I'm told we do not have a way to tag spoilers... so just know this entire post is spoilers for those who still want to try their hand at solving.
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Carl Tuckerson wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:28 am
The first map is after Spring 1901.
https://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID ... Type=large
You are Austria.
What orders are you anticipating out of the other powers in Autumn 1901?
What strategic objectives are you building towards with your Autumn 1901 turn?
What orders are you entering for Autumn 1901?
Is there anything else you'd like to share about this turn?
First things first, I will quickly dispense of the three Atlantic powers, and of Russia's northern unit. Though it's always good to try to predict everyone's moves--and I want to stop to give a shoutout to swordsman3003's superb
gunboat journal for teaching me this skill as a self-improvement technique, check it out if you have not--for the purposes of this exercise, England, Germany, and France are only tangentially relevant.
This exercise is very tactical in nature, and we are very much in a "worst-case scenario" where we need to respond as though all three of Italy, Russia, and Turkey are at least potentially hostile. It's possible that France counterattacks Italy after the provocation in Piedmont or that England and Germany harass Russia in Scandinavia, but for our purposes, our fate will be decided by decisions we and I/R/T make before either of these possibilities comes into play. It's entirely possible, after all, that Italy and Russia could delay E/F/G long enough to kill us--Austria dies by 1903 with alarming frequency, and in gunboat where E/F/G can't negotiate a perfect WT solution, it will inevitably take them time to marshal their forces and clear things up with one another.
With all that said, I anticipated that England would allow Germany to take Belgium, for the tactical reason that an army in Belgium is better against France than a fleet; that Germany would bounce Russia in Sweden; that England would either go for Brest or Mid-Atlantic Ocean; and that France would cover Marseilles with Gascony and Spain, and either cover Brest or take Portugal (and I think taking Portugal is stronger here). Further, I did not anticipate that Italy would attempt to disrupt France further by providing hostile support to break the Marseilles standoff, or that Italy would attack Marseilles outright.
I didn't anticipate those plays, because Italy's opener is not anti-French, but anti-Austrian. I could write an entire piece on Italian opening strategy alone, but suffice to say for this post that if Italy wants to attack France early, this play is not the way to execute it. France will naturally find its units drawn north to fight England and Germany in almost all games, either in defense against an E/G alliance or on offense with one against the other. If Italy just waits until 1903-04, usually it will have an excellent opening to attack France without telegraphing the attack quite as hard. Making the first move against France is usually wrong as Italy, because France's units start off drawn to the south, due to Iberia, and so an Italian attack from the jump just makes sure that they stay drawn south, giving E/G the easy road to invade instead of you.
However, Italy's opener is great for attacking Austria, because it looks anti-French and risks provoking French aggression, which leads Austria to think you may be distracted on future turns. The continuation that Italy typically makes here is to move (often successfully) to Tyrolia and Trieste, and then building a second fleet and third army, giving a strong base of operations to push further into Austria while Austria has (typically) moved east to resist R/T. These styles of attacks are so effective against Austria that the meta response from Austria for quite some time (and possibly still today) is to suicide into Italy in response, throwing the game away to contribute to a meta that discourages future Italian players from making the same move.
Turkey's opener is unequivocally anti-Austrian, because it is unequivocally pro-Russian. Turkey has essentially guaranteed that he can never make a viable attack on Russia until after Austria is dead by conceding the Black Sea here. It is possible to pivot back against Russia, but Turkey would lose an entire year's worth of moves to circle back, and would still be on the defensive because of Russia's superior position in the Black Sea. Turkey has, for better or worse, committed to allying Russia and seeing to my and Italy's demise.
Russia's opener is completely neutral.
Right now, with two hostile powers and one neutral power as neighbors, there is one and only one strategic objective to which I'm building: survival. This script often ends with a dead Austria by 1903. My objective is to flip the script somehow: get the jump on one enemy, hold off the second, dissuade the third from attacking me.
The key to this strategy is to deny our opponents easy opportunities to take our centers. This strategy is why Austria almost always covers Galicia: the easiest way for Russia to attack Austria is to be allowed into Galicia on the first turn, and it's relatively low-cost to prevent that from happening, so you bounce it. It's also the principle behind rushing Greece with two units: aside from getting another build, Turkey can't meaningfully harm Austria until he takes Greece (which lets him pressure Serbia), so by taking and securing Greece, you prevent the harm before it begins.
I expect Italy to move to Tyrolia, Trieste, Tunis; Turkey to move to Greece, Aegean Sea, Bulgaria; and Russia to move to Galicia and support himself to Romania.
It turns out that Turkey decided to protect himself with a self-standoff. I thought about risking Greece by sending Serbia to cover Trieste, which would let me bounce Galicia again. Had I known what Turkey was actually going to do, I would have done this play, because it furthers the strategy of dissuading potential enemies by taking away easy avenues to attack us. But because I didn't know Turkey was going to hedge, I figured Turkey would see through his opening to what I considered the logical continuation--you trusted Russia enough to let him have the Black Sea; trust him this fall and pressure Greece instead of setting up a standoff. And if he does that, and I don't take Greece, I think I'm in more trouble even if I denied Galicia to Russia, because I don't have the units I need to fight Italy and Turkey at once.
Instead, I decided that I had to choose between leaving Trieste open and leaving Galicia open. There is a real argument to leave Trieste open--Italy
could decide to back off--but I had a strong read that he wasn't going to back off, and I thought I would look like a tougher out with five centers but a hostile Russian in Galicia than I would with four centers.
A Vie -> Tri
A Ser S F Gre -> Alb
F Gre -> Alb
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Carl Tuckerson wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:28 am
The second map is after Autumn 1901. Unfortunately there is a spoiler here, as I didn't think to screenshot the map before builds, so you can see that I made a curious decision.
https://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID ... Type=large
Do you agree with my build decision? What if anything would you have done differently?
Are you surprised by any of the orders the other countries entered for Autumn 01?
Of course I agree with this handsome man...
I was surprised by the bounce in Belgium and by France's zero-build start, but as far as our theater goes, mostly everything went as expected. Turkey's hedge was surprising but doesn't change anything.
Since there's no use agreeing with myself, I'll explain my play.
We now know, of course, that Italy is hostile. We had a hunch before, it's now been confirmed. Turkey's play was a bit more cautious than expected, but we can be pretty sure he is still an enemy, since he's made it so hard to pivot against Russia. Russia is still not yet committed.
When determining friends and foes just from board position in gunboat, you need to look at two things: the lines of play available to your opponent and the incentives your opponent has to follow each one. If your opponent's only plausible lines of play involve attacking you, they're going to attack you. If your opponent has plausible lines of play in either direction, they're going to choose the route they're most incentivized to choose. I realize some of that sounds tautological, so bear with me a bit.
As we've discussed in 1901, Turkey's only plausible lines of play involve attacking me at this point. He deprived himself of the chance to attack Russia in any meaningful way by vacating the Black Sea and going straight to Aegean Sea. Since I've already taken Greece, Turkey's only possible line of play that doesn't involve taking centers from me would require him to build a second fleet and run a "reverse Lepanto" where he seizes Ionian Sea and convoys to Italy. That line is usually implausible because Italy almost always builds a second fleet in W01, which means forcing Ionian Sea is prohibitively difficult. And why go the very long way, leaving all your centers exposed to Russia and Austria to fight Italy, when you already have a supported attack on Greece, and a plausible ally in Russia (maybe two in Italy)? This is what I mean by incentives--Turkey's incentives are much more clearly to attack me than to go around me to hit Italy. And whatever incentives Turkey may have to attack Russia are a moot point, as his position prohibits him from attacking Russia.
Italy has several viable lines of play, including attacking me, that he could choose. It's not too late for him to pivot here and attack France or even Turkey. He would need to build a fleet, but the line is there. The main issue is not possibilities but incentives. If Italy recognizes what we've said above, he knows he has one ally ready to fight Austria with him. He also can't help but see Russian armies in Galicia and Romania. Italy
could reposition for a year and maybe hit center #5 by the end of 1903... or he could participate in the carve-up of Austria and try his odds in an I/R/T middle game. His situation is pretty favorable there too, since Russia has the Black Sea and is unlikely to leave it. The incentives at this point clearly favor him attacking me, even though he has plausible alternatives.
Russia also has several viable lines of play, but the key difference and the linchpin of our solve to this puzzle is the fact that he is just as incentivized, maybe more incentivized, to ally with us as he is to ally with Turkey. Turkey has given Russia prime position to attack him if Russia wants, and we've been forced to give Russia the same. And unlike most situations where this is the choice, there's no significant difference in speed here: because Russia has the position to convoy into Ankara or Armenia right now, he will grow from attacking Turkey about as quickly as he will from attacking me. The difference, and it is a huge difference, is that Turkey is a corner position, highly insulated from further predation, while Austria is right in the crossroads of the solo ambitions of three countries. This difference is compounded by the fact that Italy already has a sizable jump on Austria. Russia's gains in Austria will probably be about two centers (Vienna + Budapest), and they will be very insecure for most of the middle and end game, whereas Russia's gains in Turkey will be 2-3 centers, and will be very insulated from others' greed. We can see that Russia is at least just as incentivized to ally with us as kill us.
Finally, though we hope it never comes to this, we must observe that because Italy and Turkey are already coming for us, if Russia joins in, our tactical choices are irrelevant. We cannot survive a three-front attack. Our hand has mostly been forced to trust Russia even if we thought he were likely to attack us. But we have good reason to think he won't, and there's no opportunity cost to trusting Russia because there's no world where we survive an untrustworthy Russia.
Because this analysis favors Russia over Italy and Turkey, our path is clear:
we should commit all-in to an alliance with Russia and move in complete accordance with it, as though we negotiated it in press ourselves. The word "luck" is a bit of a dirty word these days, but we are essentially committing to catching the break that Russia will work with us instead of killing us. We will do what we can to encourage this outcome, but it's ultimately out of our hands.
Given this commitment, the fleet build is necessary for three reasons.
(1) The fleet is essential to counterattacking Italy and, should we get involved, the Turkish mainland.
(2) The fleet cannot threaten Russia until much later in the game.
(3) We want to leave open the possibility that Russia will be our ally for the long haul. Fleet builds are hard to come by as Austria, and they're necessary in an A/R more than any other alliance, because you will essentially become the king of the Mediterranean and will need to launch viable coastal attacks on Iberia, Marseilles, and MAO.
The other "choice" we had was to waive a build in Budapest, but that's plainly silly. I mention it only because it's possible to decide to do this, not because you ever should in this circumstance.
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Carl Tuckerson wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:28 am
Onto Spring 1902... same map as above.
Are you surprised by any of the builds the other countries entered?
What orders are you anticipating out of the other powers in Spring 1902?
What strategic objectives are you building towards with your Spring 1902 turn?
What orders are you entering for Spring 1902?
Is there anything else you'd like to share about this turn?
I am very pleasantly surprised by Italy's army build. I know that sounds completely absurd, but remember what I said earlier about the trick to survival being not to give your opponents easy ways to attack you? The same goes for waging war against a known opponent: you win by depriving him of clean plays to defend himself and to attack you, and you lose by giving him openings to defend himself and/or attack you more efficiently than you defend yourself or attack him.
I believe Italy's army build was a mistake here for two reasons:
(1) Italy only has one fleet, which means that if I'm able to corral his armies in Italy, he will have literally zero means of successfully attacking me, because I will always be able to trade one fleet move for his fleet move. Furthermore, because I also built a fleet, I actually have the naval advantage and will be able to secure Ionian Sea and Adriatic Sea at some point, which gives
me all the ability to attack.
(2) Italy's armies are bottlenecked through Tyrolia, which allows me efficient trades of moves. More on this in a bit.
Turkey's fleet build in Smyrna is no surprise. This is actually the build I'd expect from him if he were going after Italy, but I don't think Italy's no-fleet build changes Turkey's incentives. I guess I might have thought he'd build an army in Constantinople, but that's neither here nor there; the fleet makes sense.
Russia's no-build in Warsaw is a great sign. I think his build in St. Petersburg was forced, so it's not a clear sign of alliance, but it shows he hadn't yet made up his mind to attack me, which means that my fleet build in Trieste has a chance to endear me to him. (Minor spoiler: Matticus [Russia] said in the postgame that my fleet build in Trieste did have an impact on his decision in S02, so we know that Russia hadn't committed against me yet.)
Let's get down to business to defeat Italy. Italy has set himself up for a popular continuation called the "Bohemian Crusher," where Italy moves from Tyrolia/Venice to Bohemia/Tyrolia. Usually this is done in A01 with an army build in Venice, but in this case he's simply deferred it a turn. You'd expect that it would work a high % of the time anyway, since the obvious continuation for me from this position is to move Trieste -> Adriatic Sea, Vienna support Budapest to Trieste.
But we're outnumbered, six units to five, and integral to winning in such a situation is to figure out how we can trade one move for multiple. Holds are awful here, and virtual holds (i.e. when you offer a support that isn't relevant) are just as bad. Supporting ourselves to Trieste is terrible if our opponent doesn't support himself to Trieste. What else can we come up with here?
It's worth starting by seeing what a supported attack on Trieste would look like. The army in Rome badly needs to advance to a relevant position, so it's extremely likely that if any supported attack on Trieste occurred, it would look like this:
A Tyl S A Ven -> Tri
A Rom -> Ven
Notice that this means we are just as well off by moving Vienna to Tyrolia, as that cuts Italy's support.
What else does moving to Tyrolia do? Consider the Crusher continuation mentioned earlier. If we move to Tyrolia, our army trades for
two Italian moves--Rome to Venice, Venice to Tyrolia. And honestly, without Tyrolia as backup, the army move to Bohemia is actively bad for Italy, since it has no ability to influence the battle lines except to attack Vienna. In a way it trades for "two and a half" moves.
Finally, we want to move our fleet in Greece to Ionian Sea if we can get away with it. This traps the Italian fleet in Tunis, meaning that we'll have traded two moves (Greece to Ionian Sea, Vienna to Tyrolia) for our opponent's entire turn.
The one catch is that Turkey has a supported attack on Greece. Since we're moving Greece, Serbia can't support its hold. But attacking Bulgaria should be just as good since there's no army in Constantinople: we will either cut support for an attack on Greece, or we'll take Bulgaria in exchange for Greece. If we cut support for an attack on Greece, that's superb, as we will have traded two moves (Greece to Ionian Sea; Serbia to Bulgaria) for three enemy moves (Tunis to Ionian Sea; Bulgaria support Aegean Sea to Greece). If we merely take Bulgaria instead, that's clearly worse, but still acceptable. We're very likely to get a support hold from Russia in Bulgaria if we end up there, and we can just accept the trade for the time being until we have time to retake Greece.
That leaves us with this moveset to trade with Italy's and Turkey's whole turns, as far as those turns immediately regard us:
A Vie -> Tyl
A Ser -> Bul
F Gre -> ION
This means we have two units--A Bud and F Tri--free to make positioning moves. This is the heart of how you win in these situations: you trade half your turn for your enemy's whole turn and you use the remaining moves to get a positional advantage.
Here, we're going to be able to move Trieste to Adriatic Sea and Budapest to Trieste, which in conjunction with keeping him out of Tyrolia and trapping an army in Bohemia, or with trading with his move to Trieste and taking the Adriatic Sea, will
immediately turn the corner on Italy, putting us on the offense and leaving him to figure out how to defend himself.
Now we just pray that we catch our one break with Russia and we're in superb shape.
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Carl Tuckerson wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:28 am
One final map... The game state as of Autumn 1902, after Spring 02 adjustments.
https://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID ... Type=large
Are you surprised by any of the orders the other countries entered?
What orders are you anticipating out of the other powers in Autumn 1902?
What strategic objectives are you building towards with your Autumn 1902 turn?
What orders are you entering for Autumn 1902?
Is there anything else you'd like to share about this turn?
Perfect. We caught our break and our orders worked to perfection.
Here, I'm expecting Italy to support hold Venice, since Italy has no way to punish me for attacking Venice here. It's very plausible he risks losing Venice to support himself into Tyrolia in the fall, but that play just makes more sense in the Spring, when he can recoup a possible loss of Venice by attacking Vienna and Trieste. I'm expecting a support hold here, but Italy could surprise me with a gutsy move.
Italy will obviously move on Ionian Sea again.
I expect Turkey to try to pivot back against Russia now that Russia's made his move. I'd like to seal Turkey away in his home and leave him to Russia by taking Bulgaria this turn; the additional unit would also be very valuable in fully turning the corner on Italy in 1903. Since I'll need Greece for that (can't necessarily count on Russia helping me into Bulgaria, even if we're in accord), and since I'm expecting Italy to defend Venice, I'll use Adriatic Sea to stall Ionian Sea again. If I felt I could be sure that I'd get Bulgaria without using Greece, I would have gone for the more aggressive line of convoying Trieste to Apulia (anticipating no attack on Trieste) and using Greece to cut Ionian Sea again, building something (probably an army) in Trieste.
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You can watch the full game unfold here if you like:
https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?game ... #gamePanel
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END OF SPOILERS
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