[PiG]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

I've a related question - what happens when early game harass messes up your timings?

e.g. Let's say I normally get 4 gas at 6 minutes (or 50 drones) (it doesn't matter which, this is just a hypothetical situation) in a ZvP.
Then a Zealot Stalker harass comes and catches me off guard, and I am forced to pull drones and lose about 5 drones.
Now, do I still stick to the 50 drones principle (will be later than usual)or the timing principle (will have less drones than usual)?

A more recent game I played was a ZvT, where the T got 8 hellions and ran them into my mineral line, killing more than 10+ drones as I reacted badly. After I cleared it up, I struggled to drone back up as much as I could, as I usually get units after recognizing a certain drone saturation.
What happened next was a follow-up push with MM tanks which took out my 3rd as I didn't have much units from droning, and from there I could never catch back up as he kept denying my 3rd (at different locations too) with packs of MMM.

Now, is this situation a matter of 'you f-cked up too bad in early game, you lost it there', or could I have recovered in a better way?

Either try to scout what their next aggressive timing is or take a guess at the standard play and try to get to a spot where you can recover as much economy as possible but still hold that timing. Because you're further behind than normal you need to "stim" your economy by focusing purely on economy for a short while aiming for a specific thing.

For instance in the case you descriped that seems like a pretty standard followup. I would say ok, any sort of ground aggression is common from terran next and lings > all terran ground units except mass helions. So I will try to scout if he's going mech but if I can't do this, or I confirm he's going marine-tank then I will drone very hard for a short while, maybe I would stay on 2 gas, get lair just for bane speed and +2 ups and drone natural and 3rd both to 16 drone optimal saturation. This way you have 3 bases saturated on minerals allowing you to build a horde of zerglings, but because you didn't take the extra 4 gas geysers and any other potential tech structures that saves you 5 drones not used on buildings, and another 12 not used mining gas. That's 17 more pairs of zerglings when they hit. And if they don't hit I have a great economy that can transition back into tech very smoothly.

From here just mass ling-bane and scout heavily looking to engage or transition.

You could build a huge army with this off just 54 drones! mmm yummy