Conquer Club

Opponents who employ this are incredibly tough (for me) to defeat. Even if I try to use the same strategy too (I seem to have terrible rolls on a 4v3), I still am likely to lose.

For those that don't know what I'm talking about, its when you place just 1 troop on several different territories, giving yourself a 4v3 assault and then you just go crazy on all of them and drop your opponent by 5-6 territories before they even take a turn. Then continue this until you have a big enough territory advantage.

I'm always amazed at how effective this is and I have two questions about it:

1. Is there a name for this strategy?
2. Is there a smart way to counter it?

I know no name for it and I don't know a way to counter it exactly. I don't really like the strategy myself.

i guess the strategy would be called +33%-strat or something like that..
probability tells you it will be better to attack with 6 troops 2+2+2 from 4stacks than 4 (deploying 3 on a 3stack only lets you hit 2 rolls.. (unless you are one of these 2v1 hitters..)

my 5 cents
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lostatlimbo wrote:2. Is there a smart way to counter it?

If there would be an easy way to counter it, it wouldn´t be so effective. But perhaps you try manual or conquest maps if you want to avoid that it´s used against you.

If you're honestly losing 5-6 territories (luck or no luck) before you can take your turn, you're playing a big map in which players can drop 5-6+ (most likely a lot more than that) armies from round 1. I recommend you to play smaller maps that only give people 3 armies in round 1 (Halloween Hollows is a map that would fit the bill for 1v1 games).

This is a very strong tactic in one of the following cases or, even more, in a combination of those cases
1. 1 vs 1 or team game with two teams
2. "small" map
3. no region bonuses or no region bonuses making sense or very small multiple bonuses

Point 1 because in those two cases, you want to get the maximum attacking power. Adding 1s is the best way to accomplish this. If you get n troops in your turn, adding them in n different areas allows you to make exactly n attacks, each attack ending when you lose a troop or defeat the 3 opponent troops. Adding them all together in a single region will not lead to n+ attacks, because you will leave one behind in every battle. Also, in first case you are left with 3s and in second one with 1s.
Point 2 because on small maps, you dont mind much about territory control, which is the negative argument for point 1 explained above(after all, if you create a big stack, you will get more regions than playing with many 4s) In small maps, you mostly care about damaging the opponents troop total size, regardless if it means conquering 2 regions with 3s or reducing 6 regions to 2s, for you it is the same thing.
Point 3 because in the case of region bonuses, you have to concentrate there for obvious reasons. It is stupid to ignore Australia on classic map if there is no neutral there in a 1 vs 1 game. On the other hand, very small bonuses in big maps even favor the 4s tactic, because you fight for many of them.
A powerful extreme example is a 1 vs 1 Hive game. The map is huge, but territory doesnt matter (you always get +12 no matter how many regions you have) so technicaly speaking, it is a "small" map, from the point of view that territory doesnt matter. Also, the small cells consisted of 3 regions are widespread in the map, it is TOO many of them (you will definately have 7-8 of them with a 2-1 region advantage) and they never have neutrals. Correct tactic there is to always play with 4s first turn. It is impossible to defeat an opponent using this strategy without using it yourself as well.
LostatLimbo, it is impossible to discuss about strategy without emphasizing the kind of game you are talking about. Almost any kind of strategy has settings that make it good or bad. Really. Almost any strategy....

I forgot a point 4.
Point 4. The ability to use multiple 4s against the same enemy region. Which is also active in my hive example.