Tactics: How does a 4 stack take two 3 stacks? here's how

[Kaskavel]

why cannot I seperate my comments from yours in my post? How do you everybody else doing it? lol

[Kaskavel]

OK, I bolded them

[Kaskavel]

I mostly use this when I'm desperate and it's kind of a do or die. Otherwise I'm not a big fan of 4v3 I try to avoid them, because if you don't have a perfect first roll you are done. I mean if you're feeling lucky going 4vs3 everywhere on the map can give you the best results possible; but some players make me laugh cause they do that then complain about dice cause they miss their spoil. a 4vs3 is way riskier than what lots of people think.

Yes, in medium or small maps with flat rate, this is a bad idea. But again, I do not mind doing so in an escalating game first turn. No big deal to lose the spoil then, not to mention that I usualy play no spoils 1vs1, so I have never given much thought to this one. In fact, that is a bigger problem in team games,
But I do not disagree with Colonel Random21 in that. I also deploy 4s usualy in 1 vs 1 unless it is flat rate or a specific bonus is attracting the attention. My difference is that 99% I will immediately grap the 1 that will appear in opponent territory

[random21]

You got the idea from my post that this was generally a playable idea?? ... It's contextual.

"Now, are these odds very good to work very often? No. Are you taking 6 men, with 4, and not losing a single man, and can you ever really count on this strategy as legitimate option? Probably not." - right out of the OP.

No offense, but from what I've read in your posts...I don't even know if we're covering the same points. And 20 comments in, to keep repeating it seems wasteful.

I don't know what you are reading into with these posts, or if I'm really just being unclear, but you have continuously failed to see, apparently. Or you just don't comment do actual comments I make that make my argument clearly valid. Either this, or you and I play very different game settings/strats, and because of that our thoughts just aren't jiving.

Let's make this as clear as I can: The idea doesn't need to succeed always in full with just the singular four stack especially when you have nearby stacks for support. There can be other 4 stacks nearby which you rely on for assistance. If one stack fails, another picks up. And these are generally all nearby and adjacent stacks.

This conversation is not progressing anywhere really. We sort of hit a slump. And as for the obviousness or need for the thread, we're talking about deployment.

So, spreading 4 stacks with initial 1st turn deployment... as example. I see this all the time, especially in hive or eurasia. I have no idea what you are imagining. All you give are percentages... it's more than just numbers. You just commented in favour of this.

Anyways, you focussed so much on percentage and numbers... mine is really just about the board.

And on the drop, there is never a case where something is obviously demanding or needed. ... unless you are stopping a dropped bonus or something.

[MoB Deadly]

I'm still doing a lot of reading, but thank you both for the large posts. They are very informative

[random21]

sorry, i must have missed your one post with the bolds and direct responses to my phrases.

I don't think we disagree to much then about a lot of things like drop and so on.

in any case, yes in chained this would not be advisable.

I find that with unlimited, 2nd player counter play can be more productive than in chained.

[Kaskavel]

Indeed, I was somewhat surprised from your aggressive and negativistic response, since I thought we examined various point and mostly agreed. Now I understand why, lol.

[random21]

Apologies for the frustration.

It really seemed liked we weren't talking about the same thing for a while there.

It's all context.

[jsnyder748]

I usually on use this strategy when playing quads on small maps. It is the fastest way (if your lucky) to take out the other team. Interesting read

I see kaskavel has done his stats homework.

[shadistic]

I completely agree if your goal is to take a territory, and lower opponents territory adding to your own. But sometimes reducing counter play is also good. Imagine he is receiving 4. If you lower is 3 to a 1, he will have a 5 stack. If you just leave as is, and take the 1, he will have a 7 vs 3.

And because of game settings that all you to recuperate after taking territories like unlimited, its worth going for 3/1 attacks.

These are in contrast to each other. Assuming Unlimited, and that you're going to reinforce to it anyway, your opponent is not going to have a 7v3, but a 7v5 or 7v7. Good players will usually go for the battles that they're more certain to win, such as going for it after next turn's deployment (let's say it's 4 troops). You're much more likely to win a 11v7, or even a 9v7, than you are a 4v3. And your goal is to lower your opponent's troop levels, right? Why not guarantee yourself a better bet?

Well that just depends on your goal. If you want to take territories, go for the 1. If you want to eliminate his counter play, attack his 3.

It's simply if you are going to go for it, don't invade 4 vs 1, because an assault of 3 vs 3 is unwise.

You're arguing 2 opposing sides again.

If your opponent is 1-2 territories away from getting 1 less troop to deploy, taking the 1s is a better move. If you have 3+ 4v1 spots on the board, going for those is more effective because it forces your opponent to play aggressively to avoid ceding the advantage to you. And if you're trying to kill as many troops as you can, it's usually better to wait for the next turn when you get more, because the larger a stack is, the more likely it is to beat a stack of the same number.

Really, this ONLY works (and then again, just barely a majority of the time) on the one map-setting combination that you play 90% of your games on. It would not work on 3+ player singles. It would not work on any map where initial deployment is 7 or less, or on special-gameplay maps. It would be less certain to work on Escalating. Chained or Adjacent reinforcements would limit its utility. And on Manual deployment, it would be utterly useless.

But... on 1v1 Automatic, Unlimited, sunny, flat-rate, regular-gameplay large maps, your tactic would indeed benefit you >50% of the time.

I think the only problem here is that you mis-titled your post. There's something within what you posted that's valid in the context of large numbers of attacks. But it's severely limited as a general tactic. Your idea sounds more like this:
"1v1 Eurasia (and similar maps) Tactic: Using deployment and probability to minimize your opponent's troop strength"

I'm still not so sure whether it's the best tactic in that situation... but thinking through this has made me a better 1v1 player. (Now if only I had more interest in 1v1!)

[random21]

um...

I don't think these statements are opposing each other. The first pair, the first comment is about whether to attack 4 vs 3, or 4 vs 1. If lowering territories is your goal, go for the 1. If you want to take both, you have to attack the 3, in order to have sufficient troops to take both at all. The second comment is about attack with your 3 stacks, on their 1 stack for 2 v 1 die roll, in the hopes of connecting for reinforcements. So... As for the second pair, the two are not opposing sides really at all. But again its all contextual so... If your goal is to lower territory by one, take the 1 stack. If reducing counter play does result from that, then you have also reduced counter play. If he is going to get a set amount of troops regardless, and you want to try lowering is 3 stack, then go for it so he has less automatic troops to work with.

No spoils this would work. Taking territories is not so important for gaining cards. Really, in no spoils... its killing troops you want to do. Because only bonuses and extra territories help bring in more.

The essential idea is simply: use a single stack to attack multiple stacks nearby without invading. I actually used this tonight twice in two of my games. I used a 7 stack to take three 3 stacks, and was successful. 7 troops took 9, with 2-3 losses. And surprisingly enough, I used a 5 stack to do the same thing in a different game. 5 took 9 as well... with no losses.

The clincher is always in the risk management. My 7 stack took a bonus. My 5 stack cleared an opponent from a particular region.

The odds were by no means in my favour. It's in deciding to not invade, to take the risk, and so on.

Game settings are always an influence. I never stated other wise. In fact my posts include ideas like going for it mostly in unlimited, and mostly not in chained/adjacent.

I have played many of the actual hasbro risk games, 2210, godstorm, lofr, multiple classics, halo, etc. I am always in favour of going for the attack, instead of relying on defensive dice. And I never underestimate the attacking turn my opponent is about to make. I expect his dice to be just as good as the dice I want. Odds in my opinion are always in the attacker's favour. My experience over the years has shown me this repeatedly. The defender's six will inevitably be rolled, and can't be opposed. The one ultimate downfall the attacker will inevitably meet.

I find it odd that people try to refute this by bringing up different settings. Of course different settings will change tactics. We don't use universal settings anywhere over these games. If you play Manual, Automatic, Unlimited, No spoil, Nuclear, Chained, Adjacent, Freestyle, Sequential, 1 v 1, 8 player standard, doubles or triples, flat rate and escalating and more... any tactic anyone brings up you could just say.. oh X works for 7 of the above, BUT WAIT! IT DOESN'T WORK FOR ALL THE REST!

well, *light bulb* let me just write this guy a note letting this guy know that. Because I think he think's his advise works 100% of times in 300% of all possible scenarios.

My reason for writing this thread at all, is specifically for those who would never think of trying to attack three 3 stacks with a 5 stack.. because it just wouldn't work. Especially if they think, even with no kills on my part, if I take the first one with no kills, then I'm left with 4, after I take the second, I'm left with 3, and 3 vs 3 won't even get me to that third one. Now obviously the content of the thread in that context is somewhat self-evident. And really, it's just as much as seeing yes, attack each reducing to one first, then invade after, as it is to decide to actually risk these attacks at all. Sometimes they fail, and you stop dead in your tracks. The clincher is when they are halfway done to success, and you are on a roll of double kills... how far will you take it?

[Viceroy63]

To me this tactic makes perfect sense. I agree with it and do employ it when playing 1vs.1 but only in the beginning. Once a stack of 3 has been reduced to a 2 it makes no sense to build up a stack of 2 (or a single troop) to a stack of 3 in order to use this tactic. The idea then becomes, how to best maximize your stacks of 3's to do their most damage possible.

If I receive 3 troops on my turn and have 3 stacks of 3's, then that is 3 times that I can attack even if I lose by just dropping 1 troop on each stack, where as if I drop all 3 troops on a stack of 3 and lose the attacks, I only attack twice. So if the number of attacks is good odds (in my favor) then the number of dice attacked is even better. So if in the early rounds, I have a choice of attacking a stack of 3 over a single troop (one die) then it is better to attack the stack of 3 and two dice. For if I win with just the one then it's just one troop but if I win against two dice then it's two troops.

But the situation also has a lot to be said for because if I am playing for spoils then attaining that spoil becomes paramount in my strategy so that now in light of this situation I may not attack the stack of 3 over the single troop in order to gain the card. But all things being equal, it is much better to attack the most with the best because the odds are always attacker odds, except of course in Trench where the defender is the attacker.

Obviously I can not hope to win every roll but if the number of attacks help in the equation of percentages won in the game then it is best to go with more attacks and not less. except of course in team games where combining your troops to those of your partners can generate a more effective assault using those very same numbers in the odds of wins per attack. But team games are not games where I need to worry about the number of attacks because the total number of troops received by the team is what counts then.

In games/situations where I receive more than 3 troops on my turn, depending on the game situation, it may be best to just drop them all in one region where the most damage can be achieved. This follows the same math as above but with one single "Knock Out" blow rather than lots of little "Jabs" to the body.

When playing in non team games, where I automatically start with more then 3 troops on my turn then it is a better idea to form an area and a line of attack than to create weaknesses throughout. But where I receive only 3 troops and no lines of attack in the near future, then it would be best to just get messy and get the most attacks on the most numbers going as possible.

That's my 2 cents worth.

Well, actually in this economy, my 2 cents worth now has a value of $5.00 Dollars.

[shadistic]

I find it odd that people try to refute this by bringing up different settings. Of course different settings will change tactics. We don't use universal settings anywhere over these games. If you play Manual, Automatic, Unlimited, No spoil, Nuclear, Chained, Adjacent, Freestyle, Sequential, 1 v 1, 8 player standard, doubles or triples, flat rate and escalating and more... any tactic anyone brings up you could just say.. oh X works for 7 of the above, BUT WAIT! IT DOESN'T WORK FOR ALL THE REST!

It's just that you worded the title and first post as if it was a widely applicable tactic. I was being a little redundant by listing all the settings that weren't completely conducive to this, but the point is that this works because out of the 10,000+ combinations of CC games, you exclusively play 10 or less. Really, there are just 2 settings that are crucial for you to mention: 2-player, and large-map. The others aren't quite so necessary. Does any given tactic work on all maps? Probably not, you're right. But when you post a tactic that's specifically designed for a 1/1000 fraction (if even that) of all the games that are played, it's good to include a caveat.

From just looking at the dice rolls, this tactic is mathematically the same thing as hitting an opponent's large stack with one of your own in order to use the attacker's advantage: 3v2, 3v2, 3v2, as long as you can go for. And the large-stack form is something that no one would disagree with. The only difference here is that the risk is not hedged by concentrating it all in one location.

Using this tactic on 1v1 *will* benefit you in the long run. And on a large enough map, it's pretty sure to benefit you in every game. Making it work consistently is just a matter of having enough borders with your opponent- "enough" being 12 or more.

[Viceroy63]

It is, never the less, a good tactic to try for consistently in 1vs.1 games, when starting out the game. You complete your winning odds advantage more fully this way by playing as many 3vs.2 dice as possible, so that at some point you must be successful in some assault and if you lose you only lose 1 or 2 troops leaving you with at least 2 troops on the regions from whence you've tried this. But where you are successful, have a huge advantage in that area.

[Edit]
Also in adding; it is always a good idea to weaken first thus utilizing your advantage to it's fullest potential of 3vs.2 dice, and then if possible mopping up with the 1's at the end of the Assault. That is what I am summarizing is the whole tenet of this tactic.

[Seulessliathan]

On big maps like the ones described, I totaly agree that anything less than deploying all n troops in n different regions is a mistake, I have also played a few...thousands hives and yes, I almost always deploy 12 4s in first round. In fact, I usualy deploy only 4s in most maps anyway....

CC community will always split: Some believe in the power of the 4´s , and the others build stacks and wonder why the their opponents always get the better dice.