Below is the map as it stands following everyone's first turn (blue has had 2 turns). First lets see how my predictions stacked up:
Blue: Blue didn't quite sit back like I thought most likely, but I was correct about him moving into Africa. It now seems much more likely he will go for the entire continent, and possibly South America.
Purple: Purple fortified his European position, took the easy territory of Kazakhstan and began moving troops from China towards Europe. I was correct on this one. Next turn he will likely expand further in Europe.
Black: Black seems to be definitively going for Australia as I predicted. The move to Siberia seems to be setting up a next turn conquest of China in addition to the likely push further into Australia.
Green (me): I grabbed a territory in North America.
The question I will explore today is how quickly to expand in the beginning of the game. As you can notice, no player went on an all-out blitz for as much territory as possible, but instead settled for modest gains and setting up a more powerful attack next turn by fortifying a territory to use as an attack base.
The reason why trying to grab land too quickly is a bad idea is because it weakens you to an easy counterattack, making it extremely unlikely that your gains will be more than fleeting.
This is because of the dice probabilities. When attacking it is always best to roll the maximum number of dice (3). For this to occur, you must have at least 4 attacking troops.
With three armies on a territory, the defender is able to roll two dice, at least initially, and thus in a battle of 3 vs. 3 each side rolls two dice. Since the ties go to the defender. attacking 3 against 3 is likely to lead to defeat.
Should you persist in attacking early with understrength forces, you will likely be left with lots of one army territories. Since one army can defend with only one die, these weak territories are at a significant disadvantage against an attacker rolling up to 3 dice.
For the reasons stated above, expanding more slowly and setting up a base of attack with a troop movement is more effective in terms of preserving army presence on the board than trying to capture a continent more quickly and loosing more troops in exchange for a relatively weak hold.
Don't worry if this doesn't make complete sense right now. Play a few games and more often than not you will see that the players who are very aggressive early on get eliminated more quickly. It takes time to know how quickly to expand and it is not a skill that you will perfect immediately.
That being said, here is the map after my next turn:
As you can see, I've taken another territory as well as set up a base of attack in Ontario. With the added troops I will get next turn, I will hopefully be able to capture at least two more territories in North America and will use my troop movements to either create a new base of attack if needed or solidify one of my borders.
Until next time, Jay
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