Welcome to Turn 4 of The Impaller versus The World, a game that everyone gets to participate in! For more information about the game, view this blog post.

The winning item from last time was number 11. Deploy 1 to Mexico, 4 to Murmansk and 7 to Colombia. Attack Cuba with 8. Transfer 1 from Vorkuta to Ufa. Attack Norway with 4. Transfer 2 from Ufa to Moscow. Attack Brazil with 8.

Here's what we did:

Here's the outcome:

• The World: Deploy 1 to Mexico

• The Impaller: Deploy 8 to Cuba

• The World: Deploy 4 to Murmansk

• The World: Deploy 7 to Colombia

• The World: 8 armies failed to take Cuba from Mexico. 6 attacking armies killed, 5 defending armies killed.

• The Impaller: 3 armies captured Venezuela from Cuba. 2 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed. (original order sent 8)

• The World: 1 army transferred to Ufa from Vorkuta

• The World: 4 armies captured Norway from Murmansk. 1 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed.

• The World: 2 armies transferred to Moscow from Ufa

• The World: 8 armies captured Brazil from Colombia. 1 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed.

• The World received a reinforcement card

Here are our options:

1. Goal: Eliminate Impaller completely from South America.
   -Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 17 to Brazil. Attack Venezuela with 23. Transfer 1 from Ufa to Moscow. Transfer 2 from Moscow to Murmansk. Transfer 2 from Norway to Murmansk. Attack Cuba with 2.

2. Goal: Block Impaller from moving within the South America bonus and do two delayed attacks to remove him from the bonus.
   -Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 17 to Colombia. Transfer 1 from Ufa to Moscow. Transfer 2 from Moscow to Murmansk. Transfer 2 from Norway to Murmansk. Attack Cuba with 2. Attack Venezuela with 17 from Colombia. Attack Venezuela with 6 from Brazil.

3. Goal: Block Impaller from moving within the South America bonus, delay an attack into Venezuela and take Bolivia for a potential bonus.
   -Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 17 to Colombia. Transfer 1 from Ufa to Moscow. Transfer 2 from Moscow to Murmansk. Transfer 2 from Norway to Murmansk. Attack Cuba with 2. Attack Venezuela with 17 from Colombia. Attack Venezuela with 2 from Brazil. Attack Bolivia with 4 from Brazil.

4. Goal: Ensure the taking of the Scandanavia bonus and attempt to block any smaller attack within the South America bonus.
   -Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 9 to Norway, 2 to Moscow and 6 to Colombia. Transfer 1 to Moscow. Attack Finland with 4. Attack Sweden with 4. Attack Svalbard with 7. Attack Cuba with 2.

5. Goal: Take the Scandanavia bonus with some luck, position to defend Antartica and attack into Africa to potentially border Impaller if he is in East Africa.
   -Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 7 to Norway, 1 to Moscow and 9 to Novolazerevskaya. Transfer 6 to Argentina. Attack South Africa with 9. Attack Svalbard with 6. Attack Norway and Sweden with 3 each. Transfer 1 to Moscow.

6. Goal: Eliminate Impaller completely from South America and Central America.
   -Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 16 to Brazil and 1 to Mexico. Attack Venezuela with 22. Transfer 1 to Moscow. Attack Cuba with 3.

7. Goal: Prevent any movement with the South America bonus and delay attacks from both Colombia and Brazil as long as possible.
   -Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 5 to Brazil, 11 to Colombia and 1 to Cuba. Transfer 1 to Moscow. Transfer 2 to Murmansk from Moscow. Attack Cuba with 3. Attack Venezuela with 11 from Colombia. Attack Venezuela with 11 from Brazil.

8. Goal: Ensure the capture of the Scandanavia bonus.
   -Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 9 to Norway, 2 to Moscow and 6 to Brazil. Transfer 1 to Moscow. Attack Finland with 4. Attack Sweden with 4. Attack Svalbard with 7. Attack Cuba with 2. Attack Venezuela with 12.

Click here to vote

You should interpret the stars as follows:

0 Stars means "I don't care" or "I'm indifferent to this item."

1 Star means "I'm positive we should not do this."

2 Stars means "I don't think we should do this."

3 Stars means "Maybe we should do this."

4 Stars means "I think we should do this."

5 Stars means "I'm positive this is what we should do."

Use this thread to discuss strategy. Feel free to suggest new options and if there's enough demand, I'll add them for voting. Have votes in before the end of the day Thursday and check Friday for the next turn!

May I make a suggestion?

(I'm frantically trying to catch up on this blog game, as I'm probably going to have to fight Impaller in a tournament next game and would like to last more than a turn!)

I'd use the reinforcement card, deploy one each to Moscow and Norway to attack Sweden and Finland with 3 each.

Deploy everything else to Brazil

Attack Cuba with 2, working on the principal that he won't deploy there to block the CA bonus as there is the 11 there already.

Attack Venezuela with everything else.

Overall plan being next turn to capture Bolivia with 4 and Svalbard with 7 to complete both bonuses. I know there is a chance to take Bolivia with 3 this turn and still attack Venezuela but I'd rather be sure to eliminate Impaller from the SA bonus.

Comments guys? am I trying to do too much? I know this relies on a bit of luck, but doesn't everything! If I'm being completely stupid please tell me and give feedback...

Jingle -- that plan is not superior to the ones T gave because it inefficiently deploys armies to Scan without the prospect of taking the bonus this turn. If were not going to take the Scan bonus with an allotment of 11 armies, then there's no reason to deploy any there.

11 would become 10 next turn as the 1 slides over from moscow, but it's a lot to deploy for a +3 bonus. it would take 3.5 turns to recover the cost of getting it. Which would have been fine had we gotten Imp out of SA last turn.

Considering Imp deployed 8 last turn, he most likely has India as his only bonus right now. Which makes me suspect his third spot is East Africa. Given how much he had to deploy to get India plus what we've seen him deploy (someone should do the math by looking at the history and assume 5 per turn until last turn when he got 8 and deployed 100% in Cuba), I suspect he's far from taking EA. He may have deployed no income there yet. Still he gets 13 this turn, which is enough to take it. Ideally he would hold his block in SA and get his +4 bonus (EA or elsewhere).

Ideally we get Imp out of SA and get our +4 bonus (maintaining a +3 income advnantage in the process). So the first question is whether 17 is enough to kill Imp in SA and get the bonus if he deploys 13 there. If it is, then that's our best option.

13 kills 8 (20% odds it only kills 7) so if divide our forces we can be sure Imp doesn't expand in SA (15/9, 14/10 or 12/12). We delay and then attack from Brazil and Columbia. Assumign Imp doesn't attack and we attack from the spot with the larger stack first. we woudl kill, respectively, (i) 8.4/4.8 = 13.2 (apx. 32% shot at 14 and 16% shot at 12), (ii) 7.8/5.4 = 13.2 (roughly same odds), or (iii) 6.6/6.6 = 13.2 (slightly better odds at 36% we get 14 and lower odds we get 12 - but we lose more to the defensive bonus on our 1st attack). These are rough off the top of my head numbers without using a calculator .

The conclusion is that we have decent probability of safely pushing Imp out of SA and will definitely succeed if he has 13 income and puts at least one of them else where to be sure he gets a card piece (which is highly probable).

We also would not have 4 to spare to try and pick up SA this turn.

Now if we want SA we have to load up in Brazil and assume the risk that Imp slides to Columbia 1st move before our attack gets there. So we go 14 to Brazil and use 3 to finish SA. An attack with 20 kills 12. There are several advantages to this approach vs. splitting our forces. We get a net gain of 2 or 3 instead of a net loss on our initial attack if we go first - 14 defense kills 9.8 (80% odds of 10). Even if Imp puts all 13 in Columbia and we kill 12, an attack with 1 to Columbia would fail. If it works we have 80% odds of getting the SA bonus.

The simplest approach is to hit Columbia with 23 (killing 13.8) 1st move and forgo the SA bonus this turn. We maximize our net gain on the attack and we ensure we have enough to kill pretty much whatever Imp puts in Columbia (80% odds we kill 14 - which we think is his maximum deployment. The flaws are that we don't get the bonus amd we open ourselves up to a successful 1st move slide from Imp into columbia. If we had a priority and Imp didn't I might opt for this.

So I see 3 viable options this turn - Scan for the bonus, hitting Venesuela with 23 1st move,and trying for the bonus or splitting forces and ensuring containment (but no bonus).

I suppose a 4th would be to split forces to ensure containment and still try for the bonus, but we'd take a net loss on our attacks on venesuela and would be more likley to fail taking it.

Unlike the last 4 turns, there's no clearly right answer.

Option 2 adds a good twist to the divided forces mmvoe on the assumption that Imp won't go at Brazil (a good bet). 16 kills 9.6 and 6 kills 3.6 - which gets us the same odds as 11/11, but without the defensive net loss. I like the risk/reward on that varient of the split forces option.

So for the 4 approaches I see as viable I like these picks:
Scan for the bonus - #3
hitting Venesuela with 23 1st move - #6 is closest, but I wouldn't add the 1 to Mex, because who cares if he holds onto Cuba.
Splitting forces and ensuring containment (but no bonus) - #2
Splitting forces and ensuring containment (go for bonus) - #3

I haven't decided which I like best. What are other people's thought?

OOps I meant #4 for the Scan for the bonus option.

Duke -- I like Option 2 just because if Imp gets first move...our plan is foiled and we have to chase for another turn and we have wasted troops.

Deploying in columbia contains him in venezuela and we can accurately take him out. I also think he might put 1 into cuba to block our obvious 2 attack so I think adding some troops to cuba might be necessary.

As for his 3rd territory...indonesia is a possibility so that he doesn't need too many troops to get his india bonus. Either way, he still has a few turns to go to get that 2nd bonus of his. I think we make a big push for eradicating him in South America and the only real way to insure that is to fore go our bonus in SA for the moment and just take him out. We can get the bonus later when we're treking towards India.

Jingle -- You have some sound ideas in the sense of what you want to be done. The execution is going to have to be done to cover ourself. Like Duke said, taking 2 territories in Scan won't be worth it if we don't get the bonus, we can use those troops elsewhere. Personally, from playing Imp, he won't give up freebies too often and he'll probably find a way to put 1 army into cuba so that we don't take it with our freebie 2 armies. The attack to venezuela to brazil is good...but we need to execute it either at the beginning of the turn or end of the turn. For placing it at the beginning of the move, there is chance for us to miss if he slides away. To put it at the end of the move, we'll have to cover columbia so that he doesn't have a place to go. I like the risk of the deployment to columbia and not stacking with brazil as it's unlikely he will attack brazil. I agree that we sacrifice our SA bonus this turn to take Imp out there. We can pick that and maybe scan up if we get lucky.

Option 2 is my pick but if it's possible...to tweak it a bit. I want to deploy and attack from columbia with 16 and attack cuba from mexico with 3 instead of 2

My suggestion is a combination of #2 and #6. Although I to favor #2...i'd like to see Mex get 1 army and Columbia get 16

Is it possible to add another option on for this scenario?

So that would be:

9.Goal: Block Impaller from moving within the South America bonus and do two delayed attacks to remove him from the bonus.

-Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 16 to Colombia. Attack Venezuela with 16 from Colombia. Transfer 1 from Ufa to Moscow. Transfer 1 from Moscow to Murmansk. Transfer 1 from Norway to Murmansk. Attack-only Venezuela with 6 from Brazil. Attack Cuba with 3.

I made a few additional minor tweaks to ensure we woudl have the option of attacking Finland with 2 attacks of 2 and not have an extra unusable army in Moscow or Murmansk next turn. I also made the attack with 16 first move since that's an even trade down (assuming he puts 13 in Columbia). If we make that a delayed attack he could take Brazil with 13 (unlikely I know -- but why take that risk). Lastly the attack from Brazil should be attack-only because if we get Columbia with the 16 attack, there's no reason to move those armies off Brazil where we want them next turn.

This is again the most conservative option available.

Since we think we have the advantage right now, I think #9 is the best option. I also just realized I left deploying 1 to Mexico out of the description:

-Use reinforcement card for an additional 5 armies. Deploy 16 to Colombia. Deploy 1 to Mexico. Attack Venezuela with 16 from Colombia. Transfer 1 from Ufa to Moscow. Transfer 1 from Moscow to Murmansk. Transfer 1 from Norway to Murmansk. Attack-only Venezuela with 6 from Brazil. Attack Cuba with 3.

Actually I woudl be fine with the 16 attack coming after the transfers too. That way we'd get the defensive bonus for an attempted slide to Columbia. It's just a slightly higher risk that he throws 13 at Brazil.

Thank you for the feedback guys, coming from you two it means a lot as well!

Thanks for combining my ideas. #9 works out perfectly for me. I'll vote for that one if it gets added.

Added #9.

Thanks T. Great job on the options this time, I could see someone choosing nearly all of them in a game.

It's funny -- if I were actually playing thsi game against Imp in real time I'm sure I would play this turn and last turn differently and probably would do less well (i.e. have gone for the SA bonus both times).

Thanks Troll.

I voted #9

lol it feels like this game is basically Ruthless & Duke vs. Impaller

I'm very persuadable (especially this turn). Tell me what you'd do differently and why and you may get me to switch my vote.

dont like the way youre playing, but its too hard to visualize when i cant add troops and see what it looks good on the map, im a visual thinker