Multiplayer Replay Analysis

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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

I don't psycho-analyse but I can briefly comment on the game.

I'm not going to go over each turn as both you and your opponent played appallingly passively so there were a lot of turns of nothing but I'll give you some key points here.

>As I said, you both played incredibly passively. It took 22+ turns for your first real engagement to happen. This kind of thing should almost never happen (though that map can have that problem in other match-ups). In most match-ups there will be an impetous to attack on one side or the other (in this one I'd say it's more on the rebel side but even then drakes need to play aggressively). It was as if neither you nor your opponent really had any plan on how to attack.
>Your opponents recruits are not ideal for attacking drakes. He even gets a mage which isn't a great choice even if the drakes are going saurian heavy.
>When you attack you neither follow through nor do any kind of damage that would justify the sacrifices you make. Now, you have been doing a better job of banking (and to be fair if your opponent is playing passively banking is a good strategy) but this really puts you behind and gives your opponent no incentive to rush things.
>When the rebels do attack despite that, they do it at day which is a nigh suicidal bid. In general, even if the drakes have a lot of saurians, it's safer for rebels to attack at night, the reason being that in order to counter attack the saurians have to put themselves in the open which makes them more vulnerable than elves so if they can't absolutely cripple the elven army they lose.
>With your banking and the elven impatience you are in great position to crush their army and close out the game.

My advise:

--Optimize your village grabbing. Grabbing a village with your leader as opposed to moving to the second castle is strictly better. You will get more gold overall and be in position to fight quicker. If your opponent had optimized his village grabbing you would have been 12-15 gold or an entire unit behind before the game even began.
--Normally, drakes need to be more proactive in taking control of space. Saving a bunch of gold and bursting out reinforcements even reinforcements of the right alignment struggles against an enemy who plans a good attack and knows how to split your front. On that map if you're recruiting at the forward keep it leaves you vulnerable on the other flank generally. Now against that composition and disposition of elves that approach works fine but you could have had a much shorter game and had the opportunity to make safe attacks if you were more assertive.
"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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ForPeace
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by ForPeace »

Hello

Could you please analyze my ladder game with kapcerz? I find most of my mistakes just after making them, but some of them are not obvious, especially in this matchup, so decided to post the replay here.

http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/downlo ... %3A12%3A53
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"When I say I've been playing for 10 years people come saying they've played for 15 years and that I know nothing about this game because I didn't use to play when the TRUE pros were playing xD" ~Hejnewar
Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

Turn 1/2/3: No comment.

Turn 4: His press on the southwest flank gives you an interesting problem. Giving up a village just as night is falling that you don't have an option to take back isn't a good start. You correctly identify that that the bat cannot reliably hold the outskirt village and so you decide to swing the bat around and give up the village while not moving forces to recover it (you need those for your attack). This puts a strong impetus on you to not only push the drakes off villages but to secure kills which is difficult to guarantee against an opponent as mobile as drakes.
--There are several ways to approach this but I feel the one you took is one which is most likely to favor your opponent. In reviewing the situation, the approach I favor is to have the ghost cover the outskirt village and have the bat try to hold 10, 18 while you keep something in range such that you can counter attack if he goes for the bat. The bat is actually significantly more likely to survive in the village in the open as he's more likely to drain the saurian if he attacks it. It's 'fairly' likely to go down but if you have your leader and another unit threatening a counter attack you could probably get a decent trade and make it so that if he fails to kill the bat he's in a very bad position while still putting decent pressure in the north east.

Turn 5: Very aggressive counter-attack on his side. To be fair, he is in position to follow through on it but more importantly this kind of attack will require you to spend all your energy dealing with it which means his forces on the far flank will be generating great value over time. If he was forced to be more cautious on the other side, this counter attack he's making would be much riskier (right now he's in a win-win situation). On the other hand, he is still opening himself up for the chance for things to go very badly with his main force.

On your counter, counter-attack, I'd have suggested going after the fighter rather than the glider. The fighter is the biggest threat to your adepts and it's your adepts that make it costly for him to fight you.

Turn 6: So on this turn you seem to settle on trying to end the match quickly and focus on kills rather than safer gains or conservation. This was probably wise of you considering your position on the southwest. This is however a risky play as it puts you right in his maw as day begins so if things don't go well it could backfire quickly. Still, the best call you can make is never the wrong one even if it's not a very good option.

Turn 7: No comment.

Turn 8: Tough skeleton.

Turn 9: Funnily enough the income situation is reversed but your forces aren't in position to press that advantage.

Turn 10: No Comment

Turn 11: I'm going to assume that ghost movement was a mistake. Retreating the ghost probably would have been the best option but moving it off the village was almost certainly less ideal than keeping it on.

Turn 12/13/14: No Comment

Turn 15: Minor niggle but you could have positioned the adept more aggressively which would give you the option to assault the village with him on the next turn.

Turn 16/17: No Comment.

Turn 18: Game ends.

Overall: In general if you're looking for a constructive analysis it's better to post losses than wins. Your play was not bad and although I tend to favor styles that focus on making your opponents best options costly, your momentum was able to carry you in a way my style wouldn't have.

I think if your opponent had exploited his advantages more fully and wisely you would have had a very hard time ever recovering momentum. As it was, you were able to trade well and his forces were too spread out to take advantage of key timings.
"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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ForPeace
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by ForPeace »

Thank you very much Velensk for your analysis. It's really nice to get some advice from a better player.

Seems that I shouldn't focus so much only on the attacks. Anyway, I'm still a bit newbie so my style is going to evolve :). Thank you again for your advice.
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Horus2
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Horus2 »

I'm usually not requesting a replay analysis, but since this map is my lovechild and its balance got openly questioned, i would like to see different point of views about the happenings on the battlefield. My play was the most focused of the year, his play was stellar, and obviously, Fortuna was in her everyday good shape too.
I would like to hear you about everything that you think could have been done better by any of us, to see if map changes are still necessary, or in fact, not.

http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/downlo ... %3A20%3A03
Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

Just warning you of two biases I have in advance. Although I respect neki's play I don't really care to listen to him so I'm not going to go picking through the chatlogs. Secondly, the shape of the map is one that I'm disinclined towards.

Turn 1: Were you aware about your opponents faction when you started this match? Given a knalgan opponent a HI isn't a bad pick but without knowing that I'd consider it far too likely to be a liability to be worth it on initial recruit. Especially on such a large wide map.

Turn 2/3: No Comment.

Turn 4: Already I feel like my initial concerns about the map shape are starting to materialize. You are perfectly safe in pressuring multiple points here and this is as a loyalist against knalgans at night. There's not really a lot knalgans can do to hold down such a wide front. Of course, a part of the issue is that he's trying to hunker down with guardsmen which would be the answer on a more narrow map but probably won't work here. The problem is that knalgans will always struggle against loyalists if they can't lock them down in some way and guardsmen are one of the most reliable ways to do that. Despite the size of the map, it's still probably a better bet for him than trying to engage cavalry in no mans land here.

Turn 5/6: No Comment.

Turn 7: Note the force shift you do here. Because of the sheer distance between the villages on the flanks and the slowness of the dwarves, you can afford with your more mobile forces to shift all forces away from the right without being in any danger of counter attack by anything other than the gryphon (and of course the gryhon doesn't want to stand where it can get cut off by cavalry).

Turn 8: That village really needed to hold out another turn. Not that he can't chase you off here but he doesn't really have a lot of good options for regaining initiative.

Turn 9: Although I didn't go back and read the logs, from what little I caught I can agree that he's working pretty blind and I don't think there was much he could have done not to aside from picking a very aggressive opening gambit but even that has it's downsides as he'd be spread pretty thin and not in position to really make an attack with his aggressive units.

Turn 10/11/12/13: No Comment.

Turn 14: He's really not getting lucky with those footpads. Not that them surviving would put him in a great position but what chances he has are being compromised by the footpads unreliability. I think he needs to leave something more solid than a poacher on that village but at the same time if he can't lock down those cavalry in the center he's just as dead.

Turn 15: That was pretty aggressive of you in my mind. I expect you'll be able to get away with enough of it to be worthwhile but it does give him some options. At this point if you're not feeling impatient, you can play conservative pretty safely.

Turn 16: That went better for him than I'd expect but he's still in a really rough position. It's worth noting just how heavily he's been forced to invest in grphyons. Now it's working here while he can catch your cavalry with poachers and guardsmen but I feel that on this map, this match-up is likely to be a lot of cavalry vs a lot of gryhons and the cavalry win that match-up.

Turn 17/18: No comment.

Turn 19: Ouch, that fencer. Granted a 60% CtK isn't brilliant at the cost but still. Knalgans don't really have a good way to get heavy infantry off villages. They have tools to prevent them from getting onto the villages but no real recourse if it does happen.

Turn 20: I think that bid shows that he was feeling pretty desperate. I'm not sure it was the best call (I'd favor conserving gryphons and trying to pin cavalry against guardsmen/poachers again) but his position was really bad and he might be right about it being his best odds.

Turn 21: This turn his play goes from beyond desperate to bad but he's probably correct that it wouldn't matter.

Gameplay Overall: The match played out exactly as I expected after turn 8 save that I didn't expect the knalgans to be able to do quite as much damage as quickly as they did in the middle that night. I think that actually gave them a shot at winning but it was a very small chance if they couldn't somehow get rid of those heavy infantry.

Although I would've made a few different choices than neki (you played about exactly as I would have minus perhaps taking a more conservative approach that one turn), I don't really have any grounds to say that any of the minor decisions would have made a significant improvement. I think with a different starting recruit he might have been able to exert a bit more space control early but I don't think that it would have been sufficient to put him in a position to attack or prevent you from being able to attack at day.

Overall Map: I agree with his final statement but I don't think it'd be sufficient to fix the issue here. The map is indeed rather immense for the unit density you have here but the bigger issue is that you make a map this dynamic and it favors the more dynamic play styles. In this match-up, the loyalists have plenty of reason to use cavalry anyway. The flank villages are so far apart that pushing on the sides with a dwarf force will never be able to get the right timings. Dwarves can fight in the center pretty well but they can't get to where they're needed and I wouldn't want to try Hodor on a map like this.

Now the one thing that knalgans have going for them here is that if they can do what you did, push forward grab villages and get their slow units onto them, loyalists also have a tough time chasing units off of them and they can lever a win (this is how it normally is with knalgans vs loyalists) however on this particular map I feel that the loyalists have many more tools to put themselves in that position and to deal with an opponent who manages to achieve it.

No matter how I look at it, the time to react for a slower force just gives a more mobile force so much of an advantage here. It looks even worse than Crescent Lake which was a map that also has a similar problem.

I think that the low unit density might actually not be so big a problem -if- you could start with more units and with units closer to the flank. If the time to grab your villages was smaller you'd be able to start really marshaling your forces sooner. Of course, that could cause other problems.
"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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beetlenaut
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by beetlenaut »

Velensk wrote:Because of the sheer distance between the villages on the flanks and the slowness of the dwarves, you can afford with your more mobile forces to shift all forces away from the right without being in any danger of counter attack....I think that the low unit density might actually not be so big a problem -if- you could start with more units and with units closer to the flank.
What about putting a [tunnel] between the smaller castle and the encampment on the other flank?
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

Possibly. I will admit I don't have a ton of experience with tunnel maps so I couldn't say.

I like the idea though.
"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."
Ben24626
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Ben24626 »

Been meaning to do this for a while. Something I think I can improve alot on is luck management ie when an attack is too risky/worth going for among others, so any pointers on that aswell as any advice anyone has at all is greatly appreciated :) replay is attached
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

Turn 1/2/3/4/5/6/7: No Comment

Turn 8:So here's where your attack starts. You got a touch unlucky not killing the archer but I feel that you responded to that misfortune poorly. One thing to understand is that when you are fighting rebels with shamans (and against drakes rebels should have shamans), you will not be able to disengage gracefully. You must do as much damage and leave as few elves in frontline condition as possible as otherwise you'll simply be picked apart.
--Once the attack fails you have to decide if you're planning to stick around next turn or prepare to retreat however, retreat isn't going to work very well here. If you're planning to stick around, it's more important to keep your high value/high damage drakes alive and unpinned/unslowed than to conserve overall forces and/or hold a strong line. Elves can stand in the open to fight drakes if the biggest drakes are slowed and they are close to reinforcements while the drakes are not.

Turn 9: Despite what the observers were saying, I think that you were right to continue this attack but it should be understood that it was not a good option, merely a better one than attempting to pull back.

Turn 10: Some interesting moves on his part but I have no comment on your play.

Turn 11/12: No Comment.

Turn 13: Interesting choosing to leave the village. I don't see much reason for it, only one fighter can reach it this and even if he deals more damage than the village heals in a turn stalling him for the gold is probably worth it it. You need every edge you can get.

Turn 14: Nice bit of fortune on the right and a good response from him.

Turn 15: No Comment

Turn 16: I think you might have faired better had you tried to hold the village and recruiting some augers for a counter attack. as it is, counter attacking him after he's on the village is going to be much harder.


Turn 17/18: No Comment

Turn 19: A couple odd choices by him there. His posture says that he's welcoming a fight by that's not a fight I'd be comfortable taking were I him.

Turn 20: If he's posturing for a fight you need to support that front and make sure that he doesn't win it. At the very least I feel you should have allocated your clasher to the right flank as with reinforcements you'll be able to chase elves off your village without it's help but you cannot get reinforcements to the right flank as easily and that's one which he is going to counter attack regardless.

Turn 21: I've been liking his leader use this game. That one however was risky and if you'd had an unslowed clasher in the area he wouldn't have even been able to try it.

Turn 22: No Comment.

Turn 23: I've been systematically ignoring the chat this game but to your last comment: Shamans are game changing. Shamans can make a small amount of your enemies misfortune lethal. Of course, the fact that the slow only gets two strikes makes them a bit unreliable too but even one shaman can make your enemy right to hesitate in attacking.

Turn 24: Now he's just getting silly with his leader. He should be in no rush he's got a lot of gold saved up.

Turn 25: Yep, that was silly of him.

Overall: I think early on you didn't respect the shamans enough and that later on he wasn't bold enough in pressing his advantages. I don't think the play was bad on either side. The only real take away I have for you, is when things go wrong to start trying to figure out how you're going to deal with it before your enemy punishes you (as they almost certainly will try in most cases).

Also: Remember, it's generally easier to learn lessons from loses than victories, even victories like this one.
"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."
Ben24626
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Ben24626 »

Thanks greatly for advice.
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Gyra_Solune
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Gyra_Solune »

this isn't a multiplayer game, it's me just messing around against the AI but I am surprised I even won this considering how it was going around the middle, and I'm not sure if there's a 'just generally intriguing replays sharing' thread

I was white-team dwarves of course. Slightly long game, 38 turns. Purple is simple add-on that's just all the not-used units in one faction - they have a ton of units but the AI only likes using the primary melee ones and mudcrawlers, even though they have access to interesting toys like the Giant Scorpion, Mermaid Initiate, and Dwarvish Scout - the latter especially being pertinent since in my experience they're pretty much better but costlier Jundis that level up ridiculously quick. Given how strong the Orcish Leader is though they can still put up a fight without them.

You can pretty easily see where it was all but certain I'd lose - only major asset I had was a Thunderguard, but then instead of being crushed by the BT-Khalifate lines they ended up blowing up on each other and I just barely managed to pull out the win. A lesson learned - never let weak-looking but entrenched dwarves escape your notice! Have to keep them penned in and starve them out and just lay on the pressure.

There's likely major mistakes I made early on that led to such a situation hahaha, I just don't know exactly what the major pertinent mistakes might have been.
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

That isn't really the purpose of this thread. The purpose of this thread is to provide people with insight into their own play and advice on how to improve for which an FFA game is unlikely to be useful and an AI game will almost certainly not be.

There were in the past several 'replay archive' threads for this kind of thing. I don't think there was ever a FFA game.
"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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Gyra_Solune
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Gyra_Solune »

That's odd. What is the problem with FFA?
Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

Because winning a FFA isn't about being the best Wesnoth player, it's about being the best FFA player. Even the best wesnoth player in the world can't beat two competent players ganging up on him, in a FFA your odds of winning aren't determined by your ability to beat any other player but by your ability to manage the overall tide of the battle so that it never turns fatally against you.

To say it another way, you could play the best wesnoth in the world and it might still be the wrong decision if it turns all other players against you.
"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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