The question is...should player disclose his secret allies as soon as possible or should he wait and disclose them later.
I started this thread because lately i fought several people who used such an "mysteryous" way of disclosure- keeping one or two or even three of their SA's undisclosed even after 6-7 (or even 10) turns passed.
I usually disclose all my secret allies as soon as possible (usually after turn 5 mine are all open ) because it allows me to send more troops into battle on earlier stages (and conduct blitzcrieg).Only reason which can keep me from disclosing an ally - if it was invaded by vastly outnumbering horde of enemy.But even then i will disclose it as soon as help arrives.
But i see now that there are people who delay disclosure of their allies even without having any obvious reason to hide them.Why do they do it?
i suppose there are 2 main reasons - first (psyhological) they probably hope to keep their opponents nervous by the fact that he not knows where are enemys allies and opponent then will delay invasion to neutrals (fearing that they are enemy SA's)
second is strategical - wait till both sides are exhausted and then disclose the last one and turn the tide...hmm though even for that i doubt there are reasons to keep more than one SA undisclosed.
So what? which strategy do you think is most effective - fast disclosure or keeping secret?

I quite like to hold a country back and not disclose on larger maps.

If a country I have gets invaded on the first turn, I will often wait until I can catch my opponent running transports across that country before disclosing.

The pic below is the best example I have had of doing this so far. Both transports BTW had 2 Bio-T's in them. I was laughing all the way though my turn, and even into my next game....

Until I watched my opponent doing something similar to me in that turn

A question like this really hard to answer because there are always exceptions to the rule.

I'd agree that if there is no obvious threat then early disclosure is a good idea. It gives you a much better chance to capturing neutral countries and gaining the economic advantage.

However, it's not always easy to see that your country is safe. I like to disclose only on one borded and attack with full force, but I'm not happy doing that if my opponent could have an ally on one of my other borders. In such situations I would wait and see where they disclose first, and hope to get the advantage by attacking from the rear.

Even if they disclose on my border, it's usually possible to set up my forces in response so that you have the advantage in a couple of turns. Obviously if they have greater numbers you're in trouble.

I quite often don't disclose an invaded ally until well after my opponent has captured the country and moved on. It can take a lot of presure off another front line if you disclose an ally behind the enemy's lines.

Also if you keep an ally undisclosed, especially on larger maps your opponent is never quite sure when it's safe to save up income of leave a country undefended.

The other possible variant:

Your small SA is surrounded by enemie's SA's.

You've managed to raise his guerilla with yours.

Wait for thier resources to finish and maybe you'll have a chance of of a quick indemnity capture after turn 12-13 when the main battle will be far away. Anyway a 4$ country without guerilla is an good target for a transport with Amphs to block revenue.

You can try some "crazy" moves at other places of the map too to mask your ally.

heheh you probably think you are pretty clever surrounding those poor transports.But you should admit- such trick only works against a totally glueless n00b or a man who not thinks with his head.The more or less experienced player will never leave his trasports on possible enemy territory.
It's actually not difficult to take care about transports..you can simply NOT move them over possible enemy or using naval trasport or unload troops at end of turn (that's what i usually do - load tanks and robots on transports move - unload).IF units can not be unloaded on same turn it's better to leave the transport adjascent to your border or even border of contested enemy ally - when transport is at border then disclosed guerillas can not isolate him.So...this Morton's screen just depicts another n00b-slaying trick..maybe it's the meanest and nastyest of such tricks but still useless against good player.
Btw if you read my post more thoughtfully you would notice that the question was NOT only about secret allies which are under immediate threat of enemy attack.
This is also about holding the country "in reserve" even when it not under attack.
Skykeeper gave interesting idea..but it requires to be quite careful and long-term plan.
The question still is - does the effect of such late disclosure worths refusing from using secret army and income on earlier stages,

One factor is, do you think that you can keep the enemy from getting your country's indemnity before you can send reinforcements? If the answer is no, you definately don't want to disclose. If the SA is not under danger, I agree that in most cases you want to disclose.

But there are exceptions to both of these rules. Sometimes I'll disclose a SA surrounded by ememies so, as Morton said, I could distract them away from the front line. I know that they will eventually take the SA, but by doing so it will make it easier for me to take one of theirs on the front line. Another example: Once I disclosed a low resource SA right next to an enemy high resource ally. Normally I wouldn't do something so stupid, but in this case, I was able to invade his territory with LAVs and keep him from getting revenue there for several rounds. He also had to bring forces back from the front line to clear out my LAVs. It was very much worth it.

As far as SAs not in danger, you usually want to disclose, but there are some exceptions to this as well. Maybe you'll want to let the enemy move his front line further away before you disclose, so that it'll take longer for his reinforcements to arrive. In general, sometimes its wise to wait on disclosing something until you see an advantageous situation form.

hehe, i'm one of them in game with mrakobes with 3 undisclosed allys and i think it will go over turn 15 when i disclose one of them

Yea, maybe i'm a psycho. lol

But i'll reply this after the game is over cuz it will maybe change the war with you =)

Zakuwa: Better post a replay here

If i win this one, not only post, i'll spread it all over the world.

"mrakobes gets beated by a noob that disclosed only half of his ally"

jusk joking

i was to disclose one of my three disclosed allys at turn 15...
but i surrendered at turn 15!!!
with all the three SA uncovered.

2 Zakuwa
nobody doubted that you would surrender lol having like 50$ worth of units against 200

but now i am in World War with Tiger on New Paradize..it is turn 25 and both sides lost like 300$ worth of units so planet is completely exhausted...but Tiger still not disclosed his last secret ally..i wonder where could it be...

I know where it is.

[color=violet]I have a question about disclosing. I was playing Mrakobes, and he was beating me pretty severely. But I still had one undisclosed secret ally. I thought that I'd have a chance to suprise him with it, but just then the game announced that I was "dismissed", so I never got a chance.

If I had disclosed my ally one turn soon, would the fact that I had a few extra units have kept me from losing for at least another turn?

I know it wouldn't have helped much, but I'm just curious.

Mrakobes beat me so easily it was embarrassing.. good thing we didn't bet anything beforehand! haha

A multiplayer game is over when the balance is 300% for a player, which means one player has 3 times the holdings of the other. So he must have taken enough territory to reach this.

Its hard to say when to disclose a secret ally. Just read this thread and try out some of the different strategies listed, and see which ones work the best for you.

Secret Allies, even though undisclosed DO contribute 50% of their Secret Army value to your togal Balance. It is counted even if this country is captured by the enemy!

Thus, you are not urged to disclose your Secret Allies fearing that your balance is too low.

2 Vic - i do not understand something then - you are saying that secret allies even occupied DO give you half of their balance worth..for example i keep my secret ally undisclosed when enemy attacks it and then i disclose it to trap him BUT! i see that my balance goding down them (not for much though but still) the question is why? if it gives you 50% balance undisclosed then it balance should not change when you disclose SA with enemy in it.Or am i mistaken?

Ooops, I'm sorry...

Undisclosed Secret Allies give 100% Secret Army value contribution to your Balance. I was mistaken saying it was 50%. Of course 100%!

These are "undecided control" countries, which give 50% to each side.

The way i look at disclosing is to see if they can add something usefull to the battle. Since 10 rounds of revenue only start after the disclose/invade actions of players, you can let certain areas of the game be inactive. The choise to "open up" a front to devide the attention of an enemy just became a strategy. Since captured SA give indemnety only after disclosure, and indemnity is the same as secret army, it wont change any balance.

This works out great with greatly outnumberd SA's . If you know you will lose it, do not disclose. The extra army will lose to superior numbers, and the money you just wasted will be the same ammount the enemy can invest in standing army.

My point is to only disclose a SA if you can use it to contribute to the current situation. It is better to fight several small skirmishes over a long period, than to fight one big war (disclosing all asap). This is especialy true if the SA draw was unlucky.

Jelger

I gotta side with Jelger. (Granted, I haven't played the game long, I, er, am one of the many who followed the link from PA to the demo, downloaded it, and discovered the {possibly} best tactical game I have ever played. It's gotta battle with Panzer General, though. . .)

It's completely situationally dependant. There are some points where holding onto your SA for any number of turns can be highly beneficial...

However, I do have one question... I see here people have mentioned letting them conquer an undisclosed SA and then disclosing them after they pass through, and thusly having an instant flank behind an enemy army.

The question I had about that is...

Can you disclose the ally while they still have troops in there? I assume disclosing it while they have troops IN the capital is right out, just because they then instantly capture it, but if you disclose it as the ally, do you instantly control the territory?

Me.

Indeed you can! In fact, one of the most enjoyable tactics is waiting to disclose until your enemy has a transport or two with bots or RLs, and surrounding them with LAVs so they have nowhere to go before you blast them into oblivion.

Now you don't control the territory unless you wipe out all enemy troops and capture the capital, but neither do they. So as long as you have remaining troops from your disclosure, they will recieve no revenue from that country.