STRATAGEMS

[Ry Vor]

stratagem
 noun
 
strat·a·gem | \ ˈstra-tə-jəm  , -ˌjem \
Definition of stratagem
1a: an artifice or trick in war for deceiving and outwitting the enemy
b: a cleverly contrived trick or scheme for gaining an end
2: skill in ruses or trickery

This will be a thread for experienced players to discuss and reveal stratagems they have employed or have considered employing and perhaps didn't but still wonder if someone has pulled it off.

So not basic strategy, assume your audience has a fairly good understanding of Alamaze and commonly employed strategies.

The stratagem will be about a three turn (maybe more, but not into overall strategy) scheme only useful in specific circumstances, maybe only with certain kingdoms or conditions.

Don't be bashful, here is your chance to reveal something clever you came up with, or saw executed from the business end.  This again should be something with risk and reward and again, not commonly seen.

Then of course the main object is to start a discussion or debate on the stratagem presented.

So, perhaps setup the situation and the objective (the setup), then the orders and sequence and what then you need or hope to see in the results in the first or second turn of the stratagem to complete the objective.

Winner by acclaim or royal decree on Halloween will receive a free game (all-in). 

[Wookie Panz]

Someone told me once that:
" A secret is something you only tell one person at a time."

[Senior Tactician]

I think in the case of Alamaze, the rules could be considered the enemy, as well as the other players.  For instance this is no "trick" against the enemy, but I'm sure everyone knows this tactic:

To attack someone far away from your capitol, after you have enamored (and why would they even suspect that you would) turn 1 move an invisible group to one of their PCs, turn 2 capture it and move your capitol there.  Turn 3, off-load your emissaries and agents into their lands and relocate your capitol back to safety.  This circumvents the emissaries move range restriction by taking advantage of the absence of range restriction on capitol relocations.

Taking advantage of the order numbers is useful for regional spells.  When you move into someone's region with multiple groups (and cant afford to cast multiple protection from regional effects, one for each group), don't lead with demonic visions, lead with cold darkness, the lowest order number regional effect.

Likewise, if you are defending your region from multiple armies, cast cold darkness instead of demonic visions if you have a single wizard capable, you have a better shot at getting the spell to stick.  If you have many wizards, use dispel regional effect and double castings of demonic visions.  That way if they come in with nothing, one of your spells will be dispelled and the other will go off.  If they come in with cold darkness, it will be dispelled and your demonic visions will take effect.

I've mentioned this before, but often when someone attacks me, I allow them to control my region.  I fight and cripple them by attacking their assets with agents and invisible groups, but to the outside world it looks as if the player with two regions needs to be relieved of one and may attack his home region for me.

If there are many players still in the game, attack a weak player to remove them and be able to take and hold their region.  If there are few players in the game, attack the strongest player, and DON'T take control of his regions.  See above for the reasoning.

As a defensive move, find and eliminate all your opponents high level agents.  Though, this might cause them to attack you, your emissaries will easily defend your region, or... as outlined above, let him take your region to spur other players to attack his home region while you cripple him with agents and invisible wizards.

It is risky, but you can use an invisible patrol with wizards that cast intrinsic true seeing to spy undetected on an invisible capitol.  If he has no wizards of his own there, he wont know you are peeking and you can wipe out his agents before you land a group there to finish the job.

The halfling can put an elite ship in any sea without a coastal PC. (Other kingdoms just capture a coastal one prior to employing this method.)  A couple of good agents guarding it will ensure its not sabotaged.  Patrols with power 5's can cast phantoms, and a power 7 for meteor strike for those pesky water PCs.  Just remember to reorganize and eliminate your phantoms after the battle so you can move your group with complete safety to the next target.

This one I have really wanted to try... find the adept twins and attack it, repeatedly, with 2 wizards in your group.  You can even do it with multiple groups in the same turn, I suspect, netting you 11k gold each time and leader raises.... unless you're the pirate, then you net yourself a cool 22k each time!

This one I haven't tried but I have thought a lot about it.  Sabotage the food production of an enemy city (especially one they have fortified) as winter nears, hit it hard and often.  Negative food production doubles in winter, and large military kingdoms might be forced to abandon the PC.  Good for training agents and might prompt an attack, to which you can respond as indicated above.

I have not tried this one yet either (but I worked the math on it, it could work but would take a while).  For ease of maintaining control of a region, perhaps even your starting one, repeatedly cast plague while simultaneously increasing the population of a single water town or city which you have fortified.  Eventually, your single PC will be the majority of the population.  This beats simply plundering PCs because of the loose of production and regional reaction associated with that.  Before starting plague, you can even recruit out the towns down to 10,000 population.

For agent training, you can sabotage a PCs defenses, even if the defenses are already zeroed out.

To use agents to attack someone protecting themselves, go after the smallest target first, a level 1 agent perhaps, and sleep him.  Your agent may overcome the enemy defenses and damage or kill the countering agent.  If there are no low level emissaries and the PC is coastal, try sabotaging ships.  Like emissaries, ships are not protected by the fortifications counter-intelligence agents but they are protected by agents on counter-espionage.  Theft is actually harder (except maybe for the halfing) because agents and fortifications protect the PC from theft, and they stack.

To quickly build up defenses against enemy agents, hire a bunch of level 1 fanatics scattered all around your PCs, they may get picked off occasionally, but can protect your valuable assets.

I've tried this once and it didn't work, but here it is anyway.  In a silent game, if you have two neighbors, say the Red Dragon and the Ranger, and you'd like to direct one of them away from you, hire an agent in a PC you know they are watching and name him "Dragon Slayer" or "Ranger Slayer".

[Wookie Panz]

I think in the case of Alamaze, the rules could be considered the enemy, as well as the other players.  For instance this is no "trick" against the enemy, but I'm sure everyone knows this tactic:

To attack someone far away from your capitol, after you have enamored (and why would they even suspect that you would) turn 1 move an invisible group to one of their PCs, turn 2 capture it and move your capitol there.  Turn 3, off-load your emissaries and agents into their lands and relocate your capitol back to safety.  This circumvents the emissaries move range restriction by taking advantage of the absence of range restriction on capitol relocations.

Taking advantage of the order numbers is useful for regional spells.  When you move into someone's region with multiple groups (and cant afford to cast multiple protection from regional effects, one for each group), don't lead with demonic visions, lead with cold darkness, the lowest order number regional effect.

Likewise, if you are defending your region from multiple armies, cast cold darkness instead of demonic visions if you have a single wizard capable, you have a better shot at getting the spell to stick.  If you have many wizards, use dispel regional effect and double castings of demonic visions.  That way if they come in with nothing, one of your spells will be dispelled and the other will go off.  If they come in with cold darkness, it will be dispelled and your demonic visions will take effect.

I've mentioned this before, but often when someone attacks me, I allow them to control my region.  I fight and cripple them by attacking their assets with agents and invisible groups, but to the outside world it looks as if the player with two regions needs to be relieved of one and may attack his home region for me.

If there are many players still in the game, attack a weak player to remove them and be able to take and hold their region.  If there are few players in the game, attack the strongest player, and DON'T take control of his regions.  See above for the reasoning.

As a defensive move, find and eliminate all your opponents high level agents.  Though, this might cause them to attack you, your emissaries will easily defend your region, or... as outlined above, let him take your region to spur other players to attack his home region while you cripple him with agents and invisible wizards.

It is risky, but you can use an invisible patrol with wizards that cast intrinsic true seeing to spy undetected on an invisible capitol.  If he has no wizards of his own there, he wont know you are peeking and you can wipe out his agents before you land a group there to finish the job.

The halfling can put an elite ship in any sea without a coastal PC. (Other kingdoms just capture a coastal one prior to employing this method.)  A couple of good agents guarding it will ensure its not sabotaged.  Patrols with power 5's can cast phantoms, and a power 7 for meteor strike for those pesky water PCs.  Just remember to reorganize and eliminate your phantoms after the battle so you can move your group with complete safety to the next target.

This one I have really wanted to try... find the adept twins and attack it, repeatedly, with 2 wizards in your group.  You can even do it with multiple groups in the same turn, I suspect, netting you 11k gold each time and leader raises.... unless you're the pirate, then you net yourself a cool 22k each time!

This one I haven't tried but I have thought a lot about it.  Sabotage the food production of an enemy city (especially one they have fortified) as winter nears, hit it hard and often.  Negative food production doubles in winter, and large military kingdoms might be forced to abandon the PC.  Good for training agents and might prompt an attack, to which you can respond as indicated above.

I have not tried this one yet either (but I worked the math on it, it could work but would take a while).  For ease of maintaining control of a region, perhaps even your starting one, repeatedly cast plague while simultaneously increasing the population of a single water town or city which you have fortified.  Eventually, your single PC will be the majority of the population.  This beats simply plundering PCs because of the loose of production and regional reaction associated with that.  Before starting plague, you can even recruit out the towns down to 10,000 population.

For agent training, you can sabotage a PCs defenses, even if the defenses are already zeroed out.

To use agents to attack someone protecting themselves, go after the smallest target first, a level 1 agent perhaps, and sleep him.  Your agent may overcome the enemy defenses and damage or kill the countering agent.  If there are no low level emissaries and the PC is coastal, try sabotaging ships.  Like emissaries, ships are not protected by the fortifications counter-intelligence agents but they are protected by agents on counter-espionage.  Theft is actually harder (except maybe for the halfing) because agents and fortifications protect the PC from theft, and they stack.

To quickly build up defenses against enemy agents, hire a bunch of level 1 fanatics scattered all around your PCs, they may get picked off occasionally, but can protect your valuable assets.

I've tried this once and it didn't work, but here it is anyway.  In a silent game, if you have two neighbors, say the Red Dragon and the Ranger, and you'd like to direct one of them away from you, hire an agent in a PC you know they are watching and name him "Dragon Slayer" or "Ranger Slayer".

Very nice job Senior.