Just recently discovered this board and I like it. My problem is I do not have a clue regarding basic tactics. Anyone out there that is prepared to drop Me a few hints would be appreciated.

There is more economy in the cities then in the territories, so, focus on taking cities that you can secure early in the game.  In order to make yourself less of an easy target and secure your bonus, however, you'll need to transition to holding territory around your most clustered cities, and hopefully extend that territory to the natural bottle-necks on the board as quickly as possible.  Also, be aware of the special bonuses, and most specifically, that holding all the ships gives an added bonus such that they are a combined bonus of 12 for holding the complete set.  As they are defended by a neutral wall of cities early in the game, this can have an added strategic bonus and especially so in 2v2 games where territory becomes more important then cities and the rules are largely reverse for successful game play.  Be more aggressive with a high fog setting or else you'll be quickly left behind by those who out-aggressed you.  And, as return to placement is on, micro manage your attacks... so don't dump and attack.  That's it in a nutshell.

I looked a little at your completed game on this board.  Two things in reference to berickf's post.

Starting at turn 2062 - you attacked black exclusively even though brown had a much larger bonus.  You were probably looking at all of black's territories (which isn't that valuable) vs. brown's cities (which are)

Also in all your turns that I saw you plunked down all your units at once.  Like what was said before - this board allows return to placement from attack so you can place, attack, place, attack, etc.  It takes some getting used to this ability at first but it is essential.

And, also, another tactic that this board allows is the use of reserves.  i.e. you don't need to place all your units in a turn.  You can save them for the next turn.  Sometimes it makes strategic sense to hold back. 

Personally, since return to attack after fortify is also on, I tend not to ever keep anything in reserve.  I find it better to put large stacks on bottlenecks or valuable cities as three such stacks can be fortified into an attack position and then used to attack within the same turn thus largely defeating the strategic advantage of holding reserves in the first place.  I find holding reserves typically backfires as a strategy since reserves are absorbed by elimination thus making one a more appealing target since by virtue of elimination the eliminator will acquire a large stack of reserves to bring into play immediately.  So, I would caution and advise against holding reserves on the civil war board in most cases.

With that in mind, when thinking about eliminations, take into consideration all your playable armies on your borders, your deployment as well as your 3 biggest in-territory stacks when considering the possibility of being able to eliminate someone.  If the elimination looks possible or even to be a a sure thing, then don't worry about depleting those bottleneck stacks if the spoils of elimination will allow you to put something back for your defense afterwards.

There is one thing I have seen taken advantage of with regard to reserves, though I have never done it myself.  That being, in a deadlock or close game with multiple players still in it, sometimes it seems a player has purposefully skipped their turn to put pressure on the other players to fight each other due to the possibility of not wasting armies against a player who might be about to "drop" anyways, only to come back knowing fair well that since the board holds reserves that they will have twice as many armies to play with in their next turn.  It would probably be a pretty bad idea to do that if someone was in a position to eliminate you though because the reserves and the cards might be too much to pass up!  Personally, I find more value in continuing to collect my cards as the escalating sets grow quickly especially considering the number of players that sometimes get into games on that board.

Those two are some of the best players here, you'd be smart to heed their advice.

However, I can provide A Different Perspective from the above:

Never look like you're winning, untill you already have.

On this board, it's really easy to amass Alot of troops but still look relatively weak. Keep your opponents feeling threatened by each other, and build until the time is right.  (this strategy requires perfect timing). Player will almost always (basically) abandon lots of territories, take them for yourself and leave 3-5 armies on them.  That's enough someone wont just take it back, but not enough to make it important or threatening. 

Keep taking other players 1's and you'll eventually have most of the board. When the time is right, complete the states, take the cities, and cripple your opponents. 

OR

Take and hold a corner.  The east coast has lots of bonuses, good choke points and doesn't look big (visually).  So you can own alot of territories over there and be amassing alot of troops without looking too strong. 

ratsy wrote:

Never look like you're winning, untill you already have.

which is where reserves, especially in a fogged game, can be used quite effectively.  Make sure you always get a card though - 

ratsy wrote:

The east coast ... and doesn't look big (visually).

I learned this one from BlackDog.  He pointed out in a post that people tend to attack those that own "big" territories pixel-wise  so going for the cramped territories is another subtle strategy.

Wow brilliant advice all round. Thanks for that everyone now all I need to do is make it work. Most of My play is on Wargear Warfare which is far easier tactically so this will take some getting used to.

It's my favorite big map (lots of players).

+1 To just about everything, but I would add the overwhelming importance of card cascade.  

Timing of this is critical, but you'll get to a point where cards are worth 40+ and the larger powers have generally staked out their turf.  Leaving 2-3 players kind of floating at which point hunting 1 or 2 down for their cards can lead to a cascade of troops which you can plop down right away to hunt down the next biggest and the next until you run the table in 1-2 turns.  

what kind of fog do you guys play with?  I tried a couple of games with no or light fog and it was interminable.   I've been thinking of retrying with medium, but haven't done it yet.

I prefer Total or heavy fog, though, I have enjoyed all fog settings.  Total and heavy can turn out to be quite the homework assignment though when the game is at an elimination phase and you're scouring the history to try and figure out where to go to get some player's last territory!

There's one more seat available in this team game, if anyone is interested:

http://www.wargear.net/games/join/399073

Ozyman wrote:

what kind of fog do you guys play with?  I tried a couple of games with no or light fog and it was interminable.   I've been thinking of retrying with medium, but haven't done it yet.

I try to NEVER play no fog on anything. To many stalemates and people gunning for top players.

Civil War I have the most fun on Medium and Heavy.  I don't care for Total though because people seem to make much less rational decisions.

itsnotatumor wrote:

Ozyman wrote:

what kind of fog do you guys play with?  I tried a couple of games with no or light fog and it was interminable.   I've been thinking of retrying with medium, but haven't done it yet.

I try to NEVER play no fog on anything. To many stalemates and people gunning for top players.

Civil War I have the most fun on Medium and Heavy.  I don't care for Total though because people seem to make much less rational decisions.

I think I agree. I never try to not play no fog on nothing.

All of these suggestions are excellent. 

I hope you won't do this though: "in a deadlock or close game with multiple players still in it, sometimes it seems a player has purposefully skipped their turn to put pressure on the other players to fight each other due to the possibility of not wasting armies against a player who might be about to "drop" anyways, only to come back knowing fair well that since the board holds reserves that they will have twice as many armies to play with in their next turn."

In my opinion, purposeful turn skipping should be a bannable offense. 

Footfungus wrote:

All of these suggestions are excellent. 

I hope you won't do this though: "in a deadlock or close game with multiple players still in it, sometimes it seems a player has purposefully skipped their turn to put pressure on the other players to fight each other due to the possibility of not wasting armies against a player who might be about to "drop" anyways, only to come back knowing fair well that since the board holds reserves that they will have twice as many armies to play with in their next turn."

In my opinion, purposeful turn skipping should be a bannable offense. 

So letting your turn get skipped is more (or less?) underhanded than "taking your turn" but not doing anything?

I would say that letting your turn get skipped is inconsiderate because it slows the game down, but that's other than that, I have no problems when players do this.  Besides, I doubt it is a good strategy.  Do you know of any good solid players with winning records who make the play as you have described it?  You don't have to name names.

It is more underhanded because the other players adjust their behavior to yours. If you play a turn but don't do anything, players know you're turtling and strategize accordingly. If you skip your turn, players don't know if you will be coming back or if you will time out. It puts the other players in a bind because it completely changes their strategy, especially in a 3 player game. In a game with 3 players, if a player times out with a land bonus, you don't know whether to assume he's gone (in which case a full out attack of the other player is the best strategy) or assume he's staying (in which case a full out attack of the other player usually means the timed out player is now the strongest). It's one thing if you are busy one day and miss your turn accidentally. But missing as a strategy changes the game in an unfair way, in my opinion. It doesn't even matter if it's usually a bad strategy--it ruins the game for the other players.

  Do you know of any good solid players with winning records who make the play as you have described it?  You don't have to name names.

I don't think it's a thing.  If it is it can't be very productive.  From my experience the guy with a boot warning is usually the most likely to lose even if they don't get skipped.  In some cases I'm more likely to plow through them for position knowing they may not ever retaliate.

When a "name you know" gets skipped. I'm more likely to wonder whats going on in their RL and hope everything is okay, than anything. And, the top ranks are near religious about their turns.  Average (mean or median) turn time for the top 30 is like 5 maybe 6 hours tops.   

So, I've heard a few people say that with back to placement maps that it is important not to put all of your troops down right at the beginning. When not every territory has placement (like Gates of Hell) that makes sense to me, because I'm trying to get to a new placement territory before I put troops down.

In something like Civil War, what is an example of a time that would be important to save troops until later in your turn? Is it just to be able to explore through fog? Are there other reasons?

You can't plan for everything.  Why commit to something that you can always do later?

Look at the histories of any game of mine on return to placement maps.  It's place, attack, place, attack, place, attack, place, attack, ....  It's tedious but it keeps your options open.

This is a great example, too. Early in a game of Civil War with lots of fog you may be probing a lot. Get 10 reinforcements, put down 1 army on a stack of 3, make an attack - somebody already has that city defended with 12 units? ABORT! Try somewhere else.