(09-29-2012 08:54 PM)awpertunity Wrote: This is definitely a great general rule, but as already noted, there are plenty of uncovered exceptions, which may only be obvious in high level play. Perhaps a better way to think of it is this the path (green path) that the body of your entire army should be taking as a hole, so it's a little unclear when marking it as the path of a single soldier.
As viva mentions briefly about Long Nine in that runners harassing the red path is a viable tactic, it's not so obvious why using his 'golden rule.' Since it's not a "proven" theorem it should be called a conjecture rather than a rule too 
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Anyway, the reason the runners harassing the red path have three advantages (especially on Long Nine as noted).
The first is that by doing this, you are forcing your opponent to also take the red path themselves, which is wit-wasteful as noted. If possible (your runner is close enough) they can deal with your runner with a soldier, but this still costs them at least an extra wit to move it on a suboptimal path to deal with your pesky runner.
The second and third are kind of tied together. Often times you be untempted to land on an opponent's wit space because you see that they can and will clearly retake the witspace in the very next turn, but this is still a huge advantage in many cases. In the general case, it will cost you 3 wits (to spawn a runner and move it twice to their wit space) to briefly take it, and this is if your runner does not even kill or attack anything on the way! Even in this case, in general, this costs your opponent FOUR+ wits to deal with. Two to kill your runner, one to retake the space, and one for the one wit they lose with your runner being there for one turn. The reason I have the "+" there is that not only has it cost him an extra wit already just to deal with your 3 wit runner, but the two units he required to deal with this are now out of position (i.e., closest to the red path!). This is perhaps most dramatic on the red path shown on Long Nine, so arguably that is an extra two wits it costs your opponent to reposition his units that are now way out of place in the corner of his side of the map. Other cases can only make this better, such as killing an opposing runner on your way to his wit space. Not only that, but this forces your opponent to make VERY predictable moves. There is often only one way (if any) to deal with your runner landing on his wit space, and often times it is a runner of his own to either kill your runner or reclaim his wit space. This is a fantastic distraction for you to continue an attack along the green line in the same turn! In the one turn you use to take his wit space with a runner, it only costs you one wit! You can spend the rest advancing an army along the green line and likely taking a unit or two along the way. This forces your opponent to make a decision as to whether spawn a soldier or sniper to deal with your main advancing army, or waste all the aforementioned wits dealing with your pesky runner. Regardless, you come out on top!
If your opponent decides to reclaim his wit space, he has at least two units out of position (and the inability to spawn another defending unit) that will make your attack along the green line much smoother. If on the other hand your opponent ignores the stolen wit space for now, you can turtle your main army as they stand and reinforce them, and gain a +2 wit advantage per turn that they continue to ignore the wit space.
TL;DR: Basically, if you can make moves that FORCE your opponent into making some obviously optimal choices, you can plan a lot more of your future turns, while your opponent is simply making rebuttal moves. If instead your opponent decides to make suboptimal moves, that's a small victory in itself!
Often times I will use more advanced tactics on long nine. Either sending a runner over to take the wit space on the red line, or sending one, then sending a boosted runner to reinforce. This forces the enemy to make a soldier to deal with your runner and you can hold the wit space. Additionally, I will occasionally just send unboosted soldiers along that path to hold the with space. After a few turns this begins to be advantageous. You get a 2 wit swing by holding their wit space.
Meanwhile, I will usually be organizing an attack using the sniper in the middle, or using other units on the backside. Sometimes the opponents will become so distracted defending their wit space that they are unable to counter easily
FYI I am in gifted, but long nine is one of my better maps.
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Paths of Attack - an intro to Outwitters math
