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You ruling is correct. The English unit in Norway cannot execute it's order because the opposing unit has a greater strength. The unit that was convoyed bounces because it cannot overcome the attacking strength coming from elsewhere.

But, here is my understanding... Supported move to Norway on the Russian side. A non-supported move to StP on the English side? Two units can't trade positions. The supported move wins, so, the English army at Norway is dislodged and the Army moving to Norway fails.

I would have downloaded and installed an adjudicator, but unfortunately we're college students, and were playing the college we attend, and so we can't install anything on the computers we had on hand.

Nevertheless, I've downloaded jDip here at home and I'll show them the result, if that helps convince them.

If they need it beyond your advice, of course.

Thanks a lot.

Yes, but it should also be noted that if you hade reversed your orders (attacking with Sweden with support from St. Petersburg), the English unit still would have been dislodged. A unit 1 cannot cut the support move of a unit 2 for a unit 3 moving in on unit 1's position. Also remember for your scenario that two units can never switch places without the help of a convoy. (3 or more units can, of course, switch places)

'hade' means 'had'

Your adjudication looks fine to me.

Yea it's definitely correct. Very simple - it's 2 vs 1 in Norway so you get into Norway. Convoy boucnes. That's all there is to it.

Just out of interest, A. Smith, on what basis did your players argue that you were wrong? This is such a simple scenario that I can't see any real room for argument.

The Russian move has a strength of 2 because it has support. None of the English moves are supported, so they each have a strength of 1. So it's a 2 vs 1 attack on Norway by Russia, which therefore succeeds.

By the way, if the convoyed English unit had support into Norway, the whole thing would bounce and all the units would remain in their starting positions.
None of the English moves have any support so

I think it is obvious. Your adjudication is correct.

Jamie: Well, they're all newbies (in they first or second game), and I believe they thought that the conflict between Nor-StP and StP-Nor "ate" my support, so that I then bounced against his convoyed unit.

And since my adjudication was based on several rules, and not one that covers this single exact situation, I couldn't just point them to one rule in the rulebook that said I was right, and they argued I just had bits of rules agreeing with me. It doesn't matter they didn't, of course, nor that I'm the more experienced player...

I think they thought I was just trying to cheat or something.

Zman: I agree it's obvious; they didn't, and that was the problem. This thread isn't really to confirm the adjudication, it's to confirm it TO THEM.

"I believe they thought that the conflict between Nor-StP and StP-Nor "ate" my support"

But your support was from Finland. None of his units did anything to effect your Finland unit's action, therfore the support is counted and it is 2 vs 1 at St Petersburg, and your attack succeeds.

If your friends' interpretation was correct (which it certainly isn't) then it would be possible for outnumbered single units to defend themselves against supported attacks. This would not make sense.

It's probably a good think you paused your game. This is a very simple situation about which the rules are unambiguous. If they haven't grasped the notion of support I can't imagine how you could play the rest of the game:
Take this quote from the rules (2000 edition, p7):
"A unit moves with its own strength combined with all of its valid supports. Unless it is opposed by a unit that is equally or better supported, it can complete its move."

In order for the move to have failed support would have had to have been cut. In your case this would mean an attack on Sweden. But Norway would not have been able to cut this support:

Page 10:
"Support is cut if the unit giving support is attacked from any province except the one where support is being given. The support is cut whether this attack on the supporting unit succeeds or not."

The key words in the above quote being "except the one where support is given".

You didn't actually mention this point, but it would not surprise me if this comes up.

The thing is that there are two potential English units defending against a double attack from Russia - the army in Norway (1 unit) and the convoyed army from Yorkshire (1 unit). 1+1vs2 could be a stand off. The problem for the English is that their two units were not acting in concert - if they had (by F(Nth)SA(Nwy)) then it would have been 2 against 2 and a stand off. It might not be clear to them that their two single attacks weren't combined to make a double attack. This is the problem with being the experienced player in a game - somehow the rules always seem to favour you. It might almost be worth offering to rerun the season with new orders once you've convinced them of the rules.
P.S. If the orders were written as you've typed them then a really mean GM would enact them as follows:
A StP-Nor (Invalid order - Nor is not unambiguous)
F Swe S A StP-Nor (Invalid - Nor is not unambiguous)
A Nor-StP (Fails as single unit ordered against occupied space)
A Yor-Nor (Invalid - Nor is not unambiguous)
F Nth C A Yor-Nor (Invalid - Nor is not unambiguous)
Thus no movement happens (which is what your friends wanted). It'd have to be a really mean GM to consider that you might want to order your army into a sea area that isn't even adjacent to it but I've seen it done.

download jDip, put in the units, put in the orders, accept the moves that the adjudicator resolves.
http://jdip.sourceforge.net/

Bart (and all other theists)

Responding to an argument by quoting the Bible is retarded, especially when the argument you are trying to refute is attacking the veracity of the Bible! Do you not understand this? The Bible itself is circumspect, just like the Quran is, just like this book me and my cousin just wrote last weekend while we were smoking really good weed!

But I still havent seen a cogent response to Zman's question - if there is a God, why doesnt he show up and tell us he exists? Zman says that if he doesnt, then hes an asshole. I agree, and would go further to to say that not only is he an asshole, but he very well may be satan.

True believers - I ask u to refute.

Sorry, not sure how that happened. Posted in the wrong place.

Parallelopiped, I am not sure your P. S. is entirely correct. "A poorly written order that has only one meaning must be followed.", from page 3 of the 4th edition 2000. F Nth C A Yor-Norwegian Sea has no meaning. I suppose the moves from Sweden or St. Petersburg would also get by with this rule. There is only one meaning for all these. I suppose it depends on the defenition of a 'meaning'.

Regardless, I've always played with Nor being Norway and Nrg being Norwegian sea, and so there was no confusion on my side. I've never been a fan of complicated abbreviations for the sake of complicated abbreviations, and so when when there's an obvious abbreviation that isn't being used anywhere (but would fit a territory fine), I use that one.

You don't need to download jDip... you can test any set of valid moves online:

http://gamesbyemail.com/Games/Politics/Judge

(Click the "Clear board" link down there under the map.)

That's awesome, I looked for it but didn't know it actually existed. I'm definitely going to use that in my next "session". Thanks a lot.

in general i think the point that should be made is that all units belonging to one player act seperately unless ordered to act together.

When ordered to act together they might well be units owned by different players - though this is not always the case as you can't self-dislodge, nor provide support to an attack which would dislodge one of your units.

In this case, imagine the same orders had been given but a germany unit had occupied norway, and notan english one.

Here the german unit is attacked twice, and hit from both sides, outnumbered 2 Vs 1 because the russians are working together, it is forced to retreat. In the second place looking at who takes control of norway, the russians also outnumber the english 2 Vs 1.

Again your interpretation of the rules is correct, i just hope this makes it a little clearer.

Yes, next time we play, that's probably the explanation I'm going to give. I think I need to give the "external" (as in, real-life) logic behind it, and not the rules logic now.

This spring I wrote an article with a more mathematical description of the rules (but that might not be convincing):

http://www.diplom.org/Zine/S2009M/Kruijswijk/DipMath_Chp1.htm

For all kinds of ambiguities in the rules you can use my DATC (which is something different than your case);

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/L.B.Kruijswijk/

jDip and this site are both tested with the DATC. If one your friends has palm he might download PalmPolitik (also DATC tested).

Lucas

I think this is a little beyond those players, but maybe the examples of the DATC would be useful!

Impressive job!