It's easy to say that when you're watching from home. you get a full view of the map with commentary whereas the players are scanning, checking the black market, and checking offworld prices pre-found. I didn't know it was at 20k because the debt counter is a lot faster than in beta 10 than in beta 9 so i'm used to more time to make a decision. My first time playing beta 10 consistently was yesterday. I didn't know it was at $20k because it ticks down too fast. I was checking all the aforementioned boxes when wino beat me to the found on the same spot. It was a good call by him and a lapse on my part.
Of course that claim was worth more than $20k but it went from 50k to 20k a lot faster than normal and i didn't realize it.
Also saying "i can't believe that player founds scavenger and surrenders the best tiles on a map" is a little silly. There was only 1 patch of iron on the map so if you're opponent beats you to the best found you have no other choice. It was dictated by wino's quicker found.
That's a perfectly reasonable thing to say, it is indeed more difficult to make decisions in real-time than afterwards. In real-time watching the stream, I was thinking Expansive in lower right of colony as a counter to the Science at 40k, which means I would also have been crushed by anyone founding earlier. Post-match I went back and decided that top left is a better idea, but still not Scavenger. My issue was that GW claimed that it was the auction system's fault for rewarding twitch reactions, which is the opposite of the truth. The auction system's purpose is to reduce twitch reactions. "30ms" is a misconception created by misplays.
That single found wasn't the end of the game, there were lots of other opportunities for you to get back into it, and lots of opportunities for you to fall out of it, but overall it turned out the way it is. Cubit has rescued worse positions from the clutches of his opponents, but not always.
I've never played multiplayer, and I probably never will, because of an unusual technical issue with my internet and virtual machines. I can't play most other games in multiplayer either.
I agree with Cubit, there's too much to analyze in the short period of time you have. At best, you can learn from your mistakes for next time to improve your system. I knew Science would found first, and then looked at the Iron and Water, then ruled out Scavenger vs Science after realizing the Iron found was garbage, leaving me with an Expansive with Iron/Steel. By that time, we're already at 40k. I paid no attention to geotherms, the colony, or the BM other than the absence of Claims/AB and the presence of nukes. I hadn't taken into consideration the lack of water other than its distance, the pirates, the far silicon, or the dynamite. That's a lot of stuff for a player to ignore.
I wouldn't want to click on that Offworld tab in founding, that takes a lot of time to look at.