and 2 in similar vicinities made it spread the fastest. So leaving an extra tumor here and there when you already have all this extra queen energy will save a lot of time. It's not hard to do, and if most of you zergs look at your replays, you probably have the energy to spare. -- Honestly everyone else is just hating on it to hate on it because that's what people do. Great little tip i think.
As far as high level zerg players doing it for a reason... Pros aren't Gods at starcraft yet, they don't know the reasons other than its the best they've thought of so far. However, that doesn't mean it's the best. With the rate creep spreads with the 2 tumors, the extra tumors you're having right there aren't doing anything anyways.
To kind of add to this, regardless of how fast you think you're spreading your creep, the point is that good players will easily kill the tumors. In ANY situation you're facing a good player, they will not just let you creep your way to every edge of the map. this method is allowing you to get still amazing creep spread without the necessary tumors right by the already capped speed of the spread.
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On March 29 2012 06:07 Areon wrote:
Gnial? Inferior troll bashing the most proficient Zerg players using faulty reasoning. This is pretty hilarious for a number of reasons. One, let's assume you make an extra queen to spread creep. With your method, instead of expediting creep spread you'd lay extra tumors in the middle of creep that won't benefit from another tumor generating creep. You know what this creates? Inferior creep spread. When the Terran pushes out your creep won't be anywhere near as far as it could be with the "inferior" professional method. Two, the term you've failed to use is creep conservation. Wasting extra tumors that could be spreading creep only to theoretically replace destroyed tumors 5-10 minutes in the future isn't doing anything. So what are you going to do, waste 150 minerals on a *fourth* queen to waste tumors? Four queens can be a part of a good strategy but you aren't accomplishing anything this way. Three, the biggest point: waiting for the Terran player to run back so you have breathing room to plant a tumor from a queen versus a tumor that's already there would be a difference of what, five seconds? Plus when he scans he's going to be killing your active tumors as well, which means you'd need to be wasting a hell of a lot more fresh creep tumors to achieve what the professional "inferior creep" spreaders already do.
Please think a little bit more about your arguments before you bash the highest-level Zerg players. They do what they do for a reason, and if that doesn't make sense to you, think about it. Tl;dr: your method is actually inferior because you won't be spreading creep much at all!
He's an "inferior troll" for questioning something that Zerg players all do without even thinking about it? When you see Idra placing 5 tumors in the exact same spot for NO reason other than using excess queen energy, then it makes perfect sense to not spawn all at once. Creep tumors have a cooldown on how often they can spawn, so it's not like having 5 in the same place is going to make your creep spread any faster. Having more than 2-3 near each other is just wasteful, and this method would make re-spreading creep much more efficient than it is now. And if you actually read his post and think about what it means, then you would realize he isn't suggesting getting an extra fourth queen, because most Zergs get an extra queen ANYWAY for creep spread. Seriously, think about what you're going to say before you just start insulting people.
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I don't see the benefit. If you have the extra energy to just sporadically put down tumors all over, then you must have at least one extra queen. When Terran pushes onto creep and eliminates your tumors they do one of three things:
1) Move back before they are overrun.
2) Establish position on creep till it is gone (or at least for a while).
3) Move on to your base.
In case of 1 the important thing is to stabilize the creep without supporting tumors. This can only be done quickly enough by getting a queen or two out there and putting down fresh tumors in the area where terran removed tumors.
In case of 2 there is nothing you can do about the creep they occupy, but if you have a spare queen you can just put down fresh tumors as close as possible to their entrenched position. This is where you want the fresh tumors to be, so rather than hope you have a spare or two in the vicinity, why not save 100 energy on a queen or two and put down 4-8 tumors right where you want them.
In case of 3 creep spread is usually not your first priority, but active tumors would not help you unless they only scan half the tumors they pass (in which case I guess burrowed queens would also be effective :D).
I just don't see the benefit. Saving the energy on a queen or spreading creep more aggressively seems much more useful.
Not to mention that at high levels creep is not just something you do when you get time, but a tool you use in specific ways. You may for instance need to connect bases before the opponent can come and snipe your new base, or you may need a very thick curtain of creep to slow the terran when doing a BL transition, or you may create a narrow creep highway for fast push (potentially with hydras). In all such cases aggressive creep spread is much better than easy reestablishment of creep.
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On March 29 2012 06:39 rasnj wrote:
I don't see the benefit..
You don't see the benefit of not only having capped speed on creep spread, but also having instantly replaced creep? Interesting. If a game is always over when a terran or toss approaches your creep then it's time to figure something out.
Terrans especially will scan just to remove creep before their push. In the instance they move back before they're overrun, is it better to have active creep tumors or all dead tumors? Having active tumors that wouldn't of done anything, if needlessly spread, but die anyways will help with replacing that without you having to either build another queen because it died, or walk it out there again to re spread creep .
Of course this isn't something where if you're being pushed heavily you think about respreading your creep, you focus on defending the push.
The thing most people aren't understanding, is if you have a dedicated tumor queen then you already are aggressively spreading creep all over the map. This in no way is going to hinder your creep spread if you're good at spreading creep.
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I think it's worth it having a few unused live tumours here and there in your creep to help you rescue creep as quickly as possible. You should be trying to get a queen out there as well to establish MORE live tumours on the creep, but having consistent creep spread is more scary than having fast creep spread.
It's all too common where a guy spreads creep like a madman, then it gets pushed back once and he never returns to his former creep glory.
If you're pushing 5 creep tumours in one direction, it doesn't hurt to have one of them lag behind as a backup tumour. You can even spread it every cycle, but not as far, or not always forward. By increasing the creep tumour density, you make it harder for him to clear creep with one scan and four marines.
For a while I tried out a cool 2 base 5 queen fast lair opening against protoss, and the creep spread was brutal. With three creep slaves (eventually going to new hatcheries as I made them) my creep was insane, and because I couldn't actually keep up with my own creep spread I always had tumours lagging behind and it was great being able to easily replace the lead tumours if it they got denied.
It is true that this may be "wasting" tumours.
But we are all wasting tumours anyway by not respawning them exactly on cooldown every time, and very few people do this perfectly.
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I definitely hate you for posting this  . I am a high masters terran and notice that creep spread usually isn't too terrible provided you don't let it get out of control in the first place because once you kill off the edge many zergs are slow about adding new tumors. With this method your initial creep spread might by a little slower but it will be there throughout the game rather than all die off after a couple pushes. I think a better way to illustrate what the OP is saying is this. Lets say you have 5 tumors in a row that you have not yet spread. Why not use 2, or 3 of those tumors instead of all of them to move the creep forward and have unused creep tumors farther back so that it is significantly easier to restart the creep spread.
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Being less lazy later in the game with queens is better, especially given that you will many times not really be injecting as much in the late game and you get more hatcheries and can't spend larva sometimes due to maxing out. A good terran will still kill these tumors as well and you need to replace it with a queen anyway.
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On March 29 2012 06:52 tx.zyclon wrote:You don't see the benefit of not only having capped speed on creep spread, but also having instantly replaced creep? Interesting. If a game is always over when a terran or toss approaches your creep then it's time to figure something out.
On most maps you should not put 15 tumors spreading at the same point, but spread over the boundary of your creep. If you have spread a little bit already you will not nearly be speed capped. More tumors may not increase the radius of my creep faster, but it will increase the total area faster.
I'm not saying the idea in this topic is worse than not restarting creep spread. Obviously you should restart creep spread. But I claim that a much more effective way to restart creep spread is to save up energy on queens (either intentionally or unintentionally by forgetting injects) and then putting down new tumors right after the old ones were cleaned up. I cannot see any circumstance where a waiting active tumor would be more useful than 25extra energy on a queen that can put down an active tumor right where you need it.
Terrans especially will scan just to remove creep before their push. In the instance they move back before they're overrun, is it better to have active creep tumors or all dead tumors? Having active tumors that wouldn't of done anything, if needlessly spread, but die anyways will help with replacing that without you having to either build another queen because it died, or walk it out there again to re spread creep .
If the terran uses one or two scans it will take you active tumors 6-7 cooldowns to cover the removed tumors. A much better use of the energy would be to just let it build up on the queen and then when terran does this preliminary sweep you take a queen with >75 energy and plant 3 tumors evenly distributed in the area terran just ran over (you will certainly have this energy if you refrained from putting down some tumors). This is a much more effective way to combat this tactic you mention by terrans. I concede not many zergs actually do it even at the top level, but it is just as easy a thing to do as remembering to plop down tumors throughout the game.
The thing most people aren't understanding, is if you have a dedicated tumor queen then you already are aggressively spreading creep all over the map. This in no way is going to hinder your creep spread if you're good at spreading creep.
But you need not do it extremely aggressively. Many people use their "tumor queen" by selecting it once in a while and just putting down tumors worth all the energy in one spot. This is obviously not ideal. Either spread them over the boundary of you creep or just save up some energy on your tumor queen. Then when terran comes you pull it back (it is on creep so you will usually save it*) and when terran moves back use the saved up energy to reclaim your creep.
* If you are afraid of losing 150 precious energy on your tumor queen just switch the tumor queen for an inject queen once 50 energy has built up you wish to save. Then your saved up energy is saved over multiple queens at different hatcheries and it is therefore easy not to get all you potential creep tumors picked of by 8 stimmed marines.
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What I usually sort of do, is just start by making 5 creep tumors with my poop queen as soon as hellions are gone, then I just sort of let them fan out. Then I just let the queen acumilate energy. When the creep tumors are destroyed I just lay new creep tumors where it is needed with my full energy queen.
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I think you guys took OP too seriously.
This is a good idea. It's not like you're giving up a massive amount of creep spread we're talking 1-2 tumors in the midgame I figure.
Also consider overlords spit creep momentarily for tumor, converging creep spread starts from both inside and outside of the base?
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The OP makes an interesting point, and sometimes it may actually be correct to leave a few tumors behind. However I would argue that the majority of time, it's better to spread outwardly as much as possible. The further your creep is spread across the map, the more scans it would take for a terran player to kill the tumors. I would argue when you have "excess" tumors, the correct play is to spread in all directions rather than planting 5 tumors going in one direction.
Think about it: If you spread your creep in all directions, and your opponent scans the most forward creep tumor(s), you will still have other tumors speading forward in different directions, which eventually can merge towards the area which has been scanned. Also, if you have an extra queen devoted to creep, replacing the forward tumors becomes easier.
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EPT
