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

meh trollussa then why did you say to read the chat which 1. had nothing to do with the game and 2. was an incredible drag to read, apart from the non sequiturs caused by your poor english.

Don't lie to piggy

Also I have a question Piggy.

In troll's game, would he have been better off either picking sweden as a 1 and greenland as a 2, or alternatively greenland as a 1 and sweden as a 3?

In the first version, he is more likely to get his first turn combo, since it is less possible that the opponent will outpick him. In the second version, he is less likely to get the combo, but more likely to be able to counter his opponent in sweden (which is presumably why he chose greenland as his 1 and sweden as his 2 in the first place).

Dear X,

In troll's game, would he have been better off either picking sweden as a 1 and greenland as a 2

No,

Greenland is better than scandinavia because it controls svalbard. Svalbard is the bottleneck the person who gets scandinavia has to defend if they are to hold the bonus. Being 1 turn closer to it and having no neutrals to fight on the way is an advantage. On the other hand Finland paired with Moscow could give a player a small speed boost. On this map I can't see that working well.

or alternatively greenland as a 1 and sweden as a 3

Yes, a small amount. There are 2 quite unlikely circumstances it can be a benefit:

1)If Boston doesn't pick greenland or scandinavia as his 1,2or3 Troll still gets his multipick and he is more likely to get antarctica. (note this could be a disadvantge in the rare case that troll is hoping to counterpick antarctica or boston is counterpicking it.)

2)If Boston makes a multipick with his 1&2 that doesnt include antarctica and then puts 3Scand, 4Greenland, 5Russia in an attempt to counterpick and then gets first pick he will get scand but not know whether troll is in greenland. Troll will know he is in scand.

Thanks for your questions,
Piggy

Greenland is better than scandinavia because it controls svalbard. Svalbard is the bottleneck the person who gets scandinavia has to defend if they are to hold the bonus. Being 1 turn closer to it and having no neutrals to fight on the way is an advantage.

I understand this of course, but if they both know their opponent has the other pick in the combo, doesn't that just nullify both picks? To the point that it makes no difference which particular bonus you start in? I mean, it's not like the player in Greenland is in much of a position to take that bonus - it's possible but depends on what's happening on the rest of the map.

if they both know their opponent has the other pick in the combo, doesn't that just nullify both picks?

Definitely not. At this point I wish I had a database of games organised that I could search and give you a handful of examples.

The player in greenland will not be taking the bonus any time soon, that is for sure. He can however attack svalbard first turn and sit in scand until he can complete greenland. Or he could put a blockade in svalbard and then complete greenland in safety for a few turns. Or he could complete his bonuses elsewhere and wait for the player in scand to complete it, he then has a small stack ready to break it and no bonus to protect.

It is not a huge deal but sometimes games are decided by who gets the better end of that deal. It's one of the reasons winning with first pick gets you less points on the ladder.

That's true, thank you Piggy.

dear pork,
how could I have improved my gameplay after the pick phase on this game:
http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3626533

Dear Piggy,

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3630845

I just got done playing the game above. I'm not sure why I lost...I think my picks were better. Did it come down to my unluckiness in Baja? Or did I poorly judge where he would deploy? Or were his picks really better than mine?

Dear Warflowvet,

Tough one, short term Grey has a first turn bonus, long term his pick in EChina will counter both SEA and WChina. I'm sure most would say Grey had won on picks, yet by turn 6 you pull even! Due to good luck, Grey refusing to take any risks, and fantastic play. I wouldn't dare offer any suggestions for those first few turns =)

So from the start of turn 7 it is a race between the 2 of you to break bonuses. Grey has bigger stacks. Red has better intel, more safe bonuses, more cards, more dummy moves, lots of room for expansion.

Turn 7 You should have used your order priority card to escape Sze's stack in EChina. Probably deploying 3 or 4 more to Shaanxi incase he tries a small defence. The benefit of this is that even if he catches you next turn you will have cost him 4 income and lead his stack away from the fighting. You use it to good effect next turn anyway =)

Turn 9 You know Greys income will be 18. If you had deployed all into HongKong (26) even if he had attacked with everything he had from Tibet (40) he couldn't have eliminated you in EChina and his bonus would have stayed broken. It is almost always easier to keep a bonus broken than it is to break a new one. You gambled on a 50/50 chance (first turn) which is a bad idea when you're winning.

Turn 10 Expanding is a bad idea when youre in a position where you can use the armies to either break or hold bonuses. Use your left overs as dummy moves to make your late orders happen last. Scand is worth less than CRussia so holding Russia should take priority. Grey also has the option of blockading Scand making Greenland very safe, so hitting scand with a big stack and planning to use them to take the bonus or go into Greenland is a bad idea.

Turn 11 Grey is threatening to take WChina and SEA so taking either W Siberia, Gerogia, E kazakhstan is a must. As you can only afford 1 I would say E Kazakhstan as you're losing and it is the highest risk.

Turn 12 I think you put your top 2 moves in the wrong order, but it didn't make any difference in the end. At this point Grey is winning again. You played your luck a few times (as you should) and got unlucky and now Greys huge income advantage gives him a win.

Thanks for your question,
Piggy

thanks a lot for your time, great help, i'll try to take these into account in future games
btw, i'm making real time games now to practice with high requirements, called Warflowvet Strategic 1V1 - Streak of x
BUT YOU OR SZE KEEP BREAKING MY STREAKS!
keep at it, i'm learning. i'll beat you (again) eventually ;D