if Rufus is in ME you want to use that prediction to get as much out of it as possible.

if we prematurely show up to block the counter we lose some of our advantage. the ideal is to smash georgia on the turn he moves in and block it (although that could be a 50:50 if he moves in with a stack too). So, it's worth thinking through when he would likely show up - which is going to be when he has a good stack of armies/ has decent income relative to us.

I have an impression that the longer you try to analyse this, you risk over thinking it. I'm talking generally, not to a specific person.

Doubting, second guessing etc may do more harm than good in my humble opinion.

I'm not sure about D finally... flipping vote to A

At this point might aswell wait in SA for Rufus to find us. I vote C without moving SA

suggestion: either link the distribution thread or even better add the screen in the turns. a hassle to go back to check :P

Edited 8/6/2020 19:46:32

"if Rufus is in ME you want to use that prediction to get as much out of it as possible.

if we prematurely show up to block the counter we lose some of our advantage. the ideal is to smash georgia on the turn he moves in and block it (although that could be a 50:50 if he moves in with a stack too). So, it's worth thinking through when he would likely show up - which is going to be when he has a good stack of armies/ has decent income relative to us."

Much better to show up prematurely than to let Rufus gain Georgia. If Rufus gains Georgia we're in a world of hurt. If we show up prematurely we still have a pretty strong advantage. The danger in hitting Georgia strong is that Rufus started not in ME. If he started in ME and isn't going for Georgia its still a win as taking Iran basically seals the game in our favor. If he started not in ME then we're in trouble, but my analysis is that if he starts in not ME we're in trouble anyways.

Edited 8/6/2020 19:54:14

C
We went this far with the ME assumption, we might as well keep going

Smash.

The world voted for Option C!

Here's what happened:

We took Norway with a 3v2, getting perfect leftovers
We took Finland with a 3v2, getting perfect leftovers
We took Brazil with a 3v2, getting perfect leftovers
We took Georgia with a 6v2, getting perfect leftovers
We did not see Rufus in either South America or Middle East
The World is a lucky bunch.



Expect a new thread soon!

Hm, I was wrong about pushing the Middle East option. I really don't like having so little clue what Rufus picked now. Could he not be in East Africa at all but instead have some bizarre China doublepick?

I still find it pretty obvious to not see Rufus in South America. The math showed that if Rufus would attack us there he wouldn't be able to achieve any competitive income. This was true not only for Rufus in Middle East but for every other plausible option.

My random guess is that Rufus picked Central America + East Africa + East China. What I'm sure about is that he will complete his third bonus this turn and will have enough income to attack us in South America now.

Edited 8/8/2020 11:33:17

We were also debating him having Caucasus and sitting there. It's the rufus kind thing to do

I still don't see how Caucasus makes much sense however if Rufus would indeed sit in Caucasus I understand why he would wait to attack us. He would need to make sure that we already took our bonus in Russia and missing a double border he would need some stack momentum. Caucasus is a pick which gets sweeter over time, especially when we are also starting to expand into our second Russia bonus. However I'm still very opposed to the option of Rufus completely throwing away one income pick for a very hard to pull off counterpick which, when succeeding, also has a great likelyhood of giving a very limited reward with Rufus only breaking a single bonus.

The worst case scenario I see is Europe. Europe would mean that Rufus most likely has direct intel on our two picks there and with his third pick he could safely assume about us being in South America.

Edited 8/8/2020 11:57:00

Rufus lost all kinds of common sense if he has Europe. That pick is if anything viable as pick 6, which we know for sure Rufus did not get. (since he got first in pick cycle)

Yes, I agree with you there, Europe isn't a plausible option. However I currently fail to see the most likely options for Rufus. Guessing Middle East wrong was already pretty bad and I believe that the game will be decided now by us guessing Rufus' 2 remaining picks more or less correctly.

As for our next move I'd like to have the option to vote for us taking South America. Unlike the previous turns I see a great chance of Rufus hiting there now however my thought process is that if we aim to border Central America we only have 2 territories left to take and only Argentinia is useless if Rufus hits one of the spots bordering Central America. If Rufus indeed sits in something like Caucasus he might deploy there strong now so we get away with South America.

We actually have the orders done already, Farah will post them soon. Yes, taking SA will be one of our options

I wonder how differently this game develops if we take South America first 2 turns.

As for Rufus picks:

East China seems most likely to me. Sitting in caucasus seems odd. I don't see much to be gained from it, but the elites know Rufus' play better than I. Nightmare scenario IMO is East Russia.

Looking over the board I'd also like to assume East China however I'm not certain. East China + East Africa is pretty bad for us:
- Turn 2 Rufus took East Africa
- Turn 3 Rufus took Central America
- Turn 4 Rufus will now take East China. This leaves him with another let's say 5 armies or so which he can deploy elsewhere. Even if Rufus doesn't have any intel from picks I see very little reason for him now not to hit South America with, let's say 6 armies.

So even if I could see behind the fog and confirm my suspicion about where Rufus is, I don't really know how to play against that. 12 income just straight up wins against 9 income.