I just wanted to share my personal analysis of this game since I thought it was very interesting. Hats off to Adiba for a great match, and I welcome any comments you have on the game play.

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=7837111

In turn 5, Adiba breaks Australia, leaving indonesia and a path to east china open, which would finish the game. At this point I believe I have lost.

In turn 6, I lay a trap for him by blockading Western Australia, so that I can appear weak in queensland, but transfer troops in turn 7 to use the defense bonus to hurt his army badly.

In turn 7 I do beat his army into Queensland, gaining an advantage of 6 troops in the conflict. I also forgo combat in australia with my army, and keep moving toward south america to capture that bonus in turn 11.

In this turn, Adiba captures causcasus, and takes a 4 reinforcement advantage that he will hold for two turns.

In turn 8, I predict adiba will abandon australia since it has been blockaded, and suffer a large loss for my miscalculation. I was hoping to end his presence there, and take down the blockade, at a cost of 7-8 armies.

In turn 9, I accurately guess the location of his other forces, taking West China and building an attack force there. I also open myself up to the great vulnerability of losing west china, which would end the game for me.

I end my reinforcement deficit, and take a one reinforcement per turn lead. I also put him on the defensive, so he can't just plow through me with his forces in Papua New Guinea which I would never be able to stop if that were his sole investment.

In turn 10, I stop his attempt to split my defenses by premtively taking Tomsk, leaving Xinjang open.

In turn 11, I return to Xinjang to defend, and move troops to eastern kazakstan to try to break his west russia bonus. I also capture south america, giving me a reinforcement surplus of 7 armies per turn.

At the close of turn 11, there are 5 bonuses that stand in contention: West Russia, Caucasus, West China, East China, and Indonesia. Success for Adiba sees his reinforcements at 21, and mine at 9. Success for me put me at 19, and him at 8. Never have I played a game where so much hung in the balance, in one turn.

In turn 12 I finally stop his marauding army in the phillipines, and also prevent his capture of indonesia in the solomon islands, taking papa new guinea as well to remove the threat of the indonesia bonus in the next turn. I also stop the capture of Caucasus, turning the game into my favor for the first time, despite the difficulty of defending the large west china bonus.

Defending China was the greatest difficulty for me, since losing it would have meant certain defeat, and since it has fairly open borders, even with the wasteland in pakistan. This is really what kept the game so exciting, since each turn I had to juggle between tomsk and xinjiang to hold my ground, and the whole game hung on these territories, even while many other skirmishes occurred.

In turn 13 I empty my deck, using a priority card to move into western kazakhstan and protect the caucasus bonus while still challenging west russia, and then use a order delay card to get the upper hand in an evenly match taiwan/phillipines battle.

The game ends with reinforcements set at 12 and 19, but adiba has lost striking capability on west china for the first time, and now has a troop deficit in Taiwan for the first time as well. If the game were to continue, I would defend Taiwan and move to georgia, improving my position and solidifying my troop advantage.

Adiba fought a really good game, and I appreciate all the thought that went into this match this morning!

Picks:
Overall it's very rarely a good idea to pick 3 first picks in the same are for 2 main reasons:
- slows long-term expansion (you gain an early game boost though)
- greatly exposes you to a counter
Here it's quite obvious picks were v. bad for one partiular reason, you take australia as one of your bonuses with no particular plan in mind when your opponent is in antarctica. Positioning makes it basically certain that you won't be able to effectively hold australia at any point in the game, with proper play your opponent should force a very inefficient trade on ant/aus border. So not only you don't know if he is in ant, you don't have any tools to play against it. If I got your picks, I'd likely rush to get australia and pray he does not finish ant, if that happens I might surprise him and counter on turn 3.

Turn 1: Notice your opponents luck, worst possible, with that configuration he is more likely than not to take 11 in 2 turns.
Turn 3: Typical mistake from your opponent, he still does not know where to attack and he blindly wastes troops to go into africa, he shouldd deploy to russia more to anticipate a possible late central russia counter. Extra armies in russia would prove useful later to expand while keeping aus in check.
Turn 4: Hope warlight strikes again, no extra armies in russia, more troops in africa and for some reason you spread thin over china, west australia and new zealand. Here was your real chance to get counterplay, just go full power towards antarctica, i could maybe allow 2 troops in china and rest towards ant, but those random 5 troops going to west australia is just hope warlight.
Turn 5: Now, here is where playing against good player you'd be lost. Picture those extra armies for your opponent going into russia allowing him to expand. Maybe even imagine he took aergentina instead of south africa and expands there (we're not even analysing scenarios when opponent gets 11 in 2 turns, which are dead lost). That situation you should anticipate from picks, if you pick 1,2,3 like that, you should expect that around turn 5 you';; face your opponent in ant when he finished 3 bonuses, while you only have 2. So we see that on turn 5, your short term gain from cluster picking is already for nothing since you have 13 vs 15 income in that situation. Now, suppose your opponent just sits in antarctica and defends hard, which he should. Best case scenario for you would be to take australia. Problem is, if you even take it and get a short income edge of 18 vs 15 for example, the stacks on ant/aus border rise, so you won't be able to get into ant effectively, while he is expanding into sa or russia for example. Assuming your opponent plays super safe and does not even at the beginning try to counter australia directly, you'll have to spend almost all your income on defending aus, and basically your only chance at winning would be your opponent overpredicting and ramming into your stack. Alternatively you could try to expand, but we see you can't really expand anywhere. You can't go south, cause he has ant, can't go west, cause indian ocean does not give much income, can't go east, it'll take too much time, there's only west china which is efficient, but very risky, especially since you should anticipate a later russia counter. Basically what I'm trying to tell you is, do not pick like that, since with such picks, you know what position you will be ~turn 5 and it does not look pretty. Of course sometimes there are very specific scenarios when you pick 1/2/3 closely, but probably not with 1/2/3 without intel.

Anyway back to the game, position is tricky now, normally your opponent should just defend hard in ant and expand on the back of it, but you have a small stack advantage. Still with reinf. cards and 15vs13 he should just do that, deploy 2 to russia and take Omsk, put rest to ant and do not move. His decision was bad, because he traded his 3 bonus, for a bonus you have not taken yet. I'd just let you take aus and bleed out defending aus later. Defending your most valuable bonus while your opponent double borders you is no fun.

Turn 6: I like the idea of the blockade, small micro mistake, I'd deploy 2 to west aus and transfer back to queensland. If you base your blockade on transferring back, you risk making a v. small blockade if your opponent attaks with 1st order and eats your transfer. Also making a trap is optically nice, but it's not solid play. Then again, position is very inclear. In any case I'm sure you must take Mongolia on turn 6. Proble with traps is your opponent is not committed to pushing indo, he can just force your deployment and expand on the back of it making no risky moves. On turn 6 I think you should either expand heavily in china or at the very least take Mongolia to check central russia (again your opponent played terrible going into caucasus first AND making micro mistakes while taking it). Also your opponent should block the other territory in ant so you won't get a bonus so easily with your spare armies.

Turn 7,8: Ok, your trap worked, but it did not help you, you're still behind in income and he sits pretty. Why not go into sa for additional income? taking back aus is not a priority, you just blockaded it. Attacking with 2 towards sa is really a "safe" move that is not a good one.

Turn 9: I agree with expanding in China completely, again maybe I'd take Xinjiang with 4, Tomsk with 5, I'd be really afraid my opponent would take it this turn.

Rest is maybe less important, there were other smaller mistakes, like army mispositioning, some micro/od mistakes, but overall the important thing I think you should take from this game, is pick differently. With decent play bu your opponent, you just don't get any reasonable counterplay .

Gl with further analysis and keep improving :) Analysing your games is the best way to go.

Edited 1/16/2015 18:34:36

I took a look at the game I have comments/questions (I guess this is the point of the post, yes?):
A bit of bad luck for adiba with the 3v2 in the beginning, but this happens sometimes.
Turn 3 (and 4): Adiba wrongly assuming that you are in Africa, or what is going on? But why only 3 into Kenya in turn 4, if Adiba thinks you are there?
Turn 5: 2v2 attacks on neutral is just a waste of troops in my opinion (unless nessasary).
Turn 6: Blokade is a bit risky when not deploying there. Had you not gotten first move here, Adiba would (at least should) break down the blockade right away. But nice trick with the blockade though! 
Turn 7: Really nicely done. Did you consider if it would be worth it to kill Adiba in Australia and retake the blockade at some point? (this might be something Adiba considered since he didn’t gave it up)
Turn 8: You should really take Xinjing or Tomsk at this point. You must have been expecting Adiba to be in or around West Russia. WTF is up with Adiba wasting order priority transferring 2 troops to a territory, that he can see you can’t attack :S
Turn 9: You guessed right. You should probably have considered this a bit earlier. Adiba should hit China with at least a small stack though. Since turn 5 he should know your starting picks, so you coming in China should not be a surprise. Hitting Xinjiang hard would have won him the game.
Turn 10: I like your prediction of Adiba in Tomsk, but did you have to hit it so hard? I think I would have hit it with 6, if I had thought of it (mostly I just play without thinking stuff though :P)
Turn 11: what is up with Adiba not attacking as first move? He just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t break your bonus?
Turn 12: I believe Adiba should surrender or gamble on you not attacking west Russia with many troops (so maybe deploy 2 to defend. And go for Indonesia and breaking of east China (Indonesia with more than 2 in outer spots). I would have chosen to attack with 5 in Malasia and Solomon (and failed I know) – but would have broken East China with the 22 attacking there. If I were you I would have hit western kazakstan with 3 as first move and Kyrgystan late if around 10 (and would probably given up defending East China). Nice Defense in Solomon.
Turn 13: As you might guess I like your first move . And the follow up is very good as well.
All in all I think you played a good game (less impressed by Adiba, who made some weird chooses along the way). Looking forward I suggest that you start earlier on figuring out there you opponent are and where he will be attacking. (I know I could use that advice myself most times :P)

Turn 5: 2v2 attacks on neutral is just a waste of troops in my opinion (unless nessasary).
Actually I disagree. When you play on 0% luck (WR) worst case scenario you lose 2, and kill 1. That means you will need 2 more to take the territory next turn. That sums up to 4 armies, ie the same as doing 4v2. However like in the game you will often lose one and kill one, meaning when you deploy +1 next turn you've effectively made a 3v2, with no risk of failing the atacc (and the 2v2 might actually work once in a blue moon). Of course it has certain drawbacks, such as if the opponent appears, you might lose delays etc. which one need to play around.

@jobbin
You need to think more about your picks; and analizy maybe not only your games, but also the top player games. Additionally you'll usually learn more from losses then from victories, always go through the history. If you want, make a game with me and I can go over it afterwards.

Edited 1/16/2015 19:17:06