Duel#10 - Hryllantre vs. trewqh - the rematch

[trewqh]

This LightBlue is giving me a headache.

Here's a link to that Duel's page:
Duel #10 Original

[Hannibal]

Only your Lt Blues?!

I'd have thought your Yellows were worth a headache as RoboGrey bears down on them, not a lot of places to run to. So your Lt Green has too many choices - a headache in itself.

But Hryll's Red is as threatened by RoboViolet as you are by RoboGrey and RoboGreen...

And then there are those naps ... Brown and Yellow are napped, as are Red and Lt Blue ...

This is the most complex (Robos and naps) Duel so far, and anything could happen, The key is probably the one to least screw up against those heavy trudging Robos, and yet find time to go get the other guy. Perfect!

[trewqh]

I guess you're right, it's just that I strated my planning with LightBlue.

[trewqh]

Oh my! That first turn was certainly one of the most exciting WOK moments for me!

And not because I got lucky. Well... not ONLY because of that. But, it was my LightBlue's situation mainly that caused the excitment.

If you look at the map for turn 0 then you can see that my LightBlue was very close to Hryllantre's Orange and both of them neighboured province #39. That province is very special on the Classic map since it has 130 population at the start (while, I'd say, the Classic map is poorly populated in general) and is a province long in shape, with lots of neighbours and it can take you from one the east side of the map into the very middle. Thus, it's a key strategic point. Unfortunately, the OoP was not in my favour (it seemed ). I went before Hryll meaning that wherever I decided to go, Hryll had a good chance of taking everything I take away from me. Especially if I took #39 as my first attack, since #39 gives access to many other provinces (ie. Orange might reach #37 through #34). I felt surrounded already!

But there was a thing that added a twist to the situation. #39 would be attacked by the DarkBlue Roboplayer on turn 2. So, whoever takes #39 was likely to lose it to that Robo, since Robos are quite strong in the early turns of a Duel game.

So, what do I do? I can't go through #39 and somewhere further since, even if Hryll doesn't guess my route, he gets the highly populated #39 for free and he ends up much stronger than me, because he can use up the POP from #39 quickly, move the remains to his home province and say 'pfff' to DarkBlue's attack on turn 2. So I can't do that.

Should I try to predict Hryll's attacks and do my best to not go in his way?... And, like, go where? EVERY province I could go to was in Hryll's reach! And I can bet that Hryllantre tried to exploit that with the orders he submitted [Right, Hryll?! ] Thus, even if I manage to take one or two provinces without Hryllantre anticipating my moves, I will be left with one or two poorly populated provinces while Hryllantre gets the sweet and creamy #39 and surely two more. Consequently, with the Green Roboplayer closing in I will be pushed into to the corner and forced to fight for my survival instead of being able to inflict damage.

I couldn't allow that, right? There had to be a way to inflict damage before Hryllantre becomes much stronger than me, even if it hindered my own development.

That Orange would take #39 as his first move seemed obvious. Come on! Everybody would have done teh same on Hryll's place. At least I would.

What if I deliberately went in his way? I knew my armies would be a bigger obstacle than those neutrals, even after I had fought that neutral armies. But I did have to use the Battle Calculator to see what might happen. The result was 3:1 in Orange's favour, BUT even if Hryll had won that province:
1. Instead of 80% of the POP he'd get only 64% (that is 80% of what I got)
2. He'd be left with on or two armies (too little to take another neutral) , and most importantly
3. I'd be the one who controls the situation. I'd have the initiative. I'd be the one who will know what's going to happen.


The advantages coming from the possibility of my winning in that battle (Yaaay! ) were obvious despite having to face DarkBlue on turn 2 (I was hoping for a different OoP, though )

As for the other side of the map, Brown's and Red's moves did surprise me. I did expect Brown, who was later in the OoP, to approach LightGreen, who was earlier in the OoP, thus potentially cutting Yellow of. Apparently, Hryllantre has some other cunning scheme...

Really looking forward to the upcoming turns!

[korexus]

I notice that the GM commentary seems truncated for this game. Is what shows the same as what you typed, Han or do I need to go bug hunting?


Chris.

[trewqh]

Isn't there a limit to how long the commentary can be?

[korexus]

There's certainly *a* limit, as I have to specify entry size when setting up the database. If I was thinking, I'll have gone for a thousand or so characters as this is still negligable in terms of disk space.

I may not have been thinking though...


Chris.

[Hannibal]

That Orange would take #39 as his first move seemed obvious. Come on! Everybody would have done teh same on Hryll's place. At least I would.

Yep, I sure would have too, if I'd been Hryll. As you say, the odds were heavily (3:1?) on Hryll's side to take it, as his first attack out of start-prov #45, even if you took it as your first attack and stopped, as you did.

Hryll, you'd be justified in saying you were very unlucky not to retake #39 from trewqh. The more odds-on happy result for trewqh was that you'd retake #39 from him, but be so weakened that you'd bounce off the next neutral you attacked after it, and end up with no strong survivors, and perhaps transforming in the wrong places. Plus the CHANCE of an even better outcome for him - which adds to the decision to try that plan - and he lucked out with the better outcome, I reckon.

So Hryll's orders for Orange were smart but unlucky; I'd have done the same.

trewqh puzzled by Hryll's orders for his Brown and Red? I'm the GM but I'm ONLY going on the map, OK? (and doing this to stimulate enjoyment following the action). I think his Red attacks were very smart - since Lt Blue and Red are napped, best grab the neutrals between them, since the other guy can't take them back ... especially if you've guessed that, linking it all together, trewqh's Lt Blues might well go stand in #39 and try to fend off Oranges coming out of #45. After all ... those Lt Blues can't do BOTH!! They either get in the way of Oranges, or else leave the mid-neutrals between Lt Blue and Red for Red to take first, but not both. So maybe both Orange and Red plans work, or maybe just one, but they can't both fail...

And if I were taking those risks with Orange and Red, I think I'd have gone more conservative with my Browns, just as Hryll did, to ensure max transforms of armies, plus ... er, I'd better not say.

So, I'd have done exactly the same as Hryll in attacks! And I'd be similarly about 55/45 down now, but early days. Great fun, lots of options. Come on Robos, go Robos!

[trewqh]

the odds were heavily (3:1?) on Hryll's side to take it

That's what the Battle Calulator said when I input the 9 armies I'd take #39 with on average. My chance increased when I took it with 10 armies after all.

And if I were taking those risks with Orange and Red, I think I'd have gone more conservative with my Browns, just as Hryll did, to ensure max transforms of armies, plus ... er, I'd better not say.

You don't have to say. It's obvious that now the competition is who will manage to cut the other one off first with Yellow and Brown being in an obligatory NAP.

Defenitely an interesting brain-cracker!

[Hryllantre]

Crikey!

Oranges:-
I ran the same calculator many many times and I should of won, shouldn't I?

For Turn2 my Oranges are better off staying in #45 and converting it's PoP to Workers. These Workers will then missile Lt Blue after spying on each possible province to seek him out.

Brown:-
These followed trewqh's Yellow in the OOP and I expected them to come down to #15 which I spied (I did something right!). I couldn't afford for them to bounce off #15 even though I should of won that battle as trewqh had to attack into a neutral province 3 times against my 2.

I probably aired too much on the side of caution with my Browns but I did have a contingency plan should Yellow stray down to #15. All of my Population minus (-) 144 Pop required to transform another 3 x 12 Armies have been transformed into Workers building Missiles. Whichever way trewqh goes next with his Yellows I'll be waiting. !!The only problem with that is if I fail to land a Province this turn Browns will be waiting to die.

Reds:-
Should I, shouldn't I!?! My original plan for my REDS was straight up from #24 -> 25 (high PoP) -> 30 (high PoP). I knew that neither Lt blues nor Yellows could steal any of my provinces from behind. This only left Lt Greens route I had expected them to attack #30 for the PoP then #31, #58.

Perhaps I should follow my own instincts instead of trying to preempt my opponents.

Turn2 should be an interesting one... <- Might as well be evil now whilst I can.

[Hryllantre]

I realise this may be a time consuming operation but highlighting the colours makes the reading of text more exciting.

[trewqh]

Indeed it does.

Oranges are better off staying in #45 and converting it's PoP to Workers. These Workers will then missile Lt Blue after spying on each possible province to seek him out.

Better off? Or rather, you have no armies in #45 Hmm, in which case you might have transformed some POP into WOK and, consequently, you might have more than 6 MIS there at the end of turn 2... <scratches head>

I expected YOU to take #30. Yellow was in no position to take it and LightGreen could either: (a) take #30 and stop (which gave too little POP in all, I thought) or (b) go 59-31-30, but that would mean that my armies have to fight 3 neutrals before potentially facing your Brown's armies who would fought only one if you decided to take #30. And I did expect you to take #30 rather than #15 and that's why I didn't hesitate that much about taking #15 with Yellow.

(And taking #30 as LightGreen's first of three moves with Brown going after LG in the OoP, was not an option. )

The way I see, it taking #30 would bring you closer to the goal of cutting Yellow off from Red. #30 would not be endangered by #10 because on turn 2 we don't have MIS yet and still, Yellow would not be able to advance even if you left #30 empty.

I've got my plan for LightBlue so far, still thinking what to do in the west.

[korexus]

[geek]
You could speed it up slightly, by writing your post in notepad without any formatting, then use the replace option to change all the 'orange's to '[color =orange]orange[/color]' it'd be faster, especially for long posts, you can then copy and paste the text to your reply.
[/geek]

korexus will now go and get himself a life...

PS, trewqh I know there is no space in the colour assignment, but I had to make it show on the board.

[trewqh]

Good point!

And, korexus, your life isn't worse just because your perception is... different.

<wanders off thinking about the significance of using nicknames on the net...>

[Hannibal]

I've just thought of a "convention" we can all adopt for chatting about Duel games, regardless of whether you name colours in colour or not:

It was me that started calling them "Lt Blues" and "Lt Greens", to distinguish from the dark green and dark blue slots ....

Let's save thousands of key-presses from now on till the end of time by just calling Lt Blue and Lt Green human players as: Blue and Green.

When you want to mention the OTHER blue, you refer to it as RoboBlue, and likewise thew other green as RoboGreen (they get referred to far less often in debate anyway).

Hey, "One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for key-presses".

Han

[korexus]

Um, could you just remind us which colours would be Robo-owned in your 2-spot duel game?

I reckon I could work out what people said, even if it was just by 'my blue provinces' the thing is that I actually think of the light blues as 'light blues' so it would take effort not to type that when I do my posts.

But then, I've been here waay to long. My subconsious actually de-filters the word censors...

Chris.

[Hannibal]

I reckon I could work out what people said, even if it was just by 'my blue provinces' the thing is that I actually think of the light blues as 'light blues' so it would take effort not to type that when I do my posts.
Chris.

I can't work out whether that's a yes or a no : yes, you could understand if people just said "my blues"; or no, too much effort to change.

For once it needn't involve any extra coding at all! I was thinking of future generations, and only saying that people can feel free to shorten it to Blues and Greens rather than follow the lead I set calling them Lt Blues and Lt Greens. No harm either way, no big deal.

For the autocommentary, maybe we should indeed stick to Lt Blues and Lt Greens, for clarity.

[korexus]

What I was saying was that people will probably type pretty much what they want. For me personally typing "light blues" will be faster because that's what I think of them as. (Other wise, I have to go back and delete all the 'lights' after typing them anyway. )

Also, coding should have nothing to do here. The names are taken from whatever the GM entered when setting up the game...


Chris.

[trewqh]

I was thinking of future generations, and only saying that people can feel free to shorten it to Blues and Greens rather than follow the lead I set calling them Lt Blues and Lt Greens. No harm either way, no big deal.

[theoretical rambling] The same as with naming Duels - you can suggest some convention, but future generations will, in practice, find the best balance between practicality and precision themsleves.[/theoretical rambling]

trewqh - the Anthropolinguist

[Hannibal]

Um, could you just remind us which colours would be Robo-owned in your 2-spot duel game?

I'm glad you asked me that! It gives me a chance to suggest something I've been meaning to suggest, but holding back in case you thought it not worth it. But you keep saying you're bored just now, and asking "What next?" ..... So:

For future generations, I think it would be a nice touch to change the order of the colours as they appear in slots 1-10.

For two reasons: (if one doesn't get you the other might):

1) As an aid to memory in Duel. You kinda have to remember which ORDER your own 3 colours are, and your opponent's, so that you remember which is napped with which, AA, BB, CC. And you have to remember the ORDER of the Robos as well, 7, 8, 9, 10, for when you are reading the OOP that says 8 goes first, just before your 2 ....

I don't know about you, but I have to keep looking back to the map-and-list-of-slots, or my notes on last turn, to remember which is which. I know you've said yes to my request of colour-coding the numerals as they appear in the "OOP for next turn" below the map and in the on-screen TR's, but some of us print off text copies of the TR's, in black and white, so it'll help but not always.

It would be easier to remember if it were alphabetical. Much easier to run through in your head rather than lokk up. By turn 3 you are used to which 3 colours are yours, but still hazy on which is A, which B and which C. Alphabetical would help. (No, don't suggest order-of-rainbow as an aide-memoire, Kor!). Eg "my 3 are Yellow, Orange and Violet ....now, which one was my A? ... ah, yes, O, V, Y, so Orange are my A's ... no need to look it up to check". Aide memoire. A thousand times.

2) For writing on. Lots of us run off colour copies of the new map each turn, enlarged and stretched, so that we can write details on it and scribble over it. And you do a lot more detail-writing on your own, and even on the opponents, than you do on the Robos .... So lighter colours for the players would help, leaving the darker colours for the Robos. Egbert used to ask every GM to assign him a light colour for just that purpose of writing on - it's horrible if you are writing on Dark Blue, Dark Green, Brown or Red. Ask Egbert.

Kor, I know you can change the colour-balance before printing off (I do it - I just move "Gamma" two notches to the right, and I'm fine). But try telling that to the future dozens ... No, much easier to make the Duel humans the lighter colours from the start.

SO, matching up (1) and (2), only needing alphabetical WITHIN your colours, within the opponents, and within the Robo's, then the ideal is:

1 Grey
2 Light Blue
3 Light Green

4 Orange
5 Violet
6 Yellow

7 Blue (RoboBlue)
8 Brown (RoboBrown)
9 Green (RoboGreen)
10 Red (RoboRed)

That was a hidden reason why "Light Blue" or "Blue" mattered, but let's keep it as Light Blue officially, for alphabetical and clarity purposes. People can just feel free to shorten it in their posts to "my blues" if they want.

So, it helps in Duel. It makes zero difference in Standard, no harm at all. So no need to code it differently for Duel and for Standard! You can just make the one switch overall.

And you don't have to phase it in. Unlike the Roboalgo, it makes no difference to your plans in any game you are in the middle of, you keep the same "Leader numbers", it's only that your colours change from one turn to the next, no other effect. So let's do it now, with only about 6 of us in games, so only 6 people to warn that they'll see their colour change next turn, no problem.

Phew, I only argue it at length because you always look for holes, Kor !

Any problems? Is that a yes?

Oh, and that's why I asked you to hold off on my idea of colouring the numerals in the statement of the OOP for next turn ... because I wanted you to swap the colours around first, once I had time to explain why.