Zerg Overview

Zerg

Living for the swarm!

The zerg are a race entirely unlike the terrans or the protoss. They are composed of many different species integrated into the Swarm via zerg infestation. These creatures are rapidly and selectively evolved into deadly and efficient killers to further the driving zerg imperative of achieving absolute domination. The zerg make no use of technology to create their weapons, armor, or starships. Instead, these functions are efficiently fulfilled through biological adaptation and planned mutation of the zerg strains. Even zerg buildings are in fact specialized organs within the living, growing organism of a zerg nest.

When the zerg first arrived in the Koprulu sector, they were unified by their absolute obedience to the zerg collective sentience known as the Overmind. The Overmind ultimately directed the actions of every zerg creature in the Swarm, functioning through a hierarchy of lesser sentiences. The first and most important tier of these consisted of the cerebrates, each entrusted with direct control of a sizable section of the Swarm. The cerebrates' commands were disseminated in turn by the overlords, which directly ordered and controlled the mass of zerg creatures both in their nests and on the battlefield.

Although the Overmind was primarily driven by its desire to consume and assimilate the advanced protoss race, it found useful but undeveloped material in humanity. Taking a powerful terran psionic, Sarah Kerrigan, the Overmind evolved a new and unique creature: the Queen of Blades. When the protoss destroyed the Overmind during the invasion of Aiur, the Queen of Blades manipulated the dark templar into eliminating the surviving cerebrates. As a result, she came to dominate the Swarm.

Mechanics

Burrow
A few select Zerg units have the ability to burrow underground, while burrowed they are invisible unless the enemy has a detector. Burrow is a great ambush and offensive strategy. While burrowed a Zerg unit can not do anything except unburrow. While burrowed, the units owner sees nothing but a pockmark on the ground. He can select the pockmark to get the units status info. Enemy players see nothing unless they have a detection unit nearby. Even with a nearby detection unit, the enemy will only see the pockmark. Depending on the terrain and cover, the pockmark can still be hard to see.

Overlords and Overseers
The Overlord is the primary unit of any Zerg colony. The Overlords watch over and command all Zerg underlings. The Overlord acts as a mobile food supply for the Zerg while also being able to create creep and disabled resource nodes. The Overlord can be upgraded to an Overseer, which has a wider range of vision and detects invisible units. With these abilities the Zerg can defend strongly against enemy sneak attacks as well as assault enemies with great ease. Its always a good idea to place one to two Overlords within each attack.