Wow, commerce games are really something else aren't they?

I just lost a 40 FFA (these are never truly FFAs are they? Keeping peace is what keeps you from immediately losing in games with so many players), and I am still in a state of shock about it. I held over two thirds of the 3200-territory Europe Map and got my ass handed to me by a player with one fourth of the map.

One thing that I never seem to comprehend with regular large FFAs is that players will not be very careful about power balances in the map. My strategy on attacks and alliances in large regular FFA games has always been to keep a balance of power, expand slowly by breaking into unallied weak player territories and form coalitions against the most powerful player whilst being careful to conceal my true power. Convincing players to coalesce against the obvious most likely winner is always such a difficult task, but it's also such a no-brainer most of the time. Like, bruh you own macedonia, albania, and greece and you are gonna be neutral against somebody holding Russia, Ukraine, Belarus whilst two other players are fighting them? Like you could literally get to decide who wins, but you instead decide to not do anything and just wait for another opportunity to get the upper hand that'll likely never come again?

But commerce games are something else. In commerce games, The strongest player can't just say fuck it and blitzkrieg everyone simultaneously once they reach territorial majority. It seems like the best strategy for commerce is to keep peace at all costs and just wait for all of the other players to waste their troops on each other while you stack and stack and stack.

A friendly reminder that cities can be conquered. If you see that a player is not engaging in a combat, you can assume that he is building cities and that conquering him will give you a massive income boost.

Granted I have never been in a 40 player FFA (well not 40 human player FFA), For me, if I run into someone before turn 5, I offer neutrality (peace) until they choose to break it or until turn 10, at which point we will usually have an established battleground with other players. In most cases, we usually find another opponent and keep the peace until one of us is getting overwhelmed or is going for the win.

If someone asks me for peace, as long as I have somewhere to go and attack and I don't already have 3 such agreements, I usually accept as a personal policy, and usually only at early game (before turn 15).

What you said the best strategy to build up and hold out applies to not just commerce games. FFA games with so many players become a war of attrition and generally, the player who sees the least conflict early on ends up the victor.

Now if, in FFA games, you get to take your opponents cards for yourself when being the player who eliminates them (like in the actual risk boardgame), that dynamic (or some exclusive reward for eliminating another player) could change the general game winning strategy, because then it may be better to go all out and take down an opponent early on in order to take their resources to compensate for your troop losses

Wait until you play one with the buy cards mod and the cards are cheap. You have to distribute your armies or they'll just get bombed to nothing.

I made an LD commerce game on my hell map and it's hell.

I appreciate Local deployment games with commerce, makes deployment a lot less tedious, especially on the larger maps.

@Joey

"I made an LD commerce game on my hell map and it's hell."

HAHA - what were you thinking? LD on large maps is a DISASTER. I saw that game and initially joined, but then saw it was LD and was immediately, "Nope, outa here..." lol. I played SW Galaxy map with LD once ... and of course it VTE'd b/c no one wants to spend that much time on each move.

@Swarthmore

"It seems like the best strategy for commerce is to keep peace at all costs and just wait for all of the other players to waste their troops on each other while you stack and stack and stack."

Don't think this is specific to Commerce games ... it applies to any FFA, at least those with fog where you can hide your troops and/or income from others to some degree and downplay your ability to win in the end. Your chance of winning a 40 player FFA is 1/40, so you shouldn't actually expect to win. LOL