I finished up my first 1 v 1 Ladder game this is how it went.

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=11013852

If possible analyze the game & tell me what I can do to improve my play.

Your 1/2 were weak. Having a pick in Latin America is good but having 2, with such wastelands and distribution, is a pure waste of time. You are lucky your opponents 1/2 were just as bad.

Honestly in this template I advise against double-picking. Generally with more places to cover, it's a better idea to spread your picks out and get as much coverage as possible. Your 1/2 failed to accomplish this because they are in a limited area, and very little expansion room.

Your 3, while in Asia and accessing a lot of good bonuses: is also relatively weak. You hypothetically take SEA in 3 turns, as opposed to a better 3 bonus (in this distribution) like Scandinavia, which you could take in 2.

Your 4 is a decent counter to your 3 but what ends up happening, is you get a doublepick in Asia, which is largely better than a doublepick in South America. Feel very lucky you didn't get a doublepick in Latin, because you ended up with a better double.

Your 5 makes sense, I think.

Your 6 shouldn't have been a 6. Prioritise Scandinavia much more in this board, because it is safe, quick to complete, and gets decent income.

idek anything but picks. Someone who isn't a noob can explain expansion plus contact.

I'll analyse your picks and let someone else do the gameplay, your first 2 picks were ok, I'd maybe change the order of them, but thats nit-picking, they work well together to take the 4 bonus.

You're 3rd pick however wasnt so great, it would take 3 turns to take that bonus, and its not a large bonus so its not really worth it, you want to generally pick bonuses you can take in 2 turns at most. On top of that, it is double bordered by east china (your 4th pick), so if the enemy gets east china, you'll take all but one territory of your 3 bonus just to find you cant take it safely.

Your 4th pick East china was a much better pick, since it controls SEA and has lots of other expansion oppurtunities.

You're 5th pick was bad, it was near your first 2 picks and you might end up with 3 picks in the same place, which you want to avoid, it also breaks the same 2 turn rule as your 3rd pick

If you get you're 6th pick you know the enemy has your 4th and 5th pick, so your 6th pick should generally counter either your 4th or 5th pick. so East africa or west china (which also counters your 3rd if you miss that too) would be good places for your 6th pick. The pick itself wasn't bad, and would have been a good earlier pick, maybe even 3rd, since if you get your 1 and 2, you can get 12 income in 2 turns, and if you miss 1 of your first 2 (you can never lose both) you know your enemy is close and you want fast income to be able to fight them. But as a 6th pick, it wasnt as good.

Edited 4/24/2016 02:56:21

Thanks Mac & Ox for the input. After I read your guys analysis, I looked at my picks & I'll agree that my 1-2 picks were not so great

You should have gone into South America in Turn 1. You played it like he didn't know you were in Cuba but there was a good chance he did.

Taking West China then was too risky, you needed to make sure he wasn't exactly where he was.

After you took it and you plowed into South America with the 33, you should have made that your last attack, not your first. I would probably have used an Order Delay card. After you left Cuba so weak in the previous turn, there was a high probability he was going to load up there and hit you.

You attacked South America too many times when it was obvious he had enough income to stop you. You should have used a few more armies to expand elsewhere and search for him, and just held Cuba.

That was a bad blockade. Even if he took Pakistan, you could have blockaded Myanmar the following turn, or Thailand the turn after that (though Myanmar probably would have been better as it protected your East China bonus). In that situation, he is most likely going to focus on breaking your West China bonus, so holding down Southeast Asia shouldn't have been too hard. I would have put one army on Pakistan at least, so he couldn't take it with a 2v1.

Lucky for you, your opponent played even worse than you did.

Edited 4/24/2016 05:45:49

Hades thanks to you I finally understood the 6th counter for 4 and 5 lol which i heard so much of in wgl.

Just, are you sure about 12 income in 2 turns ? Im not sure he would have had enough to finish SA yet.

mike, Yep, you can do 2 turn 12 if all 3 picks either border or are in a 3 and a 4 bonus. Assuming the 3 bonus has 4 territories, and the 4 bonus has 5. e.g. https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10887233
also, the 6th to 45 counter only works for 6 picks, the general rule is, if you get your last pick, the enemy has the 2 previous picks, so if you have 8 picks, 8 should counter 6 or 7.

Sun luna, no, I thought your 1st 2 picks were ok! I disagree with ox, double picking is fine. just your other picks weren't so great.

Mac 'n' Cheese did a solid analysis on picks.

So let's take a look at your play.

Pre Turn 1:

You get 1/3/4, which means you have intel on your 2. So before we review your turn 1 let's think for a moment where your opponent can be, and what the biggest threat to your position is.

Most of the bread and butter of the ladder picks are wastelanded, which gives you these options to consider for your opponent:

West Russia, Scandinavia, West/East Africa, Indonesia, Central Russia

That's the remaining 6 picks on the board that are still efficient.

The biggest threat to your position is Indonesia, but if we consider that your opponent has it the game is probably over considering how well Indonesia can control your Asian picks.

West Africa will most likely not be picked without East Africa, but that would give you free Asia/Russia, therefore you'd most likely win.

West Russia, Scandinavia, and East Africa can all be picked standalone and probably be fine. West Russia being the least likely of being standalone unless it's picked 4 in tandem with Scand/Central Russia 5th (Scand should come before)

Central Russia will never be picked without West Russia, but considering we have no intel, it could also be standalone. Just is very unlikely.

So in your position I would think my opponent most likely has combo Russia and is about to beat the crap out of me with easy expansion in West Russia (Scand+West Russia), but we play the game out incase he does have some shenanigan pick, or just got a weird iteration.

Turns 1-2:

You have pretty good control over South America, and I don't mind your intial expansion. Even though you deployed 2 to CA first turn, if you fully deployed to expansion in EC you would end up only deploying 3 to finish EC the next turn, thus giving you only 2 to play with in countering your opponent. Assume by splitting Latin America your opponent has intel, so he can prevent your counter. An alternative plan for you would be to use the 2 to expand SEA and not move CA at all.

Which would mean on turn 3 you deploy 1 to expand SEA (tap with 1, finish with 2) and deploy the rest into defending CA, now you have 12 vs his 9 and could be up a card piece. I would strongly have gone for this option for a couple reasons.

1. Countering SA could end up being pointless. If he calculates it out, he can stop the counter from working. Not only that but he clearly has intel on CA, so he may not go for SA altogether. Instead he could just move his 3 up to see if we did CA and now we've killed a neutral in SA and he's same income/more than us so we can't chase.

2. We lack intel. The other 2 bonuses he has on the board could be crucial. Perhaps when we finish SEA he decides to move/finish Indonesia. If we didn't finish SEA we would be sitting on a single border with Indonesia. Finishing SEA puts us at 12 and gives us a double border. Even though he borders all of our income it's much better than being at 9 and a single border.

3. He can 3-turn 12 just as we can. So if he goes for 3-turn 12, and we don't, we're at an early disadvantage.

So the only 2 scenarios your counter will work is:

1. He has no intel on CA and decides to go for minimal expansion SA

2. He has intel on CA and straight up doesn't care because thuglife.

Don't worry the rest of my analysis will be quick. This was just a really important part to go over because most games end in 7-9 turns, so the first 1-3 turns are very crucial to deciding how the mid-game will go.

Turn 3:

I'm assuming you think he hasn't finished SA or something? Always assume he did get income, even if you calculate it out and say: Well he could make it to Venezuela with 6 but not complete a bonus. Just assume he has SA at this point and has 9. This template is very dependent on getting your reinforcement card. (Sometimes even referred to 'the card') +5 deployment is a big deal in mid-game, so if we delay that we need a damn good reason to do so. The break just simply isn't a good option. You should deploy 2 to take a territory in SEA and sit in CA or deploy 1 to take a territory in SEA (tapping with 1 then finishing with 2) and sit in CA with the rest.

Turn 4:

See, the problem is your attacks on SA are resulting in 6 dying for you and 6 dying for him, and he is up a card piece. Attacking isn't an option.

Turn 5:

Your opponent luckily took a CA territory. Had he deployed 12 to defend, it would've hurt you pretty bad here.

Turn 6:

I don't understand the 8 to Indonesia. It's quite clear the opponent isn't there, and we should constantly send as much deploy as we can to contributing to fighting your opponent and not neutrals. The expansion is fine, the method isn't. Yellow continues to fight neutrals for you though, luckily.

Turn 7:

Had he deployed 3 to defense here, you would've lost even more in CA. Attacking wasn't a good idea. Had he gone for East Africa before Scand, you'd also lose.

Turn 8:

Equal losses in the attack, but you've managed to outexpand him now.

Turn 9:

Unequal losses, but the income is equalized now.

Turn 10:

Man that was ballsy. He could've fully deployed and hit last order and bam, you're out of Latin America and it's not even a bad move for him. I don't mind ballsy though.

Turn 11:

Ach. Had you used your Order Delay card, and then allowed him to attack you in Latin America, he'd be toast here. You have way more delays than he has + you both have OD card. Attacking first is bad if you're in an equal income scenario or don't have a clear stack advantage.

Turn 12:

What was the blockade for? It doesn't even solve anything since you're moving your stack out of Xinjiang, you can't trap him between a stack+the blockade. Also SEA wasn't a guaranteed break.

Turn 13:

It's an alright use of OD, I would've preferred you to leave like 1-2 in Kyrg and sent the rest first order to Xinjiang, then you have a better use of your leftovers.

Turn 14:

At this point so long as you don't make an awful move you'll win because stack advantage + positional advantage + income advantage.

Thanks A bunch Kenny for the advice. Now I got a better understanding on how I could find my opponents picks and how early turns can break your or make you