Bad Strategy Or What?

[john9blue]

In a Classic escalating game, two high ranked players were trying to convince me to change my strategy. One was so immature as to attack me simply because I didn't play like he wanted (which probably means I was doing something right). Here's a pic of the game (I am orange):



and here's a pic of the log and chat:



What I want to know is this: was I unintentionally being an unpleasant player by placing my armies like I did? I know it's an escalating game, but I was going to try and hold Africa... until FabledIntegral the bully decided he didn't like how I did things. Is there an unwritten rule that says I can't play like this? Was there something wrong with my strategy, or something wrong with his behavior?

This isn't in Cheating and Abuse because he wasn't technically cheating, just being a moron.

[Timminz]

You will notice that a lot of the better escalating players will "fort up" rather than trying to spread out like that. This is because, more often than not, it's beneficial. Also, taking Africa is a bad strategy. I'm not saying neither of those strategies will ever win an escalating game, cause I've seen pretty much every strat win at some point, but more often than not, you will lose doing that. As well as piss off some other players. The strategy you seem to be going with would be much more well-suited to no cards or flat rate.

[lord voldemort]

its frustrating in a escalating game like this that there is no way you have the power to hold africa for the extra 3 armies a turn but by the time u do have the power the cards cashed are woth way more than any bonus

[BaldAdonis]

Taking Africa when you only had half of it is a bad move.
Putting up such a huge block is a bad move, for two reasons.
One is what they were complaining about: players want to take a card (almost) every round, and they want to lose the least to do it, so they usually try to attack 1s. When someone only has a choice of 4s or higher, and you have a 4 next to three of your other territories, then of course he'll attack you. He has to attack someone's 4, and since you're not being helpful by spreading out like that, he'll take yours. If you left East Africa with 1, then any of yellow, teal or red could get a card there, and you could get an easy card by taking it back again.
The second is that you are concentrated in one place on the map. If you moved Egypt to Middle East, you could start edging into Asia, and you'd have better access to other territories. Or you could move up to Ukraine. When you have access to all of one player's territories, you've got a shot at eliminating them and taking their cards. If they have 3 cards, this should be worth at least 20 to you, and so is six times more valuable than holding Africa, and the numbers only go up from there. You should focus on trying to kill people, and so on trying to spread out to reach people.

[edbeard]

I think the problem goes back to the start of the game.

obviously you had a rough drop. it's an 8 player game so you're not going to get a great drop but to start with those 3 territories in africa, afghanistan, and siam isn't great.

getting cards early on isn't that important for escalating in my opinion. you can use the first turn or two to just place armies and wait for an easy attack to come about rather than trying to take out 3 armies. (though I don't play freestyle or many 8 player games but I think the idea is still solid)

I would've made sure that I held siam. since you weren't spread out that much it seems like that territory is very important. you want to be all around the map so you can take out players when they are weak to get their cards. If you can't even get to them, you are in a bad spot. Additionally, being pegged into one area is bad because you are now open to someone else taking you out. Instead of someone having to split up their drop or armies they get from a set, they can just go all out.

[DiM]

fighting for continents is the biggest mistake in an escalating game. the only time you should get a continent is if you start with 3 terits on australia and get to go first. other than that it is simply silly to think a +2 or +3 bonus will help you when the card values reach 15-20 or even more.

at this point in the game you are the easiest target since all your terits are grouped and you can be taken out with no big effort.

[Thezzaruz]

fighting for continents is the biggest mistake in an escalating game. the only time you should get a continent is if you start with 3 terits on australia and get to go first. other than that it is simply silly to think a +2 or +3 bonus will help you when the card values reach 15-20 or even more.

at this point in the game you are the easiest target since all your terits are grouped and you can be taken out with no big effort.

While I fully agree with this I have never understood the idea that when you're not allowing your opponents easy cards you are doing something wrong (against your opponents that is).

[john9blue]

Meh... I guess the real issue I had was FabledIntegral being a jerk. Maybe this should have been in the Abuse forum after all.

People seem to get the impression that I'm a newcomer to escalating games. Because I got such a crappy drop I decided to try a different strategy for a change (that is, making it hard for my opponents to get cards so I would have an advantage). However because of the 'peer pressure' I went back to my old ways. Immediately after making my first post I bunched up my guys into two groups, one of which is moving into Asia.

Feel free to disregard this topic, I just wanted to know if what I was doing was wrong in a strategic sense or an ethical sense.

[Timminz]

When you make it more difficult for opponents to get easy cards, you're pretty much just asking them to take 3 or 4 from you rather than the 1 they would have, leaving you with fewer armies.

[hundredand1aces]

A bonus in ESC is a moot point, if you have one great if not great..... But the strat you witnessed is the strat I see more often than not from the higher ranked life or death players on this site. They cry and whine all the way till the end, and try to get you do do as they please so they can better poition themselves to win and if they cant then just hit you and cry you suicided me so I'll do it back........50% of there game is mental, 10% skill, and 40% clickable maps in a FS ESC game.........So their ranting and raving is actually part of their game, like it or leave it, its the truth........

Welcome to the wonderful world of CC......

[Hrvat]

A bonus in ESC is a moot point, if you have one great if not great..... But the strat you witnessed is the strat I see more often than not from the higher ranked life or death players on this site. They cry and whine all the way till the end, and try to get you do do as they please so they can better poition themselves to win and if they cant then just hit you and cry you suicided me so I'll do it back........50% of there game is mental, 10% skill, and 40% clickable maps in a FS ESC game.........So their ranting and raving is actually part of their game, like it or leave it, its the truth........

Welcome to the wonderful world of CC......

[FabledIntegral]

When you make it more difficult for opponents to get easy cards, you're pretty much just asking them to take 3 or 4 from you rather than the 1 they would have, leaving you with fewer armies.

Exactly. I couldn't get a card, namely because of you, and not other people. Since YOU were the main reason I was not getting a card, because of YOUR playstyle, I was going to make you suffer for it. It's like that in virtually any type of game. For example we can be playing a flat rate game. You have South Africa and I have Africa. Each turn you break my bonus so I don't get 3 armies. Therefore, as you're hurting my playstyle, I'm going to target YOU back and kill you. However, if you don't attack me, you haven't done anything to limit my playstyle, and I may decide to attack Europe instead.

If I have the choice to attack someone like you, who's hoarding up territories and preventing me from getting a card, or attacking Bruce, who WOULD give me a card if he could but can't fortify, who do you think I'm going to attack? I'm going to hit you, because you won't fortify. I know as soon as Bruce gets the opportunity, he would fortify for me, thus giving me a card.

What would you have possibly gotten from taking Africa? +3? How many armies would you have had to kill to get Africa? You would be the weakest player on the board by the time you actually took the continent, and would be eliminated immediately after.

And if you wanted Africa, why did you have armies on India? Why did you have armies on the Middle East? If you had Africa you should have fortified off those two countries and put them all in Egypt, so your strategy is even FURTHER flawed.

Thanks for the negative though, and telling me in chat that I had "no right" to say what I did.

[BaldAdonis]

A bonus in ESC is a moot point, if you have one great if not great..... But the strat you witnessed is the strat I see more often than not from the higher ranked life or death players on this site. They cry and whine all the way till the end, and try to get you do do as they please so they can better poition themselves to win and if they cant then just hit you and cry you suicided me so I'll do it back........50% of there game is mental, 10% skill, and 40% clickable maps in a FS ESC game.........So their ranting and raving is actually part of their game, like it or leave it, its the truth........

Welcome to the wonderful world of CC......

I think you played the wrong person (or people). That really doesn't happen very often, and we just blacklist players who do it. If you want, I can put you on the list for our regular 6 player escalating speed game. It's usually daily, and no nonsense.

[Timminz]

A bonus in ESC is a moot point, if you have one great if not great..... But the strat you witnessed is the strat I see more often than not from the higher ranked life or death players on this site. They cry and whine all the way till the end, and try to get you do do as they please so they can better poition themselves to win and if they cant then just hit you and cry you suicided me so I'll do it back........50% of there game is mental, 10% skill, and 40% clickable maps in a FS ESC game.........So their ranting and raving is actually part of their game, like it or leave it, its the truth........

Welcome to the wonderful world of CC......

I think you played the wrong person (or people). That really doesn't happen very often, and we just blacklist players who do it. If you want, I can put you on the list for our regular 6 player escalating speed game. It's usually daily, and no nonsense.

Seconded. Same goes for pretty much anyone who wants quality escalating sequential speed games. The more people we get, the more often we can get them running.

[t-o-m]

you called the picture "high ranked morons" as the file names on ur PC!

[FabledIntegral]

Are you guys really that dense? I had ZERO card options. So if I'm going to attack someone, I'm going to attack the person that's causing it, not some random person.

As pointed in my previous post, Africa would haev done nothing for you. You claim that you're an experienced player john, yet you still tried to pull that off? Once again if you were going for Africa you wouldn't have had India + Middle east, you would have fortified all to africa.