The Ultimate tactic goes Forum! [Challenge]

can i accept this challenge? im not the best troll player on the disk but im up for a bit of theoretical tinkering. i will not be too offended if you decline. although i may have to come round to your house and set fire to it...thats just a precaution though and i wouldn't take it personally... mmmmm...fire

Since the aim of this game is to explore the strategy, perhaps it'd be moderately cunning if we said that, although ponder's in charge of trolls, anyone would be allowed to suggest alternatives to a move already put down (as long as the next dwarf move hasn't been put in yet?), and equally vice-versa for Dearmer's dwarf moves.

This is just a thought - feel free to point out it's enormous flaws if you'd like

Mr Scrub

cool idea

and that also leads me to an idea of having doubles thud matches! same rules but one person does one half and the other person does the other (at the same time like a double match now) and they can confere with each other and stuff

my reply to the first move would be...

T H9 - H10

this seems to be the best starter for trolls when that move is placed

d P7 - H14

T G9 - G10

d F1 - F13

clever

T J9 - J10

d A7 - G13

T G10 - F11

Good for you. You're still playing exactly according to plan.

d N12 - E12

This, by the way, is the secret to the 'sacrificial dwarf' -- use them to move the trolls where you want them to be.

bum eyes

T F11 - F12 x G13 x F13 x E12

d H14 - F12 x F12

T H10 - H11

d M13 - F13

this is turning into a regular game

T H11 - G11 x F12

d A9 - F14

Well, it *can*, or you can let me catch another troll, and we can decide that i successfully blocked your advance, and let you try again, or *you* can have a go... We'll see what happens.

HI Guys,

Thanks for doing some demonstration games Most useful to come up with tactics to combat my monster. If it is not betraying the promise that I made to Mr Scrub to keep all further flashes of brilliance to myself - And lets face it who wants to cross Death Himself I wondered if I could point out a ~teeny tiny~ thing? Hopefully I've done this right and you cannot see the words below. If interested look, if not interested look away...now.

I hope the selection of this colour will blank it out and those that want to look can do so.

What I've found with the strategy that is effective in the games I've trialled and what makes it so tough is you can get TWO trolls to an attacking position rather than one - this sidesteps the issue of having the dwarfs FORCE your trolls into position as I've seen here. Let me explain. It seems that if you know that the troll player is going to try a Poons offensive you can make a nonstandard move - and I've tried a couple of things including the move that Dearmer made. You'll note that in the original game I played with SA I ~didn't~ concentrate on his attacking line at first, the idea was to blindside him and attack from two directions. If we take your original move I would not have moved the central troll, I would still have moved one of the side trolls, because you then have a shoving line of three.

My reply to your initial move would still have been G9-G10, for there is no dwarf at h15 to threaten the E12 position. You are then lured as a dwarf into moving into H15, because if you DON'T my next move is to e12, one position away from destroying the embryonic block.

If you DO move a dwarf into h15, lets say J15 to H15 my response is still J9 to J10 This is where is gets harder to force the dwarf players hand. Will they try to protect themselves from the blindside? Will they try to attack the troll at G10?

Blindside protection...troll counter
Lets say that the dwarf player moves a6 to j14 for the purposes of trying to protect themselves from the blindside. I can no longer move J10 to L12 for that position is effectively protected BUT no dwarfs are threatening me either. I THEN move H9 to H10, all my trolls are safe, once again it is hard to determine exactly what the dwarfs will/can do and it is here I feel that a sacrificial dwarf can come in handy to try and derail. Lets say the dwarf player attacks one of these trolls with a threatening move, say A7 to G13. The trolls counter with G10 to H11 threatening either h13 or f13, two positions of threat. Once the trolls are here, any way I play it out - and I'm too tired to go through all the variations, the player may lose a dwarf but he can Definately take more than four dwarfs.

Attacking move (as suggested by several thudders) d A7 - G13

Moves so far
d P6 - G14

T G9 - G10
d J15 - H15
T J9 - J10
d A7 - G13 This creates a line of three dwarfs to attack the troll.

I then move the troll g10 to h11. Threatening f13 and in the clear, The dwarfs have to try and delay this move otherwise I've crushed the block before it starts.
Lets say they move F1 to F13 (this forces me to move my troll and I can't get it into f13 position. But I can still move h11 to h12 taking the dwarf at g13, if he tries to keep the block alive by moving into e13, I continue down H horizontal - and kill the block.

There are some options here, the dwarf can try attacking by playing a dwarf on k13 or L12 - but this also has it's counter-moves. [color=darkblue]

OK so I've got it so you can't read the above unless you highlight the text. Best I can do unless one f the moderators can hide it better???

WP

There's a problem with that approach. Assume that I open with P6 - G14. That's more or less become my standard opening -- it's versatile enough if your opponent doesn't try a Poons offensive, and vital if he does. If you move G9 - G10, all I have to do is move D13 - G13. I no longer have to worry about moving into H15 to defend E12, because your troll can't shove there anymore (no adjacent dwarf). Moreover, if you shove the three squares into D13 (x C14 x E14) then I can capture your troll with the dwarf at B11. What's more, your troll at G10 is now threatened by the line of three dwarfs. You can move him further into advance, but then you lose the advantage of moving your trolls in a pack (which I understand to be the centre of the Poons offensive anyway!)

It seems to me that to pull it off, you need to start moving the troll at H9 or J9, to avoid being set up into this kind of situation. However, there are drawbacks to those attacks, as you can see. If I were to try and play this against a dwarf player, I'd only try it if he *did* start by forming a baseline, and if he didn't I'd start by moving one of the other trolls (not the one towards the growing block).

Which leads me into a whole new approach to countering the Poons offensive, but I'll save that until I've been able to work out the bugs. But it does include yet another excellent dwarf manouevre.

could i try the dwarfs defense now? i will accept that you have combated my onslaught.

I will ask OB if he can put a page on his site with save games of this game and others that we try

I think that's a great idea. How do you intend to start?
BTW, what do you think of renaming the 'ultimate tactic' and calling it the 'Poons Offensive'? I think WP referred to it as that in a recent post, and it struck me as a fine-sounding name, better than 'ultimate tactic,' which it isn't, or 'the Frankenstein,' which is a bit cumbersome.

All in favour, say 'cunning.'

cunning indeed

d E14 - J14

T G9 - G10

Cunning

and strangley Immortalizing

Darn I'm at work so I cannot respond to the move you mentioned, anywho Later

WP

d L2 - L13

now, that was foolish, little ponder...

T J9 - J10

really?! crikey

d G15 - H15

T G10 - E12 x D13

d K1 - K14

T G7 - G6

d B5 - K13

T J10 - L12 x K13 x L13 x M13

d J14 - L12 x L12

T J8 - M11 x L12 x N12

how much longer do you want *this* slaughter to go on?

d A6 - J14

you have improved my padawan. when the apprentice can defeat the master the training is over. well done, you have completed your training and are ready for the big world.

T E12 - F13

d O11 - M13

T F13 - G13

d M13 - K13

T M11 - N11

d K13 - L13

T N11 - O11 x P10

d M3 - M13
i didn't want you to do that...but i knew you would coz it was the best move to do. do want to take it back and chose another? please?

How about we call it splat for that block? Here's what I see happening.

T O11 - N12 x M13 (I mean, what choice do I *have*?)

You then get two options:
d L14 - N12 x N12 in which case I follow with
T G13 - H14 X J14 X J15 X H15 and get at least one more dwarf in the next turn

OR
d L13 - M13 in which case it goes
T N12 - M12 x M13
d K14 - M12 x M12
T G13 - H14 X J14 X J15 X H15 (and *still* get at least one more dwarf)

Either way, I'll be beating you 24-21 or 24-20. There's another option involving d P7 - H14, but it won't do you any better.

So what do you want to do now?

weeee-eel seen as this aint working no more...do you fancy a new, proper game?

I have a thread set up if you want.

I think we have killed that technique fully...

OK Dearmer,

I know I am an infrequent poster, I really only have time to play on weekends, but there is a couple of things I wanted to try out with the Poons Offensive (and a dwarf counter.

Would you mind if we play a first 5-10 move demo game? I'll start trolls of course

If you get me today of course we may actually be able to play this out with me being home sick.

Interested?

WP

All right, WP, do your worst!

You know how this starts:

d P6 - G14

@WP, we still have our game as well...just wondering if you have forgotten bout lickle ol' me...

Troll G9 to G10

(The standard Poons offensive move)

Dearmer since this is a demonstration game and presumably newbies are going to be examining this to see what we are talking about I thought it would also be appropriate to make comments about WHY certain moves were made.

I'll paraphrase for you from one of your previous posts. "This has become my standard opening. It's not a bad opening if your opponent doesn't try a Poons offensive, and is VITAL if they do" or something like that.

At this stage the Poons offensive is still intact, this will be a variant to show how to (almost) counteract what has become a standard opening every since the creation of a dwarf baseline as the opening move. This variant of course does have it's weaknesses which will hopefully be explored here.

WP

@Ponder - I had a system crash and need to replicate the moves we have already made. SHoudl be able to do that today if the wife doesn't need to use the computer too much.

Now, the way I see it, the immediate threat here is if I leave the board open for you to move G10- E12 x D13. My initial reaction is to move that dwarf out of danger and into attack mode by shifting him from D13 to G13, but that leaves you too many options, and I don't want to do too much guesswork as to what you'll do next, so I'll continue playing along (so as to try out something new).

d J15 - H15

Now I'm forming the baseline (heaven forbid ) but I'm also protecting E12 from invasion by hostile trolls. See what you can do with that... (although I can imagine what comes next)