Title: Mentally Preparing to be Zerg

The Zerg are a race of simplistic ideas and beliefs but are a difficult race to get used to and to be successful with. However, how do you mentaly prepare for the zerg? Let me explain this to you as this will allow for some thoughts to be shared.

To begin. The zerg are a race that is based on numbers and not strength, this will usually catch some people. A player that has not played the game for a long time will probably be tricked becuase of the Zerg's lack of needed minerals to be successful. It's true though isn't it? WRONG! A zerg player's minerals and gas are the most valuable assets even if the units don't cost very much! This is a very important statement for everyone to understand. The zerg are also very dependant of Gas which is the majoritial resource type of preference for the zerg. To key this problem be sure to expand quickly and with the cost of the Hatchery being 50 minerals less, this allows for any zerg player to do this. Remember these things and you'll understand the physics of a zerg player.

Now. Design of the zerg's buildings is not an important asset when considering what you should build. You have creep and a limited space to build, so you may think you need to build very carefully. NOT TRUE. If you build a few Creep Colonies upgrade them to sunken's you'll be creating yourself more creep and a defense to use at the same time. This multitasking is always a useful thing for a zerg player to understand. The other idea behind the design of the Zerg is that they are weak of course.(1 unit) Will one zergling effect the game of SC? Nope. Will 20 Zerglings have their effect on the game? Yes, but in a minor way. Would 45 Guardians affect the game? Total Domination of the map with 45 Guardians. Those guardians would destroy an opposing base in oh.. 1 minute. =)

Next. Larve=Units, Drones=Resources, Buildings=Drones. Understand the simple chain of life? Good. The thing that will catch any player mentally preparing to be zerg is the fact that a drone is turned into a building. This will cause for your resources matrix to go down. A resources matrix is the productivity of minerals and gas that are coming in and out. Let's assume the following:

10 Drones mining Minerals= 80 Minerals per 1 Revolution per drone.
3 Drones mining Gas= 18 Gas per 1 Revolution per drone.

A revolution btw, is one trip to the minerals the mining and the return to the Hatchery.

To construct a Spawning Pool, you would need to have 1.875 revolutions to build a Spawning Pool of 150 minerals. However, the difference is your losing 1 DRONE to construct this. This reduces the resources matrix by 8 minerals per revoultion. Let's assume that we are discussing the same example except with the resources reduced by the 8 minerals per.

9 Drones mining Minerals=72 Minerals per 1 revoultion per done. It will now take 2.08 Revolutions to produce the same amount of minerals it took to produce 150 minerals compared to the 1.875 revolutions originally. So using math. For every drone that you sacrifice to construct into a building you add 0.205 rotations needed to produce the same amount of minerals needed the last time to produce the same thing. Very important math that you need to understand! That's why it's so hard for a zerg player who hasn't played them for a while to successfully mine and be allowed to construct the minerals at a quicker rate. Ready for a more complicated example? Cool!

25 Drones Mining Minerals= 200 Minerals per rotation(Not bad..)
3 Drones Mining Gas= 18 Gas per rotation.

Spire=200/100. Well. Minerals is pretty self explanatory. It will take 1 rotation to complete the minerals needed, but look at the gas! 3 Drones mining gas is pretty much the ideal gas production it is producing 18 gas per rotation. To get 100 gas you need 5.5 rotations completed from each of these tiny drones. This is a lot of time in a game. Now what if we took one of those guys off of gas.. You would be producing 12 gas per rotation. To get 100 gas with 2 drones you need each of the drones to do 8.33 rotations!! Gas is important for this reasoning and that is what makes the game so interesting. To increase this value expand to other bases across the whole map!!

Now in conclusion, you understand why the zerg are mentally important and the importance of the drone subtraction theory. Now go out there and try the zerg... if you think you won't be plagued with problems. =)