[SPOILERS] Wargroove 4 (PY88YF) - Hesmyrr Grooves into Heart of the Matter

[Hesmyrr]

So both superdeath and Old Harry pose significant threat to me at the moment. To organize my thoughts, let's free write some stuff about current fronts:

Old Harry front is actually pretty safe. The two points of concern are his dragon (I may have built a witch on the tower this turn to shut it down, but once again misclick so gotta roll with the punches) and my lack of defense on central area that he has a path of attack on. Losing 7HP village would be bad, but if I don't reinforce it with units, he'd be able to threaten my home base tower area which would be worse.

However, it's superdeath that I need to pay full attention to. He has good composition of advanced units - strong spearwall, Trebuchet, 2 harpies, a witch, a dragon, and Ragna - bearing down on me. Trebuchet is especially annoying due to the map geography I consistently mentioned. He can just follow the nice grassy path, and if left unimpeded, it will not only pelt mountain area but eventually my 5HP and 7HP villages in the center as well. My benefit is that I have secure access to two barracks and therefore immediate reinforcment.

It should be noted though that most of scooter's villages are situated on where the battle line is expected to be drawn, meaning I only have one village completely safe from ravages of the war (+100 income). Production buildings don't give any income in Wargroove, so I could very easily end up in situation where I have all the barracks in the world but do not have income to utilize it.

The big question is whether other two players will form temporary alliance against me? We all have similar unit count with 1800 vs 1100 income (likely to become 1000), so this is an ideal situation for a dogpile in which I'll likely crumble like a sandcastle if they dedicate themselves to it.

[Hesmyrr]

The horde cometh, and 'tis a feaful thing.



I am outnumbered in both units and (overall) income, and my only hope is that superdeath and Old Harry maintain minor skirmishes in the center rather than going full-on NAP. I am momentarily surrendering 8HP village to prevent being overextended, so hopefully that also presents a source of disharmony. 

Just need to hold onto the onslaught, and if I manage to stabilize the defensive line, then I can consider building siege units for slow push toward Old Harry's HQ.

[Hesmyrr]

After Old Harry's turn, did not have time to immediately post the screenshot after my last move:



Falling back... trying to get as much of good deal as possible. Old Harry's movement is concerning: he has Emeric crystal available to make for a dangerous push with his crit mages, and could he could isolate my bases by cutting right down . 


I thought about my situation, and the fact that I am in position where losing either of the fronts would be lethal is not really ideal. I'll start considering building a wagon to bring Elodie back to East ASAP. It might weaken my resistance against superdeath, but even the worst scenario of losing scooter's base come into contention wouldn't be game-ending loss due to how the diplomacy is working out.

[Hesmyrr]

Finished my turn.



I pulled western units to where I feel comfortable (but still not certain about) taking a stand. Primary benefit of this position is that I can counterattack unfettered by superdeath's Trebuchet, although to do so I have essentially conceded the above area that contains three villages and a tower. 

Spent all my money to build ballista on the west: it counters Old Harry's mage-fliers army, and also that sneaky ballista of his which I am pretty sure will be used to plonk away at my defenses. Also probably better to build costly units on a front where I absolutely must not abandon. It's my job to make myself prickly enough that Old Harry seriously considers heading towards the other way... although this will probably only occur after my defense force in SE corner will yield.

As I kept mentioning, giving up the corner is meta strategy I am considering because I do not have enough resources to survive 1v2. Army possessed by my rivals are such that I am 100% of my ability to protect one front with my basic income but not both. I am essentially passing the baton to superdeath to see if he can do better in my position. Splitting the map horizontally with Old Harry is far better for me as well, because his HQ is better exposed. 

The big question is... do I let superdeath take scooter's ruins with massive bloodletting on both ends, or do I continue my current slow retreat until the next dogpile? The thing with slow retreat is, besides allowing superdeath to access production buildings way too fast, archers and trebuchet are way too slow; efficient retreat is very unlikely while keeping them around. I'm now realizing that I should have pulled away these units this turn if I really want to walk the walk, probably down to bottom center. Do I still somehow hold hope that I can beat off superdeath offensive? However, what future do I even have after beating off the current wave, besides slowly bleeding to death? Feeling really indecisive about what to do at the moment, which very well may cause my loss.

[Hesmyrr]

Quickly checked the game in free time, and I see Old Harry has made his move:



Orange line was my desired area of control should I choose to do retreat strategy, parking Trebuchet around 1E of bottom barrack. I concede the barrack and a village to superdeath, but I preserve barracks of my own and hopefully keep two villages in-between mostly neutral. Orange line makes superdeath "equal" to me without completely abandoning the reinforcement capability, and protect the bottom center area which is barely defended. Also, it puts Ragna away from HQ like I am currently, creating multiple isolated weaknesses which can become problematic should 2v1 against him come to fruition.

Now OH chose to break the deadlock and make his push, which requires me to respond with move of my own. Maintaining status quo allows him to freely push along the black arrow which would be critical. I have two options to take: 

1) Follow my prior plan and completely fall back eastward, plugging my weakness. This is clearly the most conservative strategy, but this likely causes me to lose stuff beyond the orange line and strengthens superdeath super fast. Should Old Harry doesn't behave as I expect and decide to go Hail Mary to exploit my momentary weakness, I'd be delegating myself to 3rd position if not outright throwing the game to superdeath.

2) Hail Mary toward Old Harry's HQ (pink arrow), threatening a checkmate that cause Old Harry to stop his Emeric push and come back to defend. This is essentially embracing 1v2. My forces on SE corner isn't going to be relevant against OH, so naturally I'll keep them in current position and try to stop superdeath. Abandoning the corner becomes pointless if I am not pursuing NAP with him after all.

Benefits: my SE corner units can now trade with maximum efficiency because they can focus solely on digging down; I also don't have to "win" the corner, just stall enough to prevent loss of the area while I eliminate OH. If I can pull this off, I am likely to have significant advantage in final 1v1.

However, whether the offensive have any chance of success is an another question.

[Hesmyrr]

Retreat in progress. I've tried to find if there was winning line against OH, but I cannot find a way to punch through his army. I did notice another strategy I could pursue: YOLO rush Ragna. However, she's in a position supported by both cart and Trebuchet at the moment, and I cannot catch her if she just decides to fully retreat. So my abandonment serves another purpose - if superdeath decides to be too aggressive with his commander, then maybe I can get something done.

I tried to keep my aggression on eastern front to the minimum, just to prevent loss of village and bad trades. However the concentration of the units are such that maybe it's perhaps too late? Everything depends on OH move next turn, if he continues to be aggressive I will just have to solely focus on breaking through that front very slowly. 

Also made a mistake in positioning of 5HP soldier, I've blanked out on superdeath's trebuchet range.

[Hesmyrr]

It is as I feared... OH is going all-in, which is a decision that I don't fault him for making because all of his army is already positioned for assault against me. Should have not been indecisive and made any kind of move: either abandon stuff way earlier, when the border between two of us was way less militarized (to avoid 1v2), or slowly edge forward with Trebuchet as soon as scooter was killed (which would have started two-front war much faster but fight more weak and less prepared OH).

I'd have trebucheted a mage and moved ballista 3N last turn for much better position, instead of making half-assed defensive stance... but I owe it to failure of my AI diplomacy.

[Hesmyrr]

Played the turn. Our armies are fully engaged now, time to see how bad things look after the counter-attack. I must admit it's liberating to abandon power balance considerations and focus solely on efficiency again. Although I have no long-term prospects I will do my very best to make them bleed! Though I wouldn't mind if somebody made little harmless mistake with their commander... 

Speaking of commander, I moved Elodie forwards to kill a unit because her groove was at 75%. I don't think there is enough space for superdeath to kill her in response, so it was worth the risk to utilize my best wall & set up an ability that further complicates the battlefield. 

OH front is decidedly much iffy. I think it'll likely come down to how long I can keep Trebuchet firing in both sides.

[Hesmyrr]

Too much risk! Long story short, I expected the spear next to Elodie to survive a hit, meaning Elodie would have gotten hit by one unit, but apparently dragon can OHKO a spear (or was it 2 witch curses that made this possible?). Therefore my commander was toast with two sides exposed.

What did I do wrong with the game? First, I tried to meta-game too hard methinks. Once unofficial 1v2 was on, I tunnel-visioned solely on trying to avoid this situation, and in order to encourage OH to go southwards with his Emeric force, I played several turns with deliberate suboptimal moves (I could have placed siege units in much more aggressive position for OH, and then there was my ill-advised retreat against superdeath). Unfortunately there are no "fish-fish" trades in Wargroove and all it accomplished was weakening my prospect. 

What could I have done in retrospect? Honestly, the battlegrounds were divided so that there were little benefit to betrayals, and stalemate does not benefit me because they can add 1000g to battle every turn while I had to split 1200g. Perhaps the best was to hold the red line I had; position units one tile below the line where leftmost village + map border would have served as perfect natural obstacle. Even if superdeath happens to neutralize it, as long as I keep producing spears 1N of the barracks to block the tile, left side would have been immune to flank. Utilizing the fact that superdeath cannot bring his siege over the treeline, I may have been able to hold superdeath for awhile... enough for me to go Hail Mary assault toward OH's HQ.

In regards to rest of the match, I predict superdeath is likely to maintain his consecutive winning streak due to the fact that he can digest the spoils of my death quicker. (Edit: After reading superdeath's thread, it seems my first impressions were premature. He does bring up the point that he has awful position for engagement. OH can obtain favourable map division while superdeath is occupied fixing his front, and overall geography favours him as well.)