Community Tournament (Congratulations Alvendor on 1st Place!)

[Alvendor]

(10-31-2012 12:04 AM)calmon Wrote:  Game 2 Link

The second game had a lot of pretty advanced things going for it. So I will concentrate on them and what actually was going on in my head during it.

Sweetie Plains is a very good map for Scullywags and the FTA is not that bad so I was quite happy when Calmon chose it.

2. Protecting the sniper has highest priority and this opening does that and makes my wit side stronger which I will need to reinforce anyway. As I need a sniper there I count it to be worth 5 wits.

3. Notice he boosted the medics here, something I will come back to later.

4. I need just a few units to defend my right side. Notice I don't move out with the soldier, I try to save wits by delaying every move that can be delayed.

6. I move forward with the soldier as I don't mind him moving forward on this side of the map. I don't know how it will play out but am fairly sure I won't come out behind.

10. He kills my medic and I kill his boosted runner for a net gain of 1 wit. When there are small exchanges like this I almost always make my plays based on wit value of units. There are general plans in the back of my head but all small exchanges has the goal of gaining a wit or two until I have the advantage to go in for a kill.

12. I take the wit space but don't attack his boosted runner. The reasoning is that it could actually be worth more for me to let the runner have 2 health! When boosted he is actually limited in what he can do with it. He can for example not kill my sniper on the spawn point as he would loose 1 wit on the exchange.

16. A bombshell at this position is what makes this map so good for scullywags! It effectively shuts down the only good attack path.

I also try to take out his medic, and get really surprised when I see it boosted. I didn't expect that! I loose 3 wits on that exchange. It worked out great this time for him, but I'm not sure how I feel about the play in general. It costs 3 wits to get both medics boosted which he regained on this turn. If I had spotted medics the only gain he get is that I can't kill them. Killing medics with runners is most often wit neutral so not necessarily something to worry about. I guess the play is okay if you have a good chance of fooling your opponent which also makes it a very advanced play.

18. He taking my spawn tile came as a surprise to me. Might not be too bad, I just need to be careful.

20. After blocking my bombshell and killing one boosted runner I have 4 wits left. It is quite appealing to kill the other boosted runner as well, but would have been a huge mistake. I know the main attack is coming to the left and just one wit could be the deciding factor in that fight. So I leave the runner. I also don't splash the soldier as I haven't shown the bombshell and am hoping he could make a mistake when moving in if he doesn't know about it.

22. I got 10 wits and there are many possible combinations. I try to run through them all, actually thinking about it, put the game down and coming back a few hours later. I did this a couple of times as it was a tricky situation and would have a huge effect on the game. Finally I find the best option to be leaving his soldier on my wit space.

24-34 I believe I came out ahead on our first clash, but I still need to secure that left flank. I create another bombshell as he now has a mobi and can possibly take out the first one.

36-38 He starts spreading out towards the middle. I get a little worried he can break through there as I know Calmon is not afraid to take another attack path than the obvious if he finds a weakness.

38 I'm starting to feel I have a good enough defense on the left side and want as soon as possible start a counter attack on the other flank. I have quite a lot of wits saved and think he does as well, so I need to make sure, while attacking on the right, I always have enough to fight back if he would move out all is units on the left. At the same time I wan't to attack as much as possible to take away his initiative, I don't want to let him start to run wild with double mobis.

I really enjoyed this game as it had several tough choices in it. Sucks that it ended as it did. There is only one thing in my play I'm unhappy about. The one drawback with those defensive bombshells are that it is no effective way of using those 20 wits spent for offense. So every defensive wit I spend is a wit I can't attack with. After our big fight on 22-24 I should have estimated how much we lost each. If I knew that it would have been easier to know when to stop massing defense and I could possible have started attacking a bit earlier.