My EOG
Hi all, thanks for the game! My
feelings on 'winning' the game are
mixed. It seems this game was by far the closest of the four qualifier games,
so I know I just scraped through. Hopefully this gives me rank outsider
status with the GM and I get first pick of nations in the final ;-) After all
it appears that South is going to win the other three games.
I like the variant and the
theory behind it a lot. However, the results of this tournament so far
reflect the statistics on the Sail Ho website, namely that South wins the
lion's share of games with West the only close contender. South may have got
hamstrung early in this game, but only because I went after him for this very
reason. It'd be interesting to know if any changes are planned to combat
this.
Anyway, back to this game.
Early moves suggested that it would end up being a North vs West and South vs
East deadlock, but East put paid to that with a sensible shift in strategy
that caught me off-guard. Fortunately South left himself open and I was able
to compensate for the loss of my foothold on the centre isle with his home
centres. I knew it would set me up to be attacked by everyone else, but it
took one nation out of the running and I'm generally good at defence.
In the end my cunning plan to hold off attacks and force
a 4-way tie, with me winning the average SC contest, wasn't needed. East made
another sensible shift in strategy and flipped back to South's island. The
move came earlier than I expected and he caught South and me on the hop.
However he was scuppered by North, whose timing very nearly snatched victory
from a deadlocked position.
I'm not sure what would have
happened if the game had continued - I tried to make my last season's moves
as if I were continuing, but I did give away some positional advantage for
supply centres. At least the gain of Aph meant I didn't have to win on maths,
though.
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