What's the best defensive strategy?

[EdwinG]

Here's a question for consideration both by players with a lot of game experience as well as those with strong mathematical/statistical skills. Which is a better defensive strategy when facing an opponent with somewhat more armies about to attack you? Do you put as many of your armies on 1 territory as you can, leaving all of your other territories with 1 army each; or do you spread out your armies so that a relatively equal number are on each territory? Does it make a difference?

If you need a specific example, here's one:
You have 20 armies and 10 territories and your opponent has 30 armies on one territory about to attack you. Do you put 2 armies on each territory, or do you put 11 on the first territory he will attack and leave 1 on each of the rest? Is there another alternative that is a better strategy?

[gimil]

depends on your position.

In classic for exampl

if i have australia everything on saims.

If i have south america everything on peru (thsi usually deters people from attacking

however with North amrica this bulk option isnt possible

[flashleg8]

Spread your armies. I've seen a mathematician (on here I think) explain that after 4 troops on a territory there is limited returns on the defenders odds. It is therefore best to spread your troops 4 the 4 etc. Any more than this in my opinion is a waste and the troops are better spent elsewhere.
Of course this depends on your tactics. I'm assuming you want to hold the bonus. If on the other hand you want to provoke an attack and counter attack it may be better to pull back from the front altogether and have a large stack a territory back from the border (a tactic someone else pointed out last time this topic came around). This has the bonus that people fear to attack you for the obvious reprisal you can give them, useful in a 3 way battle, they might be swayed into attacking the other player – since they know you won’t be such a threat to them in the next turn.

[alster]

Actually, after 2 armies there is a very limited defense bonus.

Defense depends on many issues. What do you wish to defend? As many areas as possible to keep your turn bonus? A continent?

[zammywine]

I'd say 2 armies on each then concentrate on 1.

[chessplaya]

it depends

this is more like a trick question because...

...each game demands a type of distribution of ur armies on ur countries

[chessplaya]

it also depends on ur positions and on ur enemy/enemies position!

[Coleman]

Well in some cases it is obvious. If you want to retain as much of your land as possible you need to split things up. A small example. If you have two territories where 1 has 1 army and the other has 3 armies you should make them 2 & 2.

This guarantees at least 2 defensive dice rolls with 2 dice. If you had 1 & 3 you are looking at only one guaranteed defensive roll with 2 dice and the other 2 rolls would be with 1 defending die in the worst case scenario which is significantly worse odds.

[TipTop]

Your question is not specific enough. There are so many factors you need to consider which aren't present in your question. That's why most start their answer with "It depends"

All of the above could be correct. Hell sometimes attacking is your best defensive strategy!

[Xyl]

In the very, very limited case where an opponent would have to go through two specific territories to get a continent (say, siam and indonesia), you don't have many armies for defense, and your only concern is making it as hard as possible for the opponent to break the continent bonus, the best division is half and half with any odd army on the inner territory. Once you have at least 3 or 4 on each territory, though, it's only strategic considerations that really matter.

[BeakerWMA]

The best defense is a good offense. I like a couple massed armies. Then if I make a move for cards or to eliminate someone I have a couple large armies ready to take advatage. Plus it tends to intimidate some players into leaving you alone.

[khazalid]

even numbers. a 2 and a 4 is much better than a 5. thats about a the advice i have. if you really need to hold a conti place them as far back as you can rather than at the immediate point of confrontation (indo rather than siam for example)

[Arcos]

Trial for spread even by twos theory: game 688668, placed them by twos across about half the map, green gets card worth 50, i'm left with...one army at the end

[NESconqueror]

The strategy of defense that tends to work for me is to have a "Wall ring" Where an enemy is adjacdent to you, you purge troops to the territories touching the opponent, while the territories out of harm's way get sapped to minimal amounts to support the "wall ring" defenses.
Opponent cracks the armor however, and you are in deep water.

[EdwinG]

This is an analysis of Arco's experiment in game 688668. His opponent placed 56 armies on one territory so had at least 57 there to begin his attacks. He then conquered 28 territories occupied by Arco leaving (I assume) 1 army on each territory ending up with 29 armies on 29 territories. Arco lost 56 armies and the attacker lost 28 (or maybe a few more).

It seems like the strategy to spread them out evenly is NOT advised. One would normally expect the defender to lose about 11 armies for every 9 the attacker loses. In this case the ratio was about 2 to 1. If Arco had concentrated his armies on 1 territory (29 armies) then the attacker would have lost about 26 attacking just this one territory. Subsequent losses would be about 1 for every 3 territories attacked (9 more). This would give an expected loss of about 35 armies for the attacker.

[Ham]

I prefer for the most part to even space my armies out.

Somtimes I have 4 on the borders of the clump or in the middle and 3 on the opposite of the 4.

Iv found that in a game like world 2.1 if you dont have a huge Empire its better to find a a corner somewhat and try to get a bunch of territories densely connected.

No one really wants to deal with 15 5 man territories. I could put them all in one territory though and my army would shredded to bits rather quickly by the huge bonuses everyone else is getting.