Basics of playing Zerg

Question

I am a beginner in Starcraft 2. What are the very basics you have to think about when playing zerg?

So far, I know, I have to think about these things all the time:

• continue building units in the base all the time
• build a queen for each base and think about injecting larvae
• build Spore Crawlers as detectors (how many? where?)

Are there some basic combinations of two units that go together well? Or a simple strategy guide easy to remember?

Is there a strategy that works "ok" without scouting? As a real beginner I don't understand what I see in the opponents base anyway.

Answer 1

I have been playing StarCraft since the release of StarCraft 1. First off I will recommend that you play both campaigns, WOL and HOTS. After the release of HOTS, Blizzard implementad training missions and minor missions to learn about the mechanics of the game - you should do these.

But Zerg is often a balance between making drones and making units. As you are new to the game. I would make simple builds. Instead of trying out complicated builds from the internet, start out by doing a 1 base build. This means that you focus on your main base, and build structures from there.

When you get the hang of this, try out some basic build orders from the internet, like a Roach Timing or Baneling busts.

So which units is easy to play and are good against all.

In general, building Roaches is fairly safe against all races. Roach and Zerglings do pretty good at the beggining of the game. You can then, later into the game "refered to as mid-game", try to build mutalisks.

Queens

Reagarding queens. The point of the queen is to defend against rushes, upholding larve injects and spreading creep. Creep is important as your units move faster on creep and grants you vision. You should have atleast 1 pr. hatch, and 2 in the field spreading creep.

Spore Crawlers

Also, make it a habbit to place one Spore Crawler in the middle of your mineral line of all your bases. It procets your from flying harrasment and can detect Widow Mines and cloaked units.

What else

BUT, I will always recommend that you should get used to going for a "15 Hatch". 15 is the number of units you have, and Hatch is the Hatchery. 15 Hatch is you expanding at 15 drones.

And remember always to upgrade your units!

Get used to use a "rotation".

1. Check inactive drones
2. Inject larve
3. Make Overlords
4. Make Units (workers and regular units)
5. Upgrade units
6. Spread creep
7. REPEAT

I can recommend that you watch Day9´s cast. I found some for you to start out with:

• Day[9] Daily #269 - Newbie Tuesday: How to get into SC2!
• Day[9] Daily #194 - Newbie Tuesday: Drone Timing .

You can find a lot more on his page on YouTube or via his own Day9 webpage.

Answer 2

The main approach that I've found helped people learn Zerg is to recognize the race's unique advantage and disadvantage: they have only a single unit producing structure. Thus, finding a balance between producing army units and producing workers is the most difficult thing about playing Zerg.

While Terran and Protoss players just continuously build from each structure, Zerg players can make 10 Drones and then a minute later make 10 Mutalisks and then a minute later make 10 Roaches. They don't have to produce a full set of infrastructure to do so, just a single tech building for the unit.

So the main things you need to do are spread creep, scout well, hit your injects, and always have just enough army to defend against any potential incoming attacks. Spend all of your other larva on Drones and you'll force your opponent into a position where he has to attack you. As long as you recognize the incoming attack in time and produce army appropriately, you'll be able to defend, continually expand, and secure the game.

Answer 3

The basics are: Keep injecting, produce drones all game long (keep your bases saturated, 18-20 drones on minerals, 3 on each gas), scout often to counter whatever your opponent has planning for you, harrass whenever possible

Zerg are called the reactive race, apart from aggression and harassment, most of the time you will need to build your army to counter that of your opponent.

For example, if you see a Dark Shrine, you go for Spore Crawlers, one in each mineral line and you leave some units behind to defend. Same goes for Cloak banshees (early refinery, tech lab on starport).