dang. either johnny is a 200IQ hustler, or this match wont be very exciting. maybe hes trying to bait sanmu into coin games?

Too soon to say. Only 1 game so far, and even I have beat "better players" at SE before.

However, do recall that Johnny's point was that SE has low skill cap, so for skilled players it will be a luck based result, so results in the 50/50-ish range kind of proves his point (so 6-5 & 6-4), but 6-3 or 6-2 state a case for Sanmu's perspective. And of course 6-1 or 6-0, well now that would be pretty telling.

But that said ... keep in mind that this is only Johnny vs Sanmu ... the results don't necessarily speak for all SE vs other template skillsets and players, but it does lend some examples with which to further analyze. Who knows, Sanmu might be the future WZ MME GOAT in the making!

@Jacob the Restless

Good to see you respond here man! One of my favorite SE Wasteland games was with you. Your analysis is much appreciated.

Honestly, I see what you're saying. But we both agreed it would be coinless, and I won't be accepting any coin games period out of principle. And the chat has been much more respectful as compared to before. I think he just made simple mistakes (I also wondered if they were intentional at first). I find it likely there will be less of them in the coming games.

Nauz studies very hard and is probably analyzing Small Earth games as we speak. This is why I predicted him to drastically improve during the series and even give sanmu a run for his money at the end. I expect sanmu to go up something big like 3-1 or 4-1 only for Nauz to win 2-4 matches before sanmu finishes him off.

I think he just made simple mistakes

What were the mistakes? Can someone break it down for us simple folk?

To me it looks like:
- your pics were similar, just reversing SA/Aus, and Shamu SA 1st seems the more typical choice.
- But tbh with Brazil & East Africa, this seems like it's over already on turn 1, which I see all the time in CW now ... whoever gets SA + North Africa typically wins
- Both got FTB
- Shamu pushed up to grab early NA while Nauz was unable to break into SA
- turn 6 deployment of 7 in Mongolia seems odd to me, I feel he needed to be attacking SA or up through Europe not Asia
- though with NA completed & at least 2 turns away from attacking Alaska, it is really already over at this point and nothing else matters

But as I said, I'm too simple to really see the truly good & bad moves ... expert analysis please?

RE: coin games, I thought these were "betting games", but someone (Nauz?) suggested to just transfer the coin difference in bulk after the fact, b/c making each game a 1000 coin game means that a close series of for example 6-5 game split results in 2200 wasted coins (20% of each 1000 coin game x 11) when in reality the difference is just 1000 coins, which can be done in one 1000 transfer and only waste 200, so a 2000 coin difference.

Makes even more sense to do it this way if Shamu is covering the coins via volunteer donations ... better to waste less generosity of the donators' coins.

But actually just read Shamu's latest post and seems like they've agreed to do non-coin games, which still works as long as they're both seriously playing. All we really need is top tier play!

Edited 5/22/2021 02:08:14

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26985822 game 2 now up!

@Krinid

Nah, first picking Oceania is often viable (and more viable than most players who haven't played SE extensively think). So I actually respect Nauz a bit for trying it. SA/Africa starts is not, by any means, an auto win between 2 people who know what they're doing.

That being said, the way he went about it was incorrect in several ways. If it's true that Nauz deep studies the games and learns from mistakes, it is, perhaps, not smart for me to correct them. Otherwise, this match won't really be a battle between a generalist and a specialist anymore.

But I'll list a few basic mistakes:
1) first picking Oceania with the Wasteland in Japan
2) There was no reason to create the level of delay he did turn 2
3) Unnecessarily revealed turn order priority for no real gain
4) Was not as economical as he should have been about troops
5) Arrived in Kamchata 1 turn too late
6) Could have gone +1 (at the very least) turn 3, but didn't
7) was not aggressive enough and seemed to be more re-active than pro-active in his general strategy

Thanks Shamu.

Ahh, the Expedited Westboro Gambit in game 1, followed by the Westboro Gambit: American Trade Variation in game 2. That's dirty man......

sanmu is up 2-0! https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26985822

@Austin Li

Haha yeah. Although, I think Game 2 is described more accurately as a 6-3 SA game, that later became what you described.

@everyone else
My friends and I play a bit of chess, so we like to name different openings and games that exist, as well as their variations. We're still finding more and more of them on Small Earth.

It would be an eventual goal of mine to standardize the names behind each one and create a rigorous opening theory, like in chess. I think standardization would help people discuss strategies, as well as the costs and benefits of each one. And there are a ton of them, so this process would take a long time to flesh out.

I hope to show Nauz a different type of opening/game every game, but of course, I will only do this if it makes sense. I'm going to go on a trip rn, so game 3 will be postponed for a week-ish. So there's plenty of time for people to analyze the games and rate them if they so desire!

I looked over Games 1 and 2 and imo the skill difference between you and Nauz is vast enough that these games are kind of tough to analyze. I'm (pleasantly) surprised.

Here's my cursory analyses. I didn't look at the actual orders within turns so I might've missed some cleverness there:

Game 1
Theme: Nauz learned the hard way the trade-off between South America and Oceania and the difference it makes when you are 1 hop to North Africa vs. 2.
Verdict: Decided on picks. After picks, it was sanmu's game to lose.

Let's start with the board:


We've got a SA FTB with East Africa in play, so North Africa might have an 8-stack on turn 2 if you go to the FTB; this is game-ending if you got 2nd pick. We've got an Oceania FTB. NA is 3 turn, Asia is not in play because someone nuked Japan (Truman, is that you?). This leaves Europe (2-turn +5) and Africa (to counter Europe and SA) as the other two viable starts.

Both Nauz and sanmu picked the same 4 places, in almost the same order:



Seeing the 2 starts adjacent to North Africa, both picked Europe 4th. The only difference between the two is that Nauz picked Oceania 1st, while sanmu picked SA first. Some have chalked up Nauz's preference for Oceania up to a newbie error, but I don't think he was that naive. I think he analyzed a few SE games from the ladder but couldn't fully contextualize their rationales:


Anyhow, when your theater of action is Europe and Africa (the center and breadbasket of this map), South America's armies get there fast, without additional effort. Oceania's armies don't.

sanmu's picks made the SA FTB viable: he would get both FTBs, start 1/3 (SA+Africa, so no threat on turn 2), or start 1/4 (first move turn 2, so taking the FTB turn 1 is survivable). If he got 2/3, that's his toughest-case start but even then he has control of North Africa on turn 2 and isn't in a particularly bad spot.

Nauz's picks are shakier, purely because he picked Oceania over South America. With SA, he does take the FTB safely (since he can only get SA on 2/3) but his 1/4, as we see in this game, does not actually counter his 2/3.

So the game starts:


Intel is a wash: Nauz has 1/4, sanmu 2/3 but sanmu only needs to plan for Nauz being in Europe. If Nauz isn't in Europe, sanmu has ample time to react to a North America or Asia gamble.

Nauz is at a disadvantage now. Both take their FTB's on turn 1 but Nauz tries to battle his way in to breaking SA while sanmu just takes North America behind the fog, since Nauz deals with the inefficiencies of playing on offense. By turn 5, the game is sealed- but it wasn't really exciting on turn 1 either. More or less decided on Nauz making the wrong choice between SA & Oceania on picks- Oceania on this board was only viable in conjunction with East Africa imo, and Nauz didn't see that.

---

Game 2
Theme: Nauz learns about the difficulty of holding Europe.
Verdict: 90% decided on picks. I think Nauz just struggles still with reading a Small Earth board.


2-turn SA, 2-turn Oceania, 2-turn Europe, Africa starts in Madagascar, and NA is 3-turn.


This time, we see a much bigger difference in how the players read the board. sanmu sees SA and Europe as the 2 biggest threads on the board and goes for them, with Oceania in play if he has to settle for unsafe Europe. Look at his 1/4- it's a strong counter to his 2/3. sanmu recognizes here that the NA start is only 2 hops from Greenland and so, if his opponent goes for Europe, he makes that bonus absolutely non-viable at the end of turn 3, with a double-border and an additional border.


Nauz reads the board differently. He once again picks Oceania over SA, settles for Europe/SA if he doesn't get Oceania, and then picks a 4 that counters his 2/3 somewhat adequately (North Africa). I think Nauz just didn't read the board quite as well as sanmu again.


Nauz gets his 1/2 while sanmu gets 1/4 and is perfectly in place to counter Nauz.


Both players take the obvious opening moves, with sanmu setting up his Europe counter while Nauz goes for 2-turn Europe + 3-turn Oceania.

Europe is broken on turn 3:

Notice how sanmu plays conservatively in North Africa this turn instead of gambling the whole house on a delayed attack from North Africa to Europe. No, he just has a late-turn 3. If he doesn't break Europe this turn, he lives to fight another day. But he breaks Europe, from Greenland, since Nauz had to defend his bonus at 3 whole points.

After that, sanmu lets SA fall so he can take North America;


Then he fully seals the game.

---

Imo we're seeing a massive difference here, because sanmu is playing like someone who's played a lot of SE while Nauz's analyses don't seem to be able to keep up quite yet. He just isn't reading the board and understanding the threats and plays the same way sanmu is. Perhaps this is because he's forced to think on a much more micro level than on medium-sized maps.

We'll have to see. But so far these two have been fairly boring games where sanmu made the correct picks and Nauz didn't.

Edited 5/24/2021 06:21:07

It’s pretty hard to replicate tj Oceania based style. He basically just toys with you while managing the western threats. It’s more than an advanced strat, more of a mastery style.

He dances in and out of fog while staying busy enough to counter extra expansion you might try for. As soon as you mis allocate troops he shows up with his whole army and starts slamming face. Except he doesn’t slam face and just backs off again while preparing to show up elsewhere.

> Theme: Nauz learns about the difficulty of holding Europe.
This is silly. Yes holding Europe can be difficult. That's not something I "learned". It's something anyone who's ever played the map, or hell, any map, is very aware of. Europe tends to turn into a "Predict right, and win, predict wrong and lose" scenario.

> Nauz studies very hard and is probably analyzing Small Earth games as we speak.

No. Still don't value the template or map. Is there skill involved in playing it? Sure. I never actually argued there wasn't, I said it has a lower skill cap, it does. The only way that this actually proves anything IMO is if it was done in the manner I'd initially suggested where we play a series on SE, and a series on something I've played more than Sanmu. That way it is actually a measure of the relative skillcap on different templates by showing how dominant two different people are who have approached the skill cap on different templates compared to someone who hasn't.

ie. If Sanmu wins 6-2 or 6-3 on SE, but gets swept on ME, MME, FB, etc. that would be a sign that what I was saying was correct. Not that SE is a purely luck-based coin-flip template, but that luck plays a much heavier part than it does on other strategic templates.

Edited 5/24/2021 11:21:00

Since I'm the best player at Small Earth I thought I would chime in with some thoughts:


Game 2, Turn 3:
-> https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26985822


The key is to realize that if Sanmu takes Iceland and secures North America then he's probably going to win. It's a common win condition on SE, secure safe expansion in an otherwise close game.

Once you realize this then several things follow: there's a good chance Sanmu will attack from Greenland; if you're wrong then it fails gracefully, since it'll still be a 7-7 game, you've foiled game-winning expansion, you have flanking opportunities, and you can pivot your army stack back into Europe. At this point the game will become your classic 7-7 game, where it'll come down to who plays better.

Yours sincerely,
The Small Earth Grandmaster

Thanks @Quicksilver, those were also my thoughts. Turn 3 was the key mistake from Nauzhror here, everything before looked fine for me, including his picks (but I'm not the best Small Earth player around). After turn 3 the game was probably already over.

Edited 5/24/2021 17:14:12

Europe tends to turn into a "Predict right, and win, predict wrong and lose" scenario.

Imo that's not the right way to play Europe or vs. Europe. It focuses too heavily on just the European border and not the overall picture of the map. As a rule of thumb on SE, if you're playing predictively, you've already lost.

Wdym by that? Aren't you supposed to predict the other players move, count their armies etc?

I have won several games using the analyze attack tool to count how many armies I need to fight based on my predictions?

You can count and play non-predictively: e.g., if you have first move, they have 5+7 income, you have 12+8 income, you can accurately "predict" that your 20v12 attack will succeed if made as your first order.

I was talking about risky predictive play (i.e., gambling) , where whether or not you win the game hinges on which border territory your opponent chooses to deploy to. E.g., if you have North Africa, they have S. Europe and W. Europe, and you gamble that they will deploy more armies to S. Europe and not W. Europe. This gamble is often fatal if it doesn't succeed.

Per both my experience and the wisdom of people much better than me on this template, SE is about safe play for the most part. If you find yourself gambling the whole game on which European territory your opponent is going to attack, you're playing wrong imo and need to take another look at the threats and opportunities on the board.