Replay Analysis Thread

[Rogueleader89]

I have been playing for a while and have got the gist of things but there is one thing I just can't get a hang of. That is Tier-ing up and advance eco management.

I blame myself for loosing this game because I was doing almost negligible in the game and in the last moment of redemption I just died in the most horribly... stupid way.

I'll summarize the facts.

A) I'm good enough at early game, decent build order, aggression and expansion.

B) Really can't get a knack of balance between production and mex upgrade.

C) Eco management is worse than a kindergardner.

Any advice would really help me a lot.

Looking at the replay, you build mass storage too early, first, you don't want to build it around t1 mex, only t2/t3, and second, it would be better to spend the mass you are putting toward that early mass storage upgrading your mexes to t2 instead. Also you start a t2 power gen pretty fast after you get t2 but your power is fine, you still haven't finished upgrading your t1 mexes, and you are severely lacking in mass income; t2 power is great and you definitely need it, but you don't need it immediately at the cost of mass income. Similarly, if you are mass stalling, pause some things until you aren't and fix the problem, production is fairly worthless without the mass to support it.

Otherwise, a lot of this is reacting properly to your opponents and prioritizing the right things. In that game your opponents are turtling and ecoing, if you can't break the front then you need to take map control (as you do) and focus on eco (as you don't), if you have the map you have more mexes, it doesn't matter how well they turtle or eco you should always have more resources, if you aren't going to break the front you just need to scout them and make sure you are keeping up in tech, you don't need to maintain any more army than you need to hold them back based on what you see, or rush higher tier units over ecoing because the ball is in your court, they have to push out or the economic differences will win the game for you.

Also you are teching way faster than you are ecoing, don't build t2 off of mostly t1 mex, don't go t3 anything without some t3 econ to support (or at the very least t2 mexes surrounded by mass storage), it may seem like it will slow you down if you don't but if you get the econ in place first you'll actually hit techs pretty fast anyway and produce more while you're at it. You are lacking mass to upgrade your econ because your econ isn't good enough to produce what you are trying to produce. That said, there is a point during the game where you seem to realize this and start upgrading multiple mexes and building mass storage all at once, don't do this, focus your buildpower on one thing then when that finishes do the next, if you do this you'll get your eco going much faster with less mass stalling along the way.

Outside of this, you need to work on your multitasking, you have lots of idle engineers not doing things, you aren't ecoing but you don't have enough production to help your ally break through the enemy lines either; a lot of this unfortunately has to come through practice, make it a habit to look at your idle engineers on the right, perhaps play a few games where you do spend time focusing primarily on eco (maps with dedicated back slots in team games tend to be good for this sort of thing until your rating gets higher), or if it helps force yourself to always have a mex upgrading, and remember that you can queue your engineers to do other things after they finish a task, as mentioned above, I've gotten myself into the habit of ordering up an attack move command at the end of most construction jobs so that would-be idle engineers can at least reclaim stuff until I need them again. A good method of getting yourself to upgrade mexes can be setting all of your mexes to upgrade and pausing them, then you can take a ground of engineers and shift click assist them in turn to have them upgrade one at a time if you want and you'll have a clear visual indication of any mexes you have forgotten to upgrade hovering over them (just make sure you finish upgrade your mexes to t2 before you start pausing t2->t3 upgrades on them)

....

To summarize since I post way too much on forums...

• Prioritize upgrading mexes to t2 over building mass storage
• Watch for idle engineers and make them always do something (generally reclaim or if you have spare income help upgrade your eco/support production
• In the case of the enemy turtling remember that it is the combination of map control and good eco that will win you the game most often.
• Be sure you have a proper economy for the tech level you want to produce before you start producing stuff at it (and don't rush tech without getting the econ for it)
• Don't mass or power stall ever, if you have an issue with either pause stuff until you don't and then fix the problem.

[psycoakira]

Hello everybody,

I now its quite noobish but please look at the replay. I keep having the same problem at Setonts about the Eco. I simply go way to high into negative mass thus slowing my development significantly. On the other hand if I stop developments or builds I am slow too getting overwhelmed by enemies by sheer numbers. Pls help me to improve my build order as I like to play setons beach.

Thanks in advance for your most appreciated help Gentlemen.

Hopefully see you more fit in a game and watch your nice ACU explode in a nuclear fireball.

Yours Psyco

[Rogueleader89]

Hello everybody,

I now its quite noobish but please look at the replay. I keep having the same problem at Setonts about the Eco. I simply go way to high into negative mass thus slowing my development significantly. On the other hand if I stop developments or builds I am slow too getting overwhelmed by enemies by sheer numbers. Pls help me to improve my build order as I like to play setons beach.

Thanks in advance for your most appreciated help Gentlemen.

Hopefully see you more fit in a game and watch your nice ACU explode in a nuclear fireball.

Yours Psyco

You have a bit of a power stall in your opening, if you aren't going to immediately rush hydro I'd suggest factory, 2 pgen, 1 mex, 2 more pgen with ACU while engis go out to take more mex/reclaim/take hydro, otherwise get a pgen and then your mex and rush the ACU over to assist the hydro building. If it looks like you are going to cut it close on mass also remember that a single engineer or two reclaiming trees is a boon early game, might not seem like much, but every little bit counts.

Your mass stall starts shortly after your power stall is resolved, which might be a result of the power stall slowing your engineer production and thus expansion to other mass points near you, but you make the issue worse by having a single engineer ordered to build all of your mexes instead of spreading the task between all of your engineers so that they get built faster, delaying your mass production even further (in fact yellow takes one of your mexes because you take so long to even start taking the ones to your south).

You are also putting a lot of mass into building power you don't need, its possible if you didn't power stall in the beginning and expanded more rapidly to your mass extractors you'd be able to do this for your air factory but in this game you just can't support that kind of construction with your mass stall (which is slowing everything regardless so its not like you are rushing air, nor do you seem to intend to be aggressive with it, and you still have mexes to take); and once you have enough power to support your air factory you just keep building it (and too many radars, you can really get away with 1 well placed radar to cover your area, possibly a second down where you have 3 mass extractors in the corner a bit later, but you don't need to rush it immediately, you have air production going that can make a few cheap scout planes to see the water immediately near you for drops and you have a factory and units down near those 3 mexes), at ~6 minutes 30 seconds you have 200 more power than you need (probably more taking into account the redundant radars) and you are still building more, those 10 pgens are 750 mass which is very nearly a t2 mex upgrade.

Otherwise.. you have a ton of idle engineers which could be reclaiming trees, your land factory in the corner near the lower mexes does not need to produce as many units as you have made there (if something attacks early game it isn't going to be a large army, probably a small artillery group or a few t1 bombers and with proper scouting you have an air force to intercept) which would save you a bit of mass. You also don't need to spend your econ early on getting 3 t1 land factories up in your base, put that mass towards improving your mass, then when you hit t2 have a couple of engineers build t2 land factories for hover, you aren't going to make great use of them in making t1 units anyway.

Also keep in mind that surrounding a t2 mex in mass storage costs 800 mass and gains you +2 mass income, upgrading a t1 mex to t2 costs 900 mass and gains you +4 mass income, its better to put the mass into upgrading the rest of your t1 mex to t2 rather than upgrading a mex to t2 and then building mass storage around it before upgrading the next mex.


Overall, it feels like you have a series of checkboxes you want to hit and are trying to do all of them at once rather than taking your time and thinking through what should be done when. You are making a lot of things all at once, there is a point where you are upgrading t2 mex while building mass storage, while assisting factories, while building power generators, and all the while you are mass stalling, you don't need to do this, don't assist if you are stalling mass, it doesn't help, get those engineers reclaiming, focus your engineers that are trying to improve your mass situation on one thing, upgrade a mex, don't do an upgrade and mass storage at once while you are mass stalling, and stop building power you don't need, if you can't support what you have on mass more power isn't going to be a huge help and if you are adding more production to use the power you are also simultaneously making the mass problem worse, fix the problem, then expand when you are able. Also, as far as factories and unit production are concerned, be active with the things you build, if you are going to get 2 air factories early on then you had better be actively using your air units, scouting your enemy, keeping an eye on your coastline, supporting your allies, maybe even getting the occasional bit of bomber/drop harass in, similarly if you are going to get a bunch of t1 naval factories make sure you use your navy; units sitting unused in your base are generally wasted mass.

In your post you say if you slow down building stuff to eco you are too slow and get overwhelmed, this might be a bit of how you are ecoing (addressed above), but its probably also a lack of good intel on your enemy, if you know what your enemy is doing you can anticipate them, you can know when it is safe to eco and when you really need to be pushing out a bit more production to deal with them, having scouting info also helps you know where you can use your units to great effect, when you have air control and can get a few bombers to slow them down or when you have the first couple of subs or frigates that could deny a naval factory going down.
If you look at your opponent opposite you in the replay you have linked here he does exactly this, he has scouts out, he knows what you are doing, he does bomber and drop harassment against you because he knows you aren't covering your immediate area and it could be effective, and he sees that you aren't actively pushing with your units so he can take the time to focus on his eco rather than building more defensive units or really fighting you for naval control.


Summary:

• Fix your starting build order, you shouldn't be power stalling (sandbox a new build, copy pros, or steal one of the ones I listed above)
• Expand faster to your mass extractors using at least one engineer at each rather than queuing up a single engineer to get 3 or 4 far apart
• Upgrade mexes, and then build mass storage, don't make mass storage before you are done upgrading mexes.
• Don't overbuild power
• Don't build structures you don't need or aren't going to use right away
• Scout, always always scout. And pay attention to what the enemy is doing so you can respond as needed and take advantage where able.
• Be active with your units, use your units where they will be of the most use instead of having them sit unused in your base.
• Don't overbuild or assist while mass stalling, you need things, but you don't need them all at once at the cost of not having the most important ones that fix your mass stall first.
• Use your idle engineers, reclaim things, trees if that's all you have, it may not be much but its still mass.

[psycoakira]

What an analysis !
Thanks for the time and efforts you put into this. I really appreciate your help. I will try to implement your thoughts into my game and will maybe load another replay should I encounter other problems.

Again: Thank you very much.

Yours psyco

[psycoakira]

Hello there, again !

Please look at my replay. I now changed to beach but I keep having problems (dont know if its alone eco) as I constantly loose my seafight ending in a lockdown on that side.

Please help me to improve further (I still always forget to reclaim those damn trees). But I am simply to slow in everything.

Thanks again in advance

Psy

[Rogueleader89]

Hello there, again !

Please look at my replay. I now changed to beach but I keep having problems (dont know if its alone eco) as I constantly loose my seafight ending in a lockdown on that side.

Please help me to improve further (I still always forget to reclaim those damn trees). But I am simply to slow in everything.

Thanks again in advance

Psy

Well let me start by saying you've made huge improvement here, your econ looks much better (you have a scattering of mass overflows/stalls and a power stall later plus some late game mass issues but you are on the right track and you'll probably sort out this sort of stuff over time, though do reclaim everything as that seems to be the biggest thing you are forgetting there, especially on the water after battles)

Early game & Subs V Frigates
So lets talk strategy then, your naval yard remains unsupported too long (specific to this game and probably mostly because of a lack of scouting to see he was massing frigates early), eventually you make up for this but there are several points in which the enemy could just run in and kill it unopposed, a single torp d or two if you aren't going to devote resources to navy right away can generally stop this. Also your choice of subs early game is okay but as it reaches the t2 stage frigates would be far more useful to you (they do much better dps vs surface ships and can take destroyer shots in place of more valuable ships), though if you are going to make subs early game you are going to want to be more active with them instead of sitting at your naval factories since sub dps takes awhile to kill frigates and he could easily have sent his frigates in and killed the factory before your subs could do anything about it.

Reactionary Defense
You build a ton of t1 torp defense you don't need, this mass really just needs to go into more navy or air or further your economic lead, the amount you make is overkill for most things and by the time you make it your opponent has destroyers that can outrange it anyway, also you are leading on mass and should be able to outproduce him. Later as you lose a large naval battle you also start to make t2 torp d, when you make that torp d you go into a steep mass stall that slows your naval production which you really need far more than the torp d (especially since you very nearly have a summit out here which could support your own retreating naval forces). It may be tempting to throw down a bunch of defense when it seems like you are losing, but you really need to look at the situation and see if it is warranted over other things.

Retreating
Your first major naval engagement was lost, which happens, but you should have pulled back when it became clear it wasn't going well, you have a pretty well defended area to retreat to and those ships could have been much more useful later in a counter attack (or to shield your about to be completed first summit) instead of dying to overwhelming numbers and giving more vet to his destroyers (similarly in the large engagement after this you throw away a naval force that can't deal with the lack of vision on the enemy instead of pulling back). Also stop engaging things with your battleships at point blank range, they do not excel there :P

Seraphim Tech
That ahwassa later on is a strange choice (and you don't use it.. same with Ythotha), you aren't present in the air to tip the balance in your team's favor, the mass you spent on it going to t3 navy (or just upping naval production in general) would have won your side of the map. While we're on the subject, you probably didn't need seraphim tech at all really, the t3 subs don't hurt but your opponent doesn't have anything that warrants getting them, uef has a rather excellent navy and you don't micro the t3 subs enough to really maximize their strength (they excel from a range with micro, otherwise their hp is paper thin and they just get shredded up close).

Scouting
But, by far the largest issue you have is a lack of scouting. I touched a bit on this with your last replay here (scout planes are very cheap to build) but its even more evident now that you're ahead on econ. You don't know what your opponent is doing, you don't know how large his navy is to judge whether or not you should engage it or if you need to switch tactics, you don't know if you need those cruisers you are building or not (in this specific case you could have made more destroyers and taken naval control instead as the torp bombers didn't come till later and were fairly small in number, plus your opponent isn't making cruisers most of the game so your air player could provide some support if needed), and you don't know how your economy stands in comparison to him. You are also in desperate need of sonar (and a radar on the island, though t3 sonar would have completely saved you in that last naval engagement), outside of letting you react better to enemy aggression and keeping track of things it would also allow your ships to shoot a bit farther than they can see. Also with scouting you'd know you reached t3 way before they did and probably should have made a battlecruiser before going into summit production (since battlecruisers tend to be a bit better against destroyers and frigates).

With proper scouting and good unit composition you probably could have won naval control fairly early in the game (or at least forced his allies to devote more resources to supporting him at the expense of other fronts) as you were out-ecoing him and really just had to make destroyers and shield boats + frigates and play a bit more aggressively instead of going with your destroyer+cruiser+sub mix, especially combined with your early t3 advantage for battlecruisers.

Summary
Huh.. seems I just can't leave you short responses.. ah well
All in all, noticable improvement, in order of importance I'd suggest you:

• Scout more so you can anticipate and react to the enemy
• If retreat is an option, retreat when you can't win instead of losing your units
• Never stop ecoing (your economy falls behind late game because you stop making mass storage and never finish upgrading all your mex)
• Reclaim everything always (part of ecoing really)
• Turtle less (though this may be because of a lack of scouting intel, but really you don't need 30+ t1/t2 torp ds pretty much ever)

There are other things beside this that could be improved surrounding unit choices, some economy, and minor nitpicks in places, but I think a lot of that will come through practice and you definitely have been making progress in those sorts of areas already.

Your problem though really isn't slowness, its just intel for the most part, while your early game could use a bit of improvement, you actually are getting stuff up and running pretty fast, you have econ and tech advantage, you have superior production, you just have a few odd unit choices in places and lack the intel you need to make the best use of it.

[Explosive]

perhaps this works?

[Rogueleader89]

can U please look on my replay on setons back position, this was with sparkys drop but enemy com always walks away, ive saw some casts for this map but i dont knew what to do better
chrisx1952

Can't open your replay, you changed the extension away from what it needs to be to be opened, but even after changing it back it causes an error, might have to do with mods you are running if I lack them (not sure there though..) or it could just be the replay is corrupt. If you want to upload the original (to see if it isn't corrupt) or provide the replay id though I'd be happy to look at it.

[Explosive]

can U please look on my replay on setons back position, this was with sparkys drop but enemy com always walks away, ive saw some casts for this map but i dont knew what to do better
chrisx1952

Can't open your replay, you changed the extension away from what it needs to be to be opened, but even after changing it back it causes an error, might have to do with mods you are running if I lack them (not sure there though..) or it could just be the replay is corrupt. If you want to upload the original (to see if it isn't corrupt) or provide the replay id though I'd be happy to look at it.

#


this one works

[ColonelSheppard]

Extremely nice summery Rougeleader