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I had never bothered to look at any of the few replays that I have saved. The first one I looked at was interesting (comparing what I remembered to what actually happened), though there was a fairly long wait before my army appeared, and a slightly longer wait before it moved. But the second replay...
I let it run for several minutes at the fastest speed slider setting, and my army never moved, the battle never began. The only thing I could figure was that perhaps the replay records time spent in pause (a horrible thought, since I sometimes leave a battle paused overnight).
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The replays, in my experience, do not record the time spent while paused. They do, however, record the time spent before you hit the "begin battle" button. I learned this the hard way- before this one battle that I fought, I left it on the screen that has the begin button while I did something else. It turned out to be a really great battle, and i saved the replay. But when I went back and looked at it, it took forever for my army to appear. Now, I get battles started as soon as possible and then pause them, in case I feel like saving the replay.
You can also see in the replay if you change your initial formation, or if you choose to wait one or more days.
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