RoLa wrote:Well i wanna get a bit better again, but i am stuck. Maybe someone can give me good advice.
my analysis
bad things:
- i built a land factory (3rd) but forget to set it on loop
- i let pass a raiding group unnecesarily
- i energy stalled quite a bit so my radars didnt work
- i hadnt enough intel on his acu and his units
- at minute 10 i had more units and could have been more agressive (raiding)
i lost to many factories so he outproduced me shortly after
- i wasted mass
- i wasted some time and resources on t2 acu upgrade
- i made gun range upgrade tho i should have gone t2
- i had t2 hq and didn't use it
good things:
i think i microed a bit better my units
how do i get better?
Alright, I think you have 4 main problems with your play in this game, and you've touched a bit on each of them in your own analysis, but I'll try to emphasize the important points you haven't.
AggressionFirst, you are playing too passively, you are always on the defensive, in your analysis you say that you have more units at 10 minutes and should have been more aggressive then, yes this is true, but even earlier than that your opponent leaves wide gaps you could march your units through, particularly on the left side of the map, usually when they are making pushes against you. Its less about unit numbers and more about unit position, though perhaps this lack of aggression is partially due to another problem...
ScoutingWhich brings us to scouting, as you say in your analysis you did not have enough intel on his units and ACU, a couple of scout planes sent occasionally (or on patrol) over forward border would have done you wonders, but also its very important to note that you aren't scouting your opponent's base. Scouting isn't just about knowing where the units and ACU are (though you definitely need to know that too), its also seeing what your opponent is building, are they matching you in factories? Are they taking time upgrading mexes? Did they go for gun? With proper scouting you'd know that they stopped upping their production and started upgrading mexes and getting gun. You'd know that you have more interceptors than them and that your production outnumbers their's 8 to 5 most of the game.
Production and AttentivenessYou have more production than your opponent early on, even after you lose your forward factories, but your econ is lower because you are not using your superior production to do damage to your enemy so they've been able to tech up mexes in relative safety while making the occasional push here and there. Yes near the very end of the game they get more production than you and make better use of their t2 tech, but you've had the advantage here most of the time leading up to this point, you just never took advantage of it.
While we're on the subject of production, you also had air superiority, you'll notice your opponent never made t1 mobile aa in any significant number, that's because when you used bombers you never protected them with your superior number of interceptors, similarly when they used bombers against you you were always slow to respond with your interceptors. Learning to respond to this and manage air control would help you a lot, the biggest difference by far that it would have made is that you could have completely stopped making t1 mobile aa, you make a lot of it, it might even be why your superior production early game doesn't feel all that superior to you, all of that mobile aa could be more auroras and pushing that air superiority even a little bit would have forced your opponent to either spend more on interceptors or start mixing mobile aa into their own unit groups.
EconYou have some power stalls (pause your mex upgrade and turn off radar that you can't see anything on anyway while you get more pgens up) and some mass overflows but it sounds like you are already thinking about this so I'm not going to touch any more on that. Lets talk about reclaim instead. I don't think I've seen you do it at all this game. You control a sizable field of wrecks on the right side of the map from all of your opponent's attempts at pushing, reclaiming this could have helped a lot in catching you up on econ (you were behind most of the game). Another thing I want to note and emphasize here is that yes you most definitely were behind on econ most of the game, you could have matched mex upgrades and stayed competitive if you had wanted (scouting would help with this), but honestly you have set yourself up this game to be aggressive, you have superior production, the best thing that could have helped you stay level in econ with your opponent for most of this game is just attacking them, harass the mexes they leave undefended and apply pressure so that they can't push as much against you and you would probably be fine.
Minor NitpickI only have one thing to put in this section since you covered most of my really minor nitpicks in your analysis (keep them in mind and try to improve but don't focus too much on them to the exclusion of the broader issues above, also I think your choice of gun over t2 is fine, I'm guessing you are thinking t2 for defenses? If anything I might have picked the other gun upgrade in your situation given how late you are getting it and your more passive play, the range upgrade is better when you are going to poke and prod generally, darn I guess this makes two things now :P), its very specific to this game, I add it only because you should have won.
The enemy ACU is attacking you alone, your ACU plus your larger army should be able to just walk up and kill them despite their gun upgrade well before they can get units there to support themselves properly, especially around 11 minutes when they move way too far forward. Basically gather everything together and you win right there. If you ever see an ACU by itself far from home, look at it, figure out what its upgrades are, send some scout planes to see if reinforcing units are nearby, and if you judge you can win the fight, just go kill them.
SummaryYour analysis is not bad but its too specific, you are focusing on small details instead of the larger ones that will likely effect you more in games to come (small details are important, but not nearly as much so as the broad strokes while you are learning, I suspect the obvious mistakes you point out are things you'll fix naturally while playing).
Personally I'd suggest you work on things in this order:
- Scouting
- Attentiveness/Reaction/Multitasking
- Aggression/Raiding
- Reclaim
Scouting is by far the most important as it should inform everything you do, all of the things after it (with the exception of reclaim) depend in large part on your ability to scout well and make good use of the intel you have gathered. Attentiveness is next on the list because it is clearly doing you a lot of harm, learning to look at more things, and react faster with your units will save you a lot of trouble, and you really have to be attentive to your opponent to know what you can and can not do based on the information you have gathered while scouting. I suspect more aggression and raiding will come from better scouting, its much easier to push out when you know you are likely to succeed than charging blindly forward, but at the same time, there are times when you have to consider what you know about your opponent, how much do they likely have, where are things likely to be, and take some chances.
Reclaim is last on the list, but don't make the mistake of thinking its unimportant, you should focus on the others first but if you really want to step up your game you are going to have to get use to issuing reclaim orders and sending engineers out after battles to bring you that additional mass, it may seem small but its that little bit extra that will put you ahead of opponents who fail to do the same, or cost you an evenly matched game against opponents who reclaim better than you.