Today I started playing as Zerg against Terran on medium difficulty. And I've found a very interesting strategy which the AI doesn't react to well against.
First, send your initial drones to the mineral field, and create up to 10 drones and those will go to the mineral field.
Now, build a second Overlord (send the Overlords somewhere "safe" either the corner of the map or over your hatchery).
Good - build 2 more drones, and send them mining. You want a continuous stream of income!
Your next drones, make them relay somewhere safe, and build a Spawning Pool and an Extractor. The Spawning Pool allows you to get Zerglings, the Extractor you need for Vespene Gas.
Get 3 Drones working on each of your geysers. If you have 2, build 6 Drones, and another Extractor.
By now, the Spawning Pool must be built; build a Queen and upgrade your Hatchery to a Hive. Your income ought to be stable enough by now to forget about resources for a bit (your units should be 13 Drones on minerals, 6 Drones maximum on Vespene gas, and one Queen).
Here's the bad news - all this time spent building up for resources left us a bit vulnerable. Quickly, build some Zerglings (you may want to build them earlier). 2 suffice! These two will venture and explore the map.
While you take in the bad news, build a Lair and an Evolution Chamber. When building units, build 2 Roach and 1 Drone or 1 Roach 1, Drone and 1 Overlord. The Zerglings are useless against Terran, we want Roaches to have a bit of defence, and we want the Zerglings to reveal the Terran base.
As you build units, make your Queen build Creep Tumors all over the place. Preferably towards a choke point. At the choke-point, build Spine Crawlers. Expect to lose your Spine Crawlers. Also - research Burrowing at the Hive.
Quick Recap: By now you should have a Hive, discovered the Terran base, or the location of their army (avoid it if you can). Have a few (3 maybe?) roaches, plenty of defence, and your upgrade to Burrow is being worked on. Ideally, you know where the Terran base is thanks to your Zerglings. We know that the Terran are overpowering us.
Quickly, get the Roaches out of your base in a spot outside of the Terran field of interest (that is - where they most likely won't be...) - ideally near the entrance of their base. Burrow the roaches.
At the base, build (as soon as possible) a Hydralisk Den and build hydralisks.
Expect to be attacked. When the Terrans attack - they will have sent their entire army. Their base is now empty. You have units waiting there...
Attack the base with your units. If you can do enough damage - the Terrans will retreat and your base will be in good shape (minimal damage - except for the loss of the Queen and some Spine Crawlers. If you manage to take out some SCVs, Supply Depots, etc. in the Terran base; they are done for. While they head back to their base you have time to inflict quite a bit of damage.
You can sacrifice your Roaches. By now, you should have plenty of Hydralisks. With the enemy back at their base, bring the Hydralisks to their entrance, and Burrow. Rebuild your minimal defences and try to get an expansion going. With an expansion, the number of Hydralisks built will easily double.
Repeat the tactic of squatting in front of the Terran base and attack when your cheap defences get attacked. Be sure to have a few Hydralisks and Spine Crawlers to keep thing from wanting to stay and get past the cheap defences. Doing a lot of damage to their base also has the same effect!
And now, it's rinse-wash-repeat.
To recap: the overall strategy is to Burrow near the entrance of the base and to go in and destroy when the offence (also acting as defence against medium Terran difficulty) as busy destroying a cheap entrance to your base that can easily be rebuilt. Without stopping, keep on sending reinforcements to your crew waiting to ambush the enemy. Once they leave their base, keep your new units with you as defence. Once they reach your base and start attacking, inflict as much damage as possible.
Happily - this works very well. However, don't expect to win the first time. The AI does make the mistake of leaving its base undefended - but that doesn't mean it is completely stupid. The building must be done as fast as possible. Go too slow and the first wave from the Terrans will destroy your base.
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