OK, let me look over the options so I can also cast my vote:

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Option 4: We have calculated last turn that Rufus either is playing sneaky with his deployments or he is in fact coming from Inner Mongolia. Opton 4 isn't "that" bad if Rufus indeed comes from Mongolia since we can use the armies to attack China, however it's not so great in that case.

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Option 3:
I like that we are delaying our moves here. However as I see it, option 1 and 2 build upon option 3 and they are, with me simplifying stuff here, just plain better.
- If Rufus plays fancy, option 1 and 2 are better than option 3.
- If Rufus hits us strong instead, the way option 1 and 2 play out default to the same behavior as option 3 (in a simplified way).
--> If Rufus hits us strong first order with option 3, we perform a weak attack to Cuba.
--> If Rufus hits us strong with option 1, we also perform a weak attack to Cuba and our other orders don't get executed.

Also I disagree about Rufus sneaking South America being a non option. If Rufus sneaks South America we won't be able to break the bonus back and Rufus will win the game when he breaks us from China. Of course Rufus sneaking South America involves the majority is his stack moving to Venezuela.

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Option 2:
This is almost the same as option 1 however option 1 with the main difference of option 1 also taking Colombia. Since I like to view WarLight as a "game of pressure", for me taking Colombia is a huge deal. If we don't take Colombia then next turn we have to worry about the following aspects:
- Rufus moving from China
- Rufus taking West Africa
- Rufus taking back Central America
(- Rufus performing some fancy play in South America by throwing us out of the bonus)

However if we take Colombia then the pressure situation for me swings in a huge way:
- Rufus taking back Central America has less pressure since we also have the option to attack Central America from Colombia.
- Rufus has pressure of us sneaking South America or alternatively he has pressure of us getting into a situation where we could safely sneak South America.
(- Rufus has enhanced pressure of getting into a situation where he risks getting eliminated from Central America.)

So yeah, for me Colombia is a relatively huge deal, pretty much independent of how Rufus decides to play his turn.

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Option 1: The deployment in Bolivia might be a bit questionable, but for me this is also a part of the mentioned pressure swing of us threatening Rufus with South America.

Also I have to disagree about option 1 being more risky in case of Rufus hiting us full force. With option 2 we perform a small attack to Central America and our remaining stack will then crush into his bigger stack. With option 1 however we hit Central America stronger, then hit Colombia and there won't be any remaining stack which we crush into Rufus' bigger stack.
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--> I vote for option 1.

Edited 9/29/2020 23:23:09

Interesting analyses, everyone. Voting ends soon, so if anyone wants to put in their vote, options one and two are close!

I vote for option 1.

I vote option 2.

I forgot to mention I changed option 2 as per Quicksilver's suggestion, as it's strictly better. Voting ends in an hour and with the new votes it's even closer

2....

option 3 is too boring..... only a true german would pick that

Edited 9/30/2020 13:01:21

So the votes are tied between option one and option two. I will wait with committing until one of two things happen to break the tie:
1) Someone who hasn't voted for option 1 or 2 speaks out their preference
2) We get a new vote in

Whatever happens first.

Booh.
I will change to option 2 then, since I do not see any benefit in taking Colombia. To me it is not a game of pressure but a game of armies, and I don't want to spend armies on this territory. Also, I really would want to see Tomsk.

Edited 9/30/2020 13:51:12

The World voted for option 2!

Here's a screenshot of the board as it looks now:

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The following happened:

The World:
Deploy 17 to Venezuela

Rufus:
Deploy 4 to Cuba
Deploy 6 to Brazil
Deploy 2 to Colombia

The World:
3 armies failed to take Cuba from Venezuela

Rufus:
2 armies captured Bolivia from Brazil
0 armies transferred to Colombia from Brazil (Original order sent 23 armies, Mode: Attack Only)
7 armies captured Xinjiang from Tibet

The World:
Farah♦ plays an order delay card
1 army transferred to Eastern Kazakhstan from Tadschikistan
1 army transferred to Ufa from Moscow
1 army transferred to Eastern Kazakhstan from Turkmenistan
1 army transferred to Eastern Kazakhstan from Ufa
1 army transferred to Tadschikistan from Kyrgyzstan
1 army transferred to Eastern Kazakhstan from Kyrgyzstan
4 armies captured Tomsk from Eastern Kazakhstan
26 armies failed to take Brazil from Venezuela

I would have prefered to play option 3/4 and not to panick, but panicking moves are fun. Let's goo

gg

Hm, not dumb from Rufus:
- He fooled us with his 1 missing deployment in China.
- He played pretty passive around America. Rufus playing completely passive was kinda the worst case scenario. He then must have also known that he couldn't possibly outdelay us.

What was our thought process behind taking Tomsk? I know, after reading Rufus' deployment, we expected the north route however Rufus would then have still been able to get the double border via Xinjiang. Tomsk is better than Xinjiang however I still don't really get it.


So yeah, not good. However, then again we have quite some leftovers in Russia. Maybe Rufus guesses the next turn wrong and we can shock him with the amount of armies we have in Russia. The other problem here is that Rufus has an order delay card and we don't. Perhaps it could make sense to hit Rufus full force to Xinjiang and then pull our armies to the front.

Edited 9/30/2020 15:52:07

Hmm, I would not say he played passive. He played just good and waited for us to do mistakes, which apparently we did. Attacking Brazil last turn f.e. is not passive at all.

Attacking Xinjang next turn will certainly be up as an option, but it's super desperate and would be a huge mistake if Rufus lets that happen.

What was our thought process behind taking Tomsk?

Intel, card piece, possible setup against him trying to take West China, multi-purpose move

Edited 9/30/2020 16:36:35

ahhhhh al

@AI: He deployed in Cuba and just sat there. I thought he would deploy a few armies in Cuba however hoped that he would crush those armies last order into our stack.

I wouldn't say necessarily that we made a mistake. For me the big thing here is Rufus coming from the south. If Rufus was moving from the north he perhaps would have felt the need to make something happen in America last turn. Our moves were designed to punish Rufus for trying to achieve something in America (blockade Brazil, take South America, hit us strong) however he decided not to do so.

Yea, but to be fair not all our options. And why on earth would he send those armies into our stack, there’s no reason to do so in my opinion
Anyway, let’s try to look at the next turn and come up with some ideas how to get away with this

And why on earth would he send those armies into our stack, there’s no reason to do so in my opinion

Rufus prepared last turn for a couple of options from us. For example he also saw the posibility of us dodging to Colombia without much deployment in America. He could then have completely eliminated us from America. IMO the deployment of 4 armies without moving is pretty good from Rufus. It's not a disaster if he loses those armies in a bad fight and those are enough armies that a small "tryout attack" from us would probably fail. As I said I find it pretty smart from Rufus not greedily attacking us in South America since with him coming from the south his position was good enough anyways.

Edited 9/30/2020 18:20:09

we need for next turn a "f you rufus, we will go for CA and SA" basicly going all in for SA / CA while abandoning cauc. just to see what happens. id prefer that, over just hoping to defend cauc ^^