Zerg Tips ?

Dupre

Anybody got any decent Zerg tips ? I'm having a game of Brood Wars tonight, but I've never played the expansion pack before.
I hear they have yokes like Battlecruisers.

DeVore

Um, I havent played the expansion much yet but the zerg get two new forces. The first is the Lurker and he's mutated from a Hydra much the same way a Guardian mutates from a Mutie.
Lurkers are vicious. They have no standard ground attack, but they can bury from day one (whether you have researched it or not).
They send spikes out (about 9 "squares") which do about 20 points of damage each. I dont know what kind of damage.

Tactics using them: Get lots. They ROCK in groups, even small groups. The attack is similar to a sunken colony except that it runs in a straight line and potentially can hit many targets per "attack". Multiple lurkers will EAT marines, tanks, and just about anything that wanders close. Great for choke points. They are tough too so you can run them in somewhere , take the pain and burrow and start ripping up the town in no time. Unless the player has observers (and in an expansion base many dont) he's dead.

What not to do with them? They dont like Templars nor siege tanks much, but then who does, filthy knackers.
They cost lots but they are one of the few higher Zerg that are worth it. A few in a zergling/hydra rush wont be noticed by you opponent most likey (he's too busy ****ting himself)and you use the lings and hydras just to get them in and buy them some time.

DeVourers ( ) are definitely NOT battle cruisers but they are strong at times.
Zerg players are unlikely to know how to handle these guys as they are slow, expensive and powerful, as opposed to fast, numerous, inexpensive and individually weak as the rest of our forces tend to be. Still they have their uses. They do about 40 damage I think. They fly but can only attack air units. Think: Guardians for Air.
Their attack (so I'm told I didnt notice this myself) acts like a queens gunge spell, slowing down the enemy. It also apparrently makes subsequent attacks more effective (I havent had the opportunity to use them much.)

They are slow so build them as close to the front as you dare or you will be all day getting them into combat. Ground troops munch them if undefended (they cant attack back).
Logically I would have thought that 6 DeVourers and 6 Guardians would make a kick as strike force, but thats expensive so you will be facing something pretty nasty on the other side...
Verdict? I'd rather have a Yamato Gun but they are strong if used right.

I dunno if you are ok on the basic SC and just want help with BW or what... I have some pretty ninja build orders I could post (there goes my Nethouse dominance )

DeV.

[This message has been edited by DeVore (edited 17-04-99).]

Dupre

Wouldn't mind seeing those build orders - I need all the help I can get (The Zerg is the only race I can play without getting wiped off the map in 3 minutes ).

DeVore

Bah, ok.
I'll give away a nugget of decent info.

heres my rush orders. Modify as you see fit if you are not going to rush or you want hydras earlier.

Build up to 9 peons. Put all on minerals.
Build a spawning pool and an overlord. The order doesnt really matter. I build the pool first.

Once both are under way build just one peon. Put him on minerals.

Now wait until you have 300 for another hatchery. Build it.

your ol and pool should pop more or less at the same time. Start to build zerglings and rush when you have 12. By that time (just as the 12th is built) the other hatchery comes online. Build peons and zerg with that. (more zerg if you think you can take your opponent, more peons if he is turtling...)

Thats it. You can tinker with it but adding in new peon builds mid way is a bad idea (even though it seems like a good one)

You should be able to have 12 lings in 4mins 30 secs.

DeV.

Dr_Teeth

When you say 4 mins 30 secs, is that on the 'fastest' game setting? I'm a Protoss fan as you know, and on a 1 on 1 map like challenger the best the protoss can do is one zealot by the time the first 6 zerglings of a pretty much optimal zerg rush come in. However, I have 2 gateways up, and two nearly-complete zealots in them, so the first usually fails.

But what does a Zerg do at this stage? keep trickling in Zerglings? Go for Sunken Colonies/Hydras to stop a Zealot counter-attack?

Teeth.
(I reckon we should all be playing 1.05 Brood War, and damn the cheapasses. )

DeVore

Yes on fastest. The only speed to play at imho.

well in the time it takes to cross the map and 6 zerglings are no match for 3 zealots (which you would have by the time I reached you). but you wont have enough zealots to risk a counterstrike and I would have tons of zerg by the time you reached the base anyway so no I dont go for sunkens much one or two maybe if I have the spare cash.
What I would do is throw the next 12 zerg at you asap and continue building myself up.
Zerg suck at the start to be honest. They win if you pay too much attention to their attacks and lose sight of the bigger game. Their troops are **** individually so you have to manage the resources so that you can stream lings out at your opponent and keep him occupied. Sometimes you get a break and the enemy buckles under the weight of your attack but you have to hope for a mistake by them for that really (or good teamplay in a 2 v 2 where you pressure them out of existance).

Usually I am attacking to stay alive until I get 2 evolution chambers up and I have upgraded my troops a few times. Then lings and esp hydras are a big danger. 24 hydras are a killer force, but your enemy will have quite a bit to counter them with, unless he got behind at the start with his economy (which is the whole idea of the ling rushes).

I usually expect to win with mutalisks (fliers) and hydralisks (spitters) in the mid game. Thats when zerg are strongest. But Zerg are really about recon and expansions. They out produce the opponents to win so they need to out resource them. The game is really a resouce management game as far as I see it. The war bit really tests your skill with the troops but without the economy to back you up you wont win.

DeV.

Creeper

Umm...forget about rushing...
It's a newbie tactic. If it fails then you are behind on resources....
Sending in 4 lings to kill some of his drones is a better tactic....because you cause damage (drone = 2 lings), disrupt his minerals, and wreck his head.

Daishi

Firstly:
Devourers are a lot more usefull than DeVore makes out. They not only damage other fliers, but they leave spores behind, which do two things. They slow down the unit, and they increase damage taken from each attack by one. You can get 12 spores on each unit.

If you have 6 devourers, and 18 mutas, you can EASILY kill 10 BCs (unless they yamato your devourers, where normally, with 24 mutas, you'd expect to lose all your mutas, and kill maybe 4 or 5 BCs. You attack with the devourers, and get 4 or 5 spores on each BC, then the mutas splash damage ROCKS. Assuming no upgrades, your mutas do 4 - 2 - 1 damage (splash). If you have 12 spores on each BC, you do 16 - 14 - 13 (-4 for armour) per muta, per shot. That equals a lot of dead fliers.

Next Up:
Rushing.

I play prot & zerg. I have been hit with 6 lings before my first zealot is ready. OK, so it was hunters, and the zerg player was right next to me, but it can be done.

This is quite hard to defend - luckily for me, it was a laggy game, so I was able to manage my probes and kill the straggling lings and wait until my zealot came out. In that particular game, I lost 1 probe, and a zealot went down to red health - he lost 6 lings, and a LOT of minerals. The other prot on my side ended up a cybernetics core in front of me (about a minute and 200 minerals worth) and the zerg that attacked ended up about 6 or 7 minutes behind my other ally (a zerg), and died shortly after.

Rushing is not a newbie tactic, and it does not suck. 6 ling rushing is and does tho.

I have often rushed done quick expansion, rush to mutas, attacked and killed someone before they have any fliers, or even anti air (re: gauntlet). In brood war, I have often rushed for lurkers, and had 4 lurkers sitting in my terran opponents base whilst he is still trying to get his first missile turret and tank built.

Also, if you do do a 12 ling rush (or a 4 or 5 zealot rush) forget about his defending army. Go for his probes instead. If you spend 500 on zealots, and kill 6 or 7 probes, you still come out ahead, cos of the lost resources those probes could have gathered whilst he is replacing them.