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Aotearoa39261 Posts
This thread is the combined effort of myself, Saracen and infinity21. It is the first of a series of articles geared towards improving the strategy forum. This article should be read and understood by anyone asking for help to improve their game in the forum. This is by no means a be all and end all guide to replay analysis, just a basic guide to get you started for those of you who don't know where to start. Simply put, if you're not going take the time to try and analyse your own play, why should we take the time to do it for you? This guide should outline all that is necessary to get started in analysing your own replays. Get stuck? Post your question here or post your analysis along with your replay in a thread - posting the analysis is just as important as the replay!
How to Analyse Replays
By Plexa, Saracen and Infinity21
Being able to analyse your own replays is an essential skill for improvement. Being able to identify your mistakes is the first step towards correcting them, and there’s no better way to do that than reviewing your replays. Unfortunately, analysis of replays where you won generally won’t yield as much useful information as analysis of replays where you lost. You can still get some important information out of them, but generally speaking you will want to focus on your losses if you really want to improve. This article will teach you the basics of analysing your replays. This is a very long process and takes quite a bit of time when you first start doing it, but the rewards will quickly pay off if you stick with it! In time, you'll be able to glance at a replay and analyse it in no time at all.
Step 1: Save your replays
This is a step that can be often overlooked because of the inbuilt replay autosave feature. However, after a certain amount of time those unsaved replays will delete themselves. It is good practice to save every single one of your replays - even if you don’t intend to watch them - you never know when they might become useful. The easiest way to do this is to download SC2 Gears by Dakota Fanning. This can be configured to automatically save your replays in whatever format you please. Here is a mini tutorial on how to set this up:
1) Open the settings tab on the menu
2) Select the “Enable Replay Auto-save” option
3) Open “Miscellaneous Settings”
4) The first tab should be the Replay Auto-save configuration, hit the edit button
5) You will be greeted by a few menus and some options to include in your replay name. You can configure this however you like. Use the “Test on last replay” option to make sure you are happy with the result. Here are a few basic options:
- /F4 /p1 /p2 /T /m - this generates a replay like 0324 LiquidNazgul LiquidJinro PvT Lost Temple
- /d/p1,/p2 /r1/r2 /m - this generates a replay like 2010-01-06oGsVINES,LiquidRet PZ Metalopolis
This is the auto-save configuration that Ret uses
6) After you’re happy with the formatting, hit “Okay” to return yourself back to the Misc. Settings menu.
7) Choose whether you want SC2 Gears to delete the replay in the “Unsaved Folder” after auto-saving it and whether you want SC2 Gears to open your last replay for analysis
8) Go to the “Folders” menu (number 7) and specify where you want SC2 Gears to check for new replays. A good idea is just to make it check the “Unsaved” folder in your Account directory.
9) Hit “Okay” and viola, every time SC2 Gears is running it will automatically save your replays. You can also start SC2 via SC2 Gears so you will never forget to have all your replays saved.
Step 2: Give it a ‘once through’
As you improve, analysing replays should take less and less time. But if you are just starting out, watching your replay through once is the first step to properly analysing your replay. Sometimes the reason you lost can be easily identified such as
- Not scouting a hidden expansion
- Horrific micro mistakes (e.g. 1 baneling killing 12+ lings)
- Missing a baneling bust
- Not macroing properly
There is a myth that is commonly believed by higher level players, and that is that macroing better is the be all and end all of improving at lower levels. While better macro would have won the game, that doesn’t mean there isn’t valuable information to be gained from deeply analysing your play such as proper decision making. Understanding why your macro failed you and identifying ways to fix it can all be understood via replay analysis and will lead to quicker improvement. Further, other mistakes you make should be fixed as you are improving your macro - this leads to a healthier overall game
Never be content with just identifying your mistake, you also need to be able to correct it. That will come later. Other things you should be looking for in your first run through should be basic things like unit compositions, how your worker count compares to his, keeping an eye on upgrades, keeping an eye on your army worth etc. Here are a few basic guidelines for these:
Worker Count
It’s best that you use the Unit Counting station rather than the resources tab to count this, since the number of harvesters in the resources tab has a small delay on it - and the resources tab doesn’t display the number of MULEs the Terran has.
Protoss vs Terran - MULEs translate roughly to 4 SCVs. An even worker count would be the number of Probes = number of SCV + 4 per MULE (or Orbital Command)
Protoss vs Zerg - Since Zerg have non-linear growth, an even worker count is roughly number of Probes +- 3 = Number of Drones.
Zerg vs Terran - An even worker count is roughly number of SCVs + 4 per mule = Number of Drones +- 3
Army Tab
Keep an eye on this when you engage. Generally speaking, the army with greater worth will always win (given the right unit composition). However there are a number of other factors which can influence the result of the battle (e.g. positioning, upgrades, micro). Note any battles you lose where you have superior army worth - these battles should be reviewed on your second play through of the replay until you understand why you lost the battle. Also, if you lose a battle when you have inferior army worth then that’s why you lost the battle - you didn’t have enough units.
Step 3: Understanding the game
After your first run through, you will have identified some of the basic areas where you need improvement. Your goal is now to understand how to take this information and correct your mistakes.
Inferior Worker Count
Say one of your problems was that you were behind in workers. Take a good look at your replay and keep an eye on your CC/Nexus for any breaks in peon production. If you are Zerg, you need to see if there are any times where it is safe to build drones but you were making army instead (or nothing at all). Juggling between drones and units is a key skill for Zergs and understanding when to drone or when to make units can be done through analysing replays and identifying signs for when it is safe to drone and when you need to make units. Don’t get distracted by the battles going on in the replay, and note whether you drop peon production during battles or times of micro. Try to think of ways for you to remember to keep producing these workers during these micro intensive situations (e.g. before you engage add a round of workers to your queue).
Poor Worker Saturation
You need about 30 peons per base - 6 to mine gas, 24 on minerals. If you have 90 workers and 2 bases then you have 30 workers too many and desperately need an expansion. You can check how many workers you have mining minerals by selecting all of the peons that are mining them (be careful not to select any that are mining gas!). If you have 3 full rows - then you’re at perfect saturation for that base, assuming you already have 6 workers on gas. If you have 60 workers but you have 40 at your main, 20 at your natural - then you have poor worker saturation and should have transferred 10 more to your natural. This is a very easy mistake to make and even progamers like oGsMC often have too many probes at one base. This can be fixed by selecting your workers in game and checking to see whether you have good saturation or not.
Lost an equal army worth/greater army worth battle
Look long and hard at the battle. Were you behind in upgrades? Was your unit composition bad? (e.g. pure hydralisk against 8 Colossus) Did your opponent have a better position? (e.g. his concave was better, so he had more ranged units firing at any given time. e.g. you weren’t able to get a surround on his Zealots with your Speedlings because he was holding a choke). Were you focus firing in small ranged battles? (very important in PvP). Did he micro so that he took out key units? (e.g. making Immortals target Tanks/Marauders and not Marines). Were your units falling over each other? (e.g. Marauders stuck in the middle of a Marine/Marauder ball against Zerg - leaving them unable to soak baneling hits, or letting your Stalkers get in front of your Immortal/Sentry/Zealots and screwing up their AI).
Try to work out what exactly went wrong, and then try to come up with a way to fix it. For instance, if you engaged his army poorly, know that next time you get into a similar situation to pick where you fight better. Pull your army back a little bit so you have the positional advantage instead of him, etc.
Losing to an early pressure build
Make sure the build you are using is one that you know is good. You should have most of it planned out from before the start of the game AND you should have planned out what to do if you see him doing something you didn’t expect. If your build has excessive minerals/gas stocking up for no reason, then your build needs refinement. It’s often a good idea just to watch progamer replays/VODs and copy their builds until you become more comfortable with the game. Yes, it’s not much fun, but it provides a solid base for you to work off of.
Failed timing attack
If you cut workers since you were going for a timing attack which failed, you should take a long hard look at what happened in the game. Particularly noting the build that your opponent used and trying to understand why the timing attack failed. Perhaps if you had hit 30 seconds earlier your attack might’ve been successful, perhaps you needed to wait for a round of units, perhaps his build was a straight up hard counter to what you did. The next time you see that build try out your new refined timing attack and evaluate it’s success, and rinse and repeat. Also try to find a good timing or indication that you need to resume peon production, since if you are not going to be able to kill him with your attack you’re going to need to have a good economy to compete well in the midgame.
Special Analysis Techniques:
There are a variety of techniques you can apply to successive rewatches of your replay. These can be used to further refine your play or work on specific errors in your game.
Analysing one region at a time
Watch the entire replay with your screen fixed (or close to fixed) on a single area, specifically places like your natural, key fight locations or areas of strategic importance. By forcing yourself to watch one place for the entire replay you are able to notice far more than if you are jumping around everywhere. Say you focus on your natural for the whole replay, then you are able to see when your natural went up, how well you saturated it, how quickly you saturated it, whether it was prepared for any drops and if there was any way you could have better prepared for those drops and even really simple things like how quickly did you get your expo up. By focusing on one region you get an unparalleled opportunity to analyse exactly how you used that section of the map which can often pick up both small and glaring errors in your play.
Using FPView
FPView can be used as a tool to see what your opponent or yourself could see at any given time. This is particularly useful when analysing high level replays and you are trying to master the build used in the replay. Here is an example, by watching Mana play his 3gate Robo build against a Terran you are able to see what he sees - specifically they tells he is able to pick up by scouting. Mana won’t play a poor build on purpose, he will see what his opponent is doing and react accordingly. By watching his FPview you can see the information he sees, so when you see that same information you can play the same response Mana did (assuming he won, of course!). You can also do this with your own play and see if there was anything which came into your vision which you should have noted and to see any holes in your macro (and where those wholes occur).
Using the production tab
The production tab is one of the basic menus on offer when watching a replay, however it is often ignored as a way to analyse your play. You can actively watch the production tab throughout the game to make sure you are building something at every point in the game. When you see gaps in your production, pause the replay and either check your FPView or what’s going on in the replay to find a reason why there was a gap. Perhaps you didn’t have any money because you just expanded, or perhaps you were just being lazy and missed a round of units - in either case you need to identify and fix any gaps in your production.
Step 4: Refining your game
With the big mistakes taken care of, you can look at the more subtle details of the game and refine any mistakes there.
Refining your build
Detailing exactly how to refine your build is beyond the scope of this article. Fortunately, Infinity21 has written an excellent guide on how to design and refine your builds (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=202592). However, when you are watching your replays you will be able to observe your build in action and be able to evaluate it’s effectiveness. You’re looking for things like having good timing with your warpgate, good timing on your Larvae Injects/Queen transfers, good timing on your addon completions, not having unnecessary resources lying around and so on. You should also be mindful of the build your opponent used and any timing windows in his build that you would be able to exploit with the build you used so that next time you come up against that build you can pressure at better times.
Scouting
If you can get a good read on what your opponent is doing then most of the time you should be able to win by playing the counter build to that. Being able to get a lot of information from small tells is an essential part of Starcraft 2, and indeed makes this game very similar to Poker. There are two ways to refine your scouting:
- See what you saw in game and whether there were any things you saw that could have been indicators of what your opponent was up to:
-- e.g. I didn’t see him with many drones and he had his gas, but he had 6 lings denying scouting, perhaps he’s baneling busting
-- e.g. The Terran made only marines and a bunker at his ramp in TvP, this is a good sign that he is teching
-- e.g. The Protoss isn’t spending his Chronoboost, perhaps he’s 4warpgating
- Note the timing of when things should be happening and in future games send a scout at that time to see what’s up.
-- e.g. after a Protoss FE vs Zerg send a Probe or a Zealot to scout whether he’s going for a Baneling bust or Roach pressure
In general, when you send a scout make sure you’re sending it LOOKING for something. Too many players just send a scout and say “oh I scouted” - that doesn’t cut it. When you scout you are looking for tells in his build, worker count, unit composition etc to tell you what his next move is likely to be - and then you need to know how to react to it. For instance, you scout early in PvP because you need to see if he is going for any kind of Proxy, Cannon Rush or Korean 4 Warpgate and to see how his Chronoboost is being spent pre-stalker. All of this is incredibly valuable information which tells you how the rest of the game is going to play out. If you are unsure about reading your opponents build, you can ask in the strategy forum for advice or try and get a hold of some replays of the build in question and look for things that give it away (e.g. first addon is a Reactor not Tech Lab).
Picking your battles
As you watch the game, notice where your armies engage. Are you fighting in positions which are good for you? For instance, in PvZ you want to be engaging in choke points to increase the effectiveness of forcefield, conversely in ZvP you want to be engaging in wide open areas so you can get more units firing at once. Try to find any common theme in your poor engagements, and then try to correct it - remember, it is better to delay the fight and engage in a better position than to force the issue and waste your army.
Map awareness and map control
During the midgame try to evaluate the position every so often. Try to judge who has the initiative/map control and whether the player was able to capitalise on it or how the player lost it. Did he over commit to a battle? Did his macro slip up? Understanding how players lose advantages like this can be key during a game since you may be able to force him into a situation where he makes one of those mistakes (e.g. pressuring on multiple fronts to force bad macro or baiting him into engaging in a poor position).
Another things to be aware of is whether or not you knew what was going on on the map. Many players like to sneak expansions and due to poor scouting habits they often go unnoticed. As Zerg, are you keeping your Overlords above expansions? Are you regularly checking his base with Overseers? As Protoss, are you using observers to their full potential? Are you regularly checking his army composition with your observers? Are you checking for hidden expansions? Are you making good use of Hallucination in PvZ? As Terran, are you using your unused buildings (i.e. Factory TvP) wisely? Are you regularly checking expansions with units? There are many things to think about optimising your map awareness, these are all things which can have tangible benefits in game.
Some questions to ask yourself about your macro:
For Protoss:
Are you always chronoboosting something when you have the energy or saving up chronos for a certain timing?
For Terran:
Are you always dropping MULEs if you don't need to be scanning?
For Zerg:
Are you always spawning larvae?
Are you always spreading creep?
Are you always making workers (P or T)?
Are you droning as hard as you can when no pressure is being applied (Z)? (A nice thing about watching replays is you get to see exactly how much stuff your opponent has so you can figure out for yourself exactly what you should be doing).
Do you ever float minerals before you finish your build order?
Do you ever get supply blocked?
Do you have too few production facilities? Too many?
Step 5: Reflection
Now that you have analysed your replay in detail, it’s a good idea to take a minute to recap what you’ve analysed. This helps improve your understanding of Starcraft by letting the information sink in which makes it more ingrained into your memory. Eventually, it will become instinct or second nature to you and you will notice the vast improvement in your play. If you are unable to work out how to fix/improve certain areas of your play, post your analysis along with your question in the strategy forum and people will be more than happy to help you understand.
We have tried to keep this guide as general as possible. There are certainly things that each race should be looking for in replays and thinking about while watching. For example, Zergs should be thinking about ways to gauge the opponents army strength - weak armies mean drone, strong armies mean units. These things, while invaluable, are out of the depth of this basic introduction to replay analysis. Perhaps a more advanced guide will be written at a later date.
Further Advice on Developing Build Orders by infinity21 - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=202592
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wow.. thanks alot for this! 
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Thank you so much for this! I have questioned my self soooooo many times on this.
You, my fine sir, are A w e s o m e
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Excellent as always Plexa, Saracen and Infinity21! :D
This will really help a lot of people get the most of their replays and understanding why they lost a game, rather than complaining about balance and how something is OP. What I really like is how you focused on MACRO.
Too often people think they lose because they mis microed a big battle and lost that way. However, this is an economy based RTS and it so crucial to have a solid income to win. Reviewing your replays while looking at worker counts and expansion timings will help more than "Oh, I should have split my marines better". Awesome job
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 02:14 Synystyr wrote:Excellent as always Plexa! :D This will really help a lot of people get the most of their replays and understanding why they lost a game, rather than complaining about balance and how something is OP. What I really like is how you focused on MACRO.Too often people think they lose because they mis microed a big battle and lost that way. However, this is an economy based RTS and it so crucial to have a solid income to win. Reviewing your replays while looking at worker counts and expansion timings will help more than "Oh, I should have split my marines better". Awesome job
Agreed. Although you can always learn things from games where neither side had good macro - such as better battle positioning or making better decisions - but ultimately there you can nearly always improve you macro in some way and that little advantage might later turn into a big advantage.
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Wow awesome thread <3
This was definitely necessary to write! Thanks you all!
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Should be immensely helpful to many a player.
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Great thread, I bet even higher tier players can learn from this.
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do you have a link to the sc2 gears thing? i tried searching in google and think i may have a virus now hahaha
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 03:02 Allred wrote:
do you have a link to the sc2 gears thing? i tried searching in google and think i may have a virus now hahaha
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=124689
On February 23 2011 02:54 solidbebe wrote:
Great thread, I bet even higher tier players can learn from this.
I highly doubt it  most good players will be doing this passively without even having to think about it while watching a replay. In fact, most times they will be able to tell why they lost a game without having to watch the replay since they will know (or at least have an idea) about what is going on on the map at all points in time. When things happen unexpectedly, then they consult the replay.
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thanks
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Amazing. Saracen for President.
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sc2 can automatically save all your replays without use of an external program under gameplay->"save all replays"
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 03:16 palanq wrote:
sc2 can automatically save all your replays without use of an external program under gameplay->"save all replays"
Yes it can, but it doesn't do it as nicely as sc2gears does!!
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Great thread. But I have a question, how do I learn from my replays when my opponents do whatever they please? If there is no consistency in the strategies I'm playing against, how can I prepare myself against that?
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aww and i had a guide halfway done t.t
great work nevertheless
one thing i'd like to point out, there is a way to save all replays in bnet actually, its in options-->gameplay--->gameplay--->save all replays
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 03:23 Bleak wrote:
Great thread. But I have a question, how do I learn from my replays when my opponents do whatever they please? If there is no consistency in the strategies I'm playing against, how can I prepare myself against that?
From the replays you should be able to find times when you should be scouting for information. Perhaps that is at the 5 minute mark, perhaps it's at the 7 minute mark - whenever you find that people have usually decided on a strategy, thats when you should be actively looking for those signs. If they really completely screwing around then you should be able to beat them by making the right units (which you should be able to do, if you're scouting right). Other than that, you can always analyse your own play to find mistakes in your macro in order for you to play better.
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Thanks! Strangely enough, I was thinking about writing this today. But you guys did a much better job than I could have done (:
Do you think you could link to the thread infinity21 talks about refining build orders?
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This guide is the type of content I'm looking for when trying to improve. Specific openers and builds are all well and good, but an analysis of a fundamental skill by high-level players is a gift that will keep on giving as long as I play this game. Thank you =D.
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Some questions to ask yourself about your macro:
For Protoss:
Are you always chronoboosting something when you have the energy or saving up chronos for a certain timing?
For Terran:
Are you always dropping MULEs if you don't need to be scanning?
For Zerg:
Are you always spawning larvae?
Are you always spreading creep?
Are you always making workers (P or T)?
Are you droning as hard as you can when no pressure is being applied (Z)? (A nice thing about watching replays is you get to see exactly how much stuff your opponent has so you can figure out for yourself exactly what you should be doing).
Do you ever float minerals before you finish your build order?
Do you ever get supply blocked?
Do you have too few production facilities? Too many?
Another thing to mention on this topic that I've been trying to focus on lately. Practice with a purpose.
If you notice you have trouble spreading creep, play a bunch of games where your #1 goal, even above winning, is spreading creep. Are you missing larva injects? Same thing.
It's something I know I've constantly heard pros mention, something that makes sense from every other competitive activity yet because there are no "drills" people don't practice specific items enough in sc2.
Edit:
Also another good one for the zerg list is idle larva. Could mean 2 things: unrefined build (more larva than you could possibly spend), or slow to macro.
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On February 23 2011 03:23 Bleak wrote:
Great thread. But I have a question, how do I learn from my replays when my opponents do whatever they please? If there is no consistency in the strategies I'm playing against, how can I prepare myself against that?
You can solely focus on your own play and try to find leaks in it.
If you opponents usually play a wide variety of strategys you should probably work on improving you scouting / map control.
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This is such an excellent write-up. I can't wait to see the next "analyze this replay" thread get redirected here.
Would it be possible to get this stickied to the top of the strategy forum? When I checked, it wasn't, but I think that this thread will always be useful to lower level players looking to improve.
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That's some great content Plexa. Thank you for your time writing and posting this.
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Poor Worker Saturation
You need about 30 peons per base - 6 to mine gas, 24 on minerals. If you have 90 workers and 2 bases then you have 30 workers too many and desperately need an expansion. You can check how many workers you have mining minerals by selecting all of the peons that are mining. If you have 3 full rows - then you’re at perfect saturation for that base. If you have 60 workers but you have 40 at your main, 20 at your natural - then you have poor worker saturation and should have transferred 10 more to your natural. This is a very easy mistake to make and even progamers like oGsMC often have too many probes at one base. This can be fixed by selecting your workers in game and checking to see whether you have good saturation or not.
Got a question here: 3 full rows means 24 workers, 6 less than what's said above (or 6 on gas and 18 on minerals).
Liquipedia says 'A saturated mineral line has 2 Drones on close patches and 3 on the far ones.' - how to effectively translate this? Each base has far mineral nodes as well as close mineral nodes. Is it half/half? (2 * 4 = 8) + (3 * 4 = 12), thus, 20 drones on minerals?
For the record: I understand that 30 workers would surely saturate a base. I'm just trying to be sure about the exact number of workers on a regular (not gold) base.
Thanks for the post.
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Wow Plexa (and Saracen/infinity21), thank you so much for putting this together. This will help me out a bunch. As a gold level player, I try to look at my replays, but obviously am never 100% sure exactly what to look for. Hopefully this will help me improve a lot more.
By the way, you said infinity21 has written a nice guide on designing and refining build orders? Where is that? I couldn't find it...
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You said that Infinity21 wrote a good article about refining ur build, could you please give a link to that thread? t hx
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Thank you so much for writing this guide, I'm sure it will help me a lot and I will be referencing it often!
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Thanks guys, this is a great idea! I look forward to the in depth (maybe race specific (Protoss, Plexa!) guides).
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Was wanting to read about this, thanks Plexa, informative, esp the woker comparison.
Can u post link to the Build Order thing u mentioned? Im having a very basic problem, when Pro's say that you should have BO against each race, it just seems silly to me as if I know against a terran who suddenly techs to cloaked banshees or a Toss Who goes quick Voids, whats the use if even following the BO which would be in no way to counter these builds? The way I think the game is to be played is the BO is standard till say 16/20 food, then completely depends on the units that the opponent is getting? I try the so called BO's and end up getting owned by oppenents if they dont play standard. I know adapt and all, but still why call it a BO when its gonna change like 9/10 times and is good only for 20 food?
Would really appreaciate if someone could tell me if Im off track or something..ive been plagued with this problem for 3 months!
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
On February 23 2011 04:36 ScrubS wrote:
You said that Infinity21 wrote a good article about refining ur build, could you please give a link to that thread? t hx
I haven't released it yet. The article itself is complete but I am currently working with a student who is following the guide with my guidance. It will be a series of vods to supplement the guide which can be a bit conceptual at times.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 04:36 ScrubS wrote:
You said that Infinity21 wrote a good article about refining ur build, could you please give a link to that thread? t hx
That will be coming soon edit: oic infinity got to this first 
On February 23 2011 04:27 Spectro wrote:Show nested quote +
Poor Worker Saturation
You need about 30 peons per base - 6 to mine gas, 24 on minerals. If you have 90 workers and 2 bases then you have 30 workers too many and desperately need an expansion. You can check how many workers you have mining minerals by selecting all of the peons that are mining. If you have 3 full rows - then you’re at perfect saturation for that base. If you have 60 workers but you have 40 at your main, 20 at your natural - then you have poor worker saturation and should have transferred 10 more to your natural. This is a very easy mistake to make and even progamers like oGsMC often have too many probes at one base. This can be fixed by selecting your workers in game and checking to see whether you have good saturation or not.
Got a question here: 3 full rows means 24 workers, 6 less than what's said above (or 6 on gas and 18 on minerals). Liquipedia says 'A saturated mineral line has 2 Drones on close patches and 3 on the far ones.' - how to effectively translate this? Each base has far mineral nodes as well as close mineral nodes. Is it half/half? (2 * 4 = 8) + (3 * 4 = 12), thus, 20 drones on minerals? For the record: I understand that 30 workers would surely saturate a base. I'm just trying to be sure about the exact number of workers on a regular (not gold) base. Thanks for the post. You're right that three full rows = 24 workers. The thing is, you have 6 workers on gas (easy to check) and you want 24 workers on minerals (not so easy to check). And you check the workers on minerals by selecting all the workers on the minerals and seeing how many rows are full! In a normal game you don't often hit full saturation for a base since by then you will want to have expanded anyway, meaning that your bases will typically be hovering around 20 workers mining minerals.
On February 23 2011 04:05 Aequos wrote:
This is such an excellent write-up. I can't wait to see the next "analyze this replay" thread get redirected here.
Would it be possible to get this stickied to the top of the strategy forum? When I checked, it wasn't, but I think that this thread will always be useful to lower level players looking to improve. I thought about it, and couldn't find anything to un-sticky. I will probably end up stickying the recommended threads thread that popped up and hopefully that will list this as one of the basic guides.
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On February 23 2011 05:30 infinity21 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2011 04:36 ScrubS wrote:
You said that Infinity21 wrote a good article about refining ur build, could you please give a link to that thread? t hx I haven't released it yet. The article itself is complete but I am currently working with a student who is following the guide with my guidance. It will be a series of vods to supplement the guide which can be a bit conceptual at times.
Awesome! definitely looking forward to its release then!
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I'm waiting for this to be spotlighted =.= Awesome write-up this will really help people out :D
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Nice post bro. Hopefully newbie will read this before asking in forum. I vote sticky
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I highly doubt it most good players will be doing this passively without even having to think about it while watching a replay. In fact, most times they will be able to tell why they lost a game without having to watch the replay since they will know (or at least have an idea) about what is going on on the map at all points in time. When things happen unexpectedly, then they consult the replay.
While most of the times the reason for someone's loss is pretty clear to a higher tier player ( with which I mean diamond and a bit of masters ) there's still alot of fundamentals flaws and errors to be found in people's play. Even at masters level, for instance people just not spending chronoboosts after the first 5 minutes except for that one collosus or voidray here and there. Anyway I'm taking this way too far, you wrote a great guide here and that's all that matters. People can see for themselves if it's useful to them or no.
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This is a great post! its the same things i did (in less detail) to get from silver to dia, also you should add what you are looking at, So if you are just looking at the pretty gunfire in a fight where heavy Micro isnt needed. i.e any protoss player just press F and win ^^ (im just bitter at FF this week). and sometimes just cause you win a battle that doesnt mean you won the game. Macro as hard as you can the whole time even if you think you won.. its just a good habit to start to make.
Finally dont watch the GSL and log in thinking you can do what Jinro does. (assuming your not master). you need to take small steps dont try to fix everything at once.. and remeber the rate and how long they have been playing. And thats not including coaches ect. so play at your pace!! and have fun thats why we play this game
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Absolutely brilliant! Thank you Plexa, Saracen and Infinity21
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Great thread.
I may be wrong, but isn't one row of workers = 8 workers and not 10? Unless you meant selecting only those mining minerals.
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Awesome thread, looking forward to similar guides in the future.
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Thank you a lot for this, it will be of great use : )
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Italy12246 Posts
Sheer awesome as always Plexa, thanks a lot!
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 06:52 dcberkeley wrote:
Great thread.
I may be wrong, but isn't one row of workers = 8 workers and not 10? Unless you meant selecting only those mining minerals. Yeah, I mean selecting only the workers mining minerals. I will edit the post to make this more clear.
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Very informative read! I think you covered everything that someone ignorant on the subject of closely reviewing replays (me) needs to know.
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As an addendum...
In my opinion, the main reason this thread exists is to help you think for yourselves (and hopefully reduce the amount of [H] threads that litter the forums). After all, why ask others for help when you can help yourself?
So, before you make a thread asking why you lost or what you could have done better, make sure you're doing everything you need to be doing first. You may think "only pros do everything consistently" or "I'm only in Gold league, I don't need to do every single thing" or "I may have done some things wrong, but my opponent did too!" This is a terrible mindset, especially in lower leagues, because that's where macro actually makes a huge difference. For the people who try to help you out, it's really frustrating to try to give advice on gameplay when you consistently see little things like getting supply blocked at 26 or not chronoing probes until you have 40 energy or not building enough barracks and then queuing 4 marines on each one. Each one of these "little things" adds up, especially in the early game, and could very well give you a disadvantage that's pretty much impossible to come back from.
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I'm extremely happy that the program is written in java, for us lowly mac users. (And it's a nice example of what I'll be able to do when I improve my java.)
This is fantastic information. You guys are great. My heartfelt thanks.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 08:56 Saracen wrote:
As an addendum...
In my opinion, the main reason this thread exists is to help you think for yourselves (and hopefully reduce the amount of [H] threads that litter the forums). After all, why ask others for help when you can help yourself?
So, before you make a thread asking why you lost or what you could have done better, make sure you're doing everything you need to be doing first. You may think "only pros do everything consistently" or "I'm only in Gold league, I don't need to do every single thing" or "I may have done some things wrong, but my opponent did too!" This is a terrible mindset, especially in lower leagues, because that's where macro actually makes a huge difference. For the people who try to help you out, it's really frustrating to try to give advice on gameplay when you consistently see little things like getting supply blocked at 26 or not chronoing probes until you have 40 energy or not building enough barracks and then queuing 4 marines on each one. Each one of these "little things" adds up, especially in the early game, and could very well give you a disadvantage that's pretty much impossible to come back from.
Somewhat agreed! While Macro'ing properly is definitely important, there is more to the game than just macro. Even if both sides macro'd poorly, so long as the army counts are around equal during battle that is all that matters (or if one side was greatly ahead, and lost). It is usually clear when one player loses because of macro and while 'better macro' would have won an even game, there are many other things which would have also won the game. It might have been better troop positioning, it might have been better micro, it might have been better decision making like countering instead of attacking head on. So while the little things add up, in an even game there are more factors at work than just macro.
Also the "macro better" attitude isn't always the most useful attitude to have in the strategy forum. That could be applied to every single level and still be true!! It's an empty truth in this regard. So while the strategy forum can be used to get advice on how to macro better, there are also many other things that you could be learning from there
- What unit composition beats what (this really is bronze information, and should be contained in liquipedia)
- How to engage battles properly
- How to make better decisions in game
- How to gauge what your opponent is doing with minimal information
Things like refining a build order, having a build order (-.-; ), this is my awesome new build order please rate it!!!!! and whatnot are all examples of bad questions to ask in the strategy forum. Once infinity's guide is out that should help with this though!
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On February 23 2011 01:57 Plexa wrote:
There is a myth that is commonly believed by higher level players, and that is that macroing better is the be all and end all of improving at lower levels. While better macro would have won the game, that doesn’t mean there isn’t valuable information to be gained from deeply analysing your play such as proper decision making. Understanding why your macro failed you and identifying ways to fix it can all be understood via replay analysis and will lead to quicker improvement. Further, other mistakes you make should be fixed as you are improving your macro - this leads to a healthier overall game
THANK YOU. friggin higher level players don't get it when lower level players ask them to analyze replays.
i'll be quoting this quite a bit :D
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A good read, for newcomers to replay analysis and regulars alike- well done, Plexa
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 15:40 holyhalo5 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2011 01:57 Plexa wrote:
There is a myth that is commonly believed by higher level players, and that is that macroing better is the be all and end all of improving at lower levels. While better macro would have won the game, that doesn’t mean there isn’t valuable information to be gained from deeply analysing your play such as proper decision making. Understanding why your macro failed you and identifying ways to fix it can all be understood via replay analysis and will lead to quicker improvement. Further, other mistakes you make should be fixed as you are improving your macro - this leads to a healthier overall game
THANK YOU. friggin higher level players don't get it when lower level players ask them to analyze replays. i'll be quoting this quite a bit :D
That doesn't mean macro isn't an incredibly important part of your play, and it also means there is no point asking a pro to analyse a game where you lost because your opponent had superior macro because the answer is obvious. Only games where the game was even or where you were ahead should be up for analysis. Simply put - if his army is bigger than yours (check army tab) then that's why you lost. So feel free to use the quote, given you're actually using it in games where it applies. Using it out of context is a quick way to disneyland
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On February 23 2011 05:31 Plexa wrote:
recommended threads thread that popped up and hopefully that will list this as one of the basic guides.
Already been done mate.
As a side note i've had another idea which might help clean up the strategy forum. You could have a separate, dedicated replay section as a sub-section of the strategy forum. That way anybody asking "analyse my play" could post in that section, and the strategy forum would be just that, a place to discuss strategies.
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bloody awesome thread, thanks very muchPlexa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Going to give this a read to make sure im not missing anything!!
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Every thread potentially contains a new piece of knowledge 8]
Going to try that "Analysing one region at a time"
Great writeup and a welcome relief from "Did this game. Am Gold, lost to X, analyse plx!" (personal analysis != description of the game)
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Woah, SC2 gears is awesome program!
thx for telling about it :D
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Amazing post :D
I have been wondering a long time on how to approach this topic. I mean, I do watch Day9 and such but he is so much better than me at finding stuff that I have troubles understanding how he sees it all. Hopefully this post will make me learn a lot faster.
Would it be possible to get this post as a sticky or something?
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Great and ridiculously useful thread
Thanks so much for posting this!
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 23 2011 22:42 SchLing wrote:
Amazing post :D
I have been wondering a long time on how to approach this topic. I mean, I do watch Day9 and such but he is so much better than me at finding stuff that I have troubles understanding how he sees it all. Hopefully this post will make me learn a lot faster.
Would it be possible to get this post as a sticky or something?
We'll be stickying the recommended threads thread instead.
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On February 23 2011 23:29 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2011 22:42 SchLing wrote:
Amazing post :D
I have been wondering a long time on how to approach this topic. I mean, I do watch Day9 and such but he is so much better than me at finding stuff that I have troubles understanding how he sees it all. Hopefully this post will make me learn a lot faster.
Would it be possible to get this post as a sticky or something? We'll be stickying the recommended threads thread instead.
Awesome! Uhhh....recommended is spelled incorrectly, and it's been a couple weeks. Do you think you could remedy that? XD
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cheers!! thanks for the insight. that is exactly what you need to actually improve as a player.
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Thanks for taking the time to draft this up. Analyzing replays is definitely an important aspect of your game, but sometimes it's difficult to pick out why you lost (other than if your army was smaller). This is a very well organized guide to use.
Looking forward to the build order refinement post.
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Great write-up! I like that you have stuff for all levels. I've heard it all before but it's nice to see it all in one place.
On another note: I started using SC2Gears a few days ago, and it's great. Now I cannot be too lazy to not save my replays .
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On February 24 2011 12:13 Wonderbread wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to draft this up. Analyzing replays is definitely an important aspect of your game, but sometimes it's difficult to pick out why you lost (other than if your army was smaller). This is a very well organized guide to use. And that's where the strategy forum comes in useful. You're able to post up what you think is the reason you lost and then people are able to review that and give you further advice.
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And why isnt this stickied? Awesome post.
Edit: bwahaha stickied!
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Oh yes, I love this article already.
Plexa... marriage + me = yes by you? ):
Seriously, love love this topic. I hope it improves the SC2 Strat sub-forum.
Cheers to Saracen & Infinity
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I'm a 3000 diamond and I found this very helpful. People always say watch your replays but I never knew how exactly I"m suppose to watch them. This thread is the perfect example of what you should be doing.
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amazing thread, helps ALOT when you dont know what to look for when you first start looking at replays an all
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Thankyou! Half the posts each and every day seem to just be [H] I can't win!
Now we can clear all that out of the way an get to the good stuff
Sorry if it sounds harsh, it isn't meant to be.
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While I save all of my replays, organizing and renaming every time has been quite annoying, especially recently, as I have been sending them to others and getting some from coaches, partners and the web.
Thank you for passing along SC2 Gears.  It's an excellent 3rd party development with a lot to offer.
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Great guide. Every player has to read this!
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Excellent guide, thanks very much for it. I have bookmarked it and expect to refer back to it frequently. I have already used it to good effect with one of my replays where I lost despite having (I thought) much better macro, and was able to see past the obvious mistake (micro mistake in a major battle causing me to lose my army) to the less obvious one (my injects/production fell off badly once I was maxed, so I never re-maxed and won the followup even though I should have been able to do so).
SC2Gears will save me a lot of time - saving every replay manually is tedious.
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Posting to remind myself to look at this! Wow, great ideas here! I will for sure try this out and maybe get out of my Starcraft slump!
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Can you extend this to analyzing other people's replays? I'm getting tired of people bandwagoning on the OP's erroneous conclusions.
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Not a request to have my replay analyzed or anything. It's just that I had a cheese fail video on another computer that recently died, and this computer can't read the site that I had uploaded it to. Can someone upload this to another replay site? http://sc2.replayers.com/replays/view/4740
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Beautiful. As a low level player this is a habit I definitely need to get into if I plan on rising through the ranks searching through a replay is indeed overwhelming if you don't know what you're doing - which I know 10x more than I did before reading the article, and plan on putting the information to use tomorrow.
Also, it usually just seems like too much work - but I guess that's the price you pay for improving your game! Though it seems much simpler after reading this.
O captain[s] my captain[s]
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On February 23 2011 01:57 Plexa wrote:Poor Worker Saturation
You need about 30 peons per base - 6 to mine gas, 24 on minerals. If you have 90 workers and 2 bases then you have 30 workers too many and desperately need an expansion.
Good guide in general, but I wanted to nitpick this point. There was a thread a little while ago that analyzed the effectiveness of each additional worker at a base (and compared it to BW) and it found that the return from an extra worker on minerals past 16 was smaller, which most people know, but also that it was nearly negligible after 20, and beyond 22 workers you were actually better off long distance mining on LT.
It's a small point, but you certainly don't need 24 workers on minerals. This may actually make your point about balancing worker distribution stronger.
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Really nice guide, learned alot! Thanks!
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Thx very much Plexa for writing this. As a Bronze leauge player I really appreciate this.. =D
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I just discovered this (even if it was stickied duh) and was very well written. Gave me a lot of tips. Thanks a lot guys for posting this up!
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Good thread. I don't watch my own replays that often, because most of the time I know why I lost, but perhaps I'm not getting everything absolutely everything.
Often I know what I did wrong (and sometimes it varies) do you think I should just focus on that aspect to improve it or just play more?
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can someone take a look @ this replay? I far out-macord him, but i still lost horribly. please help 
[url blocked]
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On March 24 2011 11:18 greenday5494 wrote:can someone take a look @ this replay? I far out-macord him, but i still lost horribly. please help [url blocked]
This is a thread in which the OP tells you how you should be analyzing your replays, not a thread for throwing out your replays and telling people to analyze it for you.
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On March 26 2011 08:11 noobinator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 11:18 greenday5494 wrote:can someone take a look @ this replay? I far out-macord him, but i still lost horribly. please help [url blocked] This is a thread in which the OP tells you how you should be analyzing your replays, not a thread for throwing out your replays and telling people to analyze it for you.
Yeah. I realized that. Get the stick out of your ass buddy.
User was banned for this post.
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On March 27 2011 02:05 greenday5494 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2011 08:11 noobinator wrote:On March 24 2011 11:18 greenday5494 wrote:can someone take a look @ this replay? I far out-macord him, but i still lost horribly. please help [url blocked] This is a thread in which the OP tells you how you should be analyzing your replays, not a thread for throwing out your replays and telling people to analyze it for you. Yeah. I realized that. Get the stick out of your ass buddy.
I love how you insulted him despite the fact that he corrected you politely.
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Thanks for this write up. I think this will really help me find out where I go wrong next time.
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I didn't really understand this part:
Protoss vs Zerg - Since Zerg have non-linear growth, an even worker count is roughly number of Probes +- 3 = Number of Drones.
Zerg vs Terran - An even worker count is roughly number of SCVs + 4 per mule = Number of Drones +- 3
It's the +- 3 thing that confuses me :S
Can anyone explain little more in detail what is meant with that? English is not my native language nor am i very good at maths so...
Really great thread over all though, certainly gave me another perspective of viewing replays.
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Super helpful!
Infinity21 has written an excellent guide on how to design and refine your builds (coming soon!)
how soon O.O
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
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Wow, superb article there, Plexa. I've found many faults in my gameplay just from reading this (unable to watch replays at work :/). Thanks.
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Thank you very much for this. I read your guide on playing at an advantage vs. disadvantage and enjoyed it very much. This second guide seems excellent as well
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On April 06 2011 09:00 VAGZ wrote:I didn't really understand this part: Show nested quote +Protoss vs Zerg - Since Zerg have non-linear growth, an even worker count is roughly number of Probes +- 3 = Number of Drones.
Zerg vs Terran - An even worker count is roughly number of SCVs + 4 per mule = Number of Drones +- 3 It's the +- 3 thing that confuses me :S Can anyone explain little more in detail what is meant with that? English is not my native language nor am i very good at maths so... Really great thread over all though, certainly gave me another perspective of viewing replays.
Can nobody explain this? please
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Wait, why is this unstickied?
On April 13 2011 05:00 VAGZ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2011 09:00 VAGZ wrote:I didn't really understand this part: Protoss vs Zerg - Since Zerg have non-linear growth, an even worker count is roughly number of Probes +- 3 = Number of Drones.
Zerg vs Terran - An even worker count is roughly number of SCVs + 4 per mule = Number of Drones +- 3 It's the +- 3 thing that confuses me :S Can anyone explain little more in detail what is meant with that? English is not my native language nor am i very good at maths so... Really great thread over all though, certainly gave me another perspective of viewing replays. Can nobody explain this? please
What it means is that if you are within 3 workers above or below Zerg, you have an even economy. Zerg workers spawn at uneven rates, because they'll make none for a few minutes then make 14. (As an example.) So that margin of 3 above or below is a good gauge for the evenness of economies.
Never mind about the sticky bit, I see it's in one of them.
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Great great post! I've been struggling with this problem alot. I'm a pretty low player (Plat) and in this stage key timing and improving is really necessarily. Mainly when I watch my own replays I can't really judge hard since I don't know where to look at mainly.
But not from now on since you helped me :D Thanks alot ^^ <3
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On April 13 2011 05:16 Indrium wrote:Wait, why is this unstickied? Show nested quote +On April 13 2011 05:00 VAGZ wrote:On April 06 2011 09:00 VAGZ wrote:I didn't really understand this part: Protoss vs Zerg - Since Zerg have non-linear growth, an even worker count is roughly number of Probes +- 3 = Number of Drones.
Zerg vs Terran - An even worker count is roughly number of SCVs + 4 per mule = Number of Drones +- 3 It's the +- 3 thing that confuses me :S Can anyone explain little more in detail what is meant with that? English is not my native language nor am i very good at maths so... Really great thread over all though, certainly gave me another perspective of viewing replays. Can nobody explain this? please What it means is that if you are within 3 workers above or below Zerg, you have an even economy. Zerg workers spawn at uneven rates, because they'll make none for a few minutes then make 14. (As an example.) So that margin of 3 above or below is a good gauge for the evenness of economies. Never mind about the sticky bit, I see it's in one of them.
Oh okay, so it was that simple. Now I understand. Thank you for the clarification
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
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well done on this thread great read
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This is a helpful guide. It teaches you how to learn and adjust from watching replays.
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Definitely the best guide on replay analysis yet.
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great write up! thanks a lot
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I remember this guide, it really helped me when i first started trying to get better. Dated these days though, such as this bit:
On February 23 2011 01:57 Plexa wrote:Poor Worker Saturation
You need about 30 peons per base - 6 to mine gas, 24 on minerals. If you have 90 workers and 2 bases then you have 30
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Italy12246 Posts
Well technically it's true still. It's just that those extra 8 workers aren't that efficient so they aren't as important.
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On May 21 2013 02:41 Teoita wrote:
Well technically it's true still. It's just that those extra 8 workers aren't that efficient so they aren't as important.
But in my experience of teaching lower level new players, giving them information like worker saturation and explaining it to them is one of the best bits, as it is a piece of strategy that is relatively easily understandable, quite easy to execute (when remembered) and hugely effective.
Higher level players generally harp on so much about macro that it can be disheartening for lower level players, and this is one part of the less mechanical, more cerebral part of the game that everyone at all levels can benefit from and enjoy doing, so let's make sure we get it right no?
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Italy12246 Posts
Bumping this because the quality of [H] threads seems to be going down lately.
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This is quite a beautiful write up about replays! Well Done on the OP
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Might be worthwhile to put in something about graphical analysis. Those graphs from the score screen can be very helpful, and can provide a quick way to identify parts of the game you really need to pay attention to, among other things.
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In my opinion even if you don't want to watch the replay you should still watch it from your opponents pov on 2x or 4x so you know exactly what happened. It just completes the picture for you since you already know what you did.
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On August 02 2013 03:12 ManiacTheZealot wrote:
In my opinion even if you don't want to watch the replay you should still watch it from your opponents pov on 2x or 4x so you know exactly what happened. It just completes the picture for you since you already know what you did.
This is also a good tip, I like to see how everything looked from the other guys angle.
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Hey !
I dunno if you checked out the new features that come with the last patch (2.0.10). I think that they might help with improving our replay analysis.
The new features are:
-gameheart is now more assecible to gamers [1]
-the possibility to zoom out [2]
-the possibility to seek ahead in a replay without having to watch up to that point.[3]
- a new "unit lost overlay"that give an accurate representation of exactly what units have been lost for either player at any moment in the match.[4]
A definitely think that we can use these new features to improve and update this guide. I don't know exactly how but here is what I have:
1. Some "game heart creators" might create a new overlay, Specially made to analyze a replay. I don't now the difference whith a classic or an obs overlay will be (maybe on the organization of data).
2. It can help with the analysis of engagements, fight, flanks, double front, strategic moves etc...
3.This might be useful to jump directly at the and of a replay and check the end game data (gain of time).
4. Definitely useful, but I don't know how yet?
What do you guys think ?
Sorry for my english tell me if it is not understandable.
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EPT
