Why Don't Other Races Expand as Fast as Zerg?

Not as quickly, no. If a zerg focuses all his unit production on drones he will saturate faster. Obviously that comes at the expensive of not having the larvae to build other units (except for Queens).

 

all this talk about "the hatchery IS the barracks!" isn't really as prevalent as you'd think, really... sure, it takes 150 minerals for the structure to make marines and you already have the structure, but the pool is 200. that is your barracks enabler.

but really, you throw that down as soon as possible so you can pump out a queen, then pump out a poopload more units with the queen. Zerg really just build a ton more units in early game than anyone else can. your second drone starts building before your first finishes.

 

well, terrans need more than 1 barracks to build their army fast enough. the zerg only need 1 pool for all their hatcheries. the "poopload" more units still isn't enough... it's about equal to 2-3 barracks or gateways, but most games you need about 4 in early game, 6-8 midgame. for zerg, that means 2 hatcheries in early game to not fall behind.

 

I came back to edit to say what you just said lol. You need to expand more because your hatcheries make your armies, not just your economy. Other races don't expand as fast because they can make other unit producing structures without expanding to get them. And yeah... you can put a 2nd hatchery in your main... but that is just inefficient.

 

Its like asking why don't Zerg wall in their bases, or why Protoss don't try to unit rush. Its not the strategy for the Race. Each race has different strategies that work best for the way it builds, techs, and attacks.

You're simply not going to see a Terran worrying about building himself a second CC when he A: already walled in his first one and B: isn't even completely utilizing his resources from his primary. A protoss expanding early is equally ridiculous, because they have probably either A: cannoned up their first base or B: spent all their money on 2-3 Gateways to start pumping out Zealots (or both).

A Zerg player can adapt quicker even if he spends the resources to build another hatcher because all he's doing is boosting his unit production speed. He can pump out drones for resources if things are clear, but if he's scouted a quick attack build from the opponent, he can be pumping out zerglings.

As for maxing out their expanses first.. I don't really know if I see that.. Like I said, if a Zerg player isn't being rushed he can spend the time to max out the exp, while a Protoss or Terran will probably start popping out workers soon as the expo is completed. And its gonna take longer considering Zerg can fill up 3-8x faster (But they won't be popping out minions.. so its a trade-off)

 

Expanding early is a viable strategy for any of the races. I do it as Toss sometimes if I am feeling cheeky.

But the risk of early expanding, for any race, is that if you are scouted you are vulnerable to the rush. The resource demands of the early expansion are so intense that an opponent who has invested in armies will be able to kill you. The 400 minerals spent on a nexus could be translated into 4 zealots, 8 marines, or 16 lings by your opponent. Plus, by design, expansions are more difficult to defend.

However, this isn't as true for the Zerg, since the Zerg hatch doubles as an army producing structure. The Zerg can switch strategies on the fly because of the diversity of the hatchery. That is why they early expand more than the other races.

 

It isn't a matter of zerg being better at expanding, it's that they are forced to expand. Everyone who doesn't play zerg seems to think zerg are cheaper but other than the zergling that isn't true, it especially isn't true of their buildings. 50 minterals is not a big deal at all. It espeiclaly isn't true because unlike toss it costs you drones to make an expansion. You can't just throw down a base and 4 cannons with a single probe. So like I said it isn't a matter of zerg are better at it, it's that it's the only way they can hope to compete.

The other races don't fast expand like this because they don't have to, why spend the resources when you can just as easily defeat a 4 base zerg with a single terran base.