Hey guys, So I just got trampled this game and need some help. I'm playing against a terran opponent on Lost Temple who is extremely aggressive and end up managing in crisis mode most the time. A few things I notice already: a) I go too gas intensive early in the game (I had done this hoping to keep producing banes and working into mutas, in retrospect this was very dumb- I eventually pull all my drones into minerals to try and compensate the imbalance of my resources.) b) my expansion fails...during the game I should have cancelled it while they were taking it down, I realized this while playing but caught it at the last second and was too late : /. I should have built a stronger wave of forces to protect it first -OR- rather than producing the second hatch in my main gone for the natty earlier instead- at the time I had built the second in main to keep producing units as fast as possible. c) I go lair tech for mutas- I had done this thinking the opponent would eventually back off the aggression, this was a huge mistake because it came before my natural was even up. I should have known he was going to keep going aggressive ground with the number of rax he produced. d) I do a baneling bust after taking out his first push. I should have kept them outside his base to fend off the next wave while going for a natural expansion. What I would have done next time around: Still got the 14 pool 13 gas into speedlings and banes. Create a very strong defense to protect an eventual natural expansion. Saturated the natural while staying in T1 until I was secure (The lair tech and spire were worthless this game). If I would have done this the direction of the game would have presumably followed and entirely different direction. Conclusion: Don't underestimate how aggressive an opponent can be. My assumptions killed me in multiple instances during the game- the natural expo remains undefended, the assumption I can get to mutas- these are all huge mistakes underestimating my opponents build thinking he's going all in against me. I kept thinking to myself, well he can't support anymore attacks after a wave like that, I'll do x now. If I could come up with one fragmented sentence to teach myself this game it'd go something like "Scout your opponent, eliminate assumptions". I've attached a replay- the good news is you see some nukes this game O.O...this totally caught me off guard because I've never been nuked in a ladder game lol.
Alright, going to make a handful of comments before running off here: 1) This is a good example of why you shouldn't give up. You would have probably won that game if you had done two very simply things: (a) Don't give up; (b) Move your units out of the way of the nuke. And while you may not have spotted the infrared beam, you can be pretty damn sure he is going to be nuking your drones, since your only crawler is in there anyway. Pull....them...back. Same with the lings, should have moved them, and immediately morphed an OL a bit away from your base into an Overseer. Chase out the ghost, get a Nydus up and expand again to the main of the North starting position, and keep up pressure. You had that game just by starving him of resources. 2) Yes, you did get way too much gas way too early. Only do that if you have a specific strategy that calls for it....which early banelings do not, and "continuously pumping banelings" is not a strategy I would recommend. If you need the extra gas later on for an impending baneling bust, you can always morph an extractor and throw 3 drone on it temporarily. But you don't want to cripple your mineral income like that (again, unless your playing a fast muta tech gamble or something of that nature). 3) If you are going to go for an early baneling bust you need to commit to it, and you need to seriously consider whether repeated busts are a good idea. Every time you bust, you're doing so at a resource disadvantage, and the terran is going to close back up quickly every time. That means you need to make sure you have the units to do significant damage when you get in, and/or can keep the door open and keep the pressure up. Subsequently baneling busts are usually less and less effective, unless your planning a deathstroke right after say catching all their units out in the open or something. Instead consider a change up (rear end nydus, OL drop, rapid expansion saturation, tech/change over to something different etc). 4) There's no need to morph those banelings in your base. You should be a lot closer when you do that so there isn't as much distance to travel. I wouldn't morph them any further than the naga tower, and often I morph them as close as along the far edge of their natural, especially if they have no spotter. And you need to really balance the number you morph. You NEED as many lings as possible (see #3 above), so you don't want more banelings than you need to break the door and kill/soften the core of their MM. Having extra banelings to waste on groups of 1-2 marines/marauders or SCVs just means you had too many banelings. 5) Map control. You were really bad at keeping a good eye on the map. You should really be dominating the towers at all times he doesn't have a bio ball there, and use patrolling lings/OLs, etc. Your units should be spending more time out of your base than in it. 6) Realize the risks of expanding to your natural. This is mostly a 4+ player map tip, and especially a LT tip. On bigger maps you should use Zerg's more fluid expansion abilities, great scouting/map control, and ability to exit drones to and from an expansion via burrow/nydus to make life very difficult on the terran as to whether and where you have expanded. In addition, on a map like LT your natural expo is very vulnerable to cliff drops, making it less than ideal. When/if you do expand there, you should plan defense for a cliff drop, i.e. pre-staging near the cliff for sight, and being ready to or pre-positioning your crawler appropriately. Alternatively you can be ready to simply make life a living hell for them as soon as they commit to it (i.e. they cliff drop, but inc massive baneling bust on them....you slowly lose an expo, they get their main maimed). Note that I'm not necessarily saying don't expand there. In fact I frequently fast expo there (16 hatch, before gas), but you need to prepare for the potential cliff drop. That's about all I have time for.
Hey Khayman, Thanks for the tips. I gave up before that nuke even dropped, but I agree with you that it was still anybodies game If i'd kept fighting. I psyched myself out by that point. I never intended to do any kind of baneling bust, it was more of an improvised response to his massed early aggression. I was in panic mode and any plan I had went out the window. After I had taken out his first wave I was pretty confident I could take out a lot of scv's because I thought he had gone all in. I'll try to get out there more confidently with the map control too, but this game I just felt trapped in a corner the entire time : / lol.
