GB strategies

General
#1

Greetings,

Its not a coincident that it appears that FP win most GB games. DS are much more dependent on team coordination than the FP, if just one Mordor nation lacks in skill or drops out, it will quickly have huge disadvantages for the entire team.

In a recent GB game I played, I just learned that NG was a very skilled player and gathered all possible troops at Minas Ithril turn one (four armies). FK and DaL apparently were less skilled (or just made some inexperienced moves), because firstly FK sent in only part of his capital troops and nothing else arrived from DoL or DaL. So turn two NG actually won the battle and took out nearly entire FK starting army and also saved Minas Ithril. A couple of turns later FK/CL tried a desperate move first by having Erennis, then Ji indur try to assassinate Tarondor at Minas Ithril and later with a challenge on him with Ren the Unclean. Result = two dead CL agents and two dead Nasguls !!! When DS then also failed to remove the bridges early on and SG arrived shortly after with huge army, which could just slide right through the Ithril pass, it was virtually game over Mordor.

What I don’t understand in GB games, is why DS are not maximizing team resources more in the start, like they do in grudge games. The CL assassins are extremely important for the team, but without agent artifacts CL agents will first be ready to assassinate army commanders maybe around turn 10. Well in ten turns it could already be game over for DS. Both DoL and DaL starts with agent artifacts, which they cannot use for much themselves in the start. So why not give those to CL, who can use them much better for the gain of the team. Also LR starts with three agent artifacts. I know these artifacts are part of the fun for LR, but CL can use these artifacts MUCH better than LR. As we have seen in the latest completed GB games its the early FP rush through the Ithril pass which knocks out the DS. If CL could have 3-4 capable agents around turn 4-5, it would really mean A LOT for the entire DS team.

Also CL/FK has very little hope of locating and picking up agent artifacts themselves, so from a team perspective agent artifacts picked up (well maybe except RoW) should be given to CL.

If such actions were executed in GB games, then DS would probably win some more games.

#2

Kim,
having played against your WK/BS in ancient GB 136 led me to the conclusion that the DS are not underpowered…so much depends on skill. IMHO it should be obvious for the mordor DS to defend both passes, and if they do they easily outnumber both Gondors and also Eothraim.
But artefact transfers out ouf the blue, not knowing whom you will meet - thats difficult, and I guess even in a team game hardly a LR will give away the trinkets that make din o the most feared character in the game.
I think the greatest problem the DS are facing in GB is that players get the illusion they don’t have to play like they would in a team game. For some FP nations that might be true, but the DS will most likely lose if they don’t cooperate for the obvious.

#3

I concur with Kim about the agent artifacts. In Game 71, as the dragon lord we managed to acquire ROW, curifin and shortly therafter miramarth. In the diplo, we told the Cloud Lord we would give up all but the ring of wind (khamul with the ROW is a pretty decent agent). We ended up picking up the Cloud lord so it was a moot point anyway but we quickly put all the artifacts on the cloud lord agents, and on the last turn we still failed to kidnapp 30 level southern gondor agents with the exception of Ji Indur with the ring of wind (he took two attempts on Dunsul).

The problem I see with giving up artifacts, is you do not know the quality of the player you are giving the artifact up to. Tough call to blindly give it to someone who might or might not be what you consider a quality player. Especially when the artifact can come back and bite you later.

I doubt as the long rider I would give up the artifacts however.

Tim Huiatt

#4

in GB, it is my philosophy to give credit to my opponents and to my team-mates. I expect the DS to “do the right thing” and swarm out of the **24 pass. I expect the CL agents to be stealing NG blind and as soon as agents are “up-to-snuff”, start snuffing NG comms (or worse, kidnapping them). etc… etc…

You should plan on competent enemies and allies… After all, GB is pretty difficult and it’s mostly pretty experienced folks playing.

If you plan on incompetent allies - well… why play? with incompetent allies, you will definitely lose. so better to believe they’re competent and plan accordingly.

If you plan on incompetent enemies - well, if they prove competent, you’re probably losing a tactical advantage at best, or a strategic advantage at worst. Better to plan on them being competent and have them surprise you to the upside when they muck it up. <grin>

71 was definitely lopsided to the FP’s advantage in more ways than one. But the most notable disaster for the DS was the original CL player dropping turn 3, and then the CL pickup didn’t help defend Mordor after he became part of Corsairs/DragonLord. Sure he helped win South Harad and he pestered SG. But while that was happening, several Mordor capitals burned and Mordor nations went bankrupt.

IMHO, CL must stay home and be part of the defenses of Mordor for the first 15-20 turns. The goal is to have the DS surivive with most/all nations into the T20s at which point they should have significant character advantage and can break out of Mordor and start doing big damage to the remaining FP infrastructure. I think the originators of GB got it right to pair CL with FK. We’re back to that for the “no-quit” game(s). We’ll see how it goes.

I can say that as NG/Duns for 71 (with John Folz as my partner), I believed from the start that the correct strategy was to target Rhu/CL. Duns went after Rhu (with mega help from Arth/Card and significant help from DW/Noldo). At the same time all of the forces of NG were deployed against CL. It worked like a charm. It would have worked even better if the original CL/Rhu player hadn’t dropped so early. Maybe he saw the writing on the wall? Anyway, Rhu needs a better partner than CL and CL is needed helping defend Mordor.

Hopefully that pairing lesson has been taught and we won’t see that brought up again. :slight_smile:

cheers to all and best of luck to all in 94!

Dave
p.s. I’m a proud and happy father of a new bouncing baby girl. gotta go try to get through the first night home tonight! sleep? who needs it… <grin>

#5

Game 71:

“Sure he helped win South Harad and he pestered SG.”
Win …I don’t think so… :slight_smile: He recaptured 2236 (as a village) and took 2535 but the battle in the south Harad was still very active. Pestered me big time as the SGon but nothing that I wasn’t able to handle… :slight_smile: But finally got out with a horde - into Mordor… :wink: :stuck_out_tongue: He would have won SHarad IMO but North Harad was pretty safe and could have held him off with appropriate play (probably a stalemate if everything was equal).

Clint (player)

#6

Totally disagree clint about winning the South.

I guess we will chalk it up to disagree on this point. Tony wanted to keep playing simply to prove that we had turned the tide in the South. Southern Harad had already lost one major town (three towns destroyed), and would have lost the other two major towns in the next three turns. Without Southern Gondor support he could not stop it. Your home nation would have been next.

Point being, even if we could back up what we were planning on doing, your side still would have won. Starting a new game and not forcing the free side to bug hunt us in my opinion was the right thing to do. We would have done most of this without agents as they were headed back into Mordor to defend Mordor. However, there was nothing left in Mordor to defend. Blind Sorceror, Dark Lieutenants and probably Fire King were out. If our agents were failing on 30 point commanders, leaving them in Mordor would not have changed the outcome either.

Well played Dave and Clint, as well as the rest of the free side. I partially wish we had played a few more turns just to finish off South Harad and then go after Southern Gondor as well, but anyone can say what would have happened.

By the way Clint, the only reason the Dragon Lord attacked the Eothraim is Tony (and I failed to catch the order on my check so I guess I should say Tony and I) moved the starting Dragon Lord army east instead of west. We were actually trying to reveal and take a Sinda starting City. I don’t know if the city would have saved on the reveal, but when your army goes the wrong way not much you can do about it. Forced us to go after Eothraim instead.

Tim Huiatt

#7

By the way Clint, the only reason the Dragon Lord attacked the Eothraim is Tony moved the starting Dragon Lord army east instead of west. …but when your army goes the wrong way not much you can do about it. Forced us to go after Eothraim instead.

Lucky me! :smiley: I actually did (on purpose) the same thing in game 14 and I think it’s not the best play - Dragon Lord needs his troops to defend himself not take out someone who (in most plays) won’t attack him. The beauty of it is that the Eothraim can’t see it coming so can’t play to defend it.

South bit - I did say all things being equal. With Bryn (from the other post) having picked up the Harad it might have been a different story. However, saying that I do agree that you have at that point effectively won the South Harad and aggressing from there would have been an interesting battle. (I think my play would have changed knowing that Bryn had picked it up and the situation in Mordor I’d have left to the more Northern nations) but it’s all moot…

Clint (player)

#8

All moot in the south like you said, but it would have been fun none the less.

Agree with the Dragon Lord attacking the Eothraim. Bad move, but when you move wrong, you have to do something to get rid of those troops. Never attack and provoke someone that might not attack you.

Good gaming,

tim

#9

Hi,

Talking about GB strategies, another thing which I don’t see or hear much about, is why on earth Corsairs don’t use his big fleet and ability to build cheap ships more aggressive against SG. While SG is one big recruiting machine, he is very dependent on his fleet to transfer the troops quickly around. Without his transports and with both bridges cut, SG is virtually put out of the equation for a long time !!!

Corsairs is the only one who has the ships to destroy SG navy, and it only requires one Corsairs commander to patrol the sea and eventually catch SG navy, which will have a tremendous impact on the game. I have not heard any GB story about Corsairs destroying SG navy early on, which I find wired.

Also I agree that it might be difficult to give up agent artefacts, when you don’t know the skill of your allied, but sometime you need to take some chances and from the players list, you should have a pretty good idea on what type of players are in the game. If LR don’t want to give up some or all his agent artefacts to CL, then he should certainly have Din Ohtar cut the bridges ASAP, because there are no other agents capable of that early on and the defence of Mordor is heavily depended on these bridges being cut.

KA