Watch replays, yes or no?

[Ricky B]

I really fall in between but leaning toward the not watching. It really depends on the game, situation, etc. To me, the replay gives 2 key pieces of information:

• Losses to each side from the enemy firing. However, I review my units and can generally get a feel for how the firepower, etc stacks up from losses I see in my units and what I do to the enemy in my turn, etc. So this is normally not critical to me, but sometimes I want to see more.
  
• Enemy maneuvers. Open flanks are always a concern, and when the enemy has a lot of mobile troops/things are moving quickly on map, I like to watch to get a better feel, especially if vis is low. But for low movement situations, I don't feel it is as important (although I do miss some potentially useful tactical intel items when I skip the replay in these cases).
  

Additionally, I will go back to watch the replay if after reviewing things without watching, I see surprises of some kind, so I want to see what happened around it.

So as an example, I have been a team game of Serbia, 4th Invasion. I rarely watch the replay. Why? My forces are attacking, and have a solid line. The enemy forces don't have the ability to move in odd directions quickly - the fastest movement is limited to the road/trail network so it is hard to be surprised by a huge fast attack - but I do keep scouts around my open flanks.

In a new PzC test HTH game, with a fair amount of maneuver, I pay more attention to the replay - it did help me with some attacks on the retreating enemy, and spot enemy movements that would impact a part of my line on the defense. However, things are a bit more stable now and I am skipping the replay more.

Rick