Competitive Expansions [Gardevior Edition]

Upon agreement from (now former) Order of The Emperor members, we have decided to release all of the guides, expansions & other helpful threads that we used inside the clan. Almost all of these are made by Garde, Tirpitz, or Almighty.

Do be mindful that these guides may still be updated over time and have sections put on them ahead of time- Also be mindful of other peoples' views.

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In this thread, I will post guides, FAQs, and videos pertaining to a myriad of different competitive expansions for different picks, strategies, and so on for EU 3v3 . A 1v1 guide will be made at some point also. These are my personal expansions, so they always have room for diversion if you believe a different move would be more adequate for a particular situation. And please remember, these guides are to be used only as such so that they may form a foundation on how to play a certain country a certain way, you should always opt for creating your own, new, optimal expansions when you finally grasp a country, there are no perfect expansions out there and everything can be effective in a certain situation.

Each expansion and pick will also be graded by difficulty in learning, utilizing, and mastering as follows: L1 = Easy for anyone who has mastered the basic premises of the game. L2 = Requires more advanced knowledge and techniques, still fairly easy. L3 = Keen knowledge of the map, its passages, as well as understanding basic player psychology and prediction required, moderately difficult. L4 = Masterful knowledge of player psychology, predictions, map knowledge, and variable statistics in rolls/probability on-the-fly required. Very difficult.

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West:

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Germany:

Perfect Defense 1 (L2): Max Income

Throughout the Perfect Defense Germany series in this thread, I'd like to give credit where credit is due: Croat over in Peaky Blinders as well as Lelouch, Eagle, Casper, GROM, etc who compiled these expansions some time ago did a fantastic job doing so and really pushed the evelope of efficiency when playing what is arguably the most popular pick in the game right now, PD Germany (Protip: Before it was PD Germany, GW Germany was the most popular until it was nerfed in 2018!). Nonetheless, the "Max Income" variant is usually the first expansion up-and-coming competitive players will learn if they choose Germany as their initial starting point, and this isn't without reason: Max Income[/b] is literal, the highest amount of T2 cash you can produce playing PD Germany is with this expansion, and it's extremely easy to set up if you're acquainted at all with the basic premise behind playing Germany, that being thus: As a Germany player, your primary objective is pressuring your foes around you whilst always staying close to Germany's [i]Double Capital of Hamburg and Berlin (I call this a double capital because losing either does not foretell your demise provided you own the other; Vice versa, losing one of them is a boon nonetheless, as Hamburg provides Germany with its only blue water port and a vital entry point to the rest of the map, especially Scandinavia). In essence, as a Germany player, you want to pre-plan your expansion with this thought in the back of your head "If I need to go home and stack my cap, what are the easiest cities to do it from? Can my Militia reach Berlin?". Witch Doctor once told me when teaching me my first few Germany expansions that it doesn't matter what your opponent has on the map; UK could control France, Spain, and Scandi altogether, but still cannot take down a properly defended Berlin as well as a swift riposte.

This being said, let's get into the nitty gritty of the Max Income variant: Much like every other Germany expansion, you need to gain the Littoral on T1 (Czech, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia) with Slovakia as well; This will provide your main reinforcement production zone, as well as moderate economic benefits. Most importantly, the Littoral provides a geographic advantage evidenced by its name: The only southern blue water port Germany can get its hands on without conquering Italy is in Split. Croatia. Conquering Split T2 is your prime expansionary objective, as it gives you far more geographic sway throughout the game.

The other, more minor, expansions lay in the greater Benelux Cashpot zone, that being Switzerland and Luxembourg. Despite their size and petty reinforcements, they provide a great deal of wealth for Germant and will most likely be contested by France nowadays, so counting on them is not advised. Along with this concept is Denmark, which should be lightly stacked. However infrequent it is to see a UK Denmark rush in September 2019 when Benelux doomstacking and Scandi rushes are the norm, you're always more safe than sorry throwing a few extra units into Denmark if you can muster them.

Now, in the image and video below you will notice the walls around Hamburg: It is necessary to set it up like this, with the vertex positioned northwestwards to block the UK from using the Kiel Passage via Jutland. The walls around Frankfurt and Cologne are completely redundant by modern metagame standards, but can occasionally be used by newer players or for safer expansions: I prefer leaving Cologne unwalled as a trap zone for T2 wen France or UK attempts to Raid my cities, in which case I preemptively send enough units to repel most any attack and crush a few with me to end any sort of pressure dispute that may occur.

Most importantly when playing Germany with any strategy or expansion however, is expecting losses to be high and to be frequent; The United Kingdom, Ukraine, Spain- everyone around you has a large amount of access to you and hence can attack you from all sides and give you a hell of a time. But with enough willpower, planning, and efficiency, Germany tends to always reign supreme in the end.





Perfect Defense 2 (L3): Full Expansion A (Zone Variant)

This is pretty much the quintessential generic high-level competitive PD Germany expansion. You'll typically use this as a framework for almost every single PD Germany variant out there, and evetually you'll most likely come up with your own specialized take on it as well. As always, garnering the Littoral (minus Slovenia and plus Slovakia) and a Cashpot are essential moves necessary to play PD Germany to any capacity. You don't need Switzerland to be your cashpot: Belgium and Luxembourg can also suffice, but are far less safe and arguably valuable instead of Switzerland. The main draw with this expansion however is the focus on Sweden (plus Gothenburg as a northern blue water port with North Sea access) as well as Poland as additional expansions to bolster your initial geographic sway. As always however, never go outside of your own reach if you believe Berlin may be at threat- the further into the competitive scene you get, the easier it is to think you're safe, when in reality you never are truly safe playing any variant of Germany.

This, and each following PD Germany expansion will utilize a Sea Transport out of Hamburg. You must know the Kiel Passage to play competitive Germany outside of the "Max Income" variant, so studying those passages is a prerequisite to this entire series practically. Never forget as well to wall Hamburg with the vertex facing northwestwards to ensure those same Jutlandic passages cannot be exploited by your enemy in the United Kingdom, as typically NC United Kingdom players will draw their strength from their knowledge of said passages and their ability to pressure you in Scandinavia, considering their much further and more efficient reach in that area than PD can muster, by comparison.

If you're reading this expansion, then by now you must either but adept enough to understand it or you're preparing for your future as a competitive player; In any event, it goes without saying that once you hit the C-tier of competitive gameplay (t. Trystane, Garde, Lelouch, etc) rushing and other forms of pressure- especially T1- become more prevalent, and PD Germany has one fatal flaw in its master plan: Austria. Every single pick on the map can reach it T1 if they wanted to, but most importantly the United Kingdom and Spain can and will typically run for it in the modern high-tier competitive scene. Does thismean that no PD Germany expansion functions well any longer? Not necessarily. You may lose Austria if you stretch yourself thin T1 with any of the following expansions in the "Full Expansion" series, but that's part and parcel in the ethos of playing Germany: You always have to plan ahead, maintain your willpower to the very end, lend yourself to logic and efficiency over risk-taking and gambling, and play elastically to allow flexibility and ease of movement.





Perfect Defense 3 (L3): Full Expansion B (Lelouch Variant)






Perfect Defense 3 (L3): Full Expansion C (Eagle Variant)





Perfect Defense 4 (L3): Full Expansion D (G.R.O.M Variant)





Perfect Defense 5 (L3): Accelerated Rome





Perfect Defense 6 (L3): Full Poland





Perfect Defense 7 (L3): Southern Sweden





Perfect Defense 8 (L3): Triple Scandi





Perfect Defense 9 (L3): Walled Scandi





Perfect Defense 10 (L4): Wheelo Wall





Perfect Defense 11 (L2): Narb Rush





Perfect Defense 12 (L3): Norway Rush





Perfect Defense 13 (L2): Denmark Rush





Perfect Defense 14 (L1): Netherlands Rush





Perfect Defense 15 (L2): Paris Rush





Perfect Defense 16 (L1): Belgium Rush

[img]https://i.imgur.com/0oku6xr.png[/img



Naval Commander 1 (L3): East Rush





Iron Fist 1 (L3): Full Expansion





Iron Fist 2 (L3): Scandilite Expansion





Iron Fist 3 (L2): Austria Rush

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Spain:

Iron Fist 1 (L4): Italy Rush

Freeland showed me this oldie recently (September 2019), and it is by far the objectively best way to rush Italy T1 as Spain, and is guaranteed to be everything but IF France (sometimes). I will make a video eventually, but essentially you're doing a bit of shuffling from Madrid to Valencia and then to Barcelona to get as many units to the Italian coastline as you can. Taking Portugal and Sardinia is completely optional, but boosts your survival chances dramatically.

It's a bit of a weird path to follow, so I'll explain the process by which you merge your stacks in front of Barcelona as thus: Make one Sea Transport and one Air Transport in Valencia- you're using the sea



Naval Commander 1 (L3): Austria Rush / Turkey Springboard

If you've never played Spain before, I believe you should start here as it really drives home the philosophy when you play Spain. In Iberia, there isn't much you can really capitalize on T1: Portugal used to be a guaranteed take, but nowadays France, UK, and sometimes even Italy can reach it and screw you out of it T2, so playing for efficiency is typically the philosophy you want to follow. Stacking Portugal can be an option (Typically no more than eight units will suffice; Adjust per the opponent, of course) and I will demonstrate in the attached video how I accomplish this (or rather, fail to do so, but I do explain the process thoroughly in that segment). Most importantly however with Spain is determining where to send your armies outside of Iberia, and to a lot of amateur/average competitive players, that of course means rushing Italy. In this tutorial expansion however, we'll actually be Walling[/b] Rome instead of taking it, as most amateur France players will rush it just the same as Spain "would". Provided they do not preemptively wallfuck Rome (which a lot of higher-tier competitive players will), you can lock them out of their most important T2 production city. Along with this, you can impose a secondary seawall via two transports you will utilize throughout the tutorial to add a second layer of denial to the France player, provided he rushed Italy.

The meat and beans of this expansion however lies in Rushing Austria and sending a Destroyer contingent to Malta to act as a [i]Springboard to Pressure Turkey by as early as T2 to help your Ukrainian ally. Watch closely at how many units I build and where in Spain before even moving anything, they are the exact quantities you will need to pull off this expansion properly. Rushing Austria with 19 units- no more, no less- will yield a 95% chance at taking Austria and effectively screwing Germany, especially if you tag-team with UK and he opts for a NC Scandi rush, or better yet, attacks Austria too. Nonetheless, there will be times where Germany wins, but never will it not be a Pyrrhic victory, you will maintain the upper hand in most scenarios due to this. The Springboard in Malta simply refers to being able to bounce your units at maximum distance between two turns to a designated target, in this case it's Turkey. You're not on a quest to conquer Ankara just yet, but by breaking Ankara's wall, or in some more unfortunate cases an Anatolian Bigwall, you're adding a new problem that must be answered by the Turkey player immediately, that problem being the presence of your Destroyer and his dead wall. His solutions will be to attack the Destroyer early in his priority stack most of the time, so don't count on it surviving. But this wider gait in his priority against Ukraine will leave your Ukrainian player with more breathing room to take advantage of Turkey's weakened position.

When T2 rolls around, you want to sit in Austria and stack it even more; Your UK will be holding off half of Germany's attention, and France by this point is either stuck in Italy or assaulting Iberia, either way you have your Portuguese and Swiss (possibly) troops to manage him there. By sitting in Vienna and waiting, you're maintaining a stronger position and creating a much more dire pressurized threat to Germany that, if it cannot be answered by T3, will result in his doom.

Please do watch the attached video for a full tutorial and analysis, I will update this tutorial as more keen information becomes necessary, and I may remake the video at some point when I am more professional at video editing, for now my sexy ass voice and medium-quality video footage should suffice.

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East:

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Turkey:


Blitzkrieg 1 (L5): The Firebug Suite (AKA "Witch-Doctor's secret weapon"):

Woah boy. This is the big one; That one Turkey expansion everyone and their brother fears seeing as a Ukraine player of nearly any strategy. It's also one of the hardest, if not the hardest initial expansion in the game due to its complexity and usage of advanced tactics that only a select few B-tier and above competitive players have truly mastered. It goes without saying that playing Blitz Turkey is tough, rough, unorthodox, and unadvised: Under normal conditions, a properly-played IMP Turkey will beat any Ukraine besides Desert Storm in a ration of about 3:1. But Blitz Turkey was never meant to be practical from a logical, typical level: Blitz Turkey is hard and lucrative because its main facet of pressure is pure terror.

Imagine for a moment that you're the Ukraine player who thinks he just made his most perfect and robust SM expansions ever- you perfectly planned out every move, every unit, and you know everything will succeed, rolls be damned. You've got Finland, Russia: Northwest, Russia: Central, Russia: South, and maybe Sweden, Poland, or Hungary under your belt. You feel like a winner; This clan war's in the bag. You click the End Turn button and wait to see Huarck and Casper send "ho" in the game chat at your pure majesty. Then on turn 2, you are now surrounded by Turkey everywhere; Russia: Northwest has been walled, Poland is locked out for this turn, you lost Russia: Central and Russia: South, and have nothing to show for your pride. What a goddamn bummer, right? No, more like you're going to be sweating bullets panicking- you never practiced a proper counter for this in your guest practice sessions; You never thought about having to bounce back this early; that you would have literally nothing to start with. You feel hopeless; Your fingers tremble as you hesitate to passive-aggressively type "gg" into global chat and delete your account. That's the pressure that Blitz Turkey holds, and it affects competitive players of all levels, despite what some will say otherwise. In reality, not many people can realistically bounce back from an invasion so early like this; Most don't. It's no wonder why Blitz Turkey is a well-guarded secret... despite public resources based around it being available on Youtube.

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Auxiliary:



Lucky bastard 1: (L3): Serbia Rush

Garde: I was speaking with Trystane earlier today while considering what expansion to incorporate into this thread next, and as we were speaking the subject of clan wars, and specifically one from the second of September of this year (2019) between Epic Clan and Mortal Kombat, I pondered how Eagle and Mauzer could play Auxiliary picks such as Poland, Volga, and Italy for so many years yet fail to achieve much consistency or coordination in doing so, at least none was exhibited in that specific clan war. I went to work reopening a tried-and-failed expansion me and Trystane had worked on six months prior (albeit with Naval Commander rather than Lucky Bastard) trying to make it a fully-optimized and usable expansion that could be of value to my clanmates.

When playing Italy, one might consider it more of a West pick than an Auxiliary one; In truth, if Italy had only a few more reinforcements or perhaps a port in Venice (which I proposed several months ago along with others in the past) it would undoubtedly be on par, if not above Spain as a true West pick, considering how geographically protected the Italian peninsula is, as well as having many blue water ports and easy access to the Balkans- the only West pick with this availability. Being near the Balkans has its consequences however, as an enemy Turkey can very easily abuse Italy if Ukraine cannot hold it at bay, or an enemy Poland has aggro'd Ukraine in the process. Nonetheless, playing as Italy means analyzing the geographical situation your team finds itself in; you must determine early what your opening expansion will be depending on who you are allied with and what they are playing. This specific expansion I will demonstrate in the video below is an answer to the enemy team consisting of (United Kingdom, Spain, Turkey) and your own team consisting of (Germany, Italy, Ukraine). Being that you and your allies all are sitting next to each other, aid in battle from them is easily garnered, however disputes over land (Who gets Poland? Slovenia? Hungary? Croatia? Slovakia?) can hamper team coordination, along with a lack of strong local income can lead to certain disaster if this team comp is not played correctly and efficiently. Germany will indeed need to focus on Benelux and Scandi in order to survive, and in doing so [/b]France[/b] will most likely need to be forfeited to the enemy United Kingdom and Spain who will undoubtedly rush Paris T1. But fortunately for you, you can preemptively wallfuck Paris to save your ally to the north some difficulty in holding the West at bay whilst you and Ukraine focus on double-teaming Turkey.

In focusing Turkey however, as an Italy player you must been keenly aware of how little breathing room there will be between you and Spain across the Mediterranean. Your initial expansion must be swift and without waver; Dropping the hammer on Serbia and securing a blue water port in Split are your primary objectives. Taking Hungary and Bosnia will aid you in the upcoming battle with Turkey, but should be avoided if you believe or know Turkey will rush Serbia with more than 15 units. Nonetheless, coordination with Ukraine in curbing Turkey's initial expansion will yield impressive results provided you decisively annihilate the grand majority of Turkish armies in the first turn or two. Your grand strategy lays in gimping Turkey's offensive capabilities early-on by winning initial rushes against Turkey with Ukraine committing to the same strategy, and then raiding his cities and breaking his walls with any leftover units to ease Ukraine's victory over Turkey. If you fail to do this within the first 2-3 turns (T1: Rush Serbia and take Croatia, possibly take Hungary and Bosnia | T2: Turnblock Greece, break Turkish defenses around Bulgaria, raid empty Turkish cities in Lydia, possibly break Turkish bigwall around Ankara | T3: Turnblock/Sack Greece, continue poking Turkish defenses if any still exist) the odds of victory drastically plummet if Ukraine cannot pick up the slack, as around this time as an Italy player you need to shift your focus from the now-neutered Turkey to the Spain and United Kingdom inevitably invading you and giving your Germany player a hard time.

At this point, raiding any Spanish or French cities will be to your initial benefit and will negate Spain and the United Kingdom from receiving reinforcements upon the beginning of the next round: Marseilles and Barcelona are your primary targets here. Securing Switzerland if the enemy controls it will close any sort of Burdgundy-way invasion you may be facing. Dismembering the United Kingdom or Spain's control over France will be your primary objective moving forward as Germany is either being bombarded by the United Kingdom or is currently wrestling control for Hamburg or Benelux.

Provided you can handle the heat from Turn 3 to Turn 5, Turkey should have been conquered by Ukraine at this point, and his aid towards you and your ally in Germany will inevitably win the Lategame for you via a battle over power and numbers, and remember: You're playing Lucky Bastard, you always have the upper hand, despite the odds.

What is the point...
you can practically reach at least 1500 elo without knowing any of these expansions hahahahahhaha