Welcome to Turn 11 of The Impaller versus The World, a game that everyone gets to participate in! For more information about the game, view this blog post.

Here's how the game started, for reference:

The winning item from last time was number 11. Deploy 4 to Siple, 2 to Brazil, 6 to Kangerlussuaq. Attack Columbia with 30 from Brazil. Attack Qaanaaq with 7 from Kangerlussuaq. Transfer to Kangerlussuaq with 2 from Danmark Havn. Transfer to Danmark Havn with 1 from from Nuuk. Blockade Siple.

Here's what we did:

Here's the outcome:

• The Impaller: Deploy 2 to Colombia

• The World: Deploy 4 to Siple

• The World: Deploy 2 to Brazil

• The Impaller: Deploy 15 to Venezuela

• The World: Deploy 6 to Kangerlussuaq

• The Impaller: 2 armies captured Argentina from Colombia. 1 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The World: 30 armies captured Colombia from Brazil. 1 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The World: 7 armies captured Qaanaaq from Kangerlussuaq. 3 attacking armies killed, 4 defending armies killed.

• The Impaller: 1 army transferred to Novolazarevskaya from South Africa

• The Impaller: 19 armies captured South Pole from Novolazarevskaya. 0 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The World: 2 armies transferred to Kangerlussuaq from Danmark Havn

• The World: 1 army transferred to Kangerlussuaq from Nuuk

• The World blockades Siple. It is now a neutral of 18

• The World still has an order delay card. 5/6 order priority, 1/5 order delay, 3/4 reinforcement, 11/19 blockade.

Here are our options:

1. Hit Impaller heavy in South America.

   Deploy 16 to Colombia and 1 to Qaanaaq. Attack Venezuela with 44 from Colombia. Transfer 3 from Kangerlusuaq to Nuuk. Attack Nunavut with 4 from Qaanaaq.

2. Start moving towards Impaller's known/likely sets.

   Deploy 1 to Qaanaaq, 4 to Ufa, 6 to Scott, 6 to Brazil. Attack/transfer Brazil with 28 from Colombia. Attack Tasmania with 4 from Scott. Transfer 3 from Kangerlusuaq to Nuuk. Attack Nunavut with 4 from Qaanaaq. Attack Eastern Kazakhstan with 4 from Ufa. Attack Nigeria with 4 from Brazil. Attack Argentina with 2 from Brazil.

3. Protect Brazil, move into Africa, attempt to disrupt Antarctica, slowly move into Canada. (Use Delay Card)

   Deploy 1 to Qaanaaq, 2 to Scott, 9 to Brazil, 5 to Colombia. Attack/transfer Brazil with 31 from Colombia. Use Delay Card. Transfer 3 from Kangerlusuaq to Nuuk. Attack Nunavut with 4 from Qaanaaq. Attack Panama with 2 from Colombia. Attack Nigeria with 5 from Brazil. Attack Argentina with 2 from Brazil. Attack Venezuela with 2 from Brazil.

4. Protect Brazil, move into Africa, slowly move into Canada, move towards India via Caucasus.

   Deploy 1 to Qaanaaq, 4 to Ufa, 12 to Brazil. Attack/transfer Brazil with 28 from Colombia. Transfer 3 from Kangerlusuaq to Nuuk. Attack Nunavut with 4 from Qaanaaq. Attack Eastern Kazakhstan with 4 from Ufa. Attack Nigeria with 12 from Brazil.

Click here to vote

You should interpret the stars as follows:

• 0 Stars means "I don't care" or "I'm indifferent to this item."

• 1 Star means "I'm positive we should not do this."

• 2 Stars means "I don't think we should do this."

• 3 Stars means "Maybe we should do this."

• 4 Stars means "I think we should do this."

• 5 Stars means "I'm positive this is what we should do."

Use this thread to discuss strategy. Feel free to suggest new options and if there's enough demand, I'll add them for voting. Have votes in before the end of the day Saturday (July 16th) and check back Monday (July 18th) for the next turn!

Kind of a weird turn by Imp if you ask me. Our options are now wide open with what we want to do. Taking South America is now completely out of the question, our best bet is to maintain a stack off against him and taking Brazil is fundamentally key to that. We have the income advantage back and he again deployed everything he had at us and sent the whole stack down from South Africa (plus a straggler) so it doesn't look like he's gunning for that set any time in the immediate future.

Hmm I just realized I may have advertised false in my original post. With Imp being on vacation, I'm not certain when he'll be doing his turn on here so I may have to miss the Monday morning deadline if he's still gone.

I'm open to hearing other alternatives as, like I said, I think our options are wide open now. If you'd like to submit an alternative idea to vote on, please detail it out as close as possible to my examples above and also include whether or not you would like to use the Order Delay Card.

He's gone for a week.

If we'd gone with my move, it would have been game over for Impaller. We'd have Argentina, we'd have Brazil, and we'd already be in Africa. Now we have to hope we can keep Brazil, or risk letting him back into the game. Just a total disaster.

a) The no-brainer goal should be to take Canada the next 3 turns. This requires 1 additional army this turn if we don't want to rely on a 3er attack.

b) What to do with our remaining position in Antarctica?
We can either give it up - after all the whole point of playing the blockade was so we wouldn't have to fight his stack of now 19 armies in Antarctica.
Downside: he gains free access to Australia.
Or we can reinforce there now; if we do that we'd have to put almost everything we got there to make sure we don't just get overrun by his now 18+x armies, but still if he puts there reinforcements as well he can beat us.
We could try for Australia with 3 or 4 on the 1st move, but we'd end up with his stack chasing us. We'd only clear the neutrals for him.
My vote here is to give it up, unless we really put 16 there and hold our ground. We might even succeed with that, because maybe he does't suspect us to have 17 income by now.

c) What to do in South America?
If we put the main part of our reinforcements to Columbia we can keep an edge there.
I see two choices: either let him run into us by shifting back to Brazil, or go directly after him by attacking Venezuela first turn. If he still gets 12, that would be either his 20+12=32 against our 29+16=45 (we lose 19.2, he 31.5, net gain 12.3) or or our 44 against his 33 (we lose 23.1, he 26.4, net gain 3.3). Obviously I'd prefer him attacking us, but either way, we'd have a net gain there. Plus the Brazil position is much more valuable.
If we were to put only 12 to Columbia and shift over with 40 to Brazil, the odds are: 32vs41 (net gain 9.5) and 40vs33 (net gain 0.9). This would free up 4 additional armies which we could use to explore Caucasus, with the option to take Caucasus completely the next turn (we get a card, don't we? But even without a card we could take it with some luck next turn).

I'm too lazy to formulate complete orders right now, but here's what I suggest:
Deploy 1 to that 4er in Greenland.
Deploy 4 to what is it, Ufa? the one bordering eastern Khazakstan.
Deploy 12 to Columbia.
Shift over to Brazil 1st move; he most likely will use his Priority Card, but maybe he doesn't and we can get there first.
Move rest in Greenland
Attack in Canada
Attack Eastern Khazakstan.
Someone else please clear that up for me, I'm at work right now ;-)

To highlight why I thought our move last turn was such a disaster, the new plan is to let him have Australia, give him free reign to take Indonesia, and hope we can hang on to Brazil while we blockaded ourselves off of our only other entry point into Africa. This is not only a worst case scenario, but one of the most likely scenarios after our move last turn.

I hate conceding Australia, but I'm not sure we have a choice. If we do, it means he can use that stack in Antarctica to take Australia while still putting all of his income into fighting us in South America. We have three turns of income advantage before he catches up in Australia and can start working Indonesia. If we're going to try to take Canada, we open the door for him to take the other bonuses. We had a chance to get a turn ahead of his stack in Australia as we threatened an assault on India/Indonesia; now we either put a huge stack there or hope we move before he does and can stay ahead of him. And if we're talking about moving back into Brazil with our first move, we'd be hoping to do it with our second move - not a good start.

But if we fight all out for Brazil, our hopes hinge on a 50/50 chance of getting Brazil this turn, which is actually less than 50/50 since he might have an order priority. If we put everything there and lose that battle, he'll threaten to take South America, we'll be unable to stop him from taking Africa, and he'll have 19 armies headed towards Australia.

And our plan C options aren't very good either. I hate the idea of taking Caucusus. It's too easily broken, and the moment we take the bonus, we instantly have a border with India. And with Iran being blocked off, we don't even get better access to fight him.

One thing we could try is to bring the fight to Central America. He might not try to defend it very hard, in which case we could wipe him out of the area, so when we take Canada, we could move right in to western US and hopefully beat him to Hawaii.

I'm really at a loss right now though. I'm hoping Duke and co can explain how this turn was great and just exactly what they wanted because when I see a situation like this, I'm thinking five or six turns to surrender.

The only surprise is that Imp didn't put 4 income into setting-up South Africa -- Otherwise that's exactly what I said he'd do last turn. He knows our best plan is to load up and try to kill his stack in SA. In fact he's so worried about it that he put all 17 armies there.

Contrary to Fred's histrionics and told-you so's. We are looking great this turn. Imp is at least 4 turns away from taking Australia. We can take Canada in 3. He deployed all 17 in SA last turn and did not set up taking South Africa last turn, so he's probably still two turns away from getting it. In short Imp is still stuck on 12 and we're on 17. We have a +5 income advantage and get a +5 and an OP card next turn. While it would've been nice to have gone first that turn and nabbed those 3 armies before they reached Argentina, it makes no difference to the plan (it's actually a bit better to have 2 more armies in the stack to hit Venesuela) On first impression our best option this turn is pretty obvious. Put 1 in Greenland to start on Canada and the rest in SA on the 29 to hit Venesuela. Imp will load up Venesuela and start on Australia (although he'll probably divert some back up to make taking South Africa easier - I would).

You know, I'm trying to learn here, too. I don't see anything good about last turn. I'm not trying to "I told you so", and I thought we were done with the personal stuff, so let's leave the "histrionics" comments at the door and have a productive conversation. From my perspective, that turn was an absolute disaster. But you seem pretty upbeat about it, after a move designed specifically to do what happened last turn, and you said that's what you were trying to do. Help me understand what's good about it.

You mentioned our income advantage. We were going to have that whether we were in Brazil or Colombia. Would you prefer to be in Brazil right now? Or is Colombia just as good? I have a strong preference for Brazil, which is why we moved all those armies into Brazil two turns ago, and I feel like we just completely wasted that.

You mentioned that we have an income advantage, which is great. So how do we use that income advantage? We can use our income advantage to try to fight him in South America, but then how do we get Canada in three turns without spending income up there? We have to blow through five 2s and a 4, and we have six armies in position right now. And he can get Australia in four turns without spending an army using his big stack, at which point our income advantage will be lost if we don't have Canada yet, and he'll have some leftover armies in position to start working Indonesia.

You mentioned that we should attack Venezuela this turn - is your plan still to try to take South America outright? According to the move you're suggesting, you're not trying to do that in one turn, so do you think you can do it in two? Three?

And when he gets Australia and Indonesia six moves from now, which is a done deal at this point, and possible South Africa, then he'll have an income advantage, unless we've grown somewhere else. Where will that be? South America?

Your plan is so opposite mine that I honestly don't understand it, and I'd like to learn more about how you play since you're clearly a good player.

By way of comparison, here's the move I proposed last turn:

1. Bostonfred: Place 6 in Greenland. Place 4 in eastern Antarctica. Place 2 in southern Greenland. Attack with 12 from Brazil into West Africa. Attack with 4 from Antactica into the left of the two Australias. Transfer only all but 7 remaining armies from Brazil to Argentina. Attack with 4 from Brazil to the center of South America. Take the last piece of Greenland. Attack with 3 into northeastern Canada. Transfer other Greenland armies towards Canada.

We would now have the same 17 income, five armies in Argentina, 2-3 in the center of South America, 10-11 in Nigeria, and 2-3 in Australia. We would NOT have blockaded Siple.

So this turn, we would put 8 more armies in Nigeria, six in Siple, two in Australia, and one in Greenland. Our first move would be to attack towards East Africa with 19, bordering his bonus with a bigger stack. Even if he order priority attacked into the same spot, we'd take it, even at 19 vs 11. Our second move would be to transfer-only our armies in Argentina south into Siple. There would be risk of giving up Antarctica, but he'd have to guess right. Our third move would be to send our remaining armies in Brazil to the center of South America, where we would blockade. We would also head into Canada and move further north towards his India bonus.

We'd be deep into Africa, we'd have an income advantage and a stack on the border of the bigger of his two bonuses, we'd have blockades in South America and Central America preventing him from doing much up there, we'd be deep into Australia, preventing him from taking Indonesia, and he'd have nowhere left to go.

real quick Eitz -- Do we know if Imp had some failed orders? Like he tried to transfer from Venezuela to Colombia and also a failed late attack from Colombia to Brazil? This would be some good knowledge thinking if he had intent to slide over and block while trying to take brazil out.

Thanks

All orders are listed in the list - failed or not.

Bostonfred and Duke -- I think the differences in your strategies are clearly Aggressive and Conservative. Duke is the conservative type that goes for the slow for sure play of building up income, withholding income from the opponent, and taking a look at the overall game strategy. He uses this 'income advantage' to win in army count and make less options for Imp.

Boston is playing the Aggressive role where we take some risk and run with it. His mentality is to get to Imp's homeland to divert income, withhold shared bonuses, and sacrifice a little to gain a lot by breaking bonuses. This strategy has us fighting on multiple fronts as once and having the opponent choose which 2 of the 3 fronts to defend and hope that try for the two that they have chosen. Basically make it a guessing game where if the defender guesses wrong once, they are screwed.

I think both roles are great in their own and I've seen both work. We have to remember that Imp plays a conservative game and he is very resilient on giving up bonuses (he'll almost never let one go so every encounter you can guarantee that he'll at least make sure you don't get the bonus yourself). I think Duke's knowledge of Imp helps because as we've seen, he's deployed almost all of his income to the South America front making sure we don't get it from him. He sees the importance in that spot and is willing to fight it out.

I like to have a mix of the two and would have liked to see us make a move into Africa to at least get him thinking that we're going there and also withholding SA from him.

As far as expansion, our Canada will be for us to keep up with his expansion (which isn't much cause his deployment has been going towards defending). We have that Greenland advantage for at least 3 turns which is 15 more armies to play with than him. I think we should focus on each turn as it comes (the votes are by the people) and not dally with the past on should have's.

Do we know if Imp has an Order Priority card? If so, I'm thinking his only move is to get to Brazil very quickly to avoid our stack and to potentially stuff it. That would be his only move now besides expanding a little.

I doubt Imp has an OP still, but next turn we do. So we if we somehow don't go first again this turn, we'll be able to hit that stack next turn with the OO and the +5 reinforcement. We start +8, we have a relative +4 to add to the stack this turn (assuming 1 income goes to Greenland), next turn we have a relative +9 and the OP. That should produce some very nice net gains and leave us well positioned.

R summarized the strategic differences well. Fred and I aren't really arguing about what Imp is going to do. Although Fred tends to think Imp is going to seek new bonuses, while I think he'll continue to put everything into holding SA. So far Imp's been very very conservative.

Fred - I am reacting to all the "if we had only followed my plan" comments. I think people understand that roads not taken. Please focus on the road actually chosen. Ideally our attack would've been to Venezsuela and not Columbia and if it had been Columbia the result would've been a lot better from both our perspectives. But missing his stack last turn doesn't really hurt us as we have the income advantage and the next reinforcement/OP, so we can chase his stack for a turn without losing the ability to make a big net gain. We kill up to 27, and lose up to 23.1 on the exchange this turn. That turns a +5 income disparity to a +9 for the turn. And, of course, it's much worse the following turn when the disparity is that much greater.

People keep raising the concern that Imp is going to have South Africa, West Africa and/or Australia, as if they are imminent happenings. Eventually South Africa and Australia will fall to Imp, but it's gonna be awhile. I think presently he has 1 spot in South Africa and no armies positioned to expand there and he's still one spot away from starting on Australia. He continues to put all his income into SA. So right now he appears to pose no threat to getting a bonus in next few turns at all.

We have been making Imp play our game every turn from the start. He's showing no signs of changing that now.

I'm voting for Option 1. Sometimes the choice is very simple.

I forgot to say that I like option 1 and have voted for it

I'm fine with going with the conservative route if it makes sense to do it. I still don't get what our next few turns look like, though, and as I mentioned, the clock is ticking before he takes Australia and Indonesia and we lose our advantage on income/ability to expand.

So what do the next few turns look like, assuming we attack Venezuela?

Turn 11 (Assuming he didn't move his armies to Brazil before we attacked) - 44 on 33, we lose 27, he loses 23. He takes Scott, we take Nunavut.

Turn 12 - We have 16 in Colombia, he has 10 in Venezuela. We have 4 in Nuuk and 2 or 3 in Nunavut. We have 17 income and a card. If we're going to "take Canada in three turns", we need to deploy about 7 armies in Canada, leaving us with 15 to put in Colombia. We attack 30 on 22. We lose 15 he loses 18. He takes two of the Australias.

Turn 13 - We have 15 in Columbia, he has 4 in Venezuela. We add three more in Canada, and add 14 to Columbia. We attack 29 on 16, losing 11, and possibly taking the territory. He takes two more of the Australias.

Turn 14 - We have 18 in Columbia, and he has 1 in Venezuela. We add three more in Canada, and add 14 to Colombia. We will take Canada this turn. He has a reinforcement card, and he gets Australia at the end of this turn, and has leftover armies in place to begin working Indonesia.

This assumes that he stays put every turn, or if he tries to move his army, our attack hits first. What does turn 14 look like? Do we split our forces and attack him? What are we trying to do here?

Turns 15 and 16, he's working his way into Indonesia. Are we working Western US, even though he has Central America? Are we working Caucusus or some other bonus? Or are we still putting all of our armies into South America?

Does the plan change if he moves out of our way on one or more of those attacks?

I tend to agree with both of you (Duke & Fred) for different points. I don't believe last turn worked out as well as I would've liked to see and there were actually several different options that could have been chosen that would have worked out better for us based on what Imp did. That being said, I voted for Duke's #11 and (like any 1v1 game) there's no point in beating ourselves up for what could have been a better turn. I don't love the fact that we have a very poor position in Brazil at the moment but in no way do I see us "thinking five or six turns to surrender".

I think the huge positive for us out of all of this is that we have a solid income advantage right now, we hold the army advantage over Imp in South America, and he deployed everything he had at us last turn, moved all his troops down into Antarctica, as well as transferred 1 army down from South Africa. Like Duke mentioned, this shows that he has no intention of taking the South Africa bonus any time in the immediate future and he has continued to be predictable in dumping every single resource he has into denying us South America, likewise preventing him from spreading into Indo or anywhere else for that matter.

I'm actually kind of surprised to hear Duke and Ruthless both vote for the aggressive smash option. I guess at this stage in the game, I'm more paranoid about protecting Brazil as the gateway to Africa but after reading Duke's last post, I also see the sense in the havoc we can wreak on him next turn with our incoming +5 and OP cards regardless of whether or not we get order priority this turn. I'm not casting my vote on this one just yet but I definitely like our options moving forward.