Scrapbook, latest edition

[Redstorm]

Here's the latest I have compiled from those in the know. Several players graciously shared their game knowledge with me: Thank you, GTIVAN, CARDINALSRULE, TAPEWORM, OWLIE, GEOFFREY, SUNDICEKID, EDUARDOPEREZC and MASTERJSKYE. Enjoy and be sure to thank them. I have freely edited their remarks while maintaining their unique intent. Any mistakes are purely my own.
MAP SPECIFIC TIPS & STRATEGIES
**Cold War Europe: Know the plus 1 and auto deploys. Sometimes it’s better going for the bonus than attacking enemy.
**Mars: Know the plus 1 and auto deploys. Sometimes it’s better going for the bonus than attacking enemy.
**Nukes: Know the plus 1 and auto deploys. Sometimes it’s better going for the bonus than attacking enemy.
**Philippines: Watch out for the sea lanes. I usually try working the map from 1 side to the other; southeast or northwest. I usually prefer the southeast area for starting.
**Far East Asia: Keep an eye on the 2 mini bonuses within commands (India and Indonesia mini bonus). They can be a bitch if they catch you off guard. The Mongolia command is decent.
**12 Domains: 1st round: add all armies on 1 castle, castles with 4 hit a 2, if takes, advance 1, if draw, hit 1 more time with the 3, if lose stay with the 2 on the castle. For the castle with the 7, take as many territories as you can until you get to 3 remaining troops then move those 3 back to the castle. Basic rule of thumb is with an army of 4 or above you can attack anything; with an army of 3 you only hit territories with 1 troop and only if necessary. Try to conquer the domains as efficiently as possible, meaning don’t block your exit. That’s why Bruichladdich is the hardest domain to conquer followed by Calofar. If you start out with 2 domains connecting to the same town, you develop those domains first and try to get to the town ASAP because 2 connected domains are insanely strong in the beginning. After you just got done conquering the entire domain, you should end up with like 24 troops on the frontline of that domain, 1 turn later, move the 8 from the castle to that frontline, the turn after that you take the town depending on whether enemies are threatening to take over that town immediately, move the 8 from the castle to the town.
--WATCH OUT if you're joining a match on the Twelve Kingdoms map, and it's set to low or no movements (like Border One or Border None). The trick to this map on those settings is to NOT capture up all the territories in your starting area. LEAVE A PATH OF NEUTRALS BETWEEN THE TOWER AND THE OUTER MAP, and only capture the territories to the side of this path.
--If you want to leverage the auto deploy feature on the tower, then you should only capture the terts to the top and bottom, and leave the ones that are left for when you're ready to "break out" from the starting territory. With six or less players on the map, you'll start the game with more than one tower which means that, once you've capped the side territories for a single region, then you can focus your attention to a different tower while this first one racks up all the auto deploys. Twelve Kingdoms on Border One/None is a noob trap. Anyone going into this situation without knowing the trick almost always starts with a disadvantage.
--You can bombard opponents’ terts, turning them neutral, in your domain. Bombard the terts that you don't border first because you can kill those with no loss to yourself. You don't get the dragons until your next turn IF you hold it. ALWAYS look for easy ways to take away your opponents deploy. For example if I'm holding 2 villages with only 1 man on them, take them and take 4 deploy from me. In a close game those 4 men are important. In the beginning of the game, look for places where you outnumber your opponent. If you start with 2 domains in the west to my 1 then you should concentrate on that area and make it a priority to take that domain away. You do that, you win the game.
--Never use blitz from castle against a neutral 2, only attack. For some reason if you blitz, it will keep attacking even if you bring it down to 1 thus allowing you to lose more. If you attack, you can stop yourself from losing extra. I haven't seen this happen if you are attacking non neutral (enemy) but it may. The reason to bombard neutrals from castle is sometimes I want to lower them to a 1 because I have a stack on the castle as well as armies on a separate territory next to the neutral tert I want to grab.
GENERAL TIPS & STRATEGIES
--Don’t be a command monkey compulsively reaching for a command. While securing commands certainly has a great deal of importance in escalite and flat rate games, chasing them in escalate games is a recipe for disaster. I tend to employ a combination of the following tactics, depending on how the first couple rounds shake out: Path of Least Resistance: If I see a region with one troop in it adjacent to me, I take it. Quite often, I lose no troops. After a few rounds of this, I often find that I'm the troop leader, primarily because everyone else is going through the pain of taking regions defended by three troops, and losing half of their allowance or more each turn. They're also leaving behind regions with one or two troops in them, which I'm happy to attack. If you haven't already, try this out. It's as easy as taking candy from a baby. Stack and Wait: If the game is nine or more players, it may not be worth burning troops early to get a card in the first round or two. I'll just spread my deployments out across the board, boosting my threes up to fours, then to fives, making myself a less appealing target. Once I've established a solid foothold, I begin my expansion. Be Everywhere: I want to be near weak players when the reserve bonus starts to grow. An opponent with three regions totaling nine troops isn't going to be the first link in my chain of eliminations if he's on the opposite side of the board from me, and I have to go through a bunch of other players to reach him. Instead of wasting time and troops securing a command, I try to keep a region or two in every command on the board. It's easy to be in the right place at the right time if you're everywhere. Turtle/Spider: If I'm getting abused early, and I'm already the weakest player alive in round three, I'll often pick one region and just stack and stack there, turn after turn, and refrain from attacking. A big number looks intimidating to other players, and once I have a strong presence there, I'll attack adjacent regions, advancing either one troop, or all of them. The key is to keep the stack together. With luck, and a reserve set, I can sometimes turn a weak start into a glorious chain of eliminations. Sometimes, I can start this without even turning in reserves myself at the start of my turn, simply because I already have enough concentrated force to kill somebody who holds the cards I need. A disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my badmouthing of commands in escalates games doesn't apply to all maps, just the medium sized ones. In Classic Massive, I absolutely go after commands.
--I don't always play it, but to get all Zen about it I think PATIENCE is incredibly important!
--Don't over roll the dice. Know the odds. When people roll too much, it is not the game that is not the game's fault but yours.
--For Escalate in small maps or bigger maps with more than 4-5 players: Don't get obsessed with the commands, they are secondary in comparison with the cards. If they are difficult to take, don't take them. Don't get involved in big battles. Attack territories with few troops until you can try to eliminate someone. Don't isolate enemies. If one player is in 2 areas, don't take him/her out of one because other players will be able to eliminate him more easily. Don't isolate yourself. Keep yourself in at least 2 areas of the map, making it possible for you to eliminate any player and not be eliminated. If you can't, try to be near the center. Don't use your set before time unless you can take somebody out or if you are in danger; better to use when the reserves are at least 10-12. Eliminate players whose cards allow combo. If you have 3 cards, eliminate somebody with 5; with 4 cards, 4 or 5. If you don't get the combo, you're possibly dead. Don't sign truces.
--Don't roll when you're in a bad mood. The Dice Gods can sense it.
-- Don't make verbal agreements not to attack, it will come back to bite you in the ass - especially if it's a generic 'peace'. If the game changes and you do attack because it's the right course of action at this later time, then the other person feels betrayed. Official Diplo Truces are best, there's no confusion, no BS.
-- If I trust the person I like to make deals where we just don’t backstab each other and at least 1 round warning before any backstabbing. For lots of borders or when you’re focusing elsewhere this can stop little unnecessary wars!
TEAM PLAY
-- Read chat and communicate with partners
-- Passing is awesome. Pass to the next team mate preferably from some place behind the lines to the front lines. If you don't pass, you will lose 90% of the games against those who do.
-- Pick the right partners in team games, especially tournaments (which, of course, isn't possible yet)
FIXED FORCE TIPS & STRATEGIES
--Count, count, and count....
--You need a stack with 2 more troops then the defender to win.
--you can attack with 3 troops. You cannot attack with 2 troops.
OTHER
--To find out a history (with a certain player perhaps) of your games, go to "find a game" and put in both of your names in the "players" tab. (from Forum)