Welcome to the next turn of Rufus vs The World.
The board looks as follows:



As a recap, here is what happened last turn:
The World captured Vorkuta (WR) from Ufa (WR) with a 4v2. 2 armies are lost.
The World captured Moscow (WR) from Ufa (WR) with a 4v2. 1 army was lost
The world captured Norway (Scan) from Svalbard (Scan) with a 3v2. 1 army was lost.

There are three possible movesets this turn.

A)
Deploy 3 to Vorkuta (WR)
Deploy 2 to Moscow (WR)
Take Murmansk (WR) with 4v2 from Moscow (WR)
Move 1 from Norway (Scand) to Murmansk (WR)
Take Arkhangelsk (WR) with 4v2 from Vorkuta (WR)
Try to take Brazil (SA) with 3v2 from Bolivia (SA)

In this moveset we guarantee taking Western Russia, getting us to 9 income. We join our leftovers in Murmansk. We risk not getting Brazil, with a 20% chance of not getting it.

B)
Deploy 3 to Vorkuta (WR)
Deploy 2 to Moscow (WR)
Take Murmansk (WR) with 4v2 from Moscow (WR)
Move 1 from Norway (Scand) to Murmansk (WR)
Take Arkhangelsk (WR) with 4v2 from Vorkuta (WR)
Sit in Bolivia (SA) and do nothing

This moveset is the same as A. Only this time, we don't move in Brazil at all, as we don't want to risk getting unlucky. Also, we have the option to move SA without a deploy next turn for the card piece, in case Rufus shows up somewhere and we want to full deploy against him.


C)
Deploy 1 to Norway (Scan)
Deploy 3 to Vorkuta (WR)
Deploy 1 to Bolivia (SA)
Attack Murmansk (WR) with 2v2 from Moscow (WR)
Take Murmansk (WR) with 2v2 from Norway (Scand)
Take Arkhangelsk (WR) with 4v2 from Vorkuta (WR)
Take Brazil (SA) with 4v2 from Bolivia (SA)

In this moveset we take Western Russia with 2 2v2's. This guarantees we get it. We also guarantee getting Brazil. This is at the cost of potential leftovers in Murmansk, but we compensate by getting Brazil guaranteed with 9 income.
I'm sure someone will do the maths (looking at you Norman and Knyte) about the impact of leftovers in all cases :)

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

Edited 7/20/2020 08:17:05

A.
About C, why not take Murmursk with 4 and Murmusk with 2x2? Why do the other thing?

B, I dont like C, waste of armies,
No need to move SA in this turn

B

I chose A.


About C:
Balthromaw obviously wanted to type the following: "About C, why not take Murmursk with 4 and Arkhangels with 2x2? Why do the other thing?"

About B:
B makes primarily sense if you believe that Rufus sits in Caucasus and secondarily hits South America or has hit it already. If this is correct, we have a pretty huge advantage with B.

About A:
Choosing A now is kinda inkonsequent since, I guess, if we decide to move in South America, we should have done so last turn already. Me picking A now is probably a case of too many cooks spoiling he broth. However then I'm not entirely sure what the game plan is of the guys who pick B now in case Rufus doesn't show up in Caucasus this turn. IMO us deciding to kinda throw away our South America pick is an all in play predicting Rufus to play crazy aggressive.

About C: You typed deploy 1 to Brazil, which we do not own, please correct.

I vote B.

You saw nothing!

B€€€€ I see Alaska

Preliminary voting B though I'd like to see a strong argument for A.

C wastes armies and is a no-go in my opinion getting to Brazil this turn is just not worth slowing our scan completion.

A gives minimal benefit for significant risk IMO.

@Phobos: Unlike last turn I don't feel that extremely strong about A being the one and only sound option, however here some arguments why I picked it:

- We see whether Rufus indeed moved to South America. If this is the case we can very much assume that both this and next turn he will be stuck with 9 income. If he also shows up in Russia this turn, we know that if we manage to hold, we will win the game while we also know that Rufus will throw all his 9 income at us, not only next turn but also the turns after.

- If Rufus doesn't show up in Russia, we have the option to take the Scandinavian Peninsula the turn after and also move towards Central America in order to attack Rufus. We can be pretty sure that if we don't see Rufus in South America, he will take Central America next turn.

- If Rufus attacks us in Russia while we don't attack anything from him... well, that's not cool. "By default" it's usually not the worst plan to put some pressure on your opponent.

-----------
However I also see some arguments not going for my preferred choice.

- As Farah / AI have written in the opening post, we might be happy about having a spot to move for the card piece, if Rufus shows up in Russia. Especially if it is Georgia, we need to bother very much. However although I understand the argument, it's also true that if Rufus shows up in Georgia, he must have started with Central America as first bonus, so we would also be happy then if we could get into a position to attack him. There is no way Rufus shows up with a stack in Russia, however perhaps with a 4v2 attack.

- If Rufus should indeed be in South America, we put some pressure on ourself, since he might aim to attack us there. Of course, this is also true vice versa.

- It's only a 3v2 attack, so it involves a 20% failure chance.

- If Rufus isn't attacking us in Russia this turn, he might sit in Middle East. Our game plan might be not to attack Rufus in Central America (as he has to expect us to do) but instead go for the surprise blind move towards Middle East. As I have argued in another thread, a move towards Middle East has to happen very fast, since Rufus will attack us from there as early as turn 3. We can't take Scandinavian Peninsula + move to Central America + move towards Middle East all in turn 3.

Edited 7/20/2020 00:22:43

fiinaly I'm idle

B

vote A.
I agree with almost everything that has been pointed out so far, not moving the SA pick really only has an advantage if Rufus has Caucasus, whereas in any other case we would want to move SA, to 1. gain intel and 2. have options for the next turn (like pressuring CA or not). And I still do not feel like committing myself into certain assumptions of what he might have picked. For that I am also willing to take the 20% risk, however I am not willing to waste armies in Russia, why I don't like option C much.

Edited 7/20/2020 12:42:56

A

Is it just me or are people who aren't getting their way jumping the ship here? Or are people jumping because they believe the ship is sinking and they don't want to get associated with the losing world?

As for myself nothing which we played so far was something which I would have chosen myself if I had a free choice however I still very much enjoy the format.

The World voted for option B.

We took WR and a hint of good news: we got perfect leftovers.

The board looks as follows:



Expect thread for turn 3 soon!

Too late to vote for A

B sucked :(

All right, here is what happened behind the fog and how Rufus will play it out now:

- Rufus just took East Africa
- Rufus will take Central America this turn
- Rufus will attack us this turn.

As for where Rufus will attack us I'm relatively sure it will be Russia and he won't bother to move to South America.

I have to admit that I don't exactly know what the game plan of the "B" voters is, nobody has truly laid it out to me. Was it just the fear of Rufus showing up in Caucasus turn 2? Or is the plan to go strong against Middle East now? I can respect if it's the latter.

I have no idea what the game plan is for B. In my opinion it was the worst set of moves. But I figured I'd stay out of the voting as I'm organizing. But no more, we need more good votes!

@Norman can't speak for anyone else, but if I were designing the moves it would be:

Invest 4 to try and take scan (80%), invest 5 to take Georgia. Try to take Brazil (80%).

Rationale: I think we would've seen Rufus from caucasus if that was his pick. We can deal with East Russia or East China later. ME has to be dealt with this turn.

Edited 7/22/2020 21:21:02