Hey All, I play zerg, and seem to be having troubles mid game, and was wondering if anyone has any advice. I usually 14 extractor, 14 pool, 16 hatch expand. and go baneling bust, or go tech to mutas or hydras. I don't use roaches much at all. When I look at the graph after the game, I'm always below interms of army value especially in the first half. Perhaps I'm creating too many workers and not enough units? I get a bit lost, after creating the first 8 lings, and someone's walled off, I don't know if I should sit and pump 30 lings, or just tech up. That's when I seem to get caught, the enemy has a huge army by the time I get to hydras. Any help on what to do in terms of building workers vs. army would be appreciated.
I got a similar problem... one of the things which make zerg really hard to play is to know when to build a drone and when to build another unit. Also, optimally, shouldn't one always check the hatch like every 10 seconds, to spawn units fluently? Also, the ability to spawn many units very fast is a curse to the brain. To my brain at least. I often don't use all my larvae and save resources just bc I know I can spawn units very quickly. But often, even as zerg, you need units NOW and not in 30 or 60 seconds.
My usual build vs Terran is 9 extractor fully saturate the instant it comes up. Make an overlord while overlord is being made pump 2 more drones. Do your normal 14 pool after the overlord pops out. The trick is to only stock up to 100 gas usually i pull 2 of the drones out of the extractor as it nears 100 gas and put them back on mineral line. Pop an overlord at 15/18 thenStock minerals till about 350 which you should have as the pool finishes research speed, pop a queen and get 6 lings and rally outside of terran base. Inject larva instant queen comes out and stock minerals till larve inject spawns make all into lings. when speed research is about 3/4's done drop a bane nest. which should finish around the same time as research. (almost forgot to say put the 2 drones you pulled off gas back on gas, around the same time you spawn bane nest. When all is done morph some banelings usually i go for around 6 to bust with. do another inject and spawn more lings once finish do the bust. It works about 90% of the time even against platinum. The tricky part is if your bust goes good hit the workers with the speed lings. if they dont GG out you should have enough minerals and gas to tech to lair. Which from their if they are going MMM i usually go for muta into broodlord/corrupters. If they are going air tech to hydra and keep pressure on dont let them take expo while you take yours as your getting your lair. If you see lots of factories assume tank/thor and go brood. To sum it all up you gotta scout to know what your mid game should be.
Hey thanks for the reply's guys. I do scout, and usually leave some lings outside there ramp, and natural to see what's going on. It just seems that there's no harass then, they don't come out, I start pumping drones and teching up, then all of a sudden a MMM ball is at my door haha. When i look after the games, I always seem lower on the unit graph. Do you often just pump lings just to keep guys coming out?
Even With lings at the natural and outside the ramp to see if their force is moving wont do much. I cant say zerg have the easiest time getting scouting intel. You can sacrifice an overlord to try get a peek but usually you wont get much info. Sometimes against terran ill sneak a drone in before the wall gets up on hide if somewhere in their base. (this only works on certain maps). usually thats the best way i get scout info vs a turtle. If you see 2-3 barraks assume mmm. A varient i see nowdays is 3barraks 1factor 1 port. Speedlings/bane to mutas can deal with it around mid game. Just take out the tank first if they got some with the mutas. As for pumping untis for no reason. No. Dont do that. Their is no point in wasting the resources. one of the hardest parts is knowing when to take your natural. If you have great scouting ability like a terran with their comsat and flying Command center its not to bad. But for zerg its always tricky. Usually I find their are only 2 times to expand relatively safely. One is a FE build vs terran. Since they wall in but you will have to beware of reapers, losing your expo on a FE build is pretty much GG. The second best time is usually after a hard push from either side. If you did enough dmg you should be good to expo. If you find yourself low on army count but high on minerals. It never hurts to make a 2nd hatch inside your main base just for the larva. Have your queen inject on both. you will be able to pump out alot of units long as you have the resources. Not to mention it will help you spread creep as well.
Thanks for the reply, that could work. Just need to find out how to get the unit count up I think. I am always really high in average unspent minerals, so i'll try that. Usually I try and FE right at 16, but maybe that's too early. Thanks!
I was having some of the same problems. I'd take part in some sort of early game skirmish, then I would expand and amass drones to stimulate economy. However, this left me open to attack from a weak army while boosting my economy. And after the second hatch was fully saturated on minerals and gas, I would make mutalisks. This seemed to fail me pretty badly against the less than dumb opponents. So I started mixing in banelings and speedlings with the drone production upon expansion and that seems to work well for me. As far as not getting killed by a second weak early army. As soon as the mutas pop out I try to get some harrassing of main or at least expansion while the infestors, ultras, banelings, mutas, and speedlings multiply. To sum it up, I would say banelings are pretty useful in early and midgame as long as the opponent isn't teching air super fast. If he is though, and you scout him, blow the door down with bane bust and zip around the main with speedlings for a while. haha. Always fun.
