Antarctica has South Pole as it's distribution pick, no wastelands.



What would you pick in this scenario with the following cases:

3 Picks, 0% WR
4 Picks, 0% WR
3 Picks, 0% SR
4 Picks, 0% SR

I am doing this to promote discussion about picking, so I created an interesting scenario with a hard answer, combined with lots of variation.

Scandinavia first pick.

Indonesia + East China => very good double & worth both 4 production.

4th is probably Mexico. It is FTB and the direct counters are waste-landed.


5th & 6th could be Central Russia + Caucasus.

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Antarctica does not provide good expansion. It has not much positional advantage (only Australia & and Africa).

I think Antarctica not great pick.

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With 4x picks : India, Greenland and 1x Africa are good places to start.

Antartica last.
Australia is very much useless.

Edited 7/22/2016 03:09:21

1. Kazakhstan
2. Central Russia
3. East Russia
4. Middle East

thats what i would do, Scandinavia is not a bad pick though

Not only did you completely ignore the fact that I wanted responses for 4 different setting variations, the logic in your picks is pretty poor. Why would you quadruple pick? Most players could counter that with India + East China easily.

My picks:


For WR:

1. Indonesia
2. Scandidavia
3. Central America
4. East China
5. Southeast Asia
6. West Africa

I think overall the best combo on this map is East + West Africa, so that is probably what I would take for the other 3 scenarios, since the EC + SEA combo is so easily countered by a cheeky Indonesia pick.

Edited 7/22/2016 03:50:29

SR:

Indonesia
Greenland
East Africa
West Africa
East China
South East Asia

WR:

East China
Indonesia
East Africa
Australia
Scandinavia
South East Asia

Edit: I assume its only 3 picks. Too lazy for 4 picks at the moment.

Edited 7/22/2016 04:18:42

Anyone suggesting anything other than East China as the #1 pick, on either WR or SR has a lot to learn about picking as far as I am concerned. It is easily the best pick on the board. Past that though there are a lot of viable options.

I'd probably go with something like:

1. EC
2. AA
3. Aus
4. E Africa
5. Scandinavia
6. W Africa

That would be true for WR or SR I think.

@Omniscient: assuming 4 picks, if you go for East China, would it be a good idea to make India your 4th pick (for FTB/intel purposes)?

I don't think I would personally, but I really don't believe there's one "best" set of picks on most maps. I personally would just assume they were in SEA if I got EC and play as if they were there. I wouldn't want it on 3 picks at least because Indo can too badly fuck the ftb there, but it might be better on 4 picks since jeopardizing 50% of your picks picks is much better than potentially jeopardizing 67% of them. Not played ME ever with 4 picks though (aside from 2v2 with 2 picks each, but that's not the same) and I dislike "mailer code" answers (ie. giving advice that is purely theoretical and untested).

I picked AA as #2 pick. It's solid. It's not better than East China.

I don't really like the idea of picking both FTBs. Especially seeing as SEA is directly countered with Middle East.

I would've done (for WR 3x4):

1.) East China - Denies SEA FTB, great all-around presence in the area
2.) Antarctica - FTB/Counter
3.) Australia - FTB/Counter
4.) Indonesia - Counter to 1, Combo with if 2/3 are taken
5.) Scandinavia - Safety bonus, great if both East China and Antarctica are split
6.) Lots of viable 6th picks, I most likely would have countered my Scandinavia pick

The only thing I am concerned with is losing the Antarctica FTB and having the enemy in SEA (which is a definite possibility).


Ben, I assume Indo is a counter to both FTBs, is that why you didn't prioritize Antarctica at all?

EDIT: Antarctica is an obvious combo; even if you didn't pick it you can reasonably assume your enemy is there.

Edited 7/22/2016 06:45:51

SR:

Indonesia
Greenland
East Africa
West Africa
East China
South East Asia

Can you provide your reasoning behind these picks? Greenland is a decent pick, but without Scandinavia it's useless. I'm not really interested in talking about SR because it's not as interesting as WR in this distribution IMO, but I definitely see the appeal of a Scand/Greenland combo with SR. Only problem is you have zero expansion after that.

what is WR and SR....

and AA is not a good pick... it connects to Australia, S Africa and S America. to big to expand i guess. i personally never go to antartica unless im forced too

WR is weighted round, SR is straight round.

AA is absolutely a good pick, typically one of the best picks on the board. You clearly don't know the template well, at all.

it connects to everything, that can lead to being trapped.

What? Trapped would be connecting to only one thing, as is it's virtually never "trapped". It has great expansion, it threatens a huge portion of the board, and on this map it's a ftb.

Edited 7/22/2016 15:23:04

lol yes. i didnt mean trapped, i meant theres to much openings,sorry.

(i've not looked at any other peoples picks before reading this lul so excuse me if I'm ox-tier bad)

WR 3 picks:

1. Southeast Asia - ftb lul
2. East China - ftb lul
3. Scandinavia - i ghess 3 bonus is kewl
4. Central America - coverage
5. Greenland - counter
6. Indonesia - double counter even though i could end up with 1,2,6, xDDD

SR 3 picks:

1. Greenland - it gud!!
2. Central America - 3 income
3. Southeast Asia - 3 income (wit deez 3 u get 16 income in 3 turns loool)
4. East China - counter!!
5. Scandinavia - counter!!!
6. Antarctica - 'cause why nawt


Rofl this is my thought process for most games.

Ox-tier-bad confirmed.

SR:

Indonesia
Greenland
East Africa
West Africa
East China
South East Asia
Can you provide your reasoning behind these picks? Greenland is a decent pick, but without Scandinavia it's useless. I'm not really interested in talking about SR because it's not as interesting as WR in this distribution IMO, but I definitely see the appeal of a Scand/Greenland combo with SR. Only problem is you have zero expansion after that.

5 armies bonus by turn 2. Also its very unlikely that one will counter that.

I would have definitely countered that. I'm sure any other sane person would as well. Greenland by itself is great, but while Scandinavia is a viable pick AND counter, it's greatly weakened.