This is the forum.

These are only my thoughts and the way I currently play. There are players here who are beating me regularly who may disagree with some of my strategy, so hopefully they will add their thoughts, but generally this seems to be a successful strategy. Please feel free to correct or add to this if you think I may be misleading or inaccurate

1) In any game that starts with 1 territory each - your first aim has to be to spread carefully and quickly. You need protected 3pop territories as soon as possible...

-If you start immediately next to an opponent you can take your pick:
a]Attack him with everything you've got right from the start
or
b]Move to a territory next to yours, but not next to his, with ONE army, then attack him full force next turn whilst starting to spread from the single new territory

Both seem to be equally successful, but choosing c]none of the above, you WILL lose.


2) Intrigue is the key.

a]It is very important to make good alliances as EARLY as possible. If you leave it too late, players will already have allies and objectives and may not respond favourably... There are 2 good reasons for this:

i}It is easier to wage war against 1 opponent, knowing your other borders are secure, than against multiple players on many fronts (hopefully you'd already figured this...)

ii}If you are the weekest nation you will die very quickly without friends, if you are the strongest, everyone will want to cut you back down to size unless you can persuade them to join you...

b]Do not be afraid of changing sides if your alliance is not working. Sometimes it is better to accept it has failed and try to arrange another treaty BEFORE breaking off the old one.

* A note on etiquette: Be careful when doing this - it is often better to provide a few turns notice to the player you are abandoning. An imediate betrayal without warning will have great tactical benefit, but although each war should be separate, you will play the same players again and they will remember any foul play...


3)Try to keep your troops moving even in protected (non frontier) territories, a good supply chain to the right areas will help when things get rough (which they will!).


4) Try to be aware of other players movements. Troop movement in the safe territories of your enemy can sometimes reveal their intentions before they act.


5)Attack!

a]When attacking other territories, there does not seem to be much benefit in attacking from multiple directions. If possible try to build troops before attacks and attack from ONE territory. (In desperate times you may have to just gamble and go with what you have, but it is not ideal).
Don't be afraid to break this rule in certain situations where you feel it will help you. e.g. attacking South Africa from East Africa, Madagascar and Central Africa at the same time, will gather all your troops for an assualt on Argentina the very next turn...

b]Your chances of winning a fight grow the more armies you use up to about 9 to 12 armies - at this point, piling on more troops doesn't seem to have as much benefit. So it would seem that you should use as many armies as you possibly can, but if you have doubts about winning the fight or can be attacked from elsewhere at the same time, aim for 9-12 armies in the assualt leaving a good defence force behind.

See you on the battlefield

Sven/Steve

Good advice. To this I would add:

6) In many-players, 'fill' games try to outguess your opponents. Predicting their moves on the first two turns is crucial! Sometimes holding can be useful: <i>e.g.</i> in the "auto" variant, if you can predict an incoming attack and fend it off with more units than your opponent expects.

7) In the 'neutrals defend' variant:

a] NEVER attack the neutrals with less than NINE armies
b] ALWAYS attack the neutrals with at least NINE armies
c] if you have less than NINE armies available to attack, DO NOT ATTACK.

and, last but not least,

d] attack from more than one country at the same time if possible.

If, for example, you attack "Algeria" (who has 5 armies) from 3 different territories, using 3 armies from each one, Algeria will deploy 1.67 units against each attacking territory. This rounds down to 1 unit against each territory: you will probably receive only 2-3 damage on average. If you attack from a single territory, on the ther hand, you will usually lose 4 units!

neko

Thankyou for the last bit - I hadn't realised there was an advantage in attacking from multiple territories, I was under the impression that all the defenders defended against all attacks...

yes this is often overlooked, though the rules say this clearly (I think):

<i>The defending units are distributed uniformly among the attackers, in proportion to the attacking units---to simulate the difficulty of defending more borders, the fractions of defending units are rounded down (that is, if a territory with 3 units is attacked by two different enemy territories with roughly the same number of armies, only two defending units will be able to inflict damage).</i>

Silly me

I've rephrased it and emphasised it a bit!

8) in no intrigue games, you can still state your intentions publicly, or more subtly by making small 1-army attacks that make it clear who you want to fight against