Next card set 250? You have 4398 armies on the board and still can't force a win? Wow....I don't think I've seen that kind of numbers before.

Amidon37 wrote:

Not an uncommon occurrence on that board.

Yes, one of many boards I'll never play (again) on less than medium fog.

Litotes wrote:

Next card set 250? You have 4398 armies on the board and still can't force a win? Wow....I don't think I've seen that kind of numbers before.

Let's do some math.

1084 units for the weakest player, so it should take about .85*1084=922 units to take him out, so that would leave 4398-922= 3476 units for Aiken, which would be slightly more than the 3359 rizal has.

So yeah, I think Aiken is in a decent position to take out Reggio_E, and then use the attacker's advantage to get ahead of rizal.

If rizal is able to turn in cards this turn it will be a bit harder, but certainly if he doesn't, then I think Aiken should go for it - definitely better than 50% chance of winning at that point (IMO).

Anything over 33% for a 3 player game is good. 50% sounds like good odds to me.

Ozyman wrote:

Litotes wrote:

Next card set 250? You have 4398 armies on the board and still can't force a win? Wow....I don't think I've seen that kind of numbers before.

Let's do some math.

1084 units for the weakest player, so it should take about .85*1084=922 units to take him out, so that would leave 4398-922= 3476 units for Aiken, which would be slightly more than the 3359 rizal has.

 

So yeah, I think Aiken is in a decent position to take out Reggio_E, and then use the attacker's advantage to get ahead of rizal.

If rizal is able to turn in cards this turn it will be a bit harder, but certainly if he doesn't, then I think Aiken should go for it - definitely better than 50% chance of winning at that point (IMO).

 

I know that's what I would have done, but I didn't want to suggest a line of play in a game I'm not involved in. Doesn't matter now, though, Aiken has pretty much decided it.

Ozyman wrote:

Litotes wrote:

Next card set 250? You have 4398 armies on the board and still can't force a win? Wow....I don't think I've seen that kind of numbers before.

Let's do some math.

1084 units for the weakest player, so it should take about .85*1084=922 units to take him out, so that would leave 4398-922= 3476 units for Aiken, which would be slightly more than the 3359 rizal has.

 

So yeah, I think Aiken is in a decent position to take out Reggio_E, and then use the attacker's advantage to get ahead of rizal.

If rizal is able to turn in cards this turn it will be a bit harder, but certainly if he doesn't, then I think Aiken should go for it - definitely better than 50% chance of winning at that point (IMO).

 

Rizal only has 2 cards, once Aiken takes out Reggio he has 5 and even gets the first trade.  He can exhaust every stack he has on the board to mutually reduce both their numbers, break most of Rizal's bonuses in the process.  Aiken has that game in the bag, especially if those two smaller stacks can sweep around the back of Reggio and leave that 700 stack something left over to go to the north with.  Just win it already.

It'll be a bit boring pressing 3-3-3-3-3-3 a few hundred times to maximixe the amount of damage you'll be able to do though.  (in order to wear down the path with smaller stacks so your bigger stacks can really get deep to do some damage - looking at the Prussia area and down through to the Balkans)

Attacking with 3 gets you better rolls than "ALL" hmm, never knew that!

Aiken Drumn wrote:

Attacking with 3 gets you better rolls than "ALL" hmm, never knew that!

Same rolls, just allows you to pass the most through if you use an adjacent stack to wear down a territory before advancing with a larger stack.  All might take the spot and trap your larger stack to be useless.

Aiken Drumn wrote:

Attacking with 3 gets you better rolls than "ALL" hmm, never knew that!

It is more strategic because you can stop if things are going sour.

But, some of us do have a superstitious belief that the rolls are better.

Amidon37 wrote:

Aiken Drumn wrote:

Attacking with 3 gets you better rolls than "ALL" hmm, never knew that!

It is more strategic because you can stop if things are going sour.

But, some of us do have a superstitious belief that the rolls are better.

I've only started using multi-attack recently and I've had a couple of huge unit loss that I've never seen before, I usually only do it when I've got the game secured so these losses were meaningless but they left me impressed.

I don't know how good the RNG algorithm is. Sometimes it seems if you time the manual attacks in a certain interval you keep getting the same outcome, when I'm getting -2 loss rolls in succession I stop for a bit and then roll again to try to break the pattern. If the algorithm is not sufficiently "independent" from the clock seed, it might not be just superstition.

M57 wrote:

The only "truces" I honor are those that are implied.  In other words, if an opponent is bound to win the game unless other players work together to bring him back to parity. So my idea of a truce is 'remind' those players of the situation.  I might even on occasion suggest a short term tactic that would achieve the goal of bringing the dominant player down to a position that doesn't guarantee victory (usually one turn at a time and the more dialog the better). I try to make it such that most of the time if the player chooses to ignore my 'advice,' we both lose and nothing has substantively changed.

At most parity is the goal for me. Players who 'truce' to go further and severely weaken or even take out the dominant player risk back-stabbing 100% of the time - not to mention it takes the fun out of the game.

Truces are for diplomats.  I'm a general.  I would not avail myself of it and I'm pretty sure I would avoid such games, but for those of you obsessed with the concept - a 'forced' truce feature has been suggested. I.e. I am not allowed to attack you and you are not allowed to attack me for x turns. You could even have it on a border by boarder basis. But again, that just sucks the life out of the game for me personally.

I rarely say anything in fear of becoming more of a target. Playing a Civil War atm with no fog and the leader only blocked the passage to me while other 2 player have easy path to break multiple bonuses from him. I asked one of them if he was going to do it, making it clear the leader would win if he didn't. Not only he did not have the dignity to answer me, he did nothing. And the other player did nothing as well. And I'm talking of 2 rounds of turns, because the leader skipped the turn to mount a bigger attack in the next. I wondered if they were DAs but their join dates are so distinct.

http://www.wargear.net/games/player/566672

berickf wrote:

Aiken Drumn wrote:

Attacking with 3 gets you better rolls than "ALL" hmm, never knew that!

Same rolls, just allows you to pass the most through if you use an adjacent stack to wear down a territory before advancing with a larger stack.  All might take the spot and trap your larger stack to be useless.

Sometimes dropdown list can be used with a number of units you're comfortable is not going to be enough to conquer the territory.

redshift wrote:

M57 wrote:

The only "truces" I honor are those that are implied.  In other words, if an opponent is bound to win the game unless other players work together to bring him back to parity. So my idea of a truce is 'remind' those players of the situation.  I might even on occasion suggest a short term tactic that would achieve the goal of bringing the dominant player down to a position that doesn't guarantee victory (usually one turn at a time and the more dialog the better). I try to make it such that most of the time if the player chooses to ignore my 'advice,' we both lose and nothing has substantively changed.

At most parity is the goal for me. Players who 'truce' to go further and severely weaken or even take out the dominant player risk back-stabbing 100% of the time - not to mention it takes the fun out of the game.

Truces are for diplomats.  I'm a general.  I would not avail myself of it and I'm pretty sure I would avoid such games, but for those of you obsessed with the concept - a 'forced' truce feature has been suggested. I.e. I am not allowed to attack you and you are not allowed to attack me for x turns. You could even have it on a border by boarder basis. But again, that just sucks the life out of the game for me personally.

I rarely say anything in fear of becoming more of a target. Playing a Civil War atm with no fog and the leader only blocked the passage to me while other 2 player have easy path to break multiple bonuses from him. I asked one of them if he was going to do it, making it clear the leader would win if he didn't. Not only he did not have the dignity to answer me, he did nothing. And the other player did nothing as well. And I'm talking of 2 rounds of turns, because the leader skipped the turn to mount a bigger attack in the next. I wondered if they were DAs but their join dates are so distinct.

http://www.wargear.net/games/player/566672

 

Maybe he disagrees with you. He could have a truce with the dominant player, entered into before he got dominant, and feel it's better to keep his word than try to win that one game. Or he might just gamble on the leader, already skipped, getting booted. Why waste energy on soon to be neutral armies? 

Lots on non-DA explanations possible. 

redshift wrote:

berickf wrote:

Aiken Drumn wrote:

Attacking with 3 gets you better rolls than "ALL" hmm, never knew that!

Same rolls, just allows you to pass the most through if you use an adjacent stack to wear down a territory before advancing with a larger stack.  All might take the spot and trap your larger stack to be useless.

Sometimes dropdown list can be used with a number of units you're comfortable is not going to be enough to conquer the territory.

And then somehow those few units freakishly accomplish what you didn't think they would and mess yourself up.  As much as you can get some freakishly bad results, you can get freakishly good results as well. Better to maintain control of the situation if you have the choice and to patiently press 3-3-3-3 for best results even though, as I alluded to, can be very boring!

redshift wrote:

M57 wrote:

The only "truces" I honor are those that are implied.  In other words, if an opponent is bound to win the game unless other players work together to bring him back to parity. So my idea of a truce is 'remind' those players of the situation.  I might even on occasion suggest a short term tactic that would achieve the goal of bringing the dominant player down to a position that doesn't guarantee victory (usually one turn at a time and the more dialog the better). I try to make it such that most of the time if the player chooses to ignore my 'advice,' we both lose and nothing has substantively changed.

At most parity is the goal for me. Players who 'truce' to go further and severely weaken or even take out the dominant player risk back-stabbing 100% of the time - not to mention it takes the fun out of the game.

Truces are for diplomats.  I'm a general.  I would not avail myself of it and I'm pretty sure I would avoid such games, but for those of you obsessed with the concept - a 'forced' truce feature has been suggested. I.e. I am not allowed to attack you and you are not allowed to attack me for x turns. You could even have it on a border by boarder basis. But again, that just sucks the life out of the game for me personally.

I rarely say anything in fear of becoming more of a target. Playing a Civil War atm with no fog and the leader only blocked the passage to me while other 2 player have easy path to break multiple bonuses from him. I asked one of them if he was going to do it, making it clear the leader would win if he didn't. Not only he did not have the dignity to answer me, he did nothing. And the other player did nothing as well. And I'm talking of 2 rounds of turns, because the leader skipped the turn to mount a bigger attack in the next. I wondered if they were DAs but their join dates are so distinct.

http://www.wargear.net/games/player/566672

 

That game has a lot left in it and the two 'leaders' don't have a great track record given their board GR's.  Perhaps you should be most worried about Vibrations who has some prime territory with his back in a safe corner.  Good bottleneck territories already held or bordering his base to take and defend himself to grow his strength safely.  Also, Vibrations has the most incentive to attack you as his safest expansion route that should have the least amount of resistance, especially if you waste your energy determining leaders before the board layout actually has.  Your fears seem premature to me and if you are asking Vibrations to pick that fight for 'everyone' but really to keep him off of you, then he is laughing all the way to the bank as he gears himself up to make a move to cripple you and absorb your base.  I wouldn't have answered you either and it has nothing to do with dignity but just letting the board play out and strategize the best way to win a still wide open game.  At most perhaps he could have taken ship ten then fortified back out to leave it as a 1, just to say, I'll not declare outright war on you but you'll not get a free pass to hold one of the best bonuses on the board...  But, that is a bit minor at that stage of the game you are in.  If I were you I'd definitely not be playing board police though.  Your one thought should just be to discourage Vibrations from consuming you.  Also, Michigan 3 and Michigan 4 are attached.  You are leaving your rear open for him to do that to you easily.

berickf wrote:

That game has a lot left in it and the two 'leaders' don't have a great track record given their board GR's.  Perhaps you should be most worried about Vibrations who has some prime territory with his back in a safe corner.  Good bottleneck territories already held or bordering his base to take and defend himself to grow his strength safely.  Also, Vibrations has the most incentive to attack you as his safest expansion route that should have the least amount of resistance, especially if you waste your energy determining leaders before the board layout actually has.  Your fears seem premature to me and if you are asking Vibrations to pick that fight for 'everyone' but really to keep him off of you, then he is laughing all the way to the bank as he gears himself up to make a move to cripple you and absorb your base.  I wouldn't have answered you either and it has nothing to do with dignity but just letting the board play out and strategize the best way to win a still wide open game.  At most perhaps he could have taken ship ten then fortified back out to leave it as a 1, just to say, I'll not declare outright war on you but you'll not get a free pass to hold one of the best bonuses on the board...  But, that is a bit minor at that stage of the game you are in.  If I were you I'd definitely not be playing board police though.  Your one thought should just be to discourage Vibrations from consuming you.  Also, Michigan 3 and Michigan 4 are attached.  You are leaving your rear open for him to do that to you easily.

I did not ask Vibrations to get off my back nor do I want an unfair advantage to myself either. I told him what I would have done if I was in his position. This is what I told him:

"You know what to do to prevent Lock Step from a certain win, right?

You got easy path from NYC or Georgia to break East fleet, Carolinas, Virginia and those 1 unit cities.

I'll break South fleet bonus if you don't. "

Check from turn 3330. Lock Step specifically eliminated hootz from the East region and put barriers only on me (I have contested his domination before), while leaving his continents and coastal cities wide open to Vibrations and alazzaro. It's quite clear these 3 have alliances.  Vibrations or allazaro could have easily brought Lock Step's bonus to a very modest number without having to sacrifice many units.

Since I don't have alliances, the game was lost for me the moment those two did not disrupt his bonuses. It really doesn't matter how I play from now on, I stand no chance.

I've played the previous Civil War game with Vibrations and other players and I've beat them without ever saying anything, and I was the only one who sacrificed units in the early-mid game to prevent the leader at the time from running away with the game, so maybe there were alliances there as well, I don't know.

I know how to steer my opponents without saying anything and maps like Civil War and Colossal Crusade are amazingly enjoyable without fog when played without alliances due to that strategic element.

To my sadness, I think I'll end up playing only NvN games sometime in the future.