Why am I so terrible at gunboat?

[Restitution]

I lose most of my gunboat games. I consider myself a decent full-press player, but I am absolutely atrocious at gunboat and I can't figure out why.

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I guess my mistake here was attacking Germany, but he was refusing to help against France and I was stuck. What should I have done instead?

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Things went really well for a long time, but I just got creamed by Turkey and it doesn't seem like I many any clear mistakes or like I could have done something to get him to stop attacking me.

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Just stuck all day since France is useless against England, just sit on my butt until France stabs me and I go down. Again - what could I have done? I have this trend of having bad allies, getting stuck, and eventually just going down through attrition. What can I do if my ally is terrible, we are making no progress but I am already committed to working with them?

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Stabbed by Italy, 3-wayed to death. Normally I rely on a Lepanto as Austria in a gunboat - was I just totally fucked by bad luck in this game? I don't want to outsource my failure to bad luck but I again have trouble finding a mistake in my play.

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Eaten by a Juggernaut while Italy futzes around with France. Again, another example in the pattern of "bad allies leads me to fail to grow and then die".

I know that I am an extremely weak gunboat player, and I want to improve it because I think that the same things that make me a bad gunboat player make me a mediocre press player.

I am stuck in this trap where I need to rely, off the bat, on an ally... but I have no way of knowing if they will play the "meta" alliance and I just totally collapse when they don't play as I expect.

[Durga]

Once you figure it out please let me know :)

[Restitution]

Maybe the solution is to play in higher-cost games where I can rely on people playing the meta alliances? It seems like low-cost games are kind of down to a roll of the dice.

[mhsmith0]

Game 1 England
Next time, open to ENG. France didn't open there but DID open Bre-Pic, and that fleet ate your lunch longterm.
The other thing... why were you fighting Germany? France was the stronger power, had spammed fleet builds and was coming for you. What did you achieve by messing around in Denmark/Sweden?
Also... why bother convoying Yorkshire to Belgium in the first place fall 1901? I don't love convoying Yor-Nor as a general strategy, but it's not a terrible opening and in for a dime in for a dollar at that point, plus your army wasn't ever going to do anything useful without getting convoyed somewhere, and France had all of his coast walled up by spring 1902.
(side note: I think Germany blundered by going after Russia in 1902 when France was the bigger threat. but then again Russia went War-Pru in fall 1901 when Turkey was very obviously going after him so lolrussia)
But I think the biggest thing on your end is you allowing France to get overly strong. SOMETIMES E/F alliance works for both, but France held the whip hand for basically the whole game.

PS Germany was refusing to help you against France because Russia had pointlessly antagonized him. By the time spring 1903 rolled around he was trying to fight France, but you basically gave up on him after... a single fall 1902 turn where he didn't fight France immediately? That's a pretty hard take on someone I think.

Game 2 Russia
On quick skim you had two issues this game
1) Struggling in the north, where England ate your lunch. Not much you can do there, all the more given that Germany lost Munich in 1901 and made bizarre orders in the fall (Den-NTH and Ruhr-Hol supported by Kiel gives Germany +1 even with the disastrous loss of Munich). E/F remaining as a successful alliance was hard luck for you
2) In the south, you seemed to put an overly large amount of focus on eliminating Austria, and you weren't able to put him away. Turkey took that time to grow stronger (and Turkey in BLA is bad for you, ESPECIALLY if Italy isn't punishing him for it in the south)
Maybe there was a way for you to signal alliance with Italy against Austria, something like Bud and Vie support Ven-Tri? You don't really NEED that center, and having Italy be a friend (and, more importantly, a check on Turkey) is I think more than worth that center loss

Game 3 Germany
Bouncing Russia from Sweden looks like your early mistake; a vacated English Channel means E/F are allies and they don't need your help. When that happens Germany needs to find common cause with Russia and/or Italy. This was ESPECIALLY true since Turkey opened hard anti-Russia (note that it didn't work out so well for him). You bouncing Sweden cost Russia build he needed, and England basically rolled over you up north.

imo, one of the REALLY big things you need to do as a member of R/I/G in the face of an E/F alliance is just to make sure they don't succeed. Stymie their growth, and you'll see them turn on each other soon enough. Don't do that and you won't.

Game 4 Austria
Italy just beat you essentially. Sometimes it happens.

Game 5 Austria
You suffered an issue whereby france attacked italy in 1902 for no good reason at all, which caused Italy to abandon the IA when it was doing fairly well
Once that happened you probably needed to pick an ally between Russia and Turkey
You also kinda screwed yourself over by missing your spring 1903 orders. Ionian Sea supports Alb-Gre instead of other way around, and you have Turkey in a vice he can't escape from. Just skimming early game it looks like that was your first blunder.
You also got rolled up in 1904 with Russia doing better than you on orders. Fall 1904 was devastating to you, since once Budapest was lost you were pretty toast.

[Restitution]

Game 3 Germany
Bouncing Russia from Sweden looks like your early mistake; a vacated English Channel means E/F are allies and they don't need your help.

I like most of your advice here, but are you 100% sure about this? Russia moved to Silesia the same turn that I bounced him; wouldn't he just have built in Warsaw if I had given him an extra build and rolled on me?

[New England Fire Squad]

Game 3 Germany
Bouncing Russia from Sweden looks like your early mistake; a vacated English Channel means E/F are allies and they don't need your help.

I like most of your advice here, but are you 100% sure about this? Russia moved to Silesia the same turn that I bounced him; wouldn't he just have built in Warsaw if I had given him an extra build and rolled on me?

Hey Res - I was Germany in the game where you were England. Mhsmith is correct- I didn't hit France on that one turn due to Russia moving to Prussia. If you had waited one more turn, I would have swung towards France after taking Sweden.

[Carl Tuckerson]

Game 1:

I think if you had been patient with Germany for one more turn you'd have had a rock-solid E/G alliance that would have carried you to the middle game in a strong position. What happens after that is anyone's guess.
I understand why you wanted to pivot after S02, since you and France were stalled, but France's opening to Picardy locked him into fighting you I think. He needed two whole game years to redeploy Picardy to a position that threatens Italy. I don't think a pivot could have succeeded there.
As for Germany, he got attacked by Russia, it wasn't reasonable to expect him to commit the three armies needed to attack France in 1902 there IMO. I think France actually blew it by moving to Ruhr and was bailed out by the fact that you moved to Heligoland Bight, because ordinarily, if you don't make that move, he has guaranteed an E/G alliance against him, which is fatal.

A minor nitpick--I would have opened to Edinburgh over Yorkshire, so you could have convoyed your army to Norway and used your fleet in North Sea to influence Belgium. Opening to Yorkshire essentially forced you to attempt the convoy to Belgium, but the convoy was probably not going to work in any circumstance; better to have signaled to Germany that you were willing to support him there.

Game 2:

A big part of this game is "lol Russia." This game is a pretty good example of why Russia is so bad in gunboat. But that doesn't help you...

Neither does it really help to point out that you lost the north entirely because of Germany's enormous tactical blunders. England probably wouldn't have felt comfortable diving into St. Petersburg and Scandinavia if Germany had managed even one build, let alone his normal two. The E/F that quickly formed from that was going to steamroll you basically no matter what you did. Again, not much help, but this is part of the "variance" to gunboat.

The only things I would suggest lie in the south. I would have preferred to see the more conventional opening to Ukraine instead of Moscow -> Warsaw. Given your post-S01 position, I understand your impulse to use your fleet in Sevastopol to support yourself into Romania instead of bouncing Black Sea again, but I suspect Turkey only attacked you opportunistically here--he saw a weak Austria and that he had the Black Sea and decided to go for it.
The other change I'd have made in the south is a self-standoff in Vienna in Autumn 1904. The "lone raider" Austrian unit behind your frontline with Turkey is what eventually undid you. Advancing into Serbia ultimately didn't get you anywhere that covering Vienna wouldn't have, and you would have had more opportunities to advance on Serbia later. It's not always clear whether you should prefer keeping a defeated enemy alive to focus on your primary rival, or finishing off that enemy, but I think you can see easily that this game would have gone much better for you had you finished off Austria.

Game 3:

Hate to cop out but this was public press which has a big factor on how people react. I suspect the hostilities between you and Russia could have been avoided, and those hostilities were what permitted England to get such a suffocating grip on Scandinavia, which I suspect is what convinced France that he was better off helping England kill you then trying to fight a losing war. Hard to talk about much else than that, if you and Russia aren't at each other's throats from the start of Autumn 01 then England can't possibly conquer Scandinavia by himself, and that event is what put you on the defensive for the rest of the game.

Game 4:

This one's all about tactics. It's not your fault you got attacked--Austria doesn't really have a choice but to trust Italy and hope for the best.

For sake of argument, I'm going to pretend Russia didn't also decide to pile up on you in 1902, because no Austrian can ever survive a joint Russian-Italian attack in gunboat that early IMO. It takes a lot of lucky breaks with them misordering; you just have too much to defend. You needed to catch a break with one of them and didn't, so you were dead. But for sake of finding ways to improve, let's say that Russia didn't attack you, and all you had to do was fend off Italy and Turkey.

Italy telegraphed his S02 moves in A01. He never builds F Venice here without subsequently moving to Adriatic Sea, meaning that he wasn't going to support hold Trieste, meaning you could have taken it with just two units. His other units are going to set up a convoy to Albania; that's the only other play they have from his post-W01 position that constructively advances his position against you.
I know this sounds a lot like hindsight talking but I do think you could have guessed that Serbia was free to move to Albania to stop the convoy. Your bounce in Aegean Sea was perfect and you could afford to repeat it in A02 if you wanted (I think this would have been right, in a world where the convoy doesn't happen). Turtle up on Trieste, and in the winter Italy has a critical disband. I won't say that Italy definitely backs off, but after builds you would have had enough units to spare against all his possible attacks (up to four units to guard Trieste or two to guard Greece and three to guard Trieste), so Italy would have had to consider a pivot against Turkey, who spent 1902 not getting anywhere.
Also, minor bit--support Budapest into Trieste not Vienna. Vie/Tri/Ser is a better position because you automatically protect against Tyl -> Vie, so you can focus everything on protecting Trieste. I suspect you made this decision in light of Russia, which is fair enough, but I think your line was that you had to trust Russia not to attack you (which would have failed here, RIP) and act accordingly.

Game 5:

I think you got yourself in trouble when you effectively traded Greece for Romania. You took Greece back easily enough, but at the cost of Russia being able to retake Romania, and critically, to do so with an army instead of a fleet. You had the edge over Russia until that happened. I think your better line was to move slowly and play for position instead of trying to play for centers, because your edge lay in the fact that Russia wasn't comfortable trying to reposition his fleet. Taking Romania ultimately netted you nothing since you had to lose Greece to do it, and the resulting reshuffle of enemy units permitted Russia to get the upper hand on armies.
You had two ways to try to exploit the weak Russian F Romania:
(1) Continue stalling Greece and Galicia while repositioning your Trieste army through Tyrolia to Bohemia and Silesia. Force your way into Galicia once you're in position and turn the Russian's position that way. Keep defending Greece so Turkey can't get out of his corner.
(2) Continue stalling Galicia while moving your Trieste army south to Albania and trying for the Aegean Sea. If you get into the Aegean Sea at some point (probably A02 when Turkey is scared of the Lepanto and unwilling to move there again), you can try to turn Turkey's position by threatening a supported attack on Bulgaria or a convoy to Constantinople or Smyrna. This would require Italy to stay committed to the position and is worse overall than (1) but is an option.

For the record, I doubt you're half as bad as you think you are. Gunboat has a lot of moving parts that can simply break the wrong way sometimes. You had that happen in at least one game for sure.

[Restitution]

Hate to cop out but this was public press which has a big factor on how people react.

whoops

[naked]

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From what i see you have no plan what to do. Your opening puts no pressure on the scandinavian, but where else you have a realistic chance to get gains ? Your simply attack on Bel fails and so your position seems stuck to me. Then you fight with France for the Channel and i think you should realize at this moment that there is a realistic probability that you are now at war with France. Instead you are moving to Germany, i guess with the idea that you want some gains and Germany should be the most realistic place for it. But now France takes advantage of your movement and your game is finished. It doesnt help that Germany plays pretty awful.

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Your opening is bad. Move to Ukr instead of Mos. Later you have lots of faith in England. On my opinion most players only see the next SC so this seems bad to me, especially as it is really hard to utilize the fourth tank in the south. In 1905 you are not abandon your fleet in Baltic Sea. Why ? This is just awful. You are playing in the South. You are living and dying there.
Turkey takes the invitation and you are dying in the south.

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Well, your are Austria and Italy attacks you. Not your fault. If Italy doesnt stop you are toast (, because Russia and Turkey will gladly attack you, too). So your main ob is to defend versus Italy and show him that there ill be no gains for him (, even if you will lose for sure the war. You cannot defend versus I+R+T). Think about what is realistic to defend and what can you afford to lose. I would say you need to defend your starting position and SER. If you can achieve this for some time things can change. There is also no way you can defend GRE versus Turkey. Also if you lose GRE it has some advantage. There are two parties who want it, but i guess Turkey will win the race. This is pretty bad for Italy. Every decent Italy should realize if you move GRE to ALB (and block the convoy) that he has to turn. Even if Italy sneaks in GRE instead of a convoy to ALB Turkey will take GRE next turn (you can cut the support).

As a general rule if you get attacked versus some superior powers: Think about versus who you want defend. Maybe you even wanne feed one off your attacker while totally denying some other attacker any gains. In the right situation this can put big pressure on some of your attackers, because they should realize after you are finished they are finished too.

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You dont want an italian fleet in Aegean Sea. This will not help an italian attack versus Turkey, but it will help an italian attack on GRE. You want your fleet in Aegean Sea and support the attack of Italy versus Turkey. All the tactics you are doing later on seem bad to me. Rus has a bad troop position to attack you. You help him to make it better. Why you are trying to take GRE back with your tank? Cant imagine Italy likes your fleet in ION. Does this fleet help versus Turkey? I doubt it.

[naked]

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Why you bounce Rus out of SWE ? Eng shows you how to play this country. Yes this only works if Russia and Germany play bad, but it works surprising often. After Eng controls the Scandinavian your position is just awful.

[mhsmith0]

Game 3 Germany
Bouncing Russia from Sweden looks like your early mistake; a vacated English Channel means E/F are allies and they don't need your help.

I like most of your advice here, but are you 100% sure about this? Russia moved to Silesia the same turn that I bounced him; wouldn't he just have built in Warsaw if I had given him an extra build and rolled on me?

Well in that case, sure. But Russia was (bluntly) being an idiot. Turkey's already messing with him, AND England opened hard against him, AND France clearly wasn't punishing England's choice (and for good measure, France opened heavy anti-Germany). Moving to Silesia in that spot and giving you more problems is unwise on his end.
Hell, the fact that he didn't go War-Gal in the end only cost him Galicia in Austrian hands, which doomed him long term. Heck, he was doing so badly that Austria (who he'd been attacking) saved his Rumania SC from Turkey in fall 1902.
I'd also say that EVEN THOUGH he was moving against Germany (again, for no good reason that I can fathom), giving him the extra build gives him a chance to stand up to England up north, and England was a much bigger problem for you this game than Russia was.

[naked]

@Restitution

you should really understand in your german game that the reason to give Swe to Russia is simply that this helps to prevent Eng from having an amazing shot to take control of the Scandinavians. You dont give SWE to Russia because you like Russia so much, but because if England takes control of the Scandinavians your position is crumbled. If the Scandinavians are divided between Russia and England Germany has a fair shot at getting SWE later on. If Germany can achieve this it gives him lots of offensive options without having to think about all the bad things that can come from the north.

[Restitution]

@Restitution

you should really understand in your german game that the reason to give Swe to Russia is simply that this helps to prevent Eng from having an amazing shot to take control of the Scandinavians. You dont give SWE to Russia because you like Russia so much, but because if England takes control of the Scandinavians your position is crumbled. If the Scandinavians are divided between Russia and England Germany has a fair shot at getting SWE later on. If Germany can achieve this it gives him lots of offensive options without having to think about all the bad things that can come from the north.

Do you *always* give Sweden to Russia? Under what conditions do you not do so?

[Matticus13]

@Restitution

you should really understand in your german game that the reason to give Swe to Russia is simply that this helps to prevent Eng from having an amazing shot to take control of the Scandinavians. You dont give SWE to Russia because you like Russia so much, but because if England takes control of the Scandinavians your position is crumbled. If the Scandinavians are divided between Russia and England Germany has a fair shot at getting SWE later on. If Germany can achieve this it gives him lots of offensive options without having to think about all the bad things that can come from the north.

Do you *always* give Sweden to Russia? Under what conditions do you not do so?

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1733

Use the link or look at the posted topic directly below this one. Swordsman has amazing gunboat advice/analysis that will help you in your quest.

[Carl Tuckerson]

Was just about to link to that.

My 2c: pretty much always. If there's been at least one move to the English Channel and there's an army in Wales, or if there's a Russian army in Prussia/Silesia, I bounce. I've gotten burned too many times from English players who see my bouncing Russia as an opportunity to attack me.

[Matticus13]

Was just about to link to that.

My 2c: pretty much always. If there's been at least one move to the English Channel and there's an army in Wales, or if there's a Russian army in Prussia/Silesia, I bounce. I've gotten burned too many times from English players who see my bouncing Russia as an opportunity to attack me.

Nicely summary for gunboat. I do suggest reading the blog though. It is quite thorough.

My overall advice on improving gunboat results: get lots of repetitions, read Swordsman's blog entries, and study the current metagame on WebDip. I am currently in the top 60 (as of June GhostRatings for gunboat) and I still struggle with overall strategy and communication.

[naked]

Do you *always* give Sweden to Russia? Under what conditions do you not do so?

My rule of thumb: if no one moves in the channel Russia gets SWE, else i bounce.

[mhsmith0]

Do you *always* give Sweden to Russia? Under what conditions do you not do so?

My rule of thumb: if no one moves in the channel Russia gets SWE, else i bounce.

That's a decent rule of thumb. Also worth considering
1) Who's in Galicia? If the answer is Austria, bouncing Russia may strengthen your southern neighbor far more than you really want.
2) How is the south shaking out overall? Ideally you don't want anyone dominant or anyone getting steamrolled
3) Did Russia open to STP? If so, allowing him in could REALLY hurt England (especially if England opened to channel), and that's a pro/con decision that depends on your read of board state among other things.
etc

[naked]

Did Russia open to STP? If so, allowing him in could REALLY hurt England

If Russia open north there is no way i give him SWE. There are enough russian troops to fight England and i dont want Russia to occupy the Scandinavians either. Russia opening north is just a terrible opening move for Russia in gunboat.