Mapmakers: mibi, Coleman and yeti_c
An introduction to Battle For Iraq!
This map displays the map of Iraq, but goes a step further than mere geographics. Iraq is a country at war and the country has different groups of people living in it. Battle For Iraq! has a unique gameplay, where every city has the choice of being loyal to one of those groups. Beware, if you are loyal to more than one group, your troops will protest.
A very interesting map with lots of different ways to play it. I'll give you a few suggestions in this guide, but I can't write them all down. Go see for yourself and enjoy!
Classification
Size: Medium – 87 territories
Complexity: Average
Maximum amount of players: 12
Features
- One-way attacks
- Negative bonus
- Starting neutral regions
Special borders
- Cities can attack any corresponding city loyalty square
- Cities can attack the province they're in and vice versa
- Cities can attack along the roads
- Cities one-way attack United States and Baathist loyalty squares
- Mahdi and al-Qaeda loyalty squares can attack their corresponding city
- Baghdad is in the middle of the map and most sectors within Baghdad attack adjacent provinces or cities
Bonuses
You recieve bonus troops when the regions with the same colour are held. But if you also hold the mixed regions that have multiple colours, including the bonus area you're holding, your bonus will increase. For instance: holding the Kurd bonus means holding Province of Ninawa, Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaymania for 4 troops. When you also hold the mixed regions Province of Ta'mim and Dyala, you'll receive 6 bonus troops.
Within the city of Baghdad you can hold 3 bonus areas.
City loyalties
- al-Qaeda: You get 3 troops for every 2 cities you hold with the al-Qaeda loyalty. The al-Qaeda loyalty squares can attack all Sunni cities (City of Rutbah, Qa'am, Hidithah, Fallujah, Ramadi, Karbala and Tikrit).
- United States: Every loyalty square has 3 neutral on it. You get 1 troop for every loyalty square with their corresponding city. This increases to 2 troops if you hold Sector: Green Zone (in Baghdad).
- Baathist: You get 1 troop for every city with its corresponding Baathist loyalty.
- Mahdi Army: You get 7 troops for 4 cities with Mahdi loyalty. The Mahdi loyalti square can attack the Mahdi-sectors in Baghdad (Sector: Sadr City, New Baghdad, Karada)
Important when holding city loyalties
When you hold 1 loyalty per city, nothing happens. But when you hold 2 different loyalties in 1 city, you'll lose one troop. When holding 3 different loyalties per city, you'll lose 2 troops. When holding all 4 loyalties, the balance is restored and you won't lose troops anymore.
Basic strategy
Battle For Iraq! asks for a lot of different approaches, it depends on the settings. Usually the Baathist loyalty is the easiest bonus to get, so if you already hold a city that has only 1 neutral on the Baathist loyalty square, it can help you to get more troops early on.
Province of Anbar is the most important territory on the map, because it has by far the most borders. It can attack (and be attacked by) the 5 cities it contains and is adjacent to 6 other regions. Province of Anbar is so big, that it enables anyone that takes it to travel over the map quickly. I wouldn't suggest to just put all your money on getting Province of Anbar, but it can surely help you to hold it.
As said before, the strategies vary per setting. The list of strategies written below is far from complete, because there are simply too many strategies and it will be different every game. This list is a way to help you get started and understand what the setting does, so you can try it out yourself.
Settings
Fog of War
The fog can help you to get secret bonuses. The loyalty squares can only be attacked by the corresponding city, so no one can see the loyalty squares and no one can be sure what bonus you're holding exactly. Especially when holding a few cities, fog of war can be useful.
In teamgames the map is designed in a way that makes it easy to protect your teammate from elimination. This can be done in various ways, the two easiest being:
Hide your teammate in a loyalty square of a city your team owns.
Hide your teammate in a city of a province your team owns, including the adjacent city down the road.
1 v 1
The usual strategy for 1v1 applies, with a few exceptions. It can be very beneficial to get a few Baathist bonuses as soon as you can, but only from Baathist loyalty squares with 1 neutral. This will give you an easy bonus to outdeploy your opponent. Of course, your opponent can do this too, so keep an eye out on what cities provide that Baathist bonus for him. Maybe a small Sector-bonus in Baghdad can be taken if the drop makes it easy for you, this decision will be made for each game..
As for the usual strategy for 1v1 being applied: you both start with 13 regions, so try to get the other player underneath 12 regions as soon as possible. That should go without saying.
Doubles, triples, quadruples
Like most maps, trying to eliminate someone as quickly as possible is the best strategy for teamgames on this map. Getting some early Baathist bonuses can help you to get ahead of your opponent. The other loyalties are usually not practical to take in a teamgame, because they require taking too much neutrals, while you should have your focus on the enemy. What kind of spoils you're playing, doesn't have a huge impact on the before mentioned gameplay.
No Spoils
This is a perfect map for a game without spoils, because there are so many bonuses. Even in a 12 player game, every player is able to get a bonus. Standard games will require patience, but can be really awesome on this map.
Your task is to get the biggest amount of bonus troops by getting the right loyalty squares. When playing the map, you'll see which loyalties the drop allows you to go for.
Flat Rate
Playing a standard game with Flat Rate on Battle For Iraq! will increase the luck factor a little bit, making the game more dynamic. Apart from that, the strategy isn't significantly different from a game on this map without spoils.
Escalating
Battle For Iraq! has 87 territories, but that number (while being correct) doesn't count for escalating games. There are only 39 starting territories, the other 48 territories are loyalty squares. In an escalating game, it would be foolish to go for any bonus, except for the easy Baathist to increase your bonus a little.
You will play this map like any other map that has around 40 territories, you'll just have to keep in mind how the attack routes work. Escalating strategy can be found in Tacticus Escalatus, a fine piece by Scorba.
Nuclear, Zombie Spoils
Half of the territories of this map are unused in most cases, which makes these spoils a bit off a lucky draw. You can get 3 good spoils to hurt your enemy a lot, but you might as well get 3 spoils that make a neutral even more neutral than it was. This isn't the best map to use these spoils.
Reinforcements
- Chained: It usually works fine, since you won't need excessive reinforcing on this relatively small map.
- Adjacent: In most cases, adjacent reinforcement would work the same as chained reinforcements. This setting slows things down and that can be cool if you like it.
- Unlimited: This allows you to travel over the map quickly. With 39 starting territories very close to each other, unlimited reinforcements can create fast eliminations. If you like a fast game with lots of planning on the first few moves, this is a good setting.
- Parachute: This setting can get your troops (for instance) from a Baathist loyalty square, because you forgot that it was a one-way-attack by accident. Usually, parachute reinforcements are used as chained or something that is very similar to it.
- None: Most territories on this map connect to at least 3 others, which makes reinforcing less important. Playing without reinforcement is perfectly doable without getting stacks of useless troops, you'll just have to plan and play it right.
Trench
It can be a very strategic map, because of all the small bonuses. Playing with Trench warfare increases the strategy even more, because mistakes are harder to counter. If you like Trench warfare, Battle For Iraq! is a great map to play it on.
Assassin
Games with this setting are like games on most geographic maps, with the exception that your target can hide himself on a loyalty square, even when the corresponding city to that square is held by another player. With fog of war, this will make it a hard task to find your target and my advice would be to focus on the cities, because they allow you to see both the province they're in and the loyalties that belong to them.
Tips for free
- As mentioned a few times: The Baathist loyalty is very easy to take on a number of cities (where the square has 1 neutral on it). This can give you an easy advantage early in the game, so just take them (but don't advance, because the troops won't come back).
- Province of Anbar is a very useful territory, try taking it if you can without too much loss.
- Figure out the attack routes before playing. There are some strange connections on this map, but if you master it, it will benefit you against players who don't know the map yet.
):
