Leveling Down

When in doubt about what to do for the Zerg mid-game, just mass Hydralisks.

For my series of mid game Starcraft 2 team strategy articles, I’ve saved my most difficult race to play for last: Zerg. Protoss is easy for me to understand, Terran was tough at first but now I understand, and Zerg…well Zerg I now understand as well but like most Starcraft players, feel that even after understanding the Zerg race, it’s still tough to play with them – especially against Terran. But, don’t let that dissuade you as a Zerg team player. Read on for different army types you can go with Zerg in the mid game.

When Does Mid-Game Begin?
This particular text I will most likely paste into each one of the three races’ mid-game entries since it’s important to know when mid-game has begun. Early game consists of the initial quick rushes, followed by a build-up of initial mineral only and minor gas requiring units: Zealots and Stalkers, Marines and Marauders, and Zerglings and Roaches. Once one side has felt that they have built up enough of this early game force, that side will attack the other. If the attacking side is stronger, they will win the game right then. However, if the attack fails (both sides are even, the defending side has too much defense, etc.), that is when the mid-game begins.

The Primary Characteristics of Mid-Game
Unlike the early game when all three races basically have one conservative build to make it into the mid-game, mid-game is where strategy comes most into play. Early game was all about execution: who could rush the best, who could defend the rush the best, etc. The variety in unit types was very little and therefore made the early game more predictable.

Beginning of Mid-Game for Zerg
Zerg have to upgrade their main base in order to have access to more advanced mid-game units. Therefore, once you feel that you are through the early game, you should have definitely teched to Lair by then.

After upgrading your Hatchery to Lair, your next macro activity in mid-game is securing an expansion. This is vital because you should have an excess number of workers by this point as well as a need for more gas to start producing more powerful units and upgrades. Also remember to keep making drones, because you lose drones when you make buildings. One of the reasons why I have difficulty with Zerg is that the Drones and your combat units all spawn from the same larvae. Therefore, it is nowhere near as easy to pump drones continuously while still making combat units.

Anyway, on expanding: consider using the Overlords’ spawn creep ability around an expansion area so that you can lay Spine Crawler defenses down before you start the Hatchery. Also begin laying out creep tumors from your main to the expansion, so that your ground units can move faster between your main and your expansion. I am a fan of creating a second Queen from my main when I have the excess minerals so that the second Queen is a dedicated Creep Tumor layer. Once the expansion is up, the second Queen just goes to the expansion to infuse Larvae.

Carrying from where we left off in the Zerg Build
At the end of the Zerg early game, the Zerg player secured his main with a couple of of Spine Crawlers: one in the front (for Zergling rush/Spine Crawler rush) and one in the back (to protect against Reapers), and created a Queen in order to spawn more larvae. You should have most likely also researched the Zergling speed upgrade, as Zerglings with the speed upgrade (commonly referred to as “Speedlings”) allow them to move quite fast and strongly increase their effectiveness in the early game. But now with a well fortified base and Speedlings, what can you do as a Zerg player for mid-game?

1. Mutalisks (Lair, Spire)
With better Terran and Protoss players walling off their chokepoints, Speedlings don’t work out so well in the early mid-game. Therefore, it is more common to see Mutalisks in the early game from better Zerg players, just because their speed allows them to easily harrass opponents. Many players will dedicate their defense to their chokepoint, so Mutalisks allow the Zerg player to attack their defenseless mineral lines. Mutalisks are the fastest air unit that can come out among all three races, so early Mutalisk harassment can be quite potent and throw your opponents off their game in a defensive stance as your teammates continue to build/expand unfettered. It takes a lot of patience and control though to be able to use Mutalisks effectively, and the amount of micro required for them makes it difficult to work on your macro at the same time. Using Mutalisks for harassment effectively to all your opponents and wrecking their mineral lines without losing them is an art. Sending them right into the opponents anti-air units and structures only to lose them all is not.

2. Speedlings & Mutalisks (Lair, Spire)
Generally if you decide to go Mutalisks, you will be very gas starved and therefore, all of your excess minerals can either go towards making more drones and expanding, or making more Speedlings to provide your Mutalisks with more of a balanced assault if you want to win the game with just one base. Mutalisks by themselves may have trouble against anti-air units like Marines, Stalkers, and Hydralisks, but if you engage them with Speedlings, the anti air units will often attack the Mutalisks and this allows your Speedlings to get in and do a lot of damage without dying. Mutalisks and Speedlings are the fastest units the Zerg have, so both can be used together quite effectively for guerrilla tactics and light skirmishes. The Speedling/Mutalisk combo is classic and comes from the first Starcraft game. You sort of evolve to this combo if you cannot or don’t choose to secure an expansion in the mid-game and can engage the enemy in open areas.

3. Mass Hydralisks (Lair, Hydralisk Den)
This is the most conservative Zerg mid-game approach, and the one I tend to favor as a player that isn’t 100% on top of my Zerg game. Hydralisks are slow, but do a lot of damage and have very good range with their range upgrade researched. This allows them to pretty much stand toe to toe against basically anything in the mid-game, provided you have a good number of Hydralisks. Consider simply massing Hydralisks and researching the range upgrade and damage upgrade when in doubt over what to do since it really does not have any disadvantage against any other infantry units and can hold its own against larger ground and air units as well. The main drawback of the Hydralisk is its reduced movement speed off creep, making it difficult to attack without a Nydus Canal. They also can’t keep up with other Zerg ground unit types – hence, it is often easiest to just focus on only Hydralisks for a mid-game army.

4. Mass Roaches (Lair, Roach Warren)
I specify Lair for this build because you need to get to Lair so that you can research all of the Roach upgrades at Lair as well as the ability for them to burrow from the Lair. This build is situational, and the primary reason you would mass Roaches in mid-game is to deal mass ground infantry from all three races in the early mid-game. Mass Roaches does very well against mass Stalkers when they go toe-to-toe, and does very well against Terran’s massed Infantry as well. Speedlings will fall very easily against both of those general army types. However, the Roach’s biggest problem is that it lacks anti-air. Therefore, if you decide to go mass Roaches, make sure that one of your partners is going anti-air/air or else Mutalisks will demolish your Roach army or early Void Rays will do some damage to your base.

Roaches are also pretty good against Terran mech as well. The Terran mech build is pure Factories pumping out Hellions, Siege Tanks, and eventually Thors. All of these are powerful ground-based Terran units, and when used together, can make a typical Zergling, Mutalisk, or Hydralisk masser experience some definite pain.

If Terran has committed to ground forces with the mech build, you may want to consider committing to mass Roaches (and later throw in Ultralisks) if you want to beat his mech build back. The Roach is armored, and therefore, the strongest mid-game ground unit that the Zerg have, and on top of this, has the researchable ability to move while burrowed. Moving while burrowed is the strongest counter you can have to Terran tanks in siege mode, as they cannot attack anything near them so you can burrow your Roaches, move them to the Siege Tanks, and unburrow to destroy everything.

5. Mutalisks & Corrupters (Lair, Spire)
This army type is very low on the Zerg army totem pole since it is only meant to handle one thing in mid game: Void Rays. When Mutalisks go up against a Void Ray rusher, they will generally get shot out of the sky. However, throwing a few Corrupters into the mix significantly allows for stronger Mutalisk damage.

Against the stronger Void Ray, you will have to use the Corrupter’s special ability that increases damage taken by the affected unit by 20%. Find where the Void Rays are, grab your Corrupters and have each of them cast their ability on a different Void Ray. Since the Corrupters are casting the ability and moving within range of the Void Ray, they will get attacked first. This allows them to tank for a bit, and this is ideal since they are stronger than Mutalisks. Your Mutalisks will then be able to attack and do most of the damage to the Void Rays with the 20% damage bonus. Keep in mind that Corrupters are not the main damage dealer in this army type – the Mutalisks are. Make sure you have 2x or 3x the number of Mutalisks to Corrupters for maximum effectiveness. I have seen Zerg players that just make lots of Corrupters if they perceive an air threat is imminent. You really need to have both unit types (with more Mutalisks than Corrupters) to handle air threats.

6. Mass Speedlings (Hatchery, Spawning Pool with Zergling speed upgrade)
The easiest thing you can do going for Zerg mid game is to keep pumping out Zerglings in mass, and hope that the sheer size of your Speedling army can overwhelm your opponent. Unfortunately, most Starcraft maps have natural chokepoints/ramps, allowing non-Zerg players to fortify them and make it difficult for a large number of Speedlings to be most effective. There are some maps however, that have open areas and if you are able to catch and surround opponents out in these areas, the Speedlings will do their duty. Just keep in mind that they don’t have a lot of life at all, so the more ranged units your opponents make, the less effective massed Speedlings become. Basically, you would only do this if you were passing your excess gas to another Zerg player so he could mass something gas heavy (such as Mutalisks) out of one base, for example. However, as the Zerg player, it’s probably more effective that your non-Zerg partners pass you gas you can mass Mutalisks and they spend all their excess minerals massing Marines or Zealots.

7. Infestors & whatever you can build with little gas (Lair, Infestor building)
I’ve saved the “cute” Zerg mid-game army build for last. And once again, I will define “cute” army builds as those that will work against lower quality opponents, but will simply cripple you against the better ones because your strategy will not work. In the mid-game, Zerg will always be hurting for gas unless they mass Zerglings. If you want to make Infestors early enough, you will have to give up Mutalisks and Hydralisks – two of Zerg’s main mid-game unit types.

The reason why a Zerg player would want to build Infestors so early is due to the Infested Terran ability combined with the fact that if you research the Burrow ability at the Lair, Infestors can automatically move while burrowed. This makes them basically cloaked units, and they can sometimes slip their way into an enemy base. Once in, these Infestors can spawn dozens of Infested Terran – slow moving units which stay alive for 15 seconds but have strong ranged attacks that can eat through basically an entire base when massed. It’s fun to watch, but basically, by investing in Infestors so early, your base will be completely empty and ripe for getting destroyed. While your Infestors are trying to take out an enemy base, yours will probably be taken out as well. Is this worth the trade off? Better players will be have detection at their bases, so the Infestors will get killed before they can even spawn a good number of Infested Terran.

Infested Terran can be fun to use in the late game once you’ve put together a strong army, but to forgo the strong army when mid-game starts to make some Infestors may not be the wisest decision (although, spawning Infested Terran for defense can be quite effective too). It’s fun, but it’s the equivalent of a Terran player wanting to go Ghosts for nuking in mid-game – doable against bad opponents, but better ones should have detection at their bases.

Summary of Zerg Mid-Game for team-based matches
0. Early game draws to a close with a stalemate
1. Upgrade to Lair
2. Decide whether to go air or ground
3. Create required buildings to form your mid-game army
4. Expand
5. Protect expansion
6. Research upgrades
7. Attack!
8. If unsuccessful, read my next article on the end-game

Stay tuned for Monday when I put out the last of my 3v3 strategy articles on the end-game for all three races!

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