I like option five - save the card, defend argentina, attack south africa, move our armies further into position in greenland. I don't think he will stack up on argentina this turn, because he just found out we have more income than he does. But I want to avoid the loss of Argentina, so I put a little more into that action.
Attacking with nine into south america gives us enough that he may clang off of it if he tries attacking there first. It's possible he says, ok, the road through argentina's closed, let's try the road through south africa. Personally, I use the order priority card - it's guaranteed to be the first move, since there's no reason to think impaller will use his. If he attacks south africa with 12, we prevent his attack.
The disaster case is that he attacks argentina with 20, and is not in east africa. Then we have our reinforcement card and an income advantage to block him if we want, while we take east africa and greenland.
But I might go with option eight:
- Use the reinforcement card
- Add seven armies in Greenland
- Add eleven to antarctica
- Add two to Central America
- Use order priority to attack South Africa with first move
- Transfer all from Argentina to Brazil with second move
- Attack both Greenlands
- Move other northern armies into position
- Attack south america from central america on last move (to maintain a presence)
The disaster case is that he 1) attacks Argentina with everything on his first move, and 2) is in indo/india, not east africa. Re: 1, I think it's unlikely Impaller does that again. I'm not even convinced he'll attack Argentina at all. We deployed 14 on turn 7, so we can't have a second card yet. So he knows he's behind on income, and may crash into a wall. If he attacks south africa in force, he'll be able to break antarctica, which is probably his fastest route to catch up on income. Re: 2, I'd love to work africa and greenland while attacking indo via australia. Easy $.
So we move out of his way, and go with the toro play. Go ahead and take Argentina, Impaller, if you even try. Next turn, while you break Antarctica, we'll break east africa, or take Greenland as a boobie prize.
Personally, I think he's going to go with the card piece move (2 on 1 in mex, 2 on 1 in central) and he may try to take out brazil. He doesnt have enough room to expand into unobordered bonuses right now, and he's behind on income. South America seems like a road to surrender for him, australia has two borders with antarctica, and his other options mostly suck. Let's eliminate his best roads to recovery.
