QuadBoard

[yabbaguy]

First day as member, and I just lost all EIGHT of my games today. I will never rank on the leaderboard at this rate.



Here are some orbs that I either have a strategy I'm doubting or entirely unsure about. Help me out here. I see no hope for improving otherwise.

- Bunker: ???
- Smart Bombs: I use these straightaway. Should I wait and run the risk of them getting pilfered/destroyed?
- Orb Spy: Does it matter terribly where they land? I just use it straightaway regardless of location.
- [Destroy/Inhibit/Tripwire/Spyware] Column- use straightaway or wait?
- Scavenger: I can't find a good way to get it in position.
- Centerpult: ???
- Wall [either]: ???
- Recursive: How do I start the chain?

And if anyone else was playing against me today and knows a better reason why I'm .000, please by all means hijack the topic and enlighten me.

[mattmonyo]

[Rubik87]

[yabbaguy]

Other thing with a Recursive, what's the minimum number of victims you would want to claim with it? I'd figure 4 anywhere would be sufficient, but are there other factors that might affect it? Or is it even quantitative (i.e. if I kill, say two tori with orbs a-plenty, is that a good idea?)

[mattmonyo]

[driven2sin]

"...eventually you'll pick up a move again a destroy radial and a beneficiary"

..and some snakes, acidics, relocates, quads.. hell just call it the Noah's Ark attack and wait until you have two of everything before you go anywhere

[wetmunchymamith]

[Rubik87]

[Shmoo]

A couple comments:

1) The most important use for the less useful powers is bluffing. Use these to "threaten" other pieces by lining them up, or run with them and lure your opponent into using powers on them. If I have a bunker and my opponent destroys it with a destroy column I am happy. If I am afraid my opponent can pilfer I sure don't use my scavenger to keep it from being pilfered - I try to convince him that the scavenger is a power worth pilfering via my play. This is so important that I will often not use powers even if I have a use for it because I think the bluff value is more important. Also, many of these powers, as pointed out in the other posts, are useful in combinations. Leveraging these as bluffs rather than spuriously trying to eke a little advantage out of them gives you a chance to get those combos.

2) In general destroying random pieces is not very exciting, unless you already have a large piece advantage. I would say in general this is my breakdown of priorities, on a scale of 1-10:
Destroy KNOWN DANGEROUS tori (grown, invisible, one that has used beneficiary): 10
Destroy suspected dangerous tori (a few powers, behaving suspiciously): 7
Getting a lot of territory: 6
Getting an orb: 5
Getting a little territory: 4
Destroying a torus with a power: 3
Destroying a random torus: 1

Note that often destroying random tori - while being a long term advantage is actually a short term disadvantage because it gives the opponent extra territory. That is why it is more exciting to acid column a couple random enemy units than simply destroy - the burns prevent them from getting territory off the dead units. That doesn't mean you should acid column willy nilly but it does mean that you should be more willing to, in particular if it really clogs up the enemy territory.
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A game should have enough luck that the worse player can win SOME of the time!

[Rubik87]

I would move "Destroying a torus with a power" up the ladder, to right below "Destroy suspected dangerous tori"(to which i would assign a 9). One random power has the potential to be the decisive one, I would kill it at first opportunity unless I have a read on it (meaning he could have stroke with a row, radial or column power but he didn't).
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Sanzo

[Shmoo]

[Rubik87]

(I am green, and my power is move again)

Yes, in a situation like this I would probably go for the kill rather than taking the orb.
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Sanzo

[driven2sin]

not a totally fair example using move again there, since you are also gaining a fair amount of territory.. would you still use the move again if that enemy had a vanilla tori next to it that would eliminate your territory gain?

going from what you said, you would, but i don't think you would in practice.

Shmoo's list is pretty accurate but it does depend some on your opponent's skill and game circumstance... bluffing weaker players sometimes is worthless and is best to use moves in a more productive way even if you are giving up ground, etc, since they usually do not get a lot out of their powers and you can trap and basically ruin all their options in a few moves that they do not even realize

also I think Shmoo is seeing clearer the different types of styles to play just like MtG had.. not as many as MtG of course but things like denial, swarm, uber combos, and counter are all present

i am particularly fond of using tile height powers to throw off an opponent's value system. the more desturbed the board is the more likely even good players make bad moves. Either by moving too fast, or not wanting to restrict themselves. And that is one glariing way to see if your opponent knows anything about good risk/reward strategy. Most want reward with little to no risk unless they are immediately threatened.

(and not wanting to destroy too much of an opponent's pieces also had the reverse effect of poor gamemanship of letting your time run down on your first move to clear out half your back row to get more orbs..)

[Rubik87]

(I am green with move again)

In a situation like this, if i use move again to kill his power i don't miss the orb (assuming he jumps me back, otherwise i also get a lot of space like in the previous example). So it's not a good example to weight the importance of killing a power over collecting one.

Anyway in this situation (say my opponent has just taken that power, so i have no way to know what it is) it depends on the rest of the board. I would use the move again to kill it if i already have a big lead. I would keep my move again hopeing to combo it with something good if i am way behind. I don't know where I would drag the line "to kill or not to kill", it's too complicated.
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Sanzo

[driven2sin]

I agree - i was just pointing out that the first example you gained on two fronts (negating a power and gaining ground)

That is why i like chaos - the permutations forces one to use percentages of risk/reward in complex manners

hell i would love a new power called EarthQuake that is like bombs but randomly moves tiles up and down