I’d just note that 3/0 in Iran (US +2) makes this decision significantly less straightforward in my mind.[quote=“Greatatlantic, post:378, topic:125448”]
Typically, the best way for USSR to compete for Asia in Turn 1 is to Coup Iran, thus denying the US the ability to place influence in Pakistan and India. Plus, Iran and Iraq for whenever the Middle East Scores. In terms of payoff, there really isn’t another target our there of similar attractiveness. If nothing else, the Soviets can use the China Card to get OK odds at that access payoff. Italy if weakened by Socialist Governments can be tempting, but why go for one battle ground when you can go for 2?
[/quote]
Berbatov (USA) defeats ForzaA (USSR) by score in AR1 of turn8.
A massive Soviet diplomatic offensive in Europe had secured domination there, but sadly, no luck with the score card draw.
[quote=“Berbatov, post:381, topic:125448”]
I’d just note that 3/0 in Iran (US +2) makes this decision significantly less straightforward in my mind.[/quote]
Hopefully it’s clear we’re going US +1 in this tournament.
Roll a 4 with a 3 op card and you get an empty Iran. So, 50/50 odds. US will likely coup back even if you get that 4+ on your first roll, but you’ll then have the last coup attempt. I don’t see a better opening, but I’m willing to hear counter opinions.
With Iran at 3/0, what’s all your alternative opening moves as the USSR? Italy weakened by Socialist Governments? I suppose you don’t have to coup, but the US probably will, and then he gets the last coup. A couple points in South Korea? I’m just throwing out ideas right now.
To clarify - Soviet control of an unscored Europe! I found myself with little to no way back in to prevent Control long-term. Good game! Bullet dodged, for me…
I think it’s mostly dictated by hand and setup, but I have the following thoughts:
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A successful Italy coup (soc gov assisted or otherwise) is an incredible lasting benefit. Europe is by far the most static region, and a good T1A1 Italy coup could set you up for Europe dom all game long (in a region that is usually a draw at best for the USSR).
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Iran is important but there are reasons as to why it is less important than your views might imply. First, Middle East domination isn’t very valuable. If your opponent can maintain presence, you probably won’t score huge here. Second, the Western Asia access is vulnerable to I-P War and so it isn’t usually as simple as waltzing from Iran to Thailand in a line.
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Couping Iran empty is good; couping yourself to 1 influence can be catastrophic if a big counter coup hits and suddenly you can’t threaten an Asia coup.
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Generally, I’m not worried about the US taking my coups on turn 1. The USSR starts in solely stability 3 battlegrounds. If I’m not (successfully) couping Iran, the US is going to have a hard time finding a good coup target. I’d be happy to watch them waste ops on a stab 3 BG.
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One alternative move is 2 inf to Afghanistan. It threatens I-P War or a China Card coup if the US moves to Pakistan, and you can fill Iraq/South Korea and move into BGs like Israel without giving up any real coup targets. Not an ideal option, but it keeps you alive if your hand is so weak that rolling your only big ops card on Iran risks a significant setback. You give the US a way to get inf in Iraq and thus maintain presence in the MidEast, but I feel that trying to totally block the US out requires an ideal setup.
It also threatens immediate domination of Asia! So obviously when holding the Asia card this becomes a serious consideration for Turn 1, and even when not actually holding it the mere possibility puts serious pressure on the US.
Brian Reynolds/Cattlesquat (USSR) defeats infested_terran/Groovechamp (US) on turn 3 by scoring track. All the momentum went to the Soviets, and unusually all three scoring cards RE-appeared on turn 3 (after all having been scored in turns 1 and 2). That’s some heavy duty early scoring, before the US really even got out of the gate with its best cards.
Oops, it was NOT clear. Hadn’t read every post.
Brian
Oof yeah that was rough.
Getting Red Scared hobbled my first turn as I mostly had 2 cards. Couldn’t avoid losing points to lack of mil ops. I thought I was screwed right there because once again I forgot all about Blockade, which thankfully wasn’t drawn the first turn.
My one stroke of luck was USSR only rolling a ‘1’ for the opening Iran coup. They had played a 4 card, so that only meant removing the 1 US influence and not putting any of their own, delaying the USSR moving into Pakistan.
Then the biggest ouch: losing Korea. USSR had played Japan defense pact, giving me Japan. I had Asia Scoring the first round, so I took the calculated risk of putting 2 points into South Kora to gain control even though the Korean War card was still out there. If I held on to Korea, the USSR couldn’t really do anything to prevent me scoring a domination next round. I calculated that: 1) There was a decent chance he didn’t even have the Korean War card the first turn, and 2) he would need to roll a 5 or 6 since I controlled adjacent Japan.
- He did
- and he did
I had grabbed Thailand, but with no in-road through Iran and losing South Korea meant Asia was doomed to be Soviet dominated for the foreseeable future. I did manage to remove De Gaulle and take control of France, then take control of Algeria. With domination of Europe, and in-roads into Africa, I was hoping I had enough of a position to hold out.
Then all 3 scoring cards came out for the turn 3 reshuffle. Soviets scored another domination in Middle East. Socialist Governments was headlined, knocking out my domination and giving it to the Soviets, followed immediately by the Soviets playing Europe Scoring. 6 more points to them, nothing I could do.
So I was sitting at -18 points with Asia Scoring in my hand and nothing I really hope to do in Asia. Even if I broke Soviet domination they would still have +2 battlegrounds on me. Rather than drag it out I pulled the trigger and played Asia Scoring to put capitalism out of its misery.
One thing that could have saved me was headlining Defectors on turn 3. I was very tempted to do so but I also drew Red Scare/Purge and decided to go with that. In hindsight, I should have figured that by turn 3 Brian had some sort of headline plan and thwarting that was more important.
Everyone still playing, please do your best to wrap up your games by this Friday Feb 4.
@thraeg / @buzznaut
@rho21 / @Otthegreat
@gumers / @tylertoo
@CraigM / @tcgamer
Thraeg > buzznaut via timeout forfeit.
rho21 (USSR) beat Otthegreat by timeout, T3 AR1.
Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t realize when I signed up exactly how the action round system worked. I just wasn’t able to make enough moves each day. But good game! I think you would’ve won anyway, I was slowly losing control of every region.
While I timed out and therefore “lost” there was no way we were finishing our game without one player timing out because of our incompatible play schedules. just so we can move this along it’s fine to give me the loss but I think that is unfair.
I’m hoping my game against @tcgamer avoids going to time out, as it has gotten rather interesting. My turn 1 failed DeGaulle move meant that turn 2 he was able to headline socialist governments, drop me to 1 in Italy, and took control before I ever got a chance to do something about it.
But I’ve gotten value from NORAD, control Poland, kept Italy in fight, and traded USSR 3 in Israel for US+6 in Europe.
Now in turn 3 and, well, this is going to be an interesting match. Unfortunately got couped out of my control of Iran (dropping Defcon to 2), so losing some Asia access, but it’ll be a fight for sure.
But I’ve got 4.5 days left, he only a little over 2, so we need to try and get a time together, as it is a pretty even game so far (it’s -3 right now, with Asia even, Southeast Asia in my favor, no USSR presence in the Americas or Africa, and Europe a mess).
I sympathize with those who have lost on the timer. I’ve also lost games on the timer (both 21 day timer games that I kind of forgot about) and 45 minute timers which caught up to me that I thought I was winning.
That said, there’s no option between 7 day and 21 day timers so we’re in a position of having to use the timer as a win/loss mechanism. Otherwise there’s little doubt we’d be waiting six weeks for each round to complete, which isn’t great for the velocity of a tournament.
If it seems your play schedule isn’t compatible with your opponent, I highly recommend communicating with them either in game or on in Qt3 private messages and finding a couple of one hour sessions that work for both of you. http://www.worldtimeserver.com/meeting-planner.aspx is a handy tool for that.
I agree. If there is another one of these, I’d much rather see something along the lines of a group play stage where everyone plays 3-5 games simultaneously (with a longer timer), followed by a short playoff consisting of the winners from each group.
Not sure if you’ve ever had 3-5 games of TS going simultaneously. I think I’ve only had three. And it was very difficult to remember exactly what’s going on in each game. Also in multiple games I’ve had my opponents mysteriously help me or make a very bad move and then realize they had their games confused. I think @Brooski may have done that.
So that suggestion has it’s own serious drawbacks. Did you guys try to find an hour or two that you could play at the same time?
We have 1 day and 12 hours left on the timer. I doubt we’ll finish. @gumers are you around tomorrow evening to try to crank out turns?
I usually keep at least 15 going at once so I’m of course entirely in favor of the suggestion ;-)
Brian