This was originally going to be a part of the “Oh Micro, Where Art Thou?”-thread, but as the aforementioned thread grew too big I decided to chop the material into two separate threads. As time passed and with the game fast approaching launch, I got discouraged with the non-existent prospect of anything I was going to propose ever being considered or implemented. Thus I totally gave up on writing anything.
The thread was initially going to address macro mechanics and the need for a possible revision of their early game role. When I picked the idea up again in November, it would eventually develop into a monster 23 page word document detailing how macro mechanics were speeding up the game and deflating the worth of scouting information. That document is still sitting on my desktop, but it will likely never see the light of day. When trying out the ideas in practice, I realized I was largely wrong in where I was placing the blame and at the same time sort of stumbled upon a different approach to the subject. Macro mechanics in the end turned out to be one small part of a broader combination of factors pushing SC2’s gameplay in a certain direction.
Whether the issues about to be presented are even real or merely figments of my imagination I’ll leave to the 3,1k master leaguers and true scholars of TL to decide in the engaging and civilized discourse that will be sure to follow this post.
The article will make a bold, probably all too outrageous, attempt at explaining how SC2’s economy impacts and affects gameplay through the merging of SCIENCE™ and ESPORTS™.
Chapter I: Macro Analysis
The inspiration for the experiments conducted in this post come from a thread dating back to 2008. It didn’t receive very much attention back when it was posted but was nonetheless very informative: CDRdude's Worker Saturation thread. The experiment measured the mining speed of X workers over 5 minutes and graphed the results. What I did was basically just replicate his experiment in an attempt to make a comparison between Broodwar and SC2.
For the experiment I used Terran, and made the assumption that all races in SC2 mine at an equal rate.
The map used was Lost Temple, and since I’m not too good with the map editor and lazy, I measured on all the positions of LT, because bases were mining out so quickly. There might be slight positional imbalances reflected in the results, but I think they are fairly minor and negligable.
A certain amount of workers were sent to mine, and then the n+1th worker was aligned to start mining as perfectly as possible. After reaching 18 workers this method became harder, after which I simply let them mine for a while and settle before starting to time it. I usually let the SCVs mine for about 4 real life minutes, and then measured the results more exactly from the replay using only 5 replay minutes (timed with the replay timer).
The amount of minerals were noted when the measurement began, and again noted after 5 minutes had passed on the replay timer.
The results from those 5 replay minutes were then converted to correspond to 5 real minutes through dividing by 0.725 (or multiplying by 1.38, whichever), so a comparison of the SC2 and Broodwar data could be made. The conversion factors used can be found on liquipedia:
The data points from CDRdude’s experiment were included into my graphs. However, they were based on estimations of his values. They are not 100% perfect. But they shouldn’t deviate too much from the real figures, and are only there for comparison.
Measuring how many minerals were mined over 5 minutes per number of workers.
Before conducting these experiments, I had always gotten the feeling that SC2 had a surplus of minerals in its early game compared to Broodwar. This experiment, while providing some interesting results, didn’t really confirm those suspicions. What’s most interesting about SC2’s graph, is its purely linear growth from 9 to 16 workers, and how little effect there is from making more than 22 workers on one base. The mining speed is pretty much constant from ~24 workers and upwards. The graph is linear at start, moves onto an exponential decline for a short while, and finally becomes constant.
This is of course to be expected as worker AI has become smarter in SC2 in combination with Blizzard lowering the time that each worker spends mining at each mineral. They simply don’t disturb each other very much when mining anymore and they wait more patiently in line for their turn to mine – minimizing the wandering phenomenon that would inevitably occur in Broodwar.
To be fair, we should point out that purely linear growth would have been found in Broodwar as well if only the experiment would have measured the mining rate of the 4th worker to the 8th worker. In SC2 the same thing can instead be observed from worker nr 6 to worker 16. The truly interesting result is discussing what effect reaching max saturation at around 3x workers per patch, instead of 4x workers per patch as in broodwar, has on gameplay.
As we all know, TL scholars like to engage in highly metaphysical debates surrounding the true nature of cheeses and all-ins in SC2 – and whether they even exist at all. Perhaps the graph can shed some light on this hotly debated subject. It seems like we can make the claim that build orders in SC2 will reach their final and most developed one base state quicker than in Broodwar. We can probably also say that after ~22 workers mining minerals in an 1base vs 1base situation, there is no differentiating between a cheese and a “normal” build until an expansion is up and operational. Does this imply that expanding is more dangerous in SC2 as opposed to Broodwar?
I don’t really know, that might be stretching it a bit too far; though there is certainly less of an effect of expanding before you are beginning to supersaturate your first base. Also: supersaturating your first base against someone who cuts worker production will provide you with no other real benefit than having workers to maynard. Using this logic one could claim that expanding is in fact more dangerous. If the races reach their fully saturated states quicker in SC2 as opposed to Broodwar, and if a cut in worker production after a certain point doesn’t reflect on your income at all, then a continued worker production will only really mean you are cutting your army size by the amount you invest in workers and in an expansion.
The data can probably be interpreted in a variety of ways. But as I’m the author of this thread I get to showcase mine: Due to the lower max saturation cap SC2 builds will tend to conform into one standard or one mould much quicker than Broodwar builds. They will also tend to be less punished when cutting workers in favor of “cheesing”. Merely defending a cheese won’t win games, but rather getting the superior unit composition and securing the expansion without dying will win you the game. Of course this interpretation is somewhat exaggerated and SC2 is a lot more dynamic than I will have it sound, but I still think it is somewhat evident that Broodwar builds develop and evolve forth in more distinct stages where scouting information has a chance to play a bigger role in the game. A Broodwar build will simply take longer to reach its final and most developed one base state (which pretty much will look identical to and support as many production buildings as their SC2 counterparts), and go through more intermediary stages before getting there. On top of these facts, there is a slight mineral surplus in the cheesy stages of a game in SC2 compared to Broodwar.
Alright. Enough chattering, I’m starting to tread on dangerous grounds here. Let’s get on with this thread. After the initial test, I had a feeling that distance mining from your expansion might prove to be cost effective after reaching a certain point of saturation. So that’s what I examined next.
Tests were conducted on the 12 o’clock position of Lost Temple. Initial travel distance was included in the measured time period (i.e. I started measuring as the probes were sent out from the main base, not when they started mining
Woah! Surprising results. Perhaps these results will have some application in PvP and in certain cases maybe even in PvT. Hell, why discriminate against terrans? Might have an application to any race that’s forced to stay on one base and is supersaturated on said base. After 22 workers mining minerals there is actually a gain from sending your workers distance mining. At least if the expansion is at a similar distance to that of LT’s 12 o’clock position.
Moving on to the effectiveness of each worker.
I don’t think there were any real surprises here. The results could pretty much be deduced from looking at the previous graphs.
I had yet to take into account the effects of macro mechanics on income though, so naturally that’s the direction I headed next. First was the MULE, which was a fairly easy macro mechanic to measure and graph. The only reservation I want to add, is that the graph might be a bit misrepresenting because building an Orbital Command puts you 2 workers behind. To simulate that, I would have to change the x-axis from number of workers to a time axis, which initially presented some problems to me but which I nonetheless attempted in the graph following this one.
Although the graph is technically correct, imagine it lowered about 400 minerals in the mid ranges.
At first, upon seeing this, I thought my sentiments and suspicions of SC2 being a game overflowing with minerals in its early and midgame confirmed. The starcraft community have often expressed their need and want for better scouting capabilities in SC2. They have also long thought there to exist magical fixes such as simply increasing overlord base speed.
What if the explanation of the deflation in the worth of scouting information simply lay in the fact that SC2 strategies were made so extreme in their strength and timings through the respective races all having bursts of mineral surplus at varying stages of one and the same match? I believe this to be an important observation, because much of the recent balancing of the game appears to have gotten stuck in fighting mineral surplus disguised as imbalance.
I followed Blizzard’s balance panel from Blizzcon with great interest, and I want to start this paragraph off by clarifying that I think they’re doing as good a job as they could possibly do in balancing the game without making fundamental game changing alterations (which would make absolutely no sense to implement in normal patches). They seem to be more aware than I ever thought they’d be (compliment, not diss) of the issues plaguing the game. This thread is not meant to school them on balance, but rather provide an alternative interpretation to some of the issues they’ve expressed concern about – through the perspective of a fresh pair of eyes.
One of the things discussed in the balance panel was the community’s whine about “stim being overpowered”. The people at Blizzard expressed some concerns as well, but were sensibly reluctant towards meddling with something as fundamental as stim. They thought there might be some unnamed and difficult to define combination of factors accounting for the problem. Concerns were also expressed about matchups possibly being undynamic, with races rolling each other over at specific timings and different varying stages of one and the same matchup.
I believe that analyzing the economic system of Starcraft 2 might provide a better explanation model to these phenomena than would searching for the answer in unit and build/research time tweaks. Protoss’ most weak timing in PvT is undoubtedly in the early mid game, when trying to expand while dealing with Terran’s stim timing. Coincidentally this is also the exact timing in the game when Terran experience a mineral surplus surge compared to a fully saturated and capped Protoss player. Meddling with unit balance due to perceived imbalances because of mineral surplus fluctuations in the earlier stages of a game might have unwanted effects in the potency of certain unit combinations in the later stages of the same matchup.
This is starting to get long-winded; I’d better hit you with the next graph or I’ll likely lose your interest. In the next graph I tried to change number of workers to a time axis. In SC2, building 5 workers takes about 61,2 seconds. In Broodwar it takes only slightly longer. For the sake of practicality, I’ve rounded them both down to 60 seconds. The x-axis now depicts number of minutes elapsed after starting off with 9 workers. There might be a more elegant way to simulate the effect of the chrono boost, but this is what I in the end was able to come up with.
Probably needs some explanation: I tried to take into account that the build time of the Orbital Command is 34 in game seconds, while the build time of an SCV is 17. I simulated 3 chrono boosts for Protoss, the first at 10 workers, second at 14, third at 16 workers.
We would probably like to believe Blizzard are stupid and never foresaw any of these issues, but more likely is that they did in fact foresee some problems. By adding a second gas geyser to each base, they were able to delay the advent of max saturation, evening out mining speed and partly curbing the extreme effects of macro mechanics in the early game.
Since the last graph was in no way indicative of a real game, my next project was trying to simulate how the graph would look like in a real game, with people using real build orders. I watched white-ra play a game on scrap station against some terran, and took note of all the chrono boost and gas timings. In that particular game, white-ra was super greedy and used up 5 quick chrono boosts on his nexus. His terran opponent opted for a 2 refinery tech build, so that’s what I simulated: a special case not necessarily indicative of all games.
Chrono boosts at 10, 14, 16, 20 and 26 workers. First gas finishes at 15 workers for Protoss. Second gas finishes at 23 workers. Those are the “dips” in the graph – workers being pulled off mining minerals. For Terran, I assumed they have 1 worker off of mining at all times for the construction of buildings. Orbital was started at 15 workers, after which refinery would soon finish. Second refinery finished at 20 workers. Possible scouting timings weren’t taken into account for.
I don’t know if it would be presumptuously assigning too much meaning to the graph in claiming that it helps explain some of the ebbs and flows of the PvT matchup. So I won’t even try.
I tried to include zerg into this, but since they’re on 2 bases and a highly irrational race to boot, I was left with nothing but a headache. Sorry.
Chapter II: The bottleneck and the ceiling
Does an inherent 2 base bottleneck exist in SC2? When is the optimal timing to take a third base? Are nexus/cc first builds viable?
Data was extrapolated and calculated from previous existing values.
The above graph is probably unnecessary and overkill. It’s just a stretched out copy of the first graph posted in the thread. In a way though it’s still important to post – if only to illustrate how the effectiveness of additional bases will scale with the amount of workers you’ve got.
If nothing else, the graph helps show why nexus first or CC first were such powerful builds in BW while a slightly more dubious opening in SC2.
The really interesting implications though, are when you start brainstorming about how the graph would look like on 3, 4, 5 and 6 bases and compare that to how many workers and bases you could possibly support with a 200 supply cap in each of the respective games.
It is safe to say that players in SC2 are not as likely to venture out into taking third bases before starting to supersaturate their two already existing bases. If you assume 12 workers harvesting gas on 2 bases, and linear growth up until 32 workers mining minerals on 2 bases, you’d have to reach 44 workers total before even experiencing any positive effects whatsoever of taking a third base. Assuming you go up to 22 workers mining minerals at each base, you’d be up at 56 workers before taking a third base – and the additional gain from spreading workers out evenly on those 3 bases would be a mere ~1100 minerals over 5 minutes.
In this light, it seems slightly foolish of the community to expect the metagame of SC2 to eventually evolve into something resembling that of Broodwar. You will likely never see players opt for as early of a third base as used to be the norm in Broodwar. Rather players will tend to be bottlenecked on 2 bases for longer (especially on Blizzard-sized maps).
The 3 base ceiling
How many bases can you really support in SC2? If you assume 3bases with 16 workers mining minerals at each of them, and with 18 workers assigned to harvesting gas you’re already up to 66 workers total. The common consensus seems to be that the “optimal” number of workers is somewhere around 70-75.
Let’s do a comparison between Broodwar and SC2:
Assume we have 54 workers mining minerals equally divided on 6 bases. How many minerals will those workers mine in 5 minutes? And how many minerals would those workers mine if instead confined to 3 bases?
Protoss, BW, with 54 workers equally distributed on 6 bases: 18120 minerals over 5 minutes. Terran, BW, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 13200 minerals over 5 minutes.
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
I cannot help but find a major contradiction in Blizzard’s conceptual outline of how the zerg race is supposed to be played in SC2 with what the game’s economical system actually allows for. Zerg are supposed to keep outexpanding, outmacroing and outproducing their opponents.
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
Will larger maps save Starcraft 2?
This is an interesting question to pose with the new and giantly oversized maps GSL have introduced. I believe these large maps are an anti reaction to the volatile and unpredictable play that plagued “Blizzard-sized maps”. The unmanageable strategic extremes (due to unnamed factors that may or may not have been attempted to be explained in this article) on small and medium sized maps simply created the need for a party to step in and introduce a buffer zone for rushes and timing attacks.
With that said: what will larger maps achieve apart from increasing rush distances?
I would say absolutely nothing. What need do players have for 14 expansions in a game like Starcraft 2? Absolutely none. Zerg’s play will be centered around saturating 3 bases as quickly as possible and launching suicide attacks at the opponents’ thirds. Protoss’ play will be centered around camping and delaying until they’ve reached their invincible end game composition on 3+ bases. Terran’s play will… no idea.
Large maps will simply and frankly favor the race that currently has the pleasure of being dominant when maxed out in a 3base vs. 3base late game situation. That race, as you’ll see, will be Protoss. And please don’t mistake this for whine; it’s merely stating what should be obvious. On the other end, the same maps will likely disfavor the previous most stable performing tournament race on blizzard-sized maps: Terran.
The colossi and immortal are units that absolutely and critically need to be as strong as they are for Protoss to survive terran stim timings and zerg onslaughts in the mid game. But in the lategame, used in combination with templars/voidrays/phoenixes, they become a headache for Blizzard to balance.
The game is balanced around small maps – not large maps. Units are primarily balanced to withstand the effects of mineral surplus on said maps, not to remain balanced throughout all stages of a game. Blizzard’s first priority is to prevent shit from dying instantly to other shit. Second comes worrying about whether these changes prove to provide dynamic mid- and lategames (and it’s here-in that the real challenge lies).
300 supply cap?
If I’ve learned anything from observing Blizzard the past year, it’s that it is largely pointless to suggest anything that would require alterations to the game engine itself. Whether it be about moving shot or built-in delay for firing projectiles (tank AI). If it can’t be achieved through the map editor, it likely won’t be “fixed” in the way you imagined. Thus I’m not even going to attempt to discuss changing worker AI.
If the future of SC2 is to be played out on GSL-sized maps, one proposition would be increasing the supply cap of the game so you can support ~110 workers and about 5 bases. One of the greatest proponents of an increased supply has long been day[9] himself. My main argument for an increased cap is that the strategies in the game likely will become streamlined and predictable very quickly if kept back by a 3 base ceiling. The main counterargument? It wouldn’t be balanced at all in the game’s current state, and would likely require a lot of rebalancing.
I think Blizzard have to make a decision soon about whether they want to balance the game for GSL-sized maps or for their own tiny sized maps.
Chapter III for this thread was supposed to go more in depth about specific strategies and rant about a conceptual flaw in the design of the zerg race, but I decided including it would likely detract from the whole of the article. I’m already steering far off topic as it is. Plus, merely listing a bunch of problems as opposed to sticking one’s neck out and proposing solutions makes this thread look that more impressive and impervious to the critique of TL scholars.
Thanks to Pholon for helping me host the pictures. I hope my 1000th post was an enjoyable read to you all. The economic system and the macro mechanisc of Starcraft 2 are in sense its fourth race. As much detail and attention should be spent on understanding and balancing their effects on the game as goes into balancing the races.
I was actually thinking about this exact same concept determining the prevalence of 4 gate as relating to saturation, especially when looking at PvZ and the macro mechanics involved.
I understand the worries about measuring Z mineral income/time, but conceptually, this also explains the earlygame prevalence of cheese in TvZ conceptually.
This is an epic thread. I love the mathcrafting. And it point that it poses forward is also a viable one. Increasing the max supply cap of SC2. Yay or nay?
On February 10 2011 01:58 LaLuSh wrote: It is safe to say that players in SC2 are not as likely to venture out into taking third bases before starting to supersaturate their two already existing bases. If you assume 12 workers harvesting gas on 2 bases, and linear growth up until 32 workers mining minerals on 2 bases, you’d have to reach 44 workers total before even experiencing any positive effects whatsoever of taking a third base. Assuming you go up to 22 workers mining minerals at each base, you’d be up at 56 workers before taking a third base – and the additional gain from spreading workers out evenly on those 3 bases would be a mere ~1100 minerals over 5 minutes.
In this light, it seems slightly foolish of the community to expect the metagame of SC2 to eventually evolve into something resembling that of Broodwar. You will likely never see players opt for as early of a third base as used to be the norm in Broodwar. Rather players will tend to be bottlenecked on 2 bases for longer (especially on Blizzard-sized maps). -----------------------------
Protoss, BW, with 54 workers equally distributed on 6 bases: 18120 minerals over 5 minutes. Terran, BW, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 13200 minerals over 5 minutes.
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
------------------------------
Large maps will simply and frankly favor the race that currently has the pleasure of being dominant when maxed out in a 3base vs. 3base late game situation. That race, as you’ll see, will be Protoss. And please don’t mistake this for whine; it’s merely stating what should be obvious. On the other end, the same maps will likely disfavor the previous most stable performing tournament race on blizzard-sized maps: Terran
This, assuming it's true and there are no errors with calculations, would probably explain a lot for the current Terran meta-game. In a sense, macroing is just not as important as it was in BW.
If anyone else wants a TL;DR of the entire post, I think it can be summed up as
"2 baseing is the correct way to go both in theory crafting and in practical gaming"
"The addition of new maps will mean 3 basing is the way to go"
Whether it be about moving shot or built-in delay for firing projectiles (tank AI). If it can’t be achieved through the map editor, it likely won’t be “fixed” in the way you imagined.
I think one of the main reasons that Blizzard didn't switch to 300 Supply in SC2 were framerates - my slow PC already struggles just a little bit at 200/200 vs 200/200 armies (on minimum settings), and I really have a decent PC, my bottleneck being an old Core 2 E5600 CPU. I can't imagine how impossible it would be to play with 300/300 supplys if everything got maxed out.
And it wouldn't be like that only for me. The problem is, that no matter which algorithm they use for handling the various things they need to handle in the game code (Collision detection, pathfinding etc.), the required time for a PC to calculate one frame increases at leastslightly less than to the square power of n (which means, calculating something for 4 units takes 4 times as long as calculating the same thing for 2 units), in some unavoidable cases even exponentially. With potentially 100-200 more units on the map per player (200 in case of zerglings), even most very good PCs today would have a hard time handling that.
Surprisingly interesting read, I kind of went in expecting a more elaborate version of Artosis and Idras recent video. What really surprised me was the graphs regarding long distance mining, had not even considered that it would in fact often be more efficient.
Won't really comment beyond that, far from being anywhere near a level where I could understand how significant/insignificant this is in the broad scheme of things, nor could I tell if it's perfect or flawed. Interesting read though, to say the least.
I think it's interesting to note that there's less of an advantage to expanding because spreading workers among multiple bases provides less benefit in SC2 than in BW, but for the rest of the comparisons I don't really see the point. It's also worth noting that if the problem with expanding in SC2 is that there's not enough of a reward to spreading out workers, gold bases offer a possible solution by increasing the mining efficiency of a small number of workers more than the efficiency of a larger number of workers.
We know that BW and SC2 are two different games, and in my opinion there is no reason that they should be, as long as we can get satisfying play out of SC2. It seems to me that it's less interesting to theorycraft about per-worker mineral mining rate than to theorycraft about how map design will affect matchups. I do think we've seen evidence from the most recent GSL that on appropriately designed maps macro play is more stable than 1- or 2-base play. I believe that as players adapt we will find that SC2 is a much more macro-friendly game than has been apparent until now (at least when played on proper maps).
Although I disagree with some of what the OP says, I do think that this is a really good post that raises important questions.
I love this post, and the thought behind it, and especially love your second section about efficiency and the way you spell out plain and simple what all the numbers mean. Reminds me of a great discussion in a research paper after a lengthy and understandable mass of data analysis. Hope this sparks some great discussion.
I'd actually love to hear your Zerg bit, since you seem to have a great grasp on economy and macromanagement in SC2. I'd also be interested to hear what you have to say about the 300 supply cap in more detail, and especially what you think Blizzard could change otherwise (you alluded to worker AI) that you kind of shrugged off as "they'll never do," which is probably very true.
Edit: Gagnar's post above me actually reminded me of the creativity of map designers and how possible "strange" expansions might work out. Perhaps maps will be push out with fewer main base mineral patches, reducing 1-base efficiency and encouraging early expos. Or gas only expos (perhaps with only very few min. patches) somewhat nearby that would encourage tech. I don't have enough BW experience to draw correlations, but it seems to certainly be a possibility, just not in the form of "mineral only" expos because that would, as OP demonstrated, really not achieve much.
And for clarification, these "fewer mineral patch" main base map(s) could obviously be choices in a loser-picks style event by macro-style players, and consequently vetoes for stronger timing/all-in players. I'm not suggesting that it become the norm, I think it would be more interesting to have some with and some without. Map diversity is great, and something BW seemed to have a lot of even with my lacking experience.
I've been hoping for a supply cap increase as well, at least to 250. Going back and playing Zerg in Broodwar was a fascinating experience, as the first thing I realized was just how friggin' huge my 200 supply army was. In SC2 I get to 200 supply and I'm like, what? That's it?
Read the entire thing, very compelling stuff. I too would love to hear what you have to say about Zerg as their mining/economy management is so easily thrown awry. The numbers behind that must be damn near impossible to crank. One very very interesting point was the validity of long distance mining I think we'll see a bunch of that in PvP and PvT in the future.
Really amazing explanation. I think I've felt the "3-base vs 3-base" issues before, but I think you've really hit the head on that. I wouldn't totally discount larger maps if they're a little more spread out as map control will matter a lot more, but that will make certain things feel rock-paper scissory.
Also I think it's different / harder for certain races to control space than other due to different mechanics and controlling space is really important on technical maps which it's harder to do for certain races in SC2.
Just finished reading - a stunningly high quality post!
I wonder what Blizzard's SC2 Balance team would think of this - you highlight extremely important concepts in balancing our beloved RTS and I hope someone with power finds the time to read it themselves. =3
I feel that this misses out one major factor: Gas.
More expansions for zerg are usually not gotten for the minerals but most likely for more gas. Considering that the dream late-game composition is not 50 roaches, some lings and hydras but rather Broodlord-Infestor-Corrupter, i feel that gas is the limiting factor for zerg, as these super high tech units have a mineral:gas relation of 1:1 or worse, considering all the tech.
Even great macro Zergs like Nestea and Idra (and certainly everyone else below their level) has in the mid game often a surplus in minerals as your only mineral-dump is the super larva-heavy Zergling or Eco (=Expansions + Drones). If i take a faster fourth or fifth base, it's not because i need the minerals, it's because i wanna go hive, i wanna mass Mutas, i wanna get upgrades and pump infestors. I usually have only 3-4 guys at the minerals and then 6 saturating the gas very fast, so i can steer away from Roaches/Lings, which become worse and worse as the P and T armys add their tech-choices (namely tanks and Collo/Storm).
If there are tons of expansions, Zergs won't get ahead in minerals, but if i have 5 bases worth of gas, i can pump Mutas like Zerglings.
I'm mid diamond so I'm not going to argue that I understand more about the game than Lalush and before I give any critique I have to say the article and the research behind it was awesome. I enjoyed reading the article and I think I can improve my game play just because I read it.
So about the zerg getting more than 3 bases I always thought it's useful for zerg because they can mine more gas, tho this might not be relevant in early-mid game. In late game it seems that zerg needs the gas more than the minerals.
i sort of skimmed it but I caught the important parts and I agree with your conclusions. The raw amount of supply just in workers a base can support combined with the supply cap means that staying on a low number of bases has much increased viability.
What about simply reducing the amount of mineral patches on each base to 6, and 4 on a gold though? Maybe that would make Mules too strong as the relative income boost they provide would be much greater.
One point about the 200 to 300 cap is that from a Blizzard point of view, they may fear the performance hit on computers by upping this cap and favor the safe side by giving a more even SC2 performance across all SC2 players' comps. This is purely from a game company standpoint.
First of all, I'd like to commend your in depth analysis and efforts in compiling actual data to support your theories. It made for a very interesting read.
However, I take issue with this particular conclusion:
On February 10 2011 01:58 LaLuSh wrote: With that said: what will larger maps achieve apart from increasing rush distances?
I would say absolutely nothing. What need do players have for 14 expansions in a game like Starcraft 2? Absolutely none.
I don't actually think this is the natural conclusion.
Having more than 3 mining bases surely strengthens the force of zerg's 'suicide missions'. Perhaps instead of throwing waves of roaches, the zerg could afford to throw waves of ultras.
The main point your charts fail to address is gas income. A zerg could happily spend 5 bases worth of gas while only mining 3 bases worth of minerals. Because of this, 'taking the map' is still definitely the ultimate goal of a macro zerg.
Great read, I appreciate the effort you put into this article.
I think an increase in supply will heavily shift the balance in favor of Z (assuming no other significant changes and on a decent sized map), since it's the only race of the 3 in SC2 which has an economy that grows exponentially, so they can reach 4-5-6 bases far more quickly than T or P ever will due to larvae injects. I would say increase to 250 first, and see how it goes and make changes to macro mechanics if necessary.
One other key information that you left out is that even though mineral income between 3/4/5/6 bases is similar, the real benefit over having additional bases for Zerg is the additional gas income. Late game Z is all about massing up muta/baneling, broodlord-->ultra, infestors, etc. All of Zerg T3 is extremely gas intensive units. You cannot only look at mineral incomes then claim that bases beyond the 3rd provide no benefit.
Assuming you don't have to remake drones, the Zerg late game army consists of units have a mineral-gas ratio of less than 1.5 : 1. Theoretically, the optimal spread of 75 drones would be on 5 bases: 30 drones on gas + 45 drones on minerals. Also, by the time you're on 5 bases already, chances are your main is already mined out or nearing that, so this is decent enough on a medium sized map.
If you increased the supply, the optimal for 90 drones would be 6 bases: 36 on gas + 54 on minerals. 105 drones would be 7 bases: 42 on gas + 63 on minerals, etc.
Even in BW, it was extremely rare to see games that went beyond 5 base vs 5 base (or even maps that had enough bases to support it). The only exception I can think of is on certain maps where P takes the entire map (without saturation) simply because they know they'll lose bases 1 by 1 as the Terran comes out with his timing push.
Wow great right up. I agree with the 300 food cap and always wondered if that could help the game but never really put much thought into why. Very nice that, imo, you have seemed to get to the root (or at least one of them) of the problem, I hope someone at blizzard reads this and at least thinks about a change.
Another concept to explore would be variable number of mineral patches. I mean it's obvious, but simply adding an additional mineral patch to a spawn location would completely alter so many fundamental aspects of timing, as well as the entire range of macro mechanics you discuss, since the entire discussion treats 8 mineral patches as static (which it is in the current map pool).
I think there is other factors here not accounted for.
Right now even pros have trouble spending all their minerals off of 3 base. Things like taking a 4th and 5th for purely gas have great benefits.
Then we can think how late games will pan out. What happens when that Protoss deathball rolls through? Can Zerg stop it in 1-2 fights? Maybe not. Maybe, the Zerg will need 6 bases, so that he EXPECTS to lose 1-2 before he can stop the Protoss deathball. Retreating workers to other numerous bases before they die will keep the Zerg in the game vs Protoss deathball.
Then, as said before, maps could account for the problem. The maps could be changed to have like, 5 mineral patches and 1 geyser on expansions.
Great OP. On the devil's advocate side though, I want to make three points.
I. Before messing with the game stats/mechanics in any way, my gut reaction is to see if maps can change anything. This is much harder now with the SC2 map system/ladder than the BW map free for all (largely because ladder is enforced, where it was very ignored in BW after about a year). However, if we can get new maps out, there are several variables to experiment with, such as:
- lowering/increasing mineral patch numbers - lowering/increasing mineral patch total resources - ditto both of these for geysers - the obvious map size and layout considerations
I'm not saying any of these are going to be necessary or "good" solutions - it may be best to let SC2 play out as a less macro-oriented game (though I feel this would cause it to lose some e-sport value). By "macro-oriented" I mean a game where being able to macro is a driving force behind the strategy.
II. For the sake of argument, I'm going to postulate that the difference in mining efficiency, while it exists, is in fact less extreme than you're making out. Your argument depends on a time per worker per mineral argument: even before reaching saturation a BW player could (by your hypothesis) achieve greater efficiency by spreading workers over more bases (patches). (Incidentally, this is supported by BGH, where the huge number of mineral patches = never need more than one base. Want, yes; need, not really.)
However, on a standard BW map I would have said you can cap workers/base at about 28-30, maybe one or two lower; your 22+gas isn't much lower than that. To test your theory, we need to look at not only when players expand (in worker count terms), but why - is worker count/saturation really the driving motive? For instance, possible BW counter examples: Zerg tend to expand to get the hatch up (and the extra gas in ZvZ); Protoss usually only FE by default against Zerg - but that's at least partly driven by the choke-ramp model of the standard map.
Something to think about - I'll try to get some hard numbers/examples.
III. SC2 has inherited the legacy and metagame of BW, but not its polish, precision, and 12 years of actual professional play. While most players coming from BW may see macro play as the ideal model, timings are still much less precise, all the quirks necessary to repel early attacks aren't worked out, etc. I have no hesitation in stating that if BW players could win most games in <10 minute, 1 base games, they would do so. But in fact, most players (professionals at least) know what turrets and units have to be where when against most attacks: defensively BW is much more accurate than SC2 at the moment. Even most "all-in" strategies are 50/50 propositions; at best 60/40. The BW metagame forces the BW player to play for position, or as Day[9] constantly tells people, "But what do I do later if this doesn't work?".
In other words, what I'm arguing is that we're in a position right now where the SC2 metagame is still focused on getting the right army to squash his army and then win because he's got no stuff left. Most big battles right now have a clear winner and loser. The BW metagame has passed that point (largely: timing attacks, timing all-ins, and cheese do still exist, but are not "standard"), and with proper play any two armies can generally stand up to each other in a more or less fair fight. When SC2 reaches that point (if it ever does, but I'm assuming it will), then macro play will really develop.
As an eyeball test, I'd just put it like this: what percentage of SC2 games have both players on 15+ production buildings, compared to BW? (I actually don't know; I also want to figure this out.)
out of curiosity are you [the op] majoring in some science-technology-engineering-math (STEM) related field, the OP was very well written/organized w/ graphs and almost a scientific approach was taken when evaluating the issue . and gz on the 1000th post ^
Very interesting read. It brought up some really good points especially about the map design and how it affects the way the game is played now. I really do think the maps are going to change a lot of what Starcraft 2 will evolve into. Now I don't tend to agree with not taking the extra bases than the three, because it is not only to do with numbers and the economic advantage. Theres other factors like giving you position in a key point on the map or mining yourself out on only 3 bases saturated with workers. There are also other factors such as being cost ineffective in your play, but having a large amount of bases because of it.
I do agree that it'd be much better if we could make more workers with a raised supply cap, which would be soooo awesome. I do feel pretty confident though in new maps making a huge difference in players to sway to the macro side of things. Great OP!
Like the OP, also think there is plenty of merit to what pilsken has to say regarding the importance of gas as a major reason to secure an expansion. I have a feeling this post will be an extremely productive one!
I trust that your findings are largely accurate but could you please comment a bit more about your testing methodology?
Regarding your comments on bigger maps, giving your findings - sure it wouldn't make an economic difference in the late game, but note that having more options means that it'll be easier to defend/hide a third expansion.
On February 10 2011 02:44 teamsolid wrote: I think an increase in supply will heavily shift the balance in favor of Z (assuming no other significant changes and on a decent sized map), since it's the only race of the 3 in SC2 which has an economy that grows exponentially, so they can reach 4-5-6 bases far more quickly than T or P ever will due to larvae injects.
That's a mis-statement, I agree that zerg's economies can grow faster, but the economy of all races grow essentially linearly on the number of bases which can grow exponentially. Then again exponentially is probably one of the most exaggeratedly used words.
Great post, but I really really really suspect that a 300 supply cap would be disastrous to the game in its current form. The reason is very simple: the efficiency of ranged units increases geometrically with number, where melee units is much less. Since there is a lack of gameplay options to reverse this basic reality by outplaying an opponent with superior skill (arguably only the forcefield can do this efficiently), it is a bad idea at this point.
There may be other approaches to this economic problem. For instance, a zerg analog to mules could be a hive tech upgrade that reduces drones to one half supply. *This is just an example*
On February 10 2011 02:43 lac29 wrote: One point about the 200 to 300 cap is that from a Blizzard point of view, they may fear the performance hit on computers by upping this cap and favor the safe side by giving a more even SC2 performance across all SC2 players' comps. This is purely from a game company standpoint.
Perhaps, although having played fastest quite a bit I doubt this really is that much of a problem as that map has a 300 supply cap and is almost always 4v4 with absurd macro.
On February 10 2011 02:44 teamsolid wrote: I think an increase in supply will heavily shift the balance in favor of Z (assuming no other significant changes and on a decent sized map), since it's the only race of the 3 in SC2 which has an economy that grows exponentially, so they can reach 4-5-6 bases far more quickly than T or P ever will due to larvae injects.
That's a mis-statement, I agree that zerg's economies can grow faster, but the economy of all races grow essentially linearly on the number of bases which can grow exponentially. Then again exponentially is probably one of the most exaggeratedly used words.
No actually, the Zerg economy really does have exponential growth on the # of workers, since they are able to divert their entire mineral income into even more workers (and are not constrained by larvae production due to injects). Theoretically, the higher the mineral income, the faster drone production is, which leads to even higher mineral income. Meanwhile SCV/Probe production is constant per nexus/CC, so their economies are only exponential on the # of bases. Realistically though, drone production is heavily constrained by pressure from the opponent.
Very well thought out article, and I enjoyed reading it. Here are some points I disagree about, though:
OP ignores the fact that 14CC/Nexus allows scvs/probes/mules to be produces more rapidly.
Also, I think there is some merit to having 4 bases and spreading your workers so that the less mined bases are more saturated. Consider a simplified example: both players have 3 bases which they can take, and neither player wants to make more than 50 workers for whatever reason. Player 1 stays on 2 bases until his main is mined out, then takes his 3rd and transfers all the workers there. Player 2 takes his 3rd much earlier, and transfers 2/3 of the workers from his main and 1/3 of the workers from his natural to that 3rd.
Player 2 is of course going to be more exposed to harass/possible timing attacks from taking their 3rd faster, but he will continue to have a full 16 mineral patch saturation for the entire game, while the other player drops below this as his natural gets mined out. So, player 2 will mine faster in the end.
A similar situation arises a lot in the late game when players are denied bases, but one player may have mined out his entire gold or natural long before the other player.
On February 10 2011 02:43 lac29 wrote: One point about the 200 to 300 cap is that from a Blizzard point of view, they may fear the performance hit on computers by upping this cap and favor the safe side by giving a more even SC2 performance across all SC2 players' comps. This is purely from a game company standpoint.
Perhaps, although having played fastest quite a bit I doubt this really is that much of a problem as that map has a 300 supply cap and is almost always 4v4 with absurd macro.
Well, I wouldn't be able to play a game with 300 supply cap. Hell, some of the iCCup maps drop my fps by like 10 for no apparent reason. Though, I'd probably just save up for a new computer if they did increase the supply cap to 300.
OT: tinkering with mineral patch/geyser yield on maps could possibly have a big difference. The current analysis is solely built on 8 mineral patches per base (standard for blizzard or GSTL maps), these effects can be significantly different if the patch number and yield of minerals change.
I suggest decreasing the mineral nodes to 6 or 7 and reducing the minerals per node by 250-500. this would create an incentive to continue expansion, reduce the income wich would reduce the potential power and or recoverability of early all in attackes/agression.
Bases with six $1000 mineral patches would create an incentive to quickly take third bases as well as continue to expand because your main base will be mined out by the 10-12th minute.
I have always enjoyed starcraft and played a little bit of broodwar (I was awful) and now I play SC2 (still awful). I remember that when Kespa started making maps for the BW pro stuff they started messing around with the number of mineral nodes in the bases. For the life of me I can't remeber if they added a mineral node or removed one.
After reading the OP it would seem that the incentive to take additional bases after 2 and then ultimately 3 is due to the fact that staturation is reached at a relatively large % of total desired worker population.
Each base can be considered fully (read: usefully) saturated from 22-30 workers (6 on gas and then 16-24 workers on minerals). Like the OP that means there is little incentive to have more than 3 mining bases. So what is they best way to create an incentive to expand? a thought I had was to reduce the number on mineral patches per base.
What would happen if main bases had only 7 nodes and expansions had only 6 nodes? or all bases have 7 nodes?
It would mean that each base could support 3 less workers, which would create and incentive for a 4th base in terms of worker numbers. You could even potentially go to 6 nodes. At 6 nodes you would need 4 bases to match the economy of the current 8 node 3 base).
I tried to include zerg into this, but since they’re on 2 bases and a highly irrational race to boot, I was left with nothing but a headache. Sorry.
I love this line too haha.
It'd be interesting to see what would happen if they very slightly increased the time it takes for a worker to get minerals from the patch. Since travel time wouldn't change it'd mean the 2nd worker would have a slightly reduced efficiency for mining making it slightly more of an advantage to be spread out across bases.
I don't quite agree with the statement that maps with a large number of bases make no sense due to the 3-base worker cap. Bases will run out quickly, I don't think even in BW you could see someone on 4-5 saturated and mining bases very often. If you want to maintain 3 fully mining bases you will need to take new ones quite soon, provided that the game does not degenerate into one maxed army rolling the other maxed army.
On February 10 2011 02:43 lac29 wrote: One point about the 200 to 300 cap is that from a Blizzard point of view, they may fear the performance hit on computers by upping this cap and favor the safe side by giving a more even SC2 performance across all SC2 players' comps. This is purely from a game company standpoint.
Perhaps, although having played fastest quite a bit I doubt this really is that much of a problem as that map has a 300 supply cap and is almost always 4v4 with absurd macro.
Well, in every 4vs4 with 200supply battles I see the message "XXX is slowing down the game" a ton. I'd say it affects at least 10% of players. Also you need to keep in mind that it's not only displaying the action, but also calculating AI & co (which is split over 8 pcs) so the workload would be higher.
About Lalush's post: The long distance mining is most interesting. If you have mapvision, but fear certain timing attacks you might be able to stay on 1base (with long distance mining) and survive those attacks more easily (thanks to the ramp).
My one concern after reading is the supply limit change. This is difficult to conceptualize how it would affect the game, but a 300 food limit feels like a big change -- almost like a limitless unit count.
In my experience, hitting 200 food takes 15+ minutes in game. At that point, you focus hard on teching up units and stockpiling production buildings and preparing for the big deciding battle. Most games don't last much longer than 15-20 minutes, usually around the max (or near max) armies headbutting each other. In a sense, that 200 food push is the final timing push to end the game. It is a designed time to tell each player to wrap it up.
I wasn't a big Brood War player, so I can't comment on how the length of SC2 games compares to BW games. If BW games tended to be about 25-30 minutes long, maybe a 300 food limit would work great in getting SC2 to match the feel of a BW game.
I worry that a 300 food limit would just help Protoss more. Given how much trouble players have dealing with the current max Protoss army, a 300 food army would be daunting. Imagine a 3+ base Protoss with a 300 food Stalker/Colossus army. The scaling effect of splash damage would shutout virtually any ground defense.
Maybe this is no better, but I think a 250 max supply solves the extra base/workers problem, but generally keep the army sizes the same. The goal, as I see it, is to allow the extra workers for 4+ bases, while still having enough supply to field the same army. Adding 50 supply would allow for that "standard" 75 worker count to eventually turn into a standard 100+ worker count on these new maps, while not changing the army sizes too much.
Regardless, you bring up a good point and after reading it, larger maps suddenly don't make me feel like the game will suddenly become more dynamic just due to an increase in the space.
I tried to include zerg into this, but since they’re on 2 bases and a highly irrational race to boot, I was left with nothing but a headache. Sorry.
I love this line too haha.
It'd be interesting to see what would happen if they very slightly increased the time it takes for a worker to get minerals from the patch. Since travel time wouldn't change it'd mean the 2nd worker would have a slightly reduced efficiency for mining making it slightly more of an advantage to be spread out across bases.
That's a very interesting idea. But at the same time, it would decrease the number of workers required to reach saturation. That would make MULEs extremely powerful.
On February 10 2011 03:41 Random() wrote: I don't quite agree with the statement that maps with a large number of bases make no sense due to the 3-base worker cap. Bases will run out quickly, I don't think even in BW you could see someone on 4-5 saturated and mining bases very often. If you want to maintain 3 fully mining bases you will need to take new ones quite soon, provided that the game does not degenerate into one maxed army rolling the other maxed army.
I agree, but it's also still not quite the same. The point is, I believe, is that in BW you might get 3 bases quickly with small numbers because your 30 workers across 3 bases would be getting significantly more resources than his 30 workers across 3 bases. In SC2 the reward is lessened because the 30 workers mine the same if they're on 2 or 3 bases, so the advantage to expanding is more about increased production rather than increased efficiency + increased production.
On February 10 2011 03:39 Logo wrote: Amazing post
I tried to include zerg into this, but since they’re on 2 bases and a highly irrational race to boot, I was left with nothing but a headache. Sorry.
I love this line too haha.
It'd be interesting to see what would happen if they very slightly increased the time it takes for a worker to get minerals from the patch. Since travel time wouldn't change it'd mean the 2nd worker would have a slightly reduced efficiency for mining making it slightly more of an advantage to be spread out across bases.
That's a very interesting idea. But at the same time, it would decrease the number of workers required to reach saturation. That would make MULEs extremely powerful.
I don't think it would. So long as the 3rd worker per patch still provided some increased level of mining then the saturation point would be about the same. Actually maybe it would I need to think more about it! Maybe it's the drop-off animation/time that would need to be increased.
I would really like to see an increased supply cap, or at least an in-game option for an increased supply cap. I don't necessarily agree with your P>all in GSL maps (though Terran will obviously be weakened).
On February 10 2011 03:45 aimless wrote: Well thought out. Great job.
My one concern after reading is the supply limit change. This is difficult to conceptualize how it would affect the game, but a 300 food limit feels like a big change -- almost like a limitless unit count.
In my experience, hitting 200 food takes 15+ minutes in game. At that point, you focus hard on teching up units and stockpiling production buildings and preparing for the big deciding battle. Most games don't last much longer than 15-20 minutes, usually around the max (or near max) armies headbutting each other. In a sense, that 200 food push is the final timing push to end the game. It is a designed time to tell each player to wrap it up.
I wasn't a big Brood War player, so I can't comment on how the length of SC2 games compares to BW games. If BW games tended to be about 25-30 minutes long, maybe a 300 food limit would work great in getting SC2 to match the feel of a BW game.
I worry that a 300 food limit would just help Protoss more. Given how much trouble players have dealing with the current max Protoss army, a 300 food army would be daunting. Imagine a 3+ base Protoss with a 300 food Stalker/Colossus army. The scaling effect of splash damage would shutout virtually any ground defense.
Maybe this is no better, but I think a 250 max supply solves the extra base/workers problem, but generally keep the army sizes the same. The goal, as I see it, is to allow the extra workers for 4+ bases, while still having enough supply to field the same army. Adding 50 supply would allow for that "standard" 75 worker count to eventually turn into a standard 100+ worker count on these new maps, while not changing the army sizes too much.
Regardless, you bring up a good point and after reading it, larger maps suddenly don't make me feel like the game will suddenly become more dynamic just due to an increase in the space.
Why should there be a point in the game where someone says "hey, stop making units and finish up already"? Often, I find myself maxed out but with too many drones to actually have a large army and playing against a solid defense that I can't break (and thousands of extra min/gas) - my only option then is to suicide armies over and over again until I win or lose. whether I wait for my opponent to move out with max food or I attack asap, I get screwed.
Also, larger maps theoretically should promote much more expansion-oriented and micro-intensive play. You are no longer restricted to one path of expansions, and moving out with your army might just bring a huge counterattack at your own base. For example, Tal'darim greatly promotes nydus play, expanding to opposite sides of the map (when your opponent attacks one spot, you sacrifice that base and counterattack). Drops also become much more vital, and the low 200 supply ceiling affects gameplay less because you can actually avoid the other person's army.
i've been convinced for ages that mining efficiency being too good was the reason for 1 basing and allins. however, it's also super easy to macro off 2 bases; you don't bank 1k/1k off 2 base and get punished like you do in broodwar.
i think an interesting solution to test would be to increase the amount of minerals/gas you get per trip, so overall increasing the rate at which you mine, but decrease the mineral patches per base, so that you're rewarded for expanding. this way it becomes more difficult to spend your money since you'll have a high income but still allow for aggressive expanding to pay off.
Thanks Lalush! That is some excellent research there :D
300 supply cap is extreme, and someone suggested 250. I think that the argument for 300 is so that, in proportion to 70 workers/200 supply, you could get 110/300. I think that higher worker/supply ratios make for increasingly stronger Zerg unit production; at just 100/300 mining across 5+ bases and say 7 hatcheries (2 for macro), that's a lot of larva AND banking that could be done. Banking resources benefits Zerg and Protoss, whereas it is relatively inefficient to do so for Terran -- one way to help placate that could be to imagine if there was a builder-mule calldown that built buildings faster (with appropriate teching of course).
At the same time, higher supply more or less equates to having more bases a map and therefore somewhat bigger maps. Players getting to max generally ever occurs when there is enough room for the macro to occur (Xel'Naga, Metal crosspos, LT cross) and early game timing is deflected. So, with higher supply, maps would definitely have to adjust as well.
(looking at my post and how few graphs there are makes it seem so much less substantial Makes one appreciate data gathering, lol)
Wow baller. I'm not sure what it all means but it seems really solid. I only feel zerg has been left out in the ramping up of minerals per x plots. Because doesn't the simultanous production of workers at some point start to ramp up the workers a lot faster and thus the income aswell? Like the line would slowly become steeper and steeper.
I do very much like something like a 300 supply cap and I really hope it will come in the future, mainly because of how fast production explodes around the middle of a game. Like you invest a lot in the economy and it starts building up and from there you max out quite fast and that takes away from the macro aspect aswell. Situations like 250 food zerg vs 200 food x or being able to capitalize more on a load you've established after you reach the 200 mark. It would give some more freedom in those regards and that might be suited better with the way Starcraft 2 works.
The idea of worker counts and supply caps is ignoring the concept of Terran saccing all but 21 to 27 scvs after adding about 4 macro OCs. The income off of 6 total OCs easily can match that of 60 scvs mining minerals. Terran actually has a solid reason, with this in mind, to go for games that tend to a 4th mining base stage (or 5th) as it is around that time that they can remax to 200 food while having only twenty one food invested into scvs.
This is very hard to do on the current ladder pool but you would be surprised how effective this is on larger maps such as the feb gstl additions.
The points brought about zerg and gas income are very valod as well. The opening post has hit every other ppint i can think of on the subject, very well done post/topic.
Your chapter 1 stats comparison between mules and chrono boost only accounts for minerals mined per 5 minutes, not the overall mineral mined.
A simple way to calculate mineral mined after xx minutes (first 5 minutes, first 10 minutes, first mule expiration, 2nd mule expiration) is: Total mineral (8 patches * 1500 = 12000, 16 patches * 1500 = 24000 if FE) - mineral left on the patches at the time the mule died (patch 1 + patch 2 + patch 3 +.....) = mineral mined.
If you use this fomula, you'll see that Protoss always outmines Terran for the first 3 mules (the time when base hasn't saturated yet). So while Terran has the advantage of mule mining per minutes, the effect of Protoss having higher probe count for a long period of time is still better.
Chapter 2 confirms a lot about what people say. SC2's smart AI completely negate BW's problem's of mining, making it ideal for RTS macro problems. Normally in a RTS games, there're 2 types of macro problems that makes people headache, AI and disappeared resources. In BW, the AI is so bad that you'd better off with your scv mining as many bases as possible. In WC, Age of Empires..., your resources disappear from the terrain overtime (wood, iron, food,....), making it hard for players to adjust the mining distance to optimize the resources. In SC2, we don't have that problems, the AI is smart, the mineral patches don't disappear until they are mined out. Because of that, SC2 provides such stable income stream, making it unnecessary to get a new base when you don't use all the resources you have on 2,3 bases.
Supply cap is an interesting problem too. In BW, Terran units mostly are 1,2 food count (except BCs, Valkyrie, all bio units are 1 food count). But in SC2, There're a lot of units that require high food count (BCs, Thor, Tank, Banshee, bio units are 2 food count except marines (there's reaper too but it doesn't count as noone creates it at all)). It's so much easier to reach 200 supply cap for Terran (And protoss too)
Wow! Thats a good summary of the macro mechanics of SC2. But as someone said earlier people usually get additional bases for the gas to get the higher tech units like templars, mutas/broodlods/corruptor and ghosts/ravens. So the saturation mechanics might not all be bad since late game it forces players to move into a more gas based army which absolutely decimates mineral based armies. This leads to all the money moments in the games like seeing psi storms, broodlings etc. This post also explains why in GSTL we are suddenly seeing this protoss resurgence since the maps size makes early terran agression less effective and hence protoss can take 2 or more bases and drag the game to late game where toss absolutely wrecks zerg/terran. Maybe one solution would be to nerf macro mechanics or make them researcheable. For e.g. mules, chrono and spawn larva are t1.5 researcheable abilities. This would make the early allins less effective and late game easier to balance since with the current state if blizzard nerf or buff something their effect is compounded ten fold due to the macro mechanics. Maybe we can then return to 60 health scvs to take care of the pesky probe harass.
this is good research lalush, this totally clicks once I read it... every time I take my fourth and fifth base it just doesnt feel like I benefit that much from it, now I know why. I shall correct my strategies accordingly...
however this makes me a little sad for the future, I am hugely skeptical that blizz will raise the food cap to 300, in the past they have not even considered replying to such requests when asked, although the question hasnt been asked for economical reasons before, but instead from a unit balance viewpoint, claiming that zerg needs higher food cap because they cap out to fast vs toss/terran due to Z units not beeing cost effective compared to T/P and roaches+ queens bloating supply...
I'd been postulating the protoss phenomenon for a while, and had often discussed how the 3base 70ish worker cap just works out so well for them compared to Z, why rush for a macro lead over a 3base toss?
Of course gas must factor into these decisions, a 5 base Zerg is much stronger for his ability to create gas intensive monsters of destruction. However, when a zerg free's up supply in a so called "suicide attack" the unfortunate truth is that gas intensive units take minutes to build, and the rush distance is measured in milliseconds on most maps, the style just doesn't feel viable against a 3basing Toss/Terran, with their splash damage and inherent ranged advantages in defensive positions, it is very rare (in my experience) to get enough of a supply trade to create better units with, whilst not triggering a counter attack that ends the game.
Of course given this scenario of ridiculous risk and effort to overcome the 3base toss, the 'answer" comes in the form of limiting the Toss to 2base. If only the Zerg race were given tools suitable to this job. Short of quick roach maxxing Zerg just does not seem to have any reliable way to control the protoss and keep him tied to his 2 bases, what with forcefields, cannons, AoE and a variety of other movement related abilities such as blink/charge and cliff walking.
Fortunately these difficulties of equal skill Race constraint vs Race constraint tend not to come up in very many games. Rather I, and others tend to get matched up against players they would have beaten even with more constraints, or have lost anyway, even with less. Unfortunately for the pro scene, this doesn't hold quite as true, where often the limitations of a race (usually zerg) foretell it's doom the second a protoss gets his 3rd up, or a terran drops his second rax.
A lot of the issues discussed in this thread are highlighted heavily in the recent GSTL games where longer macro games have been the overwhelming majority.
Protoss has done uncharacteristically well against their Terran Adversaries on these larger maps.
Hopefully a kind poster will call me out on my bullshit, make me eat dirt and feel like a terrible terrible fool, i would LOVE to be mistaken and shown the tools required to prevent the 3 base phenomenon from being a crutch to protoss players.. but in my saddened heart i fear the fundamental mechanic breaking, map controlling abilities of the "camping" races provide too much strength given the current supply cap, map pool, mining mechanics and dsjgahflsjdh.
On February 10 2011 04:00 vaderseven wrote: The idea of worker counts and supply caps is ignoring the concept of Terran saccing all but 21 to 27 scvs after adding about 4 macro OCs. The income off of 6 total OCs easily can match that of 60 scvs mining minerals. Terran actually has a solid reason, with this in mind, to go for games that tend to a 4th mining base stage (or 5th) as it is around that time that they can remax to 200 food while having only twenty one food invested into scvs.
This is very hard to do on the current ladder pool but you would be surprised how effective this is on larger maps such as the feb gstl additions.
The points brought about zerg and gas income are very valod as well. The opening post has hit every other ppint i can think of on the subject, very well done post/topic.
this is unbelievably strong a concept. So much so that it should play very very heavily on any decisions regarding map size, and to a lesser extend upon choosing which race to play!
Having a +50 supply army over your opponent is an insane advantage
Read through the whole thing, very interesting. I think you have some pretty reasonable assessments on how reducing the time for base saturation encourages cheese/timing attacks and discourages macro play.
The graphs with mules vs chrono boost make it seem to me that the mule offers too much of a benefit in income compared to Toss's chronoboost. Am I misinterpretting that? This is compounded by the fact that the extra probes that chronoboost enables take up supply in order to increase mineral income while mules do not.
On February 10 2011 03:54 legatus legionis wrote: Wow baller. I'm not sure what it all means but it seems really solid. I only feel zerg has been left out in the ramping up of minerals per x plots. Because doesn't the simultanous production of workers at some point start to ramp up the workers a lot faster and thus the income aswell? Like the line would slowly become steeper and steeper.
I do very much like something like a 300 supply cap and I really hope it will come in the future, mainly because of how fast production explodes around the middle of a game. Like you invest a lot in the economy and it starts building up and from there you max out quite fast and that takes away from the macro aspect aswell. Situations like 250 food zerg vs 200 food x or being able to capitalize more on a load you've established after you reach the 200 mark. It would give some more freedom in those regards and that might be suited better with the way Starcraft 2 works.
Zerg wasn't included probably because it's impossible to really portray a reasonable graph for them. The # of buildings built, the # of army made, the # of hatcheries, the # of creep tumors, how long your expo is blocked, all this stuff makes zerg income wildly different. Even for BOs the income rate of Protoss and Terran (other than OC timing) is the same so long as workers are constantly produced and the expansions are timed the same. That's not true at all for Zerg where not only do you have to factor in the expansion timings, but also queen timings. Basically there's just too much variance to really make anything reasonable beyond the first 13 drones.
One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
Thanks alot for this huge and well done post. Going to try out the distance mining more often now for sure. And I hope Blizzard will raise the supply cap and have larger maps.
On February 10 2011 03:54 legatus legionis wrote: Wow baller. I'm not sure what it all means but it seems really solid. I only feel zerg has been left out in the ramping up of minerals per x plots. Because doesn't the simultanous production of workers at some point start to ramp up the workers a lot faster and thus the income aswell? Like the line would slowly become steeper and steeper.
As stated in the OP, Zerg was intentionally left out. I think this is because Zerg's drone production depends on so many factors, many of them outside of the player's control (eg. enemy pressure, fast expand or not, early pool/queen or not, etc.).
So if you'd make a test with zerg, it would show very unfair results. This because it would be a zerg which builds drones, pool and queen in an economically optimal way. That will never work in a normal game as you probably will encounter early pressure because your enemy wants to punish you for making too many drones early on.
Terran and Protoss have very linear worker production, the question there is:
"Do I want to spend the minerals on something else or do I want more workers?". That one is pretty easy, usually more workers until you've saturated your base.
Not: "Do I have enough free production slots to be able to build units to prevent an attack from doing too much damage?"
@OP:
Very well thought out post, and good research!
Not sure about changing the minerals per expansion, haven't experimented with that during map making. Changing that affects gameplay greatly, which makes it an unpredictable change.
I agree with your opinion on Protoss being more powerful on 300/300, as with a lot of warpgates it will be really easy to max out again if you lose stuff. Zerg still have a long production time on high tier units. HT just have a few seconds with warpgates.
One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
Interesting idea, but the problem with it is MULES. If Terran had access to gold patches from the start of the game for MULES... Well it wouldn't be pretty .
On February 10 2011 04:17 whatthefat wrote: One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
Wow this is really interesting. This is what I'm looking forward to so much, maps experimenting with these kinds of things, few patches, gold patches in mains, patches in a line instead of a curve... The economy could be so greatly impacted by these such simple things. I do think that in time the MULE might need to be rebalanced (as a Terran player, btw), with a cooldown, shorter duration, lower multiplier, or NOT being able to "share" mining with an SCV so to speak... But I believe map makers can experiment with many things that find the best results for all three races, and then the balancing can be observed
On February 10 2011 04:17 whatthefat wrote: One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
This is brilliant! I hope someone makes a map to test this idea.
What if bases simply had fewer mineral patches (i.e. 6 patches instead of 8)? I'm not suggesting that this is the fix, but I'm curious how this would change the expansion dynamics of the game.
If it does help, the plus is that it requires no changes to the game mechanics and just different maps.
I would love to see something like this in the simulations as it could really inform map makers decisions for making awesome maps.
On February 10 2011 02:44 teamsolid wrote: I think an increase in supply will heavily shift the balance in favor of Z (assuming no other significant changes and on a decent sized map), since it's the only race of the 3 in SC2 which has an economy that grows exponentially, so they can reach 4-5-6 bases far more quickly than T or P ever will due to larvae injects.
That's a mis-statement, I agree that zerg's economies can grow faster, but the economy of all races grow essentially linearly on the number of bases which can grow exponentially. Then again exponentially is probably one of the most exaggeratedly used words.
No actually, the Zerg economy really does have exponential growth on the # of workers, since they are able to divert their entire mineral income into even more workers (and are not constrained by larvae production due to injects). Theoretically, the higher the mineral income, the faster drone production is, which leads to even higher mineral income. Meanwhile SCV/Probe production is constant per nexus/CC, so their economies are only exponential on the # of bases. Realistically though, drone production is heavily constrained by pressure from the opponent.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but there is a cap, even with larva inject, to how many larva a hatchery can produce in a minute the same as there is a cap for a nexus producing probes or a CC producing scvs, I agree the number is higher for the hatcher for zerg than for the corresponding structures for protoss and terran, but it still exists.
One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
Interesting idea, but the problem with it is MULES. If Terran had access to gold patches from the start of the game for MULES... Well it wouldn't be pretty .
It already seems like MULES are a problem in normal situations based on the OP's graph of the effect of MULE vs Chronoboost in mineral production.
On February 10 2011 04:17 whatthefat wrote: One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
Wow this is really interesting. This is what I'm looking forward to so much, maps experimenting with these kinds of things, few patches, gold patches in mains, patches in a line instead of a curve... The economy could be so greatly impacted by these such simple things. I do think that in time the MULE might need to be rebalanced (as a Terran player, btw), with a cooldown, shorter duration, lower multiplier, or NOT being able to "share" mining with an SCV so to speak... But I believe map makers can experiment with many things that find the best results for all three races, and then the balancing can be observed
not being able to share mining seems like a good idea, but it would be very hard to implement when your base is saturated because the mule would spend most of its' time walking around unable to mine and have very low efficiency
perhaps having the natural contain gold patches (less patches to compensate) would be a better idea, giving more incentive to expand early
Regarding mixed blue/gold patches at the main, I think people who say MULES would create a balance problem are probably right. Nonetheless, I'd like to see map designers experiment with stuff like this. 8 patches and 2 geysers has become the standard, but as the OP points out, a lot of what appear to be balance issues ('nerf this unit! buff that unit!') or overpowered timing attacks (e.g., 4gate) could actually be driven by underlying macro mechanics. You have to wonder what the game would be like if bases had say 7 mineral patches instead.
Unfortunately for a lot of these alternative ideas, the mechanics of the MULE makes them WAY better for Terran.
Having a gold patch in every mineral field makes MULEs about 3x as good as they are now, which is already REALLY FREAKING GOOD!!!
Having less mineral patches overall makes MULEs better (while simultaneously making chrono/spawn larva worse) because they are ignoring that super-saturation point earlier.
Reducing total minerals per patch might be viable, but I can't predict the total ramifications of a change like that. Bases would mine out sooner, and therefore expanding sooner would be highly encouraged, but it could very well become a race to keep up your bases just to keep an optimal income depending on how fast bases mine out, and that would make the whole game incredibly volatile, if you're forced to transfer probes from base to base every 5 minutes.
This is very interesting, and basicly shows than there is no extra income to achieve after a third base, except for gas.
One thing that defies this is the terran mule though, as mules can work even on saturates patches, and building an oribital command is a direct income increase with 0 supply cost, which means you can even sac all your scv's, but the ones that take gas, and get a 160 supply army, and still having reproducion facilities, and actually saturate more than 3 bases as once.
So basicly, as zerg is usualy very fast on saturating a third, you should instead of taking more expos to sature, focus on deniying the opponent from having 3 saturated bases, as no m atter your amount of bases and map control, will have the same mineral income as you, this especialy worries me in PvZ where protoss can create their ultimate doom army off 3 bases, while zerg won't have a higher income to be able to destroy it even with 9 bases, except for gold expantions(Which seems far more important with this info)
This also makes me believe that terran will be the most powerful race in late-game with bigger maps, with the ability to gain more income than the maximum income possible, to be gained by probes and drones.
On February 10 2011 04:52 maize wrote: not being able to share mining seems like a good idea, but it would be very hard to implement when your base is saturated because the mule would spend most of its' time walking around unable to mine and have very low efficiency
Maybe that would be a good thing, as it would encourage expansions which would enable the MULE to operate at its full capacity. It would also likely encourage players to save up energy to dump on a new expo (more than they already do) which would tamp down on the early game mineral excess the OP talks about.
On February 10 2011 04:17 whatthefat wrote: One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
Wow this is really interesting. This is what I'm looking forward to so much, maps experimenting with these kinds of things, few patches, gold patches in mains, patches in a line instead of a curve... The economy could be so greatly impacted by these such simple things. I do think that in time the MULE might need to be rebalanced (as a Terran player, btw), with a cooldown, shorter duration, lower multiplier, or NOT being able to "share" mining with an SCV so to speak... But I believe map makers can experiment with many things that find the best results for all three races, and then the balancing can be observed
not being able to share mining seems like a good idea, but it would be very hard to implement when your base is saturated because the mule would spend most of its' time walking around unable to mine and have very low efficiency
perhaps having the natural contain gold patches (less patches to compensate) would be a better idea, giving more incentive to expand early
Perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad case haha, forcing MULEs to only become an efficient use of energy if dropped on a partially saturated or brand new expansion in the later game. It would certainly throttle their incredible effectiveness late game, and early game wouldn't be as major a factor; I'd be more concerned about the mid-ish game where there are a lot of SCVs on only about 2 bases, and MULEs would run into the issues you described, but again I'm not under the impression, even as a Terran player, that ANYONE thinks MULEs are to be any stronger than they are... It would, as the thread implies, encourage expanding more often and simultaneously allow for use of fewer patches per base (to force expanding from all 3 races) without giving Terran and incredible advantage for abusing MULEs on bases with few patches.
On February 10 2011 04:44 SpaceYeti wrote: What if bases simply had fewer mineral patches (i.e. 6 patches instead of 8)? I'm not suggesting that this is the fix, but I'm curious how this would change the expansion dynamics of the game.
If it does help, the plus is that it requires no changes to the game mechanics and just different maps.
I would love to see something like this in the simulations as it could really inform map makers decisions for making awesome maps.
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
Thanks for making this I'll check it out in more detail later, however I think there was an error in your first graph.
You said in BW you "should" have 4 workers per patch. However I think you seem to have forgotten that in BW there were 9 mineral patches in the main? So if you look at the 3 worker mark per patch in BW, it would be at the 27 worker mark, and as you can see it does slow down.
Another question for discussion: In BW why did the Kespa maps work so well? Was it that they simply were good at making balanced maps, or was it that the size of maps that Blizzard balanced the game on was still used in Kespa maps?
I think Blizzard made a mistake for changing the "proportions" of the game, as in the unit and building sizes and such, so that they are having a harder time finding a correct map size. It seems that things like this has caused problems like this, which they can't balance easily by looking directly back at BW as a reference. Also another example like the OP is that the workers mine differently now and such.
Also I think if the supply cap were increased, 300 is probably not a good number, unless Blizzard make some big changes (perhaps in the expansion? I don't blame them for being "slow" like others may say since these are hard decisions). 300 is just too extreme (although saying I have 300 sounds epic, aka the movie haha). A number like 250 would seem much more reasonable to me, but with the unit clumping in SC2 it'll make deathballs that much stronger.
Best luck to Blizzard to figure this stuff out! :D
Thank you for your hard work on this. I'm actually also very curious to hear your thoughts on Zerg when you get around to posting them.
I really like thinking about the evolution of the game on all levels and I'm glad you discussed the concept of GSL vs Blizzard Sized maps because many of us (including myself) have felt bigger maps would solve smaller issues. I'm not so sure that's the case anymore after reading this.
I really enjoy the input of higher level players! Thanks lalush for sharing this! Increasing the population cap to 250 or maybe 300 is a really smart suggestion. You got my support.
About the 3 base is all u need thing: make the natural and other expansions have less mineral patches (like 6 instead of 8), would help imho.
On February 10 2011 04:44 SpaceYeti wrote: What if bases simply had fewer mineral patches (i.e. 6 patches instead of 8)? I'm not suggesting that this is the fix, but I'm curious how this would change the expansion dynamics of the game.
If it does help, the plus is that it requires no changes to the game mechanics and just different maps.
I would love to see something like this in the simulations as it could really inform map makers decisions for making awesome maps.
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
Hmm, the way I was thinking about it, wouldn't having less mineral patches make fast expanding much stronger? I see what you and the OP are saying, but I'm not sure which of us is correct. If we consider extreme examples:
1) Suppose bases had 2 mineral patches. You would be saturated immediately, so there's no point making more workers until you expand (gas aside). Expanding would almost immediately double your mineral income.
2) Suppose bases had 30 mineral patches. You would not be saturated until far into the mid-game. Expanding would yield almost no additional mineral gains until you had over 60 workers.
On February 10 2011 05:06 Jermstuddog wrote: Unfortunately for a lot of these alternative ideas, the mechanics of the MULE makes them WAY better for Terran.
Having a gold patch in every mineral field makes MULEs about 3x as good as they are now, which is already REALLY FREAKING GOOD!!!
Having less mineral patches overall makes MULEs better (while simultaneously making chrono/spawn larva worse) because they are ignoring that super-saturation point earlier.
Reducing total minerals per patch might be viable, but I can't predict the total ramifications of a change like that. Bases would mine out sooner, and therefore expanding sooner would be highly encouraged, but it could very well become a race to keep up your bases just to keep an optimal income depending on how fast bases mine out, and that would make the whole game incredibly volatile, if you're forced to transfer probes from base to base every 5 minutes.
I agree that fewer mineral patches makes mules better and chrono boost worse, but I think it actually favors zerg mechanics, it's much faster to get expansions practically as zerg and you'll have better mining vs your opponents who are on one fewer base vs the status quo.
Another option would be simply decreasing the number of mineral patches per base to 6. This would make having more bases desirable and beneficial, as you would start losing mining efficiency at only 12 workers per base.
On February 10 2011 04:44 SpaceYeti wrote: What if bases simply had fewer mineral patches (i.e. 6 patches instead of 8)? I'm not suggesting that this is the fix, but I'm curious how this would change the expansion dynamics of the game.
If it does help, the plus is that it requires no changes to the game mechanics and just different maps.
I would love to see something like this in the simulations as it could really inform map makers decisions for making awesome maps.
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
I see what you're saying, but it's all relative the way I see it. Players would be able to cut workers earlier, but simultaneously have a lower income than currently. It wouldn't make any current all-in / timings much STRONGER because the worker cuts are so few in comparison to the income lost by staying on one base. A smaller force is easier to deflect as the expanding opponent.
The extreme example listed a few posts back was a good image: imagine if bases went from 8 -> 2 patches. The "one-basing" player would cut probes very early, leaving more supply and mineral focus to getting a force instead of laying down a CC/Nexus/Hatch and more supply facilities, BUT the lower income would inherently damage the size of the attack in the end. This means an easier attack to parry for the expander, giving the advantage. I understand where you're coming from, but I feel like it would affect everyone, no?
Great 1000th post, but am I the only one that gets depressed reading stuff like that? It makes me believe this game won't be played anymore in 3 years.
On February 10 2011 04:44 SpaceYeti wrote: What if bases simply had fewer mineral patches (i.e. 6 patches instead of 8)? I'm not suggesting that this is the fix, but I'm curious how this would change the expansion dynamics of the game.
If it does help, the plus is that it requires no changes to the game mechanics and just different maps.
I would love to see something like this in the simulations as it could really inform map makers decisions for making awesome maps.
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
I think the ebst idea is 8 mienral patches main, but 6 for other expos,
Really great read, but more on what this guy has said:
On February 10 2011 02:38 pilsken wrote: Zerg point of view:
I feel that this misses out one major factor: Gas.
More expansions for zerg are usually not gotten for the minerals but most likely for more gas. Considering that the dream late-game composition is not 50 roaches, some lings and hydras but rather Broodlord-Infestor-Corrupter, i feel that gas is the limiting factor for zerg, as these super high tech units have a mineral:gas relation of 1:1 or worse, considering all the tech.
Even great macro Zergs like Nestea and Idra (and certainly everyone else below their level) has in the mid game often a surplus in minerals as your only mineral-dump is the super larva-heavy Zergling or Eco (=Expansions + Drones). If i take a faster fourth or fifth base, it's not because i need the minerals, it's because i wanna go hive, i wanna mass Mutas, i wanna get upgrades and pump infestors. I usually have only 3-4 guys at the minerals and then 6 saturating the gas very fast, so i can steer away from Roaches/Lings, which become worse and worse as the P and T armys add their tech-choices (namely tanks and Collo/Storm).
If there are tons of expansions, Zergs won't get ahead in minerals, but if i have 5 bases worth of gas, i can pump Mutas like Zerglings.
After reading the OP, it is evident that the last timing window for zerg is not actually late-end game but rather is at the point where Toss needs to take/saturate their 3rd. Unless Zerg has raced ahead in economy and tech (and not died) and is at the point where they are able to "bank" both minerals AND gas (because in this scenario suiciding "maxed" armies is viable with enough injected hatcheries) then Zerg must do damage before Protoss can saturate a 3rd and reach the point where they can sustain a maxed army.
The thought put into the OP AND the comments remind me of how intellectual and awesome BW threads were. Thank you TL
I'll say this: due to the differences in macro mechanics between the three races, maps (in my opinion) will be even harder to balance for every match up then they were in BW. I think tournaments should think about having different map pools for TvP ZvT PvZ because so many things that help one match up hurt the others.
Of course I think that with more experimentation, we may find certain guidelines that allow for overall balanced maps, but the differences between mules, crono, and spawn larva make me think that will be REALLY hard.
The first intuitive feeling I got when I first started playing sc2 was that expanding was somehow being punished by not being rewarded. I didn't get the same kind of reward I got in brood war and me over-producing probes actually lead to my losing a lot of games.
Nothing made sense to me. I kept producing probes and expected to win easily. Many times I would be on 3 bases and my opponent would be on 2. The game would progress 4-5 minutes and I was sure that the game was over (because in brood war it would have been!). Still, many times I would lose.
And even now when the metagame has shifted from one-base builds to two-base and three-base builds it's pretty clear that getting a 4th-5th base prematurely doesn't do very much for you.
Bah. I'm pretty depressed. The correlation between more probes and higher income needs to be at least linear. On some graphs it sort of looks logarithmic. That's a disaster! At this point I finally feel like I know why brood war is such a much better game.
The economy management + the avoidance of super-units and super-spells. I want to play brood war again.
I used to think a higher supply cap would be good for the same reasons mentioned in the OP, but honestly now it only makes me think that it would help Protoss/Terran's super powerful units rather than really balance anything. Being able to have enough Colossus/Seige Tanks to one-shot any unit (like even say, Ultralisk) while still having an army to support is just never going to be balanced.
However, I do feel that larger maps still help Zerg even against Protoss, as the idea of overkilling their power units and remaxing is much more plausible on farther positions. If you do that on close positions now it can mean you just lose to their leftovers while you wait for units to pop out.
BTW, I'll mention that I really like the maps on the PTR and that it's worth considering those maps (even though they're mostly sized like Metalopolis and not as huge as the GSL maps) before further balance discussions come into play.
Very interesting read. It's obvious you put a lot of effort into it. I agree that increasing the supply cap seems like a good way to alter the game in such a way that would support more macro oriented play off many bases. I don't expect to see any changes of this magnitude before HotS though, but I'm definitely looking forward to what kind of changes will come with that. Hopefully more than just adding a unit or two.
This is a phenomenal post. The articulation with which you outline your thoughts and concerns is refreshing, and the data with which you back them up is a shining example of what should be par for the excellent community here. Good work.
very good post. the vague discomforts i had about the game are being addressed one by one on TL forums by people like you! are there custom maps with a 300 supply cap to test out? i really want to see how it feels, and how zerg fares with maxed armies in that situation.
I think one of the most interesting points in the post is that absurdly big maps will actually not 'save' Starcraft2 in it's current state, even though most people think like that.
Very nice Thread! I had some of this thoughts too, actually. Having 5 bases with P like it was in BW doesnt make any sence anymore unless you are mined out on 2 bases ofc.
wow that is an overwhelming OP, i think i have to read this whole thing at least 2 more times to fully understand everything. But the one graph shows at least one big problem with the current state of Sc2.
/E i would appreciate a graph of 2 saturated bases vs 2 orbitals just using mules
Great read! shed some light on interesting things.
I cannot help but find a major contradiction in Blizzard’s conceptual outline of how the zerg race is supposed to be played in SC2 with what the game’s economical system actually allows for. Zerg are supposed to keep outexpanding, outmacroing and outproducing their opponents.
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
Will larger maps save Starcraft 2?
This is an interesting question to pose with the new and giantly oversized maps GSL have introduced. I believe these large maps are an anti reaction to the volatile and unpredictable play that plagued “Blizzard-sized maps”. The unmanageable strategic extremes (due to unnamed factors that may or may not have been attempted to be explained in this article) on small and medium sized maps simply created the need for a party to step in and introduce a buffer zone for rushes and timing attacks.
With that said: what will larger maps achieve apart from increasing rush distances?
I would say absolutely nothing. What need do players have for 14 expansions in a game like Starcraft 2? Absolutely none. Zerg’s play will be centered around saturating 3 bases as quickly as possible and launching suicide attacks at the opponents’ thirds. Protoss’ play will be centered around camping and delaying until they’ve reached their invincible end game composition on 3+ bases. Terran’s play will… no idea.
Large maps will simply and frankly favor the race that currently has the pleasure of being dominant when maxed out in a 3base vs. 3base late game situation. That race, as you’ll see, will be Protoss. And please don’t mistake this for whine; it’s merely stating what should be obvious. On the other end, the same maps will likely disfavor the previous most stable performing tournament race on blizzard-sized maps: Terran.
With this however, I do not agree.
From an economical point of view: Sure, hell yeah these maps aren't worth it, because 3base on a small map is equal to 3base on a large map.
From a starcraft2 point of view: Bigger maps allow for more varied strategies and already are they solving a lot of "imbalances" (forgive me for using the word) in the game. Some maps were just plain bad to play on as certain races. On bigger maps it's easier to do, for example, a 300 food push against protoss as zerg. Because he has to walk way further all the way to your base, giving you more time to remax. This is just an example!
In the end, I am still of the opinion that bigger maps are better for players that favor more bases. The small maps were just to constricting build-order/overall strategy wise. Steppes of War for example, when you had your 3rd base up (when this would actually happen, which was quite the rare thing) after there was this point you just HAD to all-in, because there was nothing more to mine. The end of the game was actually forced by the map, instead of by the players! (the way games are meant to end, one player dominating the other)
On February 10 2011 05:48 intrigue wrote: very good post. the vague discomforts i had about the game are being addressed one by one on TL forums by people like you! are there custom maps with a 300 supply cap to test out? i really want to see how it feels, and how zerg fares with maxed armies in that situation.
Yea I must say this article was really awesome. I must say it's a new look on the whole dynamics of the game and I think it's the right direction.
I think there are maps out there or were with 300 supply cap. I can't link you though :<
I agree with the supply cap. As a Zerg I always found this slightly problematic even on the blizzard maps. When you fully saturate 4 bases it really cuts into your army count. Anyore than that and your roach hydra corruptor army just seems puny.
A week ago my friend sent me 2 of the GSL maps (Taldarim and terminus...sorry if I misspelled any of them) and this supply cap really became apparant. I couldn't wait to finally play the huge econ style that I feel suits me and that I grew accustomed to watching / playing brood war but again I had to refrain from making too workers or my army was too small, and it was basically pointless to have more than 3 and a half (usually 1 is half mined) bases because I simply couldn't saturate it all. I remember one game going up to 110 workers any my army felt painfully limited. Only problem I see with increasing the supply cap is it would require a lot of unit changes to balance and I'm not sure if Blizzard is willing to go back and put that much more work into it.
This is a great post, for me it solidifies a lot of the ideas I've been forming about how the # of bases affect each race.
I disagree however, with your argument that an increased supply cap would be better for the game. The current goal of every zerg is the "300 food push" where through instant remaxing you can have a larger army than the T or P opponent via attrition of his forces, whose 200 food army is just stronger than yours. Can you imagine allowing a Protoss army with Colossus and Void Ray another 100 food? A supply cap of 300 would only make this worse, when the strength per unit is greater for T and P, and you would need MORE than 1.5 the food (and thus more than 1.5 the bases) to take on the army as the needed food differential is probably exponential in form. This seems very ironic, that a larger supply cap would should favor the "macro" race simply would not.
It seems like the proposed solution; increasing the supply cap, would not impact the balance issue with Terran MULEs. Namely, that off one base Terran has significantly more minerals than any other race (if you are not forcing him to scan). Minerals that can be used to produce some of the most efficient DPS machines (or should I say Marines) in the game.
Also, great post, and I want to hear your thoughts on Zerg.
EDIT: I would also like to hear Lalush's response to questions/critiques like Eschaton's ^ (above)
Now this post confirms something that I suspected since before the game came out, and always played accordingly: There is no point in having more than 3 mining bases.
So while bigger maps won't fix the economy side of the game, they might do something about the strategic side. Warp ins and nydus are much more powerful on large maps, while big army balls are much less powerful. Army movement and positioning becomes the focus. Scouting also becomes much more useful (and harder) on larger maps.
i think 250 supply cap would be much better than 300, and would help all of the races expand more. I absolutely disagree with the fact that Zerg is underpowered and Protoss is invincible. Eventually people will learn how to play better, and once you stop crying about imbalance you'll have that much more time to practice
Since the bulk of your argument deals with minerals, have you considered any changes to mining in the early game? Specifically, the charts deal with the mule are absurd. Should mule mechanics be altered?
Completely awesome post, it makes so much sense. Thank you LaLush.
I have a suggestion to solve some of this problem, though. How about expansions with less than 8 mineral patches? It seems to be a reasoanble way of getting players to have to make more expansions (fulfilling the way Zerg should ideally play), and not altering game mechanics.
Dustin Browder needs to read this so they can implement the necessary changes for Heart of the Swarm. This article basically pinpoints the reason why SC2 isn't the macro game BW was... and proves that balance and good maps aren't the fix. Well done lalush
After reading the whole thread, one thing to consider about increasing the supply cap is how the power of range scales with army size, especially considering splash. Every time there is an engagement, longer range essentially means you get shots off unopposed (i.e. a siege tank killing a ling takes no damage). The more units you have, the more first-strike damage you can output.
AoE attacks also scale better than 1:1 with army size, since the larger each army is, the more units are likely to be hit by each attack. Imagine 3 immortals vs 4 tanks. The immos will destroy the tanks, but 66 tanks will kill 50 immortals. Additionally, chokes are more punishing at larger army sizes. It follows that increasing Max army sizes by ~50% will advantage long range units with splash more than anything else.
The problem here is that T has the longest range anti-ground and anti-air in the game, and both have splash, as well as the 12 range and 8 radius nuke. P fares decently well against ground with colossi's very efficient splash at range, but Z is completely shafted in both departments. The only true splash (mutas don't count) is melee range and anti-ground, and the only long range unit is the BL, which is anti-ground and suffers from melee scaling.
The end result is that without taking other aspects of the game Into account, a maxed T is relatively more efficient and a maxed Z relatively less so. It seems trying to alter mineral patch counts/amounts/color at expos would both be much less volatile in terms of balance and result in less SC2 slideshows on my computer : (
Edit: It has been noted that changing harvesting mechanics or reducing the number of mineral patches would slow down openings as a side effect. Perhaps starting with more workers would help reduce the unnecessary slowing. One side effect I can foresee is a shorter window to scout rushes, but since it is rare to scout before 9 anyway, I'm not sure it would be relevant.
The main conclusion I think you could draw out of OP is that expanding beyond third is meaningless for your income (minerals).
What is causing this issue? I don't know exactly, however I would try to adress what I believe to be one issue from all the possible factors. I read someone who said something about make the scv traveltime longer. I like this idea somewhat however I would rewrite it as "longer mining time" (for both workers and the mule like about 0.1-0.2 seconds). Not to long to have major effect on the openings and midgame (perhaps a slight delay).
I do realize that if raise the mining time for mules they will mine less in total minerals, however I suggest that this would stand in proportion to the mining for the workers delay.
What issues does this idea try to adress? This would try to adress the "3-base ceiling" effect.
This would reduce the effectivness of each patch while stockpiling workers on them (just slightly). This slight delay would (if I am theorizing correctly) add up for each return thus encourage spreading out your workers to more than 3 bases. Since fully saturating each patch this slight "delay" would add up for every return therefor have some affect on the "3-base ceiling" possibly.
cons: - stacking workers to closer patches at start could be bad. - Delayed openings? (- Effect the ai of the workers? How long they wait for a mineral patch before they jump to a free one.)
Wow, thx! When I began reading I feared more pointless theorycrafting, but this is actually pretty good. I think two gas per base was not introduced by chance and I think this will save the day, since more bases really means more gas.
On February 10 2011 05:48 intrigue wrote: very good post. the vague discomforts i had about the game are being addressed one by one on TL forums by people like you! are there custom maps with a 300 supply cap to test out? i really want to see how it feels, and how zerg fares with maxed armies in that situation.
I was thinking the same thing so I modified Shakuras Plateau so that it had a 300 supply cap. If anyone wants to try it search for "Shakuras Plateau(300 Supply Cap)". When I tested it it seemed to benefit protoss the most but my friends and I aren't very good . I'm interested to see how higher level players would play with a larger supply cap.
First things first. To address whoever said that Zerg wanted to keep taking expansions to re-max faster:
Players don't want to allocate too large a portion of their available supply cap (200) to workers, because it drastically reduces army size. Traditional wisdom is somewhere around 70 workers, for all races. With 70ish workers, you can mine from 3 bases with shockingly close to maximum efficiency. Thus, if you are fixing your worker count around 70, when referring strictly to mineral income, there is no need to saturate more than 3 expansions simultaneously. You may want to build additional Hatcheries to macro from, but that is completely different than holding a mining base. (Whether 70ish workers must be the worker cap is something addressed later)
Next, with regards to gas:
If you've got so high of a mineral income that you don't have enough gas to spend it, it's true that taking additional expansions solely for the purpose of getting more gas is beneficial. However, with a mineral income that is so high, the cost of a solely-gas expansion isn't all that expensive. Likewise, the benefit gained from that expansion isn't so large, relative to a full mining base.
On the other hand, if you lose everything at a saturated mining base, it's expensive to replace and a huge impact on your production capabilities. The point here is that the survival of a gas-only expansion is nowhere near as important as the survival of a full mining base, and thus the amount of effort you need to expend in defending it is much less. The effort required to defend spread out bases is, of course, one of the greatest deterrents to taking expansions, particularly in the late game. You wouldn't need to expend nearly as much effort depending an expansion mining only gas, because its defense isn't as important.
In other words, an expansion where you're only mining gas isn't quite comparable to a full mining base.
With regards to Terran and the worker cap:
Terran isn't actually limited by a worker cap, because they can keep adding Orbital Commands for Mules. Since we're discussing the effect of map size on number of bases, Terran's income is actually hard capped only by the number of mineral patches on the map that they can mine simultaneously. That's a highly theoretical statement (and not some kind of claim that ZOMG Terran has INFINITE INCOME!!!), but suggests that Terran benefits from maintaining as many mining bases as they can get Mules to mine from, which is not true for the other races. Starcraft is a complicated and multifactored game, and no one factor means anything in isolation, but this certainly has implications for the super-lategame. It's something to consider, in addition to all other factors.
It may also be worth noting, and again this is highly theoretical, that the fact that Mules cost no supply allows Terran to forgo any mining workers and set aside that supply for their army.
There has been discussion about attempting to increase the "worker cap", or the amount of supply players feel they can allocate to workers. If this happens, it, in theory, increases the amount of supply a Terran can convert to Mules that their opponent still has tied up in workers. Again, theoretical, isolated factors and all that jazz, but it is a factor for the super-lategame.
With regards to the worker cap being ~70
I understand there is good reason for a worker cap where it is. Purely as an exercise in determining whether there could be merit in going beyond this cap, however, consider the following:
54 workers on minerals (the number used in the OP) should generate, roughly, enough income to produce 30 Roaches every minute. That's 60 supply produced every minute. With 72 supply reserved for Drones, that's a total of 130 supply. Zerg needs some supply for Queens, but even if we allot for 5 Queens, that's still 58 extra supply we have free.
Assuming we could find a way to trade those Roaches over the course of the minute it takes to be able to produce another round, we'd have extra supply we couldn't afford to fill up with our production. In this case, it would be beneficial to Drone up past 72 (which means additional mining bases would be beneficial) to be able to produce more units. It would even be possible to come up with a number of Drones required to remain maxed, dependent of course on how frequently we intended to trade supply. For example, if we trade a given unit every 2 minutes, those 30 Roaches every minute should be about exactly enough to keep us maxed at all times.
It's also worth noting that Roaches are exceedingly cheap per supply, costing only 37.5 minerals per food. If you wanted to continually produce something other than pure Roach, you'd need more income to remain continually maxed.
In summary: using Zerg as an example, if the player wants to trade supply more than every 2 minutes, or if the player wants to trade supply every 2 minutes while producing something other than pure Roach, it could be beneficial to make more than 72 workers. Whether or not this hyper-aggressive style of play is valuable is a completely different discussion.
While this is a great analysis of the economy backing sc2, you really have to take your opinions with a grain of salt, when regarding the later assumption that the larger maps won't actually benefit play.
While staying on a lower number of workers/bases is more viable in sc2 then sc1, you do have to consider the fact that reaching 3 bases or 4 bases and getting a maxed army/best composition, doesn't guarantee an auto win for any race. I would agree that protoss has the best potential to max to, however, in scbw, lets remember that map control (not vision), harass, and smaller army battles played more to the fact that, you had to defend yourself, adn you couldn't just reach max right off the bat. Transitions were important.
Last nights GSTL games were a prime example of this, the PvZ on one of the new maps. IM_YungWha vs ZeNEX_Kryix. Kyrix basically allowed YungWha to get an invincable army comp and push out. He played the game extreamly passively, and didn't try and harass, and poke holes, etc. Its almost like if terran allowed the zerg to take 3 base, drone to 80, and then start producing units.
Being good at Bw ment you knew good timings for early harass, how to control a map from an unbeatable push (vs T), that you kept putting pressure on your opponent. People seem to forget all about this, because in sc2, no one does it. Why don't they do it? Is it because its not effective? No. The reason why you don't see alot of harass/counter attacking in sc2, comparied to BW, is map size. The new maps fix this issue, but players have to learn to adapt.
Zerg in particular need to learn to use their mobility. I mean sure, ling muta is a no brainer against T or P. But what about abusing drops, nydus, and baneling mines later into the game? roach or ling counter attacks, teching to hive (which didn't happen in the aformentioned game).
Lets just face it, everyone is bad as sc2 right now. If we look back just a two to three months ago, we would all agree that the level of the top players is no where it is now. Back then, terran just got ran over by banelings, instead of splitting them. Protoss got counter attacked instead of defending with cannons. And two or three months from now, we will all agree that the top players are way better then they were today. (Army control at top levels, even in korea, is sub optimal. Battles are much shorter because people don't know how to attack/pull back effectivly, and prepared armies are not equal in strength due to scouting and positioning.)
i havn't seen a single player, while watching the GSL/every tournament ever, NOT make a lot of mistakes. Even MVP has his macro slip from time to time, and his unit control, while excellent, doesn't scream, perfect.
So making handy assumptions that the new maps won't solve the problems that the small maps currently are plagued with, means you don't accept that we are all terrible at this new game.
The main thing the larger maps provide is - Ability to create longer, more complex game plans which take into account more of the possibilites of your opponent. - The ability to open differently for each race - A greater overall income - Map control is now important because of reinforcement time (all units that can reach the enemy base fast are bad in the late game) - More options for harass/economic damage if someone doesn't move out.
Again, thanks for the Data, and congrats on 1000 posts. Here is to the next 1000 posts you make. May they be all the better. (And hopefully your forsight will improve as well :D )
Perhaps this is a stupid suggestion but instead of raising supply cap to 300 why not simply make workers only take 1/2 supply instead?
Instead of 90 workers for 90 supply you could have 180 workers instead more or less making additional expansions unlimited as long as you kept producing workers. However it scales much better to army size since units still take their normal supply.
To compensate for the reduced requirement of supply in the early game you can make command structures generate a lot less supply (say only 4-5) and cut all supply units to 7 instead of 8.
On February 10 2011 07:29 hellsan631 wrote: While this is a great analysis of the economy backing sc2, you really have to take your opinions with a grain of salt, when regarding the later assumption that the larger maps won't actually benefit play.
Just from my own preliminary play(At a pretty high level vs not quite top players if i have to state such) on the big maps I think his analysis is basically right on. No race can really support more than 3 bases, so the style will change from 2base vs 2base to 3base vs 3base. Maybe major timings will occur around the time the mains dry up and someone needs to get a 4th. But with how easy SC2 is to play id say we will see some pretty nasty "imbalance" crop up.
I really love his analysis. Ive thought endlessly about the economic scaling vs bw ever since the end of the beta and it really seems like right now we are at the plateau, where strategies are getting constrained and only maps and continual small balance changes really shake things up! Just imho. Dont mean to offend but im one of the zerg players who is pretty pessimistic right now and im really curious what blizzard thinks about all this if anything.
On February 10 2011 06:33 Eschaton wrote: This is a great post, for me it solidifies a lot of the ideas I've been forming about how the # of bases affect each race.
I disagree however, with your argument that an increased supply cap would be better for the game. The current goal of every zerg is the "300 food push" where through instant remaxing you can have a larger army than the T or P opponent via attrition of his forces, whose 200 food army is just stronger than yours. Can you imagine allowing a Protoss army with Colossus and Void Ray another 100 food? A supply cap of 300 would only make this worse, when the strength per unit is greater for T and P, and you would need MORE than 1.5 the food (and thus more than 1.5 the bases) to take on the army as the needed food differential is probably exponential in form. This seems very ironic, that a larger supply cap would should favor the "macro" race simply would not.
An increased supply cap wouldn't necessarily be better for the game. I think you are reading into what I wrote the wrong way. Increasing the amount of bases you can sustain and thus increasing strategic maneuverability in the game was the point I was trying to get at.
Imagine capping SC2 at 130 supply and 2 bases while a certain race had an invincible 130 supply 2 base composition. Even if increasing the supply to 200 would mean that army composition would become even more unstoppable, an increase in supply cap might mean something positive in increasing options and the possibility for strategic diversity.
Take a terran 3/3 upgraded mech army in Broodwar as an example. It can probably be considered an "overpowered" end game composition. But its "overpoweredness" could be negated by the fact that Broodwar rewarded the other races for expanding a lot. Continually macroing, expanding and spreading out on the map was a means of putting pressure on an "overpowered", slow moving and turtling end game composition.
I'm not going to pretend the game wouldn't need some rebalancing if the supply cap were to be raised, but I'm only really trying to convey the idea that a 3base ceiling is restricting and conforming gameplay -- nothing else. Believe me, I've thought long and hard about other options such as for example lowering the return rate of workers every trip to 4, while increasing the amount of mineral patches. But every simple "solution" I came up with had their own major flaws.
The case with increasing the number of mineral patches on a base will only serve to make expanding even less effective than it already is, to give one example of a failed attempt.
I have lots and lots of ideas and entire drafts of how I'd change macro mechanics and other aspects of the game to smoothen out the roughnesses of the game. But I don't really feel they have any chance of being implemented. Including a section like that into this thread would likely only have started a flame fest.
I see a lot of people saying "Workers cut too much into your final supply" and a lot of supply issues overall, yet no one has brought up what I feel are a few obvious and straightforward fixes. For example:
-Tweak the supply costs of everything. Double the supply limit to 400/400 and double the supply cost of every unit in the game except the worker (So effectively a worker will be a .5 unit). I feel this would really open up a ton of opportunities in the game to make supply costs for the worth of a unit more precise, in addition to fixing the issue with making too many workers effecting the player so drastically. For example, a roach costing 3 supply instead of straight up doubling it to 4, making a tank cost 5 supply instead of 6 or changing the supply cost of a collosus up or down ~2 from 12 supply. This might sound a little outlandish but all it is is changing around a few stats and numbers.
-Move the minerals closer to the town hall so that any number of workers over 8 mine slightly less, but the optimal amount will still be around ~20. That way fast expanding will be much better. I don't know if this would make Zerg's hatch first far too strong, but it didn't break BW. Other ways to be able to achieve this same effect would be to simply to make workers have to mine longer on a patch, which would easily solve any mule issues. The only downside would be a fundamental change in specific numbers in builds, but really after a month or so of people getting used to it it will be all chill.
On February 10 2011 04:17 whatthefat wrote: One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
Or you could just have the minerals in a straight line like in BW so putting workers on the close mineral patches has more effect.
I'd just like to throw out one thing: while raising the supply cap could be a potential solution, if a solution is indeed necessary, other solutions could include:
Late game upgrade to allow workers to cost half a supply - Late game (140+) so that early game build orders and supply management are not disrupted
Late game tech unlock to allow workers to (race-specific) "combine" into a more robust version with better harvesting capabilities
Late game upgrade to allow workers to harvest resources in such a speed and quantity that would allow maximum saturation at 14-16 workers instead of 22-24 (gold bases and special vespene patches can do this with map design)
I'm just throwing these out there to show that raising the supply cap, and the associated performance concerns, doesn't have to be the only solution to the problem. In addition, map design can alleviate some of these concerns specifically.
Edit: Posted after reading only half the thread, a few others above have suggestions too
This was a very well-written and informative read. It was quite eye-opening to see the hard data behind the fact that the game is mainly balanced around 3 bases.
I agree that it would be quite good for Blizzard to consider raising the food cap in conjunction with adopting larger, GSL-style maps as a reference for balance. However, though this is great for gameplay, it is also going to create several technical difficulties related to graphics and computer performance.
The game engine is optimized to support at most two 200/200 armies fighting each other. As shown by large-scale team games (and Nexus Wars lol), anything more than this will cause performance to take a nosedive on most computers, usually to almost unplayable levels. Adjusting the game to a higher food count would not only need major adjustments in fundamental game but would also require major adjustments in the engine optimization. Consequently, I don't think Blizzard will make such fundamental changes to the game at this point. Perhaps they may overhaul the game in a future expansion, though that might be wishful thinking.
Whoa guys. I didn't read the whole thread so pardon if this has been mentioned but I got some news for you:
Zerg mines slower than T or P.
Yah, I've tested it, and they get about 40 minerals per minute less at 20 workers, which is about saturation. It's clear that Blizzard either has very very screwy ideas about balance or has no clue what they're doing. Why one race would actually have less efficient workers is kinda beyond my comprehension.
On February 10 2011 07:42 Polatrite wrote: I'd just like to throw out one thing: while raising the supply cap could be a potential solution, if a solution is indeed necessary, other solutions could include:
Late game upgrade to allow workers to cost half a supply - Late game (140+) so that early game build orders and supply management are not disrupted
Late game tech unlock to allow workers to (race-specific) "combine" into a more robust version with better harvesting capabilities
Late game upgrade to allow workers to harvest resources in such a speed and quantity that would allow maximum saturation at 14-16 workers instead of 22-24 (gold bases and special vespene patches can do this with map design)
I'm just throwing these out there to show that raising the supply cap, and the associated performance concerns, doesn't have to be the only solution to the problem. In addition, map design can alleviate some of these concerns specifically.
The problem with that kind of fix is that it is a 'band-aid solution', and changes one of SC's fundamental concepts. It also makes SC feel far less original from other RTS's that have things like mining upgrades or free moneyz upgrades and things like that, which I am sure if you have played a lot of RTSs you have come across quite a few of these.
On February 10 2011 04:44 SpaceYeti wrote: What if bases simply had fewer mineral patches (i.e. 6 patches instead of 8)? I'm not suggesting that this is the fix, but I'm curious how this would change the expansion dynamics of the game.
If it does help, the plus is that it requires no changes to the game mechanics and just different maps.
I would love to see something like this in the simulations as it could really inform map makers decisions for making awesome maps.
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
I guess I understood it a little backwards. Even so, changing the number of patches at a base seems like a quick and easy fix if it indeed has the desired effect. You could even keep base resources the same by changing how much each patch contains in relation to the number of patches available, or maybe even decrease total base resources slightly to encourage expanding more.
Example: 10 patches with 1000 minerals each. More patches, so you don't saturate so quickly, and less total minerals, so you you out faster (that and you'll have more harvesters meaning the base will mine out faster).
On February 10 2011 07:45 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote: Whoa guys. I didn't read the whole thread so pardon if this has been mentioned but I got some news for you:
Zerg mines slower than T or P.
Yah, I've tested it, and they get about 40 minerals per minute less at 20 workers, which is about saturation. It's clear that Blizzard either has very very screwy ideas about balance or has no clue what they're doing. Why one race would actually have less efficient workers is kinda beyond my comprehension.
This was true in BW as well. Protoss mines a little faster than Terran; Zerg I believe is the slowest but I've never tested it as I've never played Zerg as my main. However, that was probably accidental in BW.
If it's intentional in SC2, it could be partly to offset the massive production advantages Zerg can get faster. On the other hand, it could be accidental as well, or inevitable given the unit and building animation sizes and things.
At any rate, it's essentially immaterial to the point discussed, which is "SC2 forces expansion less than BW".
EDIT: One further thought:
The MULE issue (Terran can get significantly more minerals faster) is only an issue if those extra minerals lead to a crushing unbeatable advantage in the early game. As long as Protoss/Zerg can survive essentially equal to midgame, you just have a trade-off: more minerals now at the expense of mining out and having fewer minerals later.
Thank you lalush. I was always too lazy to really do my own macro theory, like trying stuff out against AI, noting timings, saturation, mineral income rate etc. I rather copied what the pro's do without largely thinking about it. But this might actually lead to some minor changes in my gameplay but more importantly give a hint about the actual state of the game. Awesome stuff, man!
This is extremely thought-provoking piece that was well-written, great diction, and non-condescending tone. I agree with the part being said that Blizz has to make a decision soon (on things like maps, 300 food)...but I feel like they will instead just make an indecision and try to let the community hash things out themselves.
It provided solid evidence and quantitative proof of each argument. Also looks like it'll be hard to justify a 3rd base from now on
NOTE: This was worlds better than 2 biased "professional" players sitting on a couch starting a topic about how the Collosus shouldn't be a relied upon unit but have absolutely no reason or evidence about why it shouldn't be the way it is.
Very good read. I hope you touch how zerg is getting screwed by every single thing changed compared to BW in your rant. DIMAGA wrote about it on a russian site but I never came to translating it for TL, even though I planned to do it.
On February 10 2011 07:45 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote: Whoa guys. I didn't read the whole thread so pardon if this has been mentioned but I got some news for you:
Zerg mines slower than T or P.
Yah, I've tested it, and they get about 40 minerals per minute less at 20 workers, which is about saturation. It's clear that Blizzard either has very very screwy ideas about balance or has no clue what they're doing. Why one race would actually have less efficient workers is kinda beyond my comprehension.
This was true in BW as well. Protoss mines a little faster than Terran; Zerg I believe is the slowest but I've never tested it as I've never played Zerg as my main. However, that was probably accidental in BW.
On topic, Lalush, I want to say that any other articles you have lying around on your computer are always welcome threads on TL. It's good to see such diligent analyses.
It's refreshing and disappointing at the same time to read a quality thread; because we see so little of them. Very interesting and insightful; cheers for the great effort and I hope you write a few more yet.
While I understand your graphs and your point, I feel like you're missing some points for practical gameplay.
Your argument is that quick expanding is useless if you don't have the workers to saturate your currently available bases, since mineral gain per worker is essentially linear until it almost hard caps at 24 workers.
I get that much, but the main advantage of getting an expansion is that you can start pumping out workers twice as fast, in comparison to before, which will speed up your mineral income by quite a lot. What your graphs will suggest is that you might just as well rally point your expansion workers to your main mineral field as long as it isn't fully saturated (I could actually see some terran players building an orbital in their base as part of fast expand walloff and pumping workers from both orbitals into their main mineral field until it's fully saturated, at which point they lift it up and move out to take their natural ).
The real reason you'd expand past three base is of course the gas geysers as they are the main resource of importance in the endgame.
Tell me if I've missed something, but I feel like your point about mineral gain rates being linear is meaningless for the practical game since it doesn't take into effect that you can mass up on workers a lot faster with multiple orbitals, and of course the additional gas which the graphs don't have anything to do with.
The only relevance I can see with your macro analysis is for one base play and why it can be so strong.
Edit: I guess you can also TL;DR it by saying that if you want to go an extremely mineral heavy composition like m&m&m, you can pretty much stick to 2base, and might even be better off doing that.
Fabulous post. I feel like my understanding of the game significantly increased reading it. Which in sc2 directly translates to ladder rating! I especially liked mineral surplus and its relation to imbalance.
On February 10 2011 08:26 Dalavita wrote: While I understand your graphs and your point, I feel like you're missing some points for practical gameplay.
Your argument is that quick expanding is useless if you don't have the workers to saturate your currently available bases, since mineral gain per worker is essentially linear until it almost hard caps at 24 workers.
I get that much, but the main advantage of getting an expansion is that you can start pumping out workers twice as fast, in comparison to before, which will speed up your mineral income by quite a lot. What your graphs will suggest is that you might just as well rally point your expansion workers to your main mineral field as long as it isn't fully saturated (I could actually see some terran players building an orbital in their base as part of fast expand walloff and pumping workers from both orbitals into their main mineral field until it's fully saturated, at which point they lift it up and move out to take their natural ).
The real reason you'd expand past three base is of course the gas geysers as they are the main resource of importance in the endgame.
Tell me if I've missed something, but I feel like your point about mineral gain rates being linear is meaningless for the practical game since it doesn't take into effect that you can mass up on workers a lot faster with multiple orbitals, and of course the additional gas which the graphs don't have anything to do with.
The only relevance I can see with your macro analysis is for one base play and why it can be so strong.
Edit: I guess you can also TL;DR it by saying that if you want to go an extremely mineral heavy composition like m&m&m, you can pretty much stick to 2base, and might even be better off doing that.
...not to be rude, but you missed a lot, apparently. Minerals mined per worker drop off sharply going from 2 workers per patch to 3 workers per patch, which begins to apply as you exceed 16 workers per base on minerals. This point was made quite clearly with just about every graph the OP posted, to say nothing of the actual content of his analysis. I understand that people miss things when there's a lot of text, but I thought they usually did better with the pretty pictures.
Oh right now I'm so proud I made that 300 supply thread where Day[9] stated he liked my idea back then in beta
Interesting read, I still am pro 300 Supply, should also maybe give more multitasking because splitting up is easier. 6 Supply units in 200 Supply situation can't be split up as well to fight on multiple fronts. But that's just speculation.
But of course maybe you could be fine with 4 base and close to 75 workers, which would be a whopping 20 more than you calculated with, basically another saturated base. Enemy will have 3 Colossi more that way though, or more accuratly you will be missing ~ 10 Roaches or 40 Banelings or something ^^
Always enjoy reading LaLush's posts and threads. They're always well thought out and written with plenty of pictures, even if I don't agree with the analysis.
The points made are quite interesting and I agree very much with his analysis on the mineral surplus leading to the imbalance or illusion thereof. The incredibly strong Terran presence of mass MM, along with the 4gate rushes are very likely the exact product of the macro mechanics, which mostly, if not completely affect mineral gain. It's interesting to note that the strongest 4gate and MM pressure/cheese builds all really only require one gas to work well. The large mineral surplus you get in the early game really blows the strength of those early game mineral-heavy units out of proportion.
However, I have to disagree with the 3base bottleneck proposed by OP. Although I have found (as Protoss) that I really only need 3 bases mining at any given point in the game to really be able to macro fully, sometimes I still get limited and capped by my gas needs (especially since I'm bad and tend to lose my HTs unnecessarily :[ ). As been stated before, I think any bases taken after the third will really mostly be for the gas. It's not uncommon for fourths and fifths bases to have nothing other than 6 workers mining gas and maybe a couple on minerals.
I think the best and perhaps easiest fix to the mineral surplus would be to reduce the number of mineral patches at the naturals. Changing income of the mains would screw up the metagame too much I feel, but lowering the number of patches at naturals might shift the play slowly towards a more macro-oriented style, if that is indeed what we want, as a community, for SC2 gameplay.
EDIT: On the 300 supply cap issue, I think Blizzard actually originally wanted to increase the supply cap. They said so in one of their interviews during beta I believe. However, they stated that they chose not to due primarily to technological limitations. I know a lot of computers already have problems with max supply armies with the current cap of 200/200. SC2 takes up a crapload of memory to run as is. I can only imagine how intensive it would be on your computer if the supply cap was at 300. It'd be awesome for the cap to be raised, but it's simply not practical from a tech standpoint.
OP reiterates many facts already known about mining incoming ... including the mule. Its good that a higher level player made this post so that no longer will we have to bear through the cesspools that were past MULE IMBA threads and so on. The replies here are pretty good as well.
Regarding the conclusion regarding SC2 itself and 1 base play, something I never really thought about - 5rax for terran, 4gate for protoss, and heck, you can sustain roach production with only 17 drones (14min+3gas). Actually, I'm not surprised. Its obvious blizzard built and balanced the game around 1 base play, especially when you look at the layout of most single player missions, and especially especially considering blizzard's small map mantra. It makes it more obvious that the mule, larva inject, and chronoboost were direct results of this and will only serve to break the game in the long run when bigger maps start to make their debuts.
For zerg though, its impossible to make any kind of comparison from BW to SC2. Income rates, production rates, and even unit cost/supply and health/survival rates are all factors relating to economy and they are so radically different from BW that you need to start from scratch. The only similarity is concept of the hatchery being the only production building, and the similarities end there thanks to larva inject.
You could lower the mineralpatches per expansion by maybe one. That way distributing your workers on more bases will be more beneficial. Through this you could make expanding quicker and more often more beneficial than it is now!
If I’ve learned anything from observing Blizzard the past year, it’s that it is largely pointless to suggest anything that would require alterations to the game engine itself. Whether it be about moving shot or built-in delay for firing projectiles (tank AI). If it can’t be achieved through the map editor, it likely won’t be “fixed” in the way you imagined. Thus I’m not even going to attempt to discuss changing worker AI.
i'd just like to say that all of those things are easily done in the map editor as i have done them myself in SC2BW mod.
On February 10 2011 09:04 Dominator1370 wrote:...not to be rude, but you missed a lot, apparently. Minerals mined per worker drop off sharply going from 2 workers per patch to 3 workers per patch, which begins to apply as you exceed 16 workers per base on minerals. This point was made quite clearly with just about every graph the OP posted, to say nothing of the actual content of his analysis. I understand that people miss things when there's a lot of text, but I thought they usually did better with the pretty pictures.
Note that I said essentially linear, I guess I could have phrased it better since looking back at the graphs, the mineral per additional worker after 16 workers is close to halved, but the main point of mine was the point where mineral income almost flattened at 24 workers whereas it's fairly steady before then.
I guess it even further shows that one base pushes can be strong because you're at very high mining efficiency with just 16 workers, but my points regarding expanding and gas usage still stand.
Hey how about they adjust the speed of workers. Terrans have a huge influx in minerals because of mules... make their workers mine slower. Since zerg is rushing for 3 bases to gaina macro advantage make their workers mine faster... This trying to stabalize the income that things like chrono boost, mules, and larva distrupt. To avoid descrepencies in gas they could only change the time to mine minerals not gas. Also does anyone else notice on the graphs that terran gets way more minerals in general because they can use mules on top of fully saturated bases....might be nice if that was not the case. This is probably why all marrine play like marineKing are so popular because of the influx in minerals for terrans.
Another point which I don't believe you have addressed and would be difficult to analyze is mules and gold bases.
Taking Xel'Naga Caverns as the prime example. Terran will already have 2 OCs up and running as they are planning on taking their third (at the gold). Once the terran begins to build his command center to be placed at his third the terran may decide to save up as much energy on his 2 OCs so that he can dump 4+ mules when the CC finishes (and then probably turns into a Planetary Fortress).
The mineral surge from 4 mules (and the continue mules drop from the 2 OCs) creates a huge burst of income for the terran, which I'm sure if someone does the math the income would equal around the same as 2 completely saturated "blue" mineral expansions.
Gold expansions are a nice idea and are usually located in 'harder' to defend locations, but with OCs dropping mules and by placing a planetary fortress at the location (making it nearly impossible to kill at all) is this something that is imbalanced?
I don't think blizzard really saw this massive economical advantage when they realeased the game because in isolation the idea of a gold base seems sound. The problem is when combining mules and a 'non-killable' Planetary fortress to the situation, is the combination of these things a little too powerful?
Thank you very much for this article! I enjoyed the abundance of graphs, analysis and objectivity! I have to agree with all of your points. I think that, overall, your analysis of problems in SC2 is incredibly accurate! The effect of worker/base counts reaching a ceiling is incredibly critical to the overall flow and dynamic of the army's supply count!
One idea I have to limit the effectiveness of 16 worker counts would perhaps increase the length of the mining time by a small fraction so that 2 probes can't stack perfectly on one patch? I believe this would make having 3 base 54 workers less effective than 4 base 54 workers.
the 3 base vs 3 base thing blew my mind...... i've been panicking every time i get out expanded without reason, i suppose zerg benefit from extra expos in that they can build more units at once, but it seems they dont benefit economy wise very much.
Extremely interesting article, really shows the extra gas is really the important resource in expanding. I'm definitely interested to see what comes of this information and if there will be any significant changes to this.
I really liked this post. However, I don't know if upping the supply to 300/300 would be that great. Many units would have to be nerfed/buff since they are really strong in critical mass or really weak against critical mass units.
I'm mostly talking about the toss units, we already fear toss 200/200 more than anything else. I think it could be intressting in TvZ. But as it looks now, toss would gain A LOT.
Think about how many more void rays and colossus the toss death ball would have. NOT FUN!
this is a fantastic post. i tend to think things won't be as hopeless for terran in these maps but i don't think my comment would be worth much so i shall leave it. the post also makes me worry for SC2s success before HoS can perhaps make some improvements.
I would be interested to know what the effects of reducing the amount of minerals brought back from every trip would mean? also how changing the number of starting workers would affect this? obviously an analysis of all the possible variations would be very time consuming but i do wonder if some combination of those two variables could achieve what we want from the game, also with map sizes being another variable. for that i mean greater potential for long games and greater incentive to expand and "cheesier" plays being more of a gamble and having greater potential to be scouted. i think what i state is wanted from the game is shared among the community and is relatively uncontroversial, i do think it would make the games better overall though
I read the article in full and I cannot agree more.
There is almost NO benefit to taking more than 4 bases, and arguably more than 3, other than gas. Zerg needs something like 5 bases of gas to play their lategame units effectively. However, protoss and terran have pretty good mineral units - marines and zealots are great. It's a weird contradiction whereby it doesn't make sense for T or P to have tons of extra gas (unless you want mass high templar/sentry or mass ghost/tank/raven... lol.)
It's also very very true that the 3 base limiting factor means that once zerg gets to 75 drones on 3 bases there is absolutely no reason for them to continue expanding, and all they should do is make nonstop roach vs protoss (and I don't know what actually works vs terran) and just smash into them nonstop until they don't have enough money to hold your attacks and take additional bases. I almost feel like once it hits 3 base vs 3 base for zerg it's really really ugly in tvz or pvz because of this.
Likewise, the race that actually benefits from mass expanding is not zerg, but TERRAN. OCs and mules allow supply free mining, meaning terrans can spread 2 bases of scvs over 5 bases to get gas and supplementary minerals. Also, mined out bases still produce tons of income - either float the CC or use mules on another minline. It seems very counterintuitive that the race that's supposed to be the turtly race is actually best suited for mass expanding.
Perhaps it's a fault of the mining system too. 5 minerals per trip dramatically shifted saturation curves. What would happen if it was 8, 10, 12 or more?
It's definitely a problem I've noticed in my games. All I have to do is get to 3 bases as protoss and chill out getting a 200/200 death ball and upgrades. If I'm not constantly attacked by a zerg, it's over. VS terran, I just don't really have a reason to take more bases til I mine out, so I have no real pressure to gain map control over a large area. I can kinda turtle and get upgrades, HT, and carriers.
I don't think it's going to lead to very good gameplay in the future. Lalush - you are very right in saying it creates stagnation.
This post is great and well written, but it's not taking into account the coming expansions that have the potential to change everything, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void.
You speculate on what the future of the game will be like if nothing is changed, but we know for a fact that there will be huge changes to the game at least twice, once for each expansion. Imagine if someone did an in-depth examination of the balance and mechanics of Starcraft before Brood War came out. They'd speculate a future very unlike how Brood War actually turned out.
Still, your information and speculation is interesting for the here and now. It's just unfortunately mostly going to be rendered useless with time. It'd be nice to see them up the supply cap in HotS though. That does seem like a very zergy thing for them to do in the Zerg expansion.
Wow Lalush, as a Zerg player myself i've personally liked your play and recognized you as one of the worlds Top Tier Zergs. However after reading this, well put constructed thread backed up by testing, really gives me a lot of respect for just how much you think about the game too.
With that said you raise a lot of interesting points. Most interesting of which is the comparison of income with 3 base vs 6 base. Given that by that point having twice the bases only seems to yield minimal advantages, which as you stated is a huge disadvantage for Zerg.
In fact its actually ironic that i read this thread today. I was watching the GSL Team league, there was a match on Crevasse between an IM protoss, and Kyrix. The Protoss happened to be very passive and just turtled and teched to a ultimate composition off of 2 base, before expanding to a 3rd to support his tech. Kyrix contrary to his style tried to play macro and went to 3 base fast and 4th right on time. However got stagnant and didn't expand again. I remember personally saying in my mind. " No Kyrix, 4 bases isn't enough on this map. Especially vs a 3 base Protoss. You need to have up at about 6 bases to be ahead."
However apparently that is an incorrect statement more bases wouldn't have helped, or at least as much as they should have. I'm not saying Kyrix played optimally, he did a lot of things wrong, he didn't tech far enough, got stuck with mostly lair units. Though there was a strong perception in my mind that he didnt expand enough. Though that must not have been necessarily a factor.
One thing that i would like to point out is normally i'm gas starved as Zerg during late game. While i'm not any good at this game, i feel like most Zerg seem to get limited mostly by their gas income late game. (i could be wrong) Obviously the ability of not being able to have significantly better efficiency on more than 3 bases is a troublesome thought. Though gas income should still give at least a decent incentive for Zerg's to expand a bit more late game.
Lastly i do feel that Zerg would benefit from a 300 food supply cap a bit. Right now when you think about it Zergs normally have the smallest (food) late game army. While the apparent ideal number of workers is 75 for all races generally Protoss see to stop around 65-70 or so same with Terran. Zerg a lot of times go up to 80 or even 85. Whether it is a mistake or not is not the point, this is just what i typically see when watching pro replays.
Assuming these are the average number of workers per race has late game. Then respectively the late game supply of max armies for their respective races races should be T/P: 135 Z: 112. Zerg army supply isn't that low simply because of drone counts, you have to remember that Zergs macro mechanic costs 2 supply per queen. In this example i assumed Zerg would have 4 queens. Also it should be noted that while its not popular yet, Terran SHOULD be sacrificing a portion of their scvs late game, build more extra orbitals and be more dependent on mules for their mineral income for a greater max.
Personally i feel that, a 300 food supply cap would help zerg at least a bit due to the fact it minimizes the effect of queens taking up supply during the late game. Also Allows Zerg's power units to have more mass fodder units. It seems one of the problems Zergs have is they try to get too many busting units such as ultras and Broodlords although don't have enough supporting units for back up. With a bigger supply cap Zergs wouldn't have to be so careful about overcommitment to busting units.
I feel as though 300 food cap would help Zerg, however im not sure if would make a difference to the point of balancing the game.
incredibly interesting post. The benefit of long distance mining is very practical, thank you for pointing that out during your analysis. Though my experience is only as a mid diamond terran player, I have felt as though however many bases I have, if a protoss or zerg player has three (all mining) bases, I am not at any advantage. There have been several games where I've lost with a 5 to 3 base or similar advantage, and felt that I was not particularly out played. The concept that 3 fully saturated bases is close to optimal would explain that.
Regardless of whether or not the conclusions drawn from your research prove correct, thanks for taking the time to do this research and share your thoughts with us!
Wow, excellent post, well thought out and well supported.
I would like to see a graph with mining data vs number of harvesters for 1 base, 2 base, 3 base, and 5 maybe 6 base all on the same graph.
On the 300 food cap. It wouldn't be hard to publish remakes of say the GSL maps, or the current Blizzard ladder maps with a 300 food cap limit. People could test this rather easily and see what comes of it.
Nerf macro mechanics, that doesn't require changing the AI.
Also, this is probably why Blizzard is reluctant to make bigger maps. Maybe they don't want people to realize that SC2 might not be the macro game BW was with over 3 bases. I hope not though. I think if the maps are big enough, we should be fine. *crosses fingers*
A really nice article, I feel like a learned a lot and would play zerg differently knowing that going an early 4th more or less useless.
On a side, tank AI, worker AI, and moving shot can all be quite easily be done in the galaxy editor. (I guess you know some of this already but I might mention it anyway)
You can increase the time a worker spends mining minerals as well as how long they take before they return, and interestingly enough scvs start to become confused the same way as they did in BW, the issue is that workers return at such an optimal timing in relation to the distance between CC and minerals. Another thing is that workers also have deceleration, but not in SC2, again if you add deceleration they should slow down before mining the patch which also confuses them a bit.
Mutalisk micro requires 2 weapons, a moving shot one and a stopped shot one. Either one is disabled by a "isMoving" validator. A mutalisk can't turn and shoot when moving, and has to stop first, unless the angle is right in which it can moving shot. This can be done without triggers.
Tank AI is the easiest, just make it shoot a super fast [invisible] projectile.
I honestly have no idea why blizzard doesn't at least want to try these things on PTR.
I absolutely adore everything about this OP. I dont like the idea of a 300 food army simply because of proportions. Giving more food for more workers doesn't mean that it will be used for workers. It could easily lead to 225 food armies (with 75 probes). I like the idea of slowing down the mining time or decreasing the minerals as long as the mule doesnt get imbalanced in the process. This way expansion is encouraged without changing army size or frame rate. I wouldnt mind 225 or 250 i suppose.
On February 10 2011 11:16 TedJustice wrote: This post is great and well written, but it's not taking into account the coming expansions that have the potential to change everything, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void.
You speculate on what the future of the game will be like if nothing is changed, but we know for a fact that there will be huge changes to the game at least twice, once for each expansion. Imagine if someone did an in-depth examination of the balance and mechanics of Starcraft before Brood War came out. They'd speculate a future very unlike how Brood War actually turned out.
Still, your information and speculation is interesting for the here and now. It's just unfortunately mostly going to be rendered useless with time. It'd be nice to see them up the supply cap in HotS though. That does seem like a very zergy thing for them to do in the Zerg expansion.
op: well written post i heartily agree to.
tedjustice: this issue the op has highlighted relates only to the framework the game is based upon, expansions can only possibly bring about new units/tech, not change the basis of the game. Expansions will not solve this issue.
in my own experiences i often feel taking a 3rd base is necessary only to prolong mining from more than one base. Otherwise taking a 3rd only really happens after armies clash. There is so much aggresion from alot of armies from all portions of the game that it doesnt feel viable to take a 3rd and be able to defend unless you are mirroring your opponants intentions. (if he decides tobe aggresive either he drags you into a slug fest or you outright beat him and take the game-sealing third)
So really, you can't really secure an advantage by being 4-base vs 3-base? Verrrrrry interesting. Looking at the current state of ZvP, this makes sense. Zerg, once they have 3 bases up (fully saturated, running), are pretty much at their strongest. If Protoss can secure a third, it will probably get ugly for the zerg player, as they will be forced to deal with maxed stalker/collosus/voidray/sentry. If the zerg player can deny the third, the protoss will almost certainly lose, as the zerg can crush his army many times over.
Hmmm. How defensible do the thirds in the new GSTL maps look?
They just need to design critical units to be balanced around micro. That will make the critical units effective early on and be more difficult to use as you need to devote more attention to them later in the game. This means that Blizzard needs to make some critical changes to the armor system and some critical changes to how units deal damage and especially how units PATH.
Very good post. I personally think that Protoss would be the race most happy to macro off 3 bases, whereas Terrans and Zergs still have plenty of incentives to take a fourth perhaps.
I play Zerg and often times just plant bases at an attractive (Read: Easy to defend) 4th or 5th for the extra gas or as a macro hatch while slowly saturating those bases as my main and nat start mining out. Not all maps allow for this though.
I'm sure Terrans would also love to take a quick fourth as the game goes on, especially bases which give a positional advantage with a planetary there.
As far as my limited experience tells me, Protoss seems to have little need for a fourth outside of long macro games.
Great article but I disagree about maps favouring toss PvZ. More expos = more gas, muta ling might come back in fashion and the bigger the map the more the mobility of the protoss death ball can be exploited. I agree that terran will struggle enormously and TvZ will become grossly Z favoured.
As far as I understand, the problem is that zerg has better production and economy for an ideal 3 base situation, but other races have better unit compositions once they also get capped and at 3 bases. In addition, the mule, able to mine at the same time as an scv, can push the terran economy to 1.5 or 2.5 bases, allowing for timing pushes that can kill Z or P while they are saturated on 1 or 2 bases, respectively. While the Z and P macro mechanics are designed to compete with the mule, they are limited by saturation of bases, unlike terran.
This is so interesting. The person who thinks of a solution to this in an elegant way could potentially fix some fundamental gameplay problems. I am going to try to be that person. At the very least, it points balance work in an entirely new direction.
Awesome post. One thing people tend to forget, though, is that the races are different. An odd thing to forget, but people do. Protoss and terran with the same amount of money don't spend it on the same thing. I'm not defending the balance or whatnot, just pointing out that equal economies =/= equal armies.
This is incredibly enlightening. I I think as Zerg I will be less concerned about getting the third for additional mineral income, only for additional larva and gas as well as a new base to maynard to.
Maybe this new information will cause zerg to drone less in the later stages of the game, thus giving them a larger 200 food army? I'm going to change my zerg mentality a bit
On February 10 2011 13:17 DeltruS wrote: As far as I understand, the problem is that zerg has better production and economy for an ideal 3 base situation, but other races have better unit compositions once they also get capped and at 3 bases. In addition, the mule, able to mine at the same time as an scv, can push the terran economy to 1.5 or 2.5 bases, allowing for timing pushes that can kill Z or P while they are saturated on 1 or 2 bases, respectively. While the Z and P macro mechanics are designed to compete with the mule, they are limited by saturation of bases, unlike terran.
This is so interesting. The person who thinks of a solution to this in an elegant way could potentially fix some fundamental gameplay problems. I am going to try to be that person. At the very least, it points balance work in an entirely new direction.
The solution is simple: change the worker AI so that diminishing returns don't come into play until after 24 probes harvesting minerals. Along with this I also support a 300 pop cap, which is a slightly separate issue but still falls under the umbrella of 'macro mechanics.'
This was an amazing write up, and a huge eye-opener for me. On large macro maps I can have easily up to 4 or 5 bases, but from what I just read, it is hardly any more efficient than having 3 bases.
The only counter argument I can see is that gas is not taken into consideration of the game. While mineral efficiency is best at 3 bases sometimes you need more gas and it is more effective for zerg to get more bases for production as well as gas harvesting for better mineral compensation.
I'm going to reread this later and try and make more sense of it; right now I'm too tired, but wow epic post, and I'm really excited to see what more we can find on this.
amazing write up. Enjoyable and informative read. I knew this for a while that realistically in a game you will never or very rarely have more then 3+ saturated bases running. So i agree GOGOGOGOGOGO 300 SUPPLY CAP!
I don't think Zerg's need to expand ever had anything to do with getting more minerals. Gas and Larva are the resources most zerg need, and a 4th base can still bring in quite a bit of both. Measuring the importance of an expansion in terms of minerals mined/minute doesn't seem sensible when lots of games we see Zerg sitting on 1k+ minerals and no gas.
Really enjoyed the article though, lots of great data I'm sure I'm not even properly processing at the moment. I'm not sure I agree with all the conclusions, but I sure as hell don't have enough time to gather all the data it would take to make a fair rebuttal of your arguments
Edit: Full Disclosure: I don't play Zerg, so I reserve the right to be completely wrong about what I said.
Very good article and a step up from anything else trying to tackle the same problem (read: idra artosis). Using the power of science instead of the power of reputation - i like it.
One problem with it though is that the system of starcraft is composed of mechanics that are factors of other mechanics that eventually form the whole of the game. You've talked about about units, production, workers, and minerals but you missed gas. Frankly, its like talking about the flavor of cake in relation only to the amount of eggs. "If you wish to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe" Carl Sagan.
On to my point: The function of minerals is to make units and buildings but it is incomplete without gas. You concluded that zerg should just race to 3 base and stop Protoss from taking his 3rd but you failed to note that a zerg with 10 gas geysers opposed to 6 is much much stronger. The unknown of how much each race benefits from additional gas completely nullifies your efforts on establishing a conclusion on ANY of your points. Zerg lategame is so ridiculously gas heavy that it would not surprise me if a 5 base zerg is an equal match to 3 base protoss. Lastly, the GSL maps will help this situation because taking 5 bases as zerg isn't out of the question and neither is taking a 3rd from protoss.
I doubt anyone will read this as whenever i post in this forum nobody ever does but I am just going to say until you include all the resources and not just minerals and supply you are just DEAD WRONG AND YOUR POINTS ARE INVALID. Thanks for the effort though your effort will be very useful to me.
I really enjoyed this post. Points made with actual unbiased evidence is always a refreshing thing to see. I definitely agree with the 300 supply idea.
The article tells us quickly each of the races can power an economy and gain resources. However, it doesn't tell us about how the production capabilities of each of the 3 races stack up to each other. There are also other things to consider other than resources when analyzing macro, such as who has the ability to gain map control/harass, and possibly deny the 3rd/4th/5th expos until the other race has reached a certain tech.
On February 10 2011 13:17 DeltruS wrote: As far as I understand, the problem is that zerg has better production and economy for an ideal 3 base situation, but other races have better unit compositions once they also get capped and at 3 bases. In addition, the mule, able to mine at the same time as an scv, can push the terran economy to 1.5 or 2.5 bases, allowing for timing pushes that can kill Z or P while they are saturated on 1 or 2 bases, respectively. While the Z and P macro mechanics are designed to compete with the mule, they are limited by saturation of bases, unlike terran.
This is so interesting. The person who thinks of a solution to this in an elegant way could potentially fix some fundamental gameplay problems. I am going to try to be that person. At the very least, it points balance work in an entirely new direction.
The solution is simple: change the worker AI so that diminishing returns don't come into play until after 24 probes harvesting minerals. Along with this I also support a 300 pop cap, which is a slightly separate issue but still falls under the umbrella of 'macro mechanics.'
That's not a simple solution, nor one that can just happen by changing AI. The reason there are diminishing returns after 16 workers is because each patch is paired with 2 workers who take turns. Depending on the distance from CC to patch, there is a delay from one miner finishing and the next miner beginning to mine and so any subsequent workers created won't be as efficient as they will be waiting a good portion of the time.
As much as I like the idea of 300 food cap, it's just not feasible. If anything, it would just be a bandaid and only slightly modify the underlying problem. A lot of games already are ended through a single decisive head-on battle and an increased food cap would only magnify the problem. The balance changes required just to even the playing field would be a headache. A 300/300 battle also wouldn't be pretty on the average computer, let alone a 4vs4.
Wouldn't a simple solution be to change the positions of the mineral patches relative to the cc (hatch/nexus)? Instead of a half circle surrounding the cc, position them in a half circle facing away from it. In other word, while the middle patches would stay at the same distance as they are now, move the outlying ones further away.
The effect would be twofold. For one, it would take longer to saturate your base. By manipulating the distance of the individual patches, you could adjust exactly how many workers it takes.
Secondly, because only part of the patches are further away, a player would experience diminishing returns as he approaches full saturation. He would gain from spreading his workers out over two (three etc) bases even before saturation, to maximize the number of workers mining from close mineral patches.
By manipulating both distance and the relation of close to far patches, shouldn't it be possible to simulate the bw effect? As a bonus, this would increase the demand for macro on the player, since he would have to make sure that a highest number of workers possible mine from the close patches, instead of having them evenly spread out.
1. 70ish workers is the max that is reasonable with a 200 pop cap. 2. Currently the best way to utilize these workers is 3 bases (gold preferably!)
So the problem is expanding beyond 3 bases is a risk with no reward (except extra gas).
Currently diminishing returns occur when you are over 2 workers per patch and gain nothing beyond at 3 per patch.
If diminishing returns started when you are over 1 worker per patch (like is BW), the most efficient base would have 8 workers on minerals, but would still receive some gain up to 24. This would mean the most efficient economy would run off of 5-6 bases, however you could run a less efficient economy off of 2-3 bases with similar worker counts.
In terms of game balance you would need bigger maps, and also need to take into account having less minerals at the start of the game. First expansions would cost more relatively but pay off sooner. Hopefully longer rush distances would make them viable.
300 food cap is not viable / require too many changes. Slowing down mining after 1 worker per mineral would also reduce economy in general and slow down the pace of the game (less 4k mineral surpluses). Balancing mineral / gas income would also be an issue.
Jesus man, how much time did you put into this? I read most of this and its seems like you put forth A LOT of time and effort into this. One thing I disagree with is wanting the supply to be capped at 300, I dont exactly know why I do it just seems.... wrong lol, but great 1000th post hope to see more from you in the future
On February 10 2011 12:50 Scarecrow wrote: Great article but I disagree about maps favouring toss PvZ. More expos = more gas, muta ling might come back in fashion and the bigger the map the more the mobility of the protoss death ball can be exploited. I agree that terran will struggle enormously and TvZ will become grossly Z favoured.
Actually, terran will probably become the most powerful late-game race, because mules allows you to saturate more than 3 bases, you can even sacrifice your scv's and have a massive army compared to the enemy
Damn, you make it really hard for me to still hate you for your constant whiney BM after this excellent OP
I think it is really great that you proved kinda "scientifically" why something is indeed the case what many players experienced: that protoss gets incredibly strong when left alone on 3 bases. Personally, I believe WhiteRa was the first one who really discovered the strength of a "turtling" toss against zerg at a time when everyone thought that toss had to constantly apply pressure. He realized that a rather quick-ish third for toss is much more valuable than a 4th or even 5th base for zerg, therefore there's no need trying to prevent zerg from taking them. Unless you try really hard to prevent zerg from taking the 3rd, there's no need for toss to be aggressive at all, since their unit-composition gets amazing later on and can perfectly be supported off 3 bases.
There's only one yet crucial point that I think deserves more attention: gas. Some posters have already mentioned it, but personally I'm of the opinion that this is far more important than anything in late game. having 4 or even 5 GAS mining bases compared to 3. I admit that I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about on this subject because my games rarely enter stages where this seems to matter. Neither have I observed too many games where I thought a player won because he secured more geysers. Nevertheless I'm still convinced that the true "hope" for a more BW-esque macro-style lies within the importance of gas. Since we'll definitely see new units with the expansions, maybe if these units are "cute" gas-heavy units the importance of gas could be increased even further.
PLEASE forward this to Blizzard, if you haven't already! This is some very sharp analysis and brings to light some of the problems plaguing SC2 far more clearly than 99% of the balance discussion around here.
It would be terrible terrible damage to the future of SC2 balancing if this was lost in the QQ and counter-QQ threads around here.
This analysis proves exactly how I have felt. There are so many reasons that zerg won't dominate huge maps due to not being able to have more then 3 bases saturated + maybe some extra geysers. The benefit of extra bases and the number of drones taking away from food make it not very beneficial.
I think the best solution is to make the food cap different for each race, or at least zerg. That way zerg can afford the food to make more drones. Or maybe just change how food is factored into the total population cap.
if i'm not mistaken your issue is with the fact that extra bases do not pay off until you are supersaturated and therefore early expansions do not pay off right away. i believe this to be a valid concern, however, you extrapolate on these ideas and conclude that
Zerg’s play will be centered around saturating 3 bases as quickly as possible and launching suicide attacks at the opponents’ thirds. Protoss’ play will be centered around camping and delaying until they’ve reached their invincible end game composition on 3+ bases. Terran’s play will… no idea.
this statement is made with the only backing being that at a certain supply all mining equalizes without regard for the time it takes to reach that supply. while it may be true that the most logical cutoff for obtaining extra bases stops at 3 due to supply constraints when fully saturated, this is done without the consideration of time to saturation. this is easily overlooked because of the omission of zerg mining data.
the idea that zerg is required to rush to saturate 3 bases completely discounts zerg's additional production capability (aka the queen) which is obtained faster (build time-wise) and for less minerals (which also means faster game-time-wise) than extra hatcheries. a hatchery + queen spawns as much larva as 2.27 hatcheries (assuming you are constantly respawning larva from the hatchery + inject).
the only comparison between bw and sc2 time to saturate is seen here
in this graph we do not see the effect of chronoboost on saturation time, instead, we see data points of isolated mining per five minutes which, to a great extent, accentuates the midgame mining discrepancy. for example, if you're driving at 1MPH and i drive at 2MPH and we both do this for 10 hours, at the end i have a 10 mile lead; however, if we only drive for 0.1 hours i only end up with a 0.1 mile lead. this seems really stupid but it makes a big difference when the end quantity is more important than the rate because there is a threshold of usefulness. 1 mineral per second is completely negligible over 17 seconds compared to over 300 seconds; at the end of your so called midgame mineral discrepancy you probably end up with less of a difference in net minerals than you'd think.
you also base your final conclusion that protoss will dominate on the 3 base limit, however, in a late-game situation, with the rate at which bases seem to mine out, i believe army production capability to be a much larger problem. due to new macro mechanics such as larva inject, chronoboost, and warp gates, much of the time-cost required to reinforce is moved to before the actual production (stockpiling larva, stockpiling chronoboost, and warpgates in general) and in late-game engagements it's usually a contest of who has the most durable army and who can reinforce the fastest, but when one race has both attributes then there is a (superficial) problem.
Pleas Please... don't forget to factor in that Zerg has at least 6-8 supply tied up in Queens... just to macro...
Zerg needs more drones, for more income, for more production... yet because of queens, high psi cost units (2+), and the extra drones... ends up having a smaller army.
IMO the units cost too much food. If you're going to have less range, be smaller, be confined on creep, have PSI tied up in macro units, and be constrained by more drones, FFS ease up on the cost of the Zerg in food.
Edit: Another solution I can see, is make the movement speed of drones (Mining, Transfering) on creep substantially greater.
On February 10 2011 20:51 cursor wrote: Edit: Another solution I can see, is make the movement speed of drones (Mining, Transfering) on creep substantially greater.
So zerg should just mine way faster than terran and protoss....to fix what, the supply-cap? Seriously?
On February 10 2011 20:51 cursor wrote: Pleas Please... don't forget to factor in that Zerg has at least 6-8 supply tied up in Queens... just to macro...
Zerg needs more drones, for more income, for more production... yet because of queens, high psi cost units (2+), and the extra drones... ends up having a smaller army.
IMO the units cost too much food. If you're going to have less range, be smaller, be confined on creep, have PSI tied up in macro units, and be constrained by more drones, FFS ease up on the cost of the Zerg in food.
Edit: Another solution I can see, is make the movement speed of drones (Mining, Transfering) on creep substantially greater.
relatively speaking, zerg units have pretty low supply requirements
On February 10 2011 02:29 Duka08 wrote: I love this post, and the thought behind it, and especially love your second section about efficiency and the way you spell out plain and simple what all the numbers mean. Reminds me of a great discussion in a research paper after a lengthy and understandable mass of data analysis. Hope this sparks some great discussion.
I'd actually love to hear your Zerg bit, since you seem to have a great grasp on economy and macromanagement in SC2. I'd also be interested to hear what you have to say about the 300 supply cap in more detail, and especially what you think Blizzard could change otherwise (you alluded to worker AI) that you kind of shrugged off as "they'll never do," which is probably very true.
Edit: Gagnar's post above me actually reminded me of the creativity of map designers and how possible "strange" expansions might work out. Perhaps maps will be push out with fewer main base mineral patches, reducing 1-base efficiency and encouraging early expos. Or gas only expos (perhaps with only very few min. patches) somewhat nearby that would encourage tech. I don't have enough BW experience to draw correlations, but it seems to certainly be a possibility, just not in the form of "mineral only" expos because that would, as OP demonstrated, really not achieve much.
And for clarification, these "fewer mineral patch" main base map(s) could obviously be choices in a loser-picks style event by macro-style players, and consequently vetoes for stronger timing/all-in players. I'm not suggesting that it become the norm, I think it would be more interesting to have some with and some without. Map diversity is great, and something BW seemed to have a lot of even with my lacking experience.
yeah it would be awesome to hear that zerg bit, edit it in please :D given how excellent the rest of your post is, the zerg bit wont spoil it also the supply caps, theres something about 200 that id rather keep if possible, but enough to make 4 mining bases possible would be cool
However, I don't agree that this effects Blizzard and balancing. They have failed miserably to balance small maps. They just seem incapable of making the difficult decisions necessary to make close positions maps balance. You need very effective early game scouting tools for all races and much more balanced unit efficiency and economy gain. Mules are a prime example of an ability that simply doesn't balance in close positions.
Blizzard however seems much better at balancing late-game. A lot of their changes (void rays, battlecruiser, Thors etc....) help make late-game play fair. I just think it's easier for them to look at unit stats and balance tier3 big battles. They can run their simulations with 200 supply armys and see what happens.
However this doesn't take into account the explosive macro capabilities of Zerg. Hopefully this won't turn out to be a problem but we'll have to wait and see.
Many have suggested a 300 food cap, but really, 230 would be good enough. It's enough to saturate a 4th, with as large an army as before. You'll be hard pressed to take a 5th before your main is mined out, on any map, lol.
I was actually pondering the other day that, perhaps for HotS, the cap could be raised to 230, and perhaps in LotV, it would be raised again to 260.
1) Changing the worker AI 2) Rising the supply cap, and 3) Moving the mineral patches closer to the Hatch/Nexus/CC and therefore removing 1 or 2 mineral patches
If you apply the 3rd one, all the races would saturate their bases much faster and thus there will be a need to expand. If the patches were closer to the base you could secure the same amount of income but you will be able to saturate more than 3 bases with ~75 workers.
On February 10 2011 08:23 Plutonium wrote: What would you guys say about a hive tech upgrade at the roach warren that makes roaches take up one supply instead of two?
I could imagine Artosis's voice "SO MANY ROACHES" instead of "SO MANY BANELINGS"
I still believe then if you have Hive tech you may as well spend that gas in actual Hive Tech units since more roaches aren't going to be the solution to the same death balls either way. massive collosi count? massive siege tank count? more roaches simply wouldn't be the solution to that problem but I'm of course not going to say no for more options as a Zergie.
On topic. I know that the OP has stated that Zerg are so messed up to model you still at least have to try (science/maths minded here)....
I'm just wondering if someone is mad enough to also try to do this with multiple lines for Zerg based on one hatch two hatch with typical openings and queen inject times assuming they make only 2/4 zerglings for scouting purposes and the rest of the larvae for droning. This would be of course for the first 5 mins only as from then Zerg will probably be wanting to make 2-3 spines/ roaches/ lings to fight the 1st timing push. If the maps are getting bigger then cheese will be less likely (so no early zealot from main and less chance for bunker rushing) and so 14 pool 15 hatch (or 11 overpool 18 hatch) would actually be a good idea to model on assuming double queen on pool spawn with one inject one creep tumouring
I know that most of the time a zerg player will be harassed before the 5 minute mark either with a pseudo push with early units (a bunch of marines and scvs and then falling back forcing zerglings) or the double stalker push whatever early harass that come out of the gates. The point is to still have a comparison even if there are parameters set around the lines for Zerg or I could just be talking crap and everyone's gonna have a go at me.
Honestly, I doubt something like that could be done with zerg....ever. Zerg has the possibility to produce multiple drones at the same time even off one hatch. I can't imagine how you could model this to be comparable with toss/terran.
very impressive read, thanks for work you did, and gz on 1k post
I think Blizzard is aware of this, in fact i think gold mineral patches are in game exactly due to this "issue" because 2 base vs 3 base where 1 is gold there is great difference, 2 base play is a result of such macro mechanics system, because the difference between taking each expansion is not big enough.So i think reduce mineral patches in each map and each base are crucial to reduce 1 base / 2 base play.But then again, zerg ability to produce multiple drons at time would be of too big succes, so changing one thing in system will mean to change a lot more that one can think of.
In this light, it seems slightly foolish of the community to expect the metagame of SC2 to eventually evolve into something resembling that of Broodwar. You will likely never see players opt for as early of a third base as used to be the norm in Broodwar. Rather players will tend to be bottlenecked on 2 bases for longer (especially on Blizzard-sized maps).
I can say with experience with T from one recent game on Megaton (Pure Mech) that getting 2 > 4 bases (4th being a gold) during the first 5-15 mins of a game in a gradually expanding manner is what's most effective/optimal. Basically after you get your orbital, worker saturation and mule finished mining is when you gain back the minerals you invested into the Orbital (550 mins) and start going surplus.
And you should expand every time you are able to afford another expo if your still keeping up with full unit/depot production, your macro gradually escalates and explodes at a point, 3 fully saturated bases or a gold! when you go up like 100~ supply.
I think having 60-70 scvs (with mules) divided between 3 bases is the most income you should at most ever get while still maintaining an army, going for more means you have less supply for combat units.
It also shows that even if you do no damage to a Terran (Banshee, DT etc) but force him to waste scans instead of dropping a mule then that's like 240-270 mins lost for the Terran meaning that it's more beneficial to just place turrets for detection then relying on scans alone.
Doing like in BW and going for two early game expansions at the same time (like MVP did in GTSL today) just slows you down a lot as you won't have enough workers or income to keep producing units/scvs/depots all at the same time.
And seriously an orbital (550) is expensive compared to a hatchery (350), you would need to drop 2 mules to earn that back after 90 secs and scv mining time would give the bonus surplus.
I bookmarked this and will be coming back to it many times, I'm sure. Thank you for collecting all of this data, explaining it in an organized fashion, and presenting an interesting argument. I might edit this post to add a more useful comment but I'm still looking through the OP. But damn, this is good.
Protoss, BW, with 54 workers equally distributed on 6 bases: 18120 minerals over 5 minutes. Terran, BW, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 13200 minerals over 5 minutes.
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
Do you have the statistics for 70 workers? Thanks.
Great post btw, it is interesting stuff. Please don't make it a balance discussion though because there are many other factors in play rather than just "who can mine the most minerals", such as cost efficiency, mobility, micro..
Good read. There are "some" factors I think were skimmed over that more or less leads me to disagree with the 3 base cap conclusion or rather that Blizzard did think of these factors alot more than people will give them credit.
For one, the reasonable point where your first base starts fizzing out.
There's a reason there's a heavy point of conflict around the point you get your third base. As you pointed out, it's the point where you start getting closer and closer to that saturation point while sticking to about 1/3rd supply on workers, but also the point where your first base threatens to give out. Terrans who mule, while they do get that initial burst which puts them ahead, they also threaten to burn out the first base at a quicker pace.
To me, the larger maps give me a little pause, since an easily defendable 4th or 5th base, while it may give room for players to breathe, would also mean that players can obtain that ideal 3 base income quicker, and like to mention, there is little advantage for a Zerg to get 5-6 bases as long as your opponent keeps in mind that he shouldn't confront the Zerg unless he can either wipe him out, destroy a base with little to no losses, hit his drones, or bring him below 3 bases.
That said, I do think some of the smaller maps could be up for review, however with Vote down features on maps, including many tournaments, and pro players choosing to invest time practicing maps they might end up on... I'll just say that it's hard to judge a book (talkin to you Steppes of War) that somehow can produce 2hr draws. However I do think Metal and Lost Temple should be reviewed, spawn locations shouldn't dramatically impact how a MU plays out.
300 Supply cap... I have one serious issue and one minor gripe.
Minor gripe? As a spectator, and even a player, 40-45 minute games can be entertaining... If there were signs it was a close game. If it becomes the norm because neither player feels it is to their advantage to hit the other player before they reach 300 cap... It can become pretty boring.
Serious issue? Tech. There was already a thread about how given the resources, one can provoke crashes in the other players computer. (Nydus worms most notably) More supply, means more units, which means bigger hogs on both your computers resources and your internet connection. 300 supply might as well be a nail in the coffin of anything above 1v1, and force many players to expand a ton of money to play the same game they love. Which is why it always surprises me that Day[9] advertises this solution when he will talk about how he often plays 2v2s and various other team games with his roommates from time to time.
To those that TL:dR this post, just read the last part on how I think 300 supply is not a great idea.
On February 10 2011 22:32 NIIINO wrote: Man, I LOVE U ! i just had best 2 hours in school, thanks ! Mule boost is crazy but you can also kill mules so i think thats the point.
The MULE boost is not crazy. The graph of Minerals mined with respect to number of workers is extremely misleading. Given constant worker production It is not physically possible for a Terran to have equal numbers of workers as the other races and have an orbital command for MULES. An orbital command and thus a single constant MULE costs 150 minerals and 34 seconds, this is at minimum 2 workers less at any given point in time. Protoss can produce workers 22% faster with constant chronoboosting and should at all times be ahead on workers, with just 2 chronoboosts to the nexus a Protoss will be at 20 workers while the Terran is at 16 and a MULE.
The MULE only starts to have a significant impact on income after saturation comes into play, which the later graph of minerals with respect to time shows the rate of income levels out after a roughly 30 second spike for both races. This is the only thing you could consider "imbalanced" about the MULE, that it gives no diminishing returns on mining rate, thus allowing a Terran to maintain similar economic growth to the other races while expanding slower. Which the graphs in the latter part of the OP somewhat show.
The total amount of minerals mined is actually much, much closer that the graphs seem to say and is a very important factor to consider in this discussion, also the fact that Terran has a more mineral based military. Protoss and Zerg units require more gas with respect to minerals, so a mineral only comparison with taking into account the uses for those minerals is flawed and paints a misleading picture. What would a Protoss do with all those minerals? The can only make Zealots, gas is a much more valuable resource for both Zerg and Protoss compared to Terran's largely mineral focus.
With respect to the OP I think it is very insightful and provides some very good information. However it doesn't actually address anything as it only provides specific information that you can apply to a part of the equation, it doesn't complete both sides or take into account the other variables. A good source of information, but not in itself a conclusion or explanation to any problems.
This is really good stuff. I always wondered about the 3 base thing, not in a such a grand coherent way - only the in way of 'if I take more bases, then my army food drops to 120.' Never applied it to zerg but it makes sense.
This really just proves how lucky(?) blizzard got in creating bw, which although not perfect is the most balanced game I have ever played. For example when I get my ass handed to me in bw it can only be my fault and not the games.
On February 10 2011 22:32 NIIINO wrote: Man, I LOVE U ! i just had best 2 hours in school, thanks ! Mule boost is crazy but you can also kill mules so i think thats the point.
The MULE boost is not crazy. The graph of Minerals mined with respect to number of workers is extremely misleading. Given constant worker production It is not physically possible for a Terran to have equal numbers of workers as the other races and have an orbital command for MULES. An orbital command and thus a single constant MULE costs 150 minerals and 34 seconds, this is at minimum 2 workers less at any given point in time. Protoss can produce workers 22% faster with constant chronoboosting and should at all times be ahead on workers, with just 2 chronoboosts to the nexus a Protoss will be at 20 workers while the Terran is at 16 and a MULE.
The MULE only starts to have a significant impact on income after saturation comes into play, which the later graph of minerals with respect to time shows the rate of income levels out after a roughly 30 second spike for both races. This is the only thing you could consider "imbalanced" about the MULE, that it gives no diminishing returns on mining rate, thus allowing a Terran to maintain similar economic growth to the other races while expanding slower. Which the graphs in the latter part of the OP somewhat show.
The total amount of minerals mined is actually much, much closer that the graphs seem to say and is a very important factor to consider in this discussion, also the fact that Terran has a more mineral based military. Protoss and Zerg units require more gas with respect to minerals, so a mineral only comparison with taking into account the uses for those minerals is flawed and paints a misleading picture. What would a Protoss do with all those minerals? The can only make Zealots, gas is a much more valuable resource for both Zerg and Protoss compared to Terran's largely mineral focus.
With respect to the OP I think it is very insightful and provides some very good information. However it doesn't actually address anything as it only provides specific information that you can apply to a part of the equation, it doesn't complete both sides or take into account the other variables. A good source of information, but not in itself a conclusion or explanation to any problems.
alright im going to question that 22%, got the math? yes there are misleading things in there, but a mule is 6 workers (close patch) worth of income so its like those two scvs turn out three times better afterwards for an extra 50 minerals, given that this is around 15 supply then a toss hits 19 supply-ish when the mules come out logic: it takes two workers to build orbital so thats elsewise 17 supply, and thats 11 more than the six you start with so at ~22% thats 19.4, where the terran has the equivalent of 21 if the mule was close given that scvs take time to build structures and probes dont though, this only begins to matter later when the toss saturates, and if anything, untill then a terran is behind because of that zerg get a worker every 15s instead of 17s, but they have to cut one for every building and other unit so im wondering how that compares and that goes down to 6s after the queen pops i believe those build order tools could be useful
the more mineral based thing only applies to low tech units, bio is a lot more solid on terran around the same time some decent infantry pushes arrive, the mc mass sentry push and kyrix baneling aggression could arrive, both much more gas intense if it was a sky terran or terran mech, its gas intense just like the others
Does your analysis imply that it's better to temporarily stop making workers if you're not going for a fast third then? Or maybe should the builds be optimized to incorporate a faster third in them?
For example in my standard PvZ build I usually have around 60 workers on 2 bases on 12 minutes which means I'm way oversaturated. I don't usually get third before 13 minutes mark, where I'd have about 72 workers (the optimal number ?). Is it better to cut workers production around 54 until you can safely get third or should the build be changed to get third at 54 workers? Also, assuming no successful harassment occurred, should you completely stop workers around 72?
On February 11 2011 02:53 Amanitar wrote: Rofl @ 300 food cap. It would be waaaay imbalanced, but towards zerg!
I mean, with a production as big as zerg they would be at 300 supply waaaaay before p/t could even think of being there. Which would be imba.
It would imbalance T Mech. Its like BW mech except Z has no swarms and your AA has AOE... and your vultures have splash that can't accidentally blow up your tanks.
That being said, having 30 range 11 cliff walking splash units that are probably cloaked at that point would certainly be hilarious as well.
Protoss, BW, with 54 workers equally distributed on 6 bases: 18120 minerals over 5 minutes. Terran, BW, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 13200 minerals over 5 minutes.
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
This was one of the more interesting parts of this post to me. Especially with how difficult many 3rd bases, 4th bases, etc, are to take on these maps, players who are taking risks and making investments by securing and defending additional expansions should be rewarded for doing so.
Currently, as I understand it, the first and second worker on each mineral patch harvest with optimum efficiency, the third worker per patch is not as efficient as the first two, and adding more than three workers per patch does next to nothing. What if this was changed so that efficiency per worker decreased with the 2nd worker on each patch, and, additionally, the first worker per mineral patch harvested at a higher rate than the 1st and 2nd workers per patch harvest at now.
To clarify my above ideas (note that these numbers are just examples used to illustrate proportions, and not the actual rates):
Current Harvester Efficiency -
1st worker per patch: 100 minerals/minute 2nd worker per patch: 100 minerals/minute 3rd worker per patch: 75 minerals/minute
My Idea for Harvester Efficiency -
1st worker per patch: 125 minerals/minute 2nd worker per patch: 100 minerals/minute 3rd worker per patch: 75 minerals/minute
This would add greater incentive and reward for securing additional bases, which I think is something that we can all agree is good for game balance/just makes sense. I haven't given this a great deal of thought, but the one thing that immediately comes to mind as a possible concern, is how this might improve very early aggressive attacks (early pools, proxy gateways, etc) and lead to a whole slew of new 8 worker 'cheeses.'
This is a very well written article. You bring up a lot of good points about how the new worker AI has decreased the effectiveness of having more than 3 mining bases. Unfortunately, I don't think there will be an easy way for Blizzard to solve some of these problems that are so rooted in the very fundamentals of the SC2 engine. Any sweeping changes will require a huge amount of rebalancing.
Basically, the main problem is workers AI if I understood well ? The part about "three base is the best" just made me so sad because I really love going for 5 bases...
I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but would moving 1 or 2 of the mineral patches further away from the location of the Nexus/CC/Hatch (making it so that you would need 4-5 harvesters to optimally mine from these patches) be a tweak that could help raise the value/benefit of expanding (without impacting the basic mechanics of the game or screwing up early game balance)?
I wanted to test it myself until i realized i know nothing about making custom maps
On February 10 2011 20:51 cursor wrote: Pleas Please... don't forget to factor in that Zerg has at least 6-8 supply tied up in Queens... just to macro...
Zerg needs more drones, for more income, for more production... yet because of queens, high psi cost units (2+), and the extra drones... ends up having a smaller army.
IMO the units cost too much food. If you're going to have less range, be smaller, be confined on creep, have PSI tied up in macro units, and be constrained by more drones, FFS ease up on the cost of the Zerg in food.
Edit: Another solution I can see, is make the movement speed of drones (Mining, Transfering) on creep substantially greater.
lol this quote is a joke right?
please, please, dont forget, queens allow creep spread and anti-air, zerg units already cost a small amount of food, and making drones faster on creep is just an outrageous "solution".
I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
If the future of SC2 is to be played out on GSL-sized maps, one proposition would be increasing the supply cap of the game so you can support ~110 workers and about 5 bases. One of the greatest proponents of an increased supply has long been day[9] himself. My main argument for an increased cap is that the strategies in the game likely will become streamlined and predictable very quickly if kept back by a 3 base ceiling. The main counterargument? It wouldn’t be balanced at all in the game’s current state, and would likely require a lot of rebalancing.
@mahnini At least that's how I interpret this paragraph
First of all, this approach to the discussion is brilliant. I love this post and its such a breath of fresh air after the "imbalanced" videos. I love your general objectivity. I'm one of those forum posters that is fairly hard on the zergs complaining about their plight, but I've always held your and catz playstyle in very high regard compared to most other zergs. I really feel that this thread is a step in the right direction for all of Teamliquid.net when it comes to the balance discussion.
I have a couple things to chime in on.
1) Expanding more to get more gas geysers: As a protoss player I can't help but feel that additional expansions past a certain point for the purpose of gas only will be far more useful to protoss in zerg than for terran. P and Z have better gas dumps than terran, with protoss, I feel, clearly having the most powerful gas dump in templar/archons. I'm afraid another side effect of these big maps in conjunction with your points is that protoss will be able to utilize expansions 4 5 and 6 better than the other two races.
2) Having said the above point, I think it is too soon to tell what impact these maps will have because the extremely long games are not so common yet. I believe that we have yet to see a proper infrastructure from any race on a large number of bases on a consistent basis. It could be that a protoss player on 10 geysers can increase his infrastructure to 4 robos and 4 stargates + X number of gateways, for instance. Simultaneously, their opponent might have 5 factories 4 starports and X number of barracks with a ghost academy. At this point, the game is going to be having that max army, both players losing some of it, and replacing it with different units to adapt to what they think their opponent is doing. I think there may be a level of depth in that type of game that we are overlooking. It could also be that its just a big crapshoot. I think with bigger maps and when we get to see increased infrastructure, we will see if its feasible to have all races play that "remaxing" style that zerg currently plays. That could end up being the strategic game we end up with... Its different than broodwar, but still strategic.
3) Question for anyone that may have noticed this... Last week I went into Yabot and just picked a random map. For some reason Desert Oasis was up there so I went on that map. I noticed the minerals seems farther from my nexus than on other maps. I'm not sure if I'm mistaken or what, but it just looked that way. After running my build a couple times it really felt like my timings were way behind. I tried it on YABOT Metalopolis next and my timings were fine. Are the patches on Desert Oasis different? Could something as simple as patch mining distance affect the game as a whole?
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
Perhaps one of the best post I have ever read on this site. Excellent 1000th post. Yes, I too would like to see the affects of mules on gold.. Terran usually have at least 2 orbital commands and their 3rd at gold is likely a PF, so I could only imagine the numbers.
Please post this in some way in the battlenet forums, still give credit to TL but I guess there is a higher chance of someone in Blizzard reading it there....
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap).
Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and larger engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
Yeah but getting to 300/300 food will be much easier for the zerg with an economical advantage. If you allowed your P opponent to get to 300/300 that would be your fault. It would be like it is now with 200 food zergs against 150 food protoss trying to decrease their ball but they could possiblely get an even larger army before they had to slow down the protoss on their way to the ball.
I would argue that a solution to look for would be allowing the 200 cap to be exceeded only when it is reached, and only by workers. This would mean that if you have 70 workers, your army size would be capped at 130, and if you go over it can only be done by workers, resulting in a UI visualization that says something like 210/200 (10 additional workers). These workers would have to be tagged in a special way however, so that they do not count towards the food count when units start to die and you try to replace them, but now only have a 120 supply ceiling now that the 10 new workers were added to the normal supply cap.
Either that or have every worker after the optimal amount for 3 base saturation cost only .5 food, and then .3, similar to War3's upkeep concept
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap).
Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying.
your scenario takes place with the assumption that the zerg is not using the extra supply to saturate which is a fair assumption because it is entirely possible to reach 300 supply on 3 base. however, in the scenario the OP describes, in which the zerg would look for an economic advantage a protoss, on 3 base would have 225 supply army whereas a zerg on 4 base would have a 200 supply army.
i am assuming maxed army engagements here because this is what was stipulated in the OP as optimal for protoss and therefore what they would do on large maps.
the point is, the problem (if we accept that there is a problem) isn't necessarily the supply cap, which i think is what people are not understanding, rather, the problem is zerg maximizes their economic advantage too late in a 200 cap game too late for it to matter. understanding this point can lead to more elegant solutions than everyone just saying 'yeah 300 supply cap!'.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap).
Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying.
your scenario takes place with the assumption that the zerg is not using the extra supply to saturate which is a fair assumption because it is entirely possible to reach 300 supply on 3 base. however, in the scenario the OP describes, in which the zerg would look for an economic advantage a protoss, on 3 base would have 225 supply army whereas a zerg on 4 base would have a 200 supply army.
i am assuming maxed army engagements here because this is what was stipulated in the OP as optimal for protoss and therefore what they would do on large maps.
the point is, the problem isn't necessarily the supply cap, which i think is what people are not understanding, rather, the problem is zerg maximizes their economic advantage too late in a 200 cap game too late for it to matter. understanding this point can lead to more elegant solutions than everyone just saying 'yeah 300 supply cap!'.
Hmm interesting points (you were right that I didn't even think of the added supply of post-70 workers, which was his entire point... lol), but now you are assuming that protoss will stop at 70 workers (which is correct) because they will stay on 3 bases. This will give zerg the economic advantage they do not have now due to the reasons specified in the OP. This will allow them to max out faster, and they will still have a proportionally larger force (since zergs are banking minerals anyway) because supply is really the limiting factor in late game ZvP before the big engagement.
Yes, protoss can turtle, but now they are giving zerg more time to tech to broods, infestors, or ultras (if ultras ever find a non-situational role in a zerg late game composition). Also, zerg might use the now larger 300 supply cap army disparity to attack the third, doom drop the main, or some other tactic (none of these tactics are new, but 300 supply would make them stronger). The more I think about it, I only see 300 supply giving change giving zerg more late game options and more time. Late, late game, I see the 300 supply change swinging in protoss' favor if zerg cant keep the collosi count down. But again we should try it and see.
For merely entertainment purposes, I for one would rather lose to a protoss in a 5-6 base vs 3-4 base 300 vs 300 supply slug-fest rather than a 3 base vs 3-4 base 200 vs 200 supply game. The larger the better.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap).
Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying.
your scenario takes place with the assumption that the zerg is not using the extra supply to saturate which is a fair assumption because it is entirely possible to reach 300 supply on 3 base. however, in the scenario the OP describes, in which the zerg would look for an economic advantage a protoss, on 3 base would have 225 supply army whereas a zerg on 4 base would have a 200 supply army.
i am assuming maxed army engagements here because this is what was stipulated in the OP as optimal for protoss and therefore what they would do on large maps.
the point is, the problem isn't necessarily the supply cap, which i think is what people are not understanding, rather, the problem is zerg maximizes their economic advantage too late in a 200 cap game too late for it to matter. understanding this point can lead to more elegant solutions than everyone just saying 'yeah 300 supply cap!'.
This will give zerg the economic advantage they do not have now due to the reasons specified in the OP.
but there's the problem. there is no data in the OP to support the idea that zerg's do not gain a substantial advantage with their 3rd base because the OP ignored any and all zerg mining data.
the article is very thought provoking and enjoyable. But this part is pretty weak IMO:
This is an interesting question to pose with the new and giantly oversized maps GSL have introduced. I believe these large maps are an anti reaction to the volatile and unpredictable play that plagued “Blizzard-sized maps”. The unmanageable strategic extremes (due to unnamed factors that may or may not have been attempted to be explained in this article) on small and medium sized maps simply created the need for a party to step in and introduce a buffer zone for rushes and timing attacks.
With that said: what will larger maps achieve apart from increasing rush distances?
I would say absolutely nothing. What need do players have for 14 expansions in a game like Starcraft 2? Absolutely none. Zerg’s play will be centered around saturating 3 bases as quickly as possible and launching suicide attacks at the opponents’ thirds. Protoss’ play will be centered around camping and delaying until they’ve reached their invincible end game composition on 3+ bases. Terran’s play will… no idea.
Large maps will simply and frankly favor the race that currently has the pleasure of being dominant when maxed out in a 3base vs. 3base late game situation. That race, as you’ll see, will be Protoss. And please don’t mistake this for whine; it’s merely stating what should be obvious. On the other end, the same maps will likely disfavor the previous most stable performing tournament race on blizzard-sized maps: Terran.
... because it doesnt have much reasoning behind it.
Ofc do larger maps highly influence how the game is played. The mineral boost T gets greatly helps to quickly expand all over the place. Their defenses are stronger and their Mobility is more costefficient. Larger maps also favor mobility so I think larger maps are a huge improvement for T lategame vs any race.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap).
Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying.
your scenario takes place with the assumption that the zerg is not using the extra supply to saturate which is a fair assumption because it is entirely possible to reach 300 supply on 3 base. however, in the scenario the OP describes, in which the zerg would look for an economic advantage a protoss, on 3 base would have 225 supply army whereas a zerg on 4 base would have a 200 supply army.
i am assuming maxed army engagements here because this is what was stipulated in the OP as optimal for protoss and therefore what they would do on large maps.
the point is, the problem isn't necessarily the supply cap, which i think is what people are not understanding, rather, the problem is zerg maximizes their economic advantage too late in a 200 cap game too late for it to matter. understanding this point can lead to more elegant solutions than everyone just saying 'yeah 300 supply cap!'.
This will give zerg the economic advantage they do not have now due to the reasons specified in the OP.
but there's the problem. there is no data in the OP to support the idea that zerg's do not gain a substantial advantage with their 3rd base because the OP ignored any and all zerg mining data.
True, but will it really be any different for Zerg than the other two races? The only thing that will change is the speed at which zerg will saturate the bases, not the overall mining efficiency of ~70 workers spread across 3 bases (as opposed to 4 or 5). Or maybe that is your point. You think the match up can be solved by quicker saturation? If that is what you are saying, then you may be right. But in terms of overall fun + awesomeness, that doesn't change the fact that games will be mostly limited to 3-4 base vs 3 base timings (with additional bases only added as bases mine-out). This is a major problem for me and the OP because it's kind of boring not to reward super-economic play as much as the game rewards super-aggressive play.
On February 10 2011 22:32 NIIINO wrote: Man, I LOVE U ! i just had best 2 hours in school, thanks ! Mule boost is crazy but you can also kill mules so i think thats the point.
The MULE boost is not crazy. The graph of Minerals mined with respect to number of workers is extremely misleading. Given constant worker production It is not physically possible for a Terran to have equal numbers of workers as the other races and have an orbital command for MULES. An orbital command and thus a single constant MULE costs 150 minerals and 34 seconds, this is at minimum 2 workers less at any given point in time. Protoss can produce workers 22% faster with constant chronoboosting and should at all times be ahead on workers, with just 2 chronoboosts to the nexus a Protoss will be at 20 workers while the Terran is at 16 and a MULE.
The MULE only starts to have a significant impact on income after saturation comes into play, which the later graph of minerals with respect to time shows the rate of income levels out after a roughly 30 second spike for both races. This is the only thing you could consider "imbalanced" about the MULE, that it gives no diminishing returns on mining rate, thus allowing a Terran to maintain similar economic growth to the other races while expanding slower. Which the graphs in the latter part of the OP somewhat show.
The total amount of minerals mined is actually much, much closer that the graphs seem to say and is a very important factor to consider in this discussion, also the fact that Terran has a more mineral based military. Protoss and Zerg units require more gas with respect to minerals, so a mineral only comparison with taking into account the uses for those minerals is flawed and paints a misleading picture. What would a Protoss do with all those minerals? The can only make Zealots, gas is a much more valuable resource for both Zerg and Protoss compared to Terran's largely mineral focus.
With respect to the OP I think it is very insightful and provides some very good information. However it doesn't actually address anything as it only provides specific information that you can apply to a part of the equation, it doesn't complete both sides or take into account the other variables. A good source of information, but not in itself a conclusion or explanation to any problems.
alright im going to question that 22%, got the math? yes there are misleading things in there, but a mule is 6 workers (close patch) worth of income so its like those two scvs turn out three times better afterwards for an extra 50 minerals, given that this is around 15 supply then a toss hits 19 supply-ish when the mules come out logic: it takes two workers to build orbital so thats elsewise 17 supply, and thats 11 more than the six you start with so at ~22% thats 19.4, where the terran has the equivalent of 21 if the mule was close given that scvs take time to build structures and probes dont though, this only begins to matter later when the toss saturates, and if anything, untill then a terran is behind because of that zerg get a worker every 15s instead of 17s, but they have to cut one for every building and other unit so im wondering how that compares and that goes down to 6s after the queen pops i believe those build order tools could be useful
the more mineral based thing only applies to low tech units, bio is a lot more solid on terran around the same time some decent infantry pushes arrive, the mc mass sentry push and kyrix baneling aggression could arrive, both much more gas intense if it was a sky terran or terran mech, its gas intense just like the others
The 22% is roughly accurate. Here is the simple math. That is assuming a single nexus constantly chronoboosting the production of probes whenever possible.
A nexus provides enough energy to 1 chrono boost roughly every 45 seconds Math: Energy regenerates at 0.5625 per second and Chronoboost requires 25 energy (25/0.5625) = 44.44
Chronoboost is 20 seconds of 50% increased production speed every 44.44 seconds. 20 seconds of time for a structure under the effect of chronoboost is equal to 30 seconds of production, an increase of 10 seconds for every chronoboost. So for every 45 seconds of game time, you get 55 seconds of production.
(10/44.44) x 100 = 22.5%
Two probes take 34 seconds to build, so almost fit into a single chrono (30 seconds of build time), as you can't have two thirds of a probe (you either have a probe or you don't) it's reasonable to say you get roughly 1 extra probe per chronoboost.
Also a MULE is equal to 4 SCVs not 6, the math for that is contained in the Liquipedia here.
Liquipedia MULEs are as effective as around 4 (±0.3) SCVs, as SCVs average 42-43 minerals per game-minute on blue mineral patches (for two or less workers per patch).
Since a orbital takes 2 workers amount of time to build the Terran is obviously 2 workers behind, and with 2 chronoboosts the Protoss can be at least 2 probes ahead by the 16 supply mark.
You should also note that the 4 worker difference at 20 supply corresponds to exactly to a MULEs value which is deliberate and by design, 4 workers out of 20 is 20%, almost the exact amount at which chronoboost increases probe production.
In terms of pure mathematical design SC2 is almost perfectly balanced, yet retains a very definitive difference in "feel" between the various mechanics, it's a work of art in my opinion.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap).
Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying.
your scenario takes place with the assumption that the zerg is not using the extra supply to saturate which is a fair assumption because it is entirely possible to reach 300 supply on 3 base. however, in the scenario the OP describes, in which the zerg would look for an economic advantage a protoss, on 3 base would have 225 supply army whereas a zerg on 4 base would have a 200 supply army.
i am assuming maxed army engagements here because this is what was stipulated in the OP as optimal for protoss and therefore what they would do on large maps.
the point is, the problem isn't necessarily the supply cap, which i think is what people are not understanding, rather, the problem is zerg maximizes their economic advantage too late in a 200 cap game too late for it to matter. understanding this point can lead to more elegant solutions than everyone just saying 'yeah 300 supply cap!'.
This will give zerg the economic advantage they do not have now due to the reasons specified in the OP.
but there's the problem. there is no data in the OP to support the idea that zerg's do not gain a substantial advantage with their 3rd base because the OP ignored any and all zerg mining data.
True, but will it really be any different for Zerg than the other two races? The only thing that will change is the speed at which zerg will saturate the bases, not the overall mining efficiency of ~70 workers spread across 3 bases (as opposed to 4 or 5).
isn't that the only thing changing with a 300 supply cap?
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap).
Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying.
your scenario takes place with the assumption that the zerg is not using the extra supply to saturate which is a fair assumption because it is entirely possible to reach 300 supply on 3 base. however, in the scenario the OP describes, in which the zerg would look for an economic advantage a protoss, on 3 base would have 225 supply army whereas a zerg on 4 base would have a 200 supply army.
i am assuming maxed army engagements here because this is what was stipulated in the OP as optimal for protoss and therefore what they would do on large maps.
the point is, the problem isn't necessarily the supply cap, which i think is what people are not understanding, rather, the problem is zerg maximizes their economic advantage too late in a 200 cap game too late for it to matter. understanding this point can lead to more elegant solutions than everyone just saying 'yeah 300 supply cap!'.
This will give zerg the economic advantage they do not have now due to the reasons specified in the OP.
but there's the problem. there is no data in the OP to support the idea that zerg's do not gain a substantial advantage with their 3rd base because the OP ignored any and all zerg mining data.
True, but will it really be any different for Zerg than the other two races? The only thing that will change is the speed at which zerg will saturate the bases, not the overall mining efficiency of ~70 workers spread across 3 bases (as opposed to 4 or 5).
isn't that the only thing changing with a 300 supply cap?
Yeah maybe. I still think it will have many more minor repercussions, but I think making the game more awesome/diverse is a change worth making.
anyway, the underlying point that i'm trying to make is that the OP doesn't provide any data that we haven't known since beta and yet somehow swindles everyone in to believing that his non sequitur conclusions about the game are somehow backed up by arbitrary mining data that excludes an entire race. then, proceeds to make an insane suggestion about a 300 supply cap that he admits would turn the game upside down balance-wise yet he makes anyway because a completely rebalanced game is better than having a 3 base cap -- for no other reason other than 4 bases are better because it's more.
Wait so the op is saying that in 5 minutes, 19 drones will mine as many minerals if you gather from the gold on lt, as they will if you mine from your natural?
what about gas? Isn't gas also the reason to expand more? I would like to see some charts on gas as well, preferably to get a better understanding of when is it best to get an expansion to support gas heavy units.
Great post, very insightful. The three base reasoning is very interesting - in practice zerg players would be hurt by larger maps or maps where second and third are easily secured, which is kind of funny.
Increased supply cap seems like a really interesting way to open up the game (more bases = scouting more valuable + more multifront action), would love to try it out on a map.
On February 11 2011 07:10 mahnini wrote: anyway, the underlying point that i'm trying to make is that the OP doesn't provide any data that we haven't known since beta and yet somehow swindles everyone in to believing that his non sequitur conclusions about the game are somehow backed up by arbitrary mining data that excludes an entire race. then, proceeds to make an insane suggestion about a 300 supply cap that he admits would turn the game upside down balance-wise yet he makes anyway because a completely rebalanced game is better than having a 3 base cap -- for no other reason other than 4 bases are better because it's more.
I think he's arguing Zerg needs to be able to unconditionally saturate more than 3 bases for them to be better than other factions that cap out at three.
To be quite honest, while the # of bases thing is a nice observation but the major frustrations with zerg stems from poor design. For example, both larva inject and creep punish you for not paying attention. Using up all your chrono boosts allows you to hit timings better while mules allow you to get minerals faster to get more CCs for more mules. You can play games without using either and be in fairly good shape. However, if you miss your injects or don't have creep spread late game, you are hilariously behind.
That sort of game design just makes people inordinately frustrated.
And you can't really excuse it as 'this is 1997 and we can't make the Path Finding AI any better.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing)
the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit.
increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball.
if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd.
I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap).
Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying.
your scenario takes place with the assumption that the zerg is not using the extra supply to saturate which is a fair assumption because it is entirely possible to reach 300 supply on 3 base. however, in the scenario the OP describes, in which the zerg would look for an economic advantage a protoss, on 3 base would have 225 supply army whereas a zerg on 4 base would have a 200 supply army.
i am assuming maxed army engagements here because this is what was stipulated in the OP as optimal for protoss and therefore what they would do on large maps.
the point is, the problem isn't necessarily the supply cap, which i think is what people are not understanding, rather, the problem is zerg maximizes their economic advantage too late in a 200 cap game too late for it to matter. understanding this point can lead to more elegant solutions than everyone just saying 'yeah 300 supply cap!'.
This will give zerg the economic advantage they do not have now due to the reasons specified in the OP.
but there's the problem. there is no data in the OP to support the idea that zerg's do not gain a substantial advantage with their 3rd base because the OP ignored any and all zerg mining data.
True, but will it really be any different for Zerg than the other two races? The only thing that will change is the speed at which zerg will saturate the bases, not the overall mining efficiency of ~70 workers spread across 3 bases (as opposed to 4 or 5). Or maybe that is your point. You think the match up can be solved by quicker saturation? If that is what you are saying, then you may be right. But in terms of overall fun + awesomeness, that doesn't change the fact that games will be mostly limited to 3-4 base vs 3 base timings (with additional bases only added as bases mine-out). This is a major problem for me and the OP because it's kind of boring not to reward super-economic play as much as the game rewards super-aggressive play.
I agree with alot of this.
Maybe a take home point for zergs reading this that are adventurous enough to step out of their comfort zone is... maybe you are missing the time in which you have the greatest advantage and you should be attacking rather than macroing. By continuing to macro you are essentially watching this window pass by and then losing it altogether.
In other words, Zerg is at their strongest in the mid-late game, and gets weaker in the late-late game, but many zergs continue to just macro up and never really attack. Theyre under the false impression that if they keep taking expansions and macroing they are getting further and further ahead, when actually they are just missing a big time frame where they can use their advantage against their opponent.
On February 11 2011 07:10 mahnini wrote: anyway, the underlying point that i'm trying to make is that the OP doesn't provide any data that we haven't known since beta and yet somehow swindles everyone in to believing that his non sequitur conclusions about the game are somehow backed up by arbitrary mining data that excludes an entire race. then, proceeds to make an insane suggestion about a 300 supply cap that he admits would turn the game upside down balance-wise yet he makes anyway because a completely rebalanced game is better than having a 3 base cap -- for no other reason other than 4 bases are better because it's more.
I think he's arguing Zerg needs to be able to unconditionally saturate more than 3 bases for them to be better than other factions that cap out at three.
4 base zerg loses to 4 base anything else 5 base zerg loses to 5 base anything else
the only thing worth discussing is really when to expand and how new mechanics affect traditional ideas of expanding.
ex: is it better to take fast 3rd when you aren't fully saturated on 2 base yet or is better to use 300 mins to fully saturate then expand? is it better to stockpile drones and maynard or is it better to wait for an expo to finish then power drones?
To be quite honest, while the # of bases thing is a nice observation but the major frustrations with zerg stems from poor design. For example, both larva inject and creep punish you for not paying attention. Using up all your chrono boosts allows you to hit timings better while mules allow you to get minerals faster to get more CCs for more mules. You can play games without using either and be in fairly good shape. However, if you miss your injects or don't have creep spread late game, you are hilariously behind.
That sort of game design just makes people inordinately frustrated.
And you can't really excuse it as 'this is 1997 and we can't make the Path Finding AI any better.
i'm not sure if even you believe that not using mules and chrono leaves you in a decent position.
About multiple bases for zerg, I feel like the only reason for taking my fourth (if I haven't already died to cheese) is gas. I can never seem to find a way to spend my 3 bases worth of minerals without a macro hatch.
And 300 supply would be epic... *dreams of 600 cracklings*
Good post. Regardless of what conclusions you want to draw from it there's a ton of good information in there. I'm hesitant to open up the 300 supply cap though as it would completely break down current balance.
Imagine a Zerg who can quickly max 200/200 in Muta/Ling/Bling before the Terran can going up to 300/300 while the terran is still plodding along. Or in ZvP getting 300/300 roach hydra corruptor. There seems a point where the zerg will max and then he is "stuck" somewhat while the opponent plays catchup. Allowing the zerg to go even higher might cause problems.
wouldn't simply decreasing the number of mineral patches at a base be a simpler and more elegant solution than something drastic like increasing the supply cap to 300?
One thing though, I hope they never slow down the game early economic pace... faster mineral gathering leads to the game "happening" faster, and things going down quicker, less downtime. Thats what makes it more exciting to play and even more exciting to watch.
On February 10 2011 04:17 whatthefat wrote: One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
This would work great in conjunction with some tweaks:
Mules can no longer receive increased minerals from gold resource patches. They mine as if the patch was normal. Their current behavior is like having every single drone made by inject larva on a gold base, massively over saturating it without penalty.
Change gold patches and normal patches so that gold patches have a larger amount of minerals at a faster rate and normal minerals have a lower amount of minerals at a lower rate.
The gold minerals do look kind of strange with blue minerals, though.
The insistence on keeping the status quo of 200 supply cap seems to be based more on nostalgia than anything. Surely with the UI improvements, players should now be able to manage armies on a larger scale? Instead, as you've pointed out... it limits players to 3 bases leading to an overall less interesting game.
One factor that struck me on playing BW again was the role of concavity in the mineral field placement. To explain with a picture:
Mining from close mineral patches first was thus a bigger deal in BW, and made expanding more quickly more beneficial. It occurred to me that one interesting way to get a similar effect (with other interesting dynamics) in SC2 would be to have combined blue/gold mineral patches at both main and expos, e.g.,
Now there is a clear incentive to expand early, to take advantage of the high yield patches earlier. I'm not sure whether anyone has yet experimented with this idea in map design.
Interestingly enough, I believe the person who started the Berkeley Starcraft Course stated that he used Data and Diffeq to prove that mining from the edges of the mineral patches actually gave you more minerals. :/
I wonder if it would be possible to determine for a given distance main-to-natural, at what point does it become more beneficial to send extra workers to distance mine the natural rather than over-saturate the main? Then one could put together a list of worker counts at which you should start sending all new workers to the natural, regardless if you've expanded there or not yet. It would also mean that maynarding is not nearly as useful as it was in BW, something intersting for us to keep in mind while playing.
On February 11 2011 07:10 mahnini wrote: anyway, the underlying point that i'm trying to make is that the OP doesn't provide any data that we haven't known since beta and yet somehow swindles everyone in to believing that his non sequitur conclusions about the game are somehow backed up by arbitrary mining data that excludes an entire race. then, proceeds to make an insane suggestion about a 300 supply cap that he admits would turn the game upside down balance-wise yet he makes anyway because a completely rebalanced game is better than having a 3 base cap -- for no other reason other than 4 bases are better because it's more.
I think he's arguing Zerg needs to be able to unconditionally saturate more than 3 bases for them to be better than other factions that cap out at three.
4 base zerg loses to 4 base anything else 5 base zerg loses to 5 base anything else
the only thing worth discussing is really when to expand and how new mechanics affect traditional ideas of expanding.
ex: is it better to take fast 3rd when you aren't fully saturated on 2 base yet or is better to use 300 mins to fully saturate then expand? is it better to stockpile drones and maynard or is it better to wait for an expo to finish then power drones?
To be quite honest, while the # of bases thing is a nice observation but the major frustrations with zerg stems from poor design. For example, both larva inject and creep punish you for not paying attention. Using up all your chrono boosts allows you to hit timings better while mules allow you to get minerals faster to get more CCs for more mules. You can play games without using either and be in fairly good shape. However, if you miss your injects or don't have creep spread late game, you are hilariously behind.
That sort of game design just makes people inordinately frustrated.
And you can't really excuse it as 'this is 1997 and we can't make the Path Finding AI any better.
i'm not sure if even you believe that not using mules and chrono leaves you in a decent position.
But zerg would hopefully be able to take it fast enough and get it running to deny a third base from another race. Its not a good reason but that's what he's saying. I don't know why you are getting riles up at my trying to clarify him.
As for the second part, you wouldn't be in a completely screwed position like a zerg without its macro mechanic even in the early game. You can even neglect them later in game without disastrous results. How many Protosses have you seen with full nexus energy beat zergs macroing their butts off. Likewise, most Terrans don't have to drop a mule every chance they get. I guess Zerg can throw up macro hatches instead, but that makes them vulnerable to flying stuff.
On February 11 2011 10:14 TheRealSnuggles wrote: wouldn't simply decreasing the number of mineral patches at a base be a simpler and more elegant solution than something drastic like increasing the supply cap to 300?
Yes I think that, too. And the more I read here, the more I think really the mapdesign is gonna be what ultimately will be able to fix stuff more so than unit values. It's so great that we'll have a constant stream of new maps. It's what made SC BW so balanced ultimately.
Less mineralpatches per base, some gold patches added in, that could all help.
Yeah, i think you could solve this with Maps. Less mineral patches that gain you more minerals (like the gold ones, just converted into blue) and only 1 gas (high yield gas)
This could work beautifully, you would have less workers, bases would be faster saturated, and expansions would actually beneficial. Would also indirectly buff zerg, and only 1 gas per base would let them get speedlings faster, would lead to less drone sacrifices for extractors overall.
I would love if for instance iccup could create such a map, or switch the current ones with such mineral patches / gas.
That's the first thought that came to my mind, drop the mineral count to 6 so saturation is at 18 instead of 24.
That would be the simplest test. That and making the maps larger sized to favor map control strategies... which is the only type of strategy zerg has... because they don't make doom pushes and they are hard pressed to set up flanks off creep.
I do not agree that the cap should be raised. This would make it less accessible to more people and that's not a good thing. I feel that its a quick fix for something deeper, which i guess would be the mining efficiency of the workers. I hope something gets done with the patches and expansions. Simply adding more units wont cut it lol.
I liked this article quite a bit, especially since I just wrote several long replies pointing things out that I saw, only to go back to the OP again and finding that you already wrote them.
I guess my conclusion from this would be: Each base in SC2 equals two bases in BW when it comes to optimal worker efficiency. You also have a relatively small window in SC2 between workers mining optimally, and an extra worker being useless. This is independent of the number of mineral patches in each base.
Given these difference in basic design, I'd say it's unlikely that SC2 and BW will converge in gameplay styles eventually, but that doesn't mean improving SC2 is a hopeless cause of course.
Great article, this is actually something i've sort of been thinking about recently since i realised that many times when protoss/terran gets a 3rd base i feel extremely weak, im just so starved of supply if i take 4 bases and it doesnt even seem worth it to make enough drones to sustain 4 bases... it seems like the best way to play is to saturate 3 bases and then only take a 4th for gas, or as a gold expo, or if im getting mined out in my main
There doesn't seem to be any easy solutions tbh.. but i have a few ideas: first of all making geysers give double the gas per trip but only has one per base just like in brood war, this would seriously reduce the amount of supply tied up in workers harvesting gas in the late game, on 4 base that would be 12 less supply, of course i acknowledge this is a MASSIVE change to the game and will completely change the metagame since all strategies revolve around how you get 4 gas per trip and have 2 geysers, so something like this may only be viable in the expansion
My second idea is probably more viable and is for zerg - a hive level upgrade to reduce the supply of queens to 1, OR a hive level upgrade which increases the rate of larvae creation across all hatcheries, which would allow zergs to sacrifice their queens in the end game to free up more supply since they already have enough larvae to create an army. something like 200/200 with a long research time and researched from the hatchery. Only problem with this is it removes the macro mechanic from zerg but tbh as it stands now zergs just inject about 4 times per hatchery when maxed and then forget about injections after they have stockpiled enough larvae to remake their army. this would make zerg being +1 base ahead of terran/protoss more profitable instead of the current playstyle of desperately trying to prevent the enemy getting a 3rd base while getting your own 3rd as fast as possible just to get enough econ to launch attacks at the enemy 3rd base, which makes for shallow gameplay imo.
Third idea sort of echoes what other people in the thread mentioned, reducing number of mineral patches in tandem with making 1 gas per base with double the resources per trip, mules may need to be tweaked since they aren't affected by full saturation, not really sure about that though
Why can't you just increase drone mining time? That would make each drone slightly less effective. and so unless you have 9 bases all mining it's always better to expand.
Great, great post. Confirms many of the feelings the game have been giving me and puts a name on it. Whenever I play zerg for fun I never ever feel save regardless of how many bases I have if I play protoss.
In broodwar if you had the map as zerg and your opponent had three bases max you felt really strong it was a HUGE lead to have twice as many bases.
But now if protoss has 50 probes and slowly gets maxed and moves out I know he could wipe my entire army and half of my bases and get a gold expand...
And when I play protoss for fun I always believe im going to die against terran until I have aoe against the marines.
When I play terran on these huge maps it feels very, very far to attack and I feel very pinned down by pylons and mutas on my side of the map
Or... make peon gather mineral a bit slower but more mineral so that income overall doesn't change with 1 worker, but having two peon or more on one patch give less mineral? ;X
Decreasing the number of mineral patches and maybe adding 1 or 2 gold patches sound much much better than 300 food.
It actually addresses the problem - rewarding faster expansions and higher base counts.
Edit:
To elaborate, the gold patches will give the initial boost in minerals vs worker count, but the reduction in mineral patches will make the graph flat faster. Both rewards taking more bases.
Arguments against 300 are already stated by mahnini.
Many of the suggestions in this thread have been centered around making SC2's minerals-to-worker graph more linear. Yet there are two competing considerations here. First is the positive effect of a more linear graph; cutting worker production early will hurt economy more than in the current diminishing-returns system, thus favoring builds that aren't cheeses or all-ins.
However, this is not the whole story! A linear mineral-to-worker graph means that expanding is *not* encouraged. 32 workers on one base will give the same minerals as 16 on each of two bases for a perfectly linear system. The current graph means that 16 workers on each of two bases is more than 32 workers on a single base since above 16 workers per base the mining rate drops off. If you wish to encourage expanding, we should not be making this graph linear. This means that worker AI shouldn't be messed with, mineral patches shouldn't be put in a straight line, and mining rates shouldn't be slowed down.
The less-than-linear graph might explain why early all-ins work surprisingly well, but they do not explain why expanding is underused. Of course, effective all-ins will scare people into not fast expanding, but expanding does indeed give an economic advantage - more so even than in BW.
For how long does a fully saturated stretch of minerals last? I am new to SC2, but I know that this should be a factor in the question on the efficiency of expansions.
Though very well written, I can't help but imagine that OP implies an unintended immediate expanding, but in truth, expansions take place over time. I don't think this was accounted for judging by the data OP was building on, which was minerals gathered by 5 minutes, but if it were, I would not know what this would do to the analysis of OP
I believe someone else in this topic made the same argument, that the overall mineral gathering is not being accounted for. This seems rather crucial to the whole of OP's analysis, is it not?
Could making Hatch's, Nexii, and CC's spawn further away from mineral patches help the problem? This would in essence make each expansion take more miners to saturate. You could leave the dead zone around gas the same so it would still take three miners to saturate the geyser. This would also affect the mule. Maybe this paired with less patches would encourage more expanding. @ The goal of all of this should be making 4-5 bases with equal miners to someone with two bases give a larger advantage.
Going from 8 mineral patches to 4 blue 2 gold would be a much better solution, it makes 5 bases feel like 5 bases instead of it not mattering as long as you have 3 bases saturated.
Also, increasing double the time a mule is alive would be great, but halving the mining efficiency ( ie mules still give you the same amount of minerals/energy, but it takes longer to get ). It would increase the effectiveness of harass against them also.
It doesn't matter how far your base is from the minerals. They will still provide the same mine rate at saturation. Look at this from thr mineral patch POV. To be satursted only means to make sure when one worker finishes with one patch, it is immediately starts to be mined by another. Basically non-stop mineral outflow from the patch. Further worker move distance changes nothing since the minerals are still being mined at the same rate at saturation. Just that now u nid more workers to reach saturation cause ur workers waste more time on transportation, making each next drone arrive later than a closer base would allow.
Well this helps to explain some of my success in the game, though it came about in an unintended manner.
Essentially I'm from BW (and enjoy watching BW more than SC2) and I wanted to incorporate Flash's strong 2 base vZ play into my SC2 game. What resulted was strong openings which kept me defended as I rushed to 2 bases, then added lots of production and played the 3rd denial game. This has worked out very well for me and based on your findings it seems like this is a good way to play the game.
Zerg specific but, has anyone ever put thought about making it so Hatcheries decrease actual supply (instead of increasing available space) by X? It would allow Zerg to drone a little more and keep up with T and P in the early game, and also rewards mass expansion in the late game.
One of the best articles I've ever read on Starcraft, Broodwar or otherwise. The last couple of paragraphs are really dead on. Its a shame blizzard balanced their game around maps nobody wanted to play.
I like the idea a posted a little while back of giving zerg an upgrade at either lair or hive tech (My vote is for hive) for 200/200 if not more to change all drones to 0.5 supply, freeing up approximately 30-40 supply for zerg and giving them the option to:
Saturate a 4th (Assuming a decent ~22 drones a base, 44 supply on workers on 4 base vs ~75 drones over 3 bases + more for gas)
On February 12 2011 09:02 Lmui wrote: I like the idea a posted a little while back of giving zerg an upgrade at either lair or hive tech (My vote is for hive) for 200/200 if not more to change all drones to 0.5 supply, freeing up approximately 30-40 supply for zerg and giving them the option to:
Saturate a 4th (Assuming a decent ~22 drones a base, 44 supply on workers on 4 base vs ~75 drones over 3 bases + more for gas)
changing the supply a unit takes or supply max limit is a bad solution the reason this many drones was fine in bw was because they returned 8 not 5, so each worker a) mined more supply effectively and b) paid itself off faster for a less risky investment overall
On February 12 2011 02:23 teemh wrote: Zerg specific but, has anyone ever put thought about making it so Hatcheries decrease actual supply (instead of increasing available space) by X? It would allow Zerg to drone a little more and keep up with T and P in the early game, and also rewards mass expansion in the late game.
Anybody with more rts experience care to take a stab at this idea? Seems interesting, but would need some restrictions possibly.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
Currently for Zerg, balancing aggression is one of the finest lines to the point that it's almost an art. You can't let them get bases, you can't let them get critical mass in Colossi or Void Rays, but you can't overproduce units or engage in bad positions, you have to spread their defenses thin and often use guerrilla warfare to wear down the Protoss and catch them out of position, other times you just have to drill them. Whereas if you increase the cap, that fine line becomes much wider and easier to define. You can secure a much more impressive economic lead, you can just let them take their third while you take your 5th (and actually saturate it), then crush them with a 100 drone economy when they attempt to take their fourth, or once you're maxed, for instance. If Zergs let a Protoss get a 300/300 army they're probably going to lose, but that isn't really much different from how it is now, where the matchup revolves around either not letting them get their maxed army or not letting them get their 3 or 4 bases.
I wonder if putting less mineral patches but making them gold ones at 3rd+ bases could help? That would make it take less workers to saturate but on the other hand mules might be imbalanced....
I just published a map on NA called "LaLush Test Map". It's Shakuras Plateau with some of the ideas from this thread implemented:
Mains and the top middle and bottom middle expansions have 6 mineral patches, with 2 far patches being gold.
All other expos have 5 patches, with 1 far patch being gold.
All bases have only 1 gas geyser with 8 gas per trip. Main base geysers have 3500 gas, all other geysers have 2500 gas.
It plays like a completely different game, and frankly I like it better. There would be tons of balance changes needed however, as the game just isn't balanced around this style of play. It definitely encourages expanding much more often, as the gold patches make it worth having a bunch of under-saturated bases as opposed to 2 or 3 fully saturated.
Play around on it if you guys want, but be warned: THE MULE IS IMBA UNTIL I FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT NOT GET BONUS MINERALS FROM GOLD PATCHES! Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions other than that, gl hf!
edit: the gold patches have 2100 minerals instead of 1500 to mine out at the same rate.
surprised I missed over the thread. Interesting read
Protoss, BW, with 54 workers equally distributed on 6 bases: 18120 minerals over 5 minutes. Terran, BW, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 13200 minerals over 5 minutes.
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
If you present this elsewhere, this above should be a leading point. You don't need to have played brood war to understand how this affects the game. Really I can't come to a good fix to this but hopefully your info will aid someone who can.
Please forgive me for not reading all the comments, so someone might have already posted this.
Do you have another graph that accounts for the minerals each race has invested over time? At the mineral spike for Terran, Protoss will have spent more money on probes which gives Terran an even larger mineral advantage, but I don't know how great that effect is.
On February 10 2011 02:31 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: I've been hoping for a supply cap increase as well, at least to 250. Going back and playing Zerg in Broodwar was a fascinating experience, as the first thing I realized was just how friggin' huge my 200 supply army was. In SC2 I get to 200 supply and I'm like, what? That's it?
Agreed. One of the first things I noticed playing Zerg post 2 food nerf to Roaches was.. Really? this is my 'maxed' army?
Very good thread, I think it needs more attention from blizzard.
The problem with roaches is that they're too good to be 1 food. If you made them range 3 again, maybe, but as is they'd be imbalanced if you took them back to 1 food. They're more like a 1.5 food unit atm, except 1.5 food is obviously impossible.
So the analysis looks at "minerals per worker", but does it include the "Hatchery costs only 300, Nexus / CC 400" doesnt seem to be figured in. Also the need for Terran / Protoss to build more structures than Zerg to build armies from isnt figured in. That is all well, because every game is different and dependant on the builds. Thus the whole "analysis" is moot simply because it doesnt figure in everything that is part of MACRO.
The thread should have been named "Analysis of income" instead of "Analysis of macro" because macro is more than just getting money. It also includes spending the money and there it gets almost impossible to compare. In other words: The thread is useless, because it doesnt say anything conclusive.
On February 12 2011 16:22 Rabiator wrote: So the analysis looks at "minerals per worker", but does it include the "Hatchery costs only 300, Nexus / CC 400" doesnt seem to be figured in. Also the need for Terran / Protoss to build more structures than Zerg to build armies from isnt figured in. That is all well, because every game is different and dependant on the builds. Thus the whole "analysis" is moot simply because it doesnt figure in everything that is part of MACRO.
The thread should have been named "Analysis of income" instead of "Analysis of macro" because macro is more than just getting money. It also includes spending the money and there it gets almost impossible to compare. In other words: The thread is useless, because it doesnt say anything conclusive.
Hatchery costs 350 + the fact that the drone will lose mining time the entire game. I dare say hatcheries are more expensive.
But anyway, this thread is far from useless. It's not about comparing races to eachother, it's about comparing the return of investing in additional bases. Apparently you didn't read it though, just saw the pretty graphs and decided to shit on one of the most informative posts ever to grace TL.
Yeah the thing with Zerg buildings is, they actually never stop costing you money all game long. It's easy to just think of a spine crawler as costing 100 minerals, but in reality you're paying 150 straight up for drone + crawler, then another X minerals per minute for lost mining time.
So suppose workers mine 40 minerals a minute and you build a hatchery, extractor, and pool at the 3 minute mark, then a spine crawler and two extractors at the 5 minute mark, at the 15 minute mark which is getting into late-game you've already lost over 2500 minerals just from those basic early game structures costing a drone to build. And that cost just keeps increasing the more buildings you make, the longer the game lasts. I think the actual mining rate is something like 29 minerals per minute.
On February 12 2011 16:22 Rabiator wrote: So the analysis looks at "minerals per worker", but does it include the "Hatchery costs only 300, Nexus / CC 400" doesnt seem to be figured in. Also the need for Terran / Protoss to build more structures than Zerg to build armies from isnt figured in. That is all well, because every game is different and dependant on the builds. Thus the whole "analysis" is moot simply because it doesnt figure in everything that is part of MACRO.
The thread should have been named "Analysis of income" instead of "Analysis of macro" because macro is more than just getting money. It also includes spending the money and there it gets almost impossible to compare. In other words: The thread is useless, because it doesnt say anything conclusive.
Hatchery costs 350 + the fact that the drone will lose mining time the entire game. I dare say hatcheries are more expensive.
But anyway, this thread is far from useless. It's not about comparing races to eachother, it's about comparing the return of investing in additional bases. Apparently you didn't read it though, just saw the pretty graphs and decided to shit on one of the most informative posts ever to grace TL.
You're not taking into account that a Hatchery = Production. Therefor incomparable(Mothership doesn't count).
On February 12 2011 17:55 Space Invader wrote: Yeah the thing with Zerg buildings is, they actually never stop costing you money all game long. It's easy to just think of a spine crawler as costing 100 minerals, but in reality you're paying 150 straight up for drone + crawler, then another X minerals per minute for lost mining time.
So suppose workers mine 40 minerals a minute and you build a hatchery, extractor, and pool at the 3 minute mark, then a spine crawler and two extractors at the 5 minute mark, at the 15 minute mark which is getting into late-game you've already lost over 2500 minerals just from those basic early game structures costing a drone to build. And that cost just keeps increasing the more buildings you make, the longer the game lasts. I think the actual mining rate is something like 29 minerals per minute.
this logic is terribly flawed. The game is balanced accounting for this fact. I'll feel bad when I dont see zergs with 50 drones at the 6 minute mark like we did in every ZvP at Assembly. One Sv1 is working up a post with some nice infographs if you wanna see whats really plaguing zergs. This original post however, is a really great contribution, and though hes obviously hinting at balance, he sidesteps the argument nicely so I think we should do the same and talk about things like diminishing returns
Is the terran making a 14CC 15Rax or so in those graphs? or like supply/rax? The mule is the same as ~4.5 workers mining time in the end, but would slow them down by 2 workers when it's being upgraded
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
right, but the entire point of that is we aren't talking about the supply being the problem.
the supply isn't the problem.
the theoretical problem is that zerg reaches max saturation too late to abuse his army advantage.
but there is no data in the OP to back up that assumption.
On February 12 2011 12:33 Bowdy wrote: I just published a map on NA called "LaLush Test Map". It's Shakuras Plateau with some of the ideas from this thread implemented:
Mains and the top middle and bottom middle expansions have 6 mineral patches, with 2 far patches being gold.
All other expos have 5 patches, with 1 far patch being gold.
All bases have only 1 gas geyser with 8 gas per trip. Main base geysers have 3500 gas, all other geysers have 2500 gas.
It plays like a completely different game, and frankly I like it better. There would be tons of balance changes needed however, as the game just isn't balanced around this style of play. It definitely encourages expanding much more often, as the gold patches make it worth having a bunch of under-saturated bases as opposed to 2 or 3 fully saturated.
Play around on it if you guys want, but be warned: THE MULE IS IMBA UNTIL I FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT NOT GET BONUS MINERALS FROM GOLD PATCHES! Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions other than that, gl hf!
edit: the gold patches have 2100 minerals instead of 1500 to mine out at the same rate.
While I'm glad you are contributing, whats wrong with just making workers mine longer and have deceleration with 8 minerals per trip (same as BW). The reason worker AI is so good is that the worker returns as soon as a worker leaves a mineral patch. Try extending the time workers mine the patches with delayed return and deceleration, workers will start becoming confused like in BW (I've actually done it, and this is what happened). Then you don't have to change every map.
I mean that's all you have to do and problem solved, there's nothing else you need to do.
The problem is I don't think blizzard really understands the term, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Making these gas restrictions, although might curb the speed at which Protoss gain their death ball, you also make it near impossible for Protoss to come back from a bad position, the race is so limited by gas, it is a bad cycle of all all the Protoss game changers being so gas heavy, whilst gateway units which are light on gas are incredibly inefficient. All other races have very useful efficient units that are low on gas, (Roaches, Marauders, Marines), so much so that to over come them, as Protoss you must tech, gateway just can't compete
in sc2 you need much more workers to mine same resources per second and still same supply cap so we see those games with almost half of supply filled with workers. 300 is too radical tho, 250 is a way to go.
This is one of the most depressing threads on TL, what its basically telling me is that the macro portion of the game in SC2 ends when you get a 3rd base.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
right, but the entire point of that is we aren't talking about the supply being the problem.
the supply isn't the problem.
the theoretical problem is that zerg reaches max saturation too late to abuse his army advantage.
but there is no data in the OP to back up that assumption.
Theres teh data:
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
And theres the analysis of the data:
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
A proper claim that we do not want the zerg gameplay to deteriorate into rushing to 3rd.
On February 12 2011 16:22 Rabiator wrote: So the analysis looks at "minerals per worker", but does it include the "Hatchery costs only 300, Nexus / CC 400" doesnt seem to be figured in. Also the need for Terran / Protoss to build more structures than Zerg to build armies from isnt figured in. That is all well, because every game is different and dependant on the builds. Thus the whole "analysis" is moot simply because it doesnt figure in everything that is part of MACRO.
The thread should have been named "Analysis of income" instead of "Analysis of macro" because macro is more than just getting money. It also includes spending the money and there it gets almost impossible to compare. In other words: The thread is useless, because it doesnt say anything conclusive.
Hatchery costs 350 + the fact that the drone will lose mining time the entire game. I dare say hatcheries are more expensive.
But anyway, this thread is far from useless. It's not about comparing races to eachother, it's about comparing the return of investing in additional bases. Apparently you didn't read it though, just saw the pretty graphs and decided to shit on one of the most informative posts ever to grace TL.
So Lalush didnt try to "compare races"? Why then are the graphs for chrono boost and MULE in there? Even the "long distance mining test" will be heavily affected by the map, so it isnt really conclusive, because natural and main base are more or less distant from each other depending on which map you are using.
Doing an "income analysis" for anything more than the first five minutes is ridiculous, because you will - most likely - be attacked by then. So this is all more or less useless theorycrafting. Any graphs of "income at minute X" is useless simply because the Zerg can not constantly produce drones but have to use some larvae to make fighting units instead.
Lalush tries to make a comparison between races, but that doesnt work, simply because he does make assumptions as well (check the "Chrono Boost and MULE effect over time" graphs). Before doing this the optimal economic strategy for a race needs to be found ... but that depends on your own goal again ... which determines how much gas you want. Curious question: Why didnt Lalush include the "drone production speed" into this comparison? You can get drones out faster than Terrans or Protoss once you reach a certain level. The answer is simple: There are too many factors to keep into account here, but see below ...
In any case I would like to refer you to the paragraph beginning with "Chapter III for this thread ..." to see the intention of the post. He admits that it will / would be a rant and there I have to stop taking the entire thing seriously and switch over to guessing the whole intention as yet another "Terran (MULE) is imba"-Zerg QQ-thread like the . If you do not take the cost for building your army into account - the buildings - you will never ever get a balanced view on "macro", thus all "MULE is IMBA" whining is stupid IMO. Lalush did make a ton of suggestions for "Orbital Command abilities" in his TvZ Balance Suggestions thread, but all of them were more or less directed at nerfing the Terran abilities. So I think Chapter III might be along the same lines with an attempt to use mathematics to prove that "MULE = imba". As usual he doesnt take the cost into account (1) and thus his reasoning is most likely flawed.
(1) If you try to draw conclusions from an analysis like this you must take all relevant factors into account and one of these is "How much does race X need to spend to build a base?". This is usually the thing which every Zerg ignores, but which justifies the existence of the MULE in its current form. A small example: Hatchery cost = 300 minerals + 50 for the drone Nexus cost = 400 minerals (ignoring the mining time for the travel time) CC cost = 400 minerals + lost mining time OC cost = +150 minerals + no SCV production time So tell me which one costs most? Sure the MULE is very efficient once you have the OC, but to get there you need to invest much more than the other two races. Thus expanding costs are higher for the Terran than for the other two races. This must be taken into account in any comparison, but since any "base building" depends heavily on the build you are doing it is close to impossible and we are back at "Lalush's post is pointless".
If you moved the base closer to the mineral patches you could secure earlier saturation and thus expanding would become more important. You could saturate more bases with 70 drones and have more income without cutting back on your army. MULEs had to be nerfed then. You may also need to tweak the amount of harvested minerals a bit.
You've been complaining a lot about this OP but all of your points are just plain wrong:
you are saying that hatcheries and nexuses, which do nothing by themselves, are in any way equivalent to OCs, which provide a mining capacity of 4 SCVs while costing no psy
you are saying that macro mechanics don't matter after the first 5 minutes of the game because players are starting to attack into each other.
you are saying that because long distance mining is dependent on map, people will have nothing to learn of these tests and data.
you are saying that OP is complaining about MULE making terran imba early game, when it's said nothing as such and is only using it as a point to prove that the current macro system discourage heavy expansion play way too much.
So again, read through the op and actually try to learn from it instead of just mindlessly bashing it because it actually tries to talk about MULEs.
On February 13 2011 22:12 decaf wrote: If you moved the base closer to the mineral patches you could secure earlier saturation and thus expanding would become more important. You could saturate more bases with 70 drones and have more income without cutting back on your army. MULEs had to be nerfed then. You may also need to tweak the amount of harvested minerals a bit.
You would definitely need to tweak the amount of harvested minerals, otherwise all the costs and timings would be messed up. However, I think this is a great idea.
I imagine if you moved the base 20% closer and then cut the mineral income from 5 to 4 per trip, without affecting gas, this could be possible. Essentially you'd reach the equivalent of 2 workers per patch saturation as it is now at 1.6 workers per patch. So, your returns begin diminishing at the 13th worker instead of the 16th.
Thus, a 15 nexus or 15 hatch, or even a 14 CC would become more effective. One base builds become less effective, too, because in the current state of the game, a lot of all-ins stop worker production at 20. You would get considerably less income with 20 workers if the saturation is reached 20% faster.
It seem like you ignore the fact that Lalush actually never mention time in his analysis he only mention worker count and minerals per worker. Except for that time when he compared mule and chrono boost said that it was to complex to comapre with zerg since they were to irregular, that comparison was more a example of the mule and chrono boost in use rather than some overwhelming fact (so don't take it as one). However to include every single possible factor that can accure in a game is irrelevant to say the least, the openings and stuff doesn't change the 3 base ceiling effect and it does not change the macro effects like mule/chrono boost/inject larvae, nor does it change the major fact that spreading your workers out to more than 3 bases does not aid your mineral income (reason the ceiling effect exist). The last statement implies that you can't fight a 3 basing player with minerals you have to fight him with gas (unless you build like 100+ drones which greatly decrease you army capability which is probably the main reason for a 300 food cap, eventhough this could be prevented with deaccelarion or numbr of mineral patches or something else).
This is greatly benefitting for turteling strategies as terran mech and protoss death ball, zerg do not benefit as much of this because even blizzard thinks zerg should be the expanders that take bases and get map control. Which is totally useless if you can't benefit from expanding exept for gas.
Moreover you seem to neglect the cost yourself because the first orbital doesn't cost 550 minerals as you seem to suggest. It only cost 150 minerals after you made your barracks. And queens cost 150 minerals after you get your pool which cost more than a barracks + you have to sacrifice a drone to build the pool. Besides you neglect the queen (or the hatch is pretty useless) for the new hatch the cost should be 500+(50 if you want to replace the drone you lost).
The main problem here is that all the reasoning and qq'ing you have against lalush post are not valid since lalush never seem to argue that mule is imba. And to refer to another topic is not to answer questions you have on this topic. Do you mean he is biased? Well, after reading your posts you seem to be more biased than him.
ppdealer: while you are correct that the post you are commenting on ignores the possible benefit of the OC, you are also ignoring the benefit of the hatch. Simply put your hatch is your production facility. A terran or a protoss spends a decent amount of money on expanding his production facilities, a zerg can in theory use all that money to create expansions. (Obviously in practice they can't since you need to secure those expansions as well). But saying an expansion costs 350 for zerg and 550 for terran is still only half of the equation.
In a typical two base situation a terran will build 4 barracks (with addons) 2 factories and 1 starport and 1 Command center to build the expansion. A Zerg at the same time will usually build: 2 hatches (1 indoor simply for production) 1 pool, 1 roach warren (not strictly necessary but lets include it anyway), 1 upgrade to lair, 1 baneling nest and 1 spire. if you count the costs that comes out about even. So 2base vs 2base things are pretty equal. But if you go up to 4 base as zerg your production increases and the cost for your infrastructure stays pretty much even. Whereas terran if he wants to have 3 bases mining fully needs to expand his production facilities by at least 3 more buildings in addition to the OCs.
Frankly i disagree with lalush's post because he focuses solely on crystal as a ressource. When i play Terran or Zerg the ressources limiting me are Gas, production facilities and larvae. Not crystals. As a zerg player you can dump your excess crystal into zerglings IF you have the larvae to build them, but let's be honest past the midgame a zergling swarm doesn't really help much. You need gas units (at least baneling/roaches, preferrebly more tech). As a Terran you have a nice mineral dump in the marine, but marines die like flies once the zerg tech units arrive on the battlefield (speed banes, infestors mostly) and you need to build a Ton of barracks to keep producing marines in sufficient numbers to dump your minerals.
The only point i find very strange about the mule is it's endgame potential. Once you reach 5 OCs you can basically pull all SCVs off minerals and use them to mine gas / suicide them to free supply. At that point the mule outshines chronoboost by a lot, but on the flipside at that stage of the game the Zerg larva mechanic also outshines the Terran/protoss production mechanics by a lot.
Man, great post. You should be in a Blizzard Starcraft think tank, ha, no lies. I think a lot of people have had suspicions about the starcraft 2 economy(differences compared to brood war initially and then just understanding it better on its own) but in a very general sense, and only how it directly relates to current builds/strategy: Protoss 4 wg rushes being strong for toss, defensive reactive play while doing whatever you can to develop an economic advantage for zerg, and for terran I might just say the mule is a very interesting phenomenon indeed. All in all you seem to have really painted a very complete picture. I really think you are on to something, and I hope this thread continues on and ideas get further refined and some truly productive thought is offered. My humble attempts only seem to shoot down current radical ideas about changing starcraft 2:
1. I think 300 suppply is terrible idea, as I saw briefly from an earlier post. Performance issues will be a nigthmare.
2. Adjust the supply cost of collector units? 1/2 supply or No supply at all? Better than a 300 supply fix imo but flawed nevertheless. Powerdroning zergs would run rampant methinks. Drastic balancing of zerg would be needed. Terran would be most adversly affected here.
3. Larger maps? Again I think this causes more problems than it fixes. In one swipe you eliminate completely certain "all ins". But not all.....one thing comes to mind, proxy pylons make sure units are always in your face very quickly, no matter the rush distance. Also I am afraid these games will be very ugly/stale/turtling fests. I can imagine watching a Z v T, where zerg just suicides wave after wave of units, streaming in off 3 base 5 hatch and slowly evolve into a mode of getting 100+ drones, mining out the map, and winning a civil war style war of attrition? Comical? Yes. Entertaining? Not if you are the Terran. Confusing? Clearly.
I think the answer to a better Starcraft 2 does have very much to do with its economy at its core. The one simple question I can think of that needs to be addressed, and if I wasn't so lazy I'd do the study myself, is this. Why is it so easy to reach supply cap in starcraft 2 as opposed to starcraft bw? The maps were larger is bw, doesn't this seem counter-intuitive? Perhaps the simple answer is there are too many macro crutches in Starcraft 2(spawn larvae, chronoboost, mules, automine, group select structures). If that is the case then unfortunately I think a seemingly important question is daft, after all.
I think the real problem is that players aren't rewarded for expanding in SC2. In BW expanding with 20 workers benefits you. It isn't a crazy benefit, but you do see an increase in your overall mining efficiency that is significant. In SC2 you don't actually benefit from an expo until you've saturated all of the bases that come before it.
Basically, BW rewards you for expanding, SC2 rewards you for saturating bases.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
right, but the entire point of that is we aren't talking about the supply being the problem.
the supply isn't the problem.
the theoretical problem is that zerg reaches max saturation too late to abuse his army advantage.
but there is no data in the OP to back up that assumption.
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
A proper claim that we do not want the zerg gameplay to deteriorate into rushing to 3rd.
300 supply is just an offered solution.
if i use 40 workers as the benchmark and compare 2 bases with 3 you'd probably see the same results, then clearly that third base isn't worth getting.
what you see is a snapshot that does not take into account the production ability of zerg larva inject. when have you ever seen a zerg have the same amount of workers as a terran or protoss in the early or midgame? it almost never happens. his so called analysis is a giant assumption based off cherry picked data. zerg will always technically be "rushing" to secure the macro advantage as soon as possible, that's the entire point. all the adverbs dropped in there are signs of clear bias (recklessly, stupidly, foolishly).
on top of that, all these conclusions are made without ever showing zerg worker production side by side with terran and protoss which is the one point his entire argument draws from.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
right, but the entire point of that is we aren't talking about the supply being the problem.
the supply isn't the problem.
the theoretical problem is that zerg reaches max saturation too late to abuse his army advantage.
but there is no data in the OP to back up that assumption.
Theres teh data:
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
And theres the analysis of the data:
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
A proper claim that we do not want the zerg gameplay to deteriorate into rushing to 3rd.
300 supply is just an offered solution.
if i use 40 workers as the benchmark and compare 2 bases with 3 you'd probably see the same results, then clearly that third base isn't worth getting.
what you see is a snapshot that does not take into account the production ability of zerg larva inject. when have you ever seen a zerg have the same amount of workers as a terran or protoss in the early or midgame? it almost never happens. his so called analysis is a giant assumption based off cherry picked data. zerg will always technically be "rushing" to secure the macro advantage as soon as possible, that's the entire point. all the adverbs dropped in there are signs of clear bias (recklessly, stupidly, foolishly).
on top of that, all these conclusions are made without ever showing zerg worker production side by side with terran and protoss which is the one point his entire argument draws from.
sorry you did not get it. droning more than a P or T always creates a weakness in army. the strength of Z was in BW having more or less equal amount of workers,but being on more bases (better mining efficiency). this is not rewarded that much in SC2. Also it is not possible to get a reasonable advantage beyond 3 bases (supply cap), so there is a small timing window where the Z can take a notable advantage of spawn larvae, because with > 80 workers there is not enough supply for army units.
Conclusions for Z: better deny 3rd instead of trying to outmacro by taking a 4th. Attack when on 2 bases ~saturated (window of macro advantage lasts til 4th).
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
right, but the entire point of that is we aren't talking about the supply being the problem.
the supply isn't the problem.
the theoretical problem is that zerg reaches max saturation too late to abuse his army advantage.
but there is no data in the OP to back up that assumption.
Theres teh data:
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
And theres the analysis of the data:
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
A proper claim that we do not want the zerg gameplay to deteriorate into rushing to 3rd.
300 supply is just an offered solution.
if i use 40 workers as the benchmark and compare 2 bases with 3 you'd probably see the same results, then clearly that third base isn't worth getting.
what you see is a snapshot that does not take into account the production ability of zerg larva inject. when have you ever seen a zerg have the same amount of workers as a terran or protoss in the early or midgame? it almost never happens. his so called analysis is a giant assumption based off cherry picked data. zerg will always technically be "rushing" to secure the macro advantage as soon as possible, that's the entire point. all the adverbs dropped in there are signs of clear bias (recklessly, stupidly, foolishly).
on top of that, all these conclusions are made without ever showing zerg worker production side by side with terran and protoss which is the one point his entire argument draws from.
sorry you did not get it. droning more than a P or T always creates a weakness in army. the strength of Z was in BW having more or less equal amount of workers,but being on more bases (better mining efficiency). this is not rewarded that much in SC2. Also it is not possible to get a reasonable advantage beyond 3 bases (supply cap), so there is a small timing window where the Z can take a notable advantage of spawn larvae, because with > 80 workers there is not enough supply for army units.
Conclusions for Z: better deny 3rd instead of trying to outmacro by taking a 4th. Attack when on 2 bases ~saturated (window of macro advantage lasts til 4th).
ok but this isn't bw. if spawn larva were in bw or sc2 had bw mining mechanics zerg would be ridiculously strong. point being, the emphasis of a stronger economy has shifted from having more bases to having better saturation. this, in and of itself, doesn't really cause balance issues.
the 200 supply cap doesn't affect anything, it's an external factor that people are blaming rather than the fundamental issue, which is time to saturation.
if a zerg is on 3 base with a max army of 125 and a protoss is on 2 base with a max army of 150, if both max at the same time, then zerg is at a disadvantage. as others have pointed out, however, zergs do not saturate and produce at the same rate of other races, so the issue is not supply, the issue is whether zerg is able to take advantage of their window of opportunity where they have an economic and army size advantage.
if your fundamental issue is with the way mining efficiency works, an increased supply cap to 300 does nothing for you.
Great (if depressing) OP. Explains a lot about the early PvZ and TvZ attack timings being so successful (one base really doesn't differ much from two bases), as well as how quickly a macro lead can vanish (once T or P gets on 3 bases, zerg can have the whole map and it just doesn't matter).
And we're already seeing Protoss move straight to this; PvZ 'macro' games are almost exclusively lingspeed vs sentry expand, stalker/immortal or stalker/voidray versus early roach/hydra threat. Success for Zerg hinges on denying Protoss third, or the maxed on roach/hydra/corruptor against maxed collosus/stalker/void ray loses badly, and the economies are essentially identical no matter the number of bases zerg might have taken.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
right, but the entire point of that is we aren't talking about the supply being the problem.
the supply isn't the problem.
the theoretical problem is that zerg reaches max saturation too late to abuse his army advantage.
but there is no data in the OP to back up that assumption.
Theres teh data:
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
And theres the analysis of the data:
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
A proper claim that we do not want the zerg gameplay to deteriorate into rushing to 3rd.
300 supply is just an offered solution.
if i use 40 workers as the benchmark and compare 2 bases with 3 you'd probably see the same results, then clearly that third base isn't worth getting.
what you see is a snapshot that does not take into account the production ability of zerg larva inject. when have you ever seen a zerg have the same amount of workers as a terran or protoss in the early or midgame? it almost never happens. his so called analysis is a giant assumption based off cherry picked data. zerg will always technically be "rushing" to secure the macro advantage as soon as possible, that's the entire point. all the adverbs dropped in there are signs of clear bias (recklessly, stupidly, foolishly).
on top of that, all these conclusions are made without ever showing zerg worker production side by side with terran and protoss which is the one point his entire argument draws from.
sorry you did not get it. droning more than a P or T always creates a weakness in army. the strength of Z was in BW having more or less equal amount of workers,but being on more bases (better mining efficiency). this is not rewarded that much in SC2. Also it is not possible to get a reasonable advantage beyond 3 bases (supply cap), so there is a small timing window where the Z can take a notable advantage of spawn larvae, because with > 80 workers there is not enough supply for army units.
Conclusions for Z: better deny 3rd instead of trying to outmacro by taking a 4th. Attack when on 2 bases ~saturated (window of macro advantage lasts til 4th).
ok but this isn't bw. if spawn larva were in bw or sc2 had bw mining mechanics zerg would be ridiculously strong. point being, the emphasis of a stronger economy has shifted from having more bases to having better saturation. this, in and of itself, doesn't really cause balance issues.
the 200 supply cap doesn't affect anything, it's an external factor that people are blaming rather than the fundamental issue, which is time to saturation.
if a zerg is on 3 base with a max army of 125 and a protoss is on 2 base with a max army of 150, if both max at the same time, then zerg is at a disadvantage. as others have pointed out, however, zergs do not saturate and produce at the same rate of other races, so the issue is not supply, the issue is whether zerg is able to take advantage of their window of opportunity where they have an economic and army size advantage.
if your fundamental issue is with the way mining efficiency works, an increased supply cap to 300 does nothing for you.
agree with shift to saturation instead of # expansions. But this means, the macro advantage of Z is for a limited time, because of supply cap. In mid to late game, Z will have no macro advantage anymore, so inject larva is not that useful, because income and supply are the limiting factors then, not production. I think SC2 is not designed for huge 4+ bases games, so i concentrate on deciding the game latest when having 3 bases saturated. Increasing the supply cap would allow the Z to be ahead in macro for a longer time, dunno if this would make Z OP then .. I think supply cap should depend on map size or # of expansioins. I think increasing roach supply from 1 to 2 in beta somewhat broke ZvP endgame. Additionally i think mule is way too strong, maybe a mule should require supply, currently a T can have a huge army *and* superior macro in end game. This would be a change affecting end game, not early/mid game of T. However i am not at a level to really judge the effects of this. Personally the game feels pretty balanced, however looking at recent tourneys it seems there are some issues at pro level ..
On February 14 2011 07:13 Novembermike wrote: Basically, BW rewards you for expanding, SC2 rewards you for saturating bases.
This is the most important part of the data, and it's also the only thing that the data shows clearly. It's actually depressing that this shift in reward exists, because it really trivializes additional bases more than you realize while playing.
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
right, but the entire point of that is we aren't talking about the supply being the problem.
the supply isn't the problem.
the theoretical problem is that zerg reaches max saturation too late to abuse his army advantage.
but there is no data in the OP to back up that assumption.
Theres teh data:
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
And theres the analysis of the data:
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
A proper claim that we do not want the zerg gameplay to deteriorate into rushing to 3rd.
300 supply is just an offered solution.
if i use 40 workers as the benchmark and compare 2 bases with 3 you'd probably see the same results, then clearly that third base isn't worth getting.
what you see is a snapshot that does not take into account the production ability of zerg larva inject. when have you ever seen a zerg have the same amount of workers as a terran or protoss in the early or midgame? it almost never happens. his so called analysis is a giant assumption based off cherry picked data. zerg will always technically be "rushing" to secure the macro advantage as soon as possible, that's the entire point. all the adverbs dropped in there are signs of clear bias (recklessly, stupidly, foolishly).
on top of that, all these conclusions are made without ever showing zerg worker production side by side with terran and protoss which is the one point his entire argument draws from.
sorry you did not get it. droning more than a P or T always creates a weakness in army. the strength of Z was in BW having more or less equal amount of workers,but being on more bases (better mining efficiency). this is not rewarded that much in SC2. Also it is not possible to get a reasonable advantage beyond 3 bases (supply cap), so there is a small timing window where the Z can take a notable advantage of spawn larvae, because with > 80 workers there is not enough supply for army units.
Conclusions for Z: better deny 3rd instead of trying to outmacro by taking a 4th. Attack when on 2 bases ~saturated (window of macro advantage lasts til 4th).
ok but this isn't bw. if spawn larva were in bw or sc2 had bw mining mechanics zerg would be ridiculously strong. point being, the emphasis of a stronger economy has shifted from having more bases to having better saturation. this, in and of itself, doesn't really cause balance issues.
the 200 supply cap doesn't affect anything, it's an external factor that people are blaming rather than the fundamental issue, which is time to saturation.
if a zerg is on 3 base with a max army of 125 and a protoss is on 2 base with a max army of 150, if both max at the same time, then zerg is at a disadvantage. as others have pointed out, however, zergs do not saturate and produce at the same rate of other races, so the issue is not supply, the issue is whether zerg is able to take advantage of their window of opportunity where they have an economic and army size advantage.
if your fundamental issue is with the way mining efficiency works, an increased supply cap to 300 does nothing for you.
agree with shift to saturation instead of # expansions. But this means, the macro advantage of Z is for a limited time, because of supply cap. In mid to late game, Z will have no macro advantage anymore, so inject larva is not that useful, because income and supply are the limiting factors then, not production. I think SC2 is not designed for huge 4+ bases games, so i concentrate on deciding the game latest when having 3 bases saturated.
i can agree with most of this, but the problem with this, then, is that the OP does not demonstrate that zerg has a hard time securing an advantage on 3 base.
people are looking at this far too objectively, for lack of a better word. zerg doesn't NEED a 4th base to compete as long as the relative advantage is there with their 3rd base. even in bw at some point extra bases didn't really give that much return but it was considered that 4 base basically meant end game because that was the point where zerg had the largest advantage vs number of bases.
On February 14 2011 07:13 Novembermike wrote: Basically, BW rewards you for expanding, SC2 rewards you for saturating bases.
This is the most important part of the data, and it's also the only thing that the data shows clearly. It's actually depressing that this shift in reward exists, because it really trivializes additional bases more than you realize while playing.
yep. this is the only part that really matters.
this can cause huge problems in the future and is not good for the gameplay. look at the gsl maps. how can you do a macro map thats balanced when just taking your nat and 3rd is all you need. guess people and esp P will just sit on their bases,turtle and then do one big deathball push once they hit 200/200.
On February 12 2011 12:33 Bowdy wrote: I just published a map on NA called "LaLush Test Map". It's Shakuras Plateau with some of the ideas from this thread implemented:
Mains and the top middle and bottom middle expansions have 6 mineral patches, with 2 far patches being gold.
All other expos have 5 patches, with 1 far patch being gold.
All bases have only 1 gas geyser with 8 gas per trip. Main base geysers have 3500 gas, all other geysers have 2500 gas.
It plays like a completely different game, and frankly I like it better. There would be tons of balance changes needed however, as the game just isn't balanced around this style of play. It definitely encourages expanding much more often, as the gold patches make it worth having a bunch of under-saturated bases as opposed to 2 or 3 fully saturated.
Play around on it if you guys want, but be warned: THE MULE IS IMBA UNTIL I FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT NOT GET BONUS MINERALS FROM GOLD PATCHES! Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions other than that, gl hf!
edit: the gold patches have 2100 minerals instead of 1500 to mine out at the same rate.
This is a really interesting idea. Did anything ever come of this? Any more games played on it?
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here.
mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands.
i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you?
The effect of a 300 cap would more likely be that the current 3-4 base max army would be almost entirely irrelevant. Due to Zergs maxing out much faster than Terran or Protoss, a Zerg could attain a 300 supply army at approximately the same time a Protoss reached a 200 food army, if not sooner. And at that point a Zerg would just crush the Protoss. One major problem for Zergs at the moment is that they reach the 200 cap and they're forced to be aggressive because that point the Protoss is normally at around 150-160 supply and on 3 bases. This ~30 food advantage in army isn't nearly enough to crack a turtling player given how efficient their units are so the P is able to just defend until it reaches the 'invincible army'.
right, but the entire point of that is we aren't talking about the supply being the problem.
the supply isn't the problem.
the theoretical problem is that zerg reaches max saturation too late to abuse his army advantage.
but there is no data in the OP to back up that assumption.
Theres teh data:
Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes.
And theres the analysis of the data:
Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
A proper claim that we do not want the zerg gameplay to deteriorate into rushing to 3rd.
300 supply is just an offered solution.
if i use 40 workers as the benchmark and compare 2 bases with 3 you'd probably see the same results, then clearly that third base isn't worth getting.
what you see is a snapshot that does not take into account the production ability of zerg larva inject. when have you ever seen a zerg have the same amount of workers as a terran or protoss in the early or midgame? it almost never happens. his so called analysis is a giant assumption based off cherry picked data. zerg will always technically be "rushing" to secure the macro advantage as soon as possible, that's the entire point. all the adverbs dropped in there are signs of clear bias (recklessly, stupidly, foolishly).
on top of that, all these conclusions are made without ever showing zerg worker production side by side with terran and protoss which is the one point his entire argument draws from.
sorry you did not get it. droning more than a P or T always creates a weakness in army. the strength of Z was in BW having more or less equal amount of workers,but being on more bases (better mining efficiency). this is not rewarded that much in SC2. Also it is not possible to get a reasonable advantage beyond 3 bases (supply cap), so there is a small timing window where the Z can take a notable advantage of spawn larvae, because with > 80 workers there is not enough supply for army units.
Conclusions for Z: better deny 3rd instead of trying to outmacro by taking a 4th. Attack when on 2 bases ~saturated (window of macro advantage lasts til 4th).
ok but this isn't bw. if spawn larva were in bw or sc2 had bw mining mechanics zerg would be ridiculously strong. point being, the emphasis of a stronger economy has shifted from having more bases to having better saturation. this, in and of itself, doesn't really cause balance issues.
the 200 supply cap doesn't affect anything, it's an external factor that people are blaming rather than the fundamental issue, which is time to saturation.
if a zerg is on 3 base with a max army of 125 and a protoss is on 2 base with a max army of 150, if both max at the same time, then zerg is at a disadvantage. as others have pointed out, however, zergs do not saturate and produce at the same rate of other races, so the issue is not supply, the issue is whether zerg is able to take advantage of their window of opportunity where they have an economic and army size advantage.
if your fundamental issue is with the way mining efficiency works, an increased supply cap to 300 does nothing for you.
I agree that there is no objectiv explanation on why zerg is or is not weak because of the maccro mechanics. But I think you are focussing too much on "balance or not" and not on the game. What is clear in this situation is that SC2 has lost a dimension if you compare it to SC1. Expanding is not rewarding, so it's obvious that zerg's playstyle is the most frustrated in this situation. It is fairly easy to secure 3 bases and sature them as zerg considering how the game is build at the moment. With 2 hatch and queens your can easily build 10 drone in a row saturation in this situation is easy. However, against an opponent who turtle and actually get his third (don't tell me it's hard), what can you do ? That's a pitty that you will instantly be in the lead (economically) or on even ground as a protoss for exemple, even if your opponent has 4+ expand. Look at Morrow vs Socke on lost temple during assembly I think it's a perfect exemple on why something should be done. Socke making so many photon cannon because he knows he only need 3 bases (with gold), while Morrow has complete map control. Sure morrow won, the game is fairly balance in my opinion, but against such turtle play, zerg should not be forced to attack, expanding and taking map control should also be another way to counter this kind of play, especially considering how it is easy for zergs to do so. With this said, it's pretty obvious that a 300 supply can be a good idea, even if it's not my opinion because it will fuck up so many things. Having gold minerals in the middle of every mineral line is not a good idea either in my opinion because it will change so much the early game (just like having a 0,5 supply drone). The only "good" counter to this should be to reduce the number of mineral patches on expands and maybe bring back the 8 gaz trip.
On February 10 2011 19:39 mahnini wrote: if i'm not mistaken your issue is with the fact that extra bases do not pay off until you are supersaturated and therefore early expansions do not pay off right away. i believe this to be a valid concern, however, you extrapolate on these ideas and conclude that
Zerg’s play will be centered around saturating 3 bases as quickly as possible and launching suicide attacks at the opponents’ thirds. Protoss’ play will be centered around camping and delaying until they’ve reached their invincible end game composition on 3+ bases. Terran’s play will… no idea.
this statement is made with the only backing being that at a certain supply all mining equalizes without regard for the time it takes to reach that supply. while it may be true that the most logical cutoff for obtaining extra bases stops at 3 due to supply constraints when fully saturated, this is done without the consideration of time to saturation. this is easily overlooked because of the omission of zerg mining data.
the idea that zerg is required to rush to saturate 3 bases completely discounts zerg's additional production capability (aka the queen) which is obtained faster (build time-wise) and for less minerals (which also means faster game-time-wise) than extra hatcheries. a hatchery + queen spawns as much larva as 2.27 hatcheries (assuming you are constantly respawning larva from the hatchery + inject).
the only comparison between bw and sc2 time to saturate is seen here
in this graph we do not see the effect of chronoboost on saturation time, instead, we see data points of isolated mining per five minutes which, to a great extent, accentuates the midgame mining discrepancy. for example, if you're driving at 1MPH and i drive at 2MPH and we both do this for 10 hours, at the end i have a 10 mile lead; however, if we only drive for 0.1 hours i only end up with a 0.1 mile lead. this seems really stupid but it makes a big difference when the end quantity is more important than the rate because there is a threshold of usefulness. 1 mineral per second is completely negligible over 17 seconds compared to over 300 seconds; at the end of your so called midgame mineral discrepancy you probably end up with less of a difference in net minerals than you'd think.
you also base your final conclusion that protoss will dominate on the 3 base limit, however, in a late-game situation, with the rate at which bases seem to mine out, i believe army production capability to be a much larger problem. due to new macro mechanics such as larva inject, chronoboost, and warp gates, much of the time-cost required to reinforce is moved to before the actual production (stockpiling larva, stockpiling chronoboost, and warpgates in general) and in late-game engagements it's usually a contest of who has the most durable army and who can reinforce the fastest, but when one race has both attributes then there is a (superficial) problem.
Although I didn't word it as clearly as you did, I think the paragraph you quoted implies what you imply about "time to saturation". There would be no point for zerg to rush to 3 bases if they saturated at the same rates as the other races -- or if their armies were as durable.
With that said, I actually agree with you that the effects of mineral surplus surges are somewhat exaggerated by my graphs, but I still believe they pose a problem and influence the way the game is played out on different sized maps though.
The reason Terran have been so stable and dominant on the Blizzard maps is exactly because of the fact that they have been able to negate the "time to saturation" issue by putting pressure and forcing the same amount of bases for as long as possible. They have been able to force "mining to be equalized" throughout games.
Furthermore, the issue you brought up about the races' different production rates can be used as an argument to explain why Terran will have a particularly hard time attacking across the new GSL maps. I believe that army durability will be the greatest deciding factor on the new big maps because races will have a much harder time killing eachother off. Mining will eventually equalize after which point there will be 1 attempt to break the more durable opponent through "quick" cross map reinforcements. After that you will no longer have a bulk of excess minerals to reinforce with a higher supply army due to better macro.
The issue of reinforcement rates and production capability that you bring up, I believe to play a bigger role on smaller Blizzard sized maps as opposed to large ones. On large maps from wat I've experienced and seen so far, production capability seems most pronounced in a defensive capacity as opposed to an offensive one (except possibly for Protoss). I think zergs in ZvP will be able to defend pushes galantly in a cost inefficient manner. But then attack across the map and kill P? No.
Next clash will probably be when protoss reaches 200/200 again, at which point there will be no bulk of excess minerals to abuse for a higher production rate.
That's why I think the 3base ceiling will force gameplay into the mould I described. Mining rate equalization will be a big problem on large maps.
If the game is going to be balanced for large maps and for a 300 supply cap, I think the right way to go is to make macro mechanics and especially the larva inject scale up through tiers and possibly through upgrades so a part of that "time to saturation" problem you mention gets addressed. Also the cap for amount of larva one single hatchery can hold lategame should probably be lowered.
But I think Blizzard will stick to the current design of the game, so no point in discussing any such changes. I guess we'll have to see how these large maps play out before making too many outrageous claims.
On February 12 2011 12:33 Bowdy wrote: I just published a map on NA called "LaLush Test Map". It's Shakuras Plateau with some of the ideas from this thread implemented:
Mains and the top middle and bottom middle expansions have 6 mineral patches, with 2 far patches being gold.
All other expos have 5 patches, with 1 far patch being gold.
All bases have only 1 gas geyser with 8 gas per trip. Main base geysers have 3500 gas, all other geysers have 2500 gas.
It plays like a completely different game, and frankly I like it better. There would be tons of balance changes needed however, as the game just isn't balanced around this style of play. It definitely encourages expanding much more often, as the gold patches make it worth having a bunch of under-saturated bases as opposed to 2 or 3 fully saturated.
Play around on it if you guys want, but be warned: THE MULE IS IMBA UNTIL I FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT NOT GET BONUS MINERALS FROM GOLD PATCHES! Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions other than that, gl hf!
edit: the gold patches have 2100 minerals instead of 1500 to mine out at the same rate.
This is a really interesting idea. Did anything ever come of this? Any more games played on it?
Yeah some teammates played a bunch of games on it. End result is basically the games are a ton of fun but theres some serious balance issues, notably in the early game (which therefore extend a large lead going to the mid/late game)
On February 12 2011 12:33 Bowdy wrote: I just published a map on NA called "LaLush Test Map". It's Shakuras Plateau with some of the ideas from this thread implemented:
Mains and the top middle and bottom middle expansions have 6 mineral patches, with 2 far patches being gold.
All other expos have 5 patches, with 1 far patch being gold.
All bases have only 1 gas geyser with 8 gas per trip. Main base geysers have 3500 gas, all other geysers have 2500 gas.
It plays like a completely different game, and frankly I like it better. There would be tons of balance changes needed however, as the game just isn't balanced around this style of play. It definitely encourages expanding much more often, as the gold patches make it worth having a bunch of under-saturated bases as opposed to 2 or 3 fully saturated.
Play around on it if you guys want, but be warned: THE MULE IS IMBA UNTIL I FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT NOT GET BONUS MINERALS FROM GOLD PATCHES! Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions other than that, gl hf!
edit: the gold patches have 2100 minerals instead of 1500 to mine out at the same rate.
This is a really interesting idea. Did anything ever come of this? Any more games played on it?
Yeah some teammates played a bunch of games on it. End result is basically the games are a ton of fun but theres some serious balance issues, notably in the early game (which therefore extend a large lead going to the mid/late game)
What kind of balance issues are we talking about? Would there be ways to modify maps to keep the same spirit while reducing the imbalance present in the early game, or is it something that would require Blizzard to patch?
On February 12 2011 12:33 Bowdy wrote: I just published a map on NA called "LaLush Test Map". It's Shakuras Plateau with some of the ideas from this thread implemented:
Mains and the top middle and bottom middle expansions have 6 mineral patches, with 2 far patches being gold.
All other expos have 5 patches, with 1 far patch being gold.
All bases have only 1 gas geyser with 8 gas per trip. Main base geysers have 3500 gas, all other geysers have 2500 gas.
It plays like a completely different game, and frankly I like it better. There would be tons of balance changes needed however, as the game just isn't balanced around this style of play. It definitely encourages expanding much more often, as the gold patches make it worth having a bunch of under-saturated bases as opposed to 2 or 3 fully saturated.
Play around on it if you guys want, but be warned: THE MULE IS IMBA UNTIL I FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT NOT GET BONUS MINERALS FROM GOLD PATCHES! Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions other than that, gl hf!
edit: the gold patches have 2100 minerals instead of 1500 to mine out at the same rate.
This is a really interesting idea. Did anything ever come of this? Any more games played on it?
Yeah some teammates played a bunch of games on it. End result is basically the games are a ton of fun but theres some serious balance issues, notably in the early game (which therefore extend a large lead going to the mid/late game)
Great to hear people trying experiments like this. I'd be interested to know how it would play out with say 7 mineral patches and 2 geysers on all bases/expos. That might not mess with balance too much, but still promote expansions. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to do some playtesting.
Forgive me for not fully reading all 20 pages. After skimming the first 10, I saw only one post that commented on the most effective tweak we could use. This is an outline of that solution, which I believe is the strongest change we can make from the standpoint of map design. Altering core game mechanics is off limits.
Perceived problem: Expanding is less important than saturation, so getting more than 3 bases brings little reward. Moderate worker count is functionally the same on one mineral line compared to split amongst two or more mineral lines.
Direct solution plan: Can you construct a variation of the mineral line such that saturation is less rewarding compared to expanding?
First, the number of mineral patches can be reduced, capping the bases' mineral income at a lower level, forcing players to expand. This only requires a faster expansion; it doesn't directly do anything about saturation>expo. Indeed, you can saturate faster, which might encourage more all-in play.
Second, you can decrease the capacity of some or all mineral patches. Generally, this would have a delayed adverse consequence to the same effect as the first option. The base will be mined out sooner, prompting a player to expand. Again, this does nothing to directly address saturation>expo, and again, this would likely encourage all-in play. It would take a 5+ minutes horizon of planning to incorporate saturation choices on a low capacity main base, and even natural. The third base seems like the first opportunity to use this without strongly promoting all-ins. (As seen on Tal'Darim Altar.)
Third, you can use mixed-in gold patches to incentivize expansions. This has a major pitfall in terran imbalance with the mule. The only way to offset this without changing the game mechanics is to put the gold patch farther away, giving less mining trips per mule. Is it possible to provide a gold patch close enough that it is more valuable than a normal distance blue patch, but which mitigates the mule? I will update with testing numbers and/or math.
Fourth, the best option. You can place mineral patches farther away. If you moved all patches further away, the effect would be to require more workers before full saturation, and an overall decreased rate of income. This is not what we want, exactly. In fact, this is an analogue of having more mineral patches (with less minerals returned per trip), which just favors saturation. What we want to do is place some patches at a standard distance and some far away, requiring 4 or 5 workers for full saturation. This would give you an income graph resembling the BW graphs. If you have N close patches, building workers past 2N yields lower income gains per worker, and you would require more workers total to be fully saturated. An expansion would provide you with more close patches to put your workers to better use, rebalancing expo vs saturation. This is a less drastic, finer-grained version of incentivizing with gold patches, and I think it supercedes the gold option.
This earlier post includes diagrams of these options, and was the only one I saw that discussed what I have listed as the fourth and best option.
This "solution" does affect the later stages of 1- and 2-base play quite a bit. I assume it would require significant readjustment in build orders and the general flow of the game. Regardless, it would certainly promote expansions beyond a 3rd base.
Comments on BW vs SC2: As a point of clarification, I want to discuss the underlying mechanics of this "solution" in relation to BW. Whatthefat's diagram shows a BW mineral line, which was generally straight and tangent, not concave. If you stacked up 8 patches in a roughly straight tangent line in SC2, the difference would be negligible. The actual increase in trip time is not much at all. In fact, lots of maps have slightly suboptimal minerals that illustrate this, like Desert Oasis. For one, SC2 CCs have an edge that's 5 squares long, so transverse distance doesn't increase the diagonal as much as in BW. However, the main factor is worker AI. Workers pair up relatively efficiently in SC2, and they bounce a lot more even in earlier stages of saturation in BW. This multiplied the travel times in BW, whereas the small trip increases are still small in SC2. Because of this, the staggered patch distances have to be exaggerated in SC2 to achieve an appreciable effect; you can't just use a straight tangent line. The best shape would be a highly exaggerated concave (with a deep pocket in the center) or a convex arc with distant edge patches.
I will try to do some testing for specific recommendations of mineral line arrangements. And I will get some pictures to help those who don't like concise prose exposition.
tl;dr can burn in hell, but: use some close patches and some far patches to simulate BW saturation.
@Bowdy, Whatthefat, other interested parties: I'm going to make a post in whatthefat's thread in Custom Maps to gather test maps and people to play them.
a lot of people here suggest maybe raising supply cap. i just wanted to ask what if they decreased the supply of the roach or hydra or whatever. i know its not well thought out but instead of just raising the cap i wonder what will decrease supply value of certain zerg units will do.
On February 15 2011 06:34 EatThePath wrote: Forgive me for not fully reading all 20 pages. After skimming the first 10, I saw only one post that commented on the most effective tweak we could use. This is an outline of that solution, which I believe is the strongest change we can make from the standpoint of map design. Altering core game mechanics is off limits.
Perceived problem: Expanding is less important than saturation, so getting more than 3 bases brings little reward. Moderate worker count is functionally the same on one mineral line compared to split amongst two or more mineral lines.
Direct solution plan: Can you construct a variation of the mineral line such that saturation is less rewarding compared to expanding?
First, the number of mineral patches can be reduced, capping the bases' mineral income at a lower level, forcing players to expand. This only requires a faster expansion; it doesn't directly do anything about saturation>expo. Indeed, you can saturate faster, which might encourage more all-in play.
Second, you can decrease the capacity of some or all mineral patches. Generally, this would have a delayed adverse consequence to the same effect as the first option. The base will be mined out sooner, prompting a player to expand. Again, this does nothing to directly address saturation>expo, and again, this would likely encourage all-in play. It would take a 5+ minutes horizon of planning to incorporate saturation choices on a low capacity main base, and even natural. The third base seems like the first opportunity to use this without strongly promoting all-ins. (As seen on Tal'Darim Altar.)
Third, you can use mixed-in gold patches to incentivize expansions. This has a major pitfall in terran imbalance with the mule. The only way to offset this without changing the game mechanics is to put the gold patch farther away, giving less mining trips per mule. Is it possible to provide a gold patch close enough that it is more valuable than a normal distance blue patch, but which mitigates the mule? I will update with testing numbers and/or math.
Fourth, the best option. You can place mineral patches farther away. If you moved all patches further away, the effect would be to require more workers before full saturation, and an overall decreased rate of income. This is not what we want, exactly. In fact, this is an analogue of having more mineral patches (with less minerals returned per trip), which just favors saturation. What we want to do is place some patches at a standard distance and some far away, requiring 4 or 5 workers for full saturation. This would give you an income graph resembling the BW graphs. If you have N close patches, building workers past 2N yields lower income gains per worker, and you would require more workers total to be fully saturated. An expansion would provide you with more close patches to put your workers to better use, rebalancing expo vs saturation. This is a less drastic, finer-grained version of incentivizing with gold patches, and I think it supercedes the gold option.
This earlier post includes diagrams of these options, and was the only one I saw that discussed what I have listed as the fourth and best option.
This "solution" does affect the later stages of 1- and 2-base play quite a bit. I assume it would require significant readjustment in build orders and the general flow of the game. Regardless, it would certainly promote expansions beyond a 3rd base.
Comments on BW vs SC2: As a point of clarification, I want to discuss the underlying mechanics of this "solution" in relation to BW. Whatthefat's diagram shows a BW mineral line, which was generally straight and tangent, not concave. If you stacked up 8 patches in a roughly straight tangent line in SC2, the difference would be negligible. The actual increase in trip time is not much at all. In fact, lots of maps have slightly suboptimal minerals that illustrate this, like Desert Oasis. For one, SC2 CCs have an edge that's 5 squares long, so transverse distance doesn't increase the diagonal as much as in BW. However, the main factor is worker AI. Workers pair up relatively efficiently in SC2, and they bounce a lot more even in earlier stages of saturation in BW. This multiplied the travel times in BW, whereas the small trip increases are still small in SC2. Because of this, the staggered patch distances have to be exaggerated in SC2 to achieve an appreciable effect; you can't just use a straight tangent line. The best shape would be a highly exaggerated concave (with a deep pocket in the center) or a convex arc with distant edge patches.
I will try to do some testing for specific recommendations of mineral line arrangements. And I will get some pictures to help those who don't like concise prose exposition.
tl;dr can burn in hell, but: use some close patches and some far patches to simulate BW saturation.
@Bowdy, Whatthefat, other interested parties: I'm going to make a post in whatthefat's thread in Custom Maps to gather test maps and people to play them.
I really support the idea of having a larger variance of distance in the mineral patches. I think doing things like making bases past the natural unattractive in some way compared to your main/nat it will simply promote 2-base all-ins instead of encouraging a macro style.
With the varying distances of patches, I would also be intrigued to see how it would affect gameplay if on top of that, it was possible to add another nexus/cc/hatch to get slightly more efficient mining. This could encourage the OC spam we saw out of boxer and a few others in the GSL, as well as zerg adding on additional hatches to their existing bases.
One of the big things I am worried about though is the mule, even if you arn't going so far as to add gold minerals, any time you reduce the efficiency of workers past a certain point, you are increasing the power of the mule, because it will simply mine from the close patches and have the same income as it does now.
I really hope something is done about this though, as my favorite style, both to watch and to play as with zerg is to take the whole map and sauron my way through, which right now is not nearly as feasible as it was in BW, due to this exact problem.
On February 15 2011 19:07 Phanekim wrote: a lot of people here suggest maybe raising supply cap. i just wanted to ask what if they decreased the supply of the roach or hydra or whatever. i know its not well thought out but instead of just raising the cap i wonder what will decrease supply value of certain zerg units will do.
The problem is that supply can only increase/decrease in whole numbers. Roach/Hydra take up 2 supply right now. That may be a little too high, but 1 supply would be way, way too low. Imagine a 200/200 Zerg army with literally double the amount of units. Would be way to strong.
Only high tech tree units have some room to play around with. A 1 supply decrease to BroodLords? That might make much more sense.
The only way around this issue would be to have slightly different supply caps for different races. But I can only imagine how hard that would be to balance. It would require an entire redesign of the late game.
On February 15 2011 19:07 Phanekim wrote: a lot of people here suggest maybe raising supply cap. i just wanted to ask what if they decreased the supply of the roach or hydra or whatever. i know its not well thought out but instead of just raising the cap i wonder what will decrease supply value of certain zerg units will do.
The problem is that supply can only increase/decrease in whole numbers. Roach/Hydra take up 2 supply right now. That may be a little too high, but 1 supply would be way, way too low. Imagine a 200/200 Zerg army with literally double the amount of units. Would be way to strong.
I have had an issue with this for a very long time, especially when you note that both zerglings and banelings are 0.5 supply units.
On February 15 2011 19:07 Phanekim wrote: a lot of people here suggest maybe raising supply cap. i just wanted to ask what if they decreased the supply of the roach or hydra or whatever. i know its not well thought out but instead of just raising the cap i wonder what will decrease supply value of certain zerg units will do.
The problem is that supply can only increase/decrease in whole numbers. Roach/Hydra take up 2 supply right now. That may be a little too high, but 1 supply would be way, way too low. Imagine a 200/200 Zerg army with literally double the amount of units. Would be way to strong.
I have had an issue with this for a very long time, especially when you note that both zerglings and banelings are 0.5 supply units.
Why can't hydras and roaches be 1.5 supply units?
That seems like a great idea...the only trouble is you can't really break up larvae appropriately. Perhaps instead of physically using the larva, making a roach/hydra could delay the production of an additional larva by a bit instead?
first of all, great post by lalush, and even though I didn't actually expected lots of 'smart' (non-ridiculous solutions tackling the main issue) responses, I've read a few.
I think the 300 supply cap is not the answer, it's just an easy way to look away the main issue, and will later generate more problems, if not the same ones but bigger
Even though comparing BW with SCII it's almost like apples and bannanas, some of the comparisons made here were really good, like whatthefat's approach on the short terms benefits of getting an early expo. In a time vs reward graph, this will look like a flat line down the axis with a big jump into a curve with not a great rate of increase, whereas the one we actually have will not have such a bg jump at the start but the increase rate will be higher at start.
EatThePath had some nice solutions too: first solution - interesting, but we already have maps with 6-mineral expansions, and having an expansion with only 4 mineral patches sounds too risky, probably worth only in an extremely large game or in an extremely safe position, or only using it to get more mutas hehe
second solution - I actually liked this the most, why not having 3/8 of the mineral patches with only 1000 minerals?, this will affect mineral saturation a lot, will benefit getting expos early, and will make the need of expanding higher, bc not only your minerals will dry out quicker, but you will have oversaturation and well... u know, useless drones and stuff, contains will get interesting to break
third solution - not so sure about this, will actually increase the early benefit of expos, but this is kind of delicate bc zergs will benefit from this more, I'm not sure the time we need to wait on untill we actually get a benefit from an expo, needs to get so reduced
and fourth - needing 5 workers to fully saturate one mineral patch :S, i can't really see this..... mayb on some expansions, it this is made on the starting locations it will slow the early game quite a bit
I'm a Chem Eng, and I DO know how to read graphs (or plotts, I'm not really sure, english is not my first language hehe ), making some integrations of this graphs, changing the way the datta is plotted and plotting some 1st and 2nd derivatives of them will HUGELY help this topic, understand the issue better, and hence, giving more reliable solutions. Not everyone may be able to read and understand them though, and I won't do the graphs so... if Lalush or someone else gets really involved into this, here's THE way to go
On February 10 2011 02:31 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: I've been hoping for a supply cap increase as well, at least to 250. Going back and playing Zerg in Broodwar was a fascinating experience, as the first thing I realized was just how friggin' huge my 200 supply army was. In SC2 I get to 200 supply and I'm like, what? That's it?
could it just be the fact that the zoom is more close in BW? :p
I just stumbled upon this thread, and am so glad it was written. I have had a similar idea that I was planning on writing about, but wouldn't have covered it as in-depth. good job lalush.
On February 10 2011 02:31 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: I've been hoping for a supply cap increase as well, at least to 250. Going back and playing Zerg in Broodwar was a fascinating experience, as the first thing I realized was just how friggin' huge my 200 supply army was. In SC2 I get to 200 supply and I'm like, what? That's it?
could it just be the fact that the zoom is more close in BW? :p
Not sure, but the fact that units in SC2 take up more supply is what I'm thinking. Hydras, for example, are 2 supply instead of 1 as opposed to SC1...
BTW does anyone know where can I find the replay LaLuSh used in obtaining the 'real game statistics'?
On February 10 2011 19:39 mahnini wrote: if i'm not mistaken your issue is with the fact that extra bases do not pay off until you are supersaturated and therefore early expansions do not pay off right away. i believe this to be a valid concern, however, you extrapolate on these ideas and conclude that
Zerg’s play will be centered around saturating 3 bases as quickly as possible and launching suicide attacks at the opponents’ thirds. Protoss’ play will be centered around camping and delaying until they’ve reached their invincible end game composition on 3+ bases. Terran’s play will… no idea.
this statement is made with the only backing being that at a certain supply all mining equalizes without regard for the time it takes to reach that supply. while it may be true that the most logical cutoff for obtaining extra bases stops at 3 due to supply constraints when fully saturated, this is done without the consideration of time to saturation. this is easily overlooked because of the omission of zerg mining data.
the idea that zerg is required to rush to saturate 3 bases completely discounts zerg's additional production capability (aka the queen) which is obtained faster (build time-wise) and for less minerals (which also means faster game-time-wise) than extra hatcheries. a hatchery + queen spawns as much larva as 2.27 hatcheries (assuming you are constantly respawning larva from the hatchery + inject).
the only comparison between bw and sc2 time to saturate is seen here
in this graph we do not see the effect of chronoboost on saturation time, instead, we see data points of isolated mining per five minutes which, to a great extent, accentuates the midgame mining discrepancy. for example, if you're driving at 1MPH and i drive at 2MPH and we both do this for 10 hours, at the end i have a 10 mile lead; however, if we only drive for 0.1 hours i only end up with a 0.1 mile lead. this seems really stupid but it makes a big difference when the end quantity is more important than the rate because there is a threshold of usefulness. 1 mineral per second is completely negligible over 17 seconds compared to over 300 seconds; at the end of your so called midgame mineral discrepancy you probably end up with less of a difference in net minerals than you'd think.
you also base your final conclusion that protoss will dominate on the 3 base limit, however, in a late-game situation, with the rate at which bases seem to mine out, i believe army production capability to be a much larger problem. due to new macro mechanics such as larva inject, chronoboost, and warp gates, much of the time-cost required to reinforce is moved to before the actual production (stockpiling larva, stockpiling chronoboost, and warpgates in general) and in late-game engagements it's usually a contest of who has the most durable army and who can reinforce the fastest, but when one race has both attributes then there is a (superficial) problem.
Although I didn't word it as clearly as you did, I think the paragraph you quoted implies what you imply about "time to saturation". There would be no point for zerg to rush to 3 bases if they saturated at the same rates as the other races -- or if their armies were as durable.
i'm not sure i understand your point here, you're agreeing that zerg does in fact saturate faster than either terran or protoss, and is able to take a 3rd and saturate that faster and secure a relative advantage but still you think zerg can't compete economy wise?
With that said, I actually agree with you that the effects of mineral surplus surges are somewhat exaggerated by my graphs, but I still believe they pose a problem and influence the way the game is played out on different sized maps though.
they may but these opinions aren't backed by reliable data. the data that you've collected is exaggerated through the method of testing and even with a 5 minute duration there is only about a 500 mineral difference, 100 minerals a minute, under 2 minerals a second over about 8 workers at 17 seconds that's about a 300 mineral difference before reaching saturation. saturation point may come earlier but this isn't show by the data you have and isn't your point.
The reason Terran have been so stable and dominant on the Blizzard maps is exactly because of the fact that they have been able to negate the "time to saturation" issue by putting pressure and forcing the same amount of bases for as long as possible. They have been able to force "mining to be equalized" throughout games.
the problem with making a statement like this is that it is completely circumstantial and almost completely based on anecdotal evidence. i don't think many people would disagree that in XvZ to win you MUST keep the drone count down for the exact reason you mentioned (to keep zerg's economy at bay). so at this point you are blaming mostly the maps if i am not mistaken, but you've made the claim that mining is equalized throughout a majority of games without any evidence.
Furthermore, the issue you brought up about the races' different production rates can be used as an argument to explain why Terran will have a particularly hard time attacking across the new GSL maps. I believe that army durability will be the greatest deciding factor on the new big maps because races will have a much harder time killing eachother off. Mining will eventually equalize after which point there will be 1 attempt to break the more durable opponent through "quick" cross map reinforcements. After that you will no longer have a bulk of excess minerals to reinforce with a higher supply army due to better macro.
for the most part this is true but is taken out of context, and another wild conclusion makes its attempt at being driven home. there are a number of things that affect the effectiveness of armies: production mechanics, movement speed, cost, cost-efficiency, quantity, and so on. all of your scenarios are done assuming the midgame is nonexistent and different stages of map control are not considered.
The issue of reinforcement rates and production capability that you bring up, I believe to play a bigger role on smaller Blizzard sized maps as opposed to large ones. On large maps from wat I've experienced and seen so far, production capability seems most pronounced in a defensive capacity as opposed to an offensive one (except possibly for Protoss). I think zergs in ZvP will be able to defend pushes galantly in a cost inefficient manner. But then attack across the map and kill P? No.
you make a point to defend zerg production capability when in fact i was talking about protoss production capability. that isn't unreasonable, but as i mentioned it is quite a superficial analysis.
Next clash will probably be when protoss reaches 200/200 again, at which point there will be no bulk of excess minerals to abuse for a higher production rate.
again, you are making assumptions. understandably as a skilled player your word holds some weight, but this is clearly a case where you are simply theorycrafting.
That's why I think the 3base ceiling will force gameplay into the mould I described. Mining rate equalization will be a big problem on large maps.
your guess is as good as mine here as i have not seen that many games on larger maps. i would like to make the point, however, that you've yet to prove that mining equalization occurs in reasonable circumstances on small maps.
also, there's no question that a zerg gets their third base relatively quicker than either a terran or protoss, are you assuming the larger distances will enable a terran or protoss to expand more safely to their third? again, i believe there are a number of factors that you haven't considered: army speed, map control, time to saturation, relative army strengths at certain stages of the game, and so on.
If the game is going to be balanced for large maps and for a 300 supply cap, I think the right way to go is to make macro mechanics and especially the larva inject scale up through tiers and possibly through upgrades so a part of that "time to saturation" problem you mention gets addressed. Also the cap for amount of larva one single hatchery can hold lategame should probably be lowered.
i mention time to saturation not as an additional problem, but as a central point to the argument that you've not tested. again, you make the argument for a 300 supply cap when nothing that you've said really points to that being an efficient solution. every one of your scenarios are extremely late game with both armies being maxed on equal bases, of course this will cause a problem and of course raising the supply cap to 300 seems like a go-to fix given your fabricated scenario.
First, I'd like to start by agreeing with the OP and a lot of other posts that there is a clear, simple problem here, in that expanding is not as important in SC2 as it was in BW, and that affects gameplay and makes for less exciting, less fun, less balanced games.
On February 15 2011 06:34 EatThePath wrote:Second, you can decrease the capacity of some or all mineral patches. Generally, this would have a delayed adverse consequence to the same effect as the first option. The base will be mined out sooner, prompting a player to expand. Again, this does nothing to directly address saturation>expo, and again, this would likely encourage all-in play. It would take a 5+ minutes horizon of planning to incorporate saturation choices on a low capacity main base, and even natural. The third base seems like the first opportunity to use this without strongly promoting all-ins. (As seen on Tal'Darim Altar.)
I agree almost completely with EatThePath, and I particularly like the second idea.
If well thought out, a change to minerals contained per patch could be great. For example, it could work that at roughly the same time for all races they start to saturate (obviously not exact, but the differences aren't particularly great), the minerals in their base come close to running out. This would first of all mean that all-ins with fully saturated bases would be less effective, as they could not sustain any attack and there would be a very small timing window to make use of the advantage.
It might promote all-ins as an alternative to expanding, still, as the differences in mineral count before and after the proposed change would be small and players might be more tempted to expand as certain strategies (eg 1-base Colossus) would be less viable, so all-ins would be more effective against this.
However, the solution to this is already being put into practice. With bigger maps, this incentive to all-in would be greatly reduced - one of the main intentions of the change, I believe.
The second major change of this to gameplay would be the intended promotion of increased number of expansions in lategame - I find the thought of just 3base Protoss rolling over everything, and additional expansions being taken at a slow rate as minerals run out in the 1st and 2nd base quite depressing, and I'm primarily a Protoss player.
Unfortunately, there is one main flaw in this plan in the lategame: The exact same problem would remain, except more expansions would be taken over time. What I mean is that people will only expand when their previous mineral patches run out - that those mineral patches run out faster doesn't magically make the problem disappear, only makes it less noticeable. The effect would be that the Protoss player would reach 3 bases and make a deathball, as normal. Instead of staying tight on those and pushing, winning/losing etc, however, Protoss would get more bases as their previous ones ran out, and transfer workers more often. The players seem to be expanding more, but they would stay on the same number of mining bases and it still wouldn't be a great advantage to have 14 bases over 3.
I don't particularly prefer the 300 supply cap solution over simply changing worker AI mahnini. I spent a lot of time thinking about changing the number of mineral nodes, changing the return rate of workers, changing the layout of mineral fields. Pretyt much thinking about the ways Blizzard like to artificially "fix" problems.
Everything I could think of fixed a part of the problem (for example forcing people to expand earlier), but didn't address the whole problem (max saturation ended up being reached even quicker).
The 300 supply cap suggestion isn't really one i'm gonna stand behind and wholeheartedly promote. Tbh, I'm not very enthusiastic about it and it was mostly just a lightly made suggestion that to me seemed to address the most immediate issue of SC2 capping itself way too early.
But you're correct in that it really does nothing at all to address the quick max saturation issue and that I ignore the effects on the early and midgame when suggesting it in the OP. It seems like a good fix for lategame scenarios -- not so much beyond that (without more changes to the game).
I don't really have any good solution. Didn't have one when I wrote the thread or the "300 supply cap" paragraph title followed by a question mark.
As for large maps vs small maps: I haven't proven anything I claim. I'm basing the arguments on experience more than anything. ZvX has in my experience always been about striking and dealing damage before end game mining equalizes (especially vs P). With these new large maps, from experience, end game mining will frequently end up equalizing and games start to follow the pattern I describe. Basically no matter how the game progressed in its earlier stages, end game mining equalization in ZvP will always induce panic in zergs.
For ZvT, I can't predict what will happen as confidently. I think T are much more dependant on keeping zerg's drone count at bay throughout the game. On smaller maps, zerg's would definitely panic as terran would start to close the gap and equalize end game mining. But on large maps, I don't see the effects being as extreme, due to how terran reinforce their armies. (of course all speculation).
This thread was a great read, and I pretty much agree with all of it. I honestly do not have much to add.
I do however, have a small issue with your graphs.
Your graphs measure the mineral gain per minute (if I am reading them correctly), and not the total mineral gain. I think in your MULE related graphs this is disingenuous, and the graphs show a spike in minerals that is more severe than what actually exists.
Because Chronoboost is available earlier than Orbitals, and because Orbitals themselves cost minerals (a small thing, but still relevant), Protoss should be mining faster and have a lead on total minerals mined over Terran up until the MULE comes out. This lessens the impact of the MULE spike afterwords, since Terran first has to catch up with Protoss in minerals mined before it can get ahead.
I think at the end of the day, Terran would still be ahead of Protoss on mining efficiency per base, but I think an adjusted graph would not look quite as severe, and would be a more accurate depiction of what is actually happening.
On February 17 2011 13:18 Ketara wrote: Because Chronoboost is available earlier than Orbitals, and because Orbitals themselves cost minerals (a small thing, but still relevant), Protoss should be mining faster and have a lead on total minerals mined over Terran up until the MULE comes out. This lessens the impact of the MULE spike afterwords, since Terran first has to catch up with Protoss in minerals mined before it can get ahead.
This is the beauty of making a statistical analysis ... you can leave out some factors to get the results you want to show. In this case the cost of building a base isnt figured into any of the graphs and Terrans have by far the biggest cost early on (which is the time period the OP is looking at). So it doesnt matter that the Terran gains more minerals because he needs it. Should be easy to see ...
On February 17 2011 23:13 Rabiator wrote: This is the beauty of making a statistical analysis ... you can leave out some factors to get the results you want to show. In this case the cost of building a base isnt figured into any of the graphs and Terrans have by far the biggest cost early on (which is the time period the OP is looking at). So it doesnt matter that the Terran gains more minerals because he needs it. Should be easy to see ...
Ah... what?
I think you'll have a VERY hard time trying to prove that Terran has to spend more early game on base. That Terran spends more early game on buildings is only your opinion, and nothing more, until you give some evidence to back it up.
Having less mineral patches favours T too much because of the mule because it will still increase the income from a base by a fixed amount, but if there are less patches, and the overall income from the base is lower, then the extra income from the mule will be larger in relation to the overall income of the base and so the mule will increase the income with a much higher percentage, making it that much stronger.
On February 20 2011 02:32 Fushin wrote: Leaving the gas out of the picture pretty much nullify the interest of the analysis.
But still this shows why T is so good early game since their mineral-only unit is so cost efficient...
Gas is not interesting as it scales linear with number of gas geysirs mined, no one oversaturates gas. seems like you pretty much missed the insight this analysis provides =)
On February 18 2011 06:47 hugman wrote: Having less mineral patches favours T too much because of the mule because it will still increase the income from a base by a fixed amount, but if there are less patches, and the overall income from the base is lower, then the extra income from the mule will be larger in relation to the overall income of the base and so the mule will increase the income with a much higher percentage, making it that much stronger.
No it won't. The MULE is just a greedy wall street broker, it gets you extra money NOW but at the expense of financial stability later.
There is a difference, but it is not a game changing one, MULES will make you mine out way way faster too. Theoretically terran one base is the only thing that might get stronger, but since one base also means one MULE the difference is negligable.
VanGarde, this is bullshit. You're more stable financially if you have 5K in your bank and 1 mining patch than when you have 50 recourses and 7 mining patches.
On February 20 2011 02:32 Fushin wrote: Leaving the gas out of the picture pretty much nullify the interest of the analysis.
But still this shows why T is so good early game since their mineral-only unit is so cost efficient...
Gas is not interesting as it scales linear with number of gas geysirs mined, no one oversaturates gas. seems like you pretty much missed the insight this analysis provides =)
Different races need different amounts of gas early on; even different builds require different amounts of gas. Some races are more reliant on gas than others. So gas does matter, because this "financial analysis" should never ever be done without looking at the actual need for the respective race & build. If you add these things into the analysis - which is pretty complicated due to the ton of factors added - you can then start comparing the races in their actual "fairness". This "dry analsis" is pretty useless unless you want to try long distance mining or any other saturation trick, but you would not need any reference to the MULE for that.
On February 20 2011 04:03 ToastieNL wrote: VanGarde, this is bullshit. You're more stable financially if you have 5K in your bank and 1 mining patch than when you have 50 recourses and 7 mining patches.
Money Now >>>>>>>> Money Later. Always.
I am not going to justify the way you phrased that post and the superficiality of your answer by an actual reply. But no, above silver league it is a bit more complex than that.
On February 11 2011 06:53 Kazang wrote: Chronoboost is 20 seconds of 50% increased production speed every 44.44 seconds. 20 seconds of time for a structure under the effect of chronoboost is equal to 30 seconds of production, an increase of 10 seconds for every chronoboost. So for every 45 seconds of game time, you get 55 seconds of production.
(10/44.44) x 100 = 22.5%
Two probes take 34 seconds to build, so almost fit into a single chrono (30 seconds of build time), as you can't have two thirds of a probe (you either have a probe or you don't) it's reasonable to say you get roughly 1 extra probe per chronoboost.
...
In terms of pure mathematical design SC2 is almost perfectly balanced, yet retains a very definitive difference in "feel" between the various mechanics, it's a work of art in my opinion.
IMO you're overstating the value of the chrono-boost and understating the value of the mule. The first big thing to consider is supply...each probe cost 1 supply while a mule cost 0 supply. In the early game this means protoss has to build more pylons which are expensive. In the late game this means terrain can have less SCV's, freeing up more supply for military units. The other consideration is saturation... Terran can over saturate a mineral patch while toss can't. So there is very little worth in chrono-boosting probes if you don't have a home for them to mine. In fact this is why you don't see protoss use that many chrono-boosts on units once warp gate research is available. On that thought, stacking mules on top of SCV's already mining means terrans don't have to worry about diminishing harvesting rates that with mules that happen when go from 8 to 16 to 24. Then you have to factor flexibility...terran can do quicker, safer, and more flexible 'transfer' operations to expansions with mule heavy economy than toss can.
It's just not fair IMO to compare chrono-boosted probes to mules as one measly mule will pretty much pay for the OC and the rest of the mules will be pure profit while toss needs to wait a while for their additional probes to kick in but after that there remains very little options for chrono-boosted probes because the available mineral patches start to disappear. If I as protoss had the option to trade chrono-boost for mules, I would do so in a heart beat, and I doubt you would do the reverse.
We certainly need more data on how gameplay will change on larger maps. I'm very interested to see how the GSL plays on Tal'Darim Altar ( http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Tal'Darim_Altar ). Making an even bigger map to play on would really be best. As bad as Steps of War has been rated by some, having such an extremely close map shows very well the problems in terms of balance created by such a small map. Essentially we learn more from our mistakes then our successes. By making a HUGE map and playing it, we will be able to learn a lot in the other direction. In doing so hopefully we can find some balance in between.
In terms of match up balance, so many of the power compositions rely on slow but powerful units. Larger maps might make a big difference in terms of gameplay. If T and P feel too slow using tanks and colossus and starts to transition into more mobile units, zergs standing army suddenly becomes much more powerful. They may not need an economic advantage to win.
This still leaves us with a game where the game play choices between expansion advantage and defensive advantage end at 3 bases.
However I'm not sure we can get around this. If we altered the worker AI so that it was like BW and players wanted 5 bases, I'm not sure SC2 units could handle being that spread out. As Day[9] has often stated, controlling terrain in SC2 is much harder then BW. SC2 units might not be made to handle 5 spread out bases.
On February 20 2011 04:03 ToastieNL wrote: VanGarde, this is bullshit. You're more stable financially if you have 5K in your bank and 1 mining patch than when you have 50 recourses and 7 mining patches.
Money Now >>>>>>>> Money Later. Always.
I am not going to justify the way you phrased that post and the superficiality of your answer by an actual reply. But no, above silver league it is a bit more complex than that.
Not really, unless they put out so much pressure you can't secure expos, but Terran is fairly limited in that regard with expos being fairly easy to take, moreso with tanks, and thirds being defending via PF + tanks.
Quite frankly, it doesn't matter so much when you get your minerals so long as you get them. I'd gladly mine out my expos twice as fast, for twice the rate of income. The increased income allows me to build a better standing force, allowing me to both secure and deny expos more easily, thus not only offsetting the fact my bases get mined out, but allowing me to prevent easy expos from my opponent.
Saying you're getting the minerals now is rather moot, since you're more than welcome to not ever use the mules, or only use one or two to be on par with Protoss' income. The fact is, to do so is sheer stupidity, because the money is going to be mined eventually, and the sooner you mine it the sooner you can put up expos. You're more than welcome to use all your mules and sit on thousands of minerals until your main is mined out, then spend those minerals as though you were still mining via SCVs. It's pretty obvious why you don't, however, because getting minerals now is going to always be better. I'd gladly start with ten thousand minerals at the start of the game and my main mined out. I have a feeling I'd be winning quite easily over people who want the "long-term stability" of having a low income which...
...caps out at the same minerals mined regardless. The "stability" of mining slower isn't stability, it's inferiority. Would you like to also only put one SCV on each patch to make sure your main lasts even longer? The argument that mining faster is *hurtful* is so absurd it's insane.
Amazing thread Lalush. Very happy made this research.
But couldn't this be fixed by changing the amount of mineral patches per base, and make changes in the distance from the main base?
For every mineral patch added, with same distance as on normal Blizzard map, the linear growth would be increased by 2 workers. Thus bases with more mineral patches will favor making more workers early before expanding, and favor having a higher total worker count, that what is currently possible?
I understand that this cuts into your supply, hence your suggestion of a 300 supply cap. But a change in the count of mineral patches per base will change the income from expanding, compared to before.
6 mineral patches instead of 8? If it is changed from 8 to 6, races will need to expand faster to maintain the same income as before in the same time. This will likely favour the race that expands first in the early game, and give more value and incentive to expanding faster, and more.
So I propose making the standard perhaps 6 instead of 8 patches per mineral line. As currently there are so many minerals patches per base in Blizzard maps, that having more than 3 bases (and thus 18 mineral patches) is not worthwhile.
If it is changed to 6 mineral patches per base, you will need 4 bases to reach 18 mining mineral patches. How this balance the ratio of mineral and gas, I don't know. But maybe these are things to consider and test and see how it ends working out. Perhaps changing the amount of gas per base to balance it out. Or maybe the increased gas will help SC2, as currently many feel there are too little gas in this game, and at least as a Zerg player, I only feel I expand to secure more gas when I go into lategame.
I've been giving this topic a lot of thought ever since LaLuSh first posted it. In particular I've been thinking of how map makers might change map design to alleviate the fast max saturation problem. One solution LaLuSh has mentioned several times in this thread is the idea of changing the number of mineral nodes per base (though it is mentioned in passing).
I've toyed around with this idea, and in my testing on various maps with friends, I believe that increasing the number of patches at the main and natural from 8 to 10 whilst decreasing the minerals per patch from 1500 to 900 improves game flow.
Specifically: 1) Bases take more workers to saturate. 2) Bases mine out a touch faster because you have more mining surface area, more workers AND slightly less base minerals.
This encourages players to expand both because they get an economic advantage in doing so, but also because bases tend to mine out faster.
In our testing we decided it was better to keep the number of patches at additional bases (i.e. 3rd, 4th, etc) at 8 to encourage further expanding as the game progresses.
I highly encourage players to try this out for themselves. It is easy to change any of the blizzard maps to have 10 patches at mains and naturals and then play a game with your friends online.
If that is too much work, test it out on "Orbital Station" on the NA server. Note, this a map I threw together in an afternoon when we were toying around with ideas regarding map size and macro dynamics. It is NOT a professional map and is NOT designed for competitive play. I thought I would post it here as a sort of "proof of concept" for those who are still intrigued by how map makers might change the metagame by trying to improve macro dynamics.
On March 04 2011 04:26 Scufo wrote: In regards to players being discouraged to expand in SC2,
Could gold expos be an attempt to remedy this, since they provide more minerals with less workers (only 6 patches)?
yes, unlike the post above you, I also think LESS patches (maybe just at expansions) would provide more benefit.
If you have more patches: - takes more workers to saturate. This will require more supply for workers and less for army. Also, expanding will actually occur later (why expand if you have less than 2 workers per patch?). - higher income. Why expand if I'm already mining at a 25% higher rate?
yes, unlike the post above you, I also think LESS patches (maybe just at expansions) would provide more benefit.
If you have more patches: - takes more workers to saturate. This will require more supply for workers and less for army. Also, expanding will actually occur later (why expand if you have less than 2 workers per patch?). - higher income. Why expand if I'm already mining at a 25% higher rate?
Originally, I too thought that decreasing mineral patches per base would produce the desired effect. I was corrected...
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
...and decided to test these predictions out with some friends (which turned out to be A LOT of testing!).
The problem is two-fold, and not as simple as "why ever expand?"
First there is the early-mid game problem, where players rapidly saturate their bases, but macro mechanics such as MULE allow them to cut workers and all-in (or SL or CB which allow a player to saturate a base more rapidly, giving them the timing push advantage). This mechanic discourages players from expanding because they simply cannot keep up with the aggressing player (see LaLuSh's 5th graph and the discussion thereafter). I propose that having more patches at the main and natural may alleviate this problem because it will take players longer to saturate their bases, and allow the fast expanding player more time to catch up to the 1-base aggressing player, get scouting information, and get defenses in place.
Second there is the 3-base ceiling, which is that there is little benefit to expanding past your 2nd base because the effects of adding more workers spread between multiple bases is negligible between having 3 bases. LaLuSh proposes that increasing the supply cap could alleviate this some because then people could produce more workers AND still have a sizable army. I propose that the problem with the 3-base-ceiling is that bases do not mine out fast enough, meaning a player and can stay on 3-bases for a very long time, and it is not until the begin to be mined out that they have any incentive to expand past that. I would argue that there is not actually a problem with there being no incentive to have more than 3 MINING bases so long as trying to maintain that position requires the player to still expand frequently because bases mine out faster.
Increasing the number of mineral patches at the main and natural whilst decreasing total base resources accomplishes two things:
1) It increases the time it takes to reach max saturation, delays early game timings for all-in play, affording the player more time to get relevant scouting information, re-establish their economy after fast expanding, and get defenses in place.
2) It increases the rate at which bases mine out by increasing both "mining surface area" and the number of workers mining less minerals at each base when saturated (i.e. faster harvest rate at saturation). This increases the incentive to expand by decreasing the amount of time you can stay on 1-2 bases. Furthermore, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc bases have only 8 patches AND fewer minerals per patch, players are encouraged even more to expand into the late game as bases these additional bases will not accommodate the same saturation levels as the early bases, and will also mine out swiftly.
Perhaps it would be less intrusive to simply lower the capacity of all mineral patches by 250. With 2k less minerals at each base, the early and mid-game could remain unmodified, however builds that are not expansion heavy will be riskier as they will struggle economically in the late game.
yes, unlike the post above you, I also think LESS patches (maybe just at expansions) would provide more benefit.
If you have more patches: - takes more workers to saturate. This will require more supply for workers and less for army. Also, expanding will actually occur later (why expand if you have less than 2 workers per patch?). - higher income. Why expand if I'm already mining at a 25% higher rate?
Originally, I too thought that decreasing mineral patches per base would produce the desired effect. I was corrected...
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
Increasing the number of mineral patches at the main and natural whilst decreasing total base resources accomplishes two things:
1) It increases the time it takes to reach max saturation, delays early game timings for all-in play, affording the player more time to get relevant scouting information, re-establish their economy after fast expanding, and get defenses in place.
2) It increases the rate at which bases mine out by increasing both "mining surface area" and the number of workers mining less minerals at each base when saturated (i.e. faster harvest rate at saturation). This increases the incentive to expand by decreasing the amount of time you can stay on 1-2 bases. Furthermore, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc bases have only 8 patches AND fewer minerals per patch, players are encouraged even more to expand into the late game as bases these additional bases will not accommodate the same saturation levels as the early bases, and will also mine out swiftly.
It takes more time to saturate, yes, but when you're saturated your income will be 25% higher than it is today! Mining out faster doesn't matter when you still get the same amount of resources. If you can have more workers per base then you don't need as many bases. That's the issue we have today, one base can support too many workers.
Lalush, I absolutely loved your analysis. I appreciate you taking time to test and explain something that seems so obvious after reading your thread, but something that I never would have had the idea/curiosity to test myself as a casual(ish) player.
I cannot help but find a major contradiction in Blizzard’s conceptual outline of how the zerg race is supposed to be played in SC2 with what the game’s economical system actually allows for. Zerg are supposed to keep outexpanding, outmacroing and outproducing their opponents.Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
As a zerg player myself, this strengthens something I've been wondering about for a while. When zergs use FE builds, they usually like to motivate their risky(er) decision with the phrase "I FE'd to get an economical lead" when in fact at a closer lookup it's more of a catch-up race than a lead against an economy-focused T or P.
I'm completely fine with this, since we have the ability to get those extra 20 workers that even things out with MULES/Chronos faster due to the larva mechanic, but in the early game this means we're using all that mineral surplus trying to catch up economically, whereas T and P can use it for army production (which, again, we can easily catch up later...if we ever get to the later part). Hence why stim-pushing, 4-gating and other early pushes are so efficient vs a zerg and why I feel it's so, incredibly more important for zergs to scout early than it is for any other race (and we have shitty, unreliable scouting abilities beyond lings which can be easily walled off against).
Consequently, the current game design FORCES us to take the early risk in order to be able to compete toe-to-toe beyond the 5th minute where the 1-base economies of T and P really start kicking into overdrive. We trade early safety for better mobility and army replenishing capabilities later on. Is this a fair trade, or is it imbalanced? I would say it's a fair trade, with the zerg having the best risk/reward proportionality in the game.
To conclude, I don't think zerg play style is broken, I actually like the risk/reward foundation the race is built upon, but I do think scouting is somewhat broken as it's a roll of the dice sacrificing an overlord. If you're going to force us to risk, also give us the option to invest some of that reward into reducing the risk Sort of like going to war, yet wearing a helmet.
"there is certainly less of an effect of expanding before you are beginning to supersaturate your first base" - lalush
I dont understand this. This doesnt make sense.
At 15th worker, there is 4300 minerals mined per 5 minutes. And at 29th workers the minerals are 5800 per 5 minutes.
This should prove, that if you divide your 30 workers to 2 different bases (16 for each base) then you should have 8600 minerals mined per 5 minutes. Which is alot more than supersaturating your one base.
yes, unlike the post above you, I also think LESS patches (maybe just at expansions) would provide more benefit.
If you have more patches: - takes more workers to saturate. This will require more supply for workers and less for army. Also, expanding will actually occur later (why expand if you have less than 2 workers per patch?). - higher income. Why expand if I'm already mining at a 25% higher rate?
Originally, I too thought that decreasing mineral patches per base would produce the desired effect. I was corrected...
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
Increasing the number of mineral patches at the main and natural whilst decreasing total base resources accomplishes two things:
1) It increases the time it takes to reach max saturation, delays early game timings for all-in play, affording the player more time to get relevant scouting information, re-establish their economy after fast expanding, and get defenses in place.
2) It increases the rate at which bases mine out by increasing both "mining surface area" and the number of workers mining less minerals at each base when saturated (i.e. faster harvest rate at saturation). This increases the incentive to expand by decreasing the amount of time you can stay on 1-2 bases. Furthermore, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc bases have only 8 patches AND fewer minerals per patch, players are encouraged even more to expand into the late game as bases these additional bases will not accommodate the same saturation levels as the early bases, and will also mine out swiftly.
It takes more time to saturate, yes, but when you're saturated your income will be 25% higher than it is today! Mining out faster doesn't matter when you still get the same amount of resources. If you can have more workers per base then you don't need as many bases. That's the issue we have today, one base can support too many workers.
You don't get as many resources because total base resources is lower despite there being more patches. In fact, it is 25% lower, so despite income being 25% higher at full saturation you cannot remain on one base very long because it mines out in 40% less time. It means that the timing window for 1-base all-in play becomes tighter and riskier.
The problem with decreasing the number of patches is that it solves one of the problems LaLuSh has pointed out, but complicates the other. Specifically, it increases incentive to expand frequently, but it complicates the strength of 1-base all-in play because of the effects of MULE, Chronoboost, and Spawn Larvae. Macro abilities (particularly MULEs) have more dramatic effects the fewer workers there are at saturation.
Consider, for instance, a situation of 6-patch bases, where it only takes 18 workers to fully saturate a base. If we estimate the effectiveness of MULE as having 4 additional workers then the 1-base MULE-ing player has an immediate 22% higher mineral income than the expanding player who just sunk 400+ minerals into expanding and is playing catch-up for the next few minutes. Compare that to a situation in which there are 10 patches, AND fewer total base minerals. Now a MULE is only a 13.3% advantage AND there is the added factor that your base is going to mine out faster and so relying on MULE to power your way to victory on 1-base is going to shorten the the time you can spend on one base more dramatically.
NOTE: I only use MULE in this example because it is easier to quantify and demonstrate in an example. You can think of the other macro abilities in similar fashion. This is NOT a balance post about the balance of MULEs.
So yes, while increasing the number of patches does allow a base to support more workers, the decrease in patch minerals from 1500 to 900 means that the base has 25% less minerals, decreasing the amount of time you can spend on 1 base, and increasing incentives to expand frequently while also making 1-base all-in timing attacks more risky and encouraging macro-style play.
Now I know this is a total tangent to the early game expansions discussions, so I apologise in advance, but it seems very relevant to this thread in the context of worker counts, mule usage and expansion taking.
In TLO vs sixjaxViBe on Terminus RE in the NASL day 1, as TLO reaches max supply and has taken all the nearby bases already, he plants 5 orbital commands in addition to the 3 he already has (and 1 PF). He then continues to mine for the rest of the game using multiple mule drops at very remote expansions.
Given he was playing mech (a very gas heavy style) he had the minerals to invest in this and essentially transitioned into a mule based economy allowing both incredible over-saturation of these remote bases and simultaneously freeing up supply for more mech.
It seems to me to be a very solid reaction to the '200 supply problem' and gives you the possibility to increase your economical advantage in a way that is very different to the typical 'more expansions and more workers' type of econ advantage that we normally see. Transitioning from SCV to mule has a large starting cost but given each OC has a fixed cost and provides constant mules for the rest of the game the resulting economy saves a significant amount of supply and is very resilient to harassment due to the temporary nature of the workers and very short time to mine out each expansion.
On February 23 2011 19:47 mnck wrote: 6 mineral patches instead of 8? If it is changed from 8 to 6, races will need to expand faster to maintain the same income as before in the same time. This will likely favour the race that expands first in the early game, and give more value and incentive to expanding faster, and more.
So I propose making the standard perhaps 6 instead of 8 patches per mineral line. As currently there are so many minerals patches per base in Blizzard maps, that having more than 3 bases (and thus 18 mineral patches) is not worthwhile.
If it is changed to 6 mineral patches per base, you will need 4 bases to reach 18 mining mineral patches. How this balance the ratio of mineral and gas, I don't know. But maybe these are things to consider and test and see how it ends working out. Perhaps changing the amount of gas per base to balance it out. Or maybe the increased gas will help SC2, as currently many feel there are too little gas in this game, and at least as a Zerg player, I only feel I expand to secure more gas when I go into lategame.
It's actually not difficult to work out. Currently you get pretty much exactly 114 gas per minute per full geyser (228 per fully saturated base) and 670 minerals with 2 workers per patch. That's just under 3.0 minerals per gas. Change the number of mineral patches from 8 to 6 and you now get 503 minerals per base. That's just over 2.2 minerals per gas.
We'll assume 2 bases, with 2 workers per mineral patch and 3 per gas geyser. That gives us 456 gas per minute, and 1,340 minerals with 8 patches. Constant Probe production costs 200 minerals per minute on average (4 probes - more if you're chronoing all the time, less if you're not at all, but it's an easy number to use).
Spending your gas, say, on 1 Sentry, 5 Stalkers, and a 100/100 upgrade (yes, they increase with time, but let's make it easy on ourselves) leaves you with enough spare minerals for 3.5 Zealots (or 3 in one round, 4 in the next round).
If you have only 6 mineral patches, then you have just 1,005 minerals to spend. You can now only afford 1 Sentry, 5 Stalkers, 1 Upgrade, and 1/3 of a Zealot (or 1 Zealot every 3 rounds).
Just to make this little exercise complete, with 7 mineral patches instead, the numbers are 1,170 minerals (2.6 per gas), buying you 1 Sentry, 5 Stalkers, 1 Upgrade, and 2 Zealots.
The only real difference would be fewer mineral-dump units in each army composition. That might be enough to make the game more interesting, or create some genuine creative choices. When you don't have a ton of extra minerals to dump on Zealots, the decision to spend gas on upgrades or units becomes more important because the units you have to cut make up a greater proportion of your army. And the choice between units becomes more important too - do you want an extra Colossus for siege dps or some more Stalkers to tank for the Colossi you already have? Currently that tactical choice boils down to just 'how do I want to dps/harass?', because you have the Zealot mineral dump to be the tank.
Apparently I've convinced myself that reducing the amount of available minerals (even if it is just by the equivalent of 1 patch per base) could be very good for the game. It would also be very very easy to test, since existing maps can simply be altered to have different mineral configurations.
Way too many posts to read the whole thread but I definitely agree with the OP about economy being a little messed up.
I tended to lean towards the gas -- the gas requiring twice as many drones to hit saturation and also gas heavy units tending to feel a little mineral heavy compared to BW. But, drones having such huge value all the way to 16 on minerals + pretty decent value for the next eight are also an issue.
My intuition tells me that the best way to deal with this is lots of toying with patch counts + rich minerals/gas at expansions and especially lowering mineral counts for each mineral. If it becomes hard to get three working bases simultaneously it will support a very nomadic style, economy will separate from production (meaning several targets to attack/protect), and the game will get more exciting and roller coastery.
The mule could make things ugly though. I think we've only begun to see how crazy mule farming can get
3-base ceiling is misleading. What you mean is that it is optimal to have 3 active fully saturated well stocked bases and no more. This hardly means that the metagame is going to devolve into rushing to get a saturated third. Hell, by the time you have a saturated third your main is almost mined out anyway.
I also disagree that raising the supply cap would magically unbalance the game. This is something that would require extensive testing to make that claim.
It's too bad that there is no way that a mod for this could ever gain the support of the pro community. I think the ladder is just to convenient for practice.
weird blizzard still didnt adress this problem, i also think that limiting mineral patches per base would increase importance of new expansions compered to what we have now when 3 bases mine with almost the same rate as 6.
On May 05 2011 21:44 ridonkulous wrote: weird blizzard still didnt adress this problem, i also think that limiting mineral patches per base would increase importance of new expansions compered to what we have now when 3 bases mine with almost the same rate as 6.
Yes but, again, that would make MULEs so much better. You can't just reduce the number of patches in each base, it would break the game.
There is zero chance of Blizzard changing things like minerals per patch or mineral patches per base, before an expansion. Even then it is highly unlikely - they would almost certainly instead balance around 1500/8.
That's assuming this is a problem for some reason, which I'm not at all convinced about. So many of the predictions in the OP simply aren't happening. Nexus/CC first builds are becoming more and more popular. Protoss aren't - despite what whiners say - doing well on the big GSL maps. Terran, despite their moaning, are doing just fine on them.
I felt the OP was a well-written post and I'm proud to see the community respond so constructively to possible flaws within the game.
For my part, I think this all comes down to Map Design and playstyle.
1). There may never need to be a time when you need to be on more than 3 bases at once, but if you are evenly matched and the races are balanced then you're going to need a 4th-5th in anticipation of mining out one of your other bases, or to prevent the other player from getting position - a la ZvZ.
This brings me to
2). Current maps reward 2 base complacency because they are built to handhold players into the mid and late games. The most balanced Blizzard maps - Xel'Naga, Metalopolis - threw a wrench and made the games better for it. When your natural/expo requires a significant investment to defend, more strategic behaviors arise. I think map makers should seek to make more exposed naturals or more closed-off-but-less-valuable ones, like Crevasse.
For some reason i had not read this post till now, but i will say that the underlying point of it is really coming out in today's play. Protoss and Terrans sitting on their 2-3 bases maxing out and just walking over 5-6 base Zergs. The extra bases provide no real benefit to the Zerg apart from slightly better production (as you are not going to be building more then 4-5 queens for the purpose of inject).
On May 06 2011 11:18 Mojar wrote: For some reason i had not read this post till now, but i will say that the underlying point of it is really coming out in today's play. Protoss and Terrans sitting on their 2-3 bases maxing out and just walking over 5-6 base Zergs. The extra bases provide no real benefit to the Zerg apart from slightly better production (as you are not going to be building more then 4-5 queens for the purpose of inject).
As a terran player, let me tell you about how much mech would absolutely be not viable if we had to start securing more than 3 bases. Zerg can take all those bases because they are such a mobile race. If each base increased your income equally then Zerg would be quite overpowered in my theorycrafting opinion.
On May 06 2011 11:18 Mojar wrote: For some reason i had not read this post till now, but i will say that the underlying point of it is really coming out in today's play. Protoss and Terrans sitting on their 2-3 bases maxing out and just walking over 5-6 base Zergs. The extra bases provide no real benefit to the Zerg apart from slightly better production (as you are not going to be building more then 4-5 queens for the purpose of inject).
As a terran player, let me tell you about how much mech would absolutely be not viable if we had to start securing more than 3 bases. Zerg can take all those bases because they are such a mobile race. If each base increased your income equally then Zerg would be quite overpowered in my theorycrafting opinion.
The thing is that the extra base doesn't increase your overall income at all.
Essentially, 70 workers on 3 bases will mine just as much as 70 workers on 6 bases.
What's the strength of mech? It's really strong in a straight-up fight, and it's really cost-efficient in such a fight.
What's the weakness? It gives up map control. But what if map control doesn't provide that much benefit because having >3 bases isn't as helpful? Doesn't seem like it is a good design.
Contrast this to BW where workers quickly get diminishing returns. Personally I think the curve of mining efficiency to # workers mining is quite nice in BW. Then, you get a bit of a boost in income solely for having more bases. It makes map control quite important.
Just got around to reading this amazing post. It's absolutely true that BW is a better game to watch because the 4th/5th/Nth expansions matter so much more, this results in much more army on army conflict in the game as people try to expand / deny from start to finish. It also means you're more likely to see effective tactical plays like drops and army splits have a sharp impact as the whole game is more spread out. It's a real shame that so many games currently revolve around key 2 or 3 base attacks that 9 times out of 10 end up with not one real fight before and one player dead after.
As both a fan and a casual player, if there was a poll, i'd vote for 300 food now, balance concerns later.
This is very very interesting. Thank you for all your effort and insight.
If you're looking for differant ways at looking at things, it seems another simple elegant solution to making the 3rd/4th/5th/6th base more important is to reduce the amount of minerals at each node.
This has been mentioned before I just want to elaborate some of my own thoughts. I do not claim this to be my original idea.
This will not effect the amount of economy(Minerals per Minute) you have at early stages of the game, saturation requirements (workers per patch/base) remain the same; it only shortens the amount of time you can sit on 1 base, or 2 base before getting that 3rd base. If you happen to get your 3rd base early you will mine out of your main sooner than in the current maps.
I'm no SC Guru, but I feel that the game should focus around expanding and having map control safely against all-in timings. After an all-in you should be punished since you haven't expanded, but in the current state it seems to me you can all in a few times before your main base runs out, not to mention 2 base timings..
I may be way off base (no pun intended) in the previous paragraph I'd love to hear more discussion about decreasing minerals in each node to force more expansions earlier and at every stage of the game, forcing you to have better map control. Perhaps it's just better in theory or in my own head.
Perhaps just expansions have less minerals per node?
Whatever happened to half or mineral only expansions? Another factor to 3base play is that there are usually you have 3 full expansions available to you, which is easily enough to cover for a while. Instead of having rocks at full expansions, just have an open half expansion that one can take for safety, or risk going for a bigger third.
This is a really good article and was there a follow-up? Plenty of people (myself included) have posted about how SC2 does not feel like BW (the fights feel less epic, less things are going on n battles last so much shorter). I thought this was due to camera size (everything is a lot smaller and players see a bigger piece of the map on the screen), lower mechanical ceiling (you can practically send an entire army forward w one click).
Due to the article, it is clearer that it is also because there is less incentive to have more than 3 bases operating at one time (another lower mechanical ceiling) given both income and supply cap.
I second the notion that Blizzard should increase supply to 300 and re-figure out balancing through new units and patching of old units through HoTs and the protoss expansion. This will also bring back the feel of having bigger armies fighting all over the map for longer periods of time which makes for much more epic games when two highly skilled players go at it.
Maybe the Korean Weekly / ESV could introduce maps with 300 cap; they are the frontrunners of map experimentation on progaming level, and first started introducing larger and macro-friendly maps.
well written article, not only entertaining, but educational. and it looks like you did your research. plus you managed to keep my attention for the WHOLE article, which is an accomplishment hahaha. well done