very very very .... nice game to help people improve their picking strategies. with my basic english simply i will try to tell you guys what i understood from this game and i ll try to give some suggestions about picking.
suggestion 1: try to control whole map with your picks.
suggestion 2: try to get minimum 1 safe bonus.
suggestion 3: when you see your enemy, your bonus should be safer than your opponent's bonuses.
suggestion 4: your picks should give you expanding advantage.
if you dont have a very bad luck and if your orders and moves are not very bad you wont lose games easily.
lets turn back to the game. when i check map at first sight, i see west side of map looks useless and there is a combo in africa. east side of the map (europe, asia, australia) has less wastelands and it is the place for fight.
it is certain that there will be a war at east of map. if you dont use any of your picks in east you will lose. 1 of your 3 starting territories should be in east.
africa combo. if you dont pick africa and leave it to your opponent you will have hard time in the game because you will fight against your opponent who will have minimum 13 income which is hard to break. 1 of your 3 starting territores should be in africa.
east side of map: if you pick russia or scandinavia you will be far from indonesia and australia. remember suggestion 3. your opponent will have positional advantage if you meet there. so forget scandinavia and russia. you can pick australia indonesia combo or only indonesia. but this time you will be far from russia. best place to pick is Southeast Asia. so you can have advantage for war at east side of the map. you can break russia and scandinavia bonuses and you can control indonesia and australia. your first pick should be Southeast Asia. if you cant get it you will be in trouble.
africa: 2nd and 3rd picks should be in africa. (remember suugestion 1) as i said before if you leave africa to your enemy you will have trouble. if you play against a good opponent that means you will get only one of your picks there. your southeast asia bonus will help you for an early fight in africa. but which territory should be picked as 2nd? west africa or east africa? west africa is better than east africa. because it has congo (connected to 7 territories!!). and when you have congo you can break east africa. 2nd pick should be west africa and 3rd pick should be east africa.
now 3 picks already used. scenerios:
a ) lets say our opponent got our first pick. no problem. we will have our 2nd and 3rd pick. all we need 1 more pick in east to control this area.
b ) we got our first pick and one of our africa picks. where is our opponent's other 2 picks? it is in east. most probably one of his other 2 picks is in scan. and russia area. no problem we can handle both places with our southeast asia pick.
c) we couldnt get africa. because our opponent picked africa as 1st and 2nd. he was lucky and he got our 2nd and 3rd picks. bad thing we dont have africa, good thing he left indonesia and australia or russia and scan to us. so if we use our 4th pick for scan. and russia area we can find his 4th pick and we can know where to expand in east side of map.
d) we got our first 3 picks.
in russia and scandinavia area scandinavia (dont forget your 1st pick was south asia) is the best place for 4th pick. picking central russia kills one of missions of south asia. picking west russia is bad for positional avantage. scandinavia is better. why? lets say player A has scandinavia and player B has west russia. dont forget greenland and europe has wastelands. lets say at this fight A won. he can turn his extra armies to a bonus quickly with taking west russia, central russia and caucaus. lets say A lost. now he can blockade scandinavia and player B wont be able to do anything with his extra armies. he has to clean scandinavia and move his armies to east. he will lose armies and turns and this will help you to expand in somewhere.
for all scenerios scandinavia seems better. what about 5th and 6th picks? lets turn to scenerios;
a) we have africa and we couldnt get scandinavia too. indoesia, central russia and north america are options. let him try to find us in east side of map. we can focus on our north america bonuses and later use hawai to break bonuses at the east side of map.
b) we have 2 strategic picks in east side of map and in africa. enough. now we need a safe bonus. where? again north america is a good option.
c) he has africa. we need safe bonus too. 2 territories are enough for east. again north america is one of good options for a long war.
indonesia, australia and antarctica combo is not good at here. because if you get it zibik's picks wont let you expand and wont let you to take australia.
Creative strategies from top players.: 7/9/2014 06:01:33
Thanks for the post Sultan. I find it a bit odd that they both put both africas as their 2nd and 3rd choices. There is a chance of getting 1, both or neither. I would find it really annoying trying to structure the rest of my picks around that. "1 of your 3 starting territores should be in africa." Yeah. That seems to be what they both wanted, but it isnt what they guaranteed for themselves.
Creative strategies from top players.: 7/9/2014 09:08:02
