Here is the link: https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=11652195

How do you deal with pockets (incirclements)? About T15, I start to have serious problems with Zephyrum's pockets, and mine don't do as well.

So what is the general strategy for commanding a pocket?

And how to take out a foe's pocket? Is there really a way even to take it out, or do you just want to stop them from coming to be at all?

*subtly controls growling over losing a given game*

As a whole, when I get these pockets, I just try to build my own little pocket.

That or encircle it with ministacks so attacks of 1/2/3 won't work; he'll have to move the whole pocket's stack. And if I have a bigger stack, Order Priority/first-move a mega attack on it.

Encirclement is sometimes too costly. Either make a stack and try to take the other one down or reduce the damages made by the stack until the position gets better while you focus somewhere else.

To reduce damage, just make sure the stack can't take more than 1 province that turn without splitting. Deploy like 2 and 3 units in every border of the stack, delay as much as possible and make all these units move to the position of the stack expecting that he moved out by then.

This way your opponent can't take really more than one province that turn without splitting hard his stack, and you'll start forming one of your own close to his. If he splits the stack in several forces, he'd fail a lot of the attacks (you need 5 to kill 3s and 6 for 4s) and at the very least you can then strike his remaining forces separated. Supposing that this manœuvre didnt cost all of your income, you can make attacks somewhere else to add pressure to your ennemy

^ This. Force him to split if he wants to get anywhere. Whittle down the stack. Be effective enough on the borders that he doesn't get opportunities to just build it up.

Hard to come up with a generalized approach (your situation on the borders/actual warzones matters a bunch more) but you can lose any bonus you hold twice- once when your opponent breaks it, again when your opponent takes it. You'll see an enclave stack do a bit of the first but you wanna make sure it can't do the second. Pick up the pieces as it moves into new bonuses, don't let him linger around. And keep your opponent from building positional advantages.

If you have an income advantage often 1vx'ing the stack is an effective way to whittle it down if you border it from multiple directions.

The problem there though is that 1 * .7 rounds to 1. 2 * .7 also rounds to 1, so if they attack a stack of 2 before you attack them from it you just threw away an army for no reason.

Also making a stack of your own and hiding it till it's bigger than theirs, and then doing tranfer-only moves to make them run into it can work well.

As a whole, when I get these pockets, I just try to build my own little pocket.

So you (mostly) ignore the pocket and try to make your own to pressure the foe?

Also making a stack of your own and hiding it till it's bigger than theirs, and then doing tranfer-only moves to make them run into it can work well.

I don't get what you mean here.

Edited 7/25/2016 19:23:47

Deploy out of sight, make it seem you are not bothering to fight against their stack, till your own stack is big enough to kill theirs, then use transfer-only to move it somewhere you think they will hit.

Why transfer-only? Wouldn't it make sense for the attack to hit your bigger stack, and it loses some? Or if the pocket attacks first, then you can take it out just like that with normal attack/deploy. Otherwise, it might slip away?

Transfer-only (done right) keeps it hidden since it guarantees you don't attack with your own stack until you're ready to do so.

knyte the genius

In this case, you were playing with Cyclic move order and a production advantage, so you could have quite effectively wiped him out by attacking during the right turns. (If you know your opponent's position and production, you can calculate how big a stack it will take to cut him down to a small enough size that his own attack will fail, keeping him from spreading if he deploys maximum numbers or eliminating the pocket if he does not.)

Of course, theory and practice are quite different animals. ;)

Transfer-only (done right) keeps it hidden since it guarantees you don't attack with your own stack until you're ready to do so.

How is it done right? I still can't understand. What I imagine:

Land 1 is Foe's pocket.
Land 2 is You's, one of your lands that surrounds the pocket.
Land 3 is also You's, somewhere that doesn't have a border with the Foe and where the stack would be.

L1 tied to L2 tied to L3.

The command: Foe attacks L2; You transfer-only to L2 from L3.

Case 1: Foe goes first. In that case, the Foe takes L2 and sees your stack at L3, which won't do anything now that the Foe has taken L2.

Case 2: You go first. The stack goes to L2, and your Foe hits it, hopefully not breaking it.

In either case how is it hidden?

I didn't realize xpapy actually plays the game

looking at the game in question, zephyr's pocket was more successful primarily due to the nature of the terrain.
after your failed blockade on turn 14 *which I am confused what you expected it to accomplish* he had 2 territories to advance to, both of which would put him to threaten multiple bonus' and a third which is much less likely due to it's lack of future choices.
when you tried to pocket him, he knew right where you were going, either going to head straight into his next bonus, or take 2 turns heading around to get to the same bonus.. his defense was simple, just overdefend aus, then in 2 turns overdefend aus again if it came to it.
your defense not so much.. logically if you had used the blockade the prior turn *which considering you knew he had at least a 29 income and 19 sitting there, should have been a ready solution Imho* or used the blockade to prevent one of the paths *probably japan, as blocking hong kong would just make jiangxi more viable of a target* then his pocket would of been easier to attend to, even with a couple turns of extra buildup.