What did I do wrong in this Warlight game?

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=12561242

I went for Antarctica, Australia, and Indonesia. I actually got all 3 but how could I predict my opponent would come through from South Africa, he could just as easily have come from South America. Is there anything I could've done to defend against this?

triple picking around australia is usually called the boston triple, since it was popularized by bostonphoenix. it can be a very powerful strategy but it has it's shortcomings. in this template i think it was ok as a pick strategy but i would probably have picked the first turn bonus in scandinavia instead.

anyways, turn 3 you should either risk completing antartica that turn, or if you're playing safe and only getting the cardpiece you should have been going for australia as your second bonus, not antartica. wasting troops in antartica when you're going to finish australia first isn't very efficient.

predicting a stack on south america would be risky, but your actual flaw on the game was that when you saw it coming down you could have taken the opportunity to invest in breaking east china and just blockade antartica behind you, either on south pole, or scott, so you would make his stack useless, giving you some turns of income advantage to either clean him up from asia or put a foot in africa through the other side.

Edited 12/25/2016 21:02:24

Why would you go for Scandinavia?

Your biggest easy to spot mistake was not going for aus as your first bonus.

If you've picked a 5 bonus and its safe enough with 5 territories (aus, greenland, east us and east russia), put all your income into it and you'll finish it by the end of turn 2.

Then turn 3 you could finish indo and ant, then you would have been on 17 income and just smashed through your opponents bonuses.

Why would you go for Scandinavia?

first turn bonus, means you have a 3 income advantage on turn 2, if you are countering your opponent that next turn (as you could easily be doing in africa / south america or indonesia), it can give you enough income to break through their main income source or safely get your second bonus while putting pressure. europe is not very optimum expansion territory as a third bonus, so in this layout it might not be the best option but that also means you could be surprising your opponent with early income while he risks finishing a bonus and you're already hammering his border. if your 3rd pick is between two bonuses of your opponent it doesn't matter as much if you take a few extra armies to finish your third bonus since you will most likely be taking one of your opponents' bonuses, or force them to play the blockade card while you are free to expand into europe and then greenland and caucasus.

Both the players should have taken 6 picks. recliner had 1st pick in Antartica and so he knew your start and where to attack. He din't expand anywhere outside his picked bonuses and waited for the big attack, but you over expanded-thinking of blindly countering South America and took Thailand and did nothing there. You could have left Antartica and attacked Hong Kong-making you to lose +3 and your opponent +4.

Like Buns said Australia was a better option compared to Indonesia or if you wanted a first turn bonus, what ps suggested is good. And this kind of good growth or ftb is very vital as initial advantage mostly seals the game.

Always spread out(whatever map it is), so that you get good intel on your opponents picks; you can see the 1vs1 ladder games and how top ranked people pick.

Your name is almost Jeb, I found your problem