FFA multiplayer strategies

Discuss strategies of warbarons

FFA multiplayer strategies

Postby Versace » Sun Jun 23, 2013 1:52 pm

I usually play 1vs1 games but with the new possibility of simultaneous turns the free for all multiplayer games do not take so much time and are refreshing and fun to play.

I am thinking about 8 player big map game, such as Europe map.

I got only one insight for now and that is to avoid razing, at least in your own hoods and borders. When playing for the win, having razed cities in your homeland is just not the way to go. Better risk losing a city and hope to get it back later. When there is a lot of razing both neighbors are unlikely to win.

In 1vs1 games I like to expand really fast but it seems that will get you killed in 8 player FFA. How do you people balance early expansion and what about mid game and end game?

End game must be a lot about diplomacy I would think, everyone should try to make sure one player cannot run away to win and alliance/peace/war should change according to power balance. I quess one strategy would be to appear weaker than you are in the end game and wait for a moment to rush. I have never got that far though. Long peace agreements should be avoided by the weaker player, as the stronger one could manage run away before it expires.

A side note about peace agreements; I don't like it at all that you can go to the other guy's territory and just wait for the turn when peace ends attack all around. That is not the idea of the deal. Also, this hugely favours the one who acts first to the effect that I think the player last to act should never sign a peace deal but have a mutual understanding instead and agree on some sort of borders.
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Re: FFA multiplayer strategies

Postby KGB » Sun Jun 23, 2013 2:50 pm

Versace wrote:A side note about peace agreements; I don't like it at all that you can go to the other guy's territory and just wait for the turn when peace ends attack all around. That is not the idea of the deal. Also, this hugely favours the one who acts first to the effect that I think the player last to act should never sign a peace deal but have a mutual understanding instead and agree on some sort of borders.


You can not do this anymore. Even when you have signed a peace treaty you can still attack each others units when they are not in a city/gold site. So if someone attempted this kind of move you can simply kill his units.

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Re: FFA multiplayer strategies

Postby tabanli » Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:08 am

I have limited experience in FFA 8 player. What I see is that there are Hero confrontation which reduces the number of players to 3 or 4 early on. Natural borders help you to form allies and you keep playing a long game.

Nothing beats the early expansion. Even ruin searching must be secondary. Mostly occupy, but plunder units unnecessary for the map. Early on, the Heavy infantries are good enough as defenders. Later spiders are my main defenders. I didn't have much success with orcs but I often train Wolf Riders against super barbarian.

Heroes depends on territory and starting units. Barbarian must be the first or at least the second. Since everybody has Barbarian, you should also get an Assasin. Since there are a lot of Assasins, you should get a Ranger. Thus KGB's heroes. I resisted this for a long time but there are simply no viable alternative. One would think that " I will start with a Dread Knight, he may reach super high chaos" but it will be hard to survive the early/mid game. There are some maps where Horse Lord is better than Ranger for passing the front post city to attack low-def cities. Frozen Tundra has a lot of Yeti's and mammoths with natural warding or fully Desert Maps where scorpions are super fast and has the potential of 60 with +25 leadership. Otherwise "B-A-R" are the main heroes and everybody else is accessory.
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Re: FFA multiplayer strategies

Postby KGB » Mon Jun 24, 2013 12:58 pm

tabanli wrote:Heroes depends on territory and starting units. Barbarian must be the first or at least the second. Since everybody has Barbarian, you should also get an Assasin. Since there are a lot of Assasins, you should get a Ranger. Thus KGB's heroes. I resisted this for a long time but there are simply no viable alternative.


Happy to have made another convert :D

tabanli wrote:One would think that " I will start with a Dread Knight, he may reach super high chaos" but it will be hard to survive the early/mid game.


If you want a DK (and you probably will at some point) it's vastly easier and better to simply buy a L3 or L5 hero that comes with +6 or +9 chaos. It's even better if your Ranger has found a Chaos item to give to the DK.

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Re: FFA multiplayer strategies

Postby tabanli » Mon Jun 24, 2013 7:49 pm

Let's say I have an L3 Paladin/DK/Valkyrie/HL/ with leadership bonus. I have to have a full stack ready in order to be better than a similar stack lead by an L3 Barbarian.

So L3-Paladin+7(Giants/Crusader/Heavy Cavalary) vs. L3 Barbarian+ 7(Giants/Crusader/Heavy Cavalary) Paladin had the edge. However it takes a long time to get that full stack ready in a FFA 8 player game. You will probably have an encounter by turn 5-8 and where is your stack?

Let's say you somehow got the full stack, face an L3 barbarian and you are 60% to 40% favorite. Even if you win, you will probably loose most of your stack and you cannot proceed anymore. However if Barbarian wins, Barbarian can still press forward.

So FFA 8 player is very much different than team games and 1 vs 1 large map games. And I see no viable route other than Barbarian 1 hero. Only when there are ruins nearby, I can start with a ruin hero and wait for the Barbarian at turn 2-3.
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Re: FFA multiplayer strategies

Postby KGB » Mon Jun 24, 2013 10:05 pm

A L3 Pally stack (Giants etc) will get crushed by a L3 Barb stack (Giants etc). He's only about 25% likely to win purely due to the 58 strength Barb. If it's weaker units (10 str instead of 25) it's even worse for the Pally stack. A Valk with her +10 bonus is 40% likely to win. So yeah you don't want to face down that Barb under those circumstances.

That said, most Barb players aren't building stacks of 8. I certainly am not. My Barb travels solo and the rest of my units go together to allow me 2x the rate of expansion that a non-Barb has.

KGB

P.S. If you aren't going with a Barb you *MUST* (A) go with the Assassin hero or (B) Be making Ambush units (Orc/Wolfrider/Ghost).
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