The Tavern

I watch demise but due to the way he plays (extremely fast) I find it hard to learn from his games, I also feel like the way he plays is not something a person like me with only 6 wins should imitate. I play on Xtahau and the good players there usually do turn count speed runs which is something I never want to do.

What should I look for when looking at someone else's game? And how should I use morgue files effectively?

There is https://crawl.develz.org/watch.htm where you can see all online games.
Click on 'Nick' to sort for 'Nick'.

Here is http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/best- ... score.html sorted by total score.
Depending on what you define as 'good player' you can check for what you look for:
f.e.:
a) high win%: likely not to die, so you have a good % to watch the area in the game you want to see.
b) high average score: likely to go for 15 runes.
c) best score >= 40 million: most likely speed runs.

Make a list of names of players you like to have a look at and check whether they are online.
I've watched Charly. A speedrunner (turncount). While he is likely to die somewhen I've seen him making 1000s excellent decisions where I would have bugged out long before (to regain health).

Then there are recorded games, too. There even was a thread somewhere.


When you watch someone playing: ask for a dump so you can see whether you understand the build or not and have a better understanding what the threat level for this built is. Ask a question when you see the player in danger based on the information you've taken from the dump.

I am not a good player, but always enjoy spectators. I find answering questions and explaining my ideas helps withmy winrate. I'm placid on CAO.

This video was mentioned in a recent thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DStCYJR ... nS&index=1

It is one of the most instructive Crawl resources I've ever found. In it, zxc is beginning his 32nd game in an unbroken streak of wins. Because he's trying VERY HARD not to die, he spends 45 minutes clearing D:1 in the most cautious and thoughtful way possible -- and he narrates his thought process the whole time so you can fully understand why he's making each choice. While that style of play is probably lacking enough in fun that you shouldn't emulate it fully, you will probably learn a lot of things that will help your games.

I also find that spectators improve my play, even when they're silent. Just knowing that someone else is watching (and, presumably, judging) my decisions encourages me to play more carefully. I play on CBRO (http://crawl.berotato.org:8080/#lobby) almost exclusively.

My poor spectators don't last long, because the way I play crawl is not fun to watch. I probably spend about 75% of the time alt-tabbed into something else, then there's a sudden flurry of autoexplore+tab, then more nothing as I alt+tab into something else for a while.

I almost wish I could put a warning not to spectate me, I always feel bad when someone shows up to spectate me and I know I'm not going to put on a very good show for them.

I created a new account "SlowThinker" to make it obvious that I am a slow player and not fun to watch.

Which server?