Anybody got a favorite player? Honorable mention?

slejer

My favorites out of many are Duke, Impaller, and Blue Precision as they always give me the hardest time with this game and they up my skills every time I play them.

Duke and DAMP, though the latter seems to barely ever play anymore..

I think Tennesseer is the best, although he has never beaten me.

I like the impaller, but thats only because I have a major crush on him

:)

I has beaten Tennesseer once. Does that mean I'm better?

No, everyone has beaten Tenneseer

Bad news for Tennesseer then. Looks like he is only one who hasn't beaten Tennesseer.

of those I've played, I've only ever had difficulty vs slejer, ottarin, zibik, denzy man, john tack, lesny and marcinek. If there is someone whom is clearly better than the rest, it's probably one of them

Ohh, anata, you've clearly never played Duke, Ruthless or Impaller.

Or me. :D

I agree with Matma, although i have never played them on a smaller scale, and perhaps Doushi, although again never played on a smaller scale.

if there was only a ladder system or other ranking mechanism...

It depends how you define the question. I agree with Ruthless's assessment :). In all seriousness though, there are about 8 people that I would consider "elite" and usually for different reasons. I will not name them all. Duke is amazing but extremely mathematical. He tends to rarely give up a lead in a 1 vs 1 but will usually surrender if behind faster than I suspect he should. Impaller is well-rounded and great but beatable. Ruthless and Gaia from what I have seen are the best at scrambling. They think outside the box and have proven capable of overcoming income disadvantages early in games. Fizzer I have never beaten ( ~ 0-5) but that just may be due to an intimidation factor. There are three more but I will leave those to mystery. I don't want to kiss ass and stroke too many ego's as I often play with these "power-players" lots and as we all know - there is a heavy psychological factor to 1 vs 1.

Player to watch out for in the future: Nuckluck.

I played nuck luck some time ago.. he was pretty good, but wouldn't consider him elite at the time i played him..

and i know a fair bit of good players that i think surrender too quickly, sometimes that can be used to your advantage in a 1v1 environment...

this game doesn't require you to be extremely mathematical. It's rather straight forward. More basic than complex. The absolute best player can lose against a clueless player as dictated by starting position and rng ^^

a good player can beat a clueless player with an understanding of the combat system, and how to properly use orders.. can't rememeber the number of times I've played with near 0 luck where i should of lost *like 15 armies/turn against 10 armies/turn* but ended up winning because i managed to properly place my orders in a way that they wasted their excess armies

I meant to say with a worse starting location *

I don't think the game is terribly mathematical, but it's definitely logical, somewhat psychological, and there is a good bit of skill involved. A good player is not going to lose to a bad player almost ever, assuming you're playing a game with manual picks and low luck--essentially taking out as much of the "random" factor as you can.

There are a lot of really strong players, and everyone has a distinct playstyle. Some players I never lose to, other players I struggle to beat every time we play. A lot of that is playstyle and intimidation. Duke does play a very mathematical game. I feel like he excels in gaining early advantages and pressing them until he wins, whereas he has difficulty when he is forced to interact a lot with his opponent in the first 2 turns of the game. Gaia plays a very solid all-around game. It's difficult to trick her or get her to give up ground, but I do think you can predict how she's going to play if you figure out her style. Ruthless and Fizzer are both very aggressive players and create difficult situations where you have to try to defend multiple spots and hope you guess right, but if you can stymie their early aggression then you can usually win with a solid resource advantage. If not, you lose. I find a lot of my games against these two are more or less decided by turn 4 or 5. Blue Precision used to be someone I beat every single time we played, but no more is that the case. I think there may have been some intimidation there until he rattled off a few in a row against me. When he beats me it tends to be done through gaining a superior positional advantage and then slowly grinding out a win by forcing me to be the aggressor, something I typically prefer not to be. There are a lot of other players as well with distinct styles, but it's tough to name them all. Pinkbladder, Waya when he used to play, and Nathin are also players who pretty much always give me a tough game and are able to take advantage of my playstyle, either by exploiting my tendencies or making unpredictable plays.

There are a lot of good players who I've never played, so I will have to see about them.