Defeating the Very hard Ai without Cheese

At first I started playing against the Ai to test out my micro and macro skills, but then it became sort of a grudge.:laugh: The Problem I keep having is holding off the cpu long enough to take the natural expansion, but it owns me everytime. >.>

As terran, I learned to hold off early aggression with a bunker, rax,depot wall in. As for protoss, I learned to abuse cannons and sentries,but as zerg I has nothing like that.

Scenario one: Fast expansion leads to a shortage in minerals needed to create hydras and spore crawlers.

Scenario 2: Tech up to hydralisks, infestors, and expand, but my minerals would be gone by then. Which makes me :wacko: and >=\ because the computer literally can pump out units like there is not tomorrow. It baffles my tiny noobish mind that the computer can already start spend over 5000
minerals in under 6 minutes.(This is an screenshot taken earlier than 6 minutes,but you ge tthe point.)


So I guess this is a long way of asking for non - cheese tactics for countering blobs of units. I know it sounds silly and should be the easiest thing to do. So if there is some nuance that I haven't tried yet, do tell pl0x.

 

The enemy AI is very easy to predict, and using that will help you defeat it. Very Hard is not actually that difficult to defeat if you understand the basics of the game and have a good opener.

The very hard AI will muster a few troops, go from a number of preset builds, and send and early attack on you. All you have to do is stave off this attack while going hard eco. I play as a Protoss, so force fields are a MUST. Just play defensively for the first few waves, probably around 3 waves, then get a big force and attack. Personally as a protoss: collosus play with blink stalkers works very well against any of the AI's compositions. You can also move this army up cliffs, blinking the stalkers with it, and can eat the AI's base while his army gets confused and splits.

oh yes, and always scout so you know exactly when the attack is coming. If you're terran sacrifice a marine, if you're zerg, sacrifice a zergling, and if you're protoss, sacrifice a probe or get good observer positions, but always make sure you know when his army is moving out from his base so you can get ready to play defensively. If you know their exact composition and exactly when they are coming, this gives you a tremendous advantage, one you rarely have when playing against unpredictable human players.

 

Hi. A few suggestions:

You can pretty much always expect that the AI will do one-base play, and will hit you with a fairly early push that can be hard to stop if you have an inefficient build order. As such, your first objective is to be able to react to this push.

As zerg, you should be able to get all of the scouting info you need in order to react from your first overlord once it reaches their base. I presume you know the unit counters and tells; let me know if you are having trouble spotting or stopping any specific unit mixes.

When are you expanding? I don't play zerg, but I do believe that 14 hatch + spines into speedlings should be a safe opening; just don't get greedy with those drones.

If you want to post a replay, I will take a look at it later.

By the way, "very hard" AI does not cheat, so you can chalk up any disparities in army size to (a) you getting greedy with drone production or (b) an inefficient build order in the first 5 minutes. Dealing with (b) should be your main priority at this point; find a good article, memorize and practice until you can consistently avoid supply blocks and mineral/gas stockpiling.