Thailand needs some love

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    • make a friend... But I like playing Mayanmar on WW3 map. So # 1 move is attack Thailand; but last game played on it was a computer nation. thailand came on talked me out of attack and ended up being one of my beest allies i ever had. But you need to make alliance with one. Same thing with myanmar .. i need peace with india or thailand. China not a big threat early as worried about koreas/russia and hymalayas make early attack either way silly and slow.

      I like Myanmar as a cluster of 5 cities easy to defend; have bay to south can patrol /defend easy and mtn defense to north.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • Hi Hulk,

      I'm a fan of nations that start out a little "under the gun" or disadvantaged, but I don't think I've ever played Thailand. I'm going to join a game, select Thailand, and get a feel for it myself, so I can experience it for myself. After I've got a feel for it, I'll come back and add my opinion to yours.

      In the meantime, can you tell me a little bit about your experience with Thailand as far as coalitions and informal allies go? Have you tried forming a friendly relationship with the nations around you? That can make a huge difference in the survival probability for some nations. When/if you did try to form friendly relationships with your neighbors, what were the outcomes?
    • Ally up with Myanmar and/or VT. I won with us 3 together and we beat back india then china; another game India and I Myanmar wiped them both Thai and VT after they were fighting each other. Indoneasia and Philippines arent going to help you much early on till they get navy going and China cities too far away. so really Myanmar and VT early choices. If you dont secure at least 1 to watch your back (which ever side) soon as you attack VT ; Myanmar will attack you and vice versa. definitely need buddy system watching your back when in middle. same if go with some central Europe countries.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • Alright, so, I said yesterday that I would attempt Thailand and give my impression on whether or not it starts out too disadvantaged. That game just entered Day 5, so this is by no means a final opinion yet, but below is my update to this point.

      Note: I have not joined a coalition or made any agreements with anyone; I'm solo. I have not used any gold; I'm just going with what the game gives me so that I can get a realistic idea of Thailand's capabilities/limitations.

      Note: Obviously opponents are not the same from one game to the next, and one game is a not a definitive sample of anything. I understand that. My intention here has been and will be to check for myself whether or not I get the initial impression that Thailand is too handicapped to survive and should thus be given additional cities/units to start the game.


      Initial impression: I agree that Thailand does start out in a bit of a tricky position, and, as stated before, it can definitely benefit from teaming up with one of its neighbors. The terrain makes it difficult to move/maneuver efficiently and almost all of its cities start out fairly accessible to enemies. The one resource with which it starts out having two production cities is Supplies. There’s not really anywhere east or west to go without running into a player country, and the neutral cities to the south (Kuala Lumpur and Singapore) could end up being too much of an early commitment of forces. I chose not to pursue them, because I wanted to hold my units back for defense.

      As noted by the original poster, Thailand does appear to be a relatively natural early target for both Myanmar and Vietnam. Considering this and the movement challenges, I decided to go defensive early and let my neighbors come to me. I didn't do a lot of early research - sticking only to Motorized Infantry, Air Superiority Fighters, and Corvettes - and I haven't yet leveled any of them up. I instead dedicated my resources to infrastructure, including bunkers for the cities I felt were the most likely targets of invader attack.

      Note: I'm not saying that there are not other, more aggressive, approaches to using Thailand that can be effective. Based on my personal assessment and playstyle, though, I felt like an all-out offensive on my part would have resulted in my defeat.

      I did do some instigating to get Myanmar to invade, violating their territory early, and then pulling back to the safety of my cities. Once we were at war, I used my fighter to track troop movements when/where possible (harder now after the update) in an effort to determine where/when they would strike. By concentrating troops and taking advantage of city/bunker defensive/entrenchment bonuses, I was able to weather the initial wave of attackers and then strike back at enemy cities. By the beginning of Day 5, I've taken three player enemy cities (two Myanmar and one Vietnam) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia; AI) without losing one of my homeland cities so far.

      I'm going to hold off on a personal judgment about the appropriateness of an extra city/extra units for now, until I see how things go from here. However, at the beginning of Day 5, I was in 3rd place overall, and just 3 VPs behind the two leading nations.
      Files

      The post was edited 2 times, last by PerigeeNil ().

    • A couple of days ago, I responded to the concern in the original post by saying that I would give Thailand a try to test its early game survivability, as well as its potential need for an additional starting city or additional starting units. Yesterday, at the start of Game Day 5, I posted my progress (please see above). As of the early hours of Game Day 8, I have completely conquered both Myanmar and Vietnam, and I am in third place overall in VPs.

      In this game, I didn’t use any gold or do anything crazy. All of my units are Level 1 still, and I just finished producing my first unit (an AFV that I haven’t even used yet) that wasn’t either a Motorized Infantry, Air Superiority Fighter, or Corvette. I played solo up to the point at which I am posting this, and had no peace agreements with any other country.

      I’ll try not to repeat too much more of what I already said above, but I feel comfortable now issuing a preliminary judgment: In my opinion, based on just the one game I tried, Thailand does not need an additional city or any additional units to begin the game, and it is capable of surviving the early game under the current conditions at least some of the time.

      I realize that all games and players are different and that one game is not a sufficient sample to make a true general determination. However, I did start a game with completely random opponents, without help from any allies, and with the specific goal of testing Thailand’s survivability, and the results were overwhelmingly positive.

      As a nation with a starting position between two equal nations that seem naturally positioned to attack it, Thailand reminds me a little of Sweden, which I have also played before. As such, in my mind, Thailand’s beginning situation is not unique in the game, although it is challenging. It is also, at least part of the time, capable of being overcome.

      The original poster suggested that Thailand start with either an additional city or an additional unit. I don’t think that either are necessary, nor do I think that either would have a significant impact on Thailand’s starting situation. Thailand cannot (usually) overwhelm both of its neighbors with sheer force or with direct, head-to-head combat on neutral ground, and an additional city or unit will not change that. In my opinion, if a player is having trouble surviving the early game as Thailand, they would be best served to employ a different strategy and to take advantage of a variety of other aspects of the game besides sheer force and quantity of units.

      In my opinion, Thailand has the ability to survive the early game, but it is not positioned to use its military as a bulldozer that simply rolls steadily forward over its neighboring countries from the outset.
      Files
    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      A couple of days ago, I responded to the concern in the original post by saying that I would give Thailand a try to test its early game survivability, as well as its potential need for an additional starting city or additional starting units. Yesterday, at the start of Game Day 5, I posted my progress (please see above). As of the early hours of Game Day 8, I have completely conquered both Myanmar and Vietnam, and I am in third place overall in VPs.

      In this game, I didn’t use any gold or do anything crazy. All of my units are Level 1 still, and I just finished producing my first unit (an AFV that I haven’t even used yet) that wasn’t either a Motorized Infantry, Air Superiority Fighter, or Corvette. I played solo up to the point at which I am posting this, and had no peace agreements with any other country.

      I’ll try not to repeat too much more of what I already said above, but I feel comfortable now issuing a preliminary judgment: In my opinion, based on just the one game I tried, Thailand does not need an additional city or any additional units to begin the game, and it is capable of surviving the early game under the current conditions at least some of the time.

      I realize that all games and players are different and that one game is not a sufficient sample to make a true general determination. However, I did start a game with completely random opponents, without help from any allies, and with the specific goal of testing Thailand’s survivability, and the results were overwhelmingly positive.

      As a nation with a starting position between two equal nations that seem naturally positioned to attack it, Thailand reminds me a little of Sweden, which I have also played before. As such, in my mind, Thailand’s beginning situation is not unique in the game, although it is challenging. It is also, at least part of the time, capable of being overcome.

      The original poster suggested that Thailand start with either an additional city or an additional unit. I don’t think that either are necessary, nor do I think that either would have a significant impact on Thailand’s starting situation. Thailand cannot (usually) overwhelm both of its neighbors with sheer force or with direct, head-to-head combat on neutral ground, and an additional city or unit will not change that. In my opinion, if a player is having trouble surviving the early game as Thailand, they would be best served to employ a different strategy and to take advantage of a variety of other aspects of the game besides sheer force and quantity of units.

      In my opinion, Thailand has the ability to survive the early game, but it is not positioned to use its military as a bulldozer that simply rolls steadily forward over its neighboring countries from the outset.
      Wow. This is a great experiment, and I wish you the best of luck to your success in it. It would be an excellent subject for a comprehensive case study, if you would be interested in that undertaking.
    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      Stratieon,

      I'm a fan of planning and strategy, and my schedule is pretty flexible, so I'm always willing to help study something if you want. I don't really get into the number crunching portion, but it sounds like you might. I'm happy to help out on the application side, though, if you ever want to take a closer look at something together.
      Thanks for the offer; I also enjoy planning, strategy and tactics and have an overall flexible schedule, I specialize in theoretical analysis backed up with supporting practical evidence and experienced, so I always like to try out a theory in an actual round, as theory is nothing without application. I’m actually currently working on a few short papers and essays on both application and theory regarding various combined arms concepts at the moment, including some case studies evaluating various operations undertaken in my games along with my reading through the U.S. Army Large Scale Combat Operations series combined arms volume, so I’ll be sure to give you a DM regarding those soon. I’m going to be taking a short break from the intensive CoN after running 8 games for a while where I don’t play at all for a few days, but after that, I’ll be ready to jump back in to a few games at a time before my busy season, so likewise, if you want to check something out in practice or in theory, feel free to give me a DM on my wall or in a game and we can study it together.
    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      That certainly would be interesting to see. And, I agree with you, Hulk; Thailand does start out in a tricky situation. I think it probably requires a slightly different starting approach than what most people are used to.
      but same goes with all the eastern european countries.... like romania is surrounded by like 6 countries. one game i came through turkey and it was like a 6 way battle royal between greece; bulg; romania; serbia; croatia; austria. everyone was so worried about invading someone else they got taken on the other side... so just laid back a bit and waited for them all to punch themselves out.. then cleaned up whole area.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • HulkHogann wrote:

      Truly awesome feedback guys. Goes to show any nation can succeed with enough skill and nurturing.

      I just feel Thailand has a unique combination of "issues" that make it tricky to play.

      Is there a ranking anywhere of winrates by nation?

      PerigeeNil wrote:

      That certainly would be interesting to see. And, I agree with you, Hulk; Thailand does start out in a tricky situation. I think it probably requires a slightly different starting approach than what most people are used to.
      Definitely; I actually managed to conquer all of Southeast Asia, Japan, China, and the Philippines in one game before I got knocked out by a Malian Carrier Strike Group sitting in the Philippine Sea of all places. If it weren't for that strike group, I probably would have been able to win. The trick again is a largely defensive posture, good allies, combined arms, and a decent amount of luck if you can't secure a coalition with Myanmar or Vietnam early in the game.