Hello,

Maybe I should have posted a topic like that earlier, but it's never too late to learn!
I'd like to ask top 1vs1 players to show me what errors did I make and where are my weaknesses in Strat 1vs1. For this I'd like to analyse a set of my 3 losses (there are tons more, but asking other people to spend time on my errors in more than 3 games just seems unfair). I'd like to see if my observations are similar:

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=1812542
http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=1660557
http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=1780328

Thank you in advance for all comments and advice.

Game 1: you played fatih. avoid 1v1s against him to avoid losing lol

I'm not a top 1v1 player, but I like to criticize people ;)

Against fatih: This should've been easy - your picks were excellent and you were able to take bonuses more quickly than fatih (who was also playing too cautiously). It took you several mistakes to lose from such a good start. You have to OD all your orders on turn 6 like fatih did. When in doubt, always use a card - you'll never regret it. (Look at how zibik uses OP on turn 7 in the second game - he's afraid you hid an army in Myanmar last move!) Also I would argue that there's no need to blockade Scandinavia and certainly not with 5 - he's only wasting troops if he tries to win that bonus since he can't defend it.
But the fatal mistake was trying to win Antarctica, which cost you precious time and armies. (I think those large blockades are never worth breaking.) A much better idea on turn 10 was to take Siple with 5 and move the other 16 back towards SAfrica; that guarantees you enough armies to take SAfrica in 3 turns (seems slow, but look how long it took you to break the blockade.) You'd probably still win.

Against zibik: Your best game of the three. You started off with a slightly worse position - zibik got his bonuses more quickly. But you got a good break: his triple 3v2 attack in WRussia failed while yours in SAfrica succeeded. You picked the right moment to abandon India and counterattack him in Asia. On turn 11 I would've deployed 11 to Inner Mongolia and hit Shaanxi first turn because it was likely zibik would've tried to complete EAsia there. (I'm a little surprised he chose to play his attacks into Beijing and Shaanxi late rather than early - you could've taken advantage of this.) Then things got tougher but you did well to drive him out of Africa. The final straw was losing Brazil on turn 18. You shouldn't have attacked there: defending Africa was more important than threatening Mexico.

Against supersaiyan: Don't defend India on move 7 and you win. On that move you knew he had WRussia and Caucasus and it could've been assumed he also had Scandinavia - why take Caucasus but not Scandinavia? So if you deployed everything to Iran (you even save an OD card) you'd break Caucasus, WRussia and Scand in 3 turns. Meanwhile all he can do is get to Myanmar, at which point you just blockade Thailand. So he loses three bonuses while you only lose India - game over. Clusterpickers never win...
(Also I didn't like India as a pick - a counterpick in Afghanistan would be embarrassing for you.)

I analysed the game earlier and wrote a lenghty report - but lost it due to a timeout. The real blunders:

-Sacrificing scandinavia to get central russia. If he had it, he had to attack ufra first of the turn - breaking your assault. If he didn't have it, you needed to defend by attacking murmansk first of the turn - breaking his assault.

-Not using an order delay card the turn after that. It was a classic delay situation - he didn't want you to have west russia while he still needed to punch through to scandinavia. With the delay, you had west russia earlier and in a better position that was rather defensible - at least for a while.

-Not pulling back most of your stack after (or during!) the blockade in antarctica. It was a classic blockade situation, so you could have siphoned some forces back to south africa while taking the south pole to conquer south africa fast. You were more prudent, but should have pulled back from the south pole to take africa and take siple with a small force. You spent too many armies breaking that blockade while south africa could yould you the same bonus a turn earlier without reinforcements.

1st game:
East Africa was a lousy pick, it takes 3 turns to complete from Kenya and there were 4 wastelands in the adjacent bonuses, what the hell were you doing there? You should have picked Indonesia instead, which completes in 2 turns and lies amongst all the juicy non-wastelanded bonuses. By placing only your 5th and 6th pick to asia you effectively left all of asia/australia to your opponent.
But what really broke your neck was turn 6: You had the choice between securing Murmansk and thus protecting Scandinavia, or storming into Ufa, hoping to find fatih in Central Russia and Caucasus with his pants down ... you gambled - and found nothing.

picking bonuses with wastelands around them is not bad; they're much safer. You can secure them and then expand elsewhere from your other picks.

While that may be true in some cases, leaving the whole of Russia, China, India, Australia, Indonesia and Middle East without a single wasteland *uncontested* to the opponent is just plain stupid...