End of Game Review

[Erenoth]

So how difficult would it be to have some sort of game history saved so that after a game is over you could see what everyone did and how things progressed? Even just a saved end of turn state so one could piece together what happened would make learning much easier.

[Draxus]

I agree. At least don't turn all the losing units to neutral so you can see what your opponent had under the FoW. Sometimes nice to see what your opponent was up to whether you win or lose.

[KGB]

There is already a History report for non-ladder games which gives the number cities, gold and army count each turn for all players. The only thing I could see adding to that is that when the FOW was removed at the end of the game to allow a replay of turns to show the the state of every city (neutral/captured/razed/rebuilt) on the map every turn.

I don't think the game needs a full game state of all units/locations etc for every turn. That would get very expensive to save on the server.

Incidentally, if you want to prevent your opponent from 'seeing' what you had, you can just disband all your units at the end of the game before resigning. So that defeats the whole 'seeing what your opponent was up to' idea. Besides I don't think you should get to see your opponents tactics and strategies any more than you get to 'see' your opponents hand in Poker when they fold.

KGB

[Draxus]

If you want to use the poker comparison you only don't get to see when they choose not to show you. Granted this is the majority of the time, the standard practice if you will, but you can show your cards if you want. Could be likened to choosing to disband your units as you mentioned to "hide your hand", then all you would see would be any cities, in whatever state.

The history with stats doesn't get to the point because pure numbers are very misleading in both directions.

I guess I wasn't thinking so much of the tactical advantage of seeing tactics, with a turn by turn replay, as opposed to a snapshot of the final turn or so to see if I crushed my opponent or barely won. Can't speak for the the OP. I know he talked about how things progressed throughout the game, I just want to see how it looked at the end. More a satisfying of curiosity than trying to steal tactics. Granted if that is the side effect of showing any of your opponents holdings at the end, then point taken.

[Yevi]

I would like a turn-by-turn replay. When I get smoked, I want to see how my opponent did it.

[LPhillips]

I would like a turn-by-turn replay. When I get smoked, I want to see how my opponent did it.

And having smoked you, I'd like you not to see.

When my favorite team is beaten, I might like to see the other team's playbook. But that is completely antithetical to any strategic competition.

[Chazar]

I would also like to see at least the history stats at the end of ladder games.

Allowing a player to see a full turn history is important for psychological reasons: if a newbie gets murdered several times by experienced players, rather than giving up in frustration, cursing or blaming the other players for cheating, the new player can look at the replay and see that there was in fact no black magic involved - just good playing. Replays avoid frustration - which is good if you want to encourage new players to stay.

I don't think that a couple of available replays will steal the crown from the resident experts. Being good at warbarons is more than just knowing one strategy, but about knowing which strategy has good chances in each actual situation (map, diplomacy, etc.). Real-Time-Strategy games like StarcraftII feature full replays for all games nowadays (including all ladder games(, and I found them to be a wealth of information. I am still pretty bad at SC2, but I the replays give me faith that I can improve.

[LPhillips]

Off-topic: SC2 is all about keeping your adrenaline up. If you stay very active, doing hundreds of things per minute (even if it's just moving your units around the map) then you create an edge to your awareness that prepares you for those moments when the game really does require 200+ actions per minute to win (such as battles). There are almost no professional players who operate at less than 180 actions per minute at any point during a game, even when all that is really needed for 20 seconds is to click your mineral line once.
If you have a good computer, a reasonably high IQ, and employ this tactic (not for the casual, lazy gamer) then you can win most games. Good luck!

If full history is withheld in ladder games only then I would have no personal complaints. There are a lot of good ways of doing what you want, including detailed graphical representations as described before. It's a lot of programming work.

Warbarons is very psychological. What you know about the enemy player tells you how to fight them. I'm less aggressive toward KGB than Ken, because KGB will scout and ruthlessly punish carelessness. At the same time, KGB predictably avoids revealing his hand, while Ken may very well break your back by risking a 40% battle with his hero stack. This sort of experience and understanding adds a lot of flavor to the game. Most of us don't want to show our hands, not because we're worried newbies will gain an edge, but because it would take our fun away. For example, Ken can identify me while Anonymous just by my playstyle. We all have a lot of fun with a system where you must earn your knowledge of your opponents. The power of knowing your opponent is so great that we have a system to suppress it, playing "Anonymously".

I don't think anyone is seriously worried that letting people see everything will suddenly make them good players. The point is rather that it takes away our fun.

[Moonknight]

Here's what I'd be okay with having at end of game...the charts of history of city/army/gold in line graph format and the view of which cities are owned by who when the game is ended.

That'd be it...no production or remaining units on the field.

If you want to learn about how other players go about their business, play with them on a team game

[piranha]

Moonknight: You know that you can click the thumbnail in the latest event list and see data about gold, armies etc?