[Mox]

Hi all!

I haven't posted here in a while, or played SC2 in a while (disgraceful i know) and recently started playing again and have fallen back in love with the game. I had been playing Terran prior to my little vacation away from the game, and upon my return decided to return to my roots of playing Zerg. I found that suprisingly I could survive in Gold league pretty well (i was gold when I left playing Terran).

After 10 or so games on ladder, other than just plain bad mistakes (which i attributed to not playing in a while i.e. forgetting speed for lings in a ZvZ -.-) i noticed that i tended to have difficulty managing my resources.

I watch the pro Zergs play, people like PiG and Mafia and their resources are constantly being used and they tend to never exceed say 700 of either even with 3 or 4 bases. For me, my resources after i get on 2 base they begin to stockpile, and then i will spend them all at once and then they stockpile again if that makes sense. And while this is not brilliant play, its manageable off of 2 bases, but on 3 bases+ i just cannot keep up with my resources and the skyrocket out of control.

Does anyone have any tips for how I can manage my resources better? I have a macro hatch from the moment my natural is 3/4 saturated, and for the most part im pretty decent at my larva injects.

Thanks in advance!

[Moeshi]

if you find your money is really really high you can often just expand and begin to use it for gas without a real worry that it will be taken down, another method would be build lots of spine crawlers then replace the drones, this way you keep the drone count, your money goes down and you get the safety of spines

[Hydroid]

If it isn't a matter of having large amounts of minerals and not enough gas you could also start making use of macro hatches to be able to have more larva for spending. Do you tend to get supply blocked a lot? This is something that happens to me any time I get supply blocked.

[Tates]

Macro hatches can help spend the resources but the bigger issue, especially on 2 base, is more than likely missing larva injects. Missing larva injects, obviously, means less larva available to spend resources on. Check your queen energy, for every additional 25 energy not spent that's 3 larvae that are "wasted." Getting into a good injecting habit early on will help a lot down the road.

[Yonge]

Originally Posted by Moeshi

if you find your money is really really high you can often just expand and begin to use it for gas without a real worry that it will be taken down, another method would be build lots of spine crawlers then replace the drones, this way you keep the drone count, your money goes down and you get the safety of spines

Not sure if I completely agree with having spines just cut down resource intake. My plan for each game is to get to 3 base saturation and then any drones which give me more saturation become spines (normally also to help get centre map control). With 3 base, one will run out and you just transfer drones to the next expansion so no need for more.

Biggest tip for me when spending money is to hit your larva injects! this way you can constantly produce drones/units (and don't forget the overlords!). Think abt it, if you don't have larva, what can you really spend your money on? there's only so many upgrades you can get at one time!

Creep on!

[Rockstar]

If you're on 3 bases and your minerals are getting out of hand there's 2 reasons...

Number 1 is u haven't built a macro hatch... Build a macro hatch

Number 2 is u haven't been injecting on time. Look through your last 5 replays, skip to just before you lose, and have a look @ all ur queens... I can almost certainly say that they're all over 100 energy.

You need to choose an inject method and get used to it. Once you've mastered your injects, you'll never have excess minerals unless you're saving for something.

The method that I have just adopted and I'm told a lot of the high level sea zergs have also adopted is the

4 5 6 keys bound to 4 - ur main and a queen, 5- ur natural and a queen, 6- ur third and a queen.

this means you can click 44vclick 55vclick 66vclick. The double tapping of the control groups centers you on the hatchery... the queen will always be selected cos its a casting unit.

When you inject your main u can also just click v click ur macro hatch right next to ur main...

Give that a shot see how you go, play like 20 games and just focus purely on keeping up with your injects..

oh and 1 other thing, when I did this it screwed me a bit because my 4 key used to be all my hatcheries... Rebind your 0 control group to W and your 0 control group setup to ctrl W... That way it works similar to the way warp gates work for protoss... Bind all your hatcheries to W, hit wsz wsd wsr or whatever to build your units...

Quick Comments

	Hydroid:	I have been using that inject method for almost a year now. It's a really solid method and I believe the most reliable late game.
	PiG:

[crAzerk]

If you are 'decent in your injects' and have macro hatch as well, there should be no reason that you're not able to spend your resources (unless you're making mass muta or sth.. And in these cases spam zerglings )

It's best to post a replay or two because anything anyone says right now is just theorycraft and very generic, if we had an actual replay we would be able to give more practical advice / suggestions /tips

[TABjornbrandr]

The easiest way to spend money is to inject and make overlords.
Let me say that one more time.
INJECT
BUILD OVERLORDS
If you remember those two big statements while you play, you will win a lot more games.
Also, keep in mind that in ZvT you'll definitely want a macro hatch, assuming a ling based style, whereas in the other matchups your larva requirement depends on your unit composition (roaches are larva efficient, lings aren't).

[Poebes]

Just remember to inject. When you're learning the game only focus on macro. Dont do anything else then building an army.

[Kluey]

Originally Posted by Poebes

Just remember to inject. When you're learning the game only focus on macro. Dont do anything else then building an army.

Wrong. You must micro else you'll never get out of platinum. Learn to macro and micro at the same time and that will get you a lot better results.

You never want to be at the point where you can macro like a grandmaster but have no idea how to engage your units and micro your army.

[Reere]

Originally Posted by Kluey

Wrong. You must micro else you'll never get out of platinum. Learn to macro and micro at the same time and that will get you a lot better results.

You never want to be at the point where you can macro like a grandmaster but have no idea how to engage your units and micro your army.

Sorry I have to disagree here. Pure macro can take you all the way to Masters. Micro & Unit engagements do make a different in the outcome of the game yes, but this is only true when both players are on even grounds in Macro.

The outcome of the engagement almost doesn't matter when you can merely outproduce your opponent.

[Aiya]

Originally Posted by Kluey

Wrong. You must micro else you'll never get out of platinum. Learn to macro and micro at the same time and that will get you a lot better results.

You never want to be at the point where you can macro like a grandmaster but have no idea how to engage your units and micro your army.

Why are you saying that when you're still in Platinum?

Mox, everyone is telling you to Inject better and build overlords, but how exactly do you inject better? Did anyone tell you? Do you simply go back to your bases and inject randomly?

No, you can use something called a "macro cycle" to help you remember to Inject better, build overlords to prevent supply cap and USE your larvae to keep your resources low.

This is the order of the cycle and since you're doing things in a logical order (cycle) it'll help you remember to keep up with the things that others have mentioned to help you keep your resources low.

1. Inject (Try to sync all your bases injects together, using the "Inject Method" Rockstar mentioned below)
2. Produce (Use your larvae)
3. Overlords (Don't get supply capped so you can constantly use your larvae and therefore minerals)
4. Spread Creep (Usually get a seperate queen dedicated to spreading creep)

You can practise just the first three together and add in the fourth step after you've gotten the hang of the timing of injects and producing or just step at a time, i.e get good at injecting, then injecting and producing after and so on.

A good tip is as well as using the 4, 5 and 6 to inject you can quickly tap 4 twice to center on your Main base and CHECK the time on your Inject Larvae (should be a grey bar above the hatch), as long as you sync all your injects you can just check one base and you'll know abouts when to quickly check back (press 4 twice) and inject and start the cycle again, eventually you'll do it so much that you won't have to check as much and instead go back right as your injects pop or just before.

So injecting is fairly quick, right? Producing, using your larvae (most of the time it's just 's' and holding down 'd' in the early game and later it'll be 'z' because zergling is a good unit :P) and making overlords sort of actually count as using your larvae, the step should actually be CHECK your supply and know when to build Overlords as part of your Production.

This shouldn't take you a long time, this leaves you with around... 20-30 seconds to do other necessary things such as scouting, upgrading, teching, building static defenses, microing fights, prongs and taking base. After all that's done... MACRO CYCLE AGAIN.

[Eldrid]

I agree that you can simply macro amove to gm. Microing will speed this up obviously... I find that as I improved my micro did too (as I had more time for it)

Do both, focus mostly on your macro. People have given rly good info on macro cycles - use this

My only other tip that no one else has said is that alot of people over micro units.
I've stood behind pro players who do it and lose games coz of it...

Tell your units what to do, and if you have nothing else to do with them, go back and macro!

Eg: your lings just surrounded a small group of rines and you have watch towers so you know nothing else is coming? Go macro

Got dropped? Bring half your army (incase 2nd drop elsewhere) pull drones & macro and watch minimap incase of 2nd drop
Macro here could be upgrades / tech / supply capped or units.. Whatever. No real need to wath your Lings kill the drop.

[RicocheT]

Originally Posted by FaDeBjornbrandr

The easiest way to spend money is to inject and make overlords.
Let me say that one more time.
INJECT
BUILD OVERLORDS

Wish you would actually do this in your games.
You might actually win for once