Having a LOT of trouble with ZvT (6.1/7.0 non cheat)

Started by ploopy, March 27, 2010, 04:56:07 PM

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ploopy

It seems no matter what strat I go, I can never have enough units/defence to go against the ball of M/Ms they rush with.

I've tried:
the standard 13/14 pool, ling -> roach
14 pool tech straight to hydras
6 pool ling rush
FE to my natural (im playing Lost Temple)
FE to an empty starting location
double hatchery in my main base so everything is within a small choke

nothing works! the ball of marines are always just too much for me. The AI always gets 3 or 4 barracks right from the get go and is just relentless. even with a 6 pool 6 ling rush, by the time i get to their base they have enough marines to defend. Any advise?

Hadrian

#1
Okay, I'm usually a toss or terra, but here's a very secure way to win against the AI 7.0 standard:

Packs of enemies can be nasty, so they need a bane. Thus, banelings. :)
Since I have not much experience in Zerg yet, I played this match for you:

-build up to Drone 10
-Overlord
-Spawnpool (save for it)
-while the spawnpool spawns build more drones, about to drone 15
-save the 150 crystal for the queen as soon as the spawnpool finishes (so be careful with drone production after the pool's at roughly 75%)
- 1 Drone (16)
- 2x Overlords
- 2 extractors (3 drones each at finish)
- Roach Warren
- 2x Zergling (4) (as soon as they finish you use 3 to explore the map for your enemy if you're on a 4 player map, one is placed either at an observetower or on the way to your base in a good distance (in front of the first expansion for example) - this allows you to know your target and is a good warn system as soon as the enemy comes, don't forget to recall the 2 zerglings that didn't run into their death and use them to observe or for your army etc.)
- Baneling nest
- Zergling Speed Upgrade
- Lair Upgrade
- Zergling Pack (by now your Queen should have been finished and spawned new larva, so that you can get a pack which is 4-7 Zerglings)
- Second Pack is Roaches 4-7
- Burrow Upgrade (can be very handy)
- Baneling Speed Upgrade!
- Zergling Pack
- From now, every larva gets roached for a while as fast as possible
-> Roach Packs
:Checkpoint: By now you should have about 2 Dozen Zerglings and 12+ Roaches in your Base.
Around this time the enemy will arrive (you'll notice when your watchzerg dies) with a tight pack of marines and a few marauder.
Keep your army tight and ON your creep, keep the Queen a distance behind, she can heal Roaches
If Burrow is already upgraded, watch your roaches and burrow the wounded, don't care about zerglings.
In my case, the enemy fled *very* quickly, and was torn apart.
:Question time:
Now that you killed the first group, do you think you are strong enough to punish him? Or do you prefer to wait and win for sure with banelings? First is possible, I took option 2 because I wanted to see them in action.
-You should have enough Crystal after the fight to buy expansion 1, ready your drone waypoints and if you haven't, hotkey your two hivethings, so that you can quickly outfit the expansion with drones while taking care of the war.
- Roach Speed Upgrade!
- 1-2 Packs of zerglings (around 10-16, I had about 12)
- transform them to Banelings as soon as you can
And that's it. Get a few Roaches if you lost too many ealier, you should have 1 pack of zerlings of about 12-14 with at least 6-8 roaches and a pack of 10-16 banelings.
1 Zerg ist the scout, then follows the pack of Banelings, trailed by the Zerg/Roach Pack. (Remeber to use the hotkeys of your lair and expansion to build drones, just to make sure in case things don't go as planned)
The Zergling will scout a screen ahead and draw the enemies together, the Banelings follow and attack the pack or marines and marauders, leaving nothing behind.
Your mainforce now walks into the enemy base and wreaks havok (destroy the tanks quickly that the computer will produce around this time quickly and take care of *every* factory or barrack expansion quickly so he can't get you with the tough units. Devour his workes and gobble everything up.
That should be it. If not, you should have a huge advantage and just proceed with roaches+zerglings and banelings as packmuncher. A few Mutalisks are painful too, especially since the AI likes to build tanks.

I've attached the replay, in case you know how to watch it. (and it works for you, for me it usually doesn't)
1. map was sky's (2) Kulas Ravine in the cache/download folder as "0011 (2) - Kulas Ravine.s2ma"
2. AI was 7.0 standard on medium
3. Started with the valkyrie launcher 0.25

Hope this helps you, especially the speed banelings can take out entire armies (for just 50 crystal and 25 gas per baneling).

thanatos667

All you need to use is zerglings and banelings, if the game goes longer use mutas. Fast expand get a queen and just pump zerglings. So far I find this the easiest matchup cuz the Terran can make enough units to survive the banelings.

Dissonance

Yep banelings are the answer, get them as fast as u can and ur rdy. They work good against terran an protoss, not alway against zerg cuz they use roaches and they r armored.

Rain[sun]

In general you can modify your build order a bit. Build your first overlord sooner, so that it times out so you are never waiting on it.
Never build 2 overlords at the same time at the beginning, you have no need. If you only build one and pump out a gas, you'll get your gas up sooner and you don't need the extra ovie that early anyway, it can be placed a bit further down, still before you pump more lings.

"- From now, every larva gets roached for a while as fast as possible"
That tells me you don't have 2 hatcheries, a big no-no for zerg. If you don't expand, at least build it in your main. You should never have to be waiting on the larva to spawn, so always go for the 2nd hatch if not expo. But since this is vs AI, you should have no issues with that.

Little things seem useless but, theyll put you a good minute and half ahead of where you were before which in a 11 minute game is pretty substantial.
better wear your shades, the spotlights here can burn holes through the stage

Hadrian

#5
I was going to say: there's never time or ressources for that in the beginning, but I tried it just now, and it does work.
After the first few initial Zerglings, there's a window of opportunity when you can easily build a second hatcherie, instead of going for lair and roaches, and the two overlords.
This indeed uses the ressources better, the only trouble you will have is to get enough ressources to supply 2 hatcheries + 1(or 2) queens, because you're swimming in larva. I had almost always 7 or 8 larva around, easily outproduced the terran with roaches and zerglings, went aggressive and cleaned the mitfield and the rest was simply waltzing over the few defenses and killing the workers. Done in less then 7 minutes or something.
I never even got to produce the banelings, my baneling nest was just finished when the terran already gave his gg.
While this is, from my experience just now, a far more effective and more flexible approach than what I tested in that one playthrough, it will require you to act faster and more efficient, because there's a lot more going on and less structure.

EDIT: And on a map like scrapyard, where there's some longer distance to cover, you can actually build it after the 14th or 15th drone, BEFORE a spawnpool, whereas the spawnpool at the 10th is replaced by 4 more drones, with a second expansion following just after the first has about 15-20 drones and you have a few zerglings and a bunch of roaches as a defense against most kinds of rushes. Though the timing of the defense units is important. If you get it wrong, you'll still have your trousers down when the marines come, if you get it right, you'll have about 10 rouches and 12-18 Zerglings ready without restricting the growth of your hatcheries and expansions.
Zerglings and Roaches covered by Hydralisks tear everything apart (even banshees), and with banelings as an additional option, any ground warfare is to the zergs advantage.
And while you can take control of the battlefield and limit your opponents expansion possibilities, you can even start to go further for mutalisks to gain dominion of the air combat in its entirety.
Very interesting beginning, and very different to the usual protoss and terran openings.

ploopy

Quote from: Hadrian on March 27, 2010, 07:33:37 PM
Okay, I'm usually a toss or terra, but here's a very secure way to win against the AI 7.0 standard:

Packs of enemies can be nasty, so they need a bane. Thus, banelings. :)
Since I have not much experience in Zerg yet, I played this match for you:

-build up to Drone 10
-Overlord
-Spawnpool (save for it)
-while the spawnpool spawns build more drones, about to drone 15
-save the 150 crystal for the queen as soon as the spawnpool finishes (so be careful with drone production after the pool's at roughly 75%)
- 1 Drone (16)
- 2x Overlords
- 2 extractors (3 drones each at finish)
- Roach Warren
- 2x Zergling (4) (as soon as they finish you use 3 to explore the map for your enemy if you're on a 4 player map, one is placed either at an observetower or on the way to your base in a good distance (in front of the first expansion for example) - this allows you to know your target and is a good warn system as soon as the enemy comes, don't forget to recall the 2 zerglings that didn't run into their death and use them to observe or for your army etc.)
- Baneling nest
- Zergling Speed Upgrade
- Lair Upgrade
- Zergling Pack (by now your Queen should have been finished and spawned new larva, so that you can get a pack which is 4-7 Zerglings)
- Second Pack is Roaches 4-7
- Burrow Upgrade (can be very handy)
- Baneling Speed Upgrade!
- Zergling Pack
- From now, every larva gets roached for a while as fast as possible
-> Roach Packs
:Checkpoint: By now you should have about 2 Dozen Zerglings and 12+ Roaches in your Base.
Around this time the enemy will arrive (you'll notice when your watchzerg dies) with a tight pack of marines and a few marauder.
Keep your army tight and ON your creep, keep the Queen a distance behind, she can heal Roaches
If Burrow is already upgraded, watch your roaches and burrow the wounded, don't care about zerglings.
In my case, the enemy fled *very* quickly, and was torn apart.
:Question time:
Now that you killed the first group, do you think you are strong enough to punish him? Or do you prefer to wait and win for sure with banelings? First is possible, I took option 2 because I wanted to see them in action.
-You should have enough Crystal after the fight to buy expansion 1, ready your drone waypoints and if you haven't, hotkey your two hivethings, so that you can quickly outfit the expansion with drones while taking care of the war.
- Roach Speed Upgrade!
- 1-2 Packs of zerglings (around 10-16, I had about 12)
- transform them to Banelings as soon as you can
And that's it. Get a few Roaches if you lost too many ealier, you should have 1 pack of zerlings of about 12-14 with at least 6-8 roaches and a pack of 10-16 banelings.
1 Zerg ist the scout, then follows the pack of Banelings, trailed by the Zerg/Roach Pack. (Remeber to use the hotkeys of your lair and expansion to build drones, just to make sure in case things don't go as planned)
The Zergling will scout a screen ahead and draw the enemies together, the Banelings follow and attack the pack or marines and marauders, leaving nothing behind.
Your mainforce now walks into the enemy base and wreaks havok (destroy the tanks quickly that the computer will produce around this time quickly and take care of *every* factory or barrack expansion quickly so he can't get you with the tough units. Devour his workes and gobble everything up.
That should be it. If not, you should have a huge advantage and just proceed with roaches+zerglings and banelings as packmuncher. A few Mutalisks are painful too, especially since the AI likes to build tanks.

I've attached the replay, in case you know how to watch it. (and it works for you, for me it usually doesn't)
1. map was sky's (2) Kulas Ravine in the cache/download folder as "0011 (2) - Kulas Ravine.s2ma"
2. AI was 7.0 standard on medium
3. Started with the valkyrie launcher 0.25

Hope this helps you, especially the speed banelings can take out entire armies (for just 50 crystal and 25 gas per baneling).

unfortunately i cant get the replays to work, but this really did the trick!
i use a slight modification to this build (after my 2 extrators i replenish my drone supply to make up for the gas workers [i dunno if that was implied], i only get 1 OL at 16 to get my roach den going a bit sooner).

But banelings are the answer. Keeping the fight on the creep is also a very good tip. Thanks for the help![/i]