Super-Titan Replay Discussion

[Alvendor]

Short game between me and Sir3 on Glitch

outwitters://viewgame?id=ag5vdXR3aXR0ZXJzZ2FtZXIRCxIIR2FtZVJvb20Y4_eGAQw

I'm interested of hearing opinions on my play, what should I have done differently?

[swimj]

(09-05-2012 05:58 AM)Alvendor Wrote:  Short game between me and Sir3 on Glitch

outwitters://viewgame?id=ag5vdXR3aXR0ZXJzZ2FtZXIRCxIIR2FtZVJvb20Y4_eGAQw

I'm interested of hearing opinions on my play, what should I have done differently?

Thanks for sharing. Interesting to see how sir plays. My thoughts:

turn 2-why not spawn the runner first? If you're going get a runner anyway, might as well do it first and see what's going on. You would spot his runner, and then you know your heavy is not in immediate danger from 2 soldiers so you don't need to boost it.

turn 12-as soon as you notice nothing is going on on the right side, get suspicious about the left, maybe move the soldier back a step in case a sniper (in your case, scrambler) is hiding back there.

I'm not sure what else I would do differently. Did you try counting his wits? That might be another hint that he might have a scrambler, since he did not use that many and I think you had vision on most of his moves. Especially turn 8 when you see he just made a runner, which your soldier saw. Honestly it's hard to predict, I probably wouldn't have thought of it either.

Another thing I've tried is moving the predeployed soldier onto the ledge (3 spaces from the enemy wit space) to have vision over that side. This allows your runner to cover the other side, hopefully

[wonderpug]

The biggest oddity that jumped out to me was you moving your Heavy off your bonus wit space in turn 8. Were you fearing a hidden scrambler?

Your runner spawn & attack on turn 12 also seemed to be a bit of a waste. You spent 3 wits to destroy his 2 wit investment. What's the worst his runner could do? Kill your medic? That would be a 4 wit expenditure on his part to kill something you could replace with 3. If you wanted to defend your medic, I think you'd have been better off deploying a soldier as a blocker on the right, which would also let you put some pressure on Sir's weak side. As things played out, you never really did anything to make Sir feel uneasy--he was pretty much dictating the entire match.

Mind you, it's not like you did anything horrible. Turn 13 was the deciding move, for sure.

Actually, check that. I was about to point out that in Turn 7 you should have been tipped off that Sir was deploying or planning to deploy a Scrambler due to the very brief replay you would have had. In fact, you probably did sense what was happening, which I now see is why you moved your Heavy one step back in Turn 8. In that case, I think your foible was spending 3 wits on that new medic. If you're worried about a scrambler, what's the medic going to do to help? Better off getting a runner deployed defensively to help you see it coming, or get a soldier onto your bonus wit space to keep it guarded, and/or bring some more firepower to that left flank.

[swimj]

Here are some of my more interesting, I hope instructive, ST games:

Sweetie plains, vs Gavin Wins
Sweetie Plains, blue vs gavin

I've played this guy a few times on this map, and must say he has it absolutely mastered. I over commit defense to the far wit space, leaving the center wide open for him to take. After that, I put a bit of a defense but soon succumb to the combination of base/wit space pressure.

Long 9, vs. vide0gamer

Long 9, blue vs vide0gamer

A fast long 9 game. My opponent attacks first along the top, trying to get the sniper through. I've been saving wits so I can stop it. Counterattack is just enough to win.

Long 9, vs. Zalteo

long 9, blue vs zalteo

A nice two pronged attack by my opponent leaves me with 5 wits to counterattack. Not my best playing but his execution was great.

Peekabo, vs Drannoc95

peekabo, blue vs drannoc

Shows the mobi's ability to get a win as long as the base has one hex open. My opponent turtles pretty hard but all it takes is one mistake for the mobi to come through. Note that because he bought the shells he cannot put a huge defense despite all his soldiers. It's not just about how many units you have!

Foundry, vs vide0gamer

Foundry, blue vs vide0

A badly timed sniper buy along with a very well timed attack by my opponent does me in. P2 wins on foundry! Would like thoughts on the opening...I thought the trade was worth it for me, though in retrospect losing the sniper cut off any chance for me to rush.

Last one,
Sweetie Plains, vs. ReggaeKing
Sweetie Plains, vs ReggaeKing

This one has some nice back and forth. The sniper drives my final attack, and takes advantage of multiple paths to the base.

Open to comments, questions, love to discuss strategy!

[Alvendor]

Thanks, good feedback. I had a preconceived plan to pump out a sniper or two and I think this resulted in the problems you mention. I think that is a valid default strategy in most cases, but with the exception of going second versus a scrambler army! Problem is that he will have a good chance to sacrifice his scrambler by turning one of my soldiers and then kill the sniper making his trade good which is exactly what happened. Better general plan for me would be to: if he has a scrambler, only create sniper if I can create another fairly soon after so I have one left after his attack.

Turn 2: Agreed that the runner should go first. I still feel the medic move is good if my plan is to get a sniper. But as said, in this case that was not a good idea

I was 90% sure he had a scrambler and I suspected the exact tile he put it on. This is something I struggle with in general. How much to weight to put on my informed guesses...

My second medic was all in my grand plan with snipers. So yeah a medic here is probably the worst of all units =)

Turn 12 was purely for vision, by now I'm probably 95% certain he has a scrambler but I don't know where. I should have move back the soldier when I didn't see anything, but easy to say after the fact... Notice the the runner play is wit neutral as he has to spend one wit to kill it.

The move he made that I found most interesting was the runner attack on turn 5. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but he lost 1 wit on that exchange but prevented me vision and screwed up my wit management. I had a lot of wits banked and creating a new runner would force me to have dangerously many wits unspent. To force the opponent to save (or spend) more wits than he wants to is not something I'm usually think of, but I guess it is worth learning!

[vide0gamer]

Hey blue, on our foundry game, I think it would have worked out better for you if you hadn't attacked my medic on turn 5, and saved the wits to put more pressure on my wit space intstead. With the runner still up there, you probably don't need to move as many units back up to prevent me sneaking up top.

[wonderpug]

(09-05-2012 08:37 AM)Alvendor Wrote:  Turn 12 was purely for vision, by now I'm probably 95% certain he has a scrambler but I don't know where. I should have move back the soldier when I didn't see anything, but easy to say after the fact... Notice the the runner play is wit neutral as he has to spend one wit to kill it.

The runner play is only wit neutral if he ends up using a runner to kill your runner (which he did happen to do). But your runner was left within reach of a newly spawned soldier. If it's a hex that he very well could have normally wanted to deploy a soldier to, which it was, then leaving your runner there is much akin to leaving the runner sitting adjacent to an existing enemy unit.

I don't think it's necessarily wrong to sacrifice a runner to do reconnaissance, but you could have also put a soldier on your side of the ravine to get some pretty good vision in a less sacrificial manner.

Now mind you, this is most definitely armchair quarterbacking. I watched using the browser-based replay thingie, which makes it a little easier to get a sense of each player's fog of war during a match, but still I was interpreting your actions with definite knowledge of the scrambler's location. My opinion could very well have been different if I was dealing with the foggy view you were.

[GreatGonzales]

Well, I feel confident enough to contribute to this thread now. Here is a replay of a match between me and el*tabasco (#21) on Long Nine. Suggestions are welcome.

GreatGonzales vs el*tabasco on Long Nine

[CombatEX]

Wow swimj that's a lot of replays =)

Thanks everyone for continuing to contribute! I'm pretty busy the next few days but I'll update the main post this weekend.

[Alvendor]

(09-05-2012 07:25 AM)swimj Wrote:  Foundry, vs vide0gamer
Foundry, blue vs vide0
A badly timed sniper buy along with a very well timed attack by my opponent does me in. P2 wins on foundry! Would like thoughts on the opening...I thought the trade was worth it for me, though in retrospect losing the sniper cut off any chance for me to rush.

Interesting opening indeed. Having the runner scout so you know you don't need to boost the sniper was beautiful. But if it was worth it or not is tricky. If counting pure material its pretty equal at beginning of turn 7.

But the positioning of the units matter as well. You have sacrificed your units guarding top and bottom and have all your units in the middle while his are spread out on the map. I think you are forced to attack here as that is the only way to take advantage of your concentrated force.

Instinctively I would leave the runner on turn 5 and create a soldier to reinforce with. The goal would then be to threaten the wit space so aggressively that he has no chance to counter top.