Okay. I still have yet to win a game (other than my opponents disappearing). My record right now is 2 Wins (from disappearing players), 3 losses and I have 5 games in progress (of which I am winning 1, but haven't heard from my opponent in 5 days, lossing 3, and one is still too early to determine, but it is against unic and he beat me pretty soundly in our first game...so I have faith in his abilty to stomp me into dust.

I think I'm okay tactically and in decideding what to build in various situations. My weaknesses are:

1) The start. I need to get better at the initial disclosure and setup. I think this is just a matter of playing more games to see what works. I am particullarly weak at the start as FNU because most of my games have been with me playing FNU. So I haven't seen too many good players' FNU starts.

2) When to disclose secret allies.

In one of my current games (against MadCat on Emerald), I think I had a great advantage in the distribution of allies. Basically I have three countries surrounding one of his and next to another and two of his countries are next to one of mine. As the game started, I surrounded and attacked his territory and he invaded mine.

I stupidly tried disclosed my ally that he invaded, thinking I could "ambush" him and I invaded a neighboring neutral country thinking I could capture it before he captured my ally. It was not to be. I basically bought myself one turn but handed him an $8 indemnity (plus guerrillas) and he used this against me. If I had just been patient and let the armies pass through my ally I might have done something worth while. The way this game was set up, it probably would have been better for me to have never disclosed it forcing him to defend against an invisible foe. Oh well.

In my first game against unic, he pulled off a masterful ambush. I invaded with 5 tanks. He placed an annhilator in a desert near the coast and moved a firestorm in range of it to help. As my tanks closed in, he killed two then disclosed and surrounded the rest. Ouch.

Fortunately I repaid him in our current game. He invaded and I did nearly the same thing to him. He left his tanks in a transort to try to cross the desert quickly. I disclosed and surrounded the transport. Oh...that felt good. two tanks, trapped like rats and unable to do any harm!

So I'm learning and I feel like I'm getting better. I just need to keep playing good players and watching what they do. Maybe one day I'll actually win one! (I really don't mind losing as long as I feel like I'm learning).

well you probably know that pl get the advantage as they get to hit the enemy 1st so vs newer people that know this they almost always pick pl as their side, higher ranking people prefere to play fnu vs lower ranking people to give them more of a chance. (or i do anyway) So feel free to drop me a challenge if u want.

As for advice on disclosure as fnu i tend to pick if possible 2 countries that are back to back so there are less borders to have to cover and they can also support one another, i thing to try to advoid is getting lots of lavs as this puts you on the defensive right away and you'll be struggling to catch up with your opponent who'll be taking neutrals quickly with tanks.

I almost always disclose my medium on emerald unless it is surrounded by friendly coutnries as the alst thing you want is your opponent to invade it. Only disclose countries taht have been invaded if you can either support it from a neighbouring country and eventually retake it, or if you can put pressure on the country taht invaded it hopefully allowing the country's guerillas and the newly disclosed units to be enough to take the country. Or finally if you need to take some pressure of your front lines be disclosing a country behind his lines forcing him to divert units away from the front line (but you'll be giving him the indemity eventually so make sure it's worth it.)

Another question:

Let's say you've captured some neutrals and your opponent still has one or more SAs. You suspect that one of them may be one of the neutrals you took. What is the best way to defend aganst him disclosing that SA in your rear area away from the front?

I guess it probably depends on how strong your suspicion is.

If you know exactly which country the SA is, you probably want to keep a reasonably strong force in or near the territory. Maybe a couple tanks and a transport just outside the country and an LAV or two in and next to the capital.

If you only have a reasonable suspicion and you're not sure which specific territory it is, you can't guard them all, so you probably just want to keep a token force that can hold off his disclosed army for two turns or so. Two LAVs (or maybe three for a medium or 4 for a largh country) in and next to the capital would do it. That way, to take the country back in two turns, he would have to build a force of all tanks, LAVs and/or mortars and position them ALL around the capital, allowing you to build and move in troops from neighboring territories. He can't build any transports, bots or RLs.


If you only slightly suspect it, then probably just one LAV in the capital is sufficient. It will still hold him off for a turn or two.

And one more question: Is there an easy way to determine how many SAs your opponent has remaining? I'm playing 5 games right now and it gets tough remembering how many SAs each of my opponents has. A couple of times, I've been slammed because I didn't realize my opponent had an SA remaining.

You both get the same amount of secret allies, so just count the number of flags he has over cities and do the math, and don't forget to take into account any allies you might have defeated since the flag comes down when you take the country.

or see Statistics.

Ah. That's more like what I'm talking about.