Leopards game against Njord on the old 1v1 ladder ended with Njord getting booted (
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=17321418):
This map had two special things going on. Namely there was
a) a first turn bonus on the board and
b) the danger of getting locked out from Asia which offered superior income.
Both players picked with those 2 points in mind. Njord went more for the big income approach with the +5 and a possible positional advantage in Asia. Leopards pick number 4 looks mainly like an aggressive counterpick against the support pick of the first turn bonus. Understandably both players didn't want to go for the first turn bonus themself.
I quite like Njords picks 1-4 here while I find Leopards pick number 4 quite problematic. As I have written previously such counters are very hard to pull off and too often just don't work. Since none of the players were willing to go for the first turn bonus I'd like to argue that in fact there wasn't even a real first turn bonus on the board. A player ending up with a possible first turn bonus outcome would most likely haven't taken it anyways first turn and after that he would be more or less in the dark about where to expect to get attacked by his opponent. I see no need building a strategy around such a terrible first turn bonus, might as well just ignore it.
All in all it looked like a very sound game from both players and there are certainly scenarios where Leopards pick number 4 could have worked out perfectly. However because of the threat from Central Russia I would have adviced against this strategy.
As the game ended Njord had both the income and the stack advantage however the income situation was about to shift drastically to Leopards favor next turn. In th following turns it would then come down to what Njord could achieve with his army advantage however he would be on a timer with merely breaking the +4 not being enough. If Njord hadn't failed with the +4 on turn 3 it would have been way worse for Leopard.
Turn 2 Leopard played it quite safe against Australia but imo he should have just gone for the greedy 2 turn 12 income by then. Having one possible dead pick due to Central Russia is a situation where I'd like him to stop playing it safe.
Looking at what both players did here this was imo the best game so far without any nonsense from both guys.
Edited 12/27/2018 15:59:47
