My life! (for Aiur)

I've been having more than enough fun as Zerg, so in order to properly think of them, I needed more exposure to other races.  A quick jaunt as toss has convinced me that a good build order is (following the same kinda logic as my zerg build order) is:

0:53 9/10 Pylon (once this pylon finishes, nuke the nexus with Chronoboost to crank out workers faster)
1:52 13/18 Gateway
2:12 15/18 Pylon
2:40 17/26 Gateway
2:54 18/26 Pylon
3:05 21/26 Zealot
etc etc, make 3 gateways about about 25 workers
When I've got about 8 zealots, 3 things happen more or less simultaneously:
1) I make about 4-6 more zealots
2) Those 8 zealots go scout the enemy and see if the game can be won immediately or not
3) I put up assimilators and a Cybernetic Core for techiness, in case those 8 zealots can't win the game

The zealot at 3:05 should be enough to prevent loss to an early ling rush.  If your opponent through everything he/she had into a 6-pool ling rush, your probes will be a vital part of your defense, but your economy will be so far ahead anyways that it's effectively a win at that point.  If it's a more relaxed ling rush, then the zealot can't win by himself but he can kite for the 10-15 seconds it takes to get a buddy and/or team up with probes to win easily.

Infestors are fantastic

I MC'd all of a toss army's big units with 8 of these bad boys, and it directly led to a decisive victory.  Nice work, infestor!  Zerglings and roaches served as tanks to keep the infestors from being viable targets.

Movin' on up

The previously posted build order has served me quite well.  Win or loss, I can't think of a better way to start off a game as Zerg.  For the record, here's the good one and the first "decision" made afterwards.

10/10 Spawning Pool
9/10 Drone
10/10 Overlord
10/10 Overlord
10/26 Zerglings
11/26 Zerglings
12/26 Zerglings
-> Send lings to find enemy base
13/26 Queen
14+ Drones/undefined

When the lings find the enemy base, then I have to make the first real "decision" of the game.  Do the zerglings attack, or no?  If I think they can cause their 150 minerals worth of damage, then they attack.  This can usually be achieved by putting a pylon/supply depot out of commission or wreaking havoc on some worker bees.  If either of these things is true, then I crank out another batch of zerglings to follow up the attack, and basically just keep the ling pressure on while I make a 2nd hatchery and tech up.

If they can't cause their worth in damage, then I retreat them and put them to some other constructive use like scouting expansions, or ganking enemy scouts.

That's early game, and so far it's kept me moving steadily up the ladder from the top of Bronze to the top of Silver.  I think the problem I have now is making the correct transition to midgame if this doesn't leave my opponent at a serious enough disadvantage.

Always Check your Six

A terran opponent today moved his base at the start of the game.  I'd expected that to gimp his economy something fierce, but that's when I learned about the High Yield Mineral Deposits.  The High Yield Mineral Deposits are yellowish looking crystals on the map instead of blue.  Normally, when a worker brings you minerals from a deposit, your mineral count goes up by 5.  On a high yield deposit, your count goes up by 7.  It doesn't take too long to payoff if you liftoff your CC at the start of the game and plop it down at a high yield deposit.

My 6 scoutlings searched every home base to no avail, then a pile of terran stuff ripped through my base.  If my lings had just run through the middle of the map instead of going around the non-start mineral location, they would have arrived in time to wreak havoc on a base with no defending units at it yet.

This novel and unexpected tactic teaches me that I should always check the high yield deposits, and try to exploit them better now that I know what they do.

In other news, vs Terran opponents I have had some success with Banelings.  Banelings basically turn into suicide bombers that do about 90% of a terran marine's HP in exploding damage.  They make a lot of difference between being torn to shreds by stimmed marines, medivacs, and marauders (the MMM combo) and blowing them all up handily.  I think the right ratio of exploding bits to zerglings is about 1:3.

Zerg Build Order Revised

I've moved up a bit in my league with several consecutive Zerg wins starting off with the following build order:

10/10 Spawning Pool
9/10 Drone
10/10 Overlord
10/10 Overlord
... Spawning Pool Completes ...
10/10 Zerglings x6
... make drones ...
... attack with lings when they complete ...
... choose how to proceed from here, usually to either roaches or hydras ...

Zerg - general purpose build order

In this game I built drones until supply ran out, then a few zerglings to fend off scouts and scout themselves, and then Hydras. The Hydras fended off a nasty air attack on my drones, then shortly after that the tech finished to let my overlords drop them on my opponents' base, winning the game.

1:00:00 10/10 Overlord

2:09:00 14/18 Spawning Pool
2:26:00 14/18 Extractor
3:06:00 16/18 Extractor
3:50:00 18/18 Overlord
3:52:00 18/18 Lair
5:39:00 22/26 Hyrdralisk Den
5:43:00 Queen
6:33:00 24/26 Ventral Sacs Nasty 3 ship air attack kills off about half my drones right about here
8:34:00 ~10 Hydra Drop wins game

In this game I built drones like before, then a few creep crawlers, and made my extractors a bit sooner. I had resource shortage and overlord shortages. I also lost about 6 hydras to failed attacks against my opponent's expansion. With that, right after I left with a 12 hydra drop, my opp walked into my base and destroyed it. I should have brought the hydras back to defend, and they *might* have won the defense and been able to mount a counterattack. The counterattack was successful but I died before he did.

0:59:00 10/10 Overlord

1:51:00 13/18 Extractor
1:58:00 12/18 Extractor
2:24:00 13/18 Spawning Pool
3:33:00 17/18 Spine Crawler
3:39:00 17/18 Lair
4:18:00 18/18 Overlord
4:38:00 17/18 Spine Crawler
5:18:00 19/18 Hydralisk Den Scout overlord destroyed by sentry :(
5:48:00 Queen

In this game I went back to my first approach and tried to accelerate the hydra drop a little bit. I skipped zerglings, except for a scout pair, and cranked out 4 hydras before being torn up by a 10-zealot rush. More defenses required! I wonder if I can build the roaches faster than hydras? There were no resource problems this game.

0:57:00 10/10 Overlord

2:03:00 14/18 Spawning Pool
2:34:00 15/18 Extractor
2:50:00 15/18 Extractor
3:45:00 18/18 Lair
4:01:00 18/18 Overlord
4:13:00 18/18 Overlord
4:46:00 20/42 Zergling
5:11:00 20/42 Hydralisk Den
5:32:00 21/42 Evolution Chamber
5:35:00 Ventral Sacs

In this game I tried the same build again and was obliterated by a 6-pack of zerglings before I could build any units to defend myself. This was the other guy's build order.

1:10:00 7/10 Spawning Pool

1:32:00 8/10 Overlord
2:16:00 10/18 Zergling
2:16:00 12/18 Zergling
2:16:00 11/18 Zergling
2:31:00 14/18 Queen
3:07:00 17/18 Zergling
3:31:00 18/18 Zergling Death by Zergling around 3:20 (workers pulled off resources to defend, and killed in the process)
4:38:00 15/18 Zergling
4:38:00 16/18 Zergling
4:39:00 17/18 Zergling
4:39:00 18/18 Zergling
4:42:00 18/18 Overlord
5:42:00 21/26 Extractor
5:54:00 24/26 Zergling
5:54:00 23/26 Zergling
5:54:00 22/26 Zergling

Well, I'm thinking to myself that I don't want to start off every game with a 6-ling rush but I would like to be able to defend against it, and I do know I need some minor defenses at least to hold off the majority of super early game attacks.  I set a goal to have a "standard" build order that makes me capable of handily beating a 6-ling rush, just barely, with the best possible economy going on when the defense wins.  It's a small tradeoff to be protected in the early game and it doesn't gimp mid/long term game plans.  After a couple of 1v1 ai games watching the replays, here's what I come up with.
 
Decided to get a couple of zerglings and a crawler right around the time a quickie rush could hit me. Worst comes to, I can use the lings in my roach attack.


1:02:00 10/10 Overlord
1:32:00 10/18 Spawning Pool
2:48:00 17/18 Spine Crawler 12 seconds late, could have started 2:36!
Zerglings start coming out at 3:18, should be just fast enough to stop the early rush. Spine crawler done at 3:37 (17 seconds after rush could have arrived, need that 12 seconds)

After my first overlord, I shift gears and make a spawning pool instead of an 11th drone.  Immediately after the pool, I make a crawler, queen, and a pair or two of lings.  From there, I have typically been going roaches, but I think I need more info on what my opponent is doing to decide if it's worth that building or not.  If I execute everything quickly and efficiently, I should handily dispose of a 6-ling rush just as it's walking in my doorstep on a typical map.  If I'm not against zerg, I can perhaps have a good start at fending off a zealot rush or a reaper backdoor attack as well.

A few Zerg vs Terran games

Patch day today.  Looks like they've nerfed the Terran Thors a bit.  Nuts.

A coworker buddy of mine from another team at work jumped online and we played a few matches.  This was our first time playing so the pressure was really on.  It was time to put up and represent my team.  After the first dozen or so games I've played this week, I decided it was time to stop hitting "random" as my race and start paying attention to one race in particular.  Tonight, I chose Zerg.  He chose Terran.  And I learned a couple of things.

In our first game, I was slow about building things.  A couple of hellions nearly took out my drones.  I used the power of kiting to make the hellions chase some drones away from my base and into another while my batch of 8 hydralisks were spawning.  8 from one hatchery, all simultaneous.  I'm not really sure how I did it.  I guess larva keep spawning for awhile or something?  I had told a Birth Queen to make the hatchery spawn extra larva, but I had no idea that I could get 8 unhatched larva at one hatchery.  Those hydras ate the Hellions and then proceeded to eat his base.  Lesson: Don't wait quite so long to put up any defenses at all.  I won that game by the skin of my teeth b/c I'd started the lisks just before the Hellions showed.

Game 2: Let's see how a zergling rush works.  The concept is simple, I built a spawning pool quickly, then an overlord and zlings as fast as they could come out.  I set my rally point to halfway across the map, and as soon as 6 lings made it there, I sent them into his base.  They found a barracks, one reaper, a tech lab, and otherwise undefended SCV's.  They would have been able to fend off the 6 zlings, but I had another 8 stockpiled in the middle of the map and those were enough to seal the deal.

Game 3: Let's see if a hydralisk drop would work.  I started making hydras like our first game, but put up a few lings and ground turrets (called crawlers or something) to have something to stand on if units arrived on my doorstep.  He kept destroying my expansion attempts, which was disappointing, and I didn't quite have enough gas to stand up to him until about my 3rd group of 6 to 12 hydralisks.  By then, I had been winning the attrition war and I think what it came down to is his build order.  He wasn't making many workers early on, so he was short on material to replace what he lost.  I had practically won before the hydras made it to their drop point, just from the stalemate attrition fights while building up to The Drop.  When the drop came, even if I hadn't been ahead by a bit it seemed like it very well could have swung the game for me.

Game 4: Roaches can only attack ground units.  A dozen mutalisks is pretty good against a Thor and a dozen marines.  It takes them a lot longer to destroy a command center than a half dozen void rays, though.

I'll play some more Zerg for awhile and start to refine & remember actual build orders.  There's still a bunch of Zerg units that I don't really know how to use either.  I don't know much but their stats.  I remember being disappointed by the fragility of an Ultralisk earlier in the week.

First post!

I recently started playing the SC 2 beta.  Some friends of mine let me know that Gamestop was giving away beta keys with preorders, and I couldn't wait.  Back in College Days, I had my first real exposure to PC gaming.  You see, I'd never actually had a PC that could play modern, online computer games until then.  However, my console gaming portfolio was rather striking.

I still remember the first LAN game I played in the BSB 2 dorm room floor my freshman year.  Someone had the disc for the exciting new Starcraft game and we were setting up 4v4 games with spawned copies.  While the "cool" kids were off hazing themselves to get in good with the frats, I was preparing to disembark on my PC nerd journey.  I was thinking of my academic life, of course.  Statistically speaking, gaming nerds were more likely to graduate than hazing thrillseekers.  I was off to a good start.  That day, I forged relationships that would last me the rest of my life.

I spent most of college either playing Starcraft, passing courses, or keeping myself fit.  Well, maybe fit isn't quite the right word.  Keeping myself from physically merging with the furniture was more like it.  Mostly, these activities were independent.  It's hard to read while playing basketball, and most profs didn't appreciate Starcraft as a classroom attention concentrator.

So here we are, 10+ years later.  I started playing the SC2 beta a few days ago, it's multiplayer only.  That's good, I'll have something to look forward to still on release day.  Since I hadn't played any RTS games in awhile, I checked the box that said I was new, hoping for some kind of tutorial or something.  Instead, I was placed in a "practice league" for 5 multiplayer games.  One of the things SC2 does really well is provide pretty much everything you need to know to play in mouseover tooltips.

The practice league games were silly roflstomps, clearly I had clicked a button meant for less able RTS players.  However, I did get a chance to explore the tech trees and see what kinds of units the game had.  The very first thing that I noticed was that SC2's look and feel is very similar to SC1's.  I had half expected that since SC1 seemed like a really good game to me, and I was worried SC2 would change it in all sorts of half cocked ways that made it a more or less inferior game, sort of like Halo 2 did.  However, they didn't do that.  If it ain't broke don't fix they says, and so they didn't fix unbroken things.  The next thing that I noticed was that while the look and feel was the same, the units and tech trees were really different.  It was like learning a new vocabulary.  Many of the classic units are gone, replaced my one or several new units and sometimes combined with other units or even buildings.  Make no mistake, it's a very different game than the original.  It just looks and feels the same.

Even now after a dozen or so games I don't quite know what all the units are by heart.  Generally speaking, the tech trees are just as deep as they were in SC 1, but the higher-end units are more practical in multiplayer games.  They're cheaper and correspondingly powerful.  I had a player shoved into a shoebox and was mining every single mineral location on the map to his one (10:1 or so income) when a small fleet of battlecruisers caught me offguard.  It was nearly enough to turn the tide for him before I caught my breath and managed to get enough of the right units to end them.  The tech tree is also much broader.  There's more variety of units to pick from and they each have special advantages.  Marines, zealots, and hydralisks are still there, and they still make good staple infantry when you need 'em.  Buildings have a much more prominent role to play as they now have special powers of their own and can be transmogrified in a couple of ways, especially Terran.  Optimus Prime would be proud.

Speaking of things Optimus Prime would be proud of, the Terrans get a new infantry-of-the-air unit called a Viking.  These things are cheap, fast, and awesome.  If they get tired of shooting things in the air, you can push a button that turns them from jet planes into ground based mech warriors!  They're not so bad on the ground either, sort of like Goliaths that can't shoot up.

What do you get if you mix 5 Goliaths with lightning and 80's hair band riffs?  In SC 2, you get the THOR, a mecha-Goliath that is the size of your screen.  Thors are produced by the Factory building to protect players during the seizure-inducing cutscene with flashing lights and interlocking lions.  I can't really tell what fights it can win because it's over too fast.  I can say that equal number Thors versus battlecruisers seems to favor the Thors.  I'm expecting the Starcraft 2: Transformers expansion to let Battlecruisers morph into Thors and vice versa.

Well, I think that I have gotten my blog off to a running start and can dump some other late night post SC2 games into it another time.  For now, be content with the comprehensive list of great SC 2 Beta Strategy sites that I have come across:



Yes, it's empty.  Need more sites with exciting stuff to read.  The public SC2 beta forums on Blizzard's website are pretty much filled with new Beta players QQ'ing about how overpowered unit/strat XYZ is.