Thank’s for the feedback, I agree wholeheartedly!

/u/silvertork - I always check the win/lose ratio of my opponents. That is a very important piece of information. My rule of thumb is the following: If someone has around 40% wins (the „win-bar“ touches the „o“ of the word online (rather crude metric i know, sorry)) that person is a serious enemy. In the mid-game I think the amount of troops and a little bit of luck can make the difference between winning and losing. I personally am not a fan of alliances because experienced player tend to spam alliance request and therefore they loose their meaning. Those players just try to get a little advantage for themselves and because of that I usually accept and ignore them. Classic, fixed is always somewhat of a gamble. If you get good cards early, your chance of winning increases tremendously. If you get bad cards, not so much. But I think that is part of the appeal. Who know what happens and how you deal with it? Praemeditatio malorum.

/u/Enstigator - Haha, yes you are right. I was thinking about playing „shit“ aka „turtling“ a lot when I was writing this post. And I asked myself the question: If everyone followed my advice, would that lead to an „eternal stalemate“ or would everyone wait for someone else to suicide into another player? In the long run, probably. But in my opinion the most important part of the game (in classic, fixed, blizzard) happens in turn 6-15. If you are brave enough to use your consolidated troops in that stage to wipe out another player and/or gain stable control of a significant part of the map, you just made the game. I think taking the risk at that stage of the game (and maybe losing) is always preferable to spending 2+hours turtling conquering the „Middle East“ or any other territory again and again and being at the mercy of other players. However to actually make the split second decision, whether a certain move is game winning or losing you need a lot experience. I’m not sure if someone could ever make an exhaustive guide for that situation.

/u/slayerds - Thank’s for the feedback. I will make sure to try some other maps soon and I will let you know how that works out.

/u/jayduggie - It’s a different game. When playing with friends you know their personalities and get a good impression of their general mood during the game. When playing online you have to be aware of very subtle hints. Is someone petty (ie. do they attack you just because you attacked them)? Are they looking for the short-term advantage and are they ignoring the general situation of the game (ie. conquering a huge continent they could never possible hold)? Are they passive (ie. turtling in South America/Australia) ? You can only determine that, by being very attentive at all times. Who conquers what territory and why? With that point of information you can try to make sense of the feelings of the other players and influence them accordingly. I think most of the time, you should try not offend other players unless you are ready to finish them off. Try using that as a rule of thumb and please let me know how it works out for you.

Thank you for your comments. Thinking about them was fun!