I'm playing as Zerg 1v1 against medium AI just to learn what everything does (since you never see any of it in the campaign) and I can't seem to get anywhere, vs P V or T but especially Terrans. I usually end up in a situation where I am getting minerals and gas like crazy, and have maybe 2 expansion hatches, but even with those and a queen each, I can't make units and start tech upgrades fast enough to spend all my resources. The main bottleneck is the damn queens and the spawn larvae ability, which I can't do all the time while fending off the early harassment runs that the AI _ALWAYS_ does about 12 - 13 mins in. Terran AIs send in 4 or 5 rauders and a few marines, and I can't find any combination of units in sufficient numbers early enough to fend them off. Usually there's one or two rauders left over which I can kill off with another round of zerglings but by then I'm way behind and the next wave or two from the AI only get bigger and more powerful. Those units I do create are outnumbered and don't last long, add to this that to make structures you need to make drones that take even more slots away from unit production. What am I doing wrong?
You should have a solid number of mutas or hydras 12-13 minutes into the game. makes drones until 10/10. Save up 125 minerals. Make 2 extractors then immediately make 2 more drones to be 10/10 again. Cancel both extractors and send them to mine again and you're at 12/10 drones. Then either get an overlord at 100 minerals or make your spawning pool at 200 minerals. Those are your next two moves. when the ovie pops make 3 more drones and sometime before the spawning pool pops make 1 extractor as you'll need 100 gas for fast zerglings or tech to a lair. If you're nervous make 1 or 2 spore crawlers right next to you hatch and a few lings. should defend anything sent in the first 5-8 minutes of play. build your other extractor while you tech for the lair and remember to keep pumping out drones. It's not unheard of to make 50 drones or more in a game.
Something about your story isn't jiving. You have two expansion hatcheries, with more money than you can spend, but can't fend off a half dozen marauders and some marines at the 12 minute mark? Post a reply or something, because that does not compute. You can have an expansion hatchery with 2 full control groups of mixed speed/banelings by around the 8-9 minute mark, so something is seriously off with your story/build order/dexterity/et cetera. As for making use of your Queens, make sure to hotkey them, that way you can take 1-2 seconds to bounce back to them (using hotkeys), spawn some larvae, then bounce back to your troops (using hotkeys). You can also queue commands for queens, so if you need to spawn larvae on several different hatcheries with the same queen use shift-queuing. I've also been told you can spawn larvae by click on the APPROXIMATE location of the hatchery on the minimap. Haven't actually tried that out of a combination of laziness and because I like to set my queens in specific positions, but it is worth looking into if you just need to spawn larvae asap without looking away from a skirmish.
Hmm, OK maybe 12-13 mins was an overestimate - whichever is the first run that the AI does with a small MM group wipes out whatever defences I have by then and I'm playing catchup from then on in. I don't get up to any expansions until after this time, meanwhile I've been distracted by the first attack and have only a couple of larvae left to rebuild the army. The queen usually dies in the first defence so I have to wait for another of those, and all the early setbacks seem to result in a mid game in which I have enough time to rebuild an army only for it to be steamrollered by the next, bigger enemy wave as they tech up. If I can figure out how to repel the first attack without losing every unit I have then that would be a start! I know the AI is repetitive, but I figured I should work out how to beat it at least once or twice before playing real people with changing strategies. Do you sacrifice drones early on to scout out the enemy or is your first overlord sufficient? It takes such a long time to move to anywhere useful.
@kayhayman: Yes, this queen minimap thing works. Just make sure every hatchery you click on has it's own queen, since the queen closest to the hatchery will cast the spell, if there is no queen, another one goes for a long journey
I agree with the hotkey remark as it can make a massive difference to gameplay. The time spend to program and learn the hotkeys can make your a better player x2
Suggestion form a noob also - I think your problem is how to keep track of all the hatchery activities. I had huge issue too to keep my mind clear of what they are doing, often some of the hatcheries were not producing units at all for very long time which would disadvantage me during the game. watch some of the pro game replays, pay attention to how they short-cut key group their hatcheries and queens, you will understand how they can macro manage the game and production. I used to have a short key assigned to each hatchery. these days I will group all the hatcheries to one key and all the queens to another, then use the short cut to call queens to spray and control production that way. as long as the hatcheries' alliance are assigned you should have no problem managing them after a few try. hope this helps, and I am ready for all the bashing for improvements anyway.
As a relative SC2 newbie I find the trick to keeping your production up is to force yourself to spit first and produce units second. If you get into panics and just mass produce units you're going to have a sorry lavae count the next time you need to field some units. If you're running a severe mineral surplus put another hatchery in your main to up production. I don't think you really need to worry about mutas or hydras versus a normal AI. If you just expand early (at around 15-20ish supply), get your production up and mass an army of roaches and speedlings (upgrade is a MUST get) then you will be able to dominate a medium AI early on. After his first push just push back.
