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Assasin strategy

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:13 pm
by Kaskavel
I am not an assasin expert and I do not pretend to be, so I would like to have some advice from more experienced players in this kind of setting.
In an assasin game of 3 players, where all 3 players are actively attacking, no matter how much I think about it, it seems to me completely wrong to break your target's bonus, unless you can safely claim it for yourself. Your target will attack back to recover it and after 1-2 more rounds of repeating the same process, the third player will be winning. Not to mention that after all, why break the bonus? Those extra troops are wasted against third player, not against you, which helps you defend yourself better, since third player gets more pressure. Correct seems to attack your target in different regions, away from his bonus, basicaly anywhere he will not counterattack, leave the bonus troops to be deployed and thrown against third player, sustain third's player pressure which is now significaly reduced, and leave the bonus for the end if game goes well. No matter how much I think about it, I am convinved it is just...correct. Yet, no matter how many speed games I play, everybody keeps attacking their target's bonuses like crazy to the last troop (last 4th troop I mean).
Keep in mind that I am not talking about cases that
1. My target is taking a significant lead
2. I can safely claim the bonus myself
3. Four, six, eight or more odd numbers of players are playing
4. One or more of the players does not attack his target
5. Map is doodle or Luxemburg and the like
So, please do not involve those assumptions in answer, obviously things change there. I am very specific in the kind of games I am talking
Am I correct or do I need to play more games to understand the game better? What am I missing?

Re: Assasin strategy

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:22 pm
by Armandolas
Your idea looks nice, but remember that if u dont get his bonus, and let the other 2 fighting, your target will allways get +2 troops to assassinate his target. So ok he is wasting troops, but wasting troops on his target, if u allow this for a while, with decent dice the guy will eventually win .But that third guy will be interested on you, and not in the guy with the bonus, so he will not attack the guy with the bonus, he will fight you ,so it just goes in circles...lool...imagine circus maximus map :)
The main strategy will be around dice, since there is no possible diplomacy

Re: Assasin strategy

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:33 pm
by Kaskavel
Yes...yes...if target gets quite strong, things change. Although I am not sure if they change in a good way or a bad way. Third player stops attacking you and attacks your target, even better. And of course if he is gaining head, tactics will change. Always, if one gains head things change, no matter who has bonuses and who does not.
What I ask, can be described easily. We start a 3 player game, A takes Australia, B takes S America. C attacks A and breaks him, A attacks back and reclaims, C breaks him again, A reclaims again and then B wins. I always see this behavor in all games I try

Re: Assasin strategy

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:48 pm
by betiko
a good thing is not to have borders with your target's bonus, and just moan about it in the chat "i really wish I could help!" if it's 3 players, your taget might need to spend a round or 2 to stop his assassin while you just stack :lol:
anyways, 3 ways assassin is just about luck, there's always an idiot out there not understanding ballance and that screw your game. I'd suggest not to play that crap and go for 6-8 player games freestyle with objectives and a safe starting point (das schloss, antartica, all your base type of thing). really annoying how often you get noobed in assassin.

Re: Assasin strategy

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:36 am
by Jippd
Kaskavel wrote:Yes...yes...if target gets quite strong, things change. Although I am not sure if they change in a good way or a bad way. Third player stops attacking you and attacks your target, even better. And of course if he is gaining head, tactics will change. Always, if one gains head things change, no matter who has bonuses and who does not.
What I ask, can be described easily. We start a 3 player game, A takes Australia, B takes S America. C attacks A and breaks him, A attacks back and reclaims, C breaks him again, A reclaims again and then B wins. I always see this behavor in all games I try


It depends who has who for a target. Say C has A, A has B and B has C in your scenario.

If A knows how to play they would not attack C back to get the bonus. They would make breaking C B's responsibility as it is B's target.

So with the scenario you are laying out. "A and C attacking each other and weakening themselves so much that B can sweep in and kill C. yes I would say B should sit back. For this scenario though you are counting on poor play by A which is not a guarantee.

Re: Assasin strategy

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 10:57 am
by Kaskavel
Jippd wrote:
Kaskavel wrote:Yes...yes...if target gets quite strong, things change. Although I am not sure if they change in a good way or a bad way. Third player stops attacking you and attacks your target, even better. And of course if he is gaining head, tactics will change. Always, if one gains head things change, no matter who has bonuses and who does not.
What I ask, can be described easily. We start a 3 player game, A takes Australia, B takes S America. C attacks A and breaks him, A attacks back and reclaims, C breaks him again, A reclaims again and then B wins. I always see this behavor in all games I try


It depends who has who for a target. Say C has A, A has B and B has C in your scenario.

If A knows how to play they would not attack C back to get the bonus. They would make breaking C B's responsibility as it is B's target.

So with the scenario you are laying out. "A and C attacking each other and weakening themselves so much that B can sweep in and kill C. yes I would say B should sit back. For this scenario though you are counting on poor play by A which is not a guarantee.


Hold on. If you suggest that A should not take the bonus back, then it was a mistake to take it at the first place. Your logic leads to the conclusion that we should not take a bonus if our killer can break us, because if he breaks us, it is wrong to attack back. I do not think that this should be the case, seems wrong

Re: Assasin strategy

PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:22 am
by Jippd
Kaskavel wrote:
Jippd wrote:
Kaskavel wrote:Yes...yes...if target gets quite strong, things change. Although I am not sure if they change in a good way or a bad way. Third player stops attacking you and attacks your target, even better. And of course if he is gaining head, tactics will change. Always, if one gains head things change, no matter who has bonuses and who does not.
What I ask, can be described easily. We start a 3 player game, A takes Australia, B takes S America. C attacks A and breaks him, A attacks back and reclaims, C breaks him again, A reclaims again and then B wins. I always see this behavor in all games I try


It depends who has who for a target. Say C has A, A has B and B has C in your scenario.

If A knows how to play they would not attack C back to get the bonus. They would make breaking C B's responsibility as it is B's target.

So with the scenario you are laying out. "A and C attacking each other and weakening themselves so much that B can sweep in and kill C. yes I would say B should sit back. For this scenario though you are counting on poor play by A which is not a guarantee.


Hold on. If you suggest that A should not take the bonus back, then it was a mistake to take it at the first place. Your logic leads to the conclusion that we should not take a bonus if our killer can break us, because if he breaks us, it is wrong to attack back. I do not think that this should be the case, seems wrong


I am stating and do think that if A took a bonus that C could break it was a mistake. Taking a bonus in assassin requires delicate play and diligent thought. If you take a bonus that your assassin borders you can and should expect them to attack you and it is their responsibility to do so. Instead it is best to take a bonus that your assassin can't get to. Even better when your target is the buffer between your assassin and your bonus.

Your assassin has the responsibility and duty to attack you. If A takes a bonus and C has A as a target C will HAVE to attack A. If A and C fight back and forth over the bonus because A wants to take it back it results in A and C decreasing in troop totals while B grows. B will do as you say in your scenario and sit back and build and easily can kill C later who is being attacked by both A and B as a result of A's foolish play. This attacking of A to get their bonus back results in A weakening C who will be easily killed by B since B and A are attacking C. C is attacking A and nobody is attacking B because A is too focused on their bonus. The game will always go to player B because A played the game wrong.

This is a result of A playing foolishly and wasting their troops on someone elses target which is a great way to give away a win.

The only way to win as player B is to have a stupid player A and you hope to not be player C.



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In your scenario you want to play the role of player C. You will let A have the bonus but hope that A and B are fighting. Your theory is that A will be thin themselves out by holding their bonus and using their troops to attack B.

If A is smart they will do this intelligently with their extra income. They will be able to attack B while making sure they don't thin themselves out enough so that you (C) can come in and sweep them for a kill. This is all happening while you are sitting back and hoping A thins themselves out on B enough that you can sweep in for a kill.






I don't think experienced assassin players will make these mistakes which is why I don't think it makes a good strategy. Your principles are sound and ideas are good but there is too much of a factor of luck involved. It requires players not knowing how to play and making mistakes which give you the game.

To me a comparison would be to say that a good plan for escalating play is to sit back and only build a stack. The way to win is to let a player cash to early and almost get a kill but miss. Then you have to be the next player to go and you can steal the kill. This may happen, but I never like basing my strategy solely off hoping someone else is going to make the right mistake at the right time to give me a win.

I think that if you played with an experienced assassin player and they were their target and you let them keep their bonus and nobody else had a bonus the player with a bonus can will and should win.

Re: Assasin strategy

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:48 pm
by shadistic
(Using A>B>C>A, like above)

You don't have to take all the bonus for yourself, do you?
If you park enough troops on the bonus to make it difficult to reclaim, a smart opponent will think twice about continuing to go after it. I think that's an assumption you've made, that A will commit more to their own defense than to their offense. Skilled opponents will think twice before making the defensive commitment. Unskilled opponents... well, all bets are off when playing Assassin against them. If you know your target is somewhat skilled, they probably won't lose sight of their target by fighting you.

Oceania on Classic is an isolated bonus with 1 chokepoint, so they really don't have anywhere else to go for building up. But this is the exception, not the rule.

My solution to your scenario (A with Oceania and B with SA on Classic) is this. You've said that a condition is no one being far in the lead. If you're (C) the only one in a position to break A's bonus, A might as well go for his target (B). If C can stack up in a place that's far enough removed from B's position, C can come back for the bonus eventually, as Jippd suggested.
Because A is your target, you can't win without that bonus being broken, so you'll probably need to break it sooner or later. If A has nothing but 1s on the interior, going 1 territory further, and parking a 4 or 5 stack there (Perth or PM) to leave them a way out will convince them that it's not worth retaking. The game moves around in circles, and good Assassin players will adapt to this.