Duke makes a good point about income screening. It's an advanced tactic, and runs along the same vein as 'intelligence gathering' through the history function. If a player is good enough to intentionally screen income and succeed with it more often than not, then he's likely good enough to use all or most of these other strategies we've discussed. Studying players through their posted games is a smart strategy, even if it feels like an invasion of privacy... Some players will hide games that show their general strategies just because they fear opponents using this tactic. It lends weight to the phrase "Pride is the never failing vice of fools", as those who are too proud of their victories will most often reveal their own biggest weaknesses.

The last strategy that Devilnis mentioned I find to be very risky, and I dislike utilizing it. If you do decide to use it, always always always use transfer only movement, and never use it when you have to make a first priority move elsewhere for whatever reason. The first strategy he mentions about an asymmetrical defense works depending on the opponent. Some people in the attacking position will send small groups into each region hoping the enemy will deploy asymmetrically, but when they don't, the attacker is disadvantaged. As for his second tip, I also recommend using the analyze function together with the history function to see how many defenders you may need to deploy to insure that you stop the enemy from breaching your defenses.

In most forums, this is the kind of thread that gets "pinned" or "stickied", so anybody can see it posted up near the top of the page when they browse through the forums. We ought to implement something along those lines

Brilliant Guys keep em coming ;)

A nice game for me here, most of the boots where the oposite team :s and the green was onyl booted because he told me he had voted to end and would refuse to surrender or carry on and he was elaving. shame tbf. http://warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1050922

anything you guys would have done differently here?

EmpZ - You got the benefit of the player next to you getting booted in the early game allowing quick unimpeded expansion. Then a second booted player took out your closest competitor. I wouldn't rely on that happening in other games.

Here's a trick I've suggested to a lot of players, open Excel, make columns 1 & 3 1-500, make column 2 = (column 1 x .6) and make column 4 = (column 3 x .7). Then you can quickly see how many armies you need to take or hold a given territory (assuming luck is set on the low side, if luck is high use more armies to be sure).

Also optimize attacks and defenses by multiples. A defense ending in a 1 or 4 gives a 70% or 80%, respectively, chance of picking up an extra kill. An attack ending in 1, 6 or 8 gives a 60% or 80% chance of an extra kill. Pretty much every time I'm attacking or defending I use these numbers. Over the course of hundreds of attacks it makes a difference.

With zero luck knowing the odds and your opponent's income allows you to perfectly optimize your defense. Just add up their bonuses and income, multiply by .6, average up to the nearest whole number and make sure your defense is one higher than that number and you cannot lose that territory. This allows you to properly allocate armies and use as much as you can for your attack, as opposed to feeling you have to leave them all on defense to hold a key spot.

It sounds like a lot of work, but after doing it for awhile mechanically, it becomes second nature and you stop even having to think about it. I don't consult a chart or calculator unless I'm checking how many I need to take out a very large defender or when I want to almost take out a stack, but not completely. Like using a very risky play of abandoning where you are very confident the opp is going to attack and you think you know with how many armies, so you abandon, but with just enough armies in the abandon to stop the attack leaving a handful behind and then you attack where you just abandoned to recapture the territory the same turn you abandoned it (this attack is usually with a small number of armies to avoid compounding a mistake). It's great when it works, but you feel stupid when they don't attack or attack with a lot less armies than you expected. I try this sometimes where abandons are more than 200%, an opponant is repeatedly throwing everything at the same spot each turn and I'm fairly certain they're going to do it again.

from watching the game it seems like you made peace with one of the other teams and honestly never go for romania as your first bonus that was retarded didnt really focus much after that because once someone gets booted it generally gives one of the remaining teams an unfair advantage

great tips duke, i hadn't thought of optimizing deployments based on the randomized remainders.

It bears mentioning that the tactics I was describing are meant for high-risk scenarios, basically ways to pull out of a tailspin when you're already going down in flames. If you're in the catbird seat, you should have neither need nor inclination to play things so risky, time is on your side.

So what picks do you recomend for certain maps?
I for one Like Africa On large earth :) from there into europe/antartica/south america, :)

For a basic map? Territories such as Scandinavia, India, Mexico, East China, East and West Africa, Caucasus are all solid. North Africa is also good to harass the enemy in Africa.

I don't think Scandinavia is as good as everybody advertises it - it has no small or even medium bonuses neightboring, you only have Greenland (for 4 points, pathetic considering its size), huge Europe or West Russia. And if somebody happens to be in any of these places, or one bonus further and then expanding there, you have no chance fighting him. I saw a "Scandinavian" lose painfully once - examine this game and Servixxs play in it: http://www.warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1036952. Even though he managed to destroy Radieux at the beginning, he was blocked in Europe, soon also blocked in West Russia, and Greenland is hardly worth expanding to.

youre both right fred was talking about head to head youre talking about a team game

I've only been playing 1v1 games, and in many games Scandinavia seems to be the key to winning precisely because it has nothing valuable nearby, so it should remain unmolested in most games till the end. Not having to defend that 3/turn income is very valuable. In multiplayer games, Scandinavian advantage should go down.

Just play better than the other person

It's biggest advantage is that it's the only startign point where you can get a bonus on the first turn. If you encounter your opp somewhere else at the start of turn 2, you've got 8 and they have 5. That's enough to take out one of their startign positions and determine the game. Happens often.

duke i think im about to be destroyed by you ;P

and 1v1 on big earth scandinavia is indeed an advantage, europe can be taken within 3 turns or so,

EU? NO! Europe, Antartica, greenland, south america, australia, east russia, and Canada are all very bad moves in the early game (ignore them until you've taken all the easier bonuses).

40% of the bonuses on the map are in Asia, you need at least a blocker there and if you don't start there you need to head there early. Ceding it without a fight is tantamount to surrender. Which is why putting everything in Africa is a disaster. Holding Iran, you can take the rest of Asia without really being disturbed. As I did in our game EmpZ.

It's not complicated, just look at the number of territories in the bonus and the amount of the bonus - obviously India and Causacus are the best two bonuses (divide bonus by number of territories in that bonus, rank by highest to lowest). Strategically you may not be able to take and hold the best ones early, but that doesn't mean you can ignore them and let your opp take them either. The next best are CA, Scan, East and West Africa and East China.

Of course if you know your opp is going to go for these spots, you can counterpick and time your attacks to frustrate them and prevent them from getting the bonuses. I had one game (on profile - best of the best - First championship game), where I blocked my opp from ever getting a bonus the entire game.

You ought to post the link to your game so the community can analyze it.

For those too lazy to go click on my profile (e.g. Fred), here's the link:

http://www.warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1020828

well i mean thats extreme example because A its four spots not three and B judging by how you played you knew he has mexico and india and probably either knew or assumed caucus. iran is very good with 4 and 5 spots but with 3 its awful