Most Surprising First Round purchases you have seen?

I thought the best strategy to counter KJF was to KRF with Germany, since the Allies are ignoring you.

Usually I leave 1 inf in Manchuria, if Russia stack Buryatia, and attack China with 6 inf and 2 fig. IN NCM move two inf in FIC.

If Russia retreat to Yakut, I attack china with 6inf and 2 fig and leave 1 inf in FIC, landing there 1 inf and 1 tank and 2 fig.

Jet Fighters neutralize the allied annoying tactic of putting AA Guns all over the place because your fighters are immune.

And I meant 10 IPC for Russia.  6 from the rocket attack on Moscow and 4 from the rocket attack on Caucasus. (Remember you can only fire one rocket to each industrial complex per turn.)  Add in a bomber to get the two point conversion on Russia for 12 though. WEG

Yea, heavy bombers have been completely castrated.  I wouldnt turn them down if they were free, but I wouldnt pay for them either.

It is not really an issue since Russia can land up to 2 ftrs on London before G goes.
Any Allied player that sees a bid of 1 trn to sz 5 and does not land at least 1 Russian ftr on London is asking to get diced by Germany.

London should have at least:  2 inf, 1 rt, 1 arm, 3 ftrs, 1 bom
(bom can even be taken in the first wave of casualties)

With no aa hits for Ger, UK wins about 80% here.

With 4 ftrs, it is up to about 95%.

@newpaintbrush:

@DarthMaximus:

@newpaintbrush:

@DarthMaximus:

I think a well rounded strat will allow you to do both relatively seemlessly while if you venture too much into a “reactive” strat it may not allow you to take adv of mistakes as quickly.

Don’t you mean “OVERreactive” strat?

If you make unsound purchases based on what you think your opponent’s going to do, that is overreacting.

If your opponent sees your mistake, and acts in the best possible manner to exploit your weakness, that is reacting.

Yes.

But also:
Did that persons previous moves put you in a position to make a mistake, or did you just flat out miss something and make a mistake on your own?
Maybe I’m nitpicking. :-)

You can think proactively (2-3 turns down the road) and force your opponent into difficult decisions or mistakes.

I’m of the school that assumes that their opponents will be worthy, hence that mistakes will not be made; hence that losses will be from bad luck or the aggregate result of suboptimal plays, rather than from a blatantly wrong move.

To clarify, you can NEVER “maneuver” your opponent into making a mistake.  Either your opponent blunders, and makes a mistake on his/her own, or you force your opponent to make a difficult decision.

–

In other words, say I know you like alcohol, and that you don’t really care too much about money.  So I bring free drinks to our poker game, you get drunk, and I win lots of money.  Did you make a MISTAKE, or a CHOICE?  I think you made a CHOICE.

Now, if you were holding a straight, in five card draw no wilds, and you folded, you probably made a MISTAKE.  But that was your choice.

If you were drunk when you folded, I would say that you made a CHOICE to enter into a situation in which you would more readily make MISTAKES.  But still, folding on that straight would be YOUR MISTAKE.  Nobody forced you into folding.

I think we’re agreeing with each other.

(your mistake or not) Your betting pattern, poker face, demear at the table all provide the other player with information into the decision about their hand.
You come out betting strong, with a stone cold dead face, I read that as hell I can’t beat him I fold.  I made the choice, but you willfully provided informaton that helped me make a decision.  All be it a wrong decision but at the time I assed all available info and came to a conclusion, which in this case was wrong and a mistake.

The whole theory behind deadzoning is manuevering to get your opponent to (help them if you will) make a mistake (or bad choice).  Yes your opponent makes the choice to move in his whole army, but you set up the board.

I also play assuming your opponent is “worthy” and makes no mistakes, but that doesn’t mean I won’t set “traps” to test them.  B/c as we both know, no one is flawless and I’ve seen plenty of good players overlook the smallest things from time to time (including myself).

I think we are agreeing with each other here.
I think these statement are equivalent:

ME:

Did that persons previous moves put you in a position to make a mistake, or did you just flat out miss something and make a mistake on your own?

YOU:

Either your opponent blunders, and makes a mistake on his/her own, or you force your opponent to make a difficult decision.

Perharps I shouldn’t have used the word “mistake” in the first sentence, but they basically say the same thing.  Force a person into a “lesser of two evils” decision.

Actually Switch, 8 infantry would have made a world of difference over 2 fighters.  The W. Russia Stack would be infinitaly more defensable and Caucasus is really never under any real threat.  And even if it does fall, it’s not like Russia’s planning on making more then 8 units a round anyway for a few rounds.

I agree…  Traditional conservative strats, Germany and Russia are both in trouble about T10.

@CrazyStraw:

Howdy.

I hadn’t weighed in on this thread, but I just got a story to tell.

Yesterday I played a game against a good player.  It was time-limited.

No joke, in a 5 round game I built 9tra 1car with Germany.

And it WON the game for me!

It was ridiculous!

It was absurd!

It was outrageous!

It was sublime…

So German boats can be good.  That would have been excessive in 99% of the games I’ve played, but yesterday it was exactly enough to get the job done.  Simple lesson: the Baltic is important.

I begin to see the value in LL / No Luck games and in non-time limited games.

My entire strategies in my tournament game had to change because of a time limit.  It caused a waste of two turns because I forgot to take into account that there was a time limit in each round.  (not a round limit, that would have been easy to work with, but a time limit.)

needless to say, I’m never making that mistake again!