https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=8827365

In this game I was playing earlier I was intrigued as to what good picks were, obviously not happy with my picks (once you see them you'll understand) but I had no idea what would be a better choice, so stuck with it and had to attack blindly into the potential FTB 1st turn. The fact it paid off isn't that relevant, I spoke to Sephiroth afterwards and together we couldn't think of any picks that would be good in nearly all cases (i.e. they go for FTB, they go for counter, they go for safe away from FTB) and didn't rely on picking order (you definitely getting first pick or definitely getting 2,3).

I am interested to see what everyone else here would have done in this position, with a risky FTB and a safe combo in the americas.
So please feel free to leave your 6 picks and your reasoning below :)

1. South Pole (Antartica)
2. New South Wales (Australia)
3. Malaysia (Indonesia)
4. Thailand (South East Asia)
5. Baja (Central America)
6. Colombia (Central+Souuth America)

Personally.

1. Thailand (Southeast Asia)
2. Iran (Middle East)
3. Eastern Kazakhstan (Caucasus)
4. Xinjiang (West China)
5. Norway. (Scandinavia)
6. Baja. (Central America)

for a safer option you might be able to take Libya and focus on finishing the middle east.

IDEAL CASE

1. Norway
2. Moscow
3. Eastern Kazakhstan

(for 1-turn West Russia bonus (9 income), 2-turn West Russia + Scandinavia bonus (12 income), 3-turn West Russia + Scandinavia + Caucasus bonus (17 income))

4. Iran
5. Xinjiang

(would either get you the Caucasus bonus or allow you to quickly screw up your opponent's bonus in that area and hurt them pretty bad if they decided that would be a good place to expand into early on)

6. Greenland (not the best start, but it's in the area, allowing you to quickly disrupt your opponent's expansion and supplement your armies in the area)

The biggest issue with this would be the eggs-in-one-basket problem that would quickly screw things over if you end up with a really bad early border situation with your opponent but the choice of West Russia vs. Caucasus should hedge against that if you don't get one of your top 3 picks since you can expand into the safer-looking one. Opponent picks that would totally fuck this plan up- Xinjiang, Ontario, and Iran aren't very likely to be picked as they aren't good starting picks. You might run into Iran as part of a botched attempt at a Caucasus start, that's a 3-2 border siuation in Caucasus which shouldn't be an issue if you have decent income. Hopefully you didn't jump into a Caucasus start (although you'd be forced into one if you ended up with Moscow-E. Kazakhstan-Xinjiang, but in that case you'll likely only have to defend two borders against an opponent with inferior income with one border... alternatively, your opponent expanded in the wrong direction and you'll have an income advantage for a few more turns).

Looking at the picks you two actually made, this set of 6 would turn out pretty well- if you made them against Sephiroth, your only worry would be Greenland coming in to disrupt your Scandinavia bonus on the first turn, which would just be a waste of armies on his part since you'll actually have gained income that turn (although there's a chance that luck will screw you over this time, but that's also something you can adapt around)- you also have the nice Asian backyard to expand into to gain an income advantage. If Sephiroth made them against you, he'd just have to worry about your bad pick in Europe which honestly would probably just involve you wasting armies trying to disrupt him while he expands (in the worst case), unless turn order goes wrong.

There are some situations where luck (lack thereof) would really hurt and make you vulnerably to an early-stage aggressive opponent, but regarding what actually happened this game, I personally like this set of 6.

I also think Baja is a horrible pick- there's no good reason to start in the Central America bonus as one of your top 3 unless you're going to be able to get it in one turn, which doesn't look likely at all here. West Russia is also one of my favorite starting bonuses, so I might be biased.

Edited 6/2/2015 20:02:30

Moscow, Ukraine, Norway.

Lybia, Guana, Ethiopia.

Thailand, Xinjiang, Iran.


Europe is fastest expansion. With Greenland as second or third, you can FTB the bonus properly.

Africa is the safest, you can take Guana in two turns.

With Asia, you should have more production by turn 2 and Iran is a good counter.

-----------

Moscow (1st), Ukraine (2nd), Norway (3d)

If it is the only one-turn FTB, the safest thing to do is to ensure you take it in two turns and attack Greenland with full force.

If Asia is empty, Greenland and Caucasus with West Russia would be next safest territories.

It may not matter if you waste armies because it is a relatively good position.


Predicting your opponent is still important. Other players may choose different picks that don't go well with yours.

Edited 6/2/2015 20:32:05

i would probably go for greenland 1st pick and then combo south america and central america on 2, 3. storm into scandinavia full power on turn 1 and blockade it, while finishing central america. and then work on finishing the other 2 bonuses, check africa and storm back into scandinavia to break west russia. picks 4 5 6 not sure where, probably scandinavia, west russia and ethiopia.

1 2 on australia and 3 4 5 on the FTB also might be doable. probably giving higher priority to west russia combo, so you would get higher probability of a safe combo area in case opponent also picked 1 2 australia. would still be a bit of a picks lottery though.

curious on what timinator or dead piggy would pick.

Edited 6/2/2015 20:12:52

(for 1-turn West Russia bonus (9 income), 2-turn West Russia + Scandinavia bonus (12 income), 3-turn West Russia + Scandinavia + Caucasus bonus (17 income))

You can't take West Russia in 1 turn, and you would need to be quite lucky to take Scan in 1 turn and take West Russia the second turn, about 30% I think (can't be bothered to work it out precisely). Not sure even with complete perfect luck you could take Caucasus on the third turn - interesting your thoughts about this.

^ Crap. I misread the map. I guess in that case I would've gone for Iran-Eastern Kazakhstan-Xinjiang with West Russia, Norway, and Greenland as backups (in that order). A two-turn 5 bonus requires less luck and is usually guaranteed than a 1-turn 3 or 4.

As far as taking Scan in two turns goes, if you had Norway-Archangelsk (what I misread as Moscow)-E. Kazakhstan as your starting 3, here's how it would go:

1st turn would be risky: attacking Moscow and Murmansk with 4 and Vorkuta and Moscow with 3. There's a chance that you'll miss either Vorkuta or Ufa, but you will have to deploy at most 1 army to fix that, which is a net cost of 5 income (4 lost from the missed bonus, 1 deploy)- costly but not fatal.

2nd turn (assuming 1st turn worked perfectly) you should have 2 or 3 at Murmansk and Moscow. If they're both 3's and things worked out perfectly on turn 1, you should be able to take Scandinavia but yes you'll have to get rather lucky to pull it off. However, the offset at any point here will still be at most 1 turn, which (given the upside) I would be willing to risk. Realistically it's a 4-turn path to 12 income, maybe 5, but if you get lucky and pull it off in 3 you've got a really good shot at winning the game.

Edited 6/2/2015 20:46:25

you can get west russia in turn 1 if you pick Moscow and Dudinca and I'd also have picked indonesia or thailand or colombia to have expanding space after an expected early clash in the north where you have a slight edge due to having a 4 bonus and the counter in Norway only a 3 bonus

Sephiroths picks are good I think. I would be inclined to put 6th pick in East Africa rather than Caucasus. He just needed to anticipate a counter from west russia and either hit finland full first turn or expand into greenland.

I like the Aus combo too but putting 345 on the ftb gives you problems if your opponent picks aggressively like Sephiroth. I would consider picking 1,2 Indo Aus 3 East Africa 456 on ftb but I'm not convinced the East Africa pick gives good enough coverage of the ftb region.

Edited 6/2/2015 21:13:37

I like the Aus combo too but putting 345 on the ftb gives you problems if your opponent picks aggressively like Sephiroth. I would consider picking 1,2 Indo Aus 3 East Africa 456 on ftb but I'm not convinced the East Africa pick gives good enough coverage of the ftb region.

Sephiroth did pick 345 on the ftb, I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

In your picks you could very realistically end up with your 123, which is very bad positioning as you would have no presence near scan and if they got the ftb and another pick in america then you have much worse positioning.

i would probably go for greenland 1st pick and then combo south america and central america on 2, 3. storm into scandinavia full power on turn 1 and blockade it, while finishing central america. and then work on finishing the other 2 bonuses, check africa and storm back into scandinavia to break west russia. picks 4 5 6 not sure where, probably scandinavia, west russia and ethiopia.

1 2 on australia and 3 4 5 on the FTB also might be doable. probably giving higher priority to west russia combo, so you would get higher probability of a safe combo area in case opponent also picked 1 2 australia. would still be a bit of a picks lottery though.

curious on what timinator or dead piggy would pick.

If you went for your first option and got greenland, central america and west russia, and you knew they had scandanavia and south america? (i.e. other players picked SA, CA, Scan, West Russia, Greenland as 1-5) and they had a safe pick elsewhere? It is a very possible set of picks and could leave you with only greenland as a takeable bonus, but which is too risky to take unless you blockade svalbard which will set you so far back for a the bonus that it isn't viable.

If you went aus combo 345 and they went america combo 345 and they got scan and you got greenland, what do you do first turn? Surely they have a much better position as you NEED to deploy troops to take svalbard with 4-5 maybe 6 incase they FTB via russia, and they can take camerica easily deploying only a handful of troops.

so many self-disqualifying posts here. seriously, clusterpick including Middle East? Go play Lego.

As it's rather obvious Scand-ftb will be countered i like hedja's approach, but knowing your opponent likely to go for some counter-strat himself you should take into account to miss out one of your first 2 picks, therefore 4,5,6 around indo seems odd. There is almost no way you miss 2 of your first 3, thus you won't get a combo out of 4&5 for quick Australia almost 100%. And getting 1,3,6 or 2,3,6 means you wasted your 3rd pick into a wasteland.
Thus i would've gone with africa as 4 and north africa as 5. doubt you'll need a 6th pick in that case

only prob with above strat: if your opponent ballsy picks aus-combo and africa, you're 90% fucked

Edited 6/2/2015 21:25:01

Sephiroth did pick 345 on the ftb, I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

I mean if you get the aus combo, your opponent gets the CA combo and you each get a pick on the ftb, you are forced to deploy all of your armies in aus to get a bonus in two turns while your opponent can threaten elimination or blockade scand from greenland.

It seems very simple here, 1 SA 2 CA 3 southeast asia 4/5/6 scan/west russia/greenland. You can change the order of 5/6 here. On that particular map I sincerely feel it is by far the best strategy.

"""so many self-disqualifying posts here. seriously, clusterpick including Middle East? Go play Lego."""

LOL


I would pick 1 SA 2 CA 3 Scan 4 WR 5 SEA 6 Xinjiang..

your 3,4 ensures you can go for the WR bonus (assuming you will miss out on one of your first two picks)
If you miss one from your 3 and 4 , you have good intel and can slowly work on SEA, while denying either scan or WR.
If you encounter the weird counter in EU, then you can take finland on turn 1 with full strength and scan is hard to break.
If you get 1,2 and your opponent gets the FTB, that works well too.

Isn't it best to choose 3 separate places of course taking into account only the most efficient territories

3 separate to have global map presence so that at least one is at safe distance from opponent to make a free-farm

@berdan: Not really. I very rarely see a map where I'd prefer not to combo within my top 3 picks. Even if it's not a direct combo. You can expand much faster with combos. Consider a scenario where the only good bonus for you to take is a 4 or 5, normal luck will have you finishing these in 3 turns. If your opponent combos a 4 or 5, they get 9-10 income at turn 2, so now they can expand turn 3 and get another bonus. You could end up 9v13 income by turn 3, which means that you can be eliminated from your 2 other picks rather easily.

You want to be at an advantageous position when you border your opponent. I mean that seems rather obvious but a lot of people don't fully understand what that means.

@Lolowut et al: I'm confused about the CA/SA combo. How would the expansion on that look? I clearly have a lot to figure out when it comes to picks.

@Knyte: depends on if you're going to be able to spend your full income on it or not but this is a pretty likely way to do it:

+1 to Baja +4 to Columbia

4v2 --> Mexico from Baja
3v2 --> Panama from Columbia
4v2 --> Argentina from Columbia

+2 or 3 to Mexico +2 or 1 to Argentina

4v2 --> Cuba from Mexico

4v2 or 3v2 --> Bolivia from Argentina

then finish using your leftovers in Cuba and Bolivia to take the remaining 2 territories

@Knyte

It would depend on where your last pick was. Say if you picked something like what I suggested above, your 3rd pick would either be in scan or russia or SEA.

If it was scan or russia, that means you are going to be occupied in the initial turns, and so you would only take Mexico with 4 and Panama with 3(i.e not go for the 2nd bonus simultaneously).

However, if you missed scan and WR, and ended up with SEA, then it would make sense to expand like Lolowut mentioned, so as to aim for the completion of SA by end of turn 3.


General rules on the template:
- ensure you have at least one bonus by end of turn 2
- try to get a card piece every turn.
- try to get 12 or 13 income by end of turn 3 if you have not engaged your opponent.