Review of the Spring and Fall 04 Moves
Alright everyone, unfortunately it appears that professors capt and balki have taken use of their tenure and taken a research trip to the middle of nowhere. In the meantime VillageIdiot has graciously offered to fill in with me. Unfortunately he will not be talking about his muscles as much as professor balki, but he will also not be subjecting you to surprise participation in fear tactics either.
Very sadly for myself, he does share in the other professor's propensity to use me as a target.
Final note of business before we get started, apologies for the delay to your game. I've been wearing a developer hat the last week to try and get a fancy new dark mode all ready for the site and it impacted this game. I'll try my best not to have delays like this to my commentary again. You and your mentors are dedicating a ton of time to this game and I value and appreciate this and will try to value that time in return. I'm also sorry the other two professors have vanished. I don't know what happened there, hopefully they'll be back but if not myself and the mod team will ensure you get quality lectures. So again, a massive thank you to VillageIdiot for helping out.
England:
I am really curious what went on between you and your mentor this past year. There'd been a pretty good strategy the past few years with some really strong and bold tactical moves. And then this past year was a mess. Accepting France's offer to attack Holland and then turning around and attacking France in Por. Scandinavia is such a mess during the past year that I can't actually offer commentary on it because I have 0 insight into the possible agreements and broken agreements between you, Russia, and Germany there. And me not being able to untangle the intent is rare. Now it looks like after the Spring you and Germany came to an accord to block Russia and you're now set to take StP this coming year. So having negotiated a successful way to block half the R/T from advancing is good progress, but you *have* to get with your mentor and make your play less chaotic in terms of alliances and bouncing between them. Your neighbors are going to be having nightmares of you sliding a dagger into their back. Talk with your mentor about what you need to accomplish in the coming year, talk about how you can fix things with France, continue improving things with Germany, and ensure your place in the end of the game. Then go with alliances and a strategy that will give you that and try to stick to it.
France:
This past year has highlighted the problems that come with having more centers than units. You weren't able to defend yourself and effectively attack a single opponent at the same time. After the spring moves I was excited thinking that you and England were preemptively and aggressively working to get into the Med to ensure Turkey and Russia's entire board progress would be amazingly limited, which would have been encouraging them to reconsider if the alliance they had was viable, reopening the board for more diplomatic opportunities in the west. Quite apparently, my read was way off base. I am not amazingly disappointed or against your attack on Germany in theory. But in execution it appears that the press from you or England concerned him enough to guard Holland, and in what is the most baffling move of the game to me, something encouraged England to take Por. Your move to MAO does not make sense to me unless you were concerned that England was going to move on Brest. I think you and England are going to need a serious reckoning about your press. You both messed up, you both need to take a deep breath, go "wow that was an awful turn, but if we keep this up we're both gonna be screwed" and go from there. You're both extremely luck that Turkey did not go with a fleet build and convince Italy to attack you with him as a puppet ally which is not an uncommon sight in some higher class games. The double fleets pushing past Italy towards your centers could have been a devastating surprise move by the Juggernaut and the failed communication with England and the attack on Germany would have ensured it's success.
Your job this turn, reset communication with everyone you border. Put aside hard feelings and consider how to deal with England's fleet in Por. Do you crush it like you're 100% able to, or do you allow it passage through and into the med? One option is safe short term but riskier in holding off R/T, the other is riskier short term in trusting England but would be an effective way of getting aid to Italy in time to give yourselves another shot at Germany.
If you and England cannot come to terms then continuing your attack on Germany might cost you the game. You're in a very delicate spot diplomatically, and I do expect my commentary this turn might impact the game. But, as this is a teaching game, I feel it's amazingly important for everyone on the board to understand that sometimes you have to look at the board and go "Shit, I have to get along with this person NOW or I'm dead long term".
Germany:
Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility. You've done a really good job adapting to England's alliance swings while fending off Russia and France. You have to carefully weigh whether you retake Berlin or defend against France this coming year. Consider what France is likely to do with England's stab in por, and keep a careful eye on whether they appear to be patching things over between themselves. The answer to that will impact whether you can safely retake Berlin. And whether you are able to retake it might end up being linchpin of the R/T alliance, so no pressure around your handling of that situation
. Kiel support hold Holland in the Spring ended up being the save of the game. Whether you got tipped off by some shady press, or just decided it was the smart defensive move, amazingly done. Without that move you would have been eliminated from this game. That single move took an elimination and turned it into a fairly decent chance of being critical for an eventual stalemate line.
The best advice I have for you this turn is keep on top of the press, make your neighbors realize the value you have as the keeper of Munich and Berlin, and work to manipulate your neighbors reparation efforts in the way that will best benefit you.
Russia:
To start off, let's take a look at the build from last year. Fleet south coast StP. I understand why you made this choice given the alliances you had in place at the time. But the problem you had was that with your extremely successful alliance with Turkey, you had made a board state that was going to force the western powers to rally against you because Italy had proven he was not going to be able to slow you and Turkey down at all. So keeping that in mind, the southern build could have been more useful as a northern coast built to require England to sacrifice positioning in stopping your advancement (which has happened) to defending against you slipping a northern fleet past his units.
Now despite the success of your alliance with Turkey, the last two turns have presented some serious problems for you. While you were able to take Berlin, you did not follow up with an army into Silesia which would have given you excellent odds of keeping it. Earlier in the game I spoke about how later in the game I would talk more about how it is sometimes better to risk losing units to gain critical positioning. That is the option you faced last year. Vienna had a low chance of being retaken by Austria or Italy due to their clearly hostile nature and Turkey could have aided you in keeping it secure to free up a unit or even 2 to move on the Germany border. Right now you and Turkey are in something of a race against the western powers. Munich and Berlin are the key centers. And you went with builds over positioning. I can't say for sure if it was the right choice or not, but I would have pushed an army ahead in your shoes. It's something I would encourage all of you to keep in mind in your future games. Risking or even giving up builds to have a good shot at breaking through the stalemate lines on the board early on can often be worth it, and is sometimes the key to solo opportunities. This coming year you are likely to lose Berlin and StP, so you and Turkey will need to be in discussions about how you continue to advance despite these setbacks and if you can take one of Turkey's gains to prevent multiple disbands. Germany is having a tough time right now, and may be open to some revenge based tactics. Work that angle and see what you're able to do diplomatically. He isn't happy with you, but he's also going to be equally upset at England.
The final point I want to end with here is a possible moveset for the last turn.
StP is unlikely to be attacked here since it seems amazingly unlikely that you would leave it open...so for that very reason it's safe to leave open. You know you're likely to get two builds and you and your mentor should be realizing that the rest of the board will be considering moving against you because of the success of the R/T. So StP moves to Liv, and then you build a fleet either North or South coast StP, and army moscow. Suddenly StP is no longer a temping target to anyone, and your power to break through that pesky stalemate line just increased massively. I didn't expect that moveset, but I would have been elated to see it. Again for everyone on the board, it's these "out of the box" move sets that can often open up solo opportunities. Successfully pull off 2 or 3 of these unexpected moves in a game, and you'll likely see yourself to 18.
Turkey:
We'll start with your builds too. I do not like the army build because of the fact that Italy left Tunis open. So you knew that you were going to have to move to take it, Italy knew it, everyone knew it. Which meant that everyone was paying careful attention to the moves in that region and therefore would have realized that with an army build you were not going to be able to take Tunis with a fleet because it would have meant Italy bouncing you in Ion and then you being unable to retake it. This meant that everyone knew if you wanted to take Tunis safely you'd be doing it with an army which meant that Austria and Italy both could have tried capitalizing by moving forces to Albania and putting you at risk of losing an awkward center to have to retake. A fleet would have been a better choice there. Getting lucky doesn't mean the army was the best option. The past year you were able to make smart moves with Russia to take Austrian centers and position yourself nicely to crush Italy in the upcoming year. And even nicer to your benefit was England's random attack on France, which will most likely prevent them from working together to slow down your progress. Your biggest concern right now is figuring out how to help your purple ally who's gains will be sliding heavily this coming turn. I also highly encourage you to work with your mentor to consider...creative ways of moving against Italy. You're in a situation against them where you have a world of options and thinking outside the box could be amazingly effective.
Austria:
While you've been eliminated I hope you continue watching the game and listening to the lectures and possibly engaging in some of the entertaining banter in the public press which you seem to have refrained from for whatever reason.
Italy:
Right now your options are pretty limited. Your main focus should be on screaming at England and France to get their act together to help you out against Turkey. They have a very specific set of moves that would let that happen in time to help you, but that set of moves will need some serious diplomatic relations to become reality due to their poor diplomatic standing.
I do need to take a moment to call out the really bad diplomatic failure that occurred this past spring which drastically worsened your situation. Which was wasting the valuable Germany support hold you were given in the spring in Vienna by moving to Budapest, a move that was doomed to fail. In the end France's attack ensured you would have lost that support in the fall anyway, but you did not know that at the time. So I'm not sure if Germany didn't tell you he would be supporting your hold, or what happened there, but this is an example of where careful planning is critical for every move.
You need to be talking to your mentor about the best way to defend yourself. Considering risks verses potential to delay Turkey's gains. There's actually a lot of options despite the limited number of centers you're trying to defend. It's a good chance to practice your tactically skills without a whole lot on the line. Even though the game isn't going well for you make sure you stay engaged, look for openings diplomatically and see how you're able to impact the game from a weakened position.