Zaeban was ahead of his time and was the first to use the piking strategies that i and most others use now. His games are all very good to watch, he suffered from a lack of decent competition and got quite lazy at times.

He was good at playing out positions where both players start in adjacent territories. In these two games he destroys teddy and hhh two #1s in under 2 turns http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=2181733 http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=2118715 he didnt even do anything exceptional, the standard of play was just a lot lower back then. What he did do was get some basic things right. with hhh he killed few neutrals and waited for hhh to do something stupid, ie try a 2v2. I think his blockade in ant was a mistake, but it was game over anyway. In his game with ted he made sure that he would start with scand and CA. This meant that turn 1 he could put everything in china and make the two 3v2s. One of them would leave him with 1 leftover and he would have the option to try two 3v2s on turn 2 and still get that all important turn 2 bonus. Teddy didnt make enough delays and handed zaeban the win. By attacking on turn 1 zae gave teddy the option to make a few dummy moves and counterattack, clearing zae from china, which is teddys only chance here.

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=1883858 Zae and surehand. Odin mention that he never picks west china any more, because the time when completing it is a good idea never comes until the game is already over. Here its protected by wastelands and still zaeban has to leave it til last. It did give him a little spare income on turn 2 to go into scand, which he did eventually turn into a winning advantage through some very strong guesswork. First on turn 3, he plows into neutrals and is rewarded with the threat of eliminating surehand from scand. Next on turn 4 he sees that surehand needs to get a cardpiece somehow and predicts the dodge to finland. And again turn 6, where i think his aim was getting a card piece and limiting surehand to just one territory in scand. On turn 6 surehand gets bad luck in the east, and fails to break east china, so perhaps you could call that bad guesing from zaeban. Turn 7 Surehand is in a bad position and imho should have taken a gamble and used three 3v2s to try for south america.

Another game between old #1s that shows how much standards have increased http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=1798382 Zaebans 5th is quite questionable, it seems to be countered by the FTB rather than being a counter. Ace windu's expansion in russia with 2 2v2s is bizarre. On turn 2 Zaeban must assume that ace is in west africa, where else would he be? instead of getting there through 2 neutrals in south africa he goes through 6 in South america. Zae then chews through a bunch of neutrals in SEA and a wasteland to seal his fate.

Before he was god of the forums Qi was a #1 and here he is slapping zaeban around for playing goofy http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=2116086 It used to be quite trendy to make 2v2s i dont know why, its pretty much guaranteed to get you nowhere. While zae is bashing his head on neutrals Qi makes boring picks, expands quite normally with a little prophylaxis (taking georgia and norway to make defence easier later) and then goes all in as soon as he finds zae. Very nicely played out. Zae really liked the smaller bonuses, they gave him initiative by letting him finish the expansion into his starting bonuses a bit early and then direct the game however he wanted. Unfortunately this game he uses his initiative to kill a bunch of useless neutrals and the cost of picking small bonuses is shown: in a straight fight smaller bonuses lead to a loss because your income is much lower.

What is the advantage of 2v2s supposed to be, is it just the 12% chance of taking the territory? Because I've seen great players use lots of them but I can't help but think about the risk of relieving your position in some situations and the extra loss in troops. For those reasons I rarely use them.

Also I love these threads Piggy, you're doing a good job.

Thanks.

2v2s can be used to get a FTB from just 1 warlord. Thats what HHH tried in his game. The thing is, even if they fail (and they almost always do) then usually a deployment of 1 is enough to take the territory next turn, so youve only put 4 armies into the taking of a territory which is not unreasonable. The cost is that you get worse leftovers if you take a territory using a 2v2 and then a 2v1 than if you had waited a turn and then used a 4v2. In some games eg. games where you start in contact with the enemy, then it will be gg one way or the other long before what leftovers you got a few turns ago matter. So the risk can be worth the reward. I personally do not use 2v2s because Ive seen it have a positive influence on the outcome of a game about twice. I just dont think its worth my time to learn about them, or to practice testing 2v2s out, or thinking about it during a game. I do think that there will come a time when '2v2 theory' for want of a better name, becomes useful to top players but the community isnt there yet. They are very 'zaeban' because he was bored and its quite interesting theoretically, and its very aggressive, long term sacrificing for short term gains, which typified his play style.

Edited 6/1/2014 09:35:08

I like your eulogies and your old master's mutterings. But is zaeban dead? I just played a game against him recently in the nations cup. Or are you rather referring to a withdrawal? And then I got this other question. Where do you guys get these games from? Is there any way to search people games other than going along the numbers which actually might take some time until hitting gold?

What is this picking strategy you speak of?

Not sure it's one of the two games you are referring to, but I recall you losing to a central america turn single-warlord ftb. You even made a MFW thread about the game afterwards. Was vs. CONQUISTADOR.

Well hes been inactive for 41 days he only used to play real time as far as i know. You can search for profiles using google like this "site:warlight.net ladder profile ______" to find good games you just have to open a bunch and skim them.

This thread has actually helped me a good bit. Boards where my picks bordered opponents turn 1 were always something I typically would misplay. Seeing how other play the same scenarios helped me spot what picks would setup these types of scenarios intentionally.

Recent examples of my own games with bordering starts:

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=6383721

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=6329033

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=6360734

Edited 6/5/2014 18:31:16

In the first game pointed out, seems like Teddy overplayed on turn 1, not playing an attack to a neutral in Africa to give him options for turn 2, though sending 8 to Hong Kong has to be delayed as much as possible imho.

In the second one, Basically the game is decided right at the end of turn 2, as HHH both wastes extra units on missed attacks AND is can't hold foot on Siple because this attack fails too.

To me, mostly zaeban was terrific at aggressive play and smart combo picking, even when it was about finding speed with a pick in a complementary bonus where there was a wasteland. He was all about fast games --not to say he was weak when the game wasn't decided in 3-4 turns.
He has enough metagame sense to go for triple pickings when effective.

Could you please be more specific on the "picking strategies [many] use now" ? What do you mean ?

Edited 6/7/2014 17:15:02

2 turn 11 or 12 income, cluster picking in general, picking fertile double picks 3rd and 4th and the counter 5th.