Day 8 (May 5th): Finally some success again, admittedly against someone lower rated than me. I played two games today. Both were technically victories although the first one was because my opponent ctrl-k'ed really early due to getting his ACU stuck.
In the second game (Replay 16963727) it was a much tougher fight. The map was twin rivers. We both raided each other with labs, delaying eachother's start. Until recently I forgot Mantis now have the square icon so I was a bit alarmed at first. We also bombed each other, with my scorcher probably being the only reason I didn't lose by taking out 4 pgens and 2 engis. Most of the battles took place on my side of the map afterwards. This time I was able to stay much more calm and deal with the raids, as well as rebuild after.
I think my build order could use some work. I didn't queue up much with my ACU at the start, which meant I had to spend more apm and time with it later. I also sent my ACU to what I think is the wrong spot, and had to spend time pulling it back. I will watch some better players and see what they do on this map.
Another issue I had was trying to launch attacks that wouldn't work. I have been trying to be a lot more aggressive and take the initiative but I launched multiple incursions that just wasted units. Strikers are never really going to be able to raid against Mantis unless there are a lot more, I'm not blaming my difficulties on faction choice, but it is something I need to keep in mind. If I had just been a bit less hotheaded I would have seen that I had a noticeable lead in eco and that all the wrecks were on my side of the map. My opponent delayed his expansion and mex upgrades to get more attacking units. Having not scuted I assumed he had the eco that I had but with a unit lead, and so I tried to make risky attacks that didn't pay off. This led to my opponent destroying much more of my tanks than I did his, keeping him in the game.
Getting reclaim was once again an issue for me as I constantly found myself losing my own engis. Forget the natural reclaim, I couldn't even get the wrecks most of the time. I had engineers, but many were in the wrong spot, and I issued orders to assist a nearby factory rather than having them take the time to wander over and reclaim. I atleast managed to get one island and contest the other, although it was very late for both of us.
In the end my opponent suicided his Gun ACU into My Gun ACU and units. I'm not sure what would have happened if he had not, as I was just beginning to stabilize at T2 and get the reclaim, but my opponent still had a large lead in land and air units and had almost caught up on eco, as well as having more map control.
How have you guys been finding these reports? Does anyone relate to the issues I am trying to fix with my playstyle? Anyone feel inspired to try and get better with me?