At the start of this game boss was the no1 and unbeaten. All my favourite games start with me getting a bad position and then slowly clawing it back and that's basically how this went, with the caveat that I thought I would have a quick easy win after picks: http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=5836520

To be continued...

really awesome how you came back after he blocked your Counter...

This one I really like, very instructive play in a worse position. Also very instructive for average players to study Bosss's mistakes here since he had plenty of opportunities to finish off the game with good technique. Skill > luck :)

Yeah, turn 5 made no sense to me. Delaying is nice, but not at the expense of weakening his front in Finland like that. He gave up his income advantage to delay attacks in Africa where he already had bigger stacks.

Interesting to see a review of your game with belzebu when it's done.

Aranka has riled me into focus.

Turn 1: holy moly, I am the fucking guess-master. This must be how gnuffles feels. Like a smug prick ;). Boss will take west Africa first, I will take central Russia first and on turn 2 I will take niger and then he will crumble like wet bread. What might go wrong? He might have Caucasus. I cant do much to incorporate a solution to that problem into my strategy. If I take west Russia first then I wont be able to spring my trap and he may have scand making that an even worse strategy. Don't lose your mind over it, even if he does then youre both in a similar position. If The opponent might get perfectly lucky and it will give them a similar position to you then youre winning and your strategy was fine. They just got lucky. The one thing I can do is take the bonus in a way so that if he springs the trap from Caucasus on turn 1 like a noob then I will not have wasted so many armies killing neutrals. This is why I used 5v2s.

Turn 2: follow the plan

Turn 3: He used a 3v2 in Nigeria to Ghana. It was good that I made the move to niger first move. It gave me more intel. Why did he do that? Did he go for a turn2 income12? Maybe, but even if he did then he had 3 other 3v2s that turn and I don't know if he hit them. Even if he did then with 12vs9 he has to protect 3 territories, and he only has enough to protect 1. Whether he has 12 income or not he is not going to bother defending the almost indefensible. He may well defend Nigeria with everything to stop me getting to south America, I don't care about south America I just want to break his bonus so I will avoid Nigeria. He will likely be moving leftover into chad and I want to play the delays game so I will take Ghana. I have lots of delays and chances are that he doesn't so I will try to go last.

Turn 4: Fucking little shit. I am so fucked. Time to take risks and start making guesses. I cant fight him head on in a straight 1v1 I am going to have to pressure him by giving myself lots of options and force him to waste armies by dodging. Guerilla warfare. This hail mary attitude informs most of the rest of the game from my point of view. He seems like an uningenious safe slow player so I guess that he will not try to guess and crush my dodges and will give me room to expand when I want it. I will not be able to seduce him into attacking a bigger stack with a smaller one.

turn 4: Pray for first move and if he sends a big stack to Algeria or Murmansk I can pop finland. Do not go to Murmansk because as much as I am attacking scand I am also defending central Russia. A blockade in ufa is ultimately pointless because it limits me to 9 income and costs me armies that I cannot spare, and he can go around it if he ever gets on the offensive. It is a defensive manoeuvre, and in this position that is too defeatist. His income is much higher so I either break him or I lose.

turn 5. Based on how he played turn 1 he will deploy plenty in niger and Ghana, delay and then take mali. I don't know what he will do in scand, he might go to Murmansk, piss about with delays, either way I will be attacking a small stack with a larger one. If not I am fucked. I considered taking C Russia this turn but it would have cost me 6-9 armies dead and would've taken 2 turns to break even. Not to mention the difficulty in holding it. I like risk in a situation like mine but that is too risky so I tried to out delay him. I failed again but it didn't matter (again).

turn 6: He will deploy in niger, or move armies there from mali so I am still dodging. I hope he hasn't wised up at this point. I am killing a lot of neutrals with my dodges and I hate to do that but he is retaking the totally useless territories off me (thereby wasting and sequestering armies). Also he is wasting all the armies in the stacks chasing me, if they were on the front line in the north it would be gg.

I take Russia because even with full deployment he cant retake scand without the last move. I use 3v2s because risk is acceptable and efficiency is the key. I think I should have waited another turn to take Russia in retrospect.

Turn 7: What an idiot. he wont deploy in Africa, he is in no hurry and knows that his stacks there are enough to get the job done. Should I take mali with the order priority card? No there is more to be gained in the north where 2 bonuses are balanced on a knife edge. Moscow leads to my other bonus so is more important, I deploy heavily there and that also lets me attack finland which is important because it has 2 borders with territories in my bonus as opposed to Norway which only has 1. I use OD because I expect this will be a decisive straight pitched battle. I am really bad at using OD cards at the right time.

turn 8: fuck yeah. I will defend finland because its quite dominant, If he goes to Russia then hes not going to have an easy turn next turn as I am threatening to take most of scand or to try and retake Russia or to make a move in Africa. I will deploy a bit in Africa to kill off his armies and keep my options open. This was a big mistake in retrospect, and not just because he got very lucky and cleared me there. I was worried that he would be able to use the leftovers to take south America or to come into Europe and surprise me in scand. Quite unfounded in reality.

Turn 9: he will be tired of banging his head on the wall and will try to take Russia. (wrong, I always overestimate people)

Turn 10: I wont make that mistake again, now what would boss, a very traditional player do here? Small defence in Norway and all in to try to take Moscow, because he judges Moscow to be worth more.

Turn 11: He has shown that he will not try to outwit my guesses he is going to do the same as last turn.

Turn 12&13: keep him pinned down in scand, clear him there and then take just enough bonuses to have higher income and everything else heads straight to Africa.

Don't let Aranka get to you, she pisses most people off.

behind every great man there is aranka.

Edited 4/17/2014 21:54:24

X means that by being my sassy and annoying self it leads to people trying to prove themselves - hence dead piggy is now trying to prove he can think about his moves or something silly like that :)

sassy ≡ irritating

lol arun what was up with that picture

What picture ? :P

Did fizzer delete it lol

I was only illustrating Mulva's sentiments. Fizzer took offence though :(

Did u get a warning?

Of course!