For ZvZ Hard AI mode, you need to go roach fast because roach owns zerglings pretty hard. The hard mode will usually send a wave of roach + hydralisk and if you only have zerglings and spinecrawles defending, you are on the loosing end. You could also try a 6pool + drone to build a spine crawler in their base, use your lings to def the crawler till its done and u should win (this also trains your micro skills of your lings to eat up as much of their lings, you have 6-8 to defend the spinecrawler till its ready. The AI generally will be able to wipe your lings because of their micro)

I find that for zerg, you shouldn't even let the opportunity of your opponent to proxy inside your base. Your overlord should have sufficient time to cover the ramp for you to monitor any incoming scv/probes. Its only the proxy in your nearby expansion that you may not have scouted that would cause some problem to your mid-late game.

In the event that a proxy pylon had been established and cannons are warping in, your next best move is to kill the probe first, tech to roaches. place a pair of zergling at the ramp because your opponent will send in another probe to rebuild. mass up around 6-7 roaches and go straight for the pylons, you have set your opponent back as much as he set you back in terms of economy.

If he placed 4 cannons 2 pylons, you have won the economy race, he spent 600minerals on useless structures and further 200 on pylons, and another 200 to replace the destroyed pylons. 1000minerals gone! not to add in the forge cost. Your immediate counter of around 10 roach will be sufficient to break into his base.

vs computer is alot easier than vs human, if you played enough against computer, you will definitely know their style, ~6min after game they do the 1st attack, then ~11min, they sure come again, the 1st attack they will come from the main entrance, and the 2nd attack onwards, they will try backdoor ie rock. but playing against human is totally different, they dont follow rules =P So if i vs computer, i dont need to have defense b4 the 6 min mark, but if human, better you keep minimum amount.

To defend against any AI and you are a zerg, it depends on how many AI are there, if there are only 2 hard, then troops will be enough(roaches) and control the entrance. If 3 hard and got a main entrance, you will need spine crawlers. My build order or action for spine crawler defense:

Game start
1) move the starting overlord to main entrance where you need to have defense.
2) keep building drones and your 2nd overlord(and rally the overlord to the defense area 2)
3) if got rich mineral nearby(and no rock blocking), expand early(in your territory)
4) pool then instantly 2 extractor
5) keep making drones non-stop
6) extractor complete b4 the pool, start mining gas, 3 drones each extrator
7) collect enough 100 gas for lair upgrade(if timing is correct, you should get 100 right after pool complete, within 3-5 seconds)
8) upgrade lair
9) drag drones back from extractor and mining mineral
10) if got rich mineral base, and it about to complete, drag all drones to mine rich mineral
11) if got rich mineral base, make a queen
12) keep making drones, you will need many, and overlord when needed
13) when lair about to complete, pull drones to defense area, make queen later, you need the mineral
14) overlord create creep, then make spine crawlers in big number, ie 10-14 of them
this build order, i have done it many times, and conclusion is, if you are slow, u wont be able to make it on time and enemy will be whacking your unfinished spine crawlers, if its done on time, it can take out huge number of troops without any help. And if got rich mineral, you can keep making hydras non-stop with the 2 bases. btw this build order wont work on human, cause so far i havent see any idiots send their ground troop whacking this amount if spine crawlers which packed together. from this onwards, go mass hydras, rally behind the spine crawlers, if got ally, they should be able to take out 1 of the AI at this time.

huhuh.. I finally can beat Hard Zerg AI.. to do that I had to learn three things..

1) Moon's advice - to have 26drone to saturate one base (I used to have like 18-20 drones only)
2) Liquipedia article about Zerg Macro Mechanics - Not forgetting to Spawn Larvae everytime Queen has energy for it (so you can stock pile Larvae.. I always forget this and end up with more mineral then the units I can create)
3) What I accidentally discovered - Make Overlord spawn creep at choke points to my base, put spine crawlers on it and use Roaches to block the entry gap (similar to the Protos semi-wall)

I know fighting AI is not the same as 1v1 against human.. but if I can't beat the predictable AI, how can I bean unpredictable humans right?

1) sometimes you have to cut drone to pump unit production (you cant predict when a human player is going to attack you when you are denied scouting).
2) Bind Queen to a hotkey, because larva injection timing = every 25 mana regen. If you never miss any cue you should keep your Queen mana at 0 or as low as possible.
3) I haven';t try choke block a ramp, usually only use queen/roach/lings to block mostly. (mostly I place overload at place which will need your next creep spread position meaning you dont have to wait the creep to spread before you build the 2nd tumor

about number 3.. I havent seen any one doing it either.. maybe its been done before.. but its a new thing for me.. maybe I'll upload that replay to show u guys.. its towards the middle thou..


edit: ok.. "http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/" wont allow 1 player replays.. so cant upload those replays I guess.. hehe

This post has been edited by mad_geist: Sep 7 2010, 01:13 AM

I find playing with AI 'very hard mode' terran or protoss still alright with uh, basic zerglings rush and infestors. Never really count the way i build it. Just spam zerglings rush like old sc1 meanwhile stocking up infestors and disturb the AI none stop with the infestors. Included building ground cannons, forgot name == sorry 'spine crawler?' right in front of AI's base exit. Usually able to bring it down without much problem, unless I fail to defend around the 1st~3rd attack from AI. But never tried vs a zerg. Though I never tried it before, but I think such a way vs-ing humans are useless. Just for fun though ^^

At lower league you will realise actually players are easier to beat than human (for me)..

You can definitely learn a few tricks by playing more AI games.

At one game of Hard AI mode against protoss, I was practicing the fastest way to mass roach and attack. I was met by a fast immortal build from AI and it countered my roaches.

In any usual Hard mode, the roaches will be able to take out their zealots and stalkers with ease, but against immortal its pure suicide. This is then where you can learn from the AI how to go fast immortal and yet have certain units to defend early. There's a few tricks up their sleeves that you can learn from.

In another game, I prepped for an early immortal so I went with 50% lings and 50% roaches for an attack. only to be met by an early colossus that wiped my lings and roaches. FML .. lol

And I tried these builds in team leagues, we were able to win when my partner just needed to mass tier 1 units and def for us, and once i get my early immortal or colossus out we start pushing. Other team went "omfg an immortal / colossus that quick?"

Btw something cool about zerg is that you can infestor control a probe, build nexus and start your own protoss production. You can then chrono boost your zerg structures too. Silly stuff but tried it yesterday against an AI for fun and to get some achievements like 'zerglots'. Chronoboosted spawn larvae is awesome.

Holy shit, so in 2v2 you can chronoboost your ally's buildings as well?

I have not tested in 2v2 for sharing units and chronoboosting yet. But i feel it may be viable if you are controlling shared unit.

But for sure you can chrono boost your own zerg structure if you build infestor to mindcontrol the probe and develop your own nexus. In FFA this is often one of the best tactic when you nydus rush someone and they leave the game after getting wiped significantly. Dont kill all of their units. Go for the mindcontrol and take over their builders to build their class base. That's where the fun beings.

no sharing is not possible elses it gonna be imba lol..

lets discuss about air-defence

I think zerg is a bit slow to produce anti-air, the only unit that has the ability to attack air early on should be queen. other races got their anti-air early on like terran, their marine, and protoss, the stalker, for terran, there is no way you can build air unit faster than their marine so we dont need to talk about it. the stalker, they just need a gateway then a core, then can start production d. for zerg, unless you wanna defend air via queen, else you will need hydra, and to produce hydra it need pool, lair, hydra den, then only can make hydra.

Resource wise protoss need 350(gate+core)min to have the ability to start making stalkers, but zerg, need 500/200(pool+lair+den), thats double the resource needed compare to protoss.

The next thing we should look into the speed of making air unit to attack the other races, for terran, they need barrack, factory, then starport. only 3 building b4 they can have viking, in order to attack land units, they need add-on. For protoss, they need gateway, core, then stargate, then they can produce void rays. For zerg, they need pool, lair, spire then can produce mutas. its not much different here. speed wise almost the same.

Consider this situation, a game PvZ, if the protoss only have gateway and all the while using zealots, and discovered zerg has mutas, they just need to build core then they can start counter mutas. What if zerg was all the way using roaches, and they saw void rays ? they need to upgrade lair drop a hydra den then only they can start counter air, i think its a bit unfair here since zerg simply take too long to start producing something actually work against air. For protoss, their cannon can vs air, and maybe they didnt build it intentionally against air, maybe its for defending against land unit but it also can defend against air, as for zerg, your spine crawlers are awesome against land, they can move, they can regen hp, but they are useless against air. your hope still fall back to hydras, which takes too long or too many steps to create. I feel zerg need some better anti-air capability unit early on in the game.

This post has been edited by narf03: Sep 7 2010, 03:27 PM

Sky.Live.. I need clarification on what u said there
were you talking about AI?

@narf03 -> yeah.. I agree with you.. so Zerg need to be prepared with Lair.. In Any Case..
cause I got beaten twice by protos because I didnt have Lair..
1) Dark Templar attack - no Lair so no Overseers
2) Mass Voidray attack - no Hydra Den so no Hydra..

oh.. for case 2, I did scout his base, and didnt see any starport so I didnt put down hydra den.. turns out he proxy base his starport and massed voidray without me noticing it till my base starts to burn

alwiz scout ur opponent...if they are exceptionally quiet...search every expo...put a ling there as guard
if u can't break his push such as no anti-air...suicide ur army on his base to see who die 1st...hahaha

Sometimes u gotta scout around his base, have a timing judgement that, let 's say your lair upgraded, you got your spire up yet when you scout there's relatively less unit, time to get worry and scout for expo or proxy production buildings..

yea... i mean vs AI, i have yet to beat very hard AI to date haha

hmm new to zerg play. any tips? currently only know zergling rush and mutalisks only lolz

mass hydra ~

can try roaches...i'm still trying to learn how to use roaches

how to use roaches? In one game I went Roaches and my opponent went Hydra.. (+ a few zergligs)

Our armies met in the middle of map.. I rolled his Hydra + Lings straight up to his base and on to his mineral lines.. with most of my Roaches still alive..

their DPS is low, but it got staying power man.. hehe.. in similar numbers Roaches just rolled Hydra army..

Plus.. Roach heavy army can bust Terran's Wall early in game when he dont have tanks

no roaches are weak against terran's marauders, marauder can do 20 damage per shot to roaches, and slow them down and attack at the range of 6, if you massed roaches, i think the terran suppose to have at least 25% amount of your roaches, which is enough to defend the entrance, unless the terran didnt turtled up and didnt kite your roaches =P

well yeah Marauder would counter Roaches.. if u are early enough.. Terran might not have a significant number of Marauder.. so there is a window for the Roach Rush.. especially if Terran tries the Hellion opening..

anyways.. I fought a Zerg in ladder match just now.. he tried to plant a Spine Crawler in my base.. hehe.. a cheese tactic I guess.. but my 10 Overpool opening successfully thwart his tactic.. my Lings came out just in time to kill it off with only one casualty.. I tech up and send Roaches into his base, at which point he calls it GG..

its been some time since I won a ZvZ ladder match.. so yeah.. i'm happy!