I just finished by far the longest game I've ever played and was wondering if anyone could lend me some thoughts on my play (orange). At first I was allied with Maroon. I decided to concentrate on Europe and made a few moves that just barely worked to put me in a good position. Then I overextended and tried to get an elimination which backfired and ended up wrecking my position. To recover I started turtling while light blue and peach partnered in an effort to destroy me and maroon. I think they should have been a bit more focused in their attacks as they could have completely eliminated one of us if they had ignored the other. I guess it's hard to only attack one player as its so important to destroy the bonus in an all-out attack like that. In this stage I wonder what proper strategy is. Is first priority to destroy their bonus or is it better to try to attempt to recreate the borders by only reconquering up to your original borders.

I thought I was lost here so I allied with gray blue (terms were general, with 1 turn warning, or automatically over if 2 of us left). He eliminated peach and then we ended up in a weird stalemate. I think I played it decently from the stalemate on. It seemed like my only option was to just wait and hope that one of the other players started attacking each other. I avoided building up armys on the borders in the thought that looking weak was better than looking strong. How would you guys position your troops to influence the other players for the optimal outcome?

Definitely a very interesting game. Towards the end I was struggling to figure out how many troops people actually had and whether or not I was in fact in the lead.

The game:

http://www.wargear.net/games/player/390442

Well, you won so you did something right.

Like you said with the light fog it's tough to know what you need to go an elimination run.  Then with the relatively low card scale compared to the number of troops on the board there is not much of a reason to eliminate someone - the return on investment is low.  

Light blue seemed to have the approach of spreading out ad going for bonuses and hoping that they are not attacked.  (I'm looking at turn 6707 at the moment) With light that is dangerous because all people have to go by is the number of territories you have and the size of your bonus - so that strategy would attract attacks.

dark gray and dark blue have huge stacks in east asia that they are not doing anything with most of the game.  There is some value to holding units back to be used strategically later, but landlocking them limits their use.

Dark gray could have had a real shot if he had balled all his units up hawaii and went all out at some point (ideally when the card values are about to flip so you can get the last of the high ones), but instead he joined the jockeying for continents game.  Then he booted.

So, patience is key here I guess.  It's always better when your opponents are attacking each other.

Also, in general when I am hit I usually lean to taking out my opponents bonus rather than rebuilding my own - because usually they can just knock it down again.  I'd rather we both feel the pain.  That's essential in two player situations - with more players other factors can come into play.   Also, sometimes I wont' rebuild my bonus or attack them back because I want their attention to go elsewhere.  It all depends -

Congrats on winning - 

Amidon37 wrote:

Also, in general when I am hit I usually lean to taking out my opponents bonus rather than rebuilding my own - because usually they can just knock it down again.  I'd rather we both feel the pain.  That's essential in two player situations - with more players other factors can come into play.   Also, sometimes I wont' rebuild my bonus or attack them back because I want their attention to go elsewhere.  It all depends -

Congrats on winning - 

+1