Multiplayer Replay Analysis

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Turuk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Turuk »

Velensk wrote:I kind of favor Turuks last list of all the one's listed. That said, Beetlenauts list would come in second because I also do value brevity and a 'positive' phrasing.
Velensk wrote:As a note: I've updated the origional post to contain Beetlenauts version of the posting guidelines and I'd say this thread is ready to be sticked now like it'd been origionally intended.
Bah, it seems as if I lost out to Beetlenaut after all, I'll have to remember the value of brevity. ;)

Stickied.
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lezthar
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by lezthar »

I would like a critique of my playing skillzzz please. (no troll)
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lezthar
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by lezthar »

Okay, here's a serious one.
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

Sorry for the delay I've been away and busy.

I looked at that last replay. I don't know which player you were so it's hard to break it down for you.

On a side note: 2vs2s are a bit tricky because there's a lot more going on there than just your play.
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Implementor37 »

Normally, I play "random"--but this leaves me in a bit of a dilemma. I'm decent with every faction except Knalgans (at least, I understand how I *should* play them)--and I seem to end up as Knalgans a lot when playing random. I'm including the replay of my most recent game and would appreciate any input (I'm blue). I think that my strategy was horrible :augh: , but I won due to a few mistakes and pure RNG luck... :whistle: If there is anything I did right/wrong, I would love to hear it so that I can improve my Knalgan game.
Thanks in advance for your comments!
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

I'll try to get around to this soon but I will say that you'll have a hard time getting good advice from Isar's Cross replays. Not only are 2vs2 much hard to analsyse, but Isars cross is a map of very limited strategic depth and a skewered balance scheme. Knalgans are far more strait forward to play on this map than on most maps but this works to your disadvantage as learning how to play them on Isars doesn't really correlate to how you'd play them in a more typical match.

I'll edit this post once I have something to say.
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Implementor37 »

No problem. I knew there was only a small chance of getting advice from an Isar's replay, especially on a rather complicated faction like knalgans (they seem to almost be two distinct factions: dwarves and outlaws based on play-style--that's where I get stuck. I can't decide how to best merge the two). When I can, I'll post a 2p random map replay, and then it'd probably be easier to review... Thanks for bothering to review this one though!
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

After looking at the replay, not only were you playing on Isars but you were playing on non-standard setting. At 3 gpv and lower xp requirements, the dynamics change again. I’ll review this anyway but decisions that would be good here, won’t necessarily be good under standard settings.

Turn 1: It’s hard to get value out of thieves on Isars. This doesn’t mean they’re a bad unit (quite the contrary) but it’s a tough pick to get them there.

Turn 2:/3 No comment.

Turn 4: You probably wanted to save the castle hex for the thunderer. The thunderer being more resistant to what he could attack with and a scarier counter attack than the footpad. In general with knalgans you have to rely on the power your army can have when it plays to its strengths and the strength of dwarves is that when they’er on terrain they can fight on, they’ll trade up against any foe they can fight (though fort busters can still get through them).

Turn 5: You and your ally both made several tactical and/or strategic errors here. Either you wanted to engage your enemy very differently or you wanted to pull back and limit how much he could hurt you until dusk started to fall. If you wanted to hold the line and get a bit of damage off them then you needed to get your toughest unit (that guardsman) where he blocked the most enemy fire and in this case your thunderer probably didn’t need to retreat but instead wanted to poke at the heavy infantry. Alternatively you could have fallen back further than the village and tried to draw them into over extending in preparation for a counter attack (at which point you probably wanted to reinforce outlaws). Either way you didn’t want to move your guardsmen in such a way that he’s overextended, and setting next to a village he can be picked at from. You probably do not want griffons on Isars in general. They’re strong but you pay a lot for a level of mobility you can’t exploit, here they also fair poorly against the kind of force your enemy is fielding.

Turn 6: No comment

Turn 7: You put your leader where you’re completely cut off from your ability to recruit. Under high gov settings this gets costly very, very quickly.

Turn 8: Looks like for all your mistakes it was still sufficient to win. In general, replays where you lose are easier to work with.

Overall: You say that knalgans have a dual nature. Actually the entire faction works on the same basic idea: Find a way to force your enemy to fight to each of your individual units strengths, trust your strength, know the few ways your opponent can break you and counteract them in advance.
-This replay doesn’t really give me too much opportunity to give you too much advice but from the way you moved, I can only suggest that you trust what your units can do and pick units that can force the situation you want for the map on which you’re playing. Even at day, dwarves on hills are not targets that can be efficiently attacked, and if they’re thunderers even using mages on them is risky. At night your units are tough enough that you can come off your hills and brawl in the open but until then, either hunker down or fall back and wear down your opponent so that you can make your counter attack.
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mmKALLL
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by mmKALLL »

Here's a very recent match I played on the ladder against a player much stronger than me; while my play definitely has serious flaws, I have some trouble locating them.

If you'd have the time to analyse this and give me some pointers on what to focus at, it would be very much appreciated. (About turn one; I hadn't played the map before so I was unfamiliar with the castle layout)
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

I'd really like to say more that what I'm about to but really I run into major problems even trying to.

Basically I can't give you many pointers because the entire dynamic of that match was determined by you having never played the map before. Even given that you figured it out on turn two, you were already far too far behind at that point (particularly as you were player 2). Basically you missed out on an entire spearman worth of gold and put yourself at a nasty positioning disadvantage right there. If you'd played perfectly from that point out, it's quite possible if your opponent was expert that you'd still lose. But you certainly didn't, notably recruiting only one unit for the north front when there were two spaces and instead putting recruits at the core of the keep where they'd have to walk for a couple turns to get to anywhere useful. You were also both unfortunate and unprepared on the mid south flank as your archer had not the movement points to make it all the way to the village in one move (the one you recruited turn 3. Getting a fencer would have fixed that problem and the trouble it'd cause you but that would eat into you later or if you'd simply had that extra spearman you were missing and could have covered the villages south without the mage.

What's more on the third turn you decided to abandon grabbing the village you hadn't captured in favor of protecting the one the game gave you despite the fact that there were no enemy units in range to capture it. In the loyalist vs loyalist match-up, the only things that can efficiently remove a spearman from a village without taking immense risks are mages and heavy infantry, you had sufficient vision/knowledge to know that he couldn't immediately attack you with either of those just a fencer and a horseman, both of whom it'd be a spectacularly bad idea for him to use to try to break a spearman on the village. By far the most likely result of him even trying would be that you get a nearly free kill on a horseman and those things are expensive. In this, you not only surrendered the gold for controlling the village but you gave him the option to press his positional advantage even further by grabbing on of your villages to use a a staging ground just as night is falling and it generally becomes much more difficult to recapture villages in L vs L.

At this point, with an enemy on your village you back off. In a way this makes sense as attacking would lose you other villages and attacking it would be chancy business especially as you'd likely end up using a horseman vs horseman joust as a finisher however it's a losing move. At status quo, you eventually lose. You were already down a unit in terms of lost gold and now your opponent has an income advantage on you as well. Also, as you may have noticed, that particular village he captured is a great position to split your forces and concentrate an attack from. Your odds of winning probably would have been higher if you had tried to kill the horseman because although it would have been costly, if you got lucky and could have done it efficiently enough (and spears/horseman actually have fairly decent odds of being very efficient at that) you could be winning in some way and force your opponent to make relatively hard decisions. On one path his decisions look something like this (stall and consolidate advantage, press advantage for a focused offense, take advantage of the fact that my enemy is pinned to their villages to send move units around freely and pick off units/villages that are vulnerable [like those mermen]) vs the potential (I just lost a horseman which puts me a little behind and we're equal on villages, I can engage his army which has some inherent risk, I can capture his villages but that leaves me split up and in the area that his army can counter attack, I can do a a mixture of both which will stretch his resources thin and help me accumulate an advantage). Now, in all honestly, neither position would be great and it takes a bit of luck to pull the second one off, but without the second one your position will become untenable if he plays cautiously and well.

I could commentate on the rest of the match but really, the game was practically already lost at this point. The rest of the match is merely a bunch of little mostly inconsequential skirmishes and him pressing his advantage until you choke. I don't feel your opponent played exceptionally well but he didn't need to given the situation. I'd consolidate my advice into two points:

-Figure out the map a little ahead of time. Where you'll be attacked where you can attack, what the whole point of the giant castle is. Failing at this will put your opponent in control of the match by default.

-Keep in mind who is currently in control of the match. In general, control in a game (and this applies to many games not just wesnoth) can be defined as: If things keep going the way they are going, who will win (or in the case of games with chance, who is much more likely to win)? If you are not in control of the match, you need to find some way to shake things up and give yourself the best chance you can. If you are in control, you need to find ways to eliminate other paths for the game to flow in while relentlessly pressing your advantage to its natural victory.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by mmKALLL »

Amazing, thank you so much for taking the time to write this out!

I'll probably have to put another replay up later on, but it might take a while to get any decent matches currently. Can you give some pointers on how to deal with night/day properly? I suppose the different cases boil down to advantage vs disadvantage, advantage vs advantage, advantage vs neutral, disadvantage vs neutral and disadvantage vs disadvantage. Obviously I understand the basic strategy, but more specifically things related to terrain/village control and the dynamics of pressing on/falling back are something I'm wondering about often. For example, speaking generally, with chaotic vs lawful at night, how much should control over the map change? How much pulling back is acceptable for the lawful team? Or is it more an issue of building a line and letting the opponent to attack, but from bad terrain or with disadvantageous matchups?

I'm also wondering about whether leaving few units in favourable terrain as knalgans or elves is good in situations where backup will take more than a single turn to arrive and you might have to fight around 1.5-2 opponents per unit?

Again, thank you for the analysis :)
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

The answer to the vast majority of the questions you asked is: it depends. After you've got the basic dynamics down, skilled gameplay in wesnoth weighs extremely heavily on that 'it depends' and I can't really convey all of the factors/notes that go into making that decision simply. It's a thing that comes with experience. That said I'll try to give you a basic rule of thumb for each.

For day and night:
Obviously, if you're not in a mirror match, it's expected that one side will have the advantage over the other at one time of day and vice versa (on that note, except for a single niche strategy undead take night vs northerners preferring day and drakes take night against loyalists preferring the day). The extent of the advantage depends on the matchup; the extent to which this advantage can be pressed depends on what units the enemy has where. Different responses are appropriate to different situations.

In general there should be an ebb and flow of forces moving with the advantage, each side trying to force a fight when they have the advantage and avoiding fights when they don't. At points it may be appropriate for the weaker side to try to hold ground (particularly at villages) but you have to evaluate risks and prices against what you can hope to win.

It is perfectly acceptable to let your enemy take villages but you should only do this if you are preventing your enemy from doing something else worse (like killing several units, especially if you're likely to lose the village anyway. Likewise there are sometimes, particularly if you're a neutral faction where you may wish to stand firm against a lot of aggressive power but only if you have something you think you can win that makes up for the beating you're going to take. Remember too, that your enemy also pays a price when they commit to an attack. This can be some damage they take in retaliation (brutal for trying to attack a spearman with a horseman) but generally the price is more in the fact that their units have to stand next to your units. This can have a number of effects such as not being able to disengage gracefully [important if time of day is about to change] or being open to a counter attack [though this is less important if it's the ToD your enemy is weak in].

In a mirror match, it's really pretty simple. It's really hard to kill the enemy at the ToD you both dislike and both sides will die really fast during the time you do (in a drake mirror both sides are always very good at killing each other, in elves/knalgans there's never a time you're great at kill each other though day/night (respective) make it easier. Generally these matches are more about what units you have where and trying to split your enemy up.

There is no hard fast rule that works for every situation but what you must endeavor to do is gain and maintain control of the match and give your opponent only bad options. You can have control of the match even if you're currently retreating (whether due to ToD or an enemy reposition) so long as you will reliably be in position to press an advantage later. A lot of gaining control is about presenting threats that your enemy must deal with in some fashion. If you fail to present any credible threats to a skilled opponent, they will simply set themselves up in the fashion they desire which will generally let them attack you under conditions that favor them forcing you to either surrender villages (which will eventually kill you if you can't change things) or fight under a situation that favors them.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Aelaris »

Playing with my little brother, lost quite badly.

I thiiiiiiiink this is luck (and say as much in the chatter), but I feel that blaming defeat on luck is the road perpetual mediocrity.


My gameplan was to lure his saurians out into the open at dawn while distracting south to keep his units spread out. However, on the dawn I think I was unlucky, and the saurians didn't die.

Things went really down-hill from there.

Where did I go wrong?
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

Turn 1: You forgot to take the village/move forward.

Turn 2: No comment

Turn 3: Just a question, did you both happen to know each others faction ahead of time? Also, just noticed that you're playing with random starting time. In a mirror that isn't a big deal but it can throw other match-ups off.

Turn 4/5: No comment

Turn 6: In general I think that if you were going to push there you needed to make a move that would need to commit much more heavily (which would probably be a mistake). The best you could hope for (which was unlikely even though you got it) was an even trade and some extra damage. That was also your only auger on that front and nothing other than augers is great at killing entrenched skirmishers at night or even dawn. Even losing his auger (which was a bit of bad luck on his part) he's not in a bad position and would most likely have been in a much better position on even results.

Turn 7: So I can see that this is the key turn. I honestly think you were playing a bit too risky (though is move is pretty risky too. If it was dawn that turn, his move would have been a complete suicide but although dawn is coming his saurians are placed such that you cannot counter attack them without being right where his clashers want you. In the meanwhile you definitely over extended down south where he's got your skirmisher pinned, your glider is too worn down to safely stick around, and the auger can't engage yet.

If you look at the forces that each side has at the top front that can weigh into the fray, both sides have 2 saurian skirmishers in good shape but while he has 2 augers, (who can't be ignored even at day) 2 clashers, and a glider that can glide in if needed you have a badly wounded clasher, another clasher, a fighter, and your leader. Your leader is great here but his ability to do damage is limited by the fact that his only targets are entrenched skirmishers and if you sue him he probably won't be able to stick around long. Now this could definitely still go very badly for him. If you get the rolls you need against the augers while still keeping your better defenders in the good positions you'll clean him up on the top, but it's a victory that'll keep you busy and it won't give you a way to make the situation on the south flank better.

Turn 8: Now that was some high grade bad luck. Enough to seal the deal on a position that wasn't incredible (and yours wasn't). The moves in the south make your position worse. Normally you'd want to just retreat the glider. Of course, I suppose you were in a position where you had to gamble on having something go incredibly right for you after that engagement at the top so it's not like it hurt at the point you were doing it.

I'll just leave it here, it's cleanup after this point.

Overall: You did get incredibly unlucky and that could have killed you even had your position been much stronger than it had been. That said, I believe the way you played out turns 6/7 were not conductive to making your position as strong and reliable as it could have been. Had you not succeeded in getting one of his augers it would have been a bad idea to stick around at all. Had you gotten even rolls you would have faired a lot better and probably come out ahead on that particular engagement, but I'm not so certain that you'd have reliably secured yourself a winning position.
-On the other hand, he risked a lot too, and if you'd gotten good rolls you would have crushed him silly enough that the other advantages he was gaining elsewhere probably wouldn't have amounted to enough.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Oflameo »

Can someone psychoanalyze me based on my play style? I am thinking about getting on the latter, but I don't feel that I "know thyself" enough.

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