Navigating the Deep, Dark, Bitter Woods

Here I detail my own strategies for playing several different Bitter Woods scenarios.  Disclaimer:  They work for me, your mileage may differ.

The Campaign Game:  22 Turns, from December 16th to December 26th.

The PBEM Tourney Scenario:  8 Turns, from December 16th to December 19th.

The WBC Tourney Scenario:  6 Turns, from December 16th to December 18th.

Once you've got a feel for how I play the various scenarios, here are several other general factors that might impact how you play this game. 

FTF play brings to it it's own peculiarities.  Regardless of actual tournament rules, there is always a time limit - you have to sleep sometime and your opponent has his own schedule!  You can't generally keep shuffling your units and you certainly can't shuffle your opponents pieces.  There is some etiquette involved from how you do your move to how you roll your dice.  Some people like using tweezers, others don't.  You can't 'play out' your move, i.e., physically set up your possible advances without getting some strange looks.  You have to remember where your opponents pieces started when he does his move as I've heard of several situations where enemy units got to places they couldn't get to at the beginning of the move.  Shuffling units shouldn't somehow bequeath them extra movement points!  

PBEM, on the other hand, is your moment to shine.  I exclusively use ADC2 and am now quite accustomed to it.  Make sure you save your game files early and often!  There is no excuse for tactical mistakes when top rated players face off.  If you are tired - don't play!  If you aren't interested, set it aside and do something else!  You should feel free to play through as much of your turn as you see fit in order to figure out if a particular move is worth making.  For non-tournament PBEM play, the key decision is whether or not to play at all.  If you decide to play, stick to it.   If a match has been decided, it's sometimes worthwhile to inform your opponent so as to not waste too much further time.  Of course, against a top player, you take the risk of being wrong so be careful.  My classic PBEM wargaming memory was a posted VITP game where the US player, halfway through, declared his strategy effective and victory assured.  Needless to say, he ended up losing.  He doesn't post much anymore.  =)

Playing someone with known tendencies, or limitations, will shape the way I play.  When matched up against people with relatively less experience, I tend to play defense more conservatively; I'm figuring that their 'offensive' errors will pile up and eventually be the cause for their defeat.  When I'm the Germans, I tend to play more aggressively because I'm assuming they won't always choose the right way to respond to a particularly involved offensive threat.  If your opponent is a known 'jerk', and I've come across a few (fortunately not in BW), I will try to just get the game over with, as soon as possible.  Regardless of the game outcome, not having 'fun' makes the game a loss.

In a non-rated game, and I've only been in a few for BW, I tend to 'let it all hang out'.  This is the time to try out 'crazy' ideas.  I'm not a fanatic about AREA but, since it's the only independent, documented evidence of your skill and dedication to the game, I prefer to play with AREA.  (In my early days of TRC I had some bad experiences with non-AREA games.)  

One thing to keep in mind is that the preceding guidance is really very subjective and reflects my own experiences.  The key thing to keep in mind is that if the game isn't fun anymore for you, you need to move on and not waste anyone's time.  Bitter Woods continues to be a fascinating game for me, especially now that I'm playing more campaign games.  I would like to see a broader variety of players starting playing PBEM  but I'm still seeing new things being done all the time so I guess we haven't exhausted the intellectual BW capacity out there!

Copyright ©2001 by Tom Gregorio.  All rights reserved.