Hello all, I don't play on the higher rated boards so might have sucky strategies but I *know* I was spreading myself out way too much so I have some altered strategies now.

---

There are times when you will obviously have a better chance of winning with just one territory in the first turn then trying to get 6-8. This is when it's obviously suicidal to attack any territories so ultimately you'll just be reducing your biggest stack.

This is similar to my second tactic, I now only use my big stack half the time and that's only if there's large ones next to me that are obviously better off attacking me. *if you have the biggest stack on the board people usually try to leave you alone* If you have a crappy spread but with an 8stack while everyone else has a 4 they'll leave you alone and you can build up your 1s. Of course this advice is useless against better players because everyone else will have a 6stack or higher pretty early on. But if by not using your 7stack you get a chance to kill their 6 then that can be the difference between 1st and 7th right there.

---

Half the time I go against your kamikaze singleton approach. If it starts off at three and you kamikaze it and it rebuilds up to three again at the end of your turn then you just wasted five dice. If there's no rush to build up my main army then why sacrifice dice that I can later use as a "surprise" attack. The maximum "wasted" dice that can be added to it is 7, this usually isn't enough to screw you over in most games. Of course if it's too hard to connect or obviously going to die then get rid of it asap. But an 8stack singleton can easily kill 10-20 of your opponent's dice if you time it right.
Another point: Instead of connecting asap I am finding myself taking one turn if islands are one territory apart, two if two apart, three if three apart and so on. So if your singleton is five territories away ask yourself if you think you can connect to it within five turns (adjust this strategy as experience dictates).

The reason it takes me longer to connect is I'm thinking about if my attacks are long term suicide. If you leave two 1stacks connected everyone will see your weakness and move in to attack you, you shall lose more dice than you could've gained. But if you're expanding your radius unit at a time then every territory shall be left with two defenders.

---

Obviously you want to take as much territory as you can but *even though it looks like a good move, always check to see if there's a better move* before killing their singletons. Keep in mind that other experienced people shall use the kamikaze strategy. So instead of considering their singleton to be a threat just wait it out and kill it since your guys shall build up faster. If they are winning the game and you weaken your own position by killing their singleton you're also just helping them build up their main army faster!

And to end this rambling, consider where your opponents shall try to go and block them off such that it's suicidal for them to advance in your direction. If successful this alone can get you 1st place because you get bigger and no one wants to attack you. If you can separate your opponents contingent territories then you shall likely only have one threat left. Hack away at them until no one can oppose you.

---

Miscellaneous:
If against new players then they shall either be too aggressive or too passive. Either way try to surround them and wait to take them over as the timing is appropriate.
Abuse away players by taking cover behind them ;)

I'm usually willing to play for second so most times I end up choosing a player that it looks like would be suicide to attack at every point of the game, leave them alone, create an opening for them and then hope they return the favour.

If you've won the game with four people left and are deciding who to get rid of first it seems to me the best ways are either kill the fourth guy if he was doomed but tried to screw over the second and third players chances of winning (because don't want to encourage boring games). Or just use eeny, meeny, miny, moe with the same reasoning. That being said if someone helped me win the game and didn't attack my main army I pretty much always leave them alone until the end.

Hope this is helpful to someone, all the best!