I like to post every game I've played... I find there aren't enough examples on this board of how to play various maps, so I want to fix that, even if I'm not the best player on the forums.

So, this topic will be home to my replays.

Please provide feedback. I'd love to hear where you think either player went wrong, what they should have done, and what you think swung it for the other player. Feedback is good.

Rank: General
Wins: 47
Losses: 13
Score: 1428
Position: 79

Unlisted victories are ones where my opponent timed out in a matter of a few turns.

Compare our alternate MA scores!

Compare our Glicko scores!

This was probably the first game that I "finished". It was the second game I started, after the usual game with lola.

The map was Emerald thanks to the demo giving me some experience of it. I was worried about taking on Mrakobes, due to the fact that he really seems to know what he's talking about, and I've seen some of his replays.

However, in this game I was out on top (till it died). He uses transports to move his tank armies around quite well, and I throw away at least two Rocket Launchers in rather silly ways, but in the end, my long range troops, and more defensive posture that allow me to use them, let me hit and kill almost anything he has, no matter where it might be.

Lastly, he has an SA by itself in the South, and IMO he doesn't unite it with his other SAs fast enough, though I suspect he was worried about endangering his invasion of the peak.

There's not much to be said about this game, other than that it was a disastor. I deploy some expensive troops, in woodland, and they spend the whole battle doing very little. Meanwhile, Aranian concentrates his troops and overwhelms by small remaining force.

A fine example of how not to Bazarria.

Tiger made his usual challenge to the new Conscript, and with only one game under my belt, I insisted he take on the FNU.

As it turns out, I played a real blinder

My SA deployment was focused, and I quickly take control of a nearby neutral, while at the same time managing to maintain a solid line against Tiger, getting forces to the front with transports, while using combinations that allow me to use both the first and second lines to beat him back. I find it hard to believe that I'm the one playing the PL in this one.

Tiger uses one of his SAs to attack the NW, and this is where I think he went wrong. Had those forces been sent down into the SW neutral to attack my flank, or sent on naval transports to assault my rear, I might not have had the resources to hold my line and Tiger may have broken through. As it is, he finally starts to run out of resources, my flanking attack beats him back, and then his line simply collapses.

Every non-naval unit combo under the sun is used here, and it's my best game to date.

In our rematch, Aranian doesn't play well, while I don't make the silly mistakes I made in the last game. I keep my deployment focused, while my front line remains solid, beating Aranian back, eventually winning me the game through my favourite method: attrition.

Aranian launches an assault in the SW which suffers from a real lack of mobility. Had this been backed up by a transport, then the game would have been a lot tighter. As it is, I ignore this attack until the rest of the line is secure.

We also see why mortars shouldn't be put on the front line. Aranian launches a costly assault that might have had a far better chance had his forces been behind LAVs, though the angle of the SA support might have made this tricky. Perhaps a transport was needed? In fact, I'd say it was.

Aranian also fails to capture a neutral on turn six, waiting another three turns before moving into the empty city to take the territory. As I said, it wasn't a good game for him.

I've spent a fair amount of time chatting to Sky Keeper about the Massive Assault AI, but with luck, he'll appreciate my thoughts regardless of my performance here.

I deploy in the North with a slow force attacking into a heavily wooded SA. While my troops are stuck in a corner (and many of them never get into the game after this), Sky Keeper takes the South with a highly mobile tank force which proceeds to decimate me all game.

He believes I should have revealed my middle SA earlier in an attempt to take the peak, while I think my original deployment cost me the game from the very beginning. Then again, he might be right, at one point I move my army into the middle, to find I have a much larger force than I realised (it was all in transports). However, by this point the game is long over.

Very one-sided. A fine example of tanks and transports dominating Emerald.

Kritn is someone who seems to beat a lot of people of rank Captain or lower, but while he shows a reasonable knowledge of tactics (he was careful not to expose powerful units, maintained LAV lines, etc.), he's missing the stategic thinking required.

He's on the back foot from the beginning. Revealing his High SA in an exposed position, he starts with an initial deployment of LAVs and Mortars which allows me to quickly out manouvre him. From turn one I dictate the flow of play, quickly taking out his High SA in the North and slowly driving him back in the South.

A little more mobility in his play wouldn't hurt either. Back line troops often took a long time to reach the front because there was nothing to transport them.

Very short, and the result in never in doubt. You simply cannot purchase expensive units and leave them exposed in this fashion. Here is someone who I'm sure will improve as they play more games, picking up basic ideas like the LAV line. They have a way to go, an example being when they invade a territory with two mortars, or initial deployments consisting of two Rocket Launchers in a territory (whom I simply ignore).

You won't see tactics like this in use very often.

My rematch with Tiger on Antarticus was brutal. Gone was my great play from last time, replaced with some poor deployment which Tiger takes great advantage of.

For some reason, lost to me now, I reveal two territories at opposite ends of the map. I invade territories which Tiger places Turrets in, and I don't bring anything in to deal with them.

This game is, from my point of view, a mess, mainly consisting of a rear guard action from turn two. I actually make some fair progress on the NW front, but Tiger is simply doing so well in the SE that he's crushing me there with one paw, while throwing up defensive line after defensive line in the NW. I should possible have taken the neutrals in the west, but I kept throwing more and more units against his line in a fruitless attempt to break through.

Another case of crappy deployment. I kick off by revealing two very isolated SAs and invading nearby territories, while Pitor reveals two in the North and pushes into neutrals. I flounder in both my invasion attempts, with Pitor sending reinforcements into both from his nearby newly revealed territories.

Not all is well for Pitor either though, and I feel a glimmer of hope. While I don't win out in my neutrals, I do stop Pitor taking them, and his High SA invasion into a neighbouring Low on the Northen continent runs into resistance from a Low SA of mine which I ship units across from... actually my proudest achivement in this game was to actually repel his invasion from this territory (with a little help from a Medium SA I also reveal).

The game is lost when one of my isolated SAs fall. The war is being fought on four fronts, but I'm only present on three of them. In the west I move my invasion from the turreted neutral to the nearby empty one, but this attempt, so close to success (and turning the course of the western war) is foiled by a last second naval landing I failed to see coming.

In the North I am forced to sacrifice an SA so I can break through Pitor's Medium SA line. I also counter-attack his High SA. This goes reasonably well, but the loss of my Low SA (which I should really have deployed on Turn 0) gives Pitor too many troops, and I'm never able to deliver the killing blow.

Losing the battle in the west, having no presence in the south, and with the North becoming a stalemate it's looking bad. Finally, I place a transport with my annihilator in it one hex too close, having failed to spot a potential transport route, and lose it. This is the final straw and I surrender, having lost through a poor initial deployment. I really should have won the North and done better in the West.

A case of waiting for the chance that never comes. Artanis makes his presence known in the SE, and so I resort to fighting a delaying action there (the first Low SA he attacks is one of mine which I decide to save for later). Meanwhile, I quickly overcome resistance on the other two continents, clearing out units with some, finally, reasonably well thought out combos.

IIRC, I still do my usual trick of invading a continent at one end, while forgetting about the full transport at the other.

Noticing that Artanis doesn't reveal anything after Turn 0, I assume he's going for a surprise attack in the rear. I subsequently keep my force small and mobile, with LAVs in every capital to give me two turns to respond to any sudden threat. This pays off, and Artanis never does reveal his other SAs, surrendering when I threaten his SE attack from the rear with naval transports.

In total, despite having both a Low and High SA attacking me, Artanis barely makes it beyond the first Low SA he invades... a credit to my holding action I think

Tipsey loses the game on two fronts. Firstly, he doesn't seem to like using transports, which means he often can't commit all his troops to battle. More importantly, he makes some poor guerilla choices, which allow me to take territories very easily and quickly overwhelm him.

This game shows how transports can really help you reaction to a situation.

I begin with an attack in the SE, but once I see Karen going for the middle, a position which would threaten my own, I am able to rapidly redeploy sizable numbers of tanks to counter-attack. She then makes a poor disclosure decision in the SE territory I am attacking, placing her units in the already surrounded corner.

I reveal in the NE, coming down the flank of Karen's invasions, and that, along with my counter-attack in the middle, quickly overwhelms her forces. The invasion in the west is a side-show which has no effect on the outcome of this battle.

A game in which I started with the initiative and never lost it. This was one of my poorer games, and partly took place during "must always lose fully loaded transports" era. However, my opponent constantly failed to make use of these errors to his advantage and played very defensively.

An example of this is when I invaded a Low SA in the South. I invaded from a Low and Medium on either side. He had a High above them, owned the Low and had a Medium behind my Low (not written in the order he declared). This should have been a walk over for him, yet he failed to deploy in an aggressive fashion, attacked half-heartedly, and in the case of his medium, deployed against my empty Low with LAVs and Mortars!

I felt somewhat proud of my High SA which managed to overcome the combined forces of a Low and Medium SA of his to capture the Low and stand poised to take the Medium.

It was about this point that he surrenders, having passed on several opportunities to punish me for stupid mistakes.

Here was someone who asked for quick turn takers. I gave them that, and a quick game.

Mistakes? Hard to say, this was won pretty fast. Biggest mistake was moving a guerilla from the first of my invasions into the territory that invaded. To the right east of that territory was one of DryFire's, and it might have posed a bit of a thorn in my side, but as it was, I turned the guerillas into mortars to boost the line, pulled back part of the invasion to deal with the LAV that came in, and swept DryFire off the board.

Unfortunately he didn't have much of a chance to do anything. My deployment was good, my invasions solid, and he made a bad guerilla move. It was short and sharp.

This was my first every multi-continent game, but its been going on for a long time and has only just finished.

From turn one this didn't look good. I found my Low and Medium invasion forces facing the same territory my opponents High was going for. Never mind, I could take him, at least I thought so, until I found out the neighbouring Low was his too. So, no chance of reclaiming the initiative anytime soon.

At least, that's what I thought. However, my opponent made two constant mistakes which were to cost him this game very early on, contrary to the turn counters opinion. Firstly, he made very little use of transports. This was evident in his Low territory line where he picked a good mix of LAVs, Tanks and Mortars to break through my thin LAV line with great speed, only to grind to a halt in the sand because he didn't transport the,

His second mistake was always using his $4 territory for $4 units. Rathering than finding myself facing 10 hit points worth of tanks, I'd find 7 hint points worth of bot, sitting right on the front line. This allowed me to do a lot of damage to his forces in the East, with far less money, and delay his High's victory on the East continent for a very long time.

After all the East declarations came the North where my High was situated. For a long time there was a battle of attrition on the front line where I threw units against him, while he pulled units from his back territories to beat me back. On the southern front, he quickly took another territory and lined himself up for an invasion of the Medium territory there to threaten the southern flank of my High.

This could have been a walk over, but luckily I had forseen this invasion and already had a LAV line in place which marched in to support the Rocket Launcher guerilla, which was soon followed by Mortars. On the North, the stalemate was broken by a flanking move by a Naval Transport loaded with Tanks. This shattered his front line and drove him back. To the South of the Northern continent he couldn't break through the line I had established in the country he invaded, and now began to reinforce it with units from my High which were no longer needed to the North. Soon, the Northen continent was in my hands, while he held the East.

Down on the Southern continent I had declared a territory followed by his declaration next door. This was a mistake as it allowed me to fire first, and he who fires first in a LAV & Mortar line Vs LAV & Mortar line battle, wins. This fight went on for most of the game, but I emerged victorious.

So, I held the North, he held the East, and I was winning in the South. Almost equal? No. Because he had thrown so many expensive troops into battle early on, I had a far larger army than him. His units had been chewed up in my Eastern holding action, while my losses had been cheap and easily replacable.

He now made moves to invade the North, while I headed South. He also sent reinforcements to the South. I was able to establish a beachhead at the Western end of the Southern continent, and quickly pushed East where my forces were fighting a battle against enemy reinforcements. In the North, my superior numbers and mobility allowed me to react, and quickly crush, each invasion. I had been prepared and had LAVs on the roads ready to react to any attack.

It had started with a battle of attrition, and at times looked like it could have gone either way, but with hindsight it can been seen that snowman's lack of mobility, and frontline use of expensive troops, cost him this game very early on. When his lines broke I poured troops throw, loaded up transports and was ready to breach the next territory within a turn. When snowman broke my lines, the troops were not that plentiful and the advance was slow, often allowing me to hold him longer in the East than he should have let me.

What I did gain from this game was an insight into early adoption of the navy. It wasn't until I was well in front that I challenged snowman for the sea.

Note: I lose a territory in the 24th turn to an empty transport. Reason for this is because the game broke for me, I repaired, and thus I didn't see the moves snowman had made. Since he killed my only unit in the area, I never noticed what he'd done till it was too late.

Not a lot I can do to analyse this one. I watched it, and I'm still trying to pinpoint the moment I utterly lost. It all went wrong, and I was totally outplayed by Tiger. I invaded territories, he threw me out. I counter-attacked in territories he was taking, and he repelled me. I tried to break through the lines, and was held.

I think the real turning point was when I declared two territories in the south-west in an attempt to ambush his naval units. This was a big mistake and gave him a lot of cash for very little effort.

Anyway, watch for yourself.

Not sure how I could have won this one. One of my declared territories ends up with Karen at its rear, and most of my force is destroyed, only a full LAV deployment would have prevented this. Meanwhile, at the other end I conduct an invasion, only to find all the surrounding territories are her's too.

Finally, I counter-attack behind two of her territories, but I think I should have declared these two in the opposite order I actually did. Either way, neither is able to have enough effect to tip the balance in an already one sided battle.

Without an initial deployment consisting almost entirely of LAVs, I don't think I could have done much else. I used what seemed to me to be the safest two initial territories. If you can see any glaring errors in my play, please point them out.

Here's a replay that shows why you shouldn't use expensive units without support troops.

I start pretty badly, trying to invade a territory that has been setup specifically to destroy me. I turn this around though, parking a tank in a corner and leave it there for the rest of the game, cutting off $3 of revenue from his territory at a stroke.

The rest of the game is in my favour. He launches lots of bots at me, but without anything to shield them, they all eventually fall. I use naval transports to help prevent him capturing territories he invades, until my main armies finally clear him from Anubis.

This game actually starts quite well for me. My first invasion is met by a surprisingly poor choice of guerilla by Tiger, and the territory is mine by the end of the next turn. Meanwhile Tiger moves in on the neutral High.

Turn 4 is where I make two mistakes, I invade two countries from my High (and one I invade from supporting countries and transports), but I do so wtihout transports. The lower invasion into the river touching Medium flounders for a long time, when it should have been a swift success considering my overwhelming forces. The Northern invasion was just plain stupid and premature. I'm not even sure I should have gone that way at all.

As it turns out though, neither of these was my biggest cock-up. When Tiger invades the High, a country which neighbours one of my Mediums, I place the guerillas at the OPPOSITE END OF THE COUNTRY! What the hell was I thinking? Tiger declares the Low they're next to and takes them out in no time. This costs me the game. Had I placed them next to my country I could have moved supporting troops in, I could have taken the Medium directly above without Tiger's naval landings, I could have used troops from there and the Medium I already owned to push him out the High. I could have... the list is endless.

Losing that High cost me the game. I make efforts to get back in there, but his lines are too firm, and even though I claim the seas, I begin to lose on every front. I spend too long taking the Medium above the High, I get bogged down and driven back North of my High, and my southern Medium spends all its time trying to hold the High to the west and take the Low to the South (which Tiger counter-invades). It could have been so different, if only I hadn't made such a stupid move...