MeDeFe wrote:So when is it profitable to go for an other continent then, oh great master of strategy? Should everyone hang back while the two who got Australia and SA battle it out?
You have done nothing to clarify, so far you have claimed that getting Aussie is almost tantamount to 100% chance of winning the game. "Get it and be done", seems to be what you're telling us inferior cretins. Please, I beg you, give us unworthy ones some details, how would you deal with the oh so hypothetical situation that never occurs of 3 or 4 other players holding continents on the classic map? Because surely they would never decide not to fight each other to the death if someone else is already holding a continent.
Listen, all I'm saying, is that statistics (taken from your games, mind you) support that, despite what people might want to believe, the player who ultimately wins the game takes Aussie as his first continent more often than any other continent. I understand it's way more cool to be the guy who goes against the grain, but the numbers quite simply say that, far more often than any other continent...(sorry, I'm not going to say it again).
Now, please understand that this doesn't mean the first player to take Aussie is the guy who always wins, rather that players rarely win by taking a bonus besides Aussie and going from there.
So, I understand that you were trying to make a joke by urging me to bestow my wisdom upon you, but unfortunately, it seems that you really need it. So, somebody else gets Aussie and South America and you don't have a great drop in one of the others. What are your choices? You can battle everyone out of Africa, Europe, or NA. This should cost many armies and many turns unless you're super lucky. Meanwhile, the dude in SA is just stacking up guys and ready to smack you down the first turn you actually take it since you're not likely to have a ton of guys left over to defend it. So, considering that the guys who are holding SA or Aussie realize that playing nice with you is ultimately going to be a bad deal for them. Thus far, they've enjoyed the early arms lead due to the fact that they're the only one earning a bonus. However, if everyone just plays nice, the guy who just took the bigger spots is going to end up better off. So, right now, while you have few guys defending, they're going to hit you. So now you're still not earning a bonus and have lost still more men. And so on.
So, who do I want to be if I'm not the guy who's holding Aussie? I wan to be the guy hanging out in Ural or Afgan watching all this go down. Every turn, I'm only earning 3 guys, but nobody's hitting me because I have a big stack that's not protecting anything. Why is somebody going to come over and waste a bunch of armies whittling down a stack? I mean, you seem to rely on nobody bothering to hit a marginally defended bonus area, right? So, as often as it doesn't, I'll be among the leaders in total armies 10-15 turns into the game. Now, if everyone does play nice and builds up, this is going to backfire, and it certainly has. Fortunately, however because the guys who get the early jump realize that the waiting game is going to cost them that isn't typically the case. Thus, at least as often as you're going to win from one of the big spots, there's going to be some big battle somewhere and you're going to be able to pick up the crumbs. Perhaps the guy who first took Aussie is going to stretch himself too thin and you'll be able to poach it. Of course, if you end up winning, then you'll qualify for the stat of guys who ended up winning took Aussie as their first bonus.
None the less, it doesn't really matter what you or I think is the best place to start, because the numbers don't lie. That's really it. I'm sorry there's not more, but when you have evidence on your side, you don't have to embellish or grandstand.