Conquer Club

In the middle rounds of an escalating game, where armies are dispersed, is there any reason to attack isolated stacks of armies?

Example 1. Player A has an army of 6 on China. The surrounding regions, except for Siam, held by Player B, are 1's and 2's. Player C attacks and captures China.

Example 2. Player A has an army of 11 on Ontario. Player A, B, and C have various other small armies in North America. Player C holds South America and has a small stack on Central America. Player B attacks Ontario, dropping the stack to 3 men.

Do either of these moves make sense?

My general impression is that they don't. Continents aside, attacking is a zero-sum game. To kill an opponent's armies requires you to sacrifice a roughly equal amount of yours. Spending armies on taking down a large stack is a newby move, as bad for the attacker as the defender.

I understand that there are certain situations when one might want to do it anyway. For example player C thinks Player A has enough armies in China to take out Player B and sweep the board. Or perhaps Player C thinks he's got way more armies than anybody else and can afford to cripple Player A, in second place, so he can't make a kill. But, unless I'm wrong, these cases are rare.

I play a lot of open games, many of them speed games, and I come across these types of things every moves every so often.

I can only think of two explanations.

1) There's something big I'm missing. In which case, what is it? I'd love to improve my strategy.

2) These types of attacks, especially when done by more than one player in the game, are a sign of collusion, players colluding either within the game or across games.

I'm hoping for number 1! What are your thoughts....?

p.s. the examples above are hypothetical. I just tend to like stacking armies on China and Ontario.

Nubs attack higher ranks all the time like this in freestyle games, you have to get used to it, trust me it sucks but there is nothing you can do about it, there scared of your rank lol.


syn.

yeah, that I know. I even kind of like it. It spices things up. But it's not just newbs.

arizona wrote:In the middle rounds of an escalating game, where armies are dispersed, is there any reason to attack isolated stacks of armies?

Example 1. Player A has an army of 6 on China. The surrounding regions, except for Siam, held by Player B, are 1's and 2's. Player C attacks and captures China.

Example 2. Player A has an army of 11 on Ontario. Player A, B, and C have various other small armies in North America. Player C holds South America and has a small stack on Central America. Player B attacks Ontario, dropping the stack to 3 men.

Do either of these moves make sense?

My general impression is that they don't. Continents aside, attacking is a zero-sum game. To kill an opponent's armies requires you to sacrifice a roughly equal amount of yours. Spending armies on taking down a large stack is a newby move, as bad for the attacker as the defender.

I understand that there are certain situations when one might want to do it anyway. For example player C thinks Player A has enough armies in China to take out Player B and sweep the board. Or perhaps Player C thinks he's got way more armies than anybody else and can afford to cripple Player A, in second place, so he can't make a kill. But, unless I'm wrong, these cases are rare.

I play a lot of open games, many of them speed games, and I come across these types of things every moves every so often.

I can only think of two explanations.

1) There's something big I'm missing. In which case, what is it? I'd love to improve my strategy.

2) These types of attacks, especially when done by more than one player in the game, are a sign of collusion, players colluding either within the game or across games.

I'm hoping for number 1! What are your thoughts....?

p.s. the examples above are hypothetical. I just tend to like stacking armies on China and Ontario.

I don't play escalating games (as the strategy is very different from the UK standard RISK game) so my comments may be off.

But; I disagree with the emboldend statement. The attacker (assuming he rolls 3 dice) always has an advantage over the defender. It is thus better to attack - on ever turn - than defend, wheter the territory is captured or not. This obviously has to be taken into acount with strategic positioning, counter attacking and other players - but generally I find in a flat rate or no cards game you should always attack a player that is building up. To not do so will hurt more in the long term.

I didn't follow your examples too well (as I'm kind of wrapping up here at "work") but -from mathematics posts I've read- when "the number of attacking and defending armies is equal, the probability that the attacker ends up winning the territory is greater than 50 percent, provided that both sides have at least five armies each. The attacker also suffers fewer losses on average than the defender. When there are twice as many attackers as defenders, the winning probability exceeds 80 percent. Moreover, the expected loss by the attacker is slightly lower than the number of defending armies. For example, if an attacker has 20 armies and a defender has 10 armies, the attacker would win the war with a probability of 98 percent and lose about 9 armies doing so." These examples both assume the goal is to conquer the territory - but this is not always the main goal - often it is enough to drop 6 or so to weaken a 15 build up while attacking in a more stategically preferable front elsewere. This will stave off an expected counter attack.
Thats what cannon fodder is for!

In the middle stages of escalating ,unless you are trying to take somebody else, big attacks are just gonna end in 2 people out of the picture. Good players block potential take outs, bad players become aggresive and hand the game to another !

arizona wrote:Does it pay to knock armies down?

you have to set up a CC pay-pal account through lack. the membership fees aren't that bad, and you get paid per 5000 taken... not a bad way to supplement the income.-0

p.s.-seriously, i do it all the time in no card games, and it is pretty standard strategy. not sure if that applies to escalating cards.

[quote="flashleg8 The attacker (assuming he rolls 3 dice) always has an advantage over the defender. It is thus better to attack - on ever turn - than defend, wheter the territory is captured or not. [/quote]

Actually, I'm not sure it is always better to attack. I sadly spent ages trying to work out the probability of a successful attack, and came up with the following, for each round of an attack:

Attack..%Win.......%Lose....%Draw
1.v.1........42%........58%........-
2.v.1........58%........42%........-
3.v.1........66%........34%........-
1.v.2........25%........75%........-
2.v.2........23%........45%........32%
3.v.2........37%........29%........34%

comic boy wrote:In the middle stages of escalating ,unless you are trying to take somebody else, big attacks are just gonna end in 2 people out of the picture.

flashleg,

You're absolutely right when it comes to 2-player games. My understanding is also that it's better to attack. But I'm going to have to agree with comic boy here.

You may end up hurting the defender more than you suffer yourself, but you BOTH lose compared to the other players in the game... dig?

In a team game or a 2-player, I totally understand the move. It's when there's a bunch of players that I don't get it.

arizona wrote:

comic boy wrote:In the middle stages of escalating ,unless you are trying to take somebody else, big attacks are just gonna end in 2 people out of the picture.

flashleg,

You're absolutely right when it comes to 2-player games. My understanding is also that it's better to attack. But I'm going to have to agree with comic boy here.

You may end up hurting the defender more than you suffer yourself, but you BOTH lose compared to the other players in the game... dig?

In a team game or a 2-player, I totally understand the move. It's when there's a bunch of players that I don't get it.

Yes I assumed we were talking about 5/6 player games - 1 v 1 is just a dice lottery

arizona wrote:

comic boy wrote:In the middle stages of escalating ,unless you are trying to take somebody else, big attacks are just gonna end in 2 people out of the picture.

flashleg,

You're absolutely right when it comes to 2-player games. My understanding is also that it's better to attack. But I'm going to have to agree with comic boy here.

You may end up hurting the defender more than you suffer yourself, but you BOTH lose compared to the other players in the game... dig?

In a team game or a 2-player, I totally understand the move. It's when there's a bunch of players that I don't get it.

Agreed, obviously my advice depends on the state of play and the strenght of other players - but I do think if possible buildups should be attacked. If in a 3 plus player game (I agree 1vs 1 is far more luck prone, comic boy) one player is staying out of the action building up - he must be attacked. It is a natural tendancy for players to look for short term goals (bonuses, cards, attacking neighbours etc) but if the build up continues then ultimatley most players will refuse to attack the build up on exactly your advice. Therefore this player is in effect shielded from the game. He will only go stronger ever turn, thus making him more and more "untouchable" by all the surrounding weaker players. Granted it is hard to turn this build up into a game winning force, but it can be timed well and I have seen it happen many times - if allowed.
You must take a longer view of the game - obviously there is no points for second place. There really is little to gain by letting such a weak player become strong again (unless you yourself are very weak). If you are the strongest then you should make every effort to eliminate all possible players (cards or no cards) when you have an oppertunity. Even you are only a medium power you should assult build ups. At this stage of the game you still have possibilities to win, therefore in the long term you must act like the game is winable (if the other players do not seem to be taking action). If you are too weak to do anything about it then perhaps you should consider building for a few turns yourself?

MrBenn wrote:

flashleg8 wrote: The attacker (assuming he rolls 3 dice) always has an advantage over the defender. It is thus better to attack - on ever turn - than defend, wheter the territory is captured or not.

Actually, I'm not sure it is always better to attack. I sadly spent ages trying to work out the probability of a successful attack, and came up with the following, for each round of an attack:

Attack..%Win.......%Lose....%Draw
1.v.1........42%........58%........-
2.v.1........58%........42%........-
3.v.1........66%........34%........-
1.v.2........25%........75%........-
2.v.2........23%........45%........32%
3.v.2........37%........29%........34%

I agree with your maths but not your conclusion.
3 attackers against 2 defenders (for example each fully stocked turn fighting a build up) will give you a 66ish percent chance of killing one or more defenders. Therefore if you are attacking in large numbers against large numbers of defenders you have the advantage.

Flash
What you say is very true of no cards/flat but escalating is an entirely different game, many players think of it as flat rate with bigger armies but that is tragicaly incorrect. Because of the naure of escalating holding a continent tends to be a disadvantage, thats how disconnected it is from the other varients.

Flash, I'm not talking about a situation where one player has gotten stronger than the rest. Then of course it makes sense to cut him down. Ditto with keeping a weak player weak.

But in a situation where players are all more or less at the same strength, i don't see how it makes sense to waste one's armies taking down a stack of men.

To indulge in a little ridiculo ad absurdum, imagine a game where four players each have a stack of 200 men. If one player moves to take down another's stack, he might (given the odds we've laid) end up with say 40 men , to pick a number out of the air, and have eliminated his foe's stack. But the other players will still have their 200 men.

I don't see how this is different when the numbers are smaller, say 6 or 8 men, other than the fact that the natural variation of dice and cards might allow you to make up for crippling yourself.

Well in that situation it would make no sense to take down a big stack unless it was collusion or the player plain got bored.

comic boy wrote:
1 v 1 is just a dice lottery

I disagree with this statement though, there are many ways to get an advantage strategically in a 1v1 game (not attacking neutrals even if you might almost have a continent for example), but im not quite sure if that was sarcasm so.... lol

attacking isolated stacks of armies is actually useful

for one, you opponent cant deploy on that stack and suddenly bear down on you with a large army that really doesnt coast much if they lose it (usually isolated armies are expendable)

for two, you have a considerable advantage when you attack with a third die and can win against greater odds more often because of that third die. ive dont many suicide attacks just to prevent the armies from being used on me next turn and some of them have actually won against greater numbers

for three, it is very surprising since no one really expects anyone to throw their armies at them