Screenshot Discussion

[sudden wraith]

Discuss this screenshot here

[haughty grove]

**black **-- doesnt have to do anything, and shouldnt do anything. they benefit by red or pink progressing

**red **-- needs to encourage black to hit peru

**pink **-- needs to add to ukraine and peru. needs to cardblock pink

My personal evaluation

red (unlikely to win but could get 2nd if they hit pink out of peru with blacks help)
Red could also work with pink to block black here tbh but this play is not likely to happen.

pink (probably in a 2nd place position where they work on red and make sure to keep peru and ukraine strong, but it is very hard to play honestly and very skillful

black (the 1st place position)
They shouldnt do much and slightly help whoever is willing to progress (pink or red)
If nobody does anything then do nothing here

[supple yoke]

I’m assuming this is prog, in which case I disagree with your assessment. All players have the option to set up a trade pocket with each other. It’s just a matter of which two players are willing to team up. Then the third player loses. It’s really that simple.

If black does nothing and pink & red trade with each other, he easily gets cardblocked. And it’s very likely pink and red will cooperate, since black has the troop lead. When I’m in the lead, I usually try and initiate a cardblock before I inevitably get teamed on. (Or, if you’re playing with novices/beginners, sometimes you have to cooperate on their level and just slam trades into the third player’s caps… ) Also, imo players who just sit on their lead and do nothing to progress the game are the worst… Why join a game if you’re not actually going to play?

Pink has the best caps, but also the weakest, since he’s trying to hold 3. I generally think that’s a bad idea in a 3-player endgame, because you’re most likely to get slammed and lose one (SA being the most obvious here). As pink, I’d probably give up the NA cap and split troops 50/50 between Ukraine and SA, such that if either red or black does decide to remove you from SA (or the reverse, trap you inside), it’ll be very costly and you should still be able to kill them with the other cap or feed their kill to the other player.

Red already misplayed his position, taking all his cap cards for whatever reason. He should be happy to work with whoever is willing to give him cards. If he wants to play for 2nd he could try and remove pink from SA and feed the game to black, but it’s tricky because turn order is not in his favour. At any point pink could just suicide into him for 2nd. Pressuring the Ukraine cap like he appears to be doing is of no use, because that cap doesn’t give him access to cards.

[haughty grove]

its just positionally its easiest to team on pink or red in a way.

but yeah pink has probably the best and hardest position to play because if they lose the peru capital they lose the game from a pocket trade and ukraine is also really good -- quebec can be abandoned if pink wants to work with black

im just struggling to find a great place for pink and red to trade

even though black has 2 trash caps

[supple yoke]

Easy, red puts a huge stack in Brazil and they trade behind. Or they both put stacks in Iceland and southern Europe and trade in Europe. That way they always have caps to roll down any off-cap black stacks.

[haughty grove]

i guess that works, too

yeah im guessing since blacks so blocked... it works