Criticism or or compliments?

[StratZ-]

I haven't been playing long, but I'm currently ranked 26 clever league and still going up the ladder. I know I'm not as good as anybody here, but I wish to be someday. Was wondering if some of y'all could take a look at a few of my replays and let me know if I did anything good or bad. If I can improve on anything. I would greatly appreciate it.

outwitters://viewgame?id=ag5vdXR3aXR0ZXJzZ2FtZXIRCxIIR2FtZVJvb20Yo4C0Agw

outwitters://viewgame?id=ag5vdXR3aXR0ZXJzZ2FtZXIRCxIIR2FtZVJvb20Y_6G2Agw

[=) Random Task (=]

(01-08-2013 08:40 AM)StratZ- Wrote:  I haven't been playing long, but I'm currently ranked 26 clever league and still going up the ladder. I know I'm not as good as anybody here, but I wish to be someday. Was wondering if some of y'all could take a look at a few of my replays and let me know if I did anything good or bad. If I can improve on anything. I would greatly appreciate it.

outwitters://viewgame?id=ag5vdXR3aXR0ZXJzZ2FtZXIRCxIIR2FtZVJvb20Yo4C0Agw

outwitters://viewgame?id=ag5vdXR3aXR0ZXJzZ2FtZXIRCxIIR2FtZVJvb20Y_6G2Agw

I put Your replay links in url tags for convenience...

[StratZ-]

Hahha sorry I was in a hurry. Much thanks

[awpertunity]

First replay:

The first thing I noticed early on is you are wasting far too many wits moving your medic around. You generally want the medic in a place with a lot of traffic so you can boost/heal your units without moving it. Of course an easy place to do this is right next to your spawn point. This will affect some of the later, specific comments below.

Turn 9 : You should've spawned a soldier at the right instead of a sniper. A sniper would only be good there if you were actually going to kill the unit you attacked, but in this case you didn't. You could've just attacked with a soldier, and had extra health there rather than letting him overrun your spawn, even momentarily.

Turn 11 : Why move the runner down to kill the soldier (at the right)? You spawned a soldier there anyway, which could've killed the soldier for free, rather than wasting a wit to move your runner back.

Turn 13 : I don't understand the re-positioning of your units on the left here. Perhaps you wanted to boost the soldier, but this is just another cause of bad medic movement/positioning.

Turn 19 : Would've been much better to attack the soldier with runner and runner with soldier. Would've protected your runner from dying next turn.

Turn 23/25 : I think it would've been better to reinforce the right side, where you have a clear advantage at this point. Instead you attacked up the middle and started pre-maturely attacking his base. Your army on the left was certainly bigger at this point, but by starting to attack his base already you let him catch up a bit. You would've had a much easier time finishing the game pushing up the right side.

Turn 33 : Why risk the sniper to kill the sniper instead of your runner?

Overall not bad your unit composition seems fine, just a little more wit management would be good. Also deciding when to commit to attacking their base is important, you went for it a little early in this case.

[StratZ-]

Hey I appreciate it. I just finished studying them. I can see that I could've saved a lot of wits and units by just moving them better and making better choice which would lead up to me finish the math faster and being more effective, I appreciate the help

[aaronINdayton]

Second Replay:

T2: I like your opening, but would have moved the spawned runner on the right up to the hex north of your starting heavy for some sweet vision.

T4: I would have boosted the heavy instead of the runner, but I'm not always big on boosting runners

T6: moving your center sniper over is dangerous business, since you already moved your medic twice, you should have committed that sniper to the center and if anything moved him up the center. Now you've wasted a wit because you could have moved the sniper over earlier and only moved the medic once to be in range of both the sniper and spawn point. Spawning a new sniper might have been a better option, not necessarily this turn.

T8: You're moving your units away from the natural attack path of your opponent, even if they aren't massing up there, they're adorables and can basically produce two units at a time on either side of the map, so if you're not careful they can do a big swing to a spot where you're weak on defense.

T10: You've made like a million boosted runners! I like the runner swarm idea, but usually they're going to die immediately so it's okay not to boost them. Also, before making a play for their super far away sniper, I'd be more comfortable with an extra soldier on both sides of the map if I were you.

T14: Looks like you miscounted wits and basically gave away a booster solider, booster runner, and a bunch of wits

T16: I would hit the sniper instead of the base, but maybe you've got a secret plan for 3 more damage I don't see. Also I would not have boosted the runner.

T20: Sweet scramble/heal, but not sure you had enough knowledge to know scrambler would be safe after.



So! Looks like you learned about attacking on thorn gulley, more specifically, how it's hard to do! You're early attack on the left side gave you two damage on the base, but the only way you were able to capitalize on that was to have an opponent completely ignore your scrambler. That won't keep happening as you move up. I think if they responded more appropriately and turtled hard once they saw the scrambler, it would have been difficult for you to secure the win on this one.

A couple of things I think will help your game are:
- learning ideal positioning on every map for runners/soldiers, this comes with practice and watching high-level replays
- learning when to attack and when to build up, this can change from map to map, but on thorn gulley, you need a pretty big force because your spawn is so far away and theirs is so close
- conserving wits. This is something everyone can get better at, when to boost, when not to, do you need a second medic? if you lose your medic do you need a new one? wits are super important, if you can save as many as possible while still fielding the right units, you'll win, probably.

[StratZ-]

Just finished studying the replay and your comments. Thanks for the help a lot! I plan on using your tips into my next battle. Any tips on playing on small maps like shark food island? I can play a lot better on bigger naps. But I seem to have a disadvantage when I play smaller ones.

[TheQwertiest]

(01-09-2013 01:34 AM)StratZ- Wrote:  Just finished studying the replay and your comments. Thanks for the help a lot! I plan on using your tips into my next battle. Any tips on playing on small maps like shark food island? I can play a lot better on bigger naps. But I seem to have a disadvantage when I play smaller ones.

a tip on small maps would be unit positioning and scenario analysis.
you can try watching a few ST games on the replay thread.
here
st replay thread