Strategies and Tactics for Slay

Slay is the Windows, Windows CE, and Pocket PC game of conquest by Sean O’Connor available from his website - http://www.windowsgames.co.uk. I bought this a few years back and play the odd game as a time filler fron now to now. A quick game can be under ten minutes.

This is turn one. I’m the lime green hexes. Each separate block of connected hexes has a hut,. like these five.or the two block middle green.   

This panel shows the relative size of the armies. I’m weakest.

 

 

 

 

Strategy

Nathan Forest said that the winner (in the American Civil War Battles) was “he who got there fastest with the mostest.”  and that makes sense here as well. The size of army you can support depends on the number of hexagaons. There are four army sizes, each three times bigger than the previous.

So the strategy has to be to grab as big as chunk of land as you can manage as quickly as possible. Trouble is, if you build too many armies and another player slices a bit off your block then you may not be able to support them all, and they all die.  Like here. 

You can only grab land that is unprotected, not next to an enemy army (unless its smaller than yours) or hut.

Turn 1
Turn 2

 

You can see that though I expanded my 2 block to a three and the three block to a four, my five block got split by yellow.

Be Mean and Aggressive.

I’ve found you have to be very attacking. There is no time to sit back but get in there and hit the enemy hard.

Don’t be Afraid to Sacrifice your men.

You can’t defend the smaller areas so just try and hold on to them as long as possible.

Tactics

There are various attacks that can be done to defeat your foes.

Slice and Dice

Computer players, even at the top AI setting often leave pieces vulnerable to attacks that split them from a larger block.

SteamRoller

Here I just sent in a job and steamed all over him. Crude but effective.

Turn 9 Turn 10

Head for the Corner

Being in the centre means you can be attacked from multiple directions. By occupying a corner, just like Australia in Risk, you have a wall to your back and it’s much easier to attack from that position.

Get Big Units as Quick as possible

There is a pace to the growth in game and if you can beat this then you have a good chance of winning. By turn 8 I had my first 18 point piece.  These are needed to kill the forts which have started to spring up. Also the enemy AI tend to attack other players and not you when you have these or the massive 54 strength piece.

Conclusion

The most satisfying games are those where winning has looked difficult but by persevering, I’ve won. This game was won in 15 turns- reasonably quick.

Animation of this Game

Slay ANimation in 15 Frames