Zerg is a tricky race. They are a mass race. Mass means to make alot of 1 unit or alot of many units. Mass attacking has its ups and downs. 1) It takes alot to stop a mass attack. 2) It can cause great damage and be a real pain to somebody who is trying to expand or trying to be technical. 3)If you attack an expansion (newly built) , It will probably be terminated. Thus for the person who’s expansion it is, would send units to try and repel the attack, and they would be losing an expansion and many units. But it also has its downs. 1) Massing on units takes a long while to gather up the resources, the time, and the space. All three things are very important. 2) If your mass attack fails, you will be forced to make more units, spend more time, and use more money. You will also probably be forced to change your plan on attacking, because they stopped it the first time, so they would probably be able to stop it the second time.

Unlike the other races only making 1 unit at a time, the hatcheries each have their own larvae. With a larvae you are able to spawn units. A hatchary can only have 3 larvae at a time. When you spawn something, the larvae turns into an egg. Thus opening a space for another larvae to come out. (larvae are evenly spaced out, they do not appear right away) The Zerg workers, drones, are used to make the buildings. They morph into a building and are never to be seen again, unless you cancel the building before it finishes, then you will get your drone back.

Zerg Buildings

First and foremost, you must understand that zerg buildings must be placed on the creep. The creep is that brown goop stuff that flows beneath all the buildings. This is a great handicap to the zerg, because unlike protoss, or especially terran, zerg have a hard time doing pen-ins. Because the only building that can be build off the creep is the hatchery, in order to pen someone in you must have a hatchery right outside their base, and that sometimes is just inefficient.

Zerg is a bug race that needs to have their buildings on their ‘creep’, that purplish looking stuff. Their buildings are much different from the other races building. Zerg buildings regenerate their strength. If a building is attacked, over a period of time it will be repaired due to natural occurrence of the Zerg race. (That goes for Zerg units too) With this race, you are able to spawn,(the term for building units) max of 4 units at a time.

Zerg Units

Larva You have to have these to get anything, they morph into whatever unit you want. Each hatchery spawns up to 3.

Drone Zerg workers. They are also used to make buildings, but when they make a building you will never see that drone again unless you cancel a building before it is done. Drones are the 2nd strongest workers. These guys also have the ability to burrow. I wouldn’t suggest scouting with drones since they are 50 minerals for 1 and zerglings are 50 minerals for 2.

Overlord This is an excellent scouting tool for the very beginning of the game, giving zerg an advantage over the other races. They’re very slow until upgraded, and they make Zerg drops very easy because you must have lots of Overlords lying around anyway.

Zergling These guys are very weak in the first part of the game. But after they have been upgraded with attack rate, speed, attack, and carapace, they can be devistating. Zerglings have the ability to burrow and are great for scouting. But the good thing is that they are only 50 minerals (for 2), and take up only 1 supply. In groups they’re very dangerous.

Hydralisk One of the best ground units in the game. When upgraded with speed and attack distance, also with melee and carapace upgrades, this unit is very good. Hydralisks can burrow, and attack ground or air. They are the perfect anti-Scout and anti-Wraith unit. When moving these guys across land, they go in a perfect line. Unlike Dragoons which wander off sometimes and are pretty slow. Hydralisks move fast and stay organized. If you are new to zerg, I suggest going mass Hydralisks. They will get you an easy win if you play smart.

Mutalisk One of the best zerg strats I have used is the Muta rush. Mutas are very versitile since they can fly. Their damage isn’t too bad either. But when upgraded they are pretty good. It takes a little time to make these guys since they need gas and a Lair. You should always have a few of these guys on hand. But watch out with terran units, Stimmed Marines can easily take a few of these muts down. But one unit of terran that is very vulnerable, is the Tank. Mutas are the ideal anti tank unit. If you want a good rush that will really cripple or even kill your oppenant early on, go with these guys.

Scourge These guys are great. They can do a multiple number of things. One for example: They can go “Overlord Hunting”, whice means go find the enemy overlords if they are zerg. They are good against air attacks, and good for killing those pesky drop ships that want to land in your minerals. They are also good for scouting. They are cheap and can fly right in to a base to see whats going on.

Queen Queens are the Zerg’s most technical units. They have many different things to choose from. They have the ability to Broodling. They are great for hunting down Templars and Tanks. Queens can also Parasite, the best scouting tool Zerg has. . I would suggest parasiting a worker unit The last thing a queen has is Ensnare. Ensnare is when the queen shoots out a green liquid type thing. It slows all the units down a lot…they can barely move. Queens also Infest Terran CCs.

Defiler Defilers have some great spells. One of the really cool things about defilers is that they can Consume, refilling their mana. Thus, you can cast many spells using only 1 defiler and some zerglings.

Ultralisk Ultralisks are like tanks. While they do relatively little damage (for their cost), they boast 400 hit points, making them an ideal unit for soaking up damage while Hydralisks attack from the rear.

Guardian The zerg’s only seige unit, these are used when your opponent has many cannons/turrets. Be careful, they can’t hit opposing air units.

Broodling Very weak zerg units, they basically count as nothing. They die after a certain amount of time.

Infested Terran Doing over 500 splash damage, Infested Terrans are probably the 2nd most destructive weapon in the game (only behind Nukes). They’re also cool cause they can load into Overlords for dropping, and they can burrow. Don’t let them blow up on your own units.

Expanding

When expanding with zerg, send one drone and a support group. You need to protect your growing Hatchery until it finishes. You will lose you drone, so once it is 3/4 finished, send a group of 4 to 12 drones to start working at your expansion. By the time your drones get to your new Hatchery it should be almost done. Build an extractor or two. Mine those minerals and gather some gas as soon as the Hatchery is finished. Then make some drones and build a few creep colonies. You will need some sunken/spore colonies to defend with. Eventually build a spire and a spawning pool incase your main base gets destroyed. Anti zerg expansion- Kill the drone as soon as you can. Keep a spy near each mineral site to make sure they never get that expnasion. Also, expand yourself and take as many spots as you feel nescessary. If the drone is accompanied with an army, ignore the other stuff and kill the singular drone. If there are many drones, either attack the escort or attack his main base which will be more vulnerable.

Well the Zerg do have a cheaper town hall than everyone else, though it still takes the same amount of time to build. It should be easy to control an area with a swarm of hydralisks, especially after you had a successful attack. I usually try to expand at the same time as I attack, making it harder for my opponent to attack my expansion while it is being set up. You should build at least two hatcheries at your second base, and make sure that it is close to your main base, since you can get an instant supply of drones from your 2-3 hatcheries at your main base. You should build a detector of some sort at your new base as well, since the number of cloaked units in the game has just increased. Prefferably use sunkens and spore colonies, since overlords are easy to kill, and you need overlords to transport and scout.

So after attacking, you should have done a great deal of damage, you should expand at this point since your opponent can’t attack and doesn’t know of your expansion. Even if you can’t do any damage, make sure to run away, since losing Zerg units is an easy task, but keep them around near an overlord to start containing your enemy.

Now another way to expand is build an early second hatchery at an expansion, and then a spawning pool to get sunken colonies. You should only do this on maps like, Lost temple, Ashrigo, Bone Canyon, Winter Conquest, etc., any map with a close second base. Now you should immediately start building sunkens at the base, to block off any attacks from your enemy. This does work if you can prefect the build order.

Now when you have your second base running, build more hatcheries at your main base. This is only because the Zerg expansions are easy to take out. Fueling the second base using the main base’s hatcheries is a good idea. Try to take some time to take the larvae from your 3 hatcheries in your main base and build drones, once they are finished run them up to the new base, and you have instant income. You can then go back to producing other units, and use the expansion’s hatchery to build drones. Now build more units and expand to the next expansion closest to you.

On island maps, it’s hard to setup expansions, because you build only 1 hatchery most of the time, and then you are slowed down even more by building sunken colonies and spore colonies. Now to get around this you have two ways. First you can build a nydus canal, but that’s later in the game. The other is to build drones from your main hatcheries and transport the drones over like the other races. This is something that no one does, yet I can’t see why. It’s the fastest way to get a base up for the Zerg, especially on an island map.

The Zerg expansions are meant to power the main base, not be a self reliant base itself. So try to keep most of your hatcheries in your main base, and transfer drones to expansions.