recovery tactics after early setbacks

[legion of boom]

Hi All,

I'm new to CC and just started playing a few games and have a question around strategy and tactics in a game when you have some very early setbacks. I'm playing a game at the moment which has prompted this although i'm interested in general if there are certain steps one should take.

In my particular game http://www.conquerclub.com/game.php?game=14645078 I actually got a reasonable deal but then got nailed with some very lucky rolling on my opponents parts in the first round and immediately felt like i was on the back foot and wondering where I go from here.

In this game I had the following thoughts about my next few moves, note: green is the one who nailed me pretty bad on the opening turn.

1) I initially consolidated myself into Western Russia and am trying to move a large stack south to hook up in Africa.
2) I was hoping Red would see how strong a start green had and wouldn't fight me too hard but he nailed my 5 and 3 stack in Russia.
3) My only hope as I see it now is to try and get a big stack together, which I sort of have, as that feels safer, and hook up with what re-reinforcements I have left and build from there. At this time the best 3's I have are in Africa
4) Hope the other 2 start to ignore me and focus on each other.

This is a flat rate game, I guess not just thinking about this but other games if you get of to a bad start what are the general steps one should take or is it a case of just sucking it up and moving on to the next game!?!

Also I really liked the strategy of the stacks article is there a similar type strategy post to do with flat rate games?

Thanks.

[Koganosi]

Hi All,

I'm new to CC and just started playing a few games and have a question around strategy and tactics in a game when you have some very early setbacks. I'm playing a game at the moment which has prompted this although i'm interested in general if there are certain steps one should take.

In my particular game http://www.conquerclub.com/game.php?game=14645078 I actually got a reasonable deal but then got nailed with some very lucky rolling on my opponents parts in the first round and immediately felt like i was on the back foot and wondering where I go from here.

In this game I had the following thoughts about my next few moves, note: green is the one who nailed me pretty bad on the opening turn.

1) I initially consolidated myself into Western Russia and am trying to move a large stack south to hook up in Africa.
2) I was hoping Red would see how strong a start green had and wouldn't fight me too hard but he nailed my 5 and 3 stack in Russia.
3) My only hope as I see it now is to try and get a big stack together, which I sort of have, as that feels safer, and hook up with what re-reinforcements I have left and build from there. At this time the best 3's I have are in Africa
4) Hope the other 2 start to ignore me and focus on each other.

This is a flat rate game, I guess not just thinking about this but other games if you get of to a bad start what are the general steps one should take or is it a case of just sucking it up and moving on to the next game!?!

Also I really liked the strategy of the stacks article is there a similar type strategy post to do with flat rate games?

Thanks.

To answer your questions, for flate rate I would just kinda consider it as escalating, take a card and sit back. Try in the end to take a bonus somewhere, something big seems your best choice here like the red area, The West. Take a slow approach and every turn take a card, let red and green fight with eachother and just sit back. You might also wanne type some stuff in chat if needed and go for some psychological warfare.

There is no similar post for flat rate games, since the SoC teaches the basic off escalating.

Hope that answers it for a bit.

Urs

Koganosi

[legion of boom]

Thanks Koganosi, interesting stuff particularly about the psychological side I hadn't really thought about that at all. I'll post back how I get on!

[dhallmeyer]

Jumping off from Kog's post, timing is everything. Avoid getting into a firefight at all costs, until you're in an end-game scenario. Let others weaken themselves and wait for the opportune moment to make your play. If someone starts to get a big lead, try to coordinate attacks against them with other players to bring the leader down, but remember they will use the same tactics against you, so avoid LOOKING like you're winning if you can.

[legion of boom]

Thanks dhall yeah in this particular game I've taken the advice of getting myself out the way, feigning defeat on chat and that seems to have worked, I've run of to Europe and the other 2 seem to be going at it now and pretty much ignoring me. So my takeaways from this have been

1) Make sure your not in the middle when the strong armies clash - check
2) Focus stack for security to make me a less attractive target - check
3) Play mind games on chat - check
4) Once 2 is done slowly start to expand - next up
5) Don't sit on cards whilst weak - well i'm currently sitting on 2 red and 2 blue so no hope there dammit

Useful stuff from you guys thanks.

LOB