After the first 4 moves...

[CultureClash]

I have played a few SOC games now and think I am begining to get the hang of the first 4 moves. My sugestions are now nolonger met with derision and completly changed but useually told that they are good with posibly a few minor tweaks. but... the games i have completed seemed to go strait from having a full set of players with everyone slowly taking easy cards and building a deck to all bar two are eliminated or the games over.
This seems to happen in the blink of an eye with no warning and games where i thought everything was going well have suddenly ended leaving me wandering through the wreckage slightly shell shocked and wondering what the hell just happened.

I was wondeing if (as these games were won by SOC teachers) if it might not be a bad idea to have teachers who win games give a quick post game analysis of how they won/what you did wrong/might have done differently ect. As it is I seem to be doing everythign ok, (according to my teachers) but then games just end without me seing how or getting any feedback on what happened.

so any general advice on the mid~end game, plus thoughts on post game analysis.

Slightly shellshocked...
CC

[dhallmeyer]

Good thoughts. The F4M are the basic code (guidelines, not rules) that we go by. When there's an opportunity for a kill, especially with a recash to follow, we jump. Many times it is only the combination of many factors that allows a sweep to come together: card sequence, number of cards on the table, troop levels, and most of all dice. Get enough of these (and there are more) in your favor and you're in good shape to win. Keep in mind also, we aren't all about winning; we want to make a kill or two per game to have a net gain in points whether we win or lose. Over time this builds confidence and skill, which makes things more fun (and that's what we're here for)!

[Caymanmew]

these games are tough to get the hang of i find but once you figure the whole thing out it is very basic for me the key thing is 6to try and get 1-2 kill to balance the points i gain and lose (although the lower your level the less you need) if you just keep at it you will start to learn your way though the moves after the first 4 and if you dont see the lose coming then you did nothing wrong

[macbone]

When I see an opportunity, I go for it. Always check the troop strengths of each player before you make your move. Position your stacks so that they're in striking distance of the weakest players. Sometimes you get lucky and finish off a kill that someone else couldn't complete and net the attacker in the bargain. *Cough* Emelar in World 2.1 *Cough* (And then me the next turn, actually).

Use Assault Odds to determine what you need to take out a player. I usually pull the trigger if the aggregate percentage is over 50%.

Make sure your stacks are well-distributed. Nothing's worse than knowing you could take out a player if you just had one more stack that could strike that person's hard-to-reach territory.

Here's a Term Escalating game I played tonight: Game 7878936

I started out with decent distribution across North America, Europe, and Australia, though I didn't have a good central/eastern Asia stack. For most of the game, I bided my time, and I very nearly was taken out by Red. I didn't have good attack lines on anyone except for Teal. I went for the kill (prematurely, I might add), and I lost my stack in Oz, although I did eliminate a Yellow stack that was blocking me in NA.

I saw that I had a good shot at taking out Yellow, and I crunched the numbers and had about a 60% chance of taking him out. I loaded up, wiped him out, recashed, took out Red, cashed twice, wiped out Pink, and then took out teal. I was (sort of) patient, and a little lucky, but my troops were in the right place at the right time.

My mistakes? Taking out the Yellow stack might have been a mistake if someone else had been able to capitalize on Yellow's weakness, but at the time, he was the strongest player.

Taking out Teal was a long shot, and I probably shouldn't have tried, but I had a good feeling about it.

I auto-attacked in Oz and left myself too weak. Pink was able to eliminate me there and remove my shot at taking out Teal.

Things I did right:

I continued to look for my target, even though it looked like Red was going to take me out.

I eliminated Yellow, who had 5 cards at the time, allowing me to immediately recash.

I spread my stacks out, though I didn't have a solid stack in the NE quadrant of the board.

I played the odds and used my troops where I had the best shot at taking out my opponent.