AI wins 3:2 against Odin

--- AI wins against Odin on the old ladder settings: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=17321394 ---

AIs picks were pretty bad while Odins picks looked sound. AI didn't get punished appropriately for how he picked in Europe, however even with his lucky outcome he should have lost the game after picks. As expected, Odin had the game pretty much completely won after turn 3... and this is when it all went to shit. In such a situation where a game is almost decided there are 2 involved parties.

- If you are the winning party you have to scan for options how you could still throw the game and then play as cautious as possible.

- If you are the loosing party you have 2 options. Either you press the surrender button or you go fully YOLO madman mode. I have seen enough clanmates "safely playing out their losing game". AI was never one of those guys and he got rewarded here.


--- AI loses against Odin on the China template https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=17321432 ---
Odin picked the board for very quick income however stuff like the +2 Shanghai offer no board coverage at all. One could argue that his fast income played out perfectly regarding the early fights, however I just believe that he could have gotten punished by superior opponent income from bigger bonuses. Odin won because he sniped AIs bonus in Yunnan. Thinking about the board I could have also quite well locked in my picks with AIs picks and similarly gotten my bonus snipped.

This was the highest bracked matchup from two div A clans, so I believe it's sound to say that this is how the pros play this template out. It very much proves my point, that the template isn't even remotely as bad as some guys made it in this thread. The picking is kinda static but not completely. The North isn't gamebreaking OP but smart players play around the possibility of not getting the +1 there. Also, as I believe to be the most likely scenario, both players met after turn 3.

Meanwhile our retiree Platinum finally hit the 600.000 points earned last month ;)

lol

Since you are already M'Hunters biggest external fan, how about you just rejoin? Only relevant rule for you would be to no whistleblowing around, we still call them whistleblowers rats.

Thanks Norman, but still I will be an alt with this account. If MH starts a training clan/ an alt friendly allied clan, I will join it :)

And congrats to MH winning this battle.

@Norman: Thanks for analyzing :)
Looking at my picks in the Old Ladder game afterwards, I still don't see a huge blunder from my side. yeah, I was kinda lost after picks, but I would never ever expect someone to pick Central America 1st in this kind of distribution... You can never use the leftovers to complete the bonus which sucks even more in WR settings...however...

And for the China game, damn, I have never seen someone checking Yunnan. Well played on Odin's part.

Also, a big thank you to Odin for delaying the games about Christmas time, so I didn't get booted.

@AI:
- I see nothing wrong with Odin picking Central America first and imo it's also not out of the ordinary. Odin ended up with the likely scenario of having just a single leftover and leftovers could potentially get used to either complete South America or attack there. As for leftovers, Odins pick in East China was more dangerous, since there taking East China first would be a gamble which could have failed.

- Odin picked the board in a manner that, apart from losing hist first pick, he would be happy with the outcome. Even if I knew Odins picks from the start I would have difficulties finding picks in order to beat him (apart from me knowing about Greenland). For me picking is about thinking through a lot of different combinations and once I come up with something that most likely won't backfire, I lock my picks in.

- Your picks in Antartica and South America were very vulnerable from Central America. You took a risk there which Odin didn't accept. As for myself, I have to be careful of not making to smartass comments with the power of hindsight, however I'm very certain that I also wouldn't have accepted that risk.

- Odin picked East China while you didn't. Picking East China went well with Odin not picking Antartica first, because he could attack an Australia followup bonus from you there. Also with this distribution East China was a superb pick, offering Odin great safety and good expansion options. There is also an imbalance between East China and Europe since East China can attack Europe efficiently, however it's not the case the other way around.

- As for your Europe pick, West Russia loses against Scandinavian Peninsula. You had great pressure moving in there, had to hope Odin wouldn't take the bonus first and even with your counter working out perfectly you gained pretty much nothing, apart from you now being in danger of losing your spot in Scandinavian Peninsula but not vice versa. Of course it played out differently, however the way it played out was probable but not likely.

- You pick number 5 then was just a complete gamble of you losing your picks 3 and 4. There were many other scenarios of you getting your pick number 5.

- You pick number 6 would have only made some sense... against Odin tripple picking in Europe??? However even if you assumed Odin let Blowfly make his picks, with that pick 6 you were just risking getting eliminated there and you could have just picked East China in order to outexpand + attack Odin / Blowfly. The more likely scenario with you getting your pick 6 is you also getting your pick 3.

Edited 1/12/2019 12:28:58

My favorite part of this might be that one of your "future stars" didn't even stay in the clan for the duration of the battle.

It was only my fault, Bonsai. M'Hunters gaves me the opportunity to play this battle, but I went away just to help another clan of a my childhood friend.

I don't have a level to stay in Clan League A, im not a future star im sure for that

@Bonsai: Understandable. There's not much else you can be happy about in this battle :)

Hey, if you guys won, congrats and good job.

Now where's the scathing criticism by your leader who didn't play of the game bOOOm and I played on Strat ME that only illustrates that neither one of us knew what we were doing? Lol.

@Bonsai: I looked over your Greece game but had nothing to say. Also I'm not THE M'Hunters leader but just a dude who likes to analyze games.

Bonsai wins against b000m on the old ladder template: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=17321486

- I don't find Bonsais picks out of the ordinary. I learned picking from Szeweningen and 1+2 America and the rest in Asia is something what the old guard would have probably also come up with. However Szeweningen would have most definitely swapped the picks in America and I also don't understand Bonsais thought process picking South America over Central America. As for Bonsais 6th pick, I'd like to challenge the thoughts of my clanmates always placing their 6th pick between their 4+5 as an auto choice.

a) You can get your 6th pick if you picked 1+2 differently from your opponent, and you check with your 3+4+5 your opponents picks (usually a tripple pick) and in this case it usually makes sense some sense to place it aggressive.

b) However you can also get our 6th pick if you picked similar to your opponent. In this case you lose one of your first 2 picks AND you get your pick number 3. What Bonsai didn't seem to recognize that here getting his 6th pick most likely would have meant him also getting West Russia. He would have ended up with no bonus at all to expand safely into while his opponent probably somewhat had Central America.

- As for b000ms picks, I added a section in my strategy guide titled "Thinking about picks the Norman way". There I gave general rules which immediately explain why Wet Africa + Central America in conjunction is a bad choice.

- b000ms 6th pick forms a combo with his number 3 which is a good option.

- AI stated in a previous post that it's quite out of the ordinary picking Central America with a certain warlords distribution. I don't really find that to be true. What is indeed find out of the ordinary however is picking a bonus which takes 3 turns to complete, as b000m did with East China.

- b000m then lost the game in the very end, where he just had to keep hammering Bonsai and for the card pieces move to Europe (less risky option than to complete China), until it's gg. Apparently b000m miscalculated Bonsais missing income however calculating the opponents income is harder than on straight round settings and it also requires more experience than the straight round "bean counting".

Edited 1/13/2019 13:47:19

"Since you are already M'Hunters biggest external fan, how about you just rejoin? Only relevant rule for you would be to no whistleblowing around, we still call them whistleblowers rats."

You got something against whistleblowers?