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

dear piggy,
i want to eat you

+1
i'll butcher you too

nobody thinks it's funny that my last name means butcher and yet i can't even beat a dead piggy :(

Ugh, no more spam please.

Dear piggy,

1. Why do you hate spam? Spam is made of dead piggies like you!

2. Why do my "Ask ___" threads fail so badly? I am jealous of yours :(

Love you long time,

Ozymandias melancholia

Dear X,

I don't want spam in this thread because I think it discourages people from posting questions, and from reading back through other's answers. I don't think the other "ask" threads fail, most of them have as many replied as this one.

Love you too,
Piggy

Dear Piggy,

Why is Fizzer so harsh when it comes to suspending players?

Cheers

Questions about strategic 1v1s only please green.

Dear Platypus,

Sorry, it took me a while to answer your question, I've been thinking about your game a lot because I struggled to put my finger on the general theme of what you did wrong, rather than a list of small errors. Here is the game link http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3630845 . I think this question is the most important yet because you suffer from the same thing many new players suffer from.

Your picks were nice, your bad luck in Baja was no biggie. The problem was that you used your armies very inefficiently in your expansion.

turn 1: left 3 armies idle in EChina.
turn 2: left 4 idle in CA and used 2 more than you needed in EChina
turn 3: left 2 idlle in CA and used 4 more than you needed in EChina and 2 more than you needed in SA.

A little bit of inefficiency is inevitable, for instance when you don't know if you will bump into your enemy, but this is too much. In turn 2 you didn't use more than your entire income for the turn. In turn 3 you need to leave yourself the option of completing a second bonus by the end of turn 4 or else when you hit your opponent he will be a whole bonus up. It's much easier to win by having a higher income than by ambushing. In this game you try to ambush F bombs in indonesia but when you get there you do not have an income + stack high enough to break him.

And one other small thing; when you have a first turn bonus making contact with your enemy sooner is better. There is no reason not to attack in EChina on turn 1.

Thanks for your question,
Piggy

(:(=)
Teach me how to play.

I agree with you on East China, but I didn't want to attack too early on Venezuela. Also, I knew he was in Indonesia, so I wanted to hit that as hard as possible.