Redstorm
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The 'B' Squad
Knights of MC Realm
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- Mar 21, 2016
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Game Training Scrapbook
Here's the latest I have compiled from those in the know. enjoy and be sure to thank them.
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)
TIPS & STRATEGIES
Forward: Several players graciously shared their game knowledge with me. I have freely edited their remarks while maintaining their unique intent. Any mistakes are purely my own.
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:
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 the places where you outnumber your opponent. If you start with 2 domains in the west to my 1 the you should concentrate on that area and make it a priority to take that domain away. You do that, you win the game.
Fixed Force
Count, count, and count....
You need a stack with 2 more troops then the defender to win.
You cannot attack with less than 3 troops.
ATTACK = RESULT
6v6 = 2v2 5v6 = 2v3
6v5 = 2v1 5v5 = 2v2
6v4 = 3v0 5v4 = 2v1
6v3 = 4v0 5v3 = 3v0
6v2 = 5v0 5v2 = 4v0
6v1 = 6v0 5v1 = 5v0
4v6 = 2v4 3v6 = 2v5
4v5 = 2v3 3v5 = 2v4
4v4 = 2v2 3v4 = 2v3
4v3 = 2v1 3v3 = 2v2
4v2 = 3v0 3v2 = 2v1
4v1 = 4v0 3v1 = 3v0
Playing Tactics
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 escalate games doesn't apply to all maps, just the medium sized ones. In Classic Massive, I absolutely go after commands.
Here's the latest I have compiled from those in the know. enjoy and be sure to thank them.
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)
TIPS & STRATEGIES
Forward: Several players graciously shared their game knowledge with me. I have freely edited their remarks while maintaining their unique intent. Any mistakes are purely my own.
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:
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 the places where you outnumber your opponent. If you start with 2 domains in the west to my 1 the you should concentrate on that area and make it a priority to take that domain away. You do that, you win the game.
Fixed Force
Count, count, and count....
You need a stack with 2 more troops then the defender to win.
You cannot attack with less than 3 troops.
ATTACK = RESULT
6v6 = 2v2 5v6 = 2v3
6v5 = 2v1 5v5 = 2v2
6v4 = 3v0 5v4 = 2v1
6v3 = 4v0 5v3 = 3v0
6v2 = 5v0 5v2 = 4v0
6v1 = 6v0 5v1 = 5v0
4v6 = 2v4 3v6 = 2v5
4v5 = 2v3 3v5 = 2v4
4v4 = 2v2 3v4 = 2v3
4v3 = 2v1 3v3 = 2v2
4v2 = 3v0 3v2 = 2v1
4v1 = 4v0 3v1 = 3v0
Playing Tactics
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 escalate games doesn't apply to all maps, just the medium sized ones. In Classic Massive, I absolutely go after commands.
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