How to Watch a Replay ?

[Cheva]

Hello,

Based on questions I received lately I thought this would make a good post.

People often ask people if they watched their replay. Not many people describe how to properly analyze a replay. This should be a fun Thread to talk about how you watch your replay in order to learn from it.

Personally I like to first watch the replay in observer to see exactly how the game went. Then I re-watch in only my view. Once in my view only I break the game down into 3 sections. Start, middle and the end game. At each section I evaluate build power, Intel, economy, reclaim and counters. How do you do it ? What would you pass on to new players ?

As little throw back to GPGnet here. We once had a review style like below where you gave a high level write up and then minute by minute feedback for key points. FunkOff knows a little about this.

Replay Overview
Quality:EXCELLENT
Quick Information
• #1 versus #2
• Constantly back-and-forth
• TML whoring
• ACU upgrade

Early Game:
Dark-Ragnos

-01:45: Get that scout moving!
-02:00: That bottom engineer is very vulnerable...
+03:46: Recognized mass stall and reclaiming with bottom engineer.
-03:56: Building a PD+factory in the south when you are low on mass. There's a big rock next to your ACU and a few mass points. Get those first.
-04:05: Set good way points for your factories. You've got valuable units idling in your base.

Chevalier

[Morax]

This thread makes me miss the Zock + Petric epic vids they did : (

[codepants]

I usually watch my replays keeping an eye on a few things:
1. At a given point in the game, did I have more income or did they?
--> If one of us had less income, is that because we had more units? If so, did we use them effectively or did they just sit around and be a wasted investment?
--> Did one person use their income more effectively? (eg spamming aa when there are no air units, having massive air control but not using bombers, making one tml that killed everything)
2. What led to me/them getting more mexes?
--> Which raids worked/didn't work? Were any a waste of mass (cost of tanks/planes lost vs. cost of mexes destroyed minus reclaim given)? Were any super efficient? Did killing xyz building actually have an effect (ex power raiding - did they actually stall)?
--> Which raids did I miss out on? Did I have well positioned units I didn't use?
3. Was I ever floating mass? Were they? What could I have done differently to keep from doing that (ex anticipate needing more build power)?
4. Was I ever floating too much power or stalling power? Were they? How did this affect the build rate of units/upgrades (sometimes it's OK to stall power for a bit)? What would I do differently next time?
5. Did I get map control? Did it matter?
6. Who got more reclaim, and why?

It varies from game to game obviously but those seem to be the kickers and/or good starting places.