I've been playing this game way too much, but it's giving me something to write.
As a zerg player, I find it difficult to bypass a massive ball of marines or stalkers, the most basic units in the game. I've tried multiple configurations of units, but at the end of the day, a good old giant marine ball will tear me open. So why is it so? Why am I having trouble defeating the most basic terran unit that people use every game?
Well, the answer is surface area as I read somewhere. Basically, in a situation where there is a basic battle between 1 marine and 2 zerglings, the 2 zerglings will win. If you take 4 zerglings and 2 marines you get the same result. Now let's take the first example and multiply it times... 50.
50 marines running at 100 zerglings obviously means... the marines win. Huh? Why is this so? Shouldn't the pattern continue? Well it has to do with range. In smaller unit combat, even if more than one marine fires on the same zergling, the zergling lives long enough to deal damage and kill the other marine. In a massive battle, before a zergling even reaches the marine, it's going to take a lot more incoming fire the closer it gets to a marine. The incoming fire is so great that they die before they reach their target, failing to deal any damage. Now if we add in factors such as upgrades and stimpack, it gets worse and worse for the zergling.
Of course the only way I see that this can be remedied is if the zerglings are all able to attack without dying before they reach their goal. One solution is to unburrow right underneath a giant ball of marines. Then more zerglings will be able to attack, rather than being killed BEFORE they can deal damage. Or take the awesome ability, Dark Swarm from Starcraft 1, where any unit under this cloud is invincible to projectile attacks.
This information might be important to those zerg players who want to play a long game as unit amounts tend to be larger. However, it is especially important to those who play games that involve 3 or more players, as armies are generally larger. Now all of a sudden, those "rushers" actually have a good reason why they keep doing that. Another thing to note is that even though the zergling is "supposed" to counter armies of stalkers and marauders, according to battle.net, this is not so if they are not in range and die before attacking.
As a zerg, you have many options to use against the marine. To counter the marine, you can either use the baneling, roach, infestor or brood lord. Banelings are strong, but force you into using zerglings as your finisher as banelings die along with marines. This works against smaller sized armies. Roaches are good, but fall quickly to marauders who have better damage, range and speed. Infestors are an interesting option and two fungal growths can decimate huge balls of marines. Brood lords come late game and are powerful, but again are risky to tech to and fall quicky to vikings.
The Protoss equivalent to the marine would be the stalker. In small numbers, zerglings can overrun them. In larger games, you run into the same problem as with the marines. Roaches can actually keep up with stalkers in larger games, but stalkers are slightly ahead due to the bonus they have. The answer here would be hydralisk. They actually cost less than stalkers at 100/50 compared to 125/50. Also, they build faster. Stalkers do have a range of 6 and Hydras start with a range of 5. But then you can killed with they bring out the colossus, which you'll have to counter with the corrupter.
So the moral of the story is that even though people write what counters what in this game, it is not clearly so when you put range into the equation. As a guideline, the longer the game goes, the less effective melee units will be compared to ranged. This is probably why Ultralisks do not see much play as well as Archons.
Few Units: Melee > Ranged > Splash Lots of Units: Splash > Ranged > Melee
As a terran player, I get torn apart by zergling/baneling/mutalisk on a regular basis. Probably my hardest matchup, actually.
And, i will say, in a straight fight, you are pretty much correct. However, you neglect the zerglings(and mutalisks, actually) most basic advantage - map control.
Sure, they are bad at killing marines, but they are the fastest unit in the game. Most people do it this way:
Park zerglings outside the terran base. When marines move out, if you cant kill them, run away. If the marines stray too far away from their base, run zerglings (or mutas; its actually the same principle for both units) into the terran base. When the marines return to defend their workers, run away again.
Keep this up and you'll have terran players like myself crying all day long. :)
Did some tests in the map editor to see this in action. Apparently, anything above 40 zerglings versus 20 marines will result in a marine win. Alternatively, anything larger than 10 zerglings with speed upgrade versus 5 marines with stim will result in marine victory. Did not do tests with weapon or armor upgrades.
The conclusion to say is that you should not engage in stim marines with just zerglings.
In that matchup the ultralisks spawned in the middle of the marines. Had the marines had the opportunity to take advantage of their range the outcome would have been different.
I actually do not use burrow that much and I don't see pro players using them either (check out gomtv.net for the pro games). However, this could be the ideal way to solve this problem but detection is always a scare.
There are some amusing and educational examples of these large-scale matchups on youtube.
For instance:
While cool, I don't know if educational is the right word. :)
Sure, even full supply of marines would lose badly to upgraded ultras, especially when clumped together, with no micro, and no marauder or tank backup. No arguement here. I just don't know how this information helps me.
I actually do not use burrow that much and I don't see pro players using them either (check out gomtv.net for the pro games). However, this could be the ideal way to solve this problem but detection is always a scare.
I have seen some GSL games where Roach burrow micro was used to great effect, and its always nice to have to burrow your drones if harrasment occurs. Besides that, i agree - burrow isn't the most widely used upgrade.
If your opponent has mass marines, turn some of those zerglings into banelings and watch him cry.
The speed upgrade is also great for zerglings. It helps them close the gap faster against ranged units and makes them even more effective for harassment.
The problem you describe also affects ranged units - it's easy to get into a situation where only your front line of marines are attacking and everyone behind them is out of range. They'll fan out to extend the front line, but that takes time and isn't always possible with terrain. Better players use the "stutter step" to close the gap and attack with a more significant group of units. Once you're engaged you repeatedly alternate move (not attack-move) and hold position commands. Each time you hold position your units will fire. You can time it so your moves consume the attack cooldown so you don't lose any attack time when you're moving.
Posted Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:04 am
