EPT***Look for Mora's Thoughts on this BO (A Must Read!)***
Well i would like to start off by saying that, no i am not pro- in fact i consider myself to be just a bit above deplorable when it comes to playing SC. (For all you icup kids my highest rank was a C ok?) I am writing this guide because for 2 weeks now, i have gone with ought a game of SC because of computer problems. I am writing this guide to A. Facilitate my addiction to SC because lately i have not been getting my daily dose; and B. Because i was working on these two little ditties before my computer blew up, and candidly I'm exited to think what the community has to say about my little experiments.
To start; I guess I will let fly with my crazy TVZ strat which, strangely enough might be a rape counter to the "fantasy" build everyone seems to be so curious about. Basically before i begin my BO and break it down, i would like to try and theory craft my strategy out to you so you don't have to waste all of your life reading the ramblings of me.
(Disclaimer I make many bold and insane statements, please read them- and don't flame me or my IQ instead please try and constructively use the flame throwers.)
My idea is simple; the begging of my theory crafting began about 1 month ago in a hot-tub; i digress. I was talking to my good friend and terran player over a few drinks, and i began talking to him about standard TVZ play, and why IMO it needed a rework from the old Muta- to lurks type that is ohh so common nowadays. I had been watching videos of tvz at that time, and i hated mid-game TVZ. Basically your T has their group of M&M and a few tanks with a vessel or two (plus or minus the few you can scourge) Needless to say, i saw a huge problem. Zerg sucked; no defilers are out yet- and frankly IMO engaging a T army is a good way to suicide your units. I wanted to find away around this little problem in tactics. Now we all know that defilers destroy T, the only problem is getting defilers out in time to save your expos and hopefully your army.
But what if zerg changed the whole mentality of mid-game TVZ? What if zerg could and WOULD like to attack and trade armies with T? zerg's unit rebuild rate is far greater than that of any other- so why not try and use this advantage to a greater means? My (possibly retarded) idea was slowly taking shape in my mind. Sauron zerg? no no i had thought- far to weak m&m > Hydra and ling however, i wasn't satisfied with this conclusion and had to try a few experiments.
I began thinking of the problems with lurk ling engaging m&m. IMO i came to the following conclusions: (you could almost state these as proofs*Note when i say proofs i am describing them to my level of play and experience, please point out if blatantly incorrect*)
1. Zerg units are faster than Terran (minus the vulture) However army wise i give overall ground mobility to zerg.
2. Terran units are strong in static defensive positions, excel in one front battles- and are weak when they become separated from the ball, and become less effective the more "fronts" the ball is faced with.
3. Zerg armies are massive, and preferably it is good logic to have increased surface area on your target of choice. In order to do this, flanks and pincer attacks are a great way to increase your armies surface area. In order to do so, having fast moving units would make these maneuvers far easier and more effective.
4. Lurkers take a while to build and are rather expensive (100-125 total) While they do shred marines like butter they have a few (IMO MAJOR) flaws that needed to be addressed. Now normally it is commonplace to always try and engage the T army when your lurkers are in place (in defensive positions) I had always thought that doing so would make your army more cost effective and worth wile, than the alternative- attacking T. Lurkers are slow, and cannot do any damage until burrowed. When finally burrowed most (if not all) of your lings are dead- and your lurks are now out of range, because the terran simply moved back.
While I'm not trying to make the argument that one cannot flank with lurks, and be successful- i am trying to say that with vessels, T's vision range is quite large. If your flank is spotted everything is all for naught. The only thing you have accomplished is buying your self more time for those precious defilers.
5. Queens (plz don't write me off as a noob because i just used the Q word, i do realize what connotation the q word brings to a discussion.) Normally thought of as an expensive waste of gas. Which i happen to agree with (if your playing standard TVZ) However look at them from this point of view. Queens are only useful IMO for ensnare. Ensnare is BEASTLY and when ensnared terrans already slow army just got slower.
Ensnared terrans army becomes ripe for Pincers, flanks and many pronged attacks. However, just one problem. Queens cost gas, precious gas that normally zergs cannot spare.
6. This brings me to my final point of my basis for the construction of my TVZ strat. Gas, and how it effects zergs gameplay and frame of mind in TVZ.
Gas is all important. 2 gas zerg is not going to last long in any TVZ once mid-game comes around. The third gas is all important to help sustain your gas heavy lurks, upgrades, and your muta harass. So i began thinking, is there anyway a zerg player could either use gas in a different frame of mind or simply find a way to use less and still get by in mid-game TVZ? (with-ought gosu micro?) with this task set before me i set to work on how to play a pseudo-standard Z vs a standard T game and come out on top.
My first hurtle to overcome was the fact that in my mind m&m > Hydra ling. I had always found that Hydra Ling was not cost effective to m&m. So how can i try and find away around this problem? So i came up with three solutions.
1. Upgrades
2. Production
3. Ensnare
First and foremost- to try and stand a fighting chance against standard one or two rax T play into standard mid-game T army with pure ling hydra and a few queens.
So I guess im going to try and begin the build order and try to explain what i am trying to do at each step of the way in the most logical thought process i can muster.
This build requires economy, and i have found through the dozen or so games i have played using this strat that good macro and economy is key.
(NO I'm not going to explain every little *build one ling here, make sunken now*, type of BS. This BO is a work in progress and frankly anyone that is going to be able to understand this whole concept shouldn't need a whole page of rhetoric on how to handle early game zvt.)
12hatch
11pool
13hatch
16hatch
Now the reason that i add the fourth hatchery in there is because of the production that this strat requires in the mid-game. Now this looks almost like a ZVP build and i guess it can somewhat be traced to this type of game philosophy in the roots of my play.
18gas
When gas pops through down an evo chamber.
(+1 missle attacks to start)
*Just to get it out of the way the gas list
-1st 100 goes to +1 Missle
-next 100 goes to lair
-next 50 hydra den
-next 100 ling speed
-next 150 hydra range
*End gas list for now
I normally will start my second gas nearly at the same time as if i was playing 3 hatch muta.
Now it is imperative to keep in mind the fact that drone whoring here is key. You want to try to keep those little buggers coming for as long as possible.
So now we have our T friend. Hopefully you killed the scout before it spotted your extra 4th hatch, needless to say he/she should think that you are playing standard, and will play standard accordingly. Now the first threat to zerg is T's first "baby" push with a half or a control group of rines with medics. Normally zerg would sunk up and give map control up while continuing to drone whore, and wait for muta.
With my build (and mindset) i try to relinquish map control for the shortest amount of time possible. When T comes with his little excursion force (mostly used to FORCE zerg to build sunks) Which wastes drones, mining time and money- for a static defense. In my perfect world and preferably in my strategy you should counter this attack with your lings. This won't be such a detriment to your economy because of your extra hatch and you should be able to comfortably be able to continue making drones while throwing a larve here and there for zerglings/hydra to repel this first attack.
*Back to Gas List*
Once Lair Pops- throw down a Queens nest. You WILL need it for Midgame T
After Hydra Range is finished, start speed.
Once +1 Missle finishes Start +1 carapace
Queen nest pops- start ensnare asap
Get a Queen goddamit
-2nd evo sometime in here (sorry i don't know the exact timing- basically it should be at a time before your q-nest compleats but never after queen)
*End Gas List*
At this point in your game you should have
-4 hatch
-2 gass
-2evo
- As many freaking drones as you could possibly get
- A plethora of ling and hydra
-1 Queen With Ensnare
*take your 3rd whenever you can/feel comfortable*
Once your 3rd is secure and you are harvesting gass, take a fourth (i like min only) expos.
^^^^^Basically at this point in the game, your ground army should be able to match toe to toe with his, any extra money that you have- save for more hatcheries. (play the adding hatcheries like you would in a ZVP)
Ok so back to our little T friend. Because he has maphack and will scan the shit out of your base, he will know exacly what you are doing. (unless you hide your shit at your 4th hatch and you are lucky enough for him not to scan it.) Lets assume the worse and say that indeed he has scanned your base. He should see a den, evo and you morphing your lair. He is thinking three things.
1. 3 hatch lurks (get a fast tank and try to contain zerg)
2. That crazy fast ultra build ohhh noes! (idk they might think this if they are as dumb as me)
3. Slow drops
So now i will try and lay what (mostly i encountered when playing standard T and doing the above strat.) First and foremost i found that i could mass up quite a large number of drones before having to really start switching into mass army mode. I found that because of the freedom i have now playing this build (instead of standard 3 hatch) is the fact that i don't have to try and time 9 muta. Instead i can spend my money on more drones and get 7-8 more drones mining minerals (if not more) and begin to really "Form" a substantial
ground army that can go toe to toe with an late early game/ early mid game T army.
Because of this radical change in the spending of zergs money- i now have a fairly sizable ground force, and i can take the fight to Terran. Im not harassing im attacking at this point. Now In (i would say about 50-60%) of my games i played against FE T I could attack his natural, and not only do damage to his economy- but i could cut his army down to a fraction of the size. Now i have just traded armies with T. But the catch is, i can rebuild my army faster- and have taken 1-2 more expos in this time.
In the off chance that i couldn't attack and semi-crack his natural expansion, the game turned into your typical Standard T mid-game army moving out vs my Ling, Hydra and 1-2 Queens. I have one thing to say: Ensnare on the terran ball does wonders. Upgraded ling and hydra speed lets you run circles around T It's almost funny. However, with-ought Ensnare, you can get screwed fast if your economy is sub par to his.
Because zerg is forgoing the muta harass in this build, and doesn't build a spire till mid-late or late game, terran is going to have a more substantial army and be more keen to move out earlier, and when you are playing this build it is important for you to be aware of this- and be prepared. Once you can crush their army, your production rate should be higher and skyrocketing higher and higher the longer T lets the game go on. Mass hatch and Mass expos are indeed thrilling, if you can crush thier first (early because of lack of muta harass push)
Your transition into late game should mirror what is standard play in zvt. Your still trying to go and get your defilers up ASAP followed with the inevitable ultra den. Ensnared marines cannot run from swarm. Because most of your gas (from 3 gas) is just used for hydra, and the odd queen or two your gas reserves should be fine to support hive play.
I have tried to outline for you my interestingly retarded idea on TVZ and how I think that the mindset surrounding zvt should be looked at from another point of view. To recap:
I believe that instead of harassing terran with muta, while simultaneously grabbing your 3rd expo and trying to maintain map control with a handful of fragile units could be replaced with a different and possibly just as successful alternative of meeting the terran army toe to toe and beating the shit out of them. The reason that i believe that my strategy is superior to the 3 hatch lurker build is because of the fact that IMO 3 hatch lurker makes you vulnerable to contain, and gives up map control far to easily. My build attempts to counter this map control problem by using zerg units that are cheap, quick to produce and are low tier units. Mixed with the odd queen or so these low tier ground units can out maneuver and overwhelm a terran force far more efficiently then 6-7 lurkers with some lings.
Because i feel that i am going to lose all of credibility as a player/person/human being with the above post, im also going to give my take on zvp in a very condensed form. I am writing this condensed zvp on (zerg on crack) because I'm tired, and don't wont to go to crazy if none of my ideas are going to be received well.
**New content- Mora's Thoughts!**
Mora's ideas about scouting- and how imperative it is that you have precise scouting through the mid-late game. if you want to be successful with this build.
******Mora's Thought's Corner******
+ Show Spoiler +
On October 31 2008 18:00 Mora wrote:
i just watched the game. my thoughts:
This wasn't the strategy discussed on here at all. This was 2base fast hive tech. We can discuss the merits of such a strategy in a different thread. In the meantime i am going to imagine accurate situations relative to the general pacing of this game and cocain zerg.
what the terran should have done differently:
Based on the pacing of the game, the following thoughts were provoked.
The nucleus of the strategy resides on responding to Terran movements and Terran production - or, in practical terms: precise scouting.
The rest is up to you!
i just watched the game. my thoughts:
This wasn't the strategy discussed on here at all. This was 2base fast hive tech. We can discuss the merits of such a strategy in a different thread. In the meantime i am going to imagine accurate situations relative to the general pacing of this game and cocain zerg.
what the terran should have done differently:
- The terran made tons of turrets when there were no muta coming. That money could have been spent on making his mid-early game army bigger.
- If you're not going muta, the terran should contain you as soon as possible with his initial group of marines while scouting for an expo. Once he finds expo he should take his containing army and attack it.
- I do think it is possible to produce an army during this time period in order to save your expo - but this puts your drone production on hold; in the meantime the Terran economy is still escalating. This is the most crucial part of the build (and what i believe to be the absolute most difficult part of the build: you must switch between economy and army production at the exact right times. Any error on this front will either lose you the game or put you significantly behind an opponent who has equal macro.
Based on the pacing of the game, the following thoughts were provoked.
The nucleus of the strategy resides on responding to Terran movements and Terran production - or, in practical terms: precise scouting.
- The Early Game
- Scouting
- with overlords (including sacrificing them to do so) as required.
- Perhaps getting burrow to allow lings to sit in key locations before vessels are out
- Using lings to constantly monitor the size of his mobile force - The Zerg needs to entice the Terran out of his base as early as possible. You want to keep his army count down as much as possible - which means luring him out when you're army can beat it.
- The zerg may do this by expoing agressively. The timing of when you build your army to defend your agressive expoing is crucial which you depend on scouting to indicate.
- The zerg may want to show hydra tech to entice the Terran to try to contain. By getting lings out before his contain moves into place, and again massing at the right time (as soon as he starts moving) you can pincer his attack in your choke point.
- The zerg may - though risky - mass units early game and feign an attack on the terran losing a control group-ish amount of lings and retreating. If he takes the bait you slay his army. If he doesn't take the bait you've taken a major econ hit.
- "Defenseless overlords" - by placing an overlord in his choke as bait, and a 2nd overlord within sight range of that overlord, he may try to kill both the defenseless ovies. If he goes for the second overlord, he's lost his army. This obviously suffers the same problem as above - if he doesn't take the bait, and you've produced an army that can kill him if he does, you're behind in econ.
The Mid Game - Assuming that you've played the early-mid game correctly the terran has been bitten at least once, and should be a little wary to move out.
- He should be nearly done solidifying his first Ball, and is getting ready to move out. Alternatively, your econ should be up and kicking and you're now focusing on massing an army.
- This is when your queens will come into play (so you better have some). The second he moves out you ensnare him and wait for him to either a) move out of position and you rape his ass (again), or b) remain passive and attempt to secure an expansion
- You won't be able to stop him from taking a close expansion (unless of course he moves out of position to do so - which was option a from the point above.) That's fine though - you're expanding and teching. - Your scouting is no less important at this stage in the game. The best counter to a contain is to be agressive without having to go through it: dropships. Your lack of scourge requires your overlords to be in well placed positions around the map, and for zerglings to be patrolling on popular air-routes.
- If you've been successful thus far, the Terran is reluctant to move out until he feels confident that the quantity of his units makes up for their lack of mobillity. The whole point of this stage of the game is to stall for hive tech.
- Somewhere inbetween Mid and Late game you will want to start integrating drops. These will help hurt his macro and keep him on tilt. If you take out a few structures or force him to retreat with part of his army, he may become restless with his Ball and want to counter attack moving himself foolishly out of position. Remember to use your queens to ensnare the incoming base-liberators for extra psychological effect!
The Late Game - The strongest part of this strat is the late game. You've controlled the map which has allowed you to obtain many expansions. You're tech is at the highest tier and just needs fleshing out where needed. Your macro has been in full force for quite some time, and if you've managed to survive this long then you've bared your teeth and bitten him on a few occasions.
- You should have defilers out and in position to use dark swarm as needed. Plague should be researching.
- You'll want to grab lurker tech for easy defense. You'll want to throw down a spire for scourge. You'll want to be throwing down an ultra den (the bigger your advantage in economy, the sooner you should have ultras. if your economy is not significantly ahead, defilers are much more integral to your arseanl. Do not forgo defilers/plague in lieu of ultras.
- Don't forget your queens. Even if you're spending your mana on MASS parasiting to keep your scouting up (and him busy curing it) or saving your mana on your 12 queens to broodling-massacre his tanks, your queens are an awesome boon in any battle.
The rest is up to you!
REPLAYS WILL BE PROVIDED WHEN MY COMPUTER COMES BACK (IF ANYONE ASKS/CARES/WANTS TO SEE MY INSANITY)
Condensed Zerg on crack vs P BO (works great vs FE ok vs 2 Gate but sux against 1 gate tech)
GOGOGOG misrah's choguling make you look like a min hacker BO vs P
12hatch
11pool
13hatch
16hatch
18gass (please note that throughout this build you should be drone whoring constantly. Build just enough ling/sunk to survive while also keeping in mind that ANY AND ALL EXTRA MINERALS SHOULD GO INTO MAKING HATCHERIES) I want your base to look like a min hacker just got his hands on it lol
Once gas pops put up an evo
first 150 gas get +1 Carapace
-As soon as you get +1 started through down another Evo ASAP
next 100 get +1 attack
-next 100 get lair
-next 100 Ling speed
-right when lair pops grab your 2nd gas
-Start Spire asap
-next 150 get lord speed
(Begin mass production of lings, You will not stop producing these things ever. you want to have a river flowing at all times in you mini-map *which requires a shit ton of hatcheries and minerals* don't take a gas expo- you don't need to the gas (Yet)
-when lord speed is 50% complete get your queens nest
(Now depending on the Protoss, get scurge to kill sair- and check to make sure if P is got his Robo going, if that is happining get +1 Flyer crapace as well)
Get Hive when Q nest completes Stop mining from second Gas
**** Important when +1 Carapace and attack completes get +2 for both, and the +3 ok?**
Once hive compleats- build overlord drop, and Adrenal glands. Then when you feel the time is right slowly transition to super early fully upgraded ultra to compliment your pure ling army. Because frankly at this point, your going to start to need those ultra if P has more than 3 gass (archons suck in big numbers)
Basically this strat, as crazy as it sounds- pure ling. Has served me well in the past (the past being 2 weeks ago- when my computer still worked) I love this strat because, well what can i say; There is no more satisfying feeling than keeping P pushed inside of their base because of a river of highly upgraded zerglings constantly knocking at their door. They can't leave, and because of the insane mobility of your lings- you can surround, and be everywhere on the map. Once lord speed finishes you can also begin constantly dropping lings inside of their base, or expos- or if they were a pussy and grabbed the island base, begin doom dropping it. I figure that the zergling deals the most damage of any unit in the game (per second) (besides a nuke) why not use them to full potential? Storm may kill a shit ton, and so may archons. But the whole idea is- you can make more.
If you got through this whole (me being semi-intoxicated fresh out of the hot-tub) puke onto paper of a guide a give you kudos and cannot wait to hear your scathing, and hopefully cheery comments.
