Please give me some feedback on this game https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=9230765 . It was played real time. I just wanted to get some thoughts on it. Thanks.

Your picks 4/10, your opponent 8/10. Your playstyle 6/10, your opponent 5/10

Quicksand, I want to see what you rate as a 10. Must be one hell of a player who can do that.

tricky, I can go through it later for you privately if you want.

Edited 8/6/2015 16:43:38

i'd be interested in hearing it too

Turn 3 and 6 were the large errors in this game.


Focus on turn 3 first:

You deploy too much in SEA, deploy just enough to 4v2, deploy rest to South America and hit Antarctica.

Turn 2-11 income is almost unheard of without a bordering pick one one o the 3's. (like if Aus had a start bordering AA and he'd started there too).

Attack would have been 9v6. 9v5 if JSA decided to not gamble at all and hit 4v2. 9v5 wins. 100% of the time. 9v6 still wins 40% of the time, and when it doesn't win it's still a very acceptable trade. You kill 5 of his armies, he kills 4 (80% of the time) of yours (with a 20% chance to kill 5).

The 9v6 attack more or less equates to:

40% chance you break antarctica.
7.2% chance you both lose 5 armies and break even.
92.8% chance you come out at least 1 army ahead.

Turn 6, just not at all in agreement with the sidestep, break Central America, don't waste armies hitting the neutral instead.

Edited 8/6/2015 17:52:09

Hey, sorry I didn't review this in the stream, I'll take a crack at it.

I think your biggest mistake here is picks. I also don't like how you surrendered at turn 7, I think it's a messy game but not completely over since you have the triple border on Central Russia.

This map is pretty hard to pick on, but I don't really see how SA/CA loses to Antarctica if you capture Argentina. Let's just imagine it's say, SA/CA/Indonesia vs Antarctica/CR/Cauc

AA player has to take Cauc, a 3-turn 5, or CR, a 2-turn 4. Given the placement of the warlords for CR and Cauc, AA player has to expend more income to get CR than you do to get SA, this means you get an army advantage in Argentina, assuming you get the territory. Also your leftovers are in pretty good shape for CA, while AA player still has 4 territories of Cauc to take. I don't see how you can lose from that position.

So I think neither players in this game really picked correctly. Between the 2 3s, I'd take CA in almost every situation over AA.

Going back to what happened in this game though:

JSA gets both 3s, so his optimal expansion is to check if he can get a 2-turn 11. Leftovers don't pan out that way, so he cannot. You end up with double pick East China and South America, so East China is definitely your first option. Now, judging by the picks you got, the only combo'd bonus JSA could possibly have would be Cauc+CR right? That's not very likely so therefore your early game is much stronger. When you know your early game is stronger, move to find your opponent. I think SA should be a 4v2 to Argentina. What would've changed if you had done this?

It's possible JSA would've felt the pressure in order to use 3v2s in order to capture CA thereby allowing him to secure that you cannot take Siple. If he misses a 3v2 in CA, then you win. You also have a lot of room to do things from this position. Do you assume he took AA first, seeing that he's moved from Siple to South Pole? Do you move to Colombia to check if he also got CA? You have a lot of options opened up if you do the 1st turn 4v2 to Argentina. Things get complicated at turn 5. JSA has 15 income, you have 12, but you have 2 borders on his income, with a larger stack in both fronts. You need to break a bonus here, either CR or CA, something needs to be broken. You're 2 turns away from finishing Indonesia, so you need to bring it back to 12 vs 12 or 12 vs 11 so that you have the breathing room to finish Indonesia. Instead, you move on both fronts. This is a misread of the situation. By the end of turn 6 it's over. He borders your income and the armies have been equalized. You can't finish Indonesia because he's flanking.

I hope that helps.

I don't think you should have let him past when you found CR, because once he's into west china it becomes very hard to defend east china and south asia. Maybe Indonesia might have been a better pick than east china since you can defend it easier and also get to CA from it.

Lolowut, I am not sure I agree on South America/Central America > Antarctica. If a player is in Antarctica, and picked Southeast Asia and East China or Indonesia, they are in very good shape. They can hit Argentina with 7 first turn and have a 50/50 shot of breaking it. If Argentina gets broken it's good game. Even if they fail to break it, the game still ends up in somewhat even positioning assuming the opponent is in Central Russia. With Indonesia/Southeast Asia, it would end in even positioning while East China/Southeast Asia would give advantage to the opponent. Either way, there's a 50/50 chance that the player in South America/Central America would lose right at the start versus two of the best combos on the board. I am not saying they are not strong picks, but they are not dominant picks. I think on that board there are no picks that are dominant or even really close to dominant. It's one of those games that plays like Final Earth where it's more about how you picked compared to your opponent, rather than just about having the best picks.

Tricky, I think on picks you would be better off going for a 3 bonus than South America. I think this game was a crapshoot from the beginning and was one of those games where it's more about predictions than gameplay.

And if you pick AA/SEA/EC, then you get beat by CA/SA/Indo.

If you pick AA/SEA/Indo, then you get beat by CA/SA/EC.

If you pick AA/CR/Cauc, then you get beat by CA/SA/any asia

If you pick AA/CR/EC, then you get beat by CA/SA/SEA

If you pick AA/CR/Indo, then you get beat by CA/SA/SEA

If you pick AA/CR/SEA, then you get beat by CA/SA/EC or Indo

So yes, you can win with AA/SEA/EC if your opponent is CA/SA/CR, but you can just not pick CR in a way you would get it with your opponent getting double Asia.

Edited 8/6/2015 23:04:54

Funy when i first saw this game, i thought to myself that both picked not optimal.

Then i saw that given that someone would split up AA and CA, SA seemed a nice counter to at least distrazct and slow down JSA.

When i saw that Sninja did not even move on turn one, I said to myself wtf?

It was clear as day that if you go for a combo of a +4 with 2 picks, you have firepower advantage on turn 2/3

So it was important to hit the enemy on turn 2 all in if you play it well on turn 1

I agree with Lolowut "4v2 to Argentina" was a must in this game, without it, any advantage Sninja had was lost. while JSA solidified his income.

About best picks, I think this map, is a bit hard to say what are the best picks, since it depends a lot on what the enemy chooses too.

Sometimes it also depends how unpredictable an enemy is.
If you misread an opponent move/pick, it might easily change the tide of the game.

Edited 8/7/2015 00:10:25

@Metatron: Eh, it's not surprising seeing someone make that mistake. I know we look back and are like: Well duh you have an early game advantage so move! But players have been punished before when they have an equal advantage or lesser advantage and move so they're not very likely to do it until the turn they get/have income.

Lolowut, I disagree on AA/SEA/EC < CA/SA/Indo. That game could go either way but I'd bet on AA/SEA/EC. Antarctica with Central Russia is weak of course. I agree South America/Central America is the strongest combo on this map, and in hindsight, I likely would have picked it. My point is that it is beatable even with a good 3 pick and with non-weird picks by the opponent. I'm still convinced that this setup has no dominant picking style, meaning some set of normal picks can defeat any set of picks on this map.

There's rarely cases to where 1 set of picks actually dominate the board. However my point was that SA/CA beat the most combinations on the board, and draw even with the rest pretty much.

"I don't really see how SA/CA loses to Antarctica if you capture Argentina." You immediately set up a 50% chance to have a dominant position in the game. If you don't get Argentina, then depending on the rest of the picks you still have the chance to draw even.

I don't get why you're arguing this. You clearly agree it's the strongest combo on the map, and that it wins in most cases. Then how is it bad advice to say that it probably should've been picked 1/2?

We're arguing about different things. I misread this:
I don't really see how SA/CA loses to Antarctica if you capture Argentina.

I took it as you can't see how SA/CA loses to Antarctica and missed the rest. I agree it should be picked 1/2. I was arguing about SA/CA always beating Antarctica :P Basically just a misread by me lol. We agree on the strategy I think.

Also There's rarely cases to where 1 set of picks actually dominate the board is my biggest problem with Strategic 1v1. In Europe 3v3, there is a dominant set of picks. I think this may be a part of why many competitive players prefer Europe 3v3 to Strategic 1v1, and why being good at Strategic 1v1 does not always mean being good at 3v3 Europe. In Strategic 1v1, you can get by with being a slightly worse picker than others; in Europe you cannot do it as easily.

Edited 8/7/2015 02:41:00

@ Lolowut

"But players have been punished before when they have an equal advantage or lesser advantage and move so they're not very likely to do it until the turn they get/have income."

It is a mistake to not look for the enemy when you know you have an advantage or equal power.
If you are too defensive, the punishment could be more.(like what happened)

It is always best to take the risk, at worst you would suffer equal damage(if u play it well).

I'm not justifying their thought process, just explaining why most people end up not moving asap when they have an early advantage.

I see your point, I think I'm too used to plan what I will have next turn and prepare myself before for an attack, that is looked like a big mistake to me.

Edited 8/7/2015 15:41:14

Is there a place that low level payers can play without high level players? I feel that while I learn by playing against good players, I think that it might be more fun if I didn't lose almost every time.

Level equates to very little, if you've won 2 out of our first 7 games odds are that you are playing vs. fairly bad players.

Purple Illusions is right. Player level does not equate to good play. I'm currently I a 5 vs 5 game, and the 58 and 59 level players have the lowest incomes of anyone on our team, are constantly poaching reinforcement cards to little or no effect, are taking territory that disrupt the stronger players lines of advance against the enemy. In general they are dragging down the team, turning the game into a prolonged defeat, and painful to play with as winning strategies are tossed aside for inept gameplay.