Welcome to Turn 18 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 4: Take Congo, attempt to break East Africa, defend Scandinavia lightly. Use Delay Card

Deploy 10 to Hawaii, 10 to Eastern Kazakhstan, 7 to Norway. Transfer 8 from Moscow to Finland, transfer 1 from California to Hawaii, use Order Delay Card, transfer 4 from Southwest to California, transfer 3 from Great Basin to California, transfer 1 from Alaska to British Columbia, transfer 1 from Alaska to Yukon, attack Japan with 4 from Hawaii, attack Congo with 24 from Chad, attack Turkmenistan with 3 from Eastern Kazachastan, attack Sudan with 7 from Chad, attack Ufa with 8 from Eastern Kazachstan, attack Solomon Islands with 15 from Hawaii.

Here's what we did:

Here's the outcome:

• The World: Deploy 10 to Hawaii

• The Impaller: Deploy 5 to Arkhangelsk

• The Impaller: Deploy 2 to Ufa

• The World: Deploy 10 to Eastern Kazakhstan

• The World: Deploy 7 to Norway

• The Impaller: Deploy 4 to Murmansk

• The Impaller: Deploy 13 to Solomon Islands

• The World: 8 armies transferred to Finland from Moscow

• The Impaller: 16 armies captured Moscow from Arkhangelsk. 1 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The Impaller: 6 armies transferred to Sudan from Congo

• The World: 1 army transferred to Hawaii from California

• The Impaller: 1 army transferred to Ufa from Georgia

• The Impaller: 4 armies failed to take Finland from Murmansk. 4 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed.

• The Impaller: 1 army transferred to Western Kazakhstan from Georgia

• The Impaller: 2 armies failed to take Eastern Kazakhstan from Ufa. 2 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The World plays an order delay card

• The World: 4 armies transferred to California from Southwest

• The World: 3 armies transferred to California from Great Basin

• The World: 1 army transferred to British Columbia from Alaska

• The World: 1 army transferred to Yukon from Alaska

• The World: 4 armies captured Japan from Hawaii. 1 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed.

• The World: 24 armies captured Congo from Chad. 0 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The World: 3 armies captured Turkmenistan from Eastern Kazakhstan. 1 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The World: 7 armies failed to take Sudan from Chad. 5 attacking armies killed, 4 defending armies killed.

• The World: 7 armies captured Ufa from Eastern Kazakhstan. 2 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed.

• The World: 15 armies failed to take Solomon Islands from Hawaii. 10 attacking armies killed, 9 defending armies killed.

• The World received an order priority card. 18/19 blockade, 3/5 order delay, 2/4 reinforcement.

Here are our options:

1. Deny Impaller West Russia, crack East & South Africas and Indonesia, take Khabarovsk.

   Deploy 2 to Congo, 8 to Chad, 2 to Japan, 1 to Turkmenistan, 14 to Hawaii. Attack Vorkuta with 4 from Ufa, transfer 6 from Finland to Norway, transfer 7 from California to Hawaii, transfer 1 from Chad to Congo, transfer 1 from Chad to Nigeria, attack Tadschikistan with 2 from Turkmenistan, transfer only 1 from Norway to Finland, transfer 1 from Yukon to Alaska, transfer 1 from British Columbia to Alaska, attack Khabarovsk with 4 from Japan, attack Angola with 5 from Congo, attack Somalia with 10 from Congo, attack Botswana with 10 from Congo, attack Murmansk with 5 from Norway, attack Solomon Islands with 20 from Hawaii.

2. Deny Impaller West Russia, combine forces on Hawaii, crack East & South Africas, take West Africa.

   Deploy 4 to Nigeria, 8 to Chad, 1 to Turkmenistan, 14 to Congo. Attack Vorkuta with 4 from Ufa, transfer 6 from Finland to Norway, transfer 7 from California to Hawaii, transfer 2 from Japan to Hawaii, attack Tadschikistan with 2 from Turkmenistan, transfer only 1 from Norway to Finland, transfer 1 from Yukon to Alaska, transfer 1 from British Columbia to Alaska, attack Ghana with 4 from Nigeria, attack Cameroon with 7 from Congo, attack Angola with 5 from Congo, attack Somalia with 5 from Congo, attack Kenya with 10 from Congo, attack Botswana with 10 from Congo, attack Sudan with 10 from Chad, attack Murmansk with 5 from Norway.

3. Deny Impaller West Russia, combine forces on Hawaii, crack East & South Africas, take Caucasus.

   Deploy 8 to Eastern Kazakhstan, 6 to Turkmenistan, 7 to Congo, 6 to Norway. Attack Georgia with 4 from Ufa, transfer 6 from Finland to Norway, transfer 7 from California to Hawaii, transfer 2 from Japan to Hawaii, transfer 1 from Chad to Congo, transfer 1 from Chad to Nigeria, transfer only 1 from Norway to Finland, transfer 1 from Yukon to Alaska, transfer 1 from British Columbia to Alaska, attack Tadschikistan with 2 from Turkmenistan, attack Western Kazakhstan with 4 from Eastern Kazakhstan, attack Kyrgyzstan with 4 from Eastern Kazakhstan, attack Angola with 5 from Congo, attack Somalia with 5 from Congo, attack Kenya with 10 from Congo, attack Botswana with 10 from Congo, attack Sudan with 10 from Chad, attack Murmansk with 12 from Norway.

4. Deny Impaller West Russia, load on Hawaii and Turkmenistan, attempt to crack East & South Africas and Indonesia, decent push towards India.

   Deploy 9 to Turkmenistan, 18 to Hawaii. Attack Vorkuta with 4 from Ufa, transfer 6 from Finland to Norway, transfer 7 from California to Hawaii, transfer 2 from Japan to Hawaii, transfer 1 from Chad to Congo, transfer 1 from Chad to Nigeria, transfer only 1 from Norway to Finland, transfer 1 from Yukon to Alaska, transfer 1 from British Columbia to Alaska, attack Kenya with 50% from Congo, attack Angola with 100% from Congo, attack Tadschikistan with 10 from Turkmenistan, attack Murmansk with 5 from Norway, attack Solomon Islands with 24 from Hawaii.

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 Sunday, October 9th and check back Monday, October 10th for the next turn!

Overall I'd say that was a pretty good turn for us. I'm obviously open to a different branch of ideas that I may not have covered in my options above but I feel (as a player and a voter) that there are certain things that are of utmost import to us right now:

1. We need to crack at least 2 of Imp's sets this turn. We border 3 and there's no way he can defend everything.

2. It's not really a big deal if Imp cracks Scan if we can knock out 2+ of his sets, however see #1.

3. We do have support coming into Hawaii so it might not be completely necessary to attack there this turn and instead focus our deployment on ensuring that we take out E & S Africas.

4. I also think it'd be kinda cool to take another set this turn (W Africa or Caucasus) to compensate for the likely loss of Scan altho out of those two, I think W Africa is the safer bet as Imp is extremely likely to take Ufa this turn and border Caucasus all over the place. Following Vote Option #2 attempts to take W Africa and then clear out around everything that touches it while breaking 2 of Imp's sets. I'm just not sure if it's worth the deployment as per #1. It is also possible that Imp charges into Chad this turn in an attempt to get closer to South America so getting that set could potentially not work either.

Hmm, +3 net gain, but we still don't border India and China and we didn't break any of his bonuses. Mediocre turn I'd say. He will play a reinforcement card this turn that makes 29 for him, so we better not start splitting our forces right now. Don't be greedy, take him down one bonus at a time.
We don't know about his progress in China, but in case he is already working on it he might try put his excess armies to use and try complete it. Highly unlikely though, as from India it is a 4 turn job.

West Africa / Caucasus: I don't think we have the armies to spare for that this turn.

I wouldn't spread forces in Africa too much as you suggested Eith, just pick one target per bonus. Somalia and Angola seem to me the most logical choices, as they would give us the weakest positional advantage.
If we take Sudan that would shield West Africa from him and we could complete it relatively safely next turn, provided we keep Congo, so he cannot afford to lose Sudan.
If we take Kenya he would have to defend South Africa on 4 borders next turn - impossible, he cannot afford to lose that one either.
Botswana is slightly less attractive, as it borders East Africa only once. But Somalia/Angola are the most useless territories of them all, so my bet is he will defend here weakest.
Question is: does he know that we know all that? And will bet we pick the least likely targets?
Put ~10 reinforcements into Congo and either try Sudan with 80%, or Somalia/Angola with 50% each.

Seeing that we are already in Japan, how about this alternative:
Break the 10er in Shanghai, take Jiangxi next turn, complete East China the turn after that and border India and Indonesia in 3 different spots. Unless he already is in Shaanxi when we take Jiangxi he will never see that one coming.
In the meantime gather troops in Hawaii, break one of the Africas, maybe blockade Scandinavia to free up the armies there and use them to deny him Western Russia, put some reinforcements to Caucasus and try border India from the western side as well.
Not sure if that is really a sound plan, but it might be something he doesn't expect.

Ok, if we play this right, this should be the last turn we play. I don't believe Impaller can defend in Africa, i don't think he'll deploy there heavily. If we split those 23 into 11 and 12 armies and attack with them last turn odds of breaking both bonuses are relatively high. Also sorry I wasted an order delay card last turn;) I'm actually pleased easthetically by the idea of breaking a wasteland, but I believe that as the name suggests, it would be an unneccessary waste of armies. Especially since we can complete west africa anytime we want.

Despite him having 29 income this turn I don't see how can he do anything right now. First of all to deny west russia we can use (and I think we should) and order priority card we got this turn. Also we might not want to attack Indonesia recklessly this turn, that is his only potential attacking option, especially since I have a pleasing tactic in mind in case we stack up (we can blockade hawaii and move the rest of our troops to japan --> east china --> india). Since we are one turn away from blockade, we'll blockade scandinavia in need and what i believe Impaller's plan is, is to fold Africa completely, but remain presence there in order for us not to get his bonuses and counter in Asia taking caucasus and west africa. He definitely knows he's lost if he commits to africa (our attacking odds are to high and we have access to his bonuses). The only thing I'm afraid of is that he might play and order delay this turn (I shouldn't have wasted it last turn), but I think he's bound to use the majority of his forces on scandinavia deployment. So, without further adue, I'd like to post option 5, which won't be that different from your options Eitz:

1. Deny Impaller west russia and Caucasus, load up and wait in Hawaii, break east and south africa, take Khabarovsk, attempt to border india, use order priority card:

Deploy 2 to Japan, 5 to Ufa, 5 to Turkmenistan, 1 to Eastern Kazachstan, 14 to Hawaii. Use order priority card. Attack Arkhangelsk with 9 from Ufa, Transfer 7 from California to hawaii, transfer 4 from finland to norway, transfer 1 from yukon to british columbia, transfer 1 from british colubia to pacific northwest, transfer 1 from chad to congo, transfer 1 from chad to nigeria, transfer 1 from norway to finland, attack Khabarovsk with 4 from Japan, transfer 1 from turkmenistan to eastern kazachstan, attack tadschikistan with 5 from turkmenistan, attack sudan with 8 from congo, attack kenya with 3 from congo, attack botswana with 12 from congo, attack murmansk with 6 from norway.

Diabolicus: Altho I like how you're thinking outside the box, I agree that we definitely don't have the extra manpower lying around to go knocking out wastelands at this point. Imp is likely gonna throw everything he has at as this turn and we're gonna need to be smart and strong and try to give him as little as possible while afflicting the most damage to him as we can.

Szeweningen: I've added your orders as option #5 as they are definitely different enough from mine to have their own category.

All: Somehow I didn't realize that we had an Order Priority Card when I was doing up the orders last nite but with that in mind, I think it's fairly obvious that we should be using that card in every single one of my orders above as well. Any thoughts or disagreements on that?

Yeah, since I think we're near the end we should do everything we can to perfect our orders.

Haven't heard anything from anyone about adding the Order Priority Card to the orders I posted. I believe we should use every possible advantage we have at our disposal so I'm going to add the use of the Order Priority Card to each of the above options. Please specify if you'd prefer an option to not use the card.

The more I look at this map, the more likely I think it is that Imp's gonna sacrifice Africa (or at least not expend a significant amount of armies to defend it) and is instead gonna try and take W Russia and maneuver to knock us out of Caucasus (I believe he'll attack Tadschikistan this turn as well with 5ish). This could cost him a 3 and a 4 in Africa but gain him a 4 in W Russia, likely cracking into Scan (for a -3 to us), and being in a supreme position to take Caucasus next turn without any resistance from us. Even if we get the Vorkuta move off first, I still think Imp's gonna move the majority (if not all) of those troops in Moscow to Ufa which would cut off our troops in Vorkuta from even being able to border Caucasus. That being said, I think we either need to take Tadschikistan relatively heavy (Option #4 attacks it with 10) or at least attempt to maintain a force in Caucasus and keep it majority owned by us (Option #3 attempts to take Caucasus completely for ourselves. With what I just described above, we likely wouldn't get the set in this scenario but we would likely end the turn with forces in various territories around Caucasus and possibly still border India).

My thoughts were exactly the same, but please take a closer look at my proposed orders, they are made exactly for this. Sacrificing Africaa was the first thing I considered, and look closely at his deployment options. First of all, he definitely has to defend Indonesia (otherwise he also loses australia). I believe he'll try to take west russia and break scandinavia in finland and that's exactly why I made a late attack from norway to murmansk. It is a possibility that he take west russia, but according to my calculations he either can't take caucasus or suffer heavy negative net income in Indonesia, which in context with losing africa will cost him the game immediately...

Has Imp used a Blockade Card yet? I can't remember and don't necessarily wanna flip thru all the turns right now to find out. If he hasn't, it would make sense for him to blockade Papua New Guinea and still be able to make the Caucasus and/or W Russia play while protecting his Australia bonus.

Wait he blockaded in Central America so he shouldn't have one for another couple turns.

That being the case, I agree with what you're saying about Imp needing to protect Indo, which is why I'm really leaning towards #4 which stacks on Hawaii, protects the Caucasus possibility, and still attacks into Indo just in case he goes elsewhere. If we can crack 2 of his sets (in Africa) and maintain a force in Hawaii and Caucasus (and border India) and stop him from getting W Russia, we'll be in excellent shape looking towards the next turn.

Number 4 is a nice alternative, probably winning too (yeah, I'm very optimistic about our chance, probably too much). The only downside I see is the deployment in Caucasus. I strongly suspect Impaller barely started China (though I had to make sure), so those armies in Caucasus has only 1 purpose, attack India, which is an ineffective form of attack (before we break India, we should break africa and indonesia consecutively). Also since we follow up with reinforcements from U.S. to Hawaii and have a decent chance to diminish his income this turn, we don't really have to try so hard breaking Indonesia, after we break Africa, he'll be forced either to fold Africa completely or suffer heavy losses in Indonesia. Either way I don't see how he can get out of this position.

The main reason for the deployment in Caucasus is to prevent our interests in that set as per what I outlined in the above potential scenario of Imp getting a stranglehold on that set. There's no way he'll be able to push 10 out of the way down there and when we take Tadschikistan late, we'll be able to maintain a presence in Caucasus as well as border India (and W China if he has it) as a bonus. We don't even necessarily need to do anything with it next turn if we don't want to but it'll force Imp to make more decisions next turn as to what to protect and what to attack with. The more decisions we force him to make, the better chance we have of capitalizing on any of our orders.

As for Indonesia: I very much think Imp's gonna deploy a significant amount of his troops to defend Solomon Islands but I still like the attack with 24 because it will keep both sides low instead of high and give him yet another option for next turn (whether or not to load up and defend again when we would only potentially lose Hawaii, not have him crack any of our sets, and damage him elsewhere), plus I like the fact that #4 transfers another 9 to Hawaii early just in case we do run the 24 into a wall and/or an Order Delay Card this turn.

Seems he is gone into hiding after his recent dethronement in the 1v1 ladder, i.e. he is on vacation until October 14th, so we might as well close the polls a little later than next monday.

He may have done this turn before he went on holidays tho. We'll leave it as is and see what Fizzer says. If it goes a couple more days after Monday then so be it.

Impaller let me know he'll be taking his turn on the 10th, which is only one day later than this is scheduled to end anyway. So get those votes in!

just lol! i was looking at the forum and saw the wolrd vs impalter.... really, just lol

Number 4 has won! The next thread will be posted shortly.