1 hatchery costs 300 minerals
1 queen costs 150 minerals
their total cost is 450 minerals which is equal to 3 gateways
when protoss goes 2 base 8gates chargelot all in, zerg has to stop worker production and fully utilize all 3 hatcheries’s capacity to make roaches in order to survive… while protoss can still produce worker.
That means 8 gates production power is higher than 3 hatcheries production power
and we always see that protoss has higher worker count in the first 6 or 8 minutes while they also has bigger army in terms of resources and supply
however, because the first hatchery is free, so zerg still has a little chance to survive when both player has equal skill level
Uh not 300 actually 350 cause drone cost atleast and yes chrono hold eco lead like 4-6 minutes and actually 1 base can hold 4 gate only either way zerg had free overlord scout unless protoss go on stargate first.
The total cost can be considered 500 because of the Drone depending on how you tally it; however, the production rate of a Hatchery with Injects works is often so high compared to the other race’s production facilities that it often far exceeds several of them. This must always be taken into account when comparing Zerg’s production to the other factions.
In the example you mentioned, each injected Hatchery is worth around 4 Gateways if the opponent is producing Zealots or Adepts against your Roaches or Hydralisks, and 4.5 Gateways if the opponent is producing Stalkers or Sentries. This is assuming that you aren’t also constantly producing Queens from each Hatchery every 36 seconds to supplement your forces. The information needed to calculate this is provided below.
A Hatchery with consistent injects works out to 1 larva per 5 seconds in faster speed (just over that by a few fractions of a second) whereas every other structure’s production rate is tied to the build time of the units being trained. The Hatchery naturally produces 1 larva every 15 seconds (in editor values, divide by 1.4x for faster speed) and 3 extra larva every 40 seconds (editor values again) with Injects. Rates are calculated by taking the larva provided by each method, dividing them by the time they each take, adding the rates together, and then flipping them (1 divided by the result) to get the average time it takes to generate larva. Since LOTV works in faster speed, we divide by 1.4x at the end to get the faster speed figure. The calculation is approximately as follows: 1/15 + 3/40 = 0.141667. Followed by 1/0.141667 = 7.0588. Then 7.0588 / 1.4 = 5.042. I did not include all of the decimals here, but they are included in the calculation.
If you are producing 2-supply units such as Roaches or Hydralisks, then this production rate is equivalent to about 4 Warpgates constantly producing Zealots or Adepts unless Chronoboost is involved. That rate increases to about 4.5 Warpgates producing Stalkers and Sentries, or about 6 Warpgates producing either kind of Templar. The build times for these are below, you just need to divide the larva generation. https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Warp_Gate_(Legacy_of_the_Void)
To be blunt, Zerg’s production potential is more than high enough to handle any incoming rush, as long as you know beforehand what is coming (scout), and make the right number of units to handle it (scout + understanding the game well enough to know what to do). Most of the difficulty with Zerg is understanding when to make what, and in the right quantities.
don’t forget ovi… because otherwise you have sup block.
true the mythos Zerg has best ecco in Lotv is just not quite true. Toss has the same number of workers as zerg until min ~6, with gate style even longer or the whole game the same. + on the other hand T/P still have tec advantage without loss of def.
once misread too much larvae wasted in def and you get outproduced. best example Terra: no stop bio push you can’t keep up as “swarm”… at the same moment T takes 4,5 base with constant production.
Protoss also spends way more on tech, infrastructure, and upgrades.
Zerg has the fastest growing eco and the cheapest overall tech/production costs.
A protoss on 2-3 base with 8 gates has spent 1200 resources on those gateways + 150 for a cybercore, + 250 for a twilight, 250 for a robo, and/or 300 for a stargate + blink/charge (500 combined) + warp gate (100) + the 400/800 on extra nexuses, and probably on some batteries for defense.
That’s some 3150-3550 resources on infrastructure.
Meanwhile, a Zerg can match that production (including the nexuses) with ~2 extra hatcheries (700), a pool (250), a roach warren (200), lair (250), and the speed upgrades (400) + 3 queens (450).
~2000 on infrastructure and upgrades (includes morphed drones). The Zerg has a potential extra 1150-1550 resources to play around with compared to the Protoss.
Throw in a macro hatch and an extra queen (500 total) and the Zerg is at significantly more production than Protoss while still having less infrastructure spending.
Even if you add a hydra den (250), lurker den (300), spire (450), and hive (350) - 1350 total, Zerg is still spending a comparable amount on infrastructure while nearly completing their tech tree aside from a few upgrades.
If protoss wants to transition into more robo/SG units, they need to spend a lot more to get that production up.
Wow, it’s almost like they’re doing an all-in and if you don’t commit fully to defending it you can lose. They aren’t producing workers behind that if it’s an all in either.
No, they don’t, because, as outlined above, Protoss spends more on their tech and infrastructure. Whether Zerg is ahead or behind in army value/supply or workers compared to the protoss outside of the first 3-4 minutes or so where Protoss will be a bit ahead in workers due to chrono (Zerg tends to pass Protoss at 30-35 workers, even after making some lings/spores for defense. Protoss also doesn’t get enough of an eco edge to fully compensate for the difference in infrastructure costs, and Zerg can rapidly take a significant eco lead beyond that point to net more total mining by the 6-8 minute mark) and Zerg setting up their production, depends pretty much entirely on the Zerg’s macro decisions.
Of course, that’s usually balanced out in practice by Zerg macro and build orders being less fluid - it’s much easier to mess up the balance of army vs worker production or make too many of the wrong units when playing as Zerg because the production is so flexible.
Asumu here with your “DDD” aka “daily dose of delusion”. Zerg has the fastest eco. Zerg eco doesn’t catch up to protoss until about 40 workers ish. And that’s assuming the zerg takes no damage to adepts or oracles. Translation, toss is ahead in eco & tech & is able to attack while the zerg is not, and this somehow equates to zerg having a stronger eco.
If zerg had the stronger eco, zerg would have lair tech & be the one attacking protoss at the same timings, and they’d be doing this from a higher drone count. The beliefs of protoss whiners are simply a complete inversion of reality. It’s legit a cult that produces & consumes it’s own propaganda.
Imagine a zerg so powerful you can get 1 mutalisk out at the same timing as the protoss gets his first oracle, and you can do this from an equal worker count to protoss. Lmao. Protoss whiners have no clue what it would be like to face on equal balance footing vs a zerg that didn’t have both hands tied behind his back.
The statement “fastest eco”. Zerg limits itself to the most necessary.
1gas ->@100 pull all drone from the. def first 4ling later 10 and queens. in professional lvl you try to save or delay as much spore as possible just to save larvae/drones. just so you might get a worker lead for 15-30 sec at min~6.
2Base-lair vs toss is risky. Because you lack a lot of drones for minerals that you lose in gas mining → gladly less drones/ queens/ extra base/ army etc…
Yep, and only that way does zerg achieve a “lead”. One of the games I streamed I actually watched the replay on stream. I basically never like watching replays, they are practically after game maphacks. So anyway I did a 2 base muta build. It was well executed. Toss had no idea. He was able to go twilight, robo, stargate and +1 and have blink before the mutas arrived. Oh and he had a third. This is vs a rush where zerg does nothing except get mutas out as fast as possible. Their eco can produce an army that is competent vs Zerg for the same timings while advancing tech and upgrades minutes faster than zerg.
Literally the only thing you can do as zerg is turtle on creep with queens to 90 drones, waiting for the opponent to over-extend. After he over-extends, the game is slightly in your favor because you now have map control. You have to spend 8-12 minutes just waiting for them to throw their lead before you even get a chance to make your own moves towards winning.
Granted, toss players are terrible and throw away leads, but that’s really not an excuse for bad design. Relying on your opponent to play terribly isn’t a good way to win. You need to be an active player that can actually do things other than defend, defend, defend, and zerg can’t do that (generally).
Larva spawns from hatchery for every 11 sec
Queen’s ability takes 29 sec to spawn 3 additional larvae
At the 66th second we have 6 hatchery larvae and 6 queen larvae
That makes 12 larvae in total. However, for 4 roaches ONE overlord is needed. So we can only have 9 roaches and 3 overlord at the 66th sec.
Now, we go back to calculate protoss production power
at the 0th sec (or the 4th sec as it takes 4 sec to warp-in a zealot)
3 warpgates produce 3 chargelot
at 20th sec >>> 6 chargelot
at 40th sec >>>9 chargelot
at 60th sec >>> 12 charglot
while 6 sec later, zerg can produce 9 roaches, while 3 of which are still in their eggs…
( i did not take into consideration that zerg might miss 1 hatchery larva as it takes 33 sec to spawn 3 hatchery larva…but when the queen larvae spawn at the 29th sec, it would stop the hatchery to spawn the one last larva. Anyway, in order to fully operate zerg’s production power, zerg players are required higher game understanding…that means, in order to a have chance to survive braindead protoss timing attack, zerg players have to have higher skill level)
Note that this is because the Warpgates are front-loaded, giving Protoss an edge on the first Warp-In. Zerg’s production pulls ahead if you keep going.
Zerg unit build times are typically ignored in these calculations because they cancel out over time. A Roach’s build time will not affect Zerg’s ability to produce larva and produce more roaches, regardless whether that build time is 19 seconds or 25 seconds.
Actually, that’s assuming it does. Zerg often passes Protoss in workers at 35-40 even after some drone losses to oracles/adepts, and then can quickly overtakes the Protoss in worker count from there. And again, infrastructure costs (Which I’ve already thoroughly laid out): to match Zerg’s production output, the Protoss needs to spend substantially more resources.
In the average game, Zerg also mine significantly more than Protoss/Terran do, and it has more wiggle room for taking early damage (which is fair because Zerg can’t wall as easily and T/P can more easily bypass a wall and harass anyway, since their flying harass units/drops are more threatening relative to the investment - mutas rely on critical mass, and overlord drops are slower and effectively hold less than prisms/medivacs).
Which timings are you referring to? Because Zerg does have attack timings that hit earlier than any really threatening Protoss all in.
Which side is the aggressor, past the initial harass phase with the first oracles/adepts (which exists in part because Zerg has the ability to invest more into economy early on instead of rapidly teching), depends more on the Zerg’s decisions than on the Protoss.
Eh, if the goal was just to get the fastest muta possible, it’d only come out about maybe 30s later than the fastest possible oracle. It takes ~3 minutes to get pool+lair+spire + 24s for the muta to pop.
An Oracle takes exactly 3 minutes of build time + train time to get out (Pylon, gate, core, SG, oracle).
Though in that case, Zerg would be spending more resources (particularly in terms of gas - 250 + 150/100 + 250/200 + Muta cost- factoring in drones; 650/300 in total - vs 150+150+150/150 - 450/150 for a quick SG, ignoring the cost of the pylon, since Zerg also needs Overlords).
It’s not worth going for mutas that quickly because the tradeoff for the production flexibility with cheaper infrastructure is higher initial costs to work up the tech tree - which is why delaying lair to get more eco to support your production capacity and take advantage of the cheaper/more flexible production is better in a macro game.
Hmm. Interesting. So Protoss does have the economic lead. Toss eco is so busted that it deleted 2 base zerg styles from ZvP. You simply can’t make enough drones off of 2 hatcheries. Any 2 base build the Protoss automatically wins via an economic lead.
This drastically simplified Protoss scouting & builds because they simply don’t have to consider the possibility of any zerg 2 base style. Zerg on the other hand has to consider everything from 1-3 base allin. It could be anything from a proxy 4 gate or cannon rush to a 3 gate stalker with robo or a 6 gate adept allin or whatever. There’s a million options. Scouting as zerg is a nightmare, as protoss you basically don’t even have to do it – if zerg makes anything except a third hatch, he automatically loses. That is how powerful toss eco is. It deletes an entire class of builds from the game. 2 base roach? Can’t do it. 2 base mutas? Lol no. 2 base line bane allin? Impossible. All thanks to toss eco being cranked up to 11.
everything without lair is stopped by default by SG, harass does not exist because toss wall has.
and if you go 2 base any ground unit can just run into your base.
There are things to complain in the game, but zerg production speed being too low is not one. Look, I ove zerg, but as long as you scout well you can deal with practically any early game threat and outdrone after.
The thing with zerg surviving early stuff is scouting, the production is plenty.
You haven’t played modern sc man. There are games in the GSL where toss are out expanding the zerg while keeping the zerg pinned with blink stalkers. Toss officially has the stronger economy. This is insane because a toss from a lower base count can produce a stronger army than zerg. What is a zerg supposed to do? There is no answer except to pray the protoss has had a lobotomy.
https://i.imgur.com/4iUyh2t.png
That’s GM worldwide. There are 2 protoss in GM for every 1 zerg. During the brood infestor era, zerg only managed 40%. Protoss is currently 45%. It’s absolute insanity. The exact size of this advantage is 300 MMR by the way. That’s insane considering 300 mmr can take you from low gm to high gm on the na ladder. GM starts at 4800 and 5100 would be top 50.
Depending on the overall Zerg population at that time, that could actually be much worse than the game’s current state. Zerg has pretty much always had the lowest overall population in StarCraft II.
The last I checked was many years ago, but as I recall, Zerg was hovering around 26% of the total population.
Zerg population was at 40% during that time period (at least in masters, diamond). It’s gone down proportionally to protoss in gm. So basically zergs are quitting the game. That’s the long and short of it. There have even been historical spikes where zergs switch to protoss right after a balance patch. Basically zerg is harder and this means players have a worse experience. After getting railroaded with a 5 or 10 game losing streak, they either uninstall or switch races. And that’s how you have zerg’s popularity tank. In particular the low skill brackets are the least likely to pick zerg and that tells you everything you need to know about how difficult zerg is.
So if you want to take into account population parameters to decide how likely Zerg is to generate GMs, I did that once upon a time. I’d have to find the charts. But basically Zerg’s mean ladder mmr is about 100 mmr higher. That means zerg should be the most common in GM, but isn’t.
I actually found it: https://i.imgur.com/Nhx30S3.png
So population trends predict Zerg is the most common in GM, but it’s the least. Hmm. Why is that.
Only very early in the game when Zerg is still getting their production set up, which, as already explained, is compensated for by net infrastructure costs by the time Protoss can actually threaten to kill you.
It’s also dependent on the Protoss forcing early units and finding damage - if the Protoss doesn’t put on any pressure at all and the Zerg can skip lings/spores/etc… Protoss loses the eco lead much earlier (closer to 20-25 workers instead of 35-40).
It’s also compensated by Zerg’s ability to flip into full unit production at any time, which is what makes walling a requirement for the other races - without a wall, Zerg would simply overwhelm them with early units, since they cannot match Zerg in production without specifically investing into it.
1 hatch + queen can generate 1 larva per ~5s. That’s more than double the standard worker production rate for Zerg/Terran of ~1/12s (In editor terms: it’s ~1 larva/7s vs a 17s production time for probes/SCVs); even if you account for overlords and drones being “sacrificed” for buildings, Zerg can outpace Protoss in worker production by a significant margin.
Zerg hatcheries also double as military production, so the 3rd hatch is wanted anyway for production - and again: Still leaves you with less spending in infrastructure than a 2-base Terran or Protoss…
If you wanted to have the same production as Protoss, 1 hatch+queen dedicated to worker production and 2 Hatcheries+queens dedicated to unit production would bejust about equal to 2 nexus + 6-8 gate Protoss production for both workers and army (provided that army isn’t lings), even disregarding additional queen production.
That’s not because of eco, but because the general pacing of the game was increased in LoTV, which meant T/P have more resources to work with and set up their production against early aggression, making it weaker in general compared to quicker expansions.
There are also timings off of a 2-base eco/drone count for Zerg that include the 3rd base anyway - the hatch could be built anywhere, but there’s rarely a reason not to take the 3rd location, since it makes expanding eco later easier if the timing fails to end the game, and Protoss can’t really punish it (Terran/Zerg can, because their early units are better at fighting lings, so the 3rd is taken later in those match ups than it is vs Protoss).
Zerg has always had the lowest representation overall by a fair margin outside of periods of extreme imbalance in favor of Zerg (~24-27% vs ~27-31% for Protoss and ~31-35% for Terran), and yet was by far the most represented race in tournaments and often the most represented in the higher leagues during those periods until mid-late 2019.
Win rates for Zerg in the lower leagues (Bronze-gold) have always been significantly higher than T/P, indicating that it’s likely not just because those players aren’t picking Zerg, but because Zerg overperforms in those leagues and moves up (leading to their consistently inflated representation in diamond)…
Yes, lets just ignore all possible reasons for Zerg MMR being higher on average. Clearly that can’t possibly indicate Zerg being easier at some levels of play… a conclusion that would also be supported by win rates and representation by league.
/s
Never happens in practice because anything except for non stop drones is economic suicide.
This argument is highly misleading. What matters is the army strength you can afford. So if I could buy an unstoppable army for 100 minerals then it would be fine for me to only mine 100 minerals. That’s protoss. Technically they mine less but the army strength that can be afforded on the typical economy is simply much higher than zergs. At the 10 minute mark, Zerg usually has a whopping 5 to 6 worker lead. Meanwhile Protoss units have a 2x+ trading efficiency. So let’s do the math. Zerg can afford 10% more units. But Protoss units trade at 2x efficiency. That’s equivalent to 200% the units. So 110% vs 200%. Who wins. We all know the answer.
It is because of eco. Protoss start out not 1 but 2 moves ahead of zerg. They start out with the stronger 2 base eco and they have shorter tech paths. That means 1 or 2 base builds are totally non viable for zerg, meanwhile those styles are fine for protoss. So zerg is required to use a singular option meanwhile protoss can do any thing of 20 options. The difficulty of playing zerg is simply drastically higher than protoss. A zerg has to spam drones and take a third hatch. He has to counter a nexus first and a proxy 4 gate with the same build, using nothing but drones. If you think this is fair, then you’re insane and I literally don’t care what you think.
Let’s explain why that is. Serral wins → zerg is nerfed → nobody wants to play zerg anymore → serral wins some more → zerg is nerfed more → nobody can play zerg anymore. Rinse and repeat and that’s how you have 2x as many protoss gms as zerg, even though zerg, statistically, should have slightly higher gm performance based on population trends.
Oh boy, someone who doesn’t understand the very basic concepts behind correlations & causation. If zergs performance is easier at different levels, that’s a theory that zerg is not correlated with the outcome. “Zerg being easier to play at different levels” is a nonsensical statement. It’s equivalent to saying 2+2=7.
It’s like saying the effectiveness of Tylenol depends on the time of day when you take it. It’s like, wtf. If the effectiveness changes depending on the time of day, then the time of day is the cause and not the tylenol.
Let’s try again. Bigger engines make race cars go faster, and that’s why I paint my cars red. The color “red” has nothing to do with the causal relationship being described. If performance varies by skill level then why are even mentioning race. That’s why it’s a nonsensical statement.
For something to be caused by zerg, it must affect all zergs. If a property of zerg does not affect zerg then it’s not a property of zerg. That means a balance issue by definition must affect every zerg from serral to the lowest bronze. Any other standard is absolute nonsense. If Zerg’s performance goes up within a certain skill bracket, skill is the cause. Zerg isn’t easier at winning premiers, serral is just better. That’s a logically coherent statement. The “strength of zerg varies by skill level” is pure nonsense. There is nothing logical about that statement. It’s like saying you paint your cars red because cars with larger engines drive faster. What does the color red contribute to the causal relationship being described. We take the statement “strength of zerg varies by skill level” and remove the useless nonsense to produce “strength varies by skill level” and like magic it now is logical.
This mistake happens because of simplifications. Doing a full analysis of zerg as a whole is hard. The SC2 ranking system is similar in complexity to the stock market. People make simplifications that don’t really make sense if you sit down and think about it. But anyway we can do a full analysis of zerg as a whole. Here is ZvP performance of the whole SC2 pro scene, factoring out individual player skill:
https://i.imgur.com/Oa6EAON.png
Y intercept is what matters. Toss have 60 elo higher performance, equivalent to a 58% win-rate. This measures Protoss’ PvZ compared to their PvP, and Zerg’s ZvP compared to their ZvZ. So toss do 60 elo better in PvZ, compared to their PvP rank, than zergs do in ZvP compared to their ZvZ rank. Toss is advantaged, it’s just a fact. The system has some inertia so we don’t yet know what the final “resting” win-rate will be but we know with 100% certainty PvZ is protoss favored.