Well I was not sure about the first phase of the game so I asked artmax. Here is what he said:

First red discloses two cities...
Second green discloses two cities (does not see the disclosed red ones)
Third Red sees the green disclosed cities and do his move and combat phase etc.
Forth Green sees the red disclosures and the red's move phase and does his move and combat phase.

Conclusion:
Red does the first move and combat phase
Green does not see Red's disclosures while doing its initial disclosure.


So its fair. Now go out and play!

Yeah the turn base system is perfectly even. The only element in the game that can be unfair your random starting citys.

Is is very possible to be totaly screwed with the starting city loctions. On Noble Rust or New Paridies it is very possible to have your starting Capital city traped in and attacked by 2 adjoining enemy citys on the frist turn.

Initial Disclose - usualy one of the most important turn of the game.
it is easy to disclose countries which is bordered with one or more Ally.
more harder is to disclose countries, which are situated far from secret Ally.
Usualy it is not a bad thing to disclose Large country first at first disclosure.

... and if you play terrans - place some light bots at the most threatend borders (the borders with countries that are far from your secrect allies and cannot be attacked from the second direction if they happen to be enemies secret allies)

Here is an Example of bad starting spots. This happened to me in a game against Skykeeper (not like i would have won anyways, nice record sky ).

South West Isle on Noble Rust.

Red goes frist. Discloses 2 the small bases Boardering the Caplital City,
lines up his troops on the Captial citys boarders and attack from 2 sides.

Guerillas + Discloser Army = 24 points in defending troops vs 16 atttacking troops. 24 is alot of points but will not be enuff to remove the attackers, and they will be getting 4 points of Renforcements per turn and you will be getting nothing.

your closes ally is a small city that will have to fight thro a neutral Large City before he can attack the Enemy.




I am not saying this is a sure loss there are alot of things that you can do to try and counter this, but it does start you off at a huge disadvantage. IMO.

Well I think there is so much you can do to solve this solution. Best would be to take all your 24points and attack one of the enemy cities. You outnumber them fully. But you also keep at least one unit in the area of your capital. Therefore you use the old divide and conquer method.

Another good idea is to buy a ship and ship the reinforcemance rather then advancing through a neutral country.

I think the one who attacks your capital has the worstest cards. Imagen bulding two rocket launcher with your 8 point guerilla to destroy the rocket launchers of the enemy. Or use bots. 8 points are also enough to destroy a light bot or one and a half tanks etc.

I think holding the capital is easier as you might think... .

I think I need to find that game... here it is.

That's right - the best way to counter this is divide and conqure, but it's complicated by the following:
1. two of my small countries are linked: invade one and you'll have no reinforcements, I'll retreat into the depth of the attacked country to unite with my reinforcements.
2. we still have to consider the placing of other countries - no country can be captured faster than 2 turns. And generally you need at least 4.
3. To Beaver Patrol: I HARDLY EVER bought Rocket ,Lauchers on the first disclosure in small and medium counties. Sometimes in a large one, but only one and leave it at least 5 hex away from the possible enemy's attack locations - they need too much of cannon fodder to be safe. I prefer carrier+bombers as a high-range expensive weapon, but hardly until turn 6-7. I replace them with Heavy Bots - they are deadly on transports. Just imagine 2 Heavy Bots with a land transport on a sea transport...

BTW: i just had an "unlucky" disclose: had mine 2$ country reared by 2$ and 3$ simultaneously in a game vs Baum. He is a good player - seems like i'm going to have the first defeat (and not from Vic).