How do I break Terran fortification as Zerg?

Question

http://sc2rep.net/replays/starcraft-2-replay-z-ret-vs-t-mouzmorrow-metalopolis-09-12-2010

I just watched this replay and I don't know how the Zerg could break that Terran fortress. He tried everything - nydus worms, mutas, brood lords, ultras, banelings, and Terran just created indestructible Planetary Fortresses - Turrets - Sensor Towers wall, plus massed a large army of MMM + Vikings.

Does anybody have any ideas how to win against incredibly-fortified Terran (as Zerg), who isn't a noob? And Terran wasn't just on 1-2 expos, he had half of the map.

Answer 1

I think there is an inherit flaw to watching a replay of players at this caliber and saying: how could X beat Y. If Ret had been playing against me, any one of those attacks would have been successful. The fact that MarroW is such a powerful player really says more about this replay than any description of what happened.

That said there are a number of good approaches to dealing with Turles as any race:

• Bombardment
• Contain
• Sauron

Bombardment is usually the most obvious one. Every race has a long range unit (Siege Tank, Brood Lord, Colossus, etc) which they can leverage against a static defense. Usually the key to implementation is being able to handle the back up defense. If you're bringing in Broodlords, you need to have Corruptors on hand to deal with Viking/Voidray/etc. Since a large part of his economy is invested in these static defenses he won't be able to raise as large of a back up force.

A contain strategy is based on the principal that he must movve out of his defenses as some point. While he is still in a strong position, without the support of static defense this tactic allows for you to pick off his advancing army thus reducing the potential resources of his army. This is a strategy that trades on patience and fast, guerrilla style attacks, rather than a frontal assault. Eventually he will run out of money and you'll be able to overcome any remaining static defenses. I've provided a decent replay of this in action.

Sauron Zerg was made popular by the Broodwars player JulyZerg (I'll let you guess what race he played) in the OSL tournament in 2004. Prior to 2004 no Zerg player had ever made it to the finals much less won, so JulyZerg's performance brought about the "Zerg Renaissance." There really is no way to stop the Sauron Zerg other than to prevent it from happening. It leverages an impossible to over come economic advantage. I don't think I can accurately explain how it works without just showing you. The key difference between this and a contain strategy is that Sauron Zerg involves a frontal assault.