1 base terran vs 4 base zerg - who wins?

General Discussion
1

The zerg wins of course - it just takes 20 minutes to do so:

https://i.imgur.com/j4QLWfV.png

As you can plainly see, the zerg is on 4 bases or 5 if you include the proxy. The terran finally lands his natural at the 7 minute mark. Here is what the workers active tab looked like:

https://i.imgur.com/eNDLPVD.png

Despite being massively behind in eco, look at how closely his army value is able to keep pace regardless:

https://i.imgur.com/ZAc1xCE.png

That’s close enough he can turtle and stay in the game for sure. The defender’s advantage for terran absolutely can bridge that gap. Eventually he even overtakes me in army value. He even kept pace in upgrades:

https://i.imgur.com/IpME7W1.png

The funny thing is that he could’ve dragged this out even longer. Once he maxed he pushed out which allowed me to clean up his army. If he kept turtling this could have been an hour long game or more.

TvZ has massive design issues. There is no way a Zerg could macro out of being behind 1 base vs 4 bases. It’s not going to happen in a million years. That’s because Terran has loads of game-ending tools. They can take a lead and compound it very quickly into a victory.

Zerg can’t do that. Zerg needs game ending tools vs terran. This game absolutely should not have gone to the 20 minute mark. This crap is just nuts. It happens in the GSL too. Top zergs get a huge lead and it just takes forever to close out the game even if there is a 0.000% chance the terran can win. Why is zerg the only race that can’t end games when ahead?

Amazingly, this terran even agrees:

https://i.imgur.com/P36W5tA.png

The problem is honestly the siege tank and also the liberator. It’s just way too cost effective in a defensive posture. You could bypass that by going for broods, or using mass infestor for infested terrans (you spit them out on top of tanks) but those options have been deleted. Assuming they aren’t going to bring broods nor infestors back, they need to nerf mass orbital. That’s the other linchpin of turtle terran styles. No matter how many bases you kill, he just floats out a new one and you lost more than you gained. If you could actually deny a base by trading, then it might be worth it to take super bad trades into siege tank lines. As is now, you lose a massive number of resources and the only thing he loses is a bit of mining time and bit of army supply.

Mass orbital needs a nerf. Add a casting range to the mule for crying out loud.

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2

Spends all his money getting to 5 bases.
WhY doEsN’T hE JuSt Gg

That’s not how RTS games work batzy technology, army and economy. You can choose 2.

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3

But the main question is did the zerg made ultralisk???

4

Uh, no. Zerg gets to choose 1.

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5

The graphs say otherwise.

6

You literally can’t make army units without cutting drones. That’s why zerg’s early game aggressive options are so incredibly bad. You can’t attack and eco at the same time. You also can’t tech and eco at the same time because the lair blocks queen production which is an absolute disaster against a race that has an air advantage from square 1. What is zerg supposed to tech into? Nothing zerg can rush out can outweigh how far behind you are in economy due to rushing that tech.

There will be games with Serral where he makes plain ling bane the entire TvZ then wins with a ling runby that shreds a mineral line. Zerg absolutely cannot tech. They stay on tier 1 except for upgrades and go for economy plays and that’s basically it. They reach tier 3 far slower than any other race obviously because teching isn’t an option.

Your goal as a zerg is to wait 15 minutes for a ling runby opportunity. That’s Zerg’s options in TvZ.

Show me a game where a Zerg can rush broods at the same timing as a 2 base BC build while staying equal in economy and then we can talk about how Zerg can pick both tech and eco at the same time. The idea of that is just so insane it takes braindamage to believe zerg can eco and tech at the same time. A zerg rushing to broods would be so fragile in everything from upgrades to eco to army supply it would be a free win for the terran. You could give the keyboard to an ape and could close the game out. The first 2 medivacs would kill the zerg with ease.

3 Likes
7

His very last ZvT series was against Heromarine which included roach ravager 1/1 timings, viper lurker rushes etc. You know, proper builds, not proxy hatch into 4 additional hatcheries into wondering why you haven’t won already.

8

Serral is 7.4k mmr. Heromarine is 6.8. There is a 600 mmr difference. Of course you can clown on your opponent with troll builds when you outclass him that massively.

Also I love how you completely dodged my challenge. You know I am right. Zerg absolutely cannot tech as fast nor attack as fast without cutting eco so much the zerg just dies. The idea that zerg can choose any 2 of eco/tech/army is plain absurd. Zerg can pick one and the only one that isn’t a gamble is eco so Zerg can do eco plays and only eco plays, period.

2 Likes
9

The very fact that the Terran player is playing hyper defencive while you do this build is proof of the contrary. He is very scared of dying to Zerg and that’s why he’s waited until 7 minutes to secure his natural. If you want to do this build and win at the 5 minute mark that would be against what you’re saying.

10

He opened 2 rax, no reaper nor scv scout, in his main. Even his nat’s orbital was built in the main without provocation. He transitioned to mech after opening 2 rax. In other words he has absolutely no clue how tvz works but is in GM.

99% of gm terrans would counter-attack with the reaper, see no pool, kill drones while his marines cleared out the hatchery and his nat’s orbital landed at his third. His build is not interrupted in the slightest. I am down a hatchery while going up to 4 bases fast at home. In other words I simply die to a 2/1/1 followup. This guy was simply clueless how TvZ works. How do these people drag out games to 20 minutes? Sieging tanks and turtling is pretty darn easy. Terran needs nerfs.

1 Like
11

Or maybe you just suck. Just putting that out there.

On a related note, have you figured out how high ground and concaves work yet?

1 Like
12

Another spam virtue signaling post?

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13

good question i would gibve +1 if i could

14

i see a trend here, next thread will be 4base zerg vs no base terran turtler and ofcourse terran is imba …

bring the flood, you where on 4 bas fcs he had some stuff you could drown him in locusts f.e. and not even risk loosing resources since your swarmhosts are outside of siege areas

or prepare for bl switch while you corrs activly hunt down the libs

you could also bring lingbane to crack buildings and then terran ecoline

what do you mean this is all theory craft? like you nonexistant replay i am convinced you see what i mean when i say “stuff”

edit what is up with the space management, i loved to make bigger spaces between chunks of text for dramatic effect and now its gone, totally messes with me ._.

15

This post reminds me of when the game first game out. You would see these silver zergs telling everyone how they were ahead of terran 12 bases to 4 and swear up and down terran imba. Good times.

16

It greatly amuses me whenever a zerg, and its always a zerg, forgets that having a base advantage means nothing at all if your supply consists of 90% drones and no army.

17

Terran was IMBA back then.

18

Except this garbage happens even in the finals of tournaments. It’s a universal fact. I have never met a person who has played or watched TvZ who thought otherwise. Games are extremely difficult to close out against Terran. You can be massively ahead and it will take 5-10 minutes before he leaves. It’s purely a waste of time.

The problem is a lack of game ending mechanics for Zerg combined with very powerful turtle & stall mechanics for terran. He can delay a long time by running medivacs around. He can stall even longer by turtling with tanks. Only when he pushes out to take a new base can you engage into the tanks and even then you have to be extremely careful to not take a bad trade. If you do take a bad trade, you have to let him have the base and he’s still behind and still going to lose, it just adds another 10 minutes to the game.

Basically Zerg has absolutely no way to attack a terran, whether that’s a full frontal assault, splitting your army and hitting multiple locations, or harassing with small attacks - each and every one of these is a complete waste of resources. The only exception is when you try to deny a base as he moves out and tries to take it, or if he, for some reason, decides to attack into you. All other fights will almost always (>90% of the time) only help out the terran which only prolongs the game even more.

In other words ZvT game-ending mechanics is basically waiting for when the terran is ready to end the game. That’s really what it comes down to.

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19

You miss the point. Even if you have more “Town Hall” than your opponent it does not give increase your income unless you actually have workers on them.

The OP did not show the income but it looks like he only had ~50 workers when he’s “4 base” to “1 base”

20

I agree with barcode. I’m no expert, but recently got into watching pro games. Even champions like Reynor are left dinking around the map they control 75% of, trying to bait Terran into advancing out into the open, like there’s literally no other way to advance the game. Poke poke poke with viper snatches, that’s all you’ve got. Even when Terran advances, you need perfect infestor micro with neural. It’s crazy watching them.

2 Likes