[ryrymanpie]

Hi guys i am relatively new to zerg being playing for about 3 weeks now so excuse my ignorance.

After studying some day 9 dailies to be specific (516; 512 and 485) it is the general consensus that during the early stages of the game zerg relies heavily on scouting to determine any early aggression; macro play; cheeses etc.

Assuming that the opponent is playing a macro game and seeks to win/push between mid/late game the zerg player should be heavily droning until about 75 drones; once this point is reached ideally the zerg player wants to have a 3rd and possible 4th base (4th being less crucial). After the first benchmark has been reached the zerg player needs to begin upgrades; teching and continue to scout to determine army composition and movements.

Based off the day 9 dailies the zerg player wants to defend early aggression (not something as strong as a 4 gate but just a early push to harass) with static defense and lava inexpensive units (queens and if need be minimal roaches and lings). Now the problem that i encounter when i think of this is, for example you scout an early push coming nothing too daunting but enough to force you to stop droning to respond appropriately. Lets say for example that you just spent your round of lava on drones so you currently have 1-2 lava sitting around (generated from the hatcheries every 15 seconds) while waiting for the next inject to pop, from the time it takes his/her push to go from their base (A) to your base (B) you're frantically building spines, spores and basically what ever required to delay until you can get your next round of units out. My issue with this is, what if its too late? What if the units spawned from the lava injects while the opponent is knocking on your front door is not enough?

For instance, a 110 food terran player lets say about 60 food army so its decent sized but nothing too insane. One round of units from 3 hatcheries will most likely NOT be enough to save you from this push but perhaps with the increased static defense you will be able to hold. Anyway, this brings me to my overall problem.. what happens when a push is coming that you've scouted as early as possible but you don't have the ability to defend appropriately due to bad luck with injects and droning (an example i gave above)??

Day 9 places a lot of emphasis on how randomly building army units is BADDDDDD early game because you're randomly building units IN CASE something happens when there is no guarantee that this will happen and this is allegedly the WRONG way to play zerg. Apparently it is good to 'just hold a push by producing army units in response to a push than it is to have an army build in random anticipation and hold' as this method provides you with a way of learning even if you lose.

Now this method confuses me a little as Day 9 stresses that building units in random anticipation is bad and if you fail to hold the push you can learn from it. How do you learn from this though? assuming you scouted appropriately and you knew the exact moment he decided his army was big enough for him to push and move out and at that moment you stopped using your lava for droning and started up static defenses and army units however you were still unable to hold the push. It seems like the only thing you would learn from this is 'Okay, when his army is about 'this' big and its around 'this' time i should stop droning and start building lava inexpensive units to hold the push and then start teching and droning again until you can win at hive tech. However this method will still require you to have scouted his army and ANTICIPATE he will be moving out soon and in ANTICIPATION you start building an appropriate army to hold his push. What if you were incorrect and he didn't push? you have just delayed your droning and hive tech considerably on an educated guess? What if he did push and you managed to hold? however this seems to contradict the whole theory behind not building an army in anticipation.

Just wanting to know if i have the right understanding about this concept and if anyone can clear this up from me? If anyone who does not understand what i am talking about or wants to improve their zerg play i'd suggest taking a look at those dailies as they are quite insightful.

Anyway, i look forward to hearing any responses about this concept.

Regards,

Ryrymanpie

[PiG]

Don't have time for a super detialed reponse but at this point in your understanding is where you need to start finding markers for your scouting. Rather than just looking at what their army looks like and such you want to start looking at their production and tech buildings and understanding how your opponents races work so you know what to read from these buildings.

Also you need to start coming up with set times to build a few rounds of units as even if you don't think a push is coming you can't just drone to 100 drones as even a half-assed push would kill you. So something like 3 rounds of units at 2 base saturated, and then more units at 3 base saturated etc.

Hopefully someone else can fill you in on more of the specifics of these sorts of "markers" or rules for you to follow to continue this focus on droning, whilst still being safe/

[ryrymanpie]

Ooooo a reply from a coach haha, thanks for your reply. Interesting but that was the response i was hoping for something regarding times when to pump out a few rounds of army units 'in case shit' as opposed to waiting to scout it as they move out. I have a relatively decent understanding of the other races and how to scout builds and techs, defiantly not the best though.

In numerous instances i have attempted to saturate my third while building no army but i've had my opponents army scouted so i know the size and composition however when they have moved out i haven't had enough time to build up an army formidable enough to even defend myself let alone win the engagement. However i definitely agree with day 9's statement that zerg should be TRYING to win at hive tech but getting there without been owned seems to be my problem at the moment. Please be advised to anyone reading this is that i am not asking for an analysis on my own play style otherwise i be posting a replay in the 'replay feedback thread'. However i am wanting to know what other zerg players do and whether not that they focus on winning at hive tech and how do they tech up, upgrade, drone without building an army unnecessarily.

Regards,

Ryrymanpie

[PiG]

Originally Posted by ryrymanpie

Ooooo a reply from a coach haha, thanks for your reply. Interesting but that was the response i was hoping for something regarding times when to pump out a few rounds of army units 'in case shit' as opposed to waiting to scout it as they move out. I have a relatively decent understanding of the other races and how to scout builds and techs, defiantly not the best though.

In numerous instances i have attempted to saturate my third while building no army but i've had my opponents army scouted so i know the size and composition however when they have moved out i haven't had enough time to build up an army formidable enough to even defend myself let alone win the engagement. However i definitely agree with day 9's statement that zerg should be TRYING to win at hive tech but getting there without been owned seems to be my problem at the moment. Please be advised to anyone reading this is that i am not asking for an analysis on my own play style otherwise i be posting a replay in the 'replay feedback thread'. However i am wanting to know what other zerg players do and whether not that they focus on winning at hive tech and how do they tech up, upgrade, drone without building an army unnecessarily.

Regards,

Ryrymanpie

Keep in mind that you can probably "just macro better" if you are set on improving. However to address the issue at hand check out this fantastic article written by sheth: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=219257

In particular look at "fum facts on saturation and general basics"

read the stuff around here:

-"You DO NOT want to get 3 levels of saturation ahead of your opponent. Versus a competent opponent you will LOSE. (This considers you are playing someone of equal level and you haven’t killed his army 10 times and are about to win the game. 12-16 saturation implies that you have 12-16 drones mining on 8 blue mineral patches.. and so on)"


If anyone else could please contribute even if its just your personal experience it may be of more use to ryry here than any specifics on markers or rules that i can give.

[Fenner]

Sheth's post is great and explains in detail about why you're PROBABLY dying to pressure, allins and shit like that. It's great for using to look at your own replays and see if you oversaturated.

I think the thing that will help most is what PiG said, looking for certain things in certain matchups can tell you exactly what they're doing, how aggressive they can be and how hard they can be aggressive - without seeing their army or even possibly their production facilities. For example, in ZvP against standard ffe/nexus first I know that if there is no gas at the natural by 6:30 I drop a Roach Warren because 99% of tech builds take gas before then and you need a roach warren that early to stop aggression. If he continues to go with no gas it's most likely either 4gate pressure, some kind of mass gateway allin 7-8 gate, or a super fast third (which is scouted by a ling or an overlord.) So if a third isn't taken and he is on no gas at the natural, I know not to build more than x amount of drones otherwise I'll die to whatever bullshit he is doing. This is all based just off the natural gas, if you combine this with what time he took his main gas, what time he dropped his builds at the front, if he boosted out units/cyber and when he took upgrades you can get a VERY VERY good idea of what he is doing and what he can support with his economy.

Generally in all matchups you sit there and you take in little pieces of information that when you see you're like "Oh cool, that allows me to get to the next level of saturation." Learning all of these things about what your opponent is doing off of small pieces of information takes quite a while and I believe the best way to do it is to just download a replay of some high level player and note EVERYTHING he sees and how his droning reacts to that. I remember when I was struggling with ZvP I watched a bunch of Stephano replays and I was like damn, he barely scouts at all but you can get so much information from so little if you know what you're looking for.

[ryrymanpie]

Hi all,

I am about to embark on reading Sheth's guide and see what i can take from it, i hope its not too techie or mundane to read!!

Anyway, for anyone that is interested, i have posted a replay of a perfect example of this problem happening to me. If i played my normal style of building up drone base and building up army at the same time, i would have held this but that is the incorrect way to play zerg, so i hear anyway.

http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php...207#post129207

Regards,

Ryrymanpie