Very good game! When you see that kind of hand at the end you can't do anything. The only thing is to try to win earlier but with the advantage you had trying to finish in FS is legit. I'll leave here my opinion about 3 points that could have decided the game: 1. Obviously filling Brazil could have helped but during the game there may be other priorities and it felt safe. 2. So for me the key might have been HL CMC as you know defcon will probably be at 2 due to his HL, and if not, you make sure of that because if he wants to hit he needs to remove 2 from Germany, so you are relatively safe from realignments to force an ops run on Venzuela and Brazil with 2 4ops in your hand, maybe forcing him to give you China back. In hindsight he could have stopped you but it still means not playing Alliance as an event. It's the only thing I can think of that maybe you would have won by points before T10. 3. Another one is that with Cambrige I would have place the op in Italy, if you get Italy you save the same, 5 points, but it seems easier to get back into at least one SA country than to stop a Europe dom in FS (not that it mattered). So it could be 5 VP more in FS although at that moment I don't think it would have made much difference (unless he would have couped and then Brush would have worked in Argentina, so you would have saved 10 VP that turn and won the game before FS).
Thanks for the comments! I agree that filling Brazil probably should have been a higher priority, but I can't pinpoint an appropriate time to have done it. I'm not sure about headlining CMC, it's 3 ops to effectively remove 2 from WG, whereas Muslim is 4 ops to remove 4 from ME. As far as doing an ops run on Venezuela, I do like having Muslim as fuel for that, but Nixon in hand is a concern, as he might defend Venezuela with China. Cambridge into Italy is an excellent suggestion, the only drawback is if my opponent gets a massive coup in Zaire and reverses the future of Africa, but this is unlikely, and especially since my opponent has 2 scoring cards to worry about. However because of Marshal, getting Europe dom would be a little tricky, but ultimately I think Italy was correct, thanks for pointing that out! Looking forward to more insightful comments from you in the future!
yeah, I'm not sure either when could have been the right time to fill Brazil. Regarding CMC, I agree that it less ops efficient, but I think it could have force to get china wich is the ultimate goal for me with that play. It could have not worked out anyway ahaha And with Europe I don't mean to get Dom but to deny it to him. In any case, you played very well that game, by doing any different might lead a to a different play of your opponent so we never know. T10 hand was too much😂😅
Btw, the surname Warszawski is pronounced Var-sha-vski (var in variety\sha in shark\f+ ski in skiing). Presumably comes from the name of Polish capital, Warsaw.
T5 - Pretty surprised you didn't put your VoA ops into Ven before giving him the event. That's access we're talking about. And now we're likely to get controlled in SA. T7 - with him headlinining OAS, I would have 100% put my Cambridge op into Italy, taken it with Muslim and flipped a dom on him. I'm not sure why you risked SA, when Europe was a sure thing (since you were holding Brush). T8 - Based on that very rough T10 hand, I think holding Wargames instead of ABM on T8 was the way to go. You were so close to unspaceable territory (and we did get there) and you were so good on the board. I think letting him realign Panama and holding Wargames was the better option.
Thanks for the comment Peter! regarding VoA, I felt like Venezuela was already lost due to the realignment threats, and figured if I placed influence before the event, I'd be guarunteed to lose an Asian BG The Cambridge op into Italy makes total sense now in hindsight, I suppose I didn't want to allow a coup in Africa, Aran had a lot of headway in the Mediterranean, but he also had 2 scoring cards, so giving the coup makes more sense here. This game has really hammered it into my head that you can get to a point where you can't space 3 ops! Wow, what an oversight, I should have just allowed EEU and Ussuri to event, I'd still be well positioned for final scoring, but even that wouldn't have been enough without the China card, so I guess my play for CA control was also greedy! of course, none of that would have mattered if I had held Wargames, so I'll make more of an effort to do that in the future, especially when I'm up there on the space track and don't have China! I could have just used ABM to coup Columbia if I wanted it all. Though it was useful the subsequent turn for ME scoring, but not as useful as winning!
Very good game! When you see that kind of hand at the end you can't do anything. The only thing is to try to win earlier but with the advantage you had trying to finish in FS is legit. I'll leave here my opinion about 3 points that could have decided the game:
1. Obviously filling Brazil could have helped but during the game there may be other priorities and it felt safe.
2. So for me the key might have been HL CMC as you know defcon will probably be at 2 due to his HL, and if not, you make sure of that because if he wants to hit he needs to remove 2 from Germany, so you are relatively safe from realignments to force an ops run on Venzuela and Brazil with 2 4ops in your hand, maybe forcing him to give you China back. In hindsight he could have stopped you but it still means not playing Alliance as an event. It's the only thing I can think of that maybe you would have won by points before T10.
3. Another one is that with Cambrige I would have place the op in Italy, if you get Italy you save the same, 5 points, but it seems easier to get back into at least one SA country than to stop a Europe dom in FS (not that it mattered). So it could be 5 VP more in FS although at that moment I don't think it would have made much difference (unless he would have couped and then Brush would have worked in Argentina, so you would have saved 10 VP that turn and won the game before FS).
Thanks for the comments! I agree that filling Brazil probably should have been a higher priority, but I can't pinpoint an appropriate time to have done it.
I'm not sure about headlining CMC, it's 3 ops to effectively remove 2 from WG, whereas Muslim is 4 ops to remove 4 from ME. As far as doing an ops run on Venezuela, I do like having Muslim as fuel for that, but Nixon in hand is a concern, as he might defend Venezuela with China.
Cambridge into Italy is an excellent suggestion, the only drawback is if my opponent gets a massive coup in Zaire and reverses the future of Africa, but this is unlikely, and especially since my opponent has 2 scoring cards to worry about. However because of Marshal, getting Europe dom would be a little tricky, but ultimately I think Italy was correct, thanks for pointing that out! Looking forward to more insightful comments from you in the future!
yeah, I'm not sure either when could have been the right time to fill Brazil.
Regarding CMC, I agree that it less ops efficient, but I think it could have force to get china wich is the ultimate goal for me with that play. It could have not worked out anyway ahaha
And with Europe I don't mean to get Dom but to deny it to him.
In any case, you played very well that game, by doing any different might lead a to a different play of your opponent so we never know. T10 hand was too much😂😅
Btw, the surname Warszawski is pronounced Var-sha-vski (var in variety\sha in shark\f+ ski in skiing). Presumably comes from the name of Polish capital, Warsaw.
Thanks, I'll try to get it right next time I play Aran (which is hopefully soon!)
T5 - Pretty surprised you didn't put your VoA ops into Ven before giving him the event. That's access we're talking about. And now we're likely to get controlled in SA.
T7 - with him headlinining OAS, I would have 100% put my Cambridge op into Italy, taken it with Muslim and flipped a dom on him. I'm not sure why you risked SA, when Europe was a sure thing (since you were holding Brush).
T8 - Based on that very rough T10 hand, I think holding Wargames instead of ABM on T8 was the way to go. You were so close to unspaceable territory (and we did get there) and you were so good on the board. I think letting him realign Panama and holding Wargames was the better option.
Thanks for the comment Peter! regarding VoA, I felt like Venezuela was already lost due to the realignment threats, and figured if I placed influence before the event, I'd be guarunteed to lose an Asian BG
The Cambridge op into Italy makes total sense now in hindsight, I suppose I didn't want to allow a coup in Africa, Aran had a lot of headway in the Mediterranean, but he also had 2 scoring cards, so giving the coup makes more sense here.
This game has really hammered it into my head that you can get to a point where you can't space 3 ops! Wow, what an oversight, I should have just allowed EEU and Ussuri to event, I'd still be well positioned for final scoring, but even that wouldn't have been enough without the China card, so I guess my play for CA control was also greedy! of course, none of that would have mattered if I had held Wargames, so I'll make more of an effort to do that in the future, especially when I'm up there on the space track and don't have China! I could have just used ABM to coup Columbia if I wanted it all. Though it was useful the subsequent turn for ME scoring, but not as useful as winning!