this game is a bit meta, and went on mostly in our heads, which is why our moves look quite odd and extremely cautious: http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=5886004

West Russia and scand together are by far the most powerful multipick on the map. They flow well, hard to get to, hard to counter, and paired with central America or ant give you a chance of a turn 2 income 12. They are prime real estate. So summer picks them 1&2 and then organises the rest of her picks so that if I made them my 1&2 then she would be in a good position because she has a safe first bonus in central America and then picks the 2nd best multipick 4&5 and its counter 6th. Very standard, very good, very summery picks.

I thought she might do this and looked for a way to attack it. My prediction was this: turn 1&2 she goes west Russia and possibly her 3rd pick at the same time. turn 3 she makes a move into Norway, turn 4 she takes Svalbard, potentially with a decent size stack. my plan was this: by turn 2 take most of Greenland including danmark havn, just incase. It would be more efficient to leave it til turn 3 and then the leftovers from a 4v2 would be where i wanted them but the threat of her coming into danmark havn on turn 3 scared me. turn 3 complete Greenland and put anything left over on danmark havn, turn 4 go all in to Denmark.

Most plans do not work all the way up to turn 4, and this one was no exception. Summer knew that I knew that Russia and scand were an excellent combo and she knew something was up when she got both of them. Was I planning to counter her from Caucasus? That would have been one way to go, I might come back and analyse that later. Often when a player gets the best 2 territories on the map they assume they've been counterpicked and play slightly worse because theyre chasing shadows. Therefore sometimes it is acceptable to give up the best warlords and not counterpick them, knowing that the opponent will give away the small advantage of their better picks trying to counter the non existent counter. In this case scand/Russia are so so safe that even with a little chasing shadows summer knows she will still be better off. So she decides to forego the most efficient option (the one that I predicted) and instead tries for 11 income after 2 turns. Its unlikely but worth a shot.

We both unexpectedly bump into each other, but I have intel advantage and calculate that she must only have 8 income. I saw her 4v2 so I know she didn't use 3 3v2s on turn 2 to attempt 11income. From this point on we have a stand off which hurts her a lot more than me because I have decent expansion.

Very interesting, thanks for posting these analysis.

1. Why wouldn't you try for an early scan counter and blockade with those picks? Rather obvious Summer's last pick is ca or west africa with a very slight possibility of sa. Wastelands in East Russia, Caucasus and primarily in Germany make it a perfectly viable strategy, you would get 3 bonuses vs 2 with only a slight delay in expansion. Considering her expansion options were very limited from both ca and africa, I'd say it'd be a much easier win regardless if she starts with scan or russia. Here, it'd be a very easy win.

2. If you decide to go patiently like you did, attacking turn 4 does not make sense since you miss a card piece on a crucial turn and did not get any net income in return.

3. Turn 8 is another question mark for me, you attack as though you predict she is in west africa, then again next turn you expand in south africa, which could not be safe (her earlier leftovers could have been used on north africa). Indonesia makes much more sense considering ca is a much bigger possibility and with such big stacks in north you could have tried to take it in 2 turns.

4. Turn 14 not taking Texas

1. it never occurred to me. Now that I think about it... It would probably work? Comparing the 2 strategies is giving me a lot of thoughts, I might come back and edit this later.

2. I thought going patiently was best because I had better expansion. I attacked on turn 4 because I realised she would have 11 income and might spend about 8 of them making 3v2s in Russia. From her PoV I thought that was a viable option, its risky but if she hit all 3 and I didn't attack it would let her catch up a bit. Basically I knew I had higher income and I wanted to keep her pinned down. And I was basically right I think? I usually avoid going all in on turn 4 for the reason you mentioned. Its one of the reasons I hate +5 reinf cards, they make going in on turn 4 way underpowered.

3. Ah, yes. Lolowut said the same thing. You have to understand that at this point I had a huge amount of intel. I knew she had completed her first 3 bonuses and had taken one or two neutral territories. If she had started in west Africa (which I didn't think she had) then she might have arrived on turn 8 in south Africa, in which case I would look pretty fucking awesome blocking her there. But the key is that if she didn't turn up on turn 8 then I could be fairly certain that she was not in Africa at all, and was in CA.

If she was in CA the she had probably taken California and Hawaii, and that informed my trepidation going into indo.

4. Quite

1. I'll let you edit than comment

2. Your strategy was based under the assumption that she would make a bad move, her patient play was quite obvious imo and not only not getting a reinforcement card but also losing one turn on getting australia is not worth the slight chance she makes a bad move. You might not see it as a significant mistake since later she followed wrong plan, her best plan was likely to expand in west US not east and probably take it a turn faster, maybe attempt to block indonesia at the right moment. Anyway as soon as your stacks around scan began to grow you should have realised that it is unlikely you will break through there, wasteland in Germany prevents any viable routes through Europe. At this point it was clear the person who will get ahead on the other front will take the advantage. From your early moves ahe could not read you had ant + australia, but she definitely knew you had antarctica. In any case the best play would have to be taking west US and here is where I see the problem. With your wasted turn, not only you suffer small income disadvantage, but you are one more turn away from Solomon islands. I understand that you did not know at the time whether she was in africa or ca, but there are multiple reasons why to bother yourself with ca much more:
a) her deployments on turns 3,4 and 5 are more consistent with ca than west africa
b) if she has west africa it'll be very awkward for her to attack you when you finish australia
c)going towards ca also happens to be your most efficient expansion route

3. You could not be certain she was not in africa at this point, she could have gone for north africa and let you attack, since you do not have any easy entry points. Also spreading out like that does not save you a lot of armies on expansion, but on the offchance of a worst case scenario it might have cost you the game. (although truth be told I still think that your picks just had better long term expansion, so she would still be in a worse position)

4. Just nitpicking, was irrelevant at this point

Edited 4/14/2014 19:13:44

2. My strategy was a risk analysis. If she made a "bad move" (I would call taking russia a risky move, its not inherently bad) and I let up pressure then she could turn her 3% chance of winning (imo she was pretty fucked at this point) into a 25% because turn 5-7 she would have higher income and I would need to use some of my income to take aus. If she plays risky and I attack scand then she can surrender straight away. Whereas If she plays safe (she did) she is simply waiting to die. If I attack scand and thereby delay my card and aus then she goes up to 4% chance of winning, If I continue expanding in aus she stays at 3%. So if I thought the chance of her taking Russia was over 1/22 then attacking made more sense.

I was already supremely confident that I would win the long game, turn 4 guaranteed that I would get one. That 3% is eventualities like me getting booted, making a massive misjudgement, suddenly becoming terrible at wl, her getting outrageously lucky.

I was fairly certain she was in CA. Her taking West US (and East US) was not a threat to me, because theyre so exposed to Greenland. Her taking Hawaii and Solomon islands is costly, especially the earlier she does it, and still doesn't make her safe. The one threat her coming that route has, is her breaking indo the same turn I complete it. I deduced that She had taken 2 more neutral territories than me (turns out they were in east US) I assumed she was in Hawaii on turn 8, so going into indo would mean justifying her exploration. If I simply ignored indo it would leave her sitting in Hawaii like an idiot, either having to commit to coming all the way to aus which she wasn't sure I had, or turning around and heading back to west US having wasted armies killing neutrals. So I expanded in south Africa.

Edited 4/15/2014 02:14:17

I'm actually rather surprised that Summer goes for East US as an outside expansion choice. Sure it's a safer choice than West US, but it's a false safety. If your opponent gets into California on the same turn you take East US, you may end up with slightly more income, but positionally your opponent can force a nasty offensive. Going for West US both gives you intel on your opponent on whether he is or isn't in Indo, and then gives you a method of attack which she desperately needed. This is one of those games to where it was very important for Summer to start breaking Piggy, and more important for Piggy to hold out on fronts and outexpand.