I told Han & Hryll that I would put down my thoughts about the WOK:Duel that Hryll & I just completed last week. For those of you who want to check it out, you can find it here:
http://www.kaomaris.com/phpNuke/modules ... 295#action
Han did a fine job of setting up the situation in his comments after turn #0 and turn #1. My thoughts of the game were that it would be a sprint from the start -- I described it as immediate end-game tactics with start-of-game lack of resources. So, I was unsure if we'd be able to do a normal couple of turns of leaving each other alone in order to take neutrals. The auto-NAPs, the 2 turns of no head-hunting, and the robo players made it possible to get off to a good start, with only a couple of places where we might run into each other. One of those places that we were likely to bump heads was province #50 -- it had a good amount of POP in it, and it's key to controlling movement on that side of the map.
A quick note about this map. Most strategy games have an unwritten rule that it's strategically important to control the center of the board. That's very true on this map as well. However, the 5 points are key in a couple of ways ... they contain the most POP, and they give the ability to control movement around the bottleneck lakes. While I was happy to have 2 homes in the middle of the map, I was a little unhappy that I couldn't take a point province right away (I was right next to #1, but Hryll had the OOP advantage on turn #1).
So, I was surprised by a couple of things out of the gate. Hryll never took province #1, and I messed up my transition orders for my player B and wasn't in position to do much of anything for the next turn, which meant that it went to the dark green robo player. Another thing that surprised me (throughout the game, actually) was that Hryll never spied on me, while I was spying everything I could. In this game, it seemed the information gained through spying was perhaps even more important than the EFF effects. I also decided to put all of my workers on either MIS or TEC. I thought having a good number of attacks -- and eventually the ability to trade in for 250 to fix any long-term EFF problems -- would be very helpful.
On turn #3, I RIP'd that dark green robo player and eventually took province #1. This came about because I wanted my light blue "B" player to get the robo player's home province, but I had to attack #2 to get there. If I'd left the robo player alive in #1, then he would attack my newly-gained #2 on the next turn and my #5 after that -- a real pest. Also, I figured if I could get my grey "A" player into #1, that would stop Hryll's orange "A" player from coming around the lake on that side (thanks to the auto-NAPs) -- he'd have to go through the brown robo player to get at me. In the meantime, in the south, I had stretched my light green "C" player between the two southern lakes to keep Hryll's yellow "C" player away from the middle of the map.
As chance (or was it great planning?) would have it, my grey "A" had a nice sized stike force in #60, which Hryll's purple "B" just bordered-up against. That player seemed to be struggling a bit and I had an inkling that I could RIP him, if I planned it out right, since my "A" had enough TEC for 6 attacks. I figured he'd have to take that last neutral in the area (#56), so I put the orders in to attack through that province and up through the last provinces held by his "B". Fate would give me a hand in that Hryll had to split his force to attack the neutral, which gave him too tough of a fight. His remaining crew gave a tough battle, along with smaller groups of troops in a couple more of those provinces. I had started with 49 ARM and ended up with 4 in the end ... but it was a RIP, and I was left without a direct threat to my "A" so I could take a couple of turns to regroup.
I was also prepping my light blue "B" group to attack out of 2, and on the next turn, I cut across the brown robo player (which I had missiled and it killed itself against the neutral #3), and my grey "A" to take out the northern part of Hryll's orange "A". This was one half of a pincer that was supposed to be completed by my light green "C" to finish off those orange guys. But Hryll side-stepped my plans, taking out the head of the red robo player and missiling and killing off my attack force out of 19.
This left me with not much available to my "C" group, so my only hope of a quick finishing blow would be with my "B" group ... but I had planned poorly and left my main attack group in #10. So, I had to find a round-about path for the attack in turn #6. Luckily, I had a good amount of TEC built up and a path of empty provinces to cut across my grey "A" and light green "C" property. This took out the final battle group for orange and meant I just had to take the last couple of provinces in the final turn.
I had started to work up a secondary layer of attack groups (grey "A" against his yellow "C", and the light blue "B" group that RIP'd the dark blue robo player on the last turn), but they weren't needed.
I really enjoyed this format and would like to play again. I highly recommend it ... especially for on your tactical warrior side.
-Bryk
Bring'em on and keep'em comin'!
Duels. 