1v1 pairings

[Tripper]

Sooooo - all this discussion about beating the Star as well as all the 1v1 ladder back-and-forth activity got me thinking about where the strategic advantage lies in various 1v1 pairings.

Rather than actually do anything sensible like look at stats (though Bert may be able to do something clever with his Dedcon rankings, if the server can tell which countries the players have) I've just made some rough a priori predictions on the apparent strengths/weaknesses of different pairings. Things I considered include amount of defender territory in radar, ability to deploy and ability to attack the defender with bomber/sub runs.

I've coded these as
+/- Slight advantage/disadvantage, worth c. 10 points, hard to predict outcome
++/-- Moderate advantage/disadvantage, worth c. 30 points, good predictor of outcome
+++/--- Considerable advantage/disadvantage, worth c. 50 points, outcome almost assured

Code: Select all

Attacker/Defender   EU   Africa Asia   Rus    NA     SA
                     
EU           (-1)   n/a   --     +      ++     -      -
                     
Africa       (+2)   ++     n/a   --      +      +      +
                     
Asia         (+4)   -     ++     n/a    +++    -      +
                     
Rus          (-4)   --    -    ---    n/a    +      +
                     
NA           (-1)   +     -     +      -      n/a    -
                     
SA           (-1)   +     -     -      -      +     n/a



Edit 1: I agree with Rus¦Mike's point about Asia/EU, and Africa/Russia - don't know what I was thinking intially

Edit 1.1: Switched Europe/SA around. Think this is a pretty close pairing though. Neither side really has good sub access to the other.

So the topic for discussion is - do you agree with these rankings? and which is the best continent overall? Why/why not? I'll update the table from time to time to reflect the consensus.

Edit 2: I've done this without assuming perfect play - and of course each country can use a number of different strategies/counterstrategies which will tip the balance. Call this an "average"

Edit 3: And of course I've set up this thread to hook people into revealing their strategies Read and learn everyone

Edit 4: Not that anyone's watching, I changed my mind again about Africa v Russia. There's nothing Russia can do about a star-esque launch from the Indian at Defcon 1. That fleet can go on to defend East Africa with the advantage of land-based air support. Sending the Russian fleet West is a long way and gives the East African fleet time to pull back.

Cheers, Tripper

[Hyperion]

I'd say at the beginning of the game, depending on which territory you have...yes you may get the first advantage (but it is only an advantage depending on how efficient you are)...but i think it more of less depends on what you can do with the territories you get...not simply rely on their geographic advantages.

For instance i don't think E.U has advantages over USSR but that appears to be what your chart has said? essentially the chart you've provided would be completely different for each player.

[Tripper]

Oh yes, I'm generalising terribly. And I'm extremely open to correction! Please prove me wrong (unless you don't want to give strategies away ... )

For the record, the reason I put EU at an advantage over the USSR was that the lions share of the USSR population is in EU radar range and therefore won't get good silo protection. Plus the EU can launch subs at those cities from the relative safety of the North Sea. Whereas EU can hide its silos out of radar range near some of its largest cities.

Of course, Russia has a larger area to hide its units which is good in a longer game

[rus|Mike]

I disagree... the first things which come to my mind:

1) You say, Africa is "better" then Russia. My experience shows that it's vice versa. May be even two mineses. The reason is very simple: Russia has two ways of attacking Africa: through Bering, from the East and past European part, from the West. In case Russia sends almost whole fleet to one of those destinations- it's impossible for Africa to defend (UNLESS Africa guesses which way Russia is going to attack). But the majority of people do not rely on their guesses and split their fleet in an attempt to protect both destinations and this is impossible. Africa will end up with reconed silos and strong fleet with 12 subs from one of it's "sides" in most cases. In defence Russia also has advantages: it can block the passage near Iceland whenever she wants and hold there even a whole Africa's fleet. And puting the radar on Bering will result nuking Africa's fleet to death if it dares to attempt to sneak there. And by the way, Africa has no choise rather then to launch it's subs from the place in the India not long after Defcon 1. Russia subs will make a launch much later but it'lll twice as devastating.

You can look how it looks like here, for example:
http://dedcon.homelinux.net/serverlogs/Duel/2007/08/16/0945/recording_duel2_Thu_Aug_16_09_45_03_UTC_2007.zip
This game doesn't show it idealy but some of the main points are perfectly visible.

2) Europe vs Africa is one mines??? Two mineses is the least! Africa has terrible advantage in this kind of match: radar coverage on nearly all Europe nad the ability to block the passage between SA and Africa in case of loosing the naval in the beginning. This will make Europe's subs totally useless. And Africa can easily make an early launch from it's subs, killing everything in it's radar coverage.

3) Asia's "worse" than Europe??? What the hell??! The one thing Hyperion has beat into me is that Asia has advantage over Europe if everything is managed propely. One flight over Europe and you can see evrything... countless destination for bomber runs and all this kind of things makes Asia stronger.


And surely it's all about one's preferences mostly. For me personally two territories who have inevitable naval contact (Asia vs Africa, Africa vs SA, Africa vs Europe) are always +++, not deending on the side

[rus|Mike]

Whereas EU can hide its silos out of radar range

Tell this Ender You'll make him laugh

[Ace Rimmer]

Whereas EU can hide its silos out of radar range

Tell this Ender You'll make him laugh

That's what cease fire is for.

[Hyperion]

<<snip>>

Yeah what mike says is mostly true...however he is also giving away his tactics at the same time...

E.U. is useless against Asia if you know how to play it. When i lose i generally lose as E.U., no matter which game mode...E.U is just hardest to play as because it gives you such limited options for mobilizing and attack vectors.

I have to say i'd rather be Africa over USSR in a 1v1 anyday, besides going through Indonesia the USSR fleet will take forever to make progress anywhere...subs or not. Any good player can exhaust their nuclear resources and put them to good use before the USSR fleet can get in range to do any kind of damage...but yeah...we could all debate and argue scenerio specific strategies...

...fact is, the success of each territory is only as good as the player controlling them.

EDIT: Given ruslMike seems to excel at his naval tactics i'd be interested to see how he plays N.A vs S.A

[zjoere]

there should be something in the shart listed as no advantage.

in a lot of case i don't really see the advantage/disadvantage that are in the chart. like in:
africa vs SA
EU vs asia
asia vs NA
NA vs africa

[Tripper]

there should be something in the shart listed as no advantage.

Yes, I did consider that, but there's always some slight asymmetry. Let's see what I was thinking ...

africa vs SA - africa can deploy navies further north than SA, and population is in general further from the Atlantic
EU vs asia - asia has scouting/air advantage from middle east/indian
asia vs NA - NA has access to more asian population via the Pacific
NA vs africa - that's pretty even. But NA's navies can't get close to africa's cities quite as easily

Another controversial topic - I have been usually ignoring the strategy of sailing the wrong way around the world to attack someone's undefended rear. Even though it's often a good idea, it takes a long time and has resupply problems so would tend to lose to a defending fleet with support from ground bases. imvho !

[mrobertsonesq]

Another controversial topic - I have been usually ignoring the strategy of sailing the wrong way around the world to attack someone's undefended rear. Even though it's often a good idea, it takes a long time and has resupply problems so would tend to lose to a defending fleet with support from ground bases. imvho !

True but how many people manage to sub count (count the number of subs they see or destroy) each game with NO errors?

I like sending a lone sub around the long way simply for this reason.
Most people will see / take out the rest of the subs then assume that's the lot. I also use lone subs and not as part of multi unit fleets or combined fleets also.

[world idiot]

russia always has the advantage over sa, simply because Russia can choke the passage near Iceland, destroying lost of subs, and sa has no easy bomber runs other than through the Indian

[rus|Mike]

1) You say, Africa is "better" then Russia. My experience shows that it's vice versa...

I was wrong My further investigation in this setup showed that if Africa does everything correctly, there are from little to no chances for Russia.

Anyone, who can win as Russia vs me as Africa?

[Ace Rimmer]

1) You say, Africa is "better" then Russia. My experience shows that it's vice versa...

I was wrong My further investigation in this setup showed that if Africa does everything correctly, there are from little to no chances for Russia.

Anyone, who can win as Russia vs me as Africa?

Me.

[rus|Mike]

Me.

Free now?

[Ace Rimmer]

I wish. It's only 11:00 am and I'm still at work.