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.