1 on 1 style vs FFA style

[strach]

I guess I have to pay more attention to scouting, that's defenitely true. Of course that situation with a hero was a blunder, but I didn't realize that scouting in general is so important.

I guess no one is really arguing against the idea of quick development, but I think (in FFA) it has some side effects which you don't take into account - I guess because you don't consider them as a big problem since your playing technique is (in most games) far greater than your opponents.

the question is: what strategy would you favour if you played against opponents as skilled as you? my suggestion is that in some cases you would have turn to balanced development strategy. what do you think about that?

[LPhillips]

You need to take into account that part of KGB's generally superior skill is this strategy itself. So he'd be facing other players employing the same strategy. Incidentally, I'm looking forward to the time I get matched against KGB. Someone want to set up a skilled/veteran players game and let me drop in on the action?

[KGB]

Strach,

Scouting skill is definitely one of the biggest differences between newbie and veteran players. Lots of times I make better choices simply because I have more information than my opponent because of what my scouts see.

If everyone in the game had equivalent skill to me and used the same expansion strategy I'm not sure you could tell what was happening. That's because if we all expanded really fast then in theory (on a balanced map) we'd all end up with roughly the same amount of cities, army composition etc. So how would you know if it was expansion vs balanced because you might confuse one for the other if all players ended up roughly even.

In reality, there would likely be a bit more cautious play simply because of the need to prevent early Bat/Lt Calv strikes. By that I mean the need to have at least one defender in a city (something I rarely bother with normally until I make contact with another player since so few other player send lone units out early).

KGB

[kenc80]

note to self: next time i play KGB...make wizards early!

[LPhillips]

Things continue to develop. But I have a huge dilemma: How do you deal with ridiculous loss after ridiculous loss?

I mean, battles where you have 89.3% chance of success, and you lose miserably, at the cost of a level 9 hero and a beautiful stack. Then it's 3 times in one game... How do you deal with that?

It's 2v1. You're stomping your opponents. You have 3 leveled heroes rolling at them, taking them both on at once... and two of your heroes lose to theirs in 70% or better battles, leaving only their heroes alive of the enemy stacks. You scramble the backup stacks to finish them off and prevent catastrophe. Then for the next 6 turns you're recovering. Now you have 4 heroes rolling, two of them quite strong, taking on the enemy stacks. You hunt down 3 enemy heroes and put them to the sword, without deviating your own attacks. You attack a harmless little stack with a strength advantage of 3 or better across the board... and lose every single unit? We're talking hitting blessed Heavy Infantry -1 stack with Heavy Cavalry +4 in Open terrain, and losing.

There was more to this message, but it's been moved to the Wish List forum. Anyway, I find it hard to progress when strategy is overturned by luck multiple times in a row. I'm going to win. It's absolutely inevitable. All this does is pointlessly screw with the game and delay me by 5+ turns each time it happens. If it happens enough, it will cause a cumulative decrease in my strength advantage and increase in my opponents' opportunity to build strength, turning this into a prolonged near-stalemate.

[zorro]

Its not that your opponent has different chances.
Attacking at chances like you described in the other thread is a bit of gambling, so you cant really say there is no room for strategy. Actually its part of your strategy to take a risk.
With fixed combat results outswarming will be a safe win. (which is usually your tactic if I recall it right) :P

[LPhillips]

Hah, it's not a tactic! it's a result of having three times the number of cities as your opponent and no high-quality production

Tactics are things like where I took a hero stack around behind Itangast and pulled his pants down for everyone after he broke a truce and publicly insulted my not-really-role-played Warlord identity. Losing half your cities and 2/3 of your army is an object lesson, methinks, and accomplishing that with a small stack and some vectoring is what I call a tactic/strategy!

And no, it wouldn't make swarming any more of a safe win than it is now. It would simply make strategy and planning the ultimate trump card, where now even the very best playing can be overcome by sheer blind luck. Are you saying that your strategy is to rely on lucky breaks? I can't help it that my best hero's stack missed the threshold if ridiculousness ban by .7% (that's 0.007 out of 1). That's not a result of risky playing or bad planning; it's simply bull****. I'm glad there is a bull**** cap, but I'd like to see it play little or no role at all instead.

And incidentally, in the games we're playing together, you are by far the best opponent in my battles against groups of smaller kingdoms

But you would do best to take the advice Ezras failed to take and grab what you can of your allies before I finish smashing them, or I think you'll share his fate!

[LPhillips]

Just decided to never give a truce just to be nice. And if someone betrays me once, they'll be hounded in every game we're in together. Without excuse. I get irritated with games where I have 3 players trying to gang me, and my only advantage is that I have enough gold to prevent being upkeep-starved. An advantage you quickly throw away as you slaughter enemy pawns.

No need to patronize another player just because it doesn't cost you anything at the moment. Why foster the young eagle in a nest that will ultimately only allow one?

[zorro]

If you are talking about our game on gvegas, the map has two massive flaws, upkeep and mobility.

- It should have some cities with a fixed income around 40 gold or so, or those 2 at each home base at 80. With 22 cities I made <500 gold. The capitol is at 60, so the rest of my cities hardly make 20 gold per turn. (Of course I dont know how it is supposed to be in the game at all).
- It needs ports. With 2 or 3 positions blocked you can hardly move anymore. Got to turtle cos there was no way to pass without getting slaughtered.

[jiipee]

GVegas really does seem a bit flawed but the key point is that you grew too fast in our LPhillips. I had the same problem with few of my games and i got smashed because others allied against me. You still have good chance to win