You attacked at exactly the right time in venezuela. I wasn't saying attack sooner, I was saying expand. You could have seen that you were not going to be able to break indonesia from turn 2. You were simply too far away, and needed to try and complete EChina.

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for your advice.

Dear Piggy,

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3639348

I tried really hard, but I still lost this game. What did I do wrong?

Dear Piggy,

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3626900

Obviously not a great game by me in the later turns. But I felt like I did pretty well early on and had the advantage on Tagg and gave it up on Turn 6. How would you have played Turn 6 if you were me? And would you have played the rest of the game like I did or played it differently?

PS: Thanks for this thread. There's some pretty good information on here if you read between the spam.

Sincerely, JSA

Dear Croagunk88,

Do you just want me to list the individual faults? I'm not sure that would be helpful, or very friendly. Instead I will list a few general rules that gave me easy wins when i started playing autogames.


1. pair your picks so 1,2 are in joining territories and 3,4 are in joining territories. this gives you a little safety and lets you finish bonuses more efficiently.
2. do not make picks 1,2,3 in 3 joining territories.
3. you only get 6th pick if you did not get 4 and 5 so use it to counter one or both.
4. complete a bonus by the end of turn 2 if you don't start in contact with the enemy, turn 3 if you do.
5. use 3v2s when you are in contact with the enemy. finish the last 2 or 4 neutrals in a bonuses with 4v2s.
6. as soon as you have completed your starting bonuses, decide where the enemy is and move towards him with a 4v2s every turn until you make contact.
7. Do not expand in more than 1 place at once.
8. if you are in contact with the enemy use your reinforcement card as soon as you get it.
9. do not start a new bonus when you are in contact with the enemy unless you are at a stalemate.
10. If you want to take a territory and you dont know if your enemy will be attacking it the same turn, attack first move with 6.

Extrapolating from those rules, this is how I was prioritising my income: completing 1st bonus, not getting eliminated in an area, completing 2nd bonus, breaking an enemy bonus if in contact, completing 3rd bonus, making a 4v2 towards the enemy, expanding into 4th bonus, attacking the enemy. This will work very well for 9/10 automatch games and I think the exceptions will be obvious to you.

These rules often hold true for top ladder games. Check this game between the old and the new no.1 http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3504533 even they follow most of these rules most of the time. Learning when to break these rules is the next stage, but for now try them out and tell me how you get on =).

Thanks for your question,
Piggy

Jsa,

it wasn't a bad performance. I'm not as good as piggy, but heres what i thought.

It certainly wasn't over in turn 6. You lost it on turn 8. Why did you decide to use your 13 to attack borneo? You knew you would never be able to get the Indo bonus, so why waste troops on a risky attack? You should just have attacked phillipines, to keep your presense in the region alive, attack solomon islands to check on the wastelandless north america, and then blockade papua new guinea, and so you only have 1 front in australia to defend. Then you can slowly expand in the enemy free African continent.

Dear Piggy,

Can you explain why red lost this game? http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=1414076

Thanks for your insight,
Lance

Dear Lance,

Two drunken donkeys had a race. One of them stumbled a little more and was a little slower, and he lost. That was Red.

Kind regards,

-Wally Balls

Dear JSA,

You know you got lucky turn 2? 11v7 usually hits. Completing antarctica with a 4 was a little greedy.

Here is my thought process looking at turn 6: At the start of the turn I really dont know what he is going to be deploying, I will politely assume he has completed EChina. and it also seems that he has not used his card yet. I am set to complete australia so can I be extremely cautious and let my higher income next turn do the work? No. If he deploys all but 3 (for russia) and attacks from indonesia late he is going to break australia no matter what I do. He probably doesnt know this, do I take a chance on it?

This turn is his one chance. If he doesn't either break aus or eliminate me in the north with his card he is done, he cant compete with 13 income. I will deploy 8 in moscow and attack Murmansk with 12 first move and finland with 2 last move. If he goes hard in aus I can eliminate him in the north, if he tries to eliminate me in the north I will complete aus. =)

As for the following turns, You have a much higher income and bigger stacks, these are short term advantages so it is time to play extremely aggressively. Pink cannot complete russia for 2 turns and without a little bit of his very small income. You have 2 turns to crush him, and you will be deploying a lot more so get stuck in. If you don't maim him before he finishes russia you shouldn't expect a win.


Thanks for your question,
Piggy

Dear Lance,

I am trying my best not to give my opinion on someones play without them explicitly asking for it. It might annoy red for someone he doesn't know to be passing judgement on his play. The only exception is ladder games because theyre already posted up for everyone to watch. Do you have a question about one of your games?

Thanks for your question,
Piggy

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3630845
is it just me or should i have not won this? then again the others werent great players but still.

Dear NewWorldOrder,

I would love to help, but I am afraid you have given me the wrong link. That is a link to the F bombs and Platypus' game. It was probably the very irritating cut and paste bug.

Thanks for your question anyway,
Piggy

Or.... He is a multi account!
*Shifty eyes*

Ok, I admit it. New World Order is my alternate account.

Bollocks. No way NWO is you, Platypus.

Dear Piggy,

Thanks for the reply. What you said makes sense. I never really have considered what the other player is thinking when he plays me other than to set traps occasionally and what they might pick. But when I actually think of what they are thinking during the game and how much income they think I have, what you says makes a lot of sense. Tagg would have assumed I had 13 income and so probably wouldn't have tried an attack on Australia, thinking it was futile. If I have any more questions, I'll let you know, although hopefully they won't be quite as obvious as that one was once I stop and think about it.

Sincerely,

JSA

Dear JSA,

You're very welcome and I look forward to your next question. It was actually not that obvious. I spent about an hour writing and rewriting, I spend more time on these answers than my own games, because they are more interesting.

Love,
Piggy

I lose quite frequently in strategic 1v1, but usually not after having a massive income lead early on.

That however was exactly what happened here:

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3647737

I'm curious where exactly I likely initially goofed up and whether I just made poor picks, or just expanded in a manner which left me with poor positioning once the fighting portion of the game began.

I thought I made decent picks here, but he effectively counterpicked me and easily beat me. What was my issue here?

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3648496 Thanks in advance.

Dear Nauzhror,

We had a discussion in game, but I will answer again here. I think you should have made antarctica/australia your first and second picks. The first turn bonus is safe and gives you good access to the bottom half of the map. You triple picked =/. If your opponent had picked west russia 3rd, central russia 4th and caucasus 5th as many would, you would be screwed.

I think you should play as if he isnt in caucasus because if he is you cant win. Your plan is to get to East China as soon as possible and hope your higher income wins out. So you should take caucasus and greenland. You don't have enough time to complete europe, greenland, caucasus and middle east, you dont want to be expanding when you could be fighting the enemy. Also check out a reply I made about 20 posts ago listing my ten commandments ; ) specifically 6 and 7.

Thanks for your question,
Piggy