It is common situation in game. You have mediocre stack (say 8-12 armies bordering enemy territory which has 1-2 in it before the turn. Let's call it Spot1 Simultaneously, you border him elsewhere (Spot2) with comaparable stacks.
Let focus on Spot1. You know that he can stop you if he will deploy full income, or he can focus on other border and attack there. Or 3rd option - he has possibility to complete anotheer bonus - which is obviously hidden for you, unless you know where he is already.
Now your possibilities divide to 3 branches-
1,Deploy and attack - but you can lose elsewhere.
2,Non-deploy and attack - you want to attack in both Spot1 and Spot2, when you assume he deploy at Spot2.
3,Deploy nothing or up to say 5-7 armies and non attack - assuming he will deploy his full income there and you rather focus on Spot2.

I found myself to have problems with this lately, discerning opponents behaviouh wrongly most of the time. When I assume Spot2 is more important and I just attack in both, I ran into wall in Spot1. And while I am afraid of his huge deployment and not attacking, he usually deploys nothing.
Any tips for how to play these situations? I don't accept coin flipping ;)

Edited 5/30/2016 12:14:51

My advice is always attack.

Same thing, bro

I would deploy some armies and don't attack, deploy some more on next turn and then attack. Usually works with me.

First of all,send us a link of a game so it is easier to comprehend.In my opinion,we should make as more delays as possible and attack last turn.However,it depends on where are you,how many income opponent has etc.

i am agreeing with the greek freak.. you gave us quite little information to comprehend the situation you are in.

- were this your single spots on the map (bordering enemy spot 1+2) or do you have another one safe for expansion?
- income advantage/disadvantage?
- do you have cards? (and possible cards your enemy has left)
- generally the entire game setting (luck, wastelands, move order)

you can see.. a link would very much help here


generally id say hold the spot which protects more of your own bonuses(calculate max attack of enemy) and use the remaining armies to defend/run/attack on the spot where you presume the enemy has bonuses( simply said, where you can make damage)

as a general guideline i recommend this

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NyhCpIQKShAbWGXicO_ph9whV_UyMS-3a7_re0C7R8Y/edit#heading=h.g1s8mzy7wor0

Its the MHunters Strategy guide, it should definitely help you improve your gameplay ;)

Edited 5/30/2016 12:48:13

Depends on the situation and the opponent. There is no 'correct' answer because if there were, there would instantly be a new correct answer as a counter strategy to that. Against a noob, you can just deploy evenly to both, delay and then attack both and probably win both, as they never protect themselves enough and don't delay. Against a mediocre experienced player, you pick the side that is most important to you, deploy just enough to protect the other side, and then load up the rest on the important side, delay and attack. Against a good player, it's a mind game. They will know the important side to you and so if they think you are going to treat them like a weak player, they can easily counter this. If they think you are going to try to play reverse psychology, they can counter that too. So you have to either gamble and pick one or the other or come up with a mixed attack where you just defend both and make small delayed attacks, hoping he makes a mistake etc.

A few things to make sure you are doing in this situation:

-Count correctly. Don't attack with a bad number (4, 7, 9, 12 etc). Choose your # of defense armies carefully.
-Figure out which side is important to your opponent. If he's a weak player, that'll tell you what he's going to do.
-Consider that an opponent may not defend one side at all, if so attack with 2 or 3. Small loss if it doesn't work, big gain if it does.
-Know when defense is hopeless/not worth it, and don't defend with anything in that scenario, use those armies elsewhere. You rarely see weak players just completely abandon a contested territory, but you see good players do it all the time. Say each of you are loading up 15 or 20 per turn on a spot but you're likely to lose. If you take your 15-20 and use it elsewhere and he doesn't, that can balance out the loss.
-If you lose one or even both sides, the game isn't necessarily over. Weak players surrender so often when they lose a battle. Keep fighting.

Edited 5/30/2016 13:22:16

Thanks all for input!
Of course I didn't asked for one general solution, rather for some hints which could help me to solve situations like this. Btw. I am familiar with both Normans and Odins guides. The problem is, as Billy mentioned, that most often this is pure mindgame and things are happening regarledss of objective value of given spots (aside of cases when I just guessed wrong ofc.). But attack all the time does not seem like viable option, in cases like you lose stack of 20 because your opponent deployed the whole income into spot which is evidently less important to both.
And yes, I have one particular game in mind, but it is ongoing still.

Edited 5/30/2016 14:58:20

u dont attack.... u negotiate treaties mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

If you lose one or even both sides, the game isn't necessarily over. Weak players surrender so often when they lose a battle. Keep fighting.

On this, here is a great example:

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=11304171

I finally won the battle for Scandinavia and broke his bonus. So he instantly surrenders. Despite having a 6 and 5 bonus elsewhere!

Just because you lose a bonus, doesn't mean the game is over.

to be fair billy, he had already given up australia without a fight, so her knew you had at least 2 bonus' down there, a 5 and 3, and he didn't know where your third pick was yet.
although I agree he should of went a couple more turns to be fully aware that he had lost his position fully in the north.

So, here is the game:

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=11223833

I was outpredicted in every single turn since we met. I assume this time it happened because of my bad evaluation, cause I couldn't imagine that Mifran would give up on WChina without being seriously hurt by it.

Edited 6/1/2016 08:43:39

Your blockade was too big, if you didnt waste so many armies for it you could of still had a chance.

I recommend you read https://www.warlight.net/Forum/149405-trans-attc-percentage-cards?Offset=0 about doing better blockades (point 1).

I know that method, but I wasn't sure if I can outdelay him and used my card previous turn.

I always attack the enemy unless I expect that they can delay more, or if it's stack vs stack (sometimes best just to defend), and there might be a few other circumstances.

I find that in team games it is usually a better idea to attack with delays than to just defend especially if the enemy is fighting your partners, in this case you could be wasting an entire turn doing nothing while the enemy team is expanding / fighting off other players.

Rule of thumb for me:
- big map:
- - lot of terrain to expand
- - + than expand and to hell with loses, if he attack you with full or most of his income let him, you will start to outdo him if you focus on expansion, just make sure that conquering your provinces is more expensive than expanding for him.
- - little terrain to expand
- - + attack in every place you can. Let him attack you with full stack if he want, you will hurt him more.
- small map:
- - you outdo him in income
- - + you win, attack
- - you have less income
- - + you lost, try one stack on less important place and hope he will make mistakes or surrender

Generally game is decided during expansion phase. If you outdo oponent, you won. If not, you lost. I rarely bother with cards beside reinforcement and sanction cause usually either enemy is stronger (more income) than me and he will beat me, or i have more income (than he will die whatever he can try to do).

Your blockade was too big,

That's one of the biggest ways weak players giftwrap me a win, when I'm in what appears to be a hopeless position. All of a sudden they'll take a huge stack they should use to decimate me and they'll use it to blow the mother of all blockades, not only removing that big stack as a threat but leaving no armies at all in that area I have to fight against -- and they gain what exactly? I had no hope of getting that bonus back anyway. I always laugh, I don't see the logic, but they always do it.

You should roll a dice, heads you attack, tails you don't.

@Billy: Yes, this was hilarious. I have a lot to learn and I am the first to admit that. But don't call me weak. Weak players don't make it to ladder top50. Period. Thanks.

Edited 6/1/2016 15:04:54