BASE PLACEMENT
This is probably the most important part of
a successful game. If you fail to get off to a good start, you will be working to catch up
all game long, everything is harder to get done in time and you will probably lose.
If you do get out to a good start, everything becomes easier, you are ahead of the race
and you have a good chance of winning. Getting of to a good start is very much dependant
on good Base placement. Failing to place in the best possible position reduces your
ability to collect Resources and Cities and may restrict your expansion to just a couple
of directions (which is generally bad, although not insurmountable if the position is
really good).
In addition, a poor choice of Base placement
can leave you strategically disadvantaged. You could be crowded, contained, be unable to
get into position to launch any sort of attack on an opponent's Base before you are
attacked yourself and/or other bad things possibly too dire to mention. There are two ways
to achieve the best Base placement. Placing early and placing late. Placing early allows
you to select the very best position for expansion on a map and you stand a good chance of
collecting Peace money in Turn 0 if there is going to be any offered, but has the drawback
of allowing opponents to place in position to restrict your expansion as they choose.
Placing late allows you to select the best position relative to all other players on the
map, but has the drawbacks of possibly leaving you with a poorer position for expansion
(on poorly balanced maps) and possibly missing out on getting some Peace Treaties in Turn
0 (in Peace games). I personally tend to choose to place late as I thrive on the added
challenge of No-Peace games and simple refuse to play on poorly balanced maps, which of
course will only leave me with an advantage in placing late and no advantage for placing
early.
Having said all that though, where is the best
place to start on any given map? Obviously, it will vary greatly dependant on the exact
map you are playing. There are general rules for the various kinds of maps that exist.
These kinds are: Wreck, Tax, Resource, Barrier and Trick. I will cover the most general
rules first though.
General Rules
- Always, always place where you can get a large number of resources and/or cities right
away. You want to be able to make more money than anyone else on the map as quickly as
possible. On the other hand, you don't want to have to sell of lots of units to get a lot
of stuff as that impacts negatively on your overall income. The ultimate goal is to make
the maximum combined profit in Units, Resources and Cities by the end of Turn 0.
- Some players like to place their Base directly adjacent to a string of resources and/or
a number of cities. This can be a big mistake. If there are no cities/resources near your
base, then an opponent has to load up their units in Transportation units to get a good
surrounding bonus (and enough units) on your Base. If they then fail to sell the
Transportation units and fail to take out your base, you can kill whole chunks of their
force with single shots. Also, your opponent has to build a Factory in a city within
transportation range of your base (preferably less). On the other hand, if you have placed
your Base next to a City or a string of Resources, your opponent is then able to capture
that City/Resource and use it to place an unlimited amount of units in it. The
City/Resources also counts for surround bonus. Lastly, but not least, as you don't have to
run your Transportation units right up next to your opponents base, it is possible to
attack from a Factory a few squares further away. In all in, this makes placing right next
to a city or resource a generally bad deal for you.
The only case in which I would consider placing my base next to a city or resource is when
doing so would allow me to get a much better expansion on Turn 0 that otherwise (i.e. by
taking advantage of a "trick" or simply because there are no little holes that
you can place in where there is a heap of resources.
|
Probably the best way to place a
base next to the ocean. As you can see, it is possible to build a road across the shore
front and close it off to naval attack. At the same time, there is no contact with and
City or Resource. |
- Do place next to Roads or Farms. Placing next to a farm makes it easier to reach a city
straight away and helps your expansion in that direction. Placing next to a Road or
intersection of roads allows you to expand faster and further. Both are good things.
- Do not place in "traps"! On some maps, there are terrain traps in the
Mountains (Mountains), Desert (Skulls) or surrounding small islands ("Mountain"
islands). A trap is any place that has a limited amount of resources that you will easily
capture and then be forced to wait until you get Hercules (if there are enough cities or
you wait for one city to reach Metropolis!) or you are stuck in forever. Basically, it is
a matter of containing yourself without your opponents having to do anything at all. It is
generally considered a very dumb move.
- Always be aware of barriers to movement such as the aforementioned Mountains, Skulls and
"mountain" islands. You cannot expect to expand over such barriers until you
have the Hercules. As you won't be able to capture cities and resources on the other side
without the Hercules, you cannot count on them for initial expansion.
Wreck Maps
A wreck map is any map that has
as much speed in wrecks as in has in cities and resources combined or more. On such a map,
your primary consideration is to place in a position where you can buy sharks and collect
as many wrecks as quickly as you can.
If it is a peace game and there are enough
players so that you can get a minimum of $200 in peace treaties (preferably $300. It is
better to be able to spend the starting cash on expansion so as to deter crowding), then
you should place just behind the coastline where you can move a Cargo onto the coastline
square and into the water. This allows you to build a road across the coastline later and
turn the coastline squares into grass squares! You are able to move units into the ocean
for as long as your base is unthreatened and then close it up so that you can't be
attacked by Captains or Cargo loads of units.
If it is a non-peace game, then it is far more
vital to place in such a position as to make the cash to buy the Destroyer and Shark
Universities as soon as possible. This is because you can place within one or two turns of
a wreck-filled body of water and build your Shark University actually on the water. If you
wind up building the Shark University one or two turns earlier than anyone else, this more
than makes up for the fact that you can't use Cargos until you have built a Factory in a
coastal City.
A few examples of this kind of map include:
Aoxomoa, Crowded War, NewYork2, Seagems, Topologies.
Tax Maps
A Tax map is any map where
there are far more Cities than Resources or Wrecks. Usually, this is any map where there
is as much speed in Cities as Resources and Wrecks combined. The most important
consideration in this kind of map is to find somewhere that you can actually pick up some
of the few resources that are available. That should be enough to give you the extra
momentum over those that go completely after cities.
A few examples of this kind of map are:
Borelia, River Rommel.
Resource Maps
A Resource is any map where
there is as much speed in Resources as in Cities and Wrecks combined. The secret to a
Resource map is to recognize the importance of what few cities there are. You need to
position your base so as to allow for you to move your units their entire move before
dropping the ore from the Resources into a City. In this way, you allow for maximum
expansion.
A few example of this kind of map are: ALand3,
Hydroxide, Megablast.
Barrier Maps
A barrier map is filled with
barriers to movement such as Mountains, Skulls (in the Desert) and "mountain"
islands. On maps such as these, it is important to place in such a position as to be able
to expand for the same time in as many directions as possible. At the same time, you still
want to start in a good position to grab as many Resources and Cities as possible on Turn
0 (with consideration for any wrecks available of course). This will allow you to collect
all the resources and cities available to you faster than if you had not done so and you
will therefore make more money. That facilitates attempts to get the Hercules unit which
is of major benefit in such maps (often, you cannot win the game without it).
Some maps of this kind are Airwar (and any
other Airwar style-map), Doxora, Lakeside (and Lakeside2), Blizzard.
Trick Maps
A trick map is any map where
there is a "trick" to getting the best expansion possible. While the nature of
the trick varies, it is essential to recognize exactly what the trick is. Once you have
done that, it will dictate where you must place so as to make best use of this trick.
Some trick maps are: Myxtery, Marsch, Tricky
Trails.
INDEX
