This is actually the best possible thing to happen for you as a zerg player. He's running just Phoenixes and he has given you map control FOR FREE.
Your Strategy is going to be as follows:
- Build a couple spore to stop early Phoenix harass.
- Expand to 3 or 4 bases
- Spread your creep
- Build pretty much any unit, you're going to run over him
He's giving up the Macro advantage as you now have map control. You can build Hydras as a direct counter to Phoenix and they have the nice benefit of being strong against 4 gate.
Now if he pushes out a more standard 4 Warpgate play, you just FE and play normal vs a 2 Base Protoss. By the time you make a serious push, the Photon Cannons will be a small factor.
Btw, what do people feel about the plural of Phoenix? In Roman mythology there was only one Phoenix in the entire world so the word had no plural. I've been using it as both plural and singular (like fish) as a result.
So there is no good answer to this question, or it would already appear in the larger build order questions on this site. Unlike the early game (which is well defined) mid to late game doesn't have an easy answer, and anyone who gives you a BO past 20 is a snake oil sales man.
Even in the Zerg question you linked the answer was: What ever feels best.
Let's look at some of the basic Protoss builds and how they progress:
4 Gate
Usually this build is very all-in, and you're banking on winning early. However, if you do enough economic damage with a 4 Gate, but don't win you can still be at an advantage. At this point if you pressure more you're going to end up against a higher tech opposing force and probably lose, so you can expand here and maybe add on a Robo or two more Gateways.
3 Gate
One of the great things people like to do with 3 Gate is provide pressure so that they can expand. This sets them up with a nice little force as they transition into the mid game. Once expanding there are some people who like to progress to 5 Gate + Robo, or 3 Gate + Double Robo, or even (recently) 3 Gate + Double Starport. There is even a nice 4 Gate + Robo to provide pressure so that Protoss can take a third expansion.
You probably notice a number of trends between these two builds, even though I picked two builds that could not be more different there were a number of important ideas:
- Your Production must be proportional to your Income. If you have less production than your income you need to have a plan for it (eg. setting up to expand). If you have more production than your income you need to be aggressive
- Don't over commit. When you're ahead, your number 1 priority should be to get more ahead (ie. expand)
- While you always need to tech (ie. Red Queen Hypothesis) teching takes time, so don't forget that in your calculations.
Now you'll notice that a lot of what's being discussed is Income vs Production and there are a couple tools you can use to help you out:
Remember: To get good at Starcraft you need to get good at Execution and Decision Making, not get good at following a road map.
Best Answer
Here's a very detailed build whipped up that gets 5 Mutalisks @ 6:36. It's possible there is a slightly faster build for 5 muta, but this will do. As said by other users, I would not recommend this build as it leaves you open to attack for over 6 minutes. If your opponents scouts you once, you will probably die... Might be viable on certain team maps though.
EDIT: I removed the previous 4 Muta build I had because, even though it's faster, anything less than 5 Mutas is worthless. 5 Mutas is the magic number needed to one shot your opponent's workers. If you only have 3 or 4 Mutas you will not be able to adequately harass your opponent, so it's better to wait for 5.
In general, you should always get metabolic boost(speed zerglings) before going Lair tech. That said, here is a build (popularized by idra) that I would recommend using:
This build sets you up with a good economy and allows for any necessary defense or early pressure.