I like the Aus combo too but putting 345 on the ftb gives you problems if your opponent picks aggressively like Sephiroth. I would consider picking 1,2 Indo Aus 3 East Africa 456 on ftb but I'm not convinced the East Africa pick gives good enough coverage of the ftb region.

Sephiroth did pick 345 on the ftb, I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

In your picks you could very realistically end up with your 123, which is very bad positioning as you would have no presence near scan and if they got the ftb and another pick in america then you have much worse positioning.

i would probably go for greenland 1st pick and then combo south america and central america on 2, 3. storm into scandinavia full power on turn 1 and blockade it, while finishing central america. and then work on finishing the other 2 bonuses, check africa and storm back into scandinavia to break west russia. picks 4 5 6 not sure where, probably scandinavia, west russia and ethiopia.

1 2 on australia and 3 4 5 on the FTB also might be doable. probably giving higher priority to west russia combo, so you would get higher probability of a safe combo area in case opponent also picked 1 2 australia. would still be a bit of a picks lottery though.

curious on what timinator or dead piggy would pick.

If you went for your first option and got greenland, central america and west russia, and you knew they had scandanavia and south america? (i.e. other players picked SA, CA, Scan, West Russia, Greenland as 1-5) and they had a safe pick elsewhere? It is a very possible set of picks and could leave you with only greenland as a takeable bonus, but which is too risky to take unless you blockade svalbard which will set you so far back for a the bonus that it isn't viable.

If you went aus combo 345 and they went america combo 345 and they got scan and you got greenland, what do you do first turn? Surely they have a much better position as you NEED to deploy troops to take svalbard with 4-5 maybe 6 incase they FTB via russia, and they can take camerica easily deploying only a handful of troops.

so many self-disqualifying posts here. seriously, clusterpick including Middle East? Go play Lego.

As it's rather obvious Scand-ftb will be countered i like hedja's approach, but knowing your opponent likely to go for some counter-strat himself you should take into account to miss out one of your first 2 picks, therefore 4,5,6 around indo seems odd. There is almost no way you miss 2 of your first 3, thus you won't get a combo out of 4&5 for quick Australia almost 100%. And getting 1,3,6 or 2,3,6 means you wasted your 3rd pick into a wasteland.
Thus i would've gone with africa as 4 and north africa as 5. doubt you'll need a 6th pick in that case

only prob with above strat: if your opponent ballsy picks aus-combo and africa, you're 90% fucked

Edited 6/2/2015 21:25:01

Sephiroth did pick 345 on the ftb, I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

I mean if you get the aus combo, your opponent gets the CA combo and you each get a pick on the ftb, you are forced to deploy all of your armies in aus to get a bonus in two turns while your opponent can threaten elimination or blockade scand from greenland.

It seems very simple here, 1 SA 2 CA 3 southeast asia 4/5/6 scan/west russia/greenland. You can change the order of 5/6 here. On that particular map I sincerely feel it is by far the best strategy.

"""so many self-disqualifying posts here. seriously, clusterpick including Middle East? Go play Lego."""

LOL


I would pick 1 SA 2 CA 3 Scan 4 WR 5 SEA 6 Xinjiang..

your 3,4 ensures you can go for the WR bonus (assuming you will miss out on one of your first two picks)
If you miss one from your 3 and 4 , you have good intel and can slowly work on SEA, while denying either scan or WR.
If you encounter the weird counter in EU, then you can take finland on turn 1 with full strength and scan is hard to break.
If you get 1,2 and your opponent gets the FTB, that works well too.

Isn't it best to choose 3 separate places of course taking into account only the most efficient territories

3 separate to have global map presence so that at least one is at safe distance from opponent to make a free-farm

@berdan: Not really. I very rarely see a map where I'd prefer not to combo within my top 3 picks. Even if it's not a direct combo. You can expand much faster with combos. Consider a scenario where the only good bonus for you to take is a 4 or 5, normal luck will have you finishing these in 3 turns. If your opponent combos a 4 or 5, they get 9-10 income at turn 2, so now they can expand turn 3 and get another bonus. You could end up 9v13 income by turn 3, which means that you can be eliminated from your 2 other picks rather easily.

You want to be at an advantageous position when you border your opponent. I mean that seems rather obvious but a lot of people don't fully understand what that means.

@Lolowut et al: I'm confused about the CA/SA combo. How would the expansion on that look? I clearly have a lot to figure out when it comes to picks.

@Knyte: depends on if you're going to be able to spend your full income on it or not but this is a pretty likely way to do it:

+1 to Baja +4 to Columbia

4v2 --> Mexico from Baja
3v2 --> Panama from Columbia
4v2 --> Argentina from Columbia

+2 or 3 to Mexico +2 or 1 to Argentina

4v2 --> Cuba from Mexico

4v2 or 3v2 --> Bolivia from Argentina

then finish using your leftovers in Cuba and Bolivia to take the remaining 2 territories

@Knyte

It would depend on where your last pick was. Say if you picked something like what I suggested above, your 3rd pick would either be in scan or russia or SEA.

If it was scan or russia, that means you are going to be occupied in the initial turns, and so you would only take Mexico with 4 and Panama with 3(i.e not go for the 2nd bonus simultaneously).

However, if you missed scan and WR, and ended up with SEA, then it would make sense to expand like Lolowut mentioned, so as to aim for the completion of SA by end of turn 3.


General rules on the template:
- ensure you have at least one bonus by end of turn 2
- try to get a card piece every turn.
- try to get 12 or 13 income by end of turn 3 if you have not engaged your opponent.

Thanks for clarifying that!

First, thanks hedja for making this topic and thanks to everybody for spending time to discuss

So far, szeweningen's distribution is the one that satisfies me the most for its very high reliability against almost every pick possible

MotD's picks are awesome too, as long as you go for WR first in case you got scan+WR and no one's in europe

ps's picks on the other hand look very weak, both of them: picking SACA as 2-3 gives you a 50% chance of losing both of them; double picking aus and having the other pick around the ftb allows the opponent to complete his 1st bonus at least 1 turn before you, in case you have to deploy armies to fight in the first turns

What is SA / CA ?

SA-> South America (can also mean South Africa, but usually does not)
CA-> Central America

care to share your thoughts too Hennns?

I`d probably go SA, CA Norway, WR, SEA and 6th I`m not sure. I think I would go either Ethiopia or Malaysia

so many self-disqualifying posts here. seriously, clusterpick including Middle East? Go play Lego.

As it's rather obvious Scand-ftb will be countered i like hedja's approach, but knowing your opponent likely to go for some counter-strat himself you should take into account to miss out one of your first 2 picks, therefore 4,5,6 around indo seems odd. There is almost no way you miss 2 of your first 3, thus you won't get a combo out of 4&5 for quick Australia almost 100%. And getting 1,3,6 or 2,3,6 means you wasted your 3rd pick into a wasteland.
Thus i would've gone with africa as 4 and north africa as 5. doubt you'll need a 6th pick in that case

only prob with above strat: if your opponent ballsy picks aus-combo and africa, you're 90% fucked

my 4 was my safe pick for when I lose 1 or 2 and get my 3, and my 5 was if i didn't get my 4, because the best counter to Indo in this position (in my opinion) would be Aus. My 6 is to counter the aus combo because you only get 6 when they get 4,5. I knew that if they didn't pick anything near scan then I would be screwed, but it is a bit too risky wouldn't you think?

It seems very simple here, 1 SA 2 CA 3 southeast asia 4/5/6 scan/west russia/greenland. You can change the order of 5/6 here. On that particular map I sincerely feel it is by far the best strategy.

I won't lie, that does seem by far the best choice of picks, however I wonder how it would fair against an opponent who picked scan / west russia / greenland, because early expansion wouldn't be too bad in comparison, but you do have a nice safe africa and he can only take the 3 bonuses he picked, caucasus could be a struggle to hold onto.

I would pick 1 SA 2 CA 3 Scan 4 WR 5 SEA 6 Xinjiang..

These sound like alright picks as well, could be problematic again if they picked 1 Scan 2 WR 34 americas who is better off, them with the fTB or you with the america combo? Very similar to szew's picks except possibly yours are better because you have info about the ftb in the case that you end up with americas + sea? However if you both double pick americas then szew's would be better probably as it secures the safe bonus first.

I`d probably go SA, CA Norway, WR, SEA and 6th I`m not sure. I think I would go either Ethiopia or Malaysia

Similar picks to MotD, but as a 6 in this position I would much rather take west china or middle east as you know that they have west russia + sea, so you want your 6th pick to counter them. xinjiang works as a better counter to sea as the turn after he finishes the bonus you take tibet and have 3 borders, but middle east gives you the option to take georgia and double border west russia if you end up not having scan.

As mentioned by Sephiroth - cheers everyone for sharing your thoughts, more people replied than I was hoping for initially, helpful to learn what the best choices are when picks are like these :)

@Hedja

""""szew's would be better probably as it secures the safe bonus first."

Disagree.. If I get one from my 1/2 and one from my 3/4 and miss out on SEA, I'm better placed with my counter in Xinjiang.
If I get one from my 1/2 and both from my 3/4 I'm still placed well, since I have a combo(WR) which I can complete in 2 turns, whereas SEA can only be taken in 3 turns. Is there any other combination I'm missing out on here?


"""could be problematic again if they picked 1 Scan 2 WR 34 americas who is better off, them with the fTB or you with the america combo? """

I would argue in the long term SA/CA wins since scan/WR can be countered from SEA whereas SA/CA is not easily reachable.

Here are mine without looking at either player's picks or the comments in here...

SA (controls CA and WA is not a strong pick to counter it)
EA (again, WA not strong, no other safe picks)
WR
Scan
Aus (safe backup income)
Indo (counter to Aus)

Edited 6/3/2015 23:58:24

Sepheroth, why did you pick Baja 1 and Columbia 2? I understand your pick set except for that. Wouldn't you want the outside/cover pick 1st?