connecting picks are good for lots of templates, but especially ones that give you bonus per territory. if you are given so many armies on the board, it is helpful to have all your armies near each other so you can combine into stacks. the bigger stack wins, usually

Episode 3: What 3-bonus combos to prefer on Biomes of Americas

If you possess a certain level of skill, you comprehend that cities and crude oil bonuses on Biomes are superior to other bonus types because they give you more income per territory. If asked openly, most players I know answer correctly that these are the best. However, when asked what bonus type of 3-bonuses (bonuses that give 3 income when completed) is the best, most players choose the wrong answer and pick accordingly.

Consider the following scenario: Everything else being same, you can choose between Northern Amazon as a first turn bonus (a rainforest, let‘s say the picks are Manaus and Paramaribo) and Northern Great Plains as a first turn bonus (a farmland, the picks being Edmonton and Montana). Both bonuses consist of 4 territories and give 3 income when completed. Now you have to decide which combo to prioritze / pick first.

Most players prefer the farmland because it doesn‘t give negative income. They don‘t realize that the negative income you have after picks (turn 0) almost never matters because you are excessively unlikely to have any income that turn anyways. They are also scared of having negative income later if they fail to defend their bonus, which makes even less sense (read on to learn why).

Now let‘s do the math: Imagine you picked the farmland in the example above and your opponent picked the rainforest. You both took 3 income turn 1 without deploying, so the situation is equal. Now your opponent successfully attacks you and takes one territory from your farmland bonus. What happens to the incomes? You go down from 3 to 2, he remains at 0. In total, that‘s a -1 for you,.

Let‘s go through the alternative scenario: You make it to the opponent‘s rainforest bonus and break it, taking one territory. He goes down from 3 to 1 income, which is a loss of 2, sounds worse than your loss above. But what happens to your income? You go down from 0 to -3, which results, in total, in a -1 for – again – you, compared to you opponent. Sounds bad, doesn‘t it? He broke you and you lost income, you broke him and you lost income. Something is wrong.

Rainforests, or (if you want to apply this to other INSS templates) bonus types that give negative income for few territories, are preferable as FTBs compared to bonuses with the same efficiency (income per territory), but without the negative income feature. The reason seems straightforward, but is missed by most players: If you hold a rainforest bonus, you are more difficult to attack. The opponent basically needs to take two territories from you (in the same turn!) in order to create a positive income effect.

(Needless to say that if you take two territories rather than one from a bonus that consists of four territories, the income effect will be equal regardless of the bonus type because both players will be holding the same number of territories.)

Reference map: https://www.warzone.com/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=69965

Is oil better than rainforest? Let's say I have a full bonus of both, my opponent breaks the oil one (+4), I've lost 3 income. Let's say he breaks the rainforest one, I'm down 2, but he's down 3 so I'm actually at +1 relative to my opponent. I would argue that it's debatable and depends on how threatened the oil territories are.

Edited 10/8/2023 16:55:45

It's too situation-dependent to answer generally. I purposely decided to explain the above with only the map and without a concrete board to avoid debates about whether my point still stands considering outside aspects, because that would've carried the discussion away from the point.

I think a major question mark is how likely it is that the crude oil bonus will ever be broken. If we are talking about a crude oil bonus which has two picks and is a non-countered FTB, it's likely better than a rainforest in most cases. Can you give me a board to refer to?

I don't have a game in mind, but let's assume a game where both the crude oil and rainforest north of South America have 2 pickable territories, in most cases I'd pick the rainforest ones first. Depending on how threatened the crude oil bonus is that would still be true for gulf of Mexico, to be clear I agree with most of what you wrote (who am I to disagree), just that I'm not entirely convinced crude oil bonusses are generally superior to rainforest as you wrote in the first paragraph. Compared to other +3 totally agree.

Edited 10/8/2023 17:47:24

In that scenario I would quite certainly prefer the Crude Oil bonus indeed, if I understood you correctly. If you come across a corresponding board, let me know and I'll tell with certainty :)

PS: I've been thinking about this for some time and the main case coming to my mind when that could be different is if the rainforest bonus and the crude oil bonus in question are connected. Then it depends on the exact pick layout more than the bonus type in many scenarios.

"perfect picks" is probably false, I agree. Noone is perfectly playing and barely you can make perfect picks in all games. Not even Rufus is perfect, despite he is the one most closest to it.

I would say tho there is always a pick combination that is best (beating the most of the possible picks the opponent could do)

But I also dont belong to the top 2% of Warzones strategy players

Edited 10/8/2023 18:29:10

You can take my regards as a grain of salt.

To the discussion of your first topic:
Id agree with your tip, but not for average players.
An average player most likely isnt able to correctly identify the strong areas on the board. His knowledge to picking is simply straight up weaker. So the correct way of improving him (imo) as a player is actually teaching him to pick better, not pick stranger.
Because ultimately, in order to pick unexpectedly you have to know what expected picks (good) picks are.
The reason AI can pick Wastelanded bonuses on MME and win is because he actually understands what the good picks on the board are and how to play against it.
An average player would try the same with your tip, picking a wastelanded bonus but he would just lose in 2 turns.
Both made unexpected picks, but only one player understands why those unexpected picks work in the first place.

So in general, Playing unexpectedly (in picks or gameplay) should be left to better players.
An average or even somewhat better than avg player should focus on actually improving mor fundamental skills.
And playing more unexpectly can be left for them to learn by gaining experience.

To your 3rd topic:
I personally dont agree with straight up saying Oil is on the top 2 of best bonuses.
Oil is to dependent from game to game. If i can see myself finishing Oil, yes its very strong. But if its contested, its worse than many of the +3 bonuses as you likely get stuck at 1 income with Oil.

Edited 10/8/2023 18:36:43

I would say tho there is always a pick combination that is best (beating the most of the possible picks the opponent could do)

You have to be careful. Due to the simultaneous nature of WarLight, there is a mixed strategy Nash equilibrium and not a pure strategy one. Or in less fancy terms, optimal WarLight play requires you to throw dices. There are some boards which allow apparently for pure strategy picks which means in practice that even if I told you my picks, you could not abuse that knowledge.

With that in mind, despite the phrasing of alexclusive of playing out of the box against top tier players you could also look at it from the opposite direction. Maybe he abused the weakness of lower tier players to punish too much predictability and in fact against top tier players he is playing optimal which forces him to add randomness.

Edited 10/8/2023 18:40:36

@Joi

I was referring to FTB situations, saying that cities and crude oils are best if there are two picks in there and you can get 4 income without deploy. I agree with you that crude oils aren't always as good if there is only one pick, far from that. There are boards on which I find myself not picking a crude oil at all because the combos available are more benefitial.

Still waiting for Rufus to reply to that "washed up" comment. Lol. It really stings because the guy commented right after Rufus...

He kind of replied on the Nations Cup Discord server, a parallel discussion about this has been taking place there yesterday :)

Episode 4: Make a blind counter and win immediately

A blind counter is a counter you perform without having intel on the bonus you are countering, playing on the assumption that your opponent will be trying to complete it the very same turn. A successful blind counter usually decides the game immediately, as in the reference game below.

How to make a good blind counter? A good blind counter benefits from the opportunity to win on the spot without the risk to lose on the spot if you counter into nowhere (your opponent is not there). To accomplish that, you should follow a couple of rules:

1) Blind counter only with high confidence that your opponent is there. To determine the probability, consider how advantageous the bonus you are countering is and what intel you have otherwise (e. g.: Is there any alternative option how the opponent could be covering the area?). You can also consider the experience you have with the specific opponent.

2) Blind counter in such a way that even if you are wrong, you can move on and complete the bonus you countered yourself if your opponent is not there. In that scenario, you are expanding into that bonus earlier than what would otherwise be tactically reasonable, but don‘t lost the game on the spot.

3) Don‘t invest all you have into the blind counter, but continue finishing your own bonuses on the side. It‘s important that you complete a bonus of your own turn 2 as well, because only then you have the built-in advantages of a successful blind counter (income and stack advantage).

4) Don‘t pick terrible bonuses just to blind counter. This is related to point 2); you need to make sure that you are well off even if the blind counter doesn‘t work and don‘t end up having one proper pick less than your opponent. If you pick an otherwise worthless territory just to blind counter, it‘s a questionable sort of gambling rather than a good strategy.

5) Count precisely which turn your opponent will be completing the bonus. Blind countering too early is almost as bad as countering too late: Your opponent will only suffer a small fraction of the possible damage, the game might still be open after the counter.

Explore blind counters and share your own in this thread! :)

Reference game: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=22241135

Clue 2: Thanks for the Brawl pick prioritisation clue, alex! That's a little thing that I'm sure will be handy for me!
Clue 3: Another nice tip that probably doesn't seem intuitive for a lot of beginner/intermediate INSS players, thanks!

Looking forward to improving my play by using more of these as they come!

Edited 10/15/2023 13:38:08

Thanks LND, I am happy you are finding this helpful :)

The best strategy to win games is by not losing

Actually the best way to never lose is to not join.

Episode 5: When ahead, benefit from guaranteed defense numbers

Many intermediate players come to me asking for safe ways to convert income advantage into a win, especially when the advantage is not big enough to just deploy at the front and break through. A main technique for this purpose is utilizing guaranteed defense numbers while increasing your income advantage, usually while playing an otherwise passive turn. Generally, when your opponent is behind on income, they won‘t be able to expand at your speed or often at all.

Consider turn 5 of the reference game below. I‘m down 9 vs 10 income. Whose position do you prefer? Think about this for a moment before reading on.

This position is a safe win for me, because I have an immediate 3-bonus at disposal (Central America) while my opponent can‘t expand anywhere at all. Having obtained full intel at that point already, I know that the only thing he can do is to attack me and break through at one of our two fronts. So how do I hold both fronts while completing Central America and winning?

Let‘s do the math. At the Antarctica front I‘m up 12 vs 6 armies. My opponent can deploy +10 and hit me with 15, killing 9. Hence, if I just do nothing, I am safe at that front already (guaranteed defense number being 10), no need to do anything. As I need to complete Central America while holding Caucasus, this is also the wrong turn to be aggressive.

At the Caucasus front I‘m up 3-2. He can deploy +10 and attack with 11, killing 7. This means I‘m well below the guaranteed defense number and need at least 8. Hence, I can deploy +5 and still complete Central America. After that turn, no matter where he decides to hit, I will be safe and ahead on both income and stack. This will be easy to convert into a win for an intermediate player.

(In the game at hand, I deployed more because I didn‘t realize the opponent had no reinforcement card. Hence, I used guaranteed defense numbers as if he could deploy +15 rather than +10, which still held a safe win for me by the same logic, because I had a reinforcement card myself.)

Reference game: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=35873719

I will not have time to write an episode this weekend. Does someone have a specific topic they would like covered?