[GD] Creep: An Organised Method

1. Moving the camera to a screen with active creep tumors, preferably also with where you want the creep tumors to go on the next spawn.
2. Selecting the active creep tumors.
3. Selecting and targeting the ability to spawn creep tumors.
4. Repeating for each non-contiguous(separate) set of creep tumors.

Optimising each of these 4 steps should result in the theoretical best creep spread method.

Look at the creep spread cycle in the previous section. Notice that the more active creep tumors you have, the more selecting and targeting you have to do in your creep spread cycle, The more sets of creep tumors, the more camera shifting. There is no escaping this. If you want more creep tumors, you need more work.

However, great creep spread is NOT about how many tumors you have. It is about spreading your tumors in the right directions and spreading often. This is KEY. What we want to do, therefore, is minimise the number of active creep tumors we need to maintain, while achieving our objectives in spreading creep.

In addition, once a creep tumor doesn't have a useful place to advance, don't spawn a new creep tumor just because you can. It is a costly action. Instead, remove that tumor from your creep spread cycle. If you want to thicken key zones or strengthen your creep paths, then read below.

Once you have enough sets of creep tumors, one set for each intended path, don't lay down more creep tumors at the edge of your creep. the new tumors may confuse you and you may end up "tempted to spread" them ,which is a waste of actions. better to lay tumors behind the active ones, so you have active creep tumors ready if the front ones get picked off.

Creep spread can do several things.
1. Spot enemy ground movements.
2. Spot enemy air movements(place tumors at the edges of the outside paths, you can spot nearly everything on most maps, except for high ground)
3. Allow spine/spore placement
4. Deny pylon/cc/nexus placement.
5. Speed boost for zerg ground units

Of these 5 things, the most expensive to do is number 2, as we need creep spread along the edges of outside paths, which means we need extra creep tumors. The other 4 things can be attained by creep spread along creep paths.

When I first started spreading creep as a little baby, all I wanted to do was make as many creep tumors as my queens could, and then fan them out as best as I could in all directions radiating from my base.

There is a better way. Simply see the map in terms of distinct paths(I'm sure most good players already do this), and spread creep along the middle of those paths. The creep generation radius of 10 allows you to usually cover the whole(or nearly the whole) path with creep, and block any cc/nexus on mineral patches in that path.

Every creep path must have an end. Once your creep tumors assigned to that path have reached that end, STOP and remove those creep tumors from your creep spread cycle.

Being familiar with your creep paths and where every creep tumor will eventually end up and stop reproducing is KEY to COMPREHENSIVE creep spread.

This is key in reducing the number of active creep tumors we want to maintain: Spread creep tumors in the middle of paths and stop spreading creep tumors at the end of their paths.

FYI: You can think of creep paths as tentacles of a zerg tentacle monster extending out to rape your enemy, if that helps.

Most maps have 5-8 creep paths, IF you want to creep the whole map. Which means that if you want to creep the whole map with two creep tumors per path, you will be maintaining 10-16 active tumors in your creep spread cycle.

It may not be your goal to creep the whole map. Maybe you just want 1 creep path to start off. Maybe you want 2, 3 or 4. The number doesn't matter. The important thing is to make sure you know how many creep paths you want, how they will travel and where they will end. It helps to mentally familiarise with your intended creep paths for every map in your pool. You don't want to be thinking about this stuff when terran is dropping you in 3 places and protoss is all-inning you.

Sample for creep path plan for creeping (nearly) whole map









[Alternative]
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Is it better to have your creep tumors further from each other or nearer each other in the middle of the path? My answer is nearer each other. Right next to each other is best.

The advantages are:
1. It is easier to see the furthest distance that both tumors can travel.
2. It is easier to spawn new creep tumors from them.
3. It is easier to select them by dragging(or by shift-clicking) without selecting other units.

The disadvantage of being slightly easier to kill is a small one.

When placing your initial creep tumors with queens, you should generally place them one tile apart, because queens are fat and if you try to poop two tumors next to each other you will often get an error and end up with only one creep tumor. When spawning new tumors, place them right next to each other.

1 is too few. At creep spawn cooldown you can only spread around 3-6 distance.
IMO, 2 is good. At creep spawn cooldown you can spread around 6-9 distance.
Having more creep tumors per path will allow you to spread further, faster, but it means you have to maintain more creep tumors.

Thick is the word I use to describe an area of creep dense with creep tumors. Thin creep is the opposite, it has sparse and few creep tumors.

Thick creep is harder to remove, as your enemy needs to kill more tumors. However, it is more costly to generate. Thin creep is easier to remove, but is easier to generate.

Oftentimes, you will see zergs will lots and lots of creep tumors spreading out in all directions. It looks impressive, but it is usually not worth the cost. A set of 4 active tumors is not that much more difficult to remove than a set of 2 active tumors. The zerg could probably extend the creep further or in more directions if he was maintaining fewer active tumors.

If the creep spread is thick but haphazard, it will also not end up covering the whole map(which is our goal in this guide).

Sometimes though, you will want to strengthen your creep paths. The better way to do this(instead of thickening them) is to use your queens to poop pairs of creep tumors along the length of key creep paths that you want to strengthen. That way, if your enemy kills the creep tumors in front, you can regenerate your creep/tentacles easily and quickly.

There are often areas in a map which are highly beneficial to control. These include convergence areas of multiple paths and areas in between bases. It may be beneficial to swarm these areas with creep tumors to make the creep difficult to remove. The creep tumors(when detected) may also mess with enemy A.I. in battles.

To thicken these key zones with creep, have your creep queens poop lots of active creep tumors there, and then use the creep spread trick to continually make the area more and more dense with creep tumors. You can do this until every tile has a creep tumor.

[Creep spread trick]
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Another incredibly common source of inefficiency in creep spread is a random order of spreading creep. Players will sometimes spread creep wherever their camera happens to be located at the time, or spread in certain directions because they are nearer, and then move to other directions after that.

To see why this is incredibly inefficient, think about a player doing inefficient larva injecting. He takes 1 second between each inject. He always inject in a certain order, main-natural-third. If he went main-natural-third the first time, and then went third-natural-main the second time, you need to wait extra 2 seconds of time to get started with the third, while the main is already waiting to inject for 2 seconds.

It is the same with creep spread. Doing it in a fixed order optimises the cooldowns for all your active creep tumors. Personally, I ALWAYS spread creep clockwise. This allows me to be clear about my order regardless of map or starting location.

When placing new tumors via queens, you should also include them in your fixed order. Personally, my creep tumor pairs start in the earliest clockwise position, then I place new creep tumors as part of the creep spread cycle in a clockwise direction. The creep tumors will then sync as a cycle.

Another option for the order is to spread creep at the center paths first(which are more important to creep), then clockwise, then jump to the other side and continue clockwise till you reach the center.

Often, players think to themselves, my macro isn't good. I can hardly keep up good injects, I shouldn't prioritise creep spread. However, I think that creep spread should be a high priority at the start of the game while there are fewer things to do.

Games become more and more taxing as players get more bases and more resources. There are more attacks, and more decisions to be made. Before this happens, you should try to spread as much creep as possible, especially on the side paths, because the creep stays there and helps you in the midgame/lategame even if you don't spread it any further! It stays there until the opponent moves units over there, detects it and kills the tumor.

1. Being familiar with your creep paths and knowing where each creep tumor pair will stop reproducing is KEY to comprehensive creep spread.
2. Spread creep in a fixed order/direction.
3. The fewer active creep tumors you spread in your creep cycle while maintaining your objectives, the better.
4. Placing creep tumors right next to each other if they are along the same path will allow you to spawn new tumors more easily.
5. 2 creep tumors per path is a good number.
6. Strengthening creep paths is better than thickening them.
7. Stop spreading creep tumors once they reach the end of their path.

Setup:
Designate one camera location hotkey for creep spread. You may want this to be close to your base camera locations(I have F1-F3 for main-third and F4 as my creep spread location).
Designate a convenient hotkey for "Setting" your creep spread camera location.(I use shift+g for Set Camera Location 4)
Set your "Choose A.I. or Ability Target" hotkey to be the same as your spawn creep tumor hotkey.

Method:

1. Have your queens poop your creep tumors in pairs which are 1 tile in between the two tumors. Mentally assign each creep tumor pair to a creep path and mentally decide its final destination.

2. Set that screen to your creep spread camera location.

3. Check the creep spread camera location often. The trigger you are looking for is ~70% creep spread from that creep tumor pair. That's when the cooldown is probably ready.

4. Box the creep tumor pair, go to the creep edge, and press your spawn creep tumor hotkey 4-6 times very quickly to replicate your creep tumor pair. (Note that there are no mouse clicks) You should have your 2 creep tumors one behind the other, rather than beside each other. This highly reduces the chance of the one of the tumors being out of range of your target.

5. Push your camera forwards until you can see your new creep tumors and also their next spawn location, then set that as your creep spread camera location.

6. Push your camera(or drag scroll) clockwise to your next creep tumor pair, box, replicate, then repeat this step for each of your active creep tumors.

7. Have your queens poop a creep tumor pair as part of your fixed order of creep spread, then shift click the queens back so you can box the creep tumors easily later.

Method(actions and keystrokes)
F4, Box, dddd, push camera, shift+g
push camera, box, dddd,
push camera, box, dddd,
push camera, box, dddd,
push camera, box, dddd,
push camera, box, dddd.

Note: d is my hotkey for spawn new creep tumor and choose ability target, shift+g is my set screen location 4, F4 is go to screen location 4.

Using an advanced keyboard layout with easy access to spare control groups and turning on game alerts, ctrl+click the "Creep tumors produced" game alert when it appears and control group them. Control group each separate set of creep tumors this way. Use the control groups to check cooldown, move to the right camera location, and select the tumors at the same time.

The rule for creep tumor spawning is that the new tumor must be on creep and within 10 range.
The rule for creep spreading from a creep tumor is that the creep can spread up and down ramps but not up and down cliffs.
To spread creep up and down cliffs, use an overlord to poop creep past the cliff, then your creep tumor can replicate there.

To go up a ramp without vision using a creep tumor pair, have A put the creep tumor on the ramp to see the top of the ramp, then have B go up the ramp, cancel A and place A beside B. This costs some time and attention so do it if you can spare some.