I don't think you necessarily had to make the choices you made to win this game. Once it becomes 12 vs 11, defense becomes your best option until Gnuffles makes a mistake. The only thing you had to make sure of is that he couldn't take back Scand, so I would probably end up hitting Scand with 11 on the turn you did. (not 10, because you still win the delay war -1 delay.) Idk though, because I might've made a larger blockade in Scand. Either way I think once it becomes CA/SA vs AA/SEA you win so long as you draw a mistake from your opponent without making one yourself.

i used an order to atack only my backs with 1 army to make sure if blue goes hard on me in South America i will only atack him with 8 instead of 9 wich would mean i will eventually loose my bonus in some turns if blue didnt atack me there and decide to go Scandinavia i will atack with full stack minus 1.

I don't understand this. What's the advantage of attacking with full stack -1 army, compared to attacking with all of your armies in Argentina?

Edited 10/30/2015 20:23:09

@Silly: 1 extra delay, and he probably wanted to see if Gnuffles would attack him first since for the entire game he could force last order.

Its not a delay its 1 army less to loose, now i can see You do not understand turn 7 at all, if i wolud atack by 9 instead of 8, Gnuffoff could brake me in SA if he goes full power there in couple of turns.

instead of loosing 8 i would have loose 9. thats the point of atack only order.

I quickly replied without realizing he was talking about turn 7. Chill out :P

instead of loosing 8 i would have loose 9. thats the point of atack only order.

I must do the math, apparently. You're making a calculation that I'm missing.

Lol, after spending some time to make this post to explain why he did not want to attack with 9 but with 8, I've come to a conclusion that it was not even necessary (unless my calculation is wrong, but I don't think so). Well, I'm posting this anyway in order to explain why it was still better to what Mike did, and also to explain why Mike thought it was really great skill.

So here is my original post:
That's not for the extra delay. Attacking with 0 does not count as delay. The point of that move is that 1 extra army will stay in Argentina in the next turn, which will prevent Gnuffone from taking it in the coming turns. If Mike had attacked with 9, all 9 would have been killed (because 14 defending armies kill 10). And in the attack, 8 and 9 armies both kill 5. Now, here is why Mike is so inspired by that move:
Now it's 9 in Siple (Antarctica) and 3 in Argentina (again, if he attacked with 9 there would have been just 2 in Argentina). Since it's SR 0%, we can count if Gnuffone has a chance to take Argentina in the coming turns. Let's do it:
If Gnuffone attacks with everything, that's 19 armies against 15. It will become 9-4 at the end of the turn. In the next turn, Gnuffone attacks with 19 against 17 (notice that Mike will transfer 1 army to Argentina this turn). That will leave us with 7-6. As you can see, Gnuffone will not be able to take Argentina in that scenario.
Now, let's check what would have been if Mike had attacked with 9 on turn 7:
Argentina=2, Siple=9
So, in turn 8 it'll be 19vs14. That leaves us with 9-3. Next turn it will be 19v16, leaving us with 8-5. next turn, 18vs17 ---> 6-6.
Well, seems to me that even if you did not make that attack only move, Argentina would stay yours. Am I mistaken? Maybe you forgot that you will transfer 1 army to Argentina?

That being said, I think turn 6 was nice :)
And I think Gnuffone could try playing a bit more, although there is a low chance that he can do something (he would need you to make a mistake, of course).

Also, @Lolowut

Idk though, because I might've made a larger blockade in Scand

He couldn't make a larger blockade. Look at turn 3, he needed exactly all armies to take CA+defend SA.

sillynamenace just calculate how many armies you lose with a 4vs 6 attack for example. you kill 2 and lose 4. if you do a 3vs2 attack you kill 2 and lose 3. so only attack with 2/3/5/6/8/10 armies. never with 4/7/9 etc. you'll save armies then.

If he attacks with 9 troops into a full deploy from Gnuffone, he will lose all 9, which will let Gnuff break South America in the future. If he only attacks with 8, he loses all 8, but still has enough to keep Gnuff from breaking South America.

The one thing I can see is that his move maybe kept him from being FORCED to full deploy in Argentina to protect it, so maybe gnuff could've deployed small in Antarctica and done something in Scandinavia? Idk and I don't have time to calculate it.

Edited 10/30/2015 22:00:24

Brisk i did calculate that and it went that he will eventually brake me. It was the same calculations wich You were made but from mine it went he will kill me :) hehe

Glad to see someone is getting that at last... aldo i was after 2 drinks making it, now i am after 3, so i wont recalculate it again :D

He couldn't make a larger blockade. Look at turn 3, he needed exactly all armies to take CA+defend SA.

Ah you're right. Then it's a good blockade. +1 army would've been decisive, but not possible.

Don't get me wrong btw, I thought turn 6 was a good prediction and it's not by any means a bad game to learn from. It's just not as impressive as turning a disadvantage into a win. In this game I feel Mike has the advantage from pick stage, and just doesn't make a move that gives Gnuffles any room to outplay Mike. It's a very good show of how to have an advantage and maintain it very well.

I didn't check the math, but nevertheless, your attack on Brazil is not possible therefore it doesn't count as a move. Wouldn't have been the same to simply attack with -1?

Edited 10/30/2015 22:28:21

Thanks for the clarifications, people.

Wouldn't have been the same to simply attack with -1?

okay I know the answer to this - it is "no" :)

when you put the order as "attack with x number of armies" but the enemy attack makes you lose some armies, the WL algorithm works like this: "check if Mike still has x armies. If yes: attack with x. If no: attack with the max number of armies left."

so if Mike hadn't saved that 1 army in the dummy order, it'd have been used in the compensating attack (the one with the max number of available armies left, which would've been 9 in this case), and would've been definitely lost.

Edited 10/30/2015 22:48:37

Yep you are right. Now I remember there was a famous thread or post on this issue couple of months ago.

i enjoyed watching that game, but mostly because that one army you are so proud to have safed, you wasted in the beginning by bad expanding. still, wp.

You know Mike, I think we should play more. Anyway one thing I like about analysing is that different people see different things as relevant. Now when I'm analysing the game, I'm always lookng at possible earliest mistakes and there is one very small one that could be detrimental to the game. Turn 1 Gnuff attacks in scandinavia and imo that is a very, very slight mistake that in that particular game could have been huge. First, Gnuff plays without intel, but it's highly likely he know both SA and CA. With that in mind he wants to expand in ant first to border SA asap. Also he want the maximum number of OD moves on 2nd turn for antarctica hit. There are some potential obscure strategies with west russia where also delaying taking scandinavia helps a bit. Anyway my point is, not attacking first turn in scan gives him the same amount of OD moves on 2nd turn and his leftover is in the right position to greet any kind of potential early counter. Now, that may not seem like a huge deal, but the whole strategy by Mike is hanging on by a thread. Not only he has early income disadvantage of 9 to 11, he tries to blockade scan at the same time. So in general he kills 2 neutrals while gnuff gets a temporary income advantage. And I think that 1 extra army in scan makes a huge difference, because he is allowed to make an attack of 11 at least giving Mike an option of not using blockade, or making the blockade very weak. Fun game though, I really like the prediction mechanics you showcased, all of those were based on solid counting and game awareness.

i enjoyed watching that game, but mostly because that one army you are so proud to have safed, you wasted in the beginning by bad expanding. still, wp.

I don't think it was bad expanding, I think it was to have 1 delay more

Edited 11/4/2015 16:58:23