3 things tagg:

- picks: 1/2 ant cluster 3/4/5 scan cluster 6 china or (preferable picks for me) 3/4 scan cluster 5 china 6 souhteast asia, gives you safe bonus somewhere and allows you to access russia much faster
- you knew after a few turns where your opponent started = go through japan slowly
- after you areoverpowered block one front. strike hard greenland and proceed slowly through japan, if he does not counter this threat he'd be in big trouble

Sze gives good specific advice, but really, why not plan to counter the other first turn bonus? If he goes 1, 2, Scan Greenland then you can at least get something in that area and prevent his rapid expansion. Asia is much more open and offers a good bit more income than the south, so having something that can reach it before expansion is complete is pretty essential. I lost a similar game in a RR before, and I've learned to never let Asia be completely open unless it's full of wastelands. Most of the income in Asia is easy to break, but you have to get to Asia before your opponent has Egypt, Myanmar, Shaanxi, etc in order for that to work.

Also, you were absolutely not out of the game yet, since you were close to attacking Greenland. A blockade in Thailand or Malaysia could secure that flank while you draw his attention to defense enough for you to stabalize in Africa. He had an advantage, but it was not a stable advantage, and you had nearly the same income.

dear piggy why is this thread so stupid

As for the picks, i didn't expect him to cluster in Scand, so I picked Mexico because i was expecting him to pick both Antarctica and Scand. I probably should have gone through Japan on turn 6. But I think by turn 9, it will be too late, since it will take 5 turns, that is, by attacking Hawaii Japan Khabarovsk Chita Western Siberia. I was also a little unlucky on turn 1 (not getting Antarctica on turn 1).

Thanks guys for the analysis.

Dear Tagg,

Why did you lose? You didn't. You were in a slightly worse position but were far from lost. Your opponent took a lot of risks (3v2s and risky picks) that paid off every single time and you made conservative picks and lots of 4v2s. Despite this you managed to keep up with his income the whole game, congrats. I think your picks were great.

In expanding games it is important to know when to stop expanding and simply deploy and attack with your entire income. You want to do this a turn before you hit your opponent. Your mistake was to keep expanding in all directions. At the start of turn 7 you know roughly where he is (scand Gland russia and caucass) or you would have hit him somewhere. To calculate when you are going to hit someone is difficult, I usually try to map their expansion in my head. A good rule of thumb is to assume they spend 4 turns on their first bonuses, then they expand towards you at the rate of 3 territories every 4 turns.

At this point you should have asked yourself where do I want to hit him? you have to pick; canada, africa or asia. Africa is the worst choice because he will beat you to egypt and keep you from entering his bonus and completing E africa. Canada is bad because he will beat you to Nunavut. Asia is a good because you will have thailand, stopping him from getting to australia or completing SEA. So don't take west US and dont take south africa (let alone east africa). Instead try to steam roll him through asia. Dont be afraid to go through the wasteland, it will cost you 7 attackers and caucass and C russia will surely fall. You do not need to go through japan, thats too slow.

I could talk about what to do when youre losing on turn 10, but my wall of text is big enough =)


Thanks for your question,
Piggy

Dear General Arun,

Ah! So much better than a triple pick. You have covered both the north and south and will have great expansion and attacking opportunities later in the game. 3 double picks is almost always a decent strategy.

So now I have to criticise them? Well if you get your 1 and 2 picks your first bonus (indo) will be easy to take by the end of turn 2, but after that you will struggle. SEA will take until turn 4 to complete and your last bonus is going to be for fighting with.

Incase you don't get your 1 and 2 picks: thailand has an advantage over indonesia because from thailand you can capture malaysia firs turn and sit on it (or blockade it) and deny your enemy a starting bonus. So I think your 1 and 2 picks are the wrong way round.

If you want to stick with 3 double picks in a row I think your first one should be central russia, caucasus because its a lot more income once completed and is more easily defended that it first appears once you take pakistan.

Your 3/4/5 picks are for fighting not expanding (unless he has the same 1/2 as you, in which case safety isnt so important) Brazil/E africa are the most aggressive 3/4 picks, only 1 move away from every single decent southern bonus and each other which makes them ideal for suprise attacks.

I am not sure of your level, I hope that was helpful =)

Thanks for your question,
Piggy

Dear Piggy

Thank you very much for your advice! I think it will be helpful as my picking strategy should make more sense now.

I'm sorry I didn't reply earlier-I was on holiday and I couldn't find access to a computer and I didn't think of using my smartphone :/

Thanks again.

Arun

Dear Piggy, in this game i thought i had good picks, http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3587188
What happened. Should i have expected him to be in East Russia?
sincerely confused, Magician

@ Magician,

Why did you not go for E. Russia on turn 3 or 4? If you hadn't moved into C. Russia, you would've been able to take him by surprise and have extra armies. The main reason that you lost was because of losing your position in Russia.

Rather than attacking him in C. Russia, you should've ran away and outmaneuvered him while gaining more armies per turn in other regions.

Dear Magician,

I'm afraid your picks weren't incredible, though the real problem is that your opponent Flat-Tax (through luck or skill) had the perfect set of picks to beat them.

Central America Vs West Africa is a very bad match up for you. Africa is safe because it has a bottleneck that can be easily defended, and gives a higher income.

Making West Russia your first pick is bad because you have no information about where your opponent Hat-Racks might be in Europe/Asia. You couldn't be confident in expanding, or attacking. You were also in the first place your opponent Flat-Packs thought to attack, right in the middle of lots of possible double picks.

I like your aggressive attitude, being the attacker is always good, but you only need to attack in one place. On turn 3 you launched 3 attacks and spend all your income destroying neutrals. Cat-Naps expanded and so when you hit him he had a higher income and was able to just retake all the ground you had claimed.

East Russia isn't a good starting bonus but it is a decent counter to a double pick in Russia/Caucasus/Europe so I can see why Wall-Hax chose it. It was slow to take and easy to defend, and didn't have a big impact on the result.

Thanks for your question,
Piggy

Dear Piggy,
http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3626177
Can you read the chat and solve our picking problem?

dear dead piggy,
are you an undead talking pig?
sincerely,
Vet

Dear Troll,

Are you bullying people again? I thought we had talked about this.

Yes, your picks were a tiny bit better, because they were flexible and you would get a 2nd turn bonus, but I don't think you're right that Boston's picks were flawed. It was a close game, it could have been decided by a missed 3v2. From turn 2 Boston's main advantage is that he is in one of your starting bonuses. So his plan should have been to hold it and complete his starting bonuses to win. Your main advantage is intel, you know he is in Australia. So your plan should have been an ambush in Australia without letting Svalbard go. There were 2 turns where this is especially relevant:

At the start of turn 5 boston knows your income and that he cant break Svalbard. If he had chosen to expand into russia that turn and then start expanding into ant turn 6 he would have held you in Scand and had a bigger income.

Turn 7 when you ambush australia you could have left a blockade in Svalbard and you would have broken aus before Boston could do anything with his stack in Norway.

Thanks for your question,
Piggy

P.S. My thread is not dying. =P

Dear Piggy,

Sometimes my 'copy and pasting' of warlight game lilnks at the Game Settings section simply does not work. How do i make it work?

Thanks
Yay, i finally got 10% boot rate

691,

Why did u change your name?

Dear Piggy,

Does Burning Bridges (Melancholia) always bully people? He called my strategy ame. :(

Thanks
Yay, i finally got 10% boot rate

PS: why does Billy walsh always stubbornly insist my name is 691, and not 69! Is his shift button broken of something?

Dear 691,

The C+P bug is quite common and I do not know how to fix it, I refresh my browser and sometimes that works.

What strategy did he say was lame? He is a meanie but does know a good idea from a bad one.

Thanks for your questions,
Piggy

As my tagline says, my quesion wasn't dued for trolling the forum, but just because I thought that that was an interesting game to analyze.

:O
I don't believe it :O
Did you decided to turn over a new leaf after Santa gave you a bag of coal :O