Welcome to turn 4 of Rufus versus The World. For reference, this is how the board looked on picks and how the board looks right now:






As a recap, here's what happened last turn:

The World took Eastern Kazakhstan with 12 and lost 1 army.
The World transferred 2 from Moscow to Ufa
The World transferred 1 from Finland to Moscow
The World transferred 1 from Sweden to Finland
The World took Western Kazakhstan with 4 and lost 2 armies.
We see Rufus show up with a 6v2 in Colombia from Panama. He lost 1 army.

After taking all your intel suggestions into consideration, we've concluded it is most likely for Rufus to be in East China, East Africa and Central America. We've considered a lot of things, e.g. blockading somewhere, and we've boiled it down to four options. If you have any questions why we decided not to include (insert thing you wanted to have included here), ask away.

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Option 1: Take Caucasus and move to Central America

Play the reinforcement card
Deploy 13 to Brazil
Deploy 3 to Eastern Kazakhstan
Deploy 1 to Western Kazakhstan
Try to take Venezuela first move with 14v2
Move 2 from Ufa to Eastern Kazakhstan
Move 1 from Moscow to Ufa
Move 1 from Finland to Moscow
Attack Turkmenistan with 5v4 from Eastern Kazakhstan
Take Turkmenistan with 2v1 from Western Kazakhstan
Take Kyrgyzstan with 4v2 from Eastern Kazakhstan
Take Tadzhikistan with 4v2 from Eastern Kazakhstan

In this moveset, we're aiming for first move. This will ensure we threaten to break Central America and we also get the income advantage by taking Caucasus.
If we do not get first move and Rufus decides to smash us with everything he has, we lose a lot of armies and we will fail our attack on Venezuela.
There is a slight upside to this though, as Rufus will be behind a card piece, allowing us to access the Order Delay card and the Order Priority card one turn before Rufus. By attacking Turkmenistan with a 5v4 and later with a 2v1, we ensure that our leftovers are nicely located on Eastern Kazakhstan, allowing us to work on Central Russia.

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Option 2: Take Caucasus and sit in Brazil

Play the reinforcement card
Deploy 13 to Brazil
Deploy 3 to Eastern Kazakhstan
Deploy 1 to Western Kazakhstan
Move 2 from Ufa to Eastern Kazakhstan
Move 1 from Moscow to Ufa
Move 1 from Finland to Moscow
Attack Turkmenistan with 5v4 from Eastern Kazakhstan
Take Turkmenistan with 2v1 from Western Kazakhstan
Take Kyrgyzstan with 4v2 from Eastern Kazakhstan
Take Tadzhikistan with 4v2 from Eastern Kazakhstan

In this moveset we try to hold Brazil. There is the possibility that Rufus smashes us with everything and misses out on a cardpiece. The next turn, we hold the income advantage and we can take a card piece easily in Central Russia.
Other than that, the same principles as in option 1 apply.

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Option 3: Take Caucasus, move to Central America and work on Central Russia

Deploy 3 to Brazil
Deploy 5 to Ufa
Deploy 1 to Western Kazakhstan
Deploy 3 to Eastern Kazakhstan

Attack Venezuela with 4
Attack Omsk with 7
Attack Turkmenistan with 5 from Eastern Kazakhstan
Attack Turkmenistan with 2 from Western Kazakhstan
Move 1 from Moscow to Ufa
Move 1 from Finland to Moscow
Take Kyrgyzstan with 4v2 from Eastern Kazakhstan
Take Tadzhikistan with 4v2 from Eastern Kazakhstan

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Option 4: Take Caucasus, move to Africa and start working on Central Russia

Deploy 3 to Brazil
Deploy 5 to Ufa
Deploy 1 to Western Kazakhstan
Deploy 3 to Eastern Kazakhstan

Attack Nigeria with 4
Attack Omsk with 7
Attack Turkmenistan with 5 from Eastern Kazakhstan
Attack Turkmenistan with 2 from Western Kazakhstan
Move 1 from Moscow to Ufa
Move 1 from Finland to Moscow
Take Kyrgyzstan with 4v2 from Eastern Kazakhstan
Take Tadzhikistan with 4v2 from Eastern Kazakhstan

in option 3 and 4 the idea is to take advantage of the fact that Rufus gave us the Russian bonuses to expand. At the same time, our main goal is to keep him busy in South America and neither get eliminated there nor let him take any more bonuses. If this works, the ideal outcome is us having a slight income advantage and Rufus having a decent army advantage and we would have to continue from this point on.
In both options we do not take the Reinforcement card, because opposed to the first options, here Rufus would eliminate us from Brazil if he has first order no matter if we play the card or not. And if we play the card he kills more armies than necessary. So saving the card up for later is the way to go.
The difference between the two options is whether we move towards CA or into Africa. Moving towards CA is obviously moving towards his bonus, which usually is smarter. However, there are also points for moving into Africa. First of all, Rufus could easily predict us moving to Venezuela and attack late there so that we just wasted armies. And even without that, moving into Africa is complicating the position a lot. We threaten to move towards East Africa or just play in SA again. So Rufus has to guess there, although for sure this is all to some extend wasting our armies and at some point, there is no coming back from such an army disadvantage.

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You may submit your vote by posting on this thread, or, if you'd rather vote anonymously, mail me.
Voting ends three days after this post.

If you want to see the board on picks, check out the game here: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=22959869

To check the previous threads, refer to these links:
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/433434-rufus-vs-world-picks
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/436073-rufus-vs-world-turn-1
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/437146-rufus-vs-world-turn-2
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/441344-rufus-versus-world-turn-3
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/442264-rufus-versus-world-turn-4

Edited 9/5/2020 12:06:23

I vote for option 1 btw

We are sorry for the delay. There were quite some things to discuss for us in this difficult turn and either Farah or me have been pretty busy. We hope to make the event faster again for the next turns.

1.

+1 to 1

I'll hop on the Option 1 train.

There should be a Rufus vs the world se

1 as well

There should be a Rufus vs the world se

No there shouldn't. I'm probably a bigger fan of se than the rest of the strat community, but [anyone] versus the world small earth would be super boring and take forever.

Edited 9/5/2020 19:19:58

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=22959869

Rufus will now:
- Play aggressive against us in South America, either by hiting us directly or by trying to outsmart us somehow.
- Quite likely move towards Russia from China

Rufus has 5+3+4+4 = 16 income and with the reinforcement card he can deploy 21 armies. This means he can hit us with 25 armies in Brazil and 25*0.6 = 15. The meaning of this is that if Rufus hits us full force he has a 100% chance to kill our 15 armies in Brazil either in option A if he moves first or in option B. Rufus getting a direct full force hit on us would be very bad and the thoughts in the opening post about Rufus not being able to eliminate us from Brazil in option A and B are a miscalculation.

Let's think about the options:

Option 1: Pretty good if Rufus goes for a direct hit and we get first order. The move is very predictable but then agaain trying to play too smart is an option for Rufus to throw the game.

Option 2: Instead of just siting I would have altered that option to also attack Colombia last order. The reason is that if Rufus attacks us there earlier we will have so little armies left that us maybe losing 1 army more than him won't matter. However if Rufus goes for some fancy move we might get a free Colombia break.

Option 3:
As I said, it will take Rufus most likely 2 turns to reach Russia from China. I don't believe we can survive in South America if we keep expanding. This probably won't work.

Option 4:
I don't believe we can win by playing like that.

I'm not sure whether option 1 or 2 are the best here. Since I don't believe in a full force hit by Rufus but him also moving towards Russia this kinda increases the chances of him maybe trying to outsmart us in South America. IMO the chances of Rufus trying to outsmart us aren't that low since it would be pretty bad for Rufus if our stack is in Venezuela while his stack is in Brazil. For this reason I choose Option 2. However as I said I would have very much liked us also hiting Colombia in option 2.

Edited 9/5/2020 19:54:21

Can Rufus see terry forum?

tl;dr but option too

Schrödinger's Rufus.
If you believe he will full hit Brazil first order he can't march from China. If he marches from China hitting Brazil first order is just silly. We have RC as well.

I don't believe giving us a good hit in South America and using 3 or 4 armies in another place are mutually exclusive. Rufus certainly has options.

It's about what Rufus thinks we have.

If he thinks we are on par with income, I suspect he will not hit Brazil but prioritize China counter and do something left of center in SA. Even if he loses CA in the next few turns, China stack would do us well in.

If on the other hand he thinks we are behind on income, first order hit on Brazil might not be a bad idea since the chances are we'll spend some of it on finishing up a bonus. Although I think that smash option is not really the most likely one even in this scenario, since it has 50% chance of going kinda bad for him what with us in Venezuela with a stack.

But what's apparent though is he will absolutely not do both,smash Brazil first move with something like 21 and add 2-3 armies in China. Which leaves unconventional moves such as hitting Venezuela or stacking in China as the most likely scenario.

I don't believe that Rufus seriously considers the option of us having a third bonus and (without completely calculating it) this looks at the edge of being impossible. As I have argued in the previous thread, Rufus knows our bonuses with sufficient confidence however he doesn't know whether we are taking Caucasus or Central Russia currently.

But what's apparent though is he will absolutely not do both,smash Brazil first move with something like 21 and add 2-3 armies in China.
Well, for me this isn't apparent at all.
- If we move before Rufus it won't matter whether he added some armies in China.
- If we don't deploy there, it also won't matter.
- If we move after Rufus, he will still get a good fight. If he hits us with like 22 armies, he kills 13. We would then need 18 or 19 armies to also kill 13 attackers. So the worst case scenario for Rufus is a break even. Rufus should consider a break even a a victory.

To be clear, I don't know how Rufus will play it, he has quite some options. However as a general guideline, players in a winning position should aim to simplify he game. By this I mean that they shouldn't turn a winning game into a complicated expansion match or so but instead just slap the enemy around until he crumbles. Although it is a probable scenario that Rufus won't attack us immediately via China, I disagree that this is a likely scenario. Hiting us with momentum in South America (no matter how exactly) while moving to break our income looks like the most straight forward play to me.

Edited 9/7/2020 02:03:17

I totally agree with Norman. In the case that rufus indeed has the bonuses we assume him to have, I am 99% sure he will attack us first order. He basically has nothing to lose with that move and a lot to gain. I just dont think we can honestly avoid the first order gamble.

Long story short - I just don't see how hitting Brazil is better than hitting Venezuela, but alright.

Option 3 for me, tho it seems moot at this point.

i vote option 1 as well

@AI:
I am 99% sure he will attack us first order

Let me think about that in a simplified way. Let's assume there are mainly 2 good moves for us:
1. Hit Venezuela
2. Hit Colombia

Rufus can do the following:
3. Hit Brazil
4. Hit Venezuela

This gives the following 4 options:
1 - 3:
- If Rufus gets first order he wins the game.
- If Rufus gets second order he has a 50% chance of losing the game.
--> In total 1 -3 gives a 75% chance to win
1 - 4:
- Rufus has a 80% chance to win the game (stack not so great there)
2 - 3:
- Rufus wins the game.
2 - 4:
- Rufus has a 50% chance of winning (same as us getting first order with option 1 - 3).

I put the numbers into the following calculator: https://cgi.csc.liv.ac.uk/~rahul/bimatrix_solver/



The screenshot means the following:
- Rufus should hit Brazil in 9 out of 10 times and in 1 out of 10 times he should hit Venezuela.
- We should hit Venezuela in 54% of cases and in 45% of the cases we should hit Colombia.
- In total Rufus has a 77% chance to win the game.

My point here is also that if you see it as a given that we always have to hit Venezuela, Rufus could counter it by always hiting Colombia which would increase his win chances from 77% to 80%. And yeah, I'm just realicing that those 3% aren't spectacular however I'm not used to creating such models. Perhaps with slightly different numbers Rufus could exploit us way stronger and I haven't thought to long about the win percentages.

Edited 9/8/2020 08:54:51