i would like to take part in tonights as well plaese?

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3382512
Gui, ex ante meant using the intel that I was provided with the exact turn, which you can do. It is true I attacked a lot of neutrals, but the problem is I played only what the position gave to me. I could not have played it in any other way not taking some other huge risk. Also quoting: "i don't have to do something every turn" seems misplaced, since it only applies to equal or close to equal positions, which was definitely not the case. I know you like to post open critique on me, which is healthy, since it keeps my ego in check, but please try to post sth that actually makes sense.

my assumptions from turn 1 were wrong. I attacked too many neutrals and didn't give my teammate much time to turn things around. I wasted armies without really doing much. The other team didn't waste armies in my area. They won

1st sentence yes, 2nd sentence wrong. Unless you could provide better moves it's not analysis, it's just pointing towards a statistical data point.

Kill less neutrals and have more firepower for the enemies is the gist of what I'd do if I were you.

Yes, if it is possible, I do it, if it is not, I don't. I can only play what the position gives to me meaning I play moves that I don't find better alternative to. If you are pointing to the picks, that's actually the only part you might be right, I did not analyse them after the game, maybe giving russia away was the way to go.

The 10th edition will be Medium Earth they said...


It will be funny they said...

Gui vs Szeweningen soap opera is getting old

put it on CBS at 1130 on weekdays and it will be everybodys favorite soap

P.S.
Since it is very likely that I will come back home at the very time in wich the tournament will start, can I be invited just to the official tournament so that I don't have to cut off 30 minutes from my studies in order to confirm my presence?
I assure that I will be in time.

"Gui, please post exact turns with substitute moves that would have been better ex ante."

Since I either think that is intersting to do some open analysis, and since I know that you know that I'm not doing that in order to annoy you, I would be intersted in you to analyse your very first turn.

Your attack with all in England, as I said, was your only error in my opinion.
Infact the chance wich that attack would be good is only of the 18%, considering me a decent player. (I will explain why)

If I would be in Ireland the attack would be bad (No reason to explain you why)

If Gnuffone would be there and if he would have tried to take Ireland in one turn, your attack would be good only if he would have failed the attack in that very spot.
(64% of taking the spot, 50% of finding me there: it means 18% of chances of having done a right thing)

Infact even if he wouldn't have completed Ireland, if he would have taken just that spot, he would still have enough troops to defend from your attack, infact unless you wouldn't have been ok to give up completely with the center - thing that would have been worse than breaking Ireland - you wouldn't have been able to take that spot.

Considering also the possibility of not taking it, even if you would have focused with all there, beacuse it would be reasonable to find an 8 troops defence (in case he would be lucky with Ireland, 9), wich is not necessary not break with a 12 troops attack.

What do you think about it?

Hey, in the 1v1 template, maybe you should change it to 16% luck instead of 75%.

I forgot this:

So ex ante would have been better to put all in austria.

First we knew all of your picks, but we did not know who was where.
Second since turn 1 I was playing under the assumption that we were behind.
On turn 1 I saw that I would be stuck on 5 income for the rest of the game, so the only chance I saw we had was for me to stall both of you long enough for myhand to get counterplay since I thought that if Gnuff gets safe expansion (especially if he gets +3 first turn) myhand won't be able to do anything (the only choices where going thruogh norway or eliminating him in slovakia which seemed very improbable considering we'd be behind in income). In any case I made the judgment that if we are in a stall, my team will lose in the long run. Anyway there was a slight chance you'd go for ireland if you were there, but basically it was a shot I think i had to take since Gnuff easily could have been there and if he was there, the probability of going for ireland 1st turn would be much higher. Also i don't think what you say is true, if I have high stacks in UK my attack will be succesful more often than not, since I don't need to break into ireland right away, but I need to stall Gnuff. If he tries to take ireland and fails while taking contested spot he can defend if he deploys all, but that also means that he will not get any bonus the same turn since he can't defend ireland and take last spot (he'd need at least 1 additional deployment to finish it.) but even then, he'd get negative net income. Also 11vs7 can take so i actually could get into ireland the same turn by force, not to mention that losing austria was not that bad considering myhand was in hungary. I was more comfortable with that kind of stall with Gnuff than with you. Also see that if I move with 4 in UK Gnuff would have to miss exactly that territory and he'd be able to defend and finish ireland the same turn, my UK pick would become useless.

So to sum up the 1st move was based around the assumption that our positioning was worse and if Gnuff is not contested than we'll lose, which seems quite obvious to me factoring in my positioning with being stuck on 5 income and myhand's positioning which was worse than Gnuff's. Deploying to austria is the safe way to go and I'd do that if I was sure that you were in ireland, but here I made the judgment that Gnuff's positioning had to be contested and losing austria was not that important considering myhand would hit Nitra in any scenario and he'd be able to counter it effectively. In any case bar 1st move on benelux I think I extracted max deployment from both of you losing minimum seeing you never got austria and Gnuff actually transferred into ireland.

It's interesting to watch top 2v2 players do what they do best. Team C got better picks. Tri had a slight advantage over sze due to Ireland>England. Gnuff had better picks than myhand due to iceland benelux being the same number of neutrals for 1 higher income than denmark portugal. It doesn't seem like much but it was an advantage they carried the entire game.

Turn 1 Sze just resigned himself to the fact that he wasnt going to get a bonus this game, not realising trilussa was the person he was facing off in all 3 places and she would struggle for a bonus too. He left the fight in the centre to myhand and took on the islands as best he could. He gambled that someone would take ireland which was a mistake team A couldn't afford after getting slightly worse picks. Mid-game gnuff wisely focused on the narrow Iceland->denmark fight where his income wins out and simply avoided elimination in the centre.

WM rule =P

As you know, each turn leads to new strategic options for the next turn. So the turns that matter:

1. "[Your] assumptions from turn 1 were wrong." You said in the video (paraphrasing), "I assumed Gnuff was in Ireland. So I absolutely had to deploy 100% to ensure Gnuff does not get the Ireland bonus." Tri was in Ireland. Your absolute certainty was a 50-50 guess in my book, unless you know that Gnuff always picks Ireland and that led you to believe it was a certainty.

2a. You said in the video you were sure Gnuff was in Ireland but after seeing Ireland not being taken, you knew Tri was there. So why enter Ireland if Tri was there? Have you watched Tri play much? I assume you have. He's worth watching. He doesn't attack neutrals much unless he thinks it will lead to something. There was a good chance he'd not attack in Ireland. But that is based on your second certainty: Tri is in Ireland now. I wouldn't have been so sure about that. Maybe Gnuff was there but he was focusing on his other two bonuses. So your second certainty was also a guess, not a certainty. You guessed right though. But if you were so certain it was Tri, why enter Ireland that turn? It's not ME 1v1. You don't need card pieces. Tri likes to let the enemy kill neutrals for him so he can steamroll the weakened enemy. Your aggression gave him a second advantage over you.

2b. Because of your first turn assumption (certainty to you, 50-50 guess to me), your second turn's situation meant you did in fact have to do something: deploy 100% in Aust. So, what could you do? Drop 5 and let Tri hit you 14v10? Or attack Switz? Attacking Switz would lead to a slow war of attrition. If you stand strong 14v10: Tri loses 7; you lose 8-9. Standing armies next turn: 7 versus 1 or 2. Not good, but you'd give myhand 1 more turn to make something happen. What next, if you stand strong turn 2? If you have 2, you face an 11v7 attack by Tri. 58% chance he kills you. Or you could run to Switz. Overall effect of standing strong 1-2 turns: Tri doesn't get Switz so quickly. Tri wouldn't have expanded in Austria so quickly. Though he'd be more likely to go for Ireland, especially since Gnuff ended up transferring extras to him (though the Gnuff I know doesn't usually do that unless he has a selfish reason to). But your bad situation here is still due to your first turn assumption. Attacking in UK was not necessary, even if Gnuff had Ireland. So you hit that one neutral. You followed that up with attacking Ireland and trying to stay alive with an attack on Switz (see 2c below). So you hit three neutrals already. Tri only hit you so far. He's about to steamroll you. Thus: You ATTACKED TOO MANY NEUTRALS too early. The effect: Myhand LOST TIME working his magic. "[You] attacked too many neutrals and didn't give [your] teammate much time to turn things around."

2c. Your choice: Kill more neutrals. Hit Switz. Effect: Instead of a 14v10 war of attrition (you could buy time, let myhand try to win it), you end up with standing armies of 13v8.

3a. A 17v13 attack is what you're looking at now. With 17v13, Tri loses 9 you lose 10. Effect if you stand still: standing armies of 9 (Tri) and 3 (you). 13v8 (turn 4's situation, if you stand strong this turn) is successful 70% of the time. The time to run would be then.

3b. Tri wants your blood. You try to run and (a) you get to France but give control of Switz to Tri or (b) Tri hits you before you run and your 2 hits France and likely just makes you look pathetic. You got lucky and moved before Tri would've made you look pathetic. But now Switz is his if he wants it. But at least you can bust Benelux and give myhand a chance to win the game with superior income, since Benelux might go down. He can grab the middle and cut back to mess with Tri in Switz/Aust.

4. You had first turn twice in a row. You think you'll get it a third time? You do: You deploy 3 in Ireland, unnecessarily. Put everything in France and you have a chance to get first move and attack with authority. Gnuff didn't even care about you. Your only hope ends up being a 4v3 attack. In the video you express surprise that the 4v3 didn't work! Focus 100% on your primary objective (busting Benenlux) and those extra 3 would've been more than enough. And since Tri ended up hitting you first, it would've given you distance between his stack and your conquistadores of Benelux. But you didn't. At the moment focus would've helped, you lose focus. "Jumping from strategy to strategy to strategy...didn't give myhand time to win the game." The effect: "[You] wasted armies without really doing much."

5. Now your situation is pathetic. Tri rapes you.

6. So you jump to Southern Ireland. This is your best hope, delaying the inevitable...Game is over unless myhand can clear the middle immediately. He isn't able to. GG.

In only 4 turns you became useless. You didn't give myhand time. He was facing an opponent who was not randomly wasting armies on neutrals trying to be clever. So he needed more time. You had a chance to possibly make your approach work (turn 4), but you take your foot off the gas. Why commit to a strategy and then change strategies at the last moment, when success is most possible?

I stand by my initial assessment: "[You] attacked too many neutrals and didn't give [your] teammate much time to turn things around. [You] wasted armies without really doing much. The other team didn't waste armies in [your] area. They won."

What would I have done differently, aside from having different picks? I wouldn't have gambled everything on a 50-50 assumption first move. But if I did end up with your ugly situation based on the picks, I probably would have put 5 in Austria first turn and see what happens. Gnuff and myhand were the wild cards. If Tri was in Ireland, he probably wouldn't go for it: they don't know who is in the UK and Tri saves his armies. I like to gamble too. So if I was bored, maybe I would have checked Southern Ireland with a 4v2 and execute a soldier in Russia 1v2 to try to get last turn and then attack Switz 9vX third order to make things interesting. Chasing windmills full power in Ireland is something I wouldn't have done, given you had to hit a neutral just to see Ireland and it isn't an interesting/fun move.

Anything else that I would've done differently would have depended on (a) how my first turn influences turn 2's options (and how that influences turn 3, and so on) and (b) whatever discussion I have or don't have with myhand, to find a way that I can make our approaches/moves work as much as possible towards the same strategic goal(s).

Ladder or brand new templates would've been better in my opinion.

Ok I see the point.

And I understand why you did that, infact when you thinkn of being in disadvantae sometimes is ok to make risky moves.

I still diasgrre with a point.

You said that you wanted to stall Gnuffone in order to let myhand enonugh time to clear the center, my point about this is: how could myhand have had the center if you would have left me austria on turn 2?

What I'm trying to say is that if Gnuffone would have been in Ireland you cannot do anything to win the game, so if you really had to take a risk, i think that it would be better to assume that I was in Ireland, and play as you knew that.

This is a worth-taking risk, because in that way you could have won the game, instead to me the risk you took if it would have succeded, it would allowed you to be alive a little bit more, but still you were in a deadly situation.

epic answer to a long post hedja :)

Reza, I meant for this week, last week it was fine :P

i have anew respect for gui that was the most in depth answer anybody i know has given ever you must have used the 10000 character limit in that post

what time does it start EST in america?

About the templates: Too many ME 1v1 junkies. Maybe they are chain smokers too. Just facilitate their weakness. But I think that 2v2 template is the best 2v2 game I've played. It requires a great deal of thought. And people familiar with Europe have an advantage. That means many of the ME 1v1 junkies would crash and burn. They don't like looking like fools. So many won't join and face embarrassment. This is how WL has always been.

Hellbender, it is in roughly 3 hours and a bit from now

Gui, some people just get bored after having overplayed the EU map. I would prefer to play on nearly any another map, to try something new out, I'm not saying it has to be Middle Earth.