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Watching many, many replays from years ago until now, I've realized there's vastly different ways that good players time their production and tech and so on. Originally, I started watching Tsunami reps and watched him almost always make his 2nd hatch in his main next to his first hatch. As a newb back in those days, I thought that anymore than 15-20 drones in your main was simply a waste, and the point of 2 hatcheries in your main was for a heavier ling-based strategy. After realizing that those speedlings I always made early on didnt help me at all against terrans who didnt pressure early, I thought there must be something wrong with the strategy, but I didnt understand how Tsunami used that strat and managed to still win so many games against good players.
Next, I tried fast expansion builds focusing mainly on mass drones because at the time, I had recently seen some Blackman replays. At first it seemed to work really well because I had double the gas income and I knew that zerg tech and gas based units were the real keys to stomping terran. This was generally a 3 hatch before gas build, and pretty soon afterwards I played some players who enlightened me on that strat's weaknesses too. Bunk rushing with scv support, Any kind of dual port wraith or fast tank drop on my ledge (mostly playing LT back then) would always cheese me or at least get me so far behind I couldn't mount any decent comeback.
Next I tried watching [NC]Yell0w replays since he was known to be the best zerg at the time. As much as I disliked the fact he always seemed to lose horribly to Boxer, there wasn't a zerg who seemed to put up any better of a fight against Boxer either. Yell0w struck me initially as a really greedy zerg too, but now that I know better, he's really not. Copied his 2 hatch muta build and started raping terran fast techers easily and then found the flaws in this: If the terrans or toss players played safely, and the mutas didn't do much initial damage, my 2 hatch production would prove highly inferior to a 3 hatch before gas build, therefore causing a loss in the mid-late game stages once terran/toss armies reached high numbers. 2 hatch muta rushing just barely would survive super fast tank rushes also, with my first several mutas hatching just around the time my last sunkens were being destroyed. If the rines and tank came extremely early I knew I'd always have the option of making 1-2 groups of speedling before muta and raping that easy, but the problem with that many lings is that it leaves you with a terribly low drone count to transition with into mid-game.
Apparently players like Blackman also realize the cons of mass ling in the earlier stages of ZvT and ZvP because his high drone count is a result of only building gas units with his gas and whenever he would switch techs or run low on gas, he'd simply power lots of drones and use the excess money for more expo's. After reaching 3-3 ling upgrades and getting cracks, suddenly lings can rape a lot harder.
I learned that if you delay getting your 2nd gas at your natural for a while, that would allow you to get your 3rd hatch up much faster. Even if you're preoccupied with ling pumping while the lair is being made, once the 3rd hatch comes online you can use it to help establish a decent amount of drones before having to make your lurks or mutas.
Fast forward to Savior's days of domination. I didn't believe his micro was nearly as refined as July's was, especially the muta harass and ling control. Savior didn't seem to have the massing skills of Blackman either. Did he have a nice combo of both decent micro/macro and they made up for each other? Or was there something missing? Upon closer observation of Savior's production timing I found that while taking his 3rd and 4th bases he would rally all 3 of his inital hatches to his expansions and pump drones from those. (Something I never did or stupidly enough, ever realized was possible)
So now I'm back to watching old school zerg replays like Tsunami, and I noticed Tsunami did the exact same thing, albeit not as refined as Savior, but still almost the same thing. Also, just because he made his 2nd hatchery in his main didnt mean he HAD to use it for lings. One can merely pump drones from a single base while making a single hatch at 2-3 more bases, then maynard your drones to all of those bases and suddenly go from a seemingly piss-poor production to an overwhelming expansion count.
I hope I didn't bore you to death, but zerg's production was/has always been a mystery to me and now I think anyone who reads this that has always had the same problems as I will be much more enlightened. Thoughts?
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As long as your opponent sits on his ramp massing/teching/upgrading, no amount of early lings are going to hurt him. I feel it's a good idea to pump drones and macro hard as long as you can until he finally gets some balls and decides to attack. Upon scouting this, you could merely switch all hatches to unit production and hopefully have enough units to swarm his men with and own. (Assuming you didn't get too greedy and anticipated his attack timing half decently.)
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Vatican City State1872 Posts
so the key to being a good zerg player is rallying drones to your expansions?
no wonder I fail epicly at zerg.
I did enjoy reading all of that but I don't understand your point really.
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I didn't really have a point, but anyone who reads that who has asked themselves similar questions might be able to share some insight to this thread. Surprisingly, many of the people who've asked me to teach them how to improve had no idea to rally drones to new expansions, with the exception of from your main to your natural, of course because most people know that obviously, but weird how it never struck me to do it later on in the game, even to extremely far away expos.
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On January 26 2008 02:18 CrownRoyal wrote:
I did enjoy reading all of that but I don't understand your point really.
Me neither. Sounds like he's just saying if Terran does this then I do this but then it'll be bad for this but then I could do this and then Terran would do that but then that would pwn this, etc.
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hmm maybe a bit off topic but I almost always have a set amount of drones per expo like 10 on each base + 3 on gas = 26/27 early game supply. Am I missing out on minerals like that?
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yeah this is like really basic drone management
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So in summary, 3 hatch = more economy than 2 hatch, although slower in tech, and hatcheries can produce units for other bases, namely drones?
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Calgary25990 Posts
This should be in Brood War. It's like graceful rambling.
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On January 26 2008 03:04 nullmind wrote:
hmm maybe a bit off topic but I almost always have a set amount of drones per expo like 10 on each base + 3 on gas = 26/27 early game supply. Am I missing out on minerals like that?
How could you have a set amount of drones for a base when you don't know for sure if you're suddenly going to need to plop down 5-6 sunkens in anticipation of a large assault on that paticular base?
Not just sunkens, mind you...but tech buildings, more hatches, etc.
It is as simple as re-building those drones as you use them?
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On January 26 2008 03:56 BruceLee6783 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2008 03:04 nullmind wrote:
hmm maybe a bit off topic but I almost always have a set amount of drones per expo like 10 on each base + 3 on gas = 26/27 early game supply. Am I missing out on minerals like that? How could you have a set amount of drones for a base when you don't know for sure if you're suddenly going to need to plop down 5-6 sunkens in anticipation of a large assault on that paticular base? Not just sunkens, mind you...but tech buildings, more hatches, etc. It is as simple as re-building those drones as you use them?
My view is that you can never have too many drones. Err on the side of having too many if anything, because you'll always want to build more buildings.
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in summary he said strat counters lol
like Zealot > siege tank but in strat wise
next thread hes gonna make is gonna be like
i realized there were disadvantages to this strat too like
aggressive players and harrasement
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On January 26 2008 05:19 PtossRemix wrote:
in summary he said strat counters lol
like Zealot > siege tank but in strat wise
next thread hes gonna make is gonna be like
i realized there were disadvantages to this strat too like
aggressive players and harrasement
Actually he performed a half-decent analysis of basic drone production and distribution, I don't see you contributing.
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Making an army and not getting a chance to use it right away is a waste.
Those larvae could have been used on drones instead. In one example I could say
that your first 4-6 lurks in an opening strat arent really wasted, as are your first 7-12
mutas in muta harassment. Can anyone else come up with some more examples?
I used to think 2 groups of speedling after pool was a necessary strat since a lot of replays
featured this opener. Obviously this isn't so.
What else can you think of?
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On January 29 2008 07:20 BruceLee6783 wrote:
Making an army and not getting a chance to use it right away is a waste.
Those larvae could have been used on drones instead. In one example I could say
that your first 4-6 lurks in an opening strat arent really wasted, as are your first 7-12
mutas in muta harassment. Can anyone else come up with some more examples?
I used to think 2 groups of speedling after pool was a necessary strat since a lot of replays
featured this opener. Obviously this isn't so.
What else can you think of?
map control
are you only talking about zvt?
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Korea (South)17174 Posts
thats some fucking high level thinking man
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So drone production is key to high level zerg play?
I guess secrets like these are why progamers don't release reps.
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
On January 29 2008 08:27 Rekrul wrote:
thats some fucking high level thinking man
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EPT
