There used to a small group of top players who played 3v3 europe (example game: http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=2888004). They were quite hostile to people who didnt know the ins and outs of the template so when a few moved on to other things the group died out. After strategic 1v1 its got the most competitive user base and it sucks less than the other team templates so Im trying to bring it back. Sze wrote a guide for it but im going to try and write a shorter more friendly one. Ideally you would send the link for this post to a good players on your team when they make it obvious that they dont really know what theyre doing in this particular template. Ive drafted a few ideas:

PICKS

pick 20 territories. Each person gets 4 picks and there are 6 players so 24 bonuses are going to get picked. If your first 10 picks are the right ones then everyone else will be picking them too.

Spread your picks out. There are 3 main areas: islands [pic] russia [pic] centre [pic] Later in the game you will want everyone in your team to have a pick in 2 or 3 of those 3 areas.

dont worry about getting a safe bonus. First time players tend do go for portugal and turkey because theyre far away from other picks but in this template safety for everyone on your team is created when you have picks close together [pic].

Pick small bonuses. Ideally ones you can complete on the first turn [pic], or failing that the second turn.

Divide up the best picks. Talk to your teammates and work out the best 6ish picks. Each person picks a different 2 of the 6 first, so each person can make the rest of their 14 picks knowning what they will start off with.

PLAY

You win and lose as a team.

Letting yourself lose a lot of armies and territories to keep 2 enemies busy while your ally takes bonuses is good. Protect your allies bonuses like you would your own.

Pass unused troops to your ally across a border or use them to help an ally take a bonus [pic]

Clear one area. I mentioned earlier the 3 areas; islands, russia, centre. If you can eliminate all of your enemies from one of these areas and take the bonuses without resistance you will very likely win. Likewise, do not let your team be completely eliminated from one of these areas of youll likely lose.

you can play on 5 income all game. Dont think that getting a bonus is the top priority in every situation. Its fine to play on 5 income long term.

[pic] means i will insert an illustrative picture. Id like lots of feedback.

Divide up the best picks. Talk to your teammates and work out the best 6ish picks. Each person picks a different 2 of the 6 first

Disagree. Best, most crucial picks like islands or safe ftbs like Benelux should be mirrored to maximize chances of getting them.

Would have to agree with Pulsey, first 6 or so picks should be the same for the entire team, it's less important who gets each one than it is that your team gets as many of them as possible.

i agree and disagree in the quote of pulsey: depends the situation.

If there are at elast 2 FTB, best is diveide up the picks.
But if there are just good places without FTB, could be good mirror too.

pick 20 territories. Each person gets 4 picks and there are 6 players so 24 bonuses are going to get picked.

Pick 20 or 24?

Edited 8/9/2014 05:02:00

basicly,

1- think like you are playing with 3 alts. (it is hard for me because i dont have any alt)

2- choose most important territories that gives you advantage. it can be a safe bonus or a counter pick or a strategical territory. lets say number of these territories are 5. order them from most important to less important. pick them together with same order. usually islands are most imprtant ones because if you get control %100 in islands you have a big chance to win.

3. for europe map with dead piggy's settings, we can divide map to 3. islands (with norway, denmark, uk), russia area (with belarus, finland and baltics) and centre (with benelux and balkans). minimum 2 players should be in islands, 3 of them should be in central area and 2 of them should be in russia. at this point, before thinking about first turn bonuses you should think about strategy. i call this triangle picking. maybe you know it too and you call different. because i stopped to play for a while and i was rarely reading forum before. when you look at map after you get your picks you should see something like that. draw a circle on map from islands to russia then centre then benelux and then islands again. if you see players are in order like a, b, c, a, b, c, a, b, c on circle and minimum 2 in islands, 2 in russia, 3 in centre, that means you have a big advantage in the game. because when 1 player has a trouble other 2 players can help him quickly since they are close to him.

4. with strategy i told at 3 now every player can pick first turn bonuses and other territories with starting their 6th pick.

if there would be more than 4 starting territories (5, 6) in template, then i would suggest you to pick bulgaria, portugal.

i like this strategy more. but if i would play against a team with pulsey and good kid, then;

player A: portugal and spain (first 2 picks) - 1 territory in belarus, slovakia, hungary area and then a counter in islands.

player B: Bulgaria with its combo if it has, 1 territory in switz austria area and counter islands.

player C: denmark benelux and a sutiable bonus in russia.



NOTE: This post is just for helping who wants to learn something. there are always better options and when i was writing i just wanted to generalise picking to make it easy to understand. i agree with gui. you can create your own strategy but dont forget gui's suggestions and warnings.

Edited 7/20/2014 16:52:26

*I hope nobody who plays me in realtime is reading this* I am definitely not a pro at this game, but 3v3 Europe with full distribution is what I am best at. With three picks availible, I have found a great starting spot for those starting in the center.

Take a look at Hungary. It's a 4 bonus, enemies typical don't start there (they usually start in Austria or Switzerland), and I think is has a few advantages. Pick Kozep-Danatul, Eszack-Magyorszag and Del-Afold (hope I spelled those right.) On turn one, use the troops in Eszack-Magyorszag to attack the Hungarian territory to the south (Eszack-Danatul). Then, the armies in Del-Afold and Kozep-Danatul to attack Del-Danatul to the West. This is probably where you want to deploy your 5 armies.

After the turn, you should have taken the Hungarian bonus and have about 11 armies in Del-Danatul, bordering Austria. If there is not an enemy on your border and Lower Austria has not suffered an attempted attack (it's not 1 army), then what you do next is your choice.

However, if you are im an open seat, real time game with low prerequisites, then somebody has most likely taken the Austrian bonus. From there you can decide what to do. Either
a) Deploy armies to Del-Danatul and take Nitra to secure the Northern flank of the Hungarian bonus
b)Deploy armies to Del-Danatul and attack Lower Austria head on if you think you can win.
c)In the event of a stalemate, you may want to take the risk of sending ~9 Armies to Slovenia where you could attack Lower Austria AND/OR Southern Austria. Sometimes this works, but a smart opponent either mutually destroy your Hungary bonus after you divert armies to take Slovenia or predict that you will attacl the weaker Southern Austria and prioritize a transfer to deny your attack.

Great, thanks for the comments, what does everyone else think?

Make 24 picks.
don t pick turkey, never, unless turkey border bulgaria.
Island>centre. at least usually is so. Why? Island can be easily defended. If they double border austria slovakka you will likely lose the bonus.
one FTB? Mirror it.
2 FTB? Split them or mirror pick 1 4 in one ftb and 2 3in other ftb.
3 ftb? Split them.
No ftb?
Usually didvided up picks so:
tie 1: ice ire denmark slk austria switz hungary bene wcr + gb if border an iceland + norway unless the spot aviable is near finland. + other spot that you can use for make a ftb.
tie 2: norway france ( only if the spot aviable is the which near swit and bene) porto finland bulgaria + spain if border porto + balkans 3/5 (if you can use the spot as a counter)
tie 3: w russia baltics bielorussia russia 5/7 both balkans france ( if you can counter centre in 1 turns) gb
tie 4: germany sweden ( unless for norway combo) ukrayne italy hungary greece turkey
Use big russia as counter or for help you to make bonus quickly.
Play as a team. Cover at least 2 areas ( better 3)

So is this not played very much anymore? Myhand showed me the basics a long time ago but I haven't played it much since.

It is played in clan league, and most other custom leagues that involve 3v3. There was a CLOT for it at one time too.

a lot of realtime games are eu 3v3

I do miss 3v3 Europe with the boys!

This is a nice guide. I think it should be ported to the wiki (http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/Category:Templates). "Strategic 3v3, Classic Europe.".

Clavicus Vile - just for clarification:

Classic europe was a manual city or later full-dist template
what these people talk about is 3v3 ENC - no-card manual random warlord dist template.

cheers!

Edited 7/29/2014 05:28:49

Yeah.
we are speaking about 4x5 5 base income NC no westeeland. Random warlord. 0% WR (or 16% doesn't matter).