Nearly everyone follows the rules as written which state that a support is given into a Province. Therefore the Russian Support for the attack on Bulgaria does not need a coast designation and if given it is ignored.

There are two Face to Face events where the HOUSE RULE is that a support that specifies a coast for an attack support ((move support here))
then that support is valid ONLY if it exactly matches the attackers move.
However a supporter does not HAVE to specify a coast and can leave it up to the attacker.

I have often argued in favor of the more restricted support since as Italy if I wanted to support England to Spain I may only want him on the north coast. However the counter argument which is also valid, is that the province support allows for more backstabbing in the game since one party could agree to go to one coast and actually move to another.

By the way, there are a lot of very experienced players here who have an excellent grasp of the rules. Typically all the Moderators and many many players. so direct things out to folks at large as it may get you faster results if I am busy even though it seems like I have been haunting the Forum for the past two months...which I have but for a different reason.

what reason?

Stephen Agar put those examples to Allan Calhamer one time. You can find the discussion here

http://groups.google.com.au/group/rec.games.diplomacy/browse_frm/thread/f9f4fa8caafcff15?hl=en&q=group:rec.games.diplomacy#7be771b70dbb53bf

The 12th post is the relevant one. Allan said in the first two cases the support was no good, only in the third case was the support good. "Allies should be in evident agreement" was his take on it, so he was arguing as you were for the more restricted support. In the DATC that this site is based on, Lucas Kruijswijk argues for a third option, the coast specification is optional in the support order, but if specified must agree with the move order.
Chris Martin's post in the thread I mention (number 26) says as you do that for tournament play in North America, coast is irrelevant in the support order. It's interesting that the game designer and the hobby don't seem to be in agreement.

I'm not sure what happens on this site in that situation.

Coast specification in a support order, is the most controversial issue of the rules. I observed discussion about this issue many times, and the opinions are split 50-50. Also, the adjudicators are split 50-50 (phpDiplomacy ignores coast specification in coast, while Stabberfou does not).

Regards,

Lucas

:O I didn't know you'd joined this little site, welcome!
For all those who don't know, Lucas wrote the DATC, arguably the best guide to writing an adjudicator around.
I take it you still agree with your views stated in the DATC itself then?
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/L.B.Kruijswijk/#4.B.4

Yes.

When considering an issue, I think it is important that:
- It is the same for all types of playing (FtF, postal, e-mail, web).
(this rules out path specifications for convoys, because it will
never be accepted for FtF).
- It shouldn't be too hard for Newbies.

If you make coastal specification in a support order mandatory, then you make many Newbies that give their first support order to a coastal area, unhappy.

So, I am in favor of making it optional, or just ignore the coast specification at all (I do not really care).

Lucas

Calhamer's view (and my own personal view that the cost should be specific and binding in support) did not make it in the last rule rewrite so we are stuck with what the rules say, not what the rules SHOULD say.

However, HOUSE RULES can say anything they want. There are some very very strange house rules out there including for example the British ManorCon tournament which has gross interpretation of the Unwanted Convoy still in place, as well as some place where they insist that you must include the Country of the Piece to be supported.
However, the norm in the hobby as practiced is that coast designation for a support does not matter. I do not like it but that is just tough on me.

Well if two giants of the game namely Edi and Allan can't get the rules changed, no hope for me. I agree with their positions.

I don't buy Lucas's arguments about newbies and I have heard them before. In a human adjudicated game you forgive a newbie cause its a tricky section of the rules, then explain why you wouldn't be so lenient amongst experienced players. If it happens. Which it probably won't. In a computer adjudicated game, the user interface software can call attention to the problem when moves are submitted.

Support should be "for the move order", not "to the province". It beats me why anyone would think the support order should be different from the move order in this situation. Why you would allow a player to support both of two very different orders. There is nowhere else in the game where you can do this.

Just on the newbie thing again, for an over the board game, instead of telling them to write
1. the supporting unit province
2. 'S' or 'supports'
3. the supported unit's source province
4. a dash
5. the supported unit's destination
You tell them to write
1. the supporting unit's province
2. 'S' or 'supports'
3. a valid move order for the supported unit.
Its even simpler.

Technically there is a place where there is a very vague support order to the province rather than the move and that is the in the multiple convoy route/
The game allows for
A Lon-Bel
F Eng C A Lon-Bel
F Nth C A Lon-Bel
and if one of the fleets is dislodged then the attack goes through with the other one.
This is a case where I and Allan Calhmer disagree. I dislike the alternate convoy rule which was only introduced after 10 years or so of the original rules.

As for Face to Face new player social rules, what we do in the SF Bay area is to read the new player's orders first and to make corrections for any errors allowing them to have one of each type of typical error. The most common of which are:
1. province not adjacent (A Paris-Belgium)
2. issuing a support order to a country
3. issuing a support order to a unit and NOT specifying where it is going
4. Convoying an army and not issuing the order to the army (or the other way is less common)
5. forgetting an order
6. writing an order backwards ((note that here you are writing orders backwards but with words that make sense ... normally people write an order like Army Marseilles supports Paris to Burgundy while here we write Army Marseilles supports a move to Burgundy from Paris.))

Edi, sorry, I'm not following. In your example are we talking about say Bur S Lon-Bel? How is there support to the province rather than for the move?

I agree alternative convoy routes aren't a nice idea. After all, logically if the army prepares to board a fleet on one coast how could it know to be ready on the other coast just because the ships got attacked!
Saying that, this conversation has changed my view on supports, and where there are now two possible coastal options I feel it should be required (with just one possibility it should be optional).

You, see a discussion about this subject always ends in a big mess.

But, about the alternate route, I totally disagree with Edi.

You may have a point from a conceptual view.

But if you look at it, just from a rule point of view, the old rule is horrible. You get many issues, when foreign fleets are involved in the convoy.

See also the DPTG:

"Where more fleets than necessary cooperate in a convoy, the convoyed army may find two or more alternate convoy routes available to it. This is acceptable, but an army prefers, if possible, to be convoyed by its own countrymen only -- that is, only by fleets belonging to the same Great Power the army belongs to. (This does not mean that an army prefers to be convoyed by fewer foreigners rather than more -- only that it prefers to be convoyed by zero foreigners, if possible; if impossible, then the army
sees two foreigners as no worse than one.) For this reason, if there are sufficient cooperating countryman-fleets to complete the convoy without foreign fleets' help, then exclude all foreign fleets from the convoy, cancelling the foreigners' convoy orders."

And even more you have to consider:

"After refusing foreign cooperation if possible, an army may find that it has an extra cooperating fleet it could not use even if it wanted to. This is a fleet that is not part of any remaining route the army could follow to its target. The fleet's convoy order is superfluous; cancel it.

This Step 1 cares only that orders to convoy and to move by convoy are properly consistent, that convoys trace correct routes, and that foreign cooperation is declined where possible. It does not care whether a convoying fleet is under attack, nor whether some unit contests the convoy's target province. It also does not care about support of any kind."

If you allow the alternate route, all text above, cease to exist. Given the minor tactical implication, I would say, please have some mercy with the people that write adjudicators.

Even with the DPTG text, you still have remaining issues. Suppose you have a convoy order that can be used in a convoy, but is not required in any of the routes (you can remove it from any route and still have complete convoy). You can argue, that those convoys should also not taken into consideration (not easy to program correctly in an adjudicator and I need about 10 or 20 additional test cases in the DATC to cover it all).

An alternate route, is often not good from tactical point. It is often better to let one of the fleets support (or doing something other useful).

There is an issue of unwanted alternate route. If you don't want the convoy to succeed, when the convoy is disrupted, the unwanted alternative, can let the convoy succeed. Okay, that is true.

But with the old rule, you can have two foreign fleets both have the possibility to convoy. If one is almost certainly dislodged, it can give an unwanted convoy, to disrupt the convoy.

So, those two situations cancel each other out, as argument before or against.

New rule is a big simplification.

Regards,

Lucas

Actually our adjudicator manages to sort out the alternative convoy perfectly.

Yeah, but the debate is whether to use the alternative convoy, rather than a specific convoy rule-set.