gunboat for players who try to ally - you were England
https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?game ... #gamePanel
@Lord Farquard, sorry if I’m stepping on your toes by posting twice before you got to share any of your insights.
S01:
Reasonable opening given the meta.
A01:
Reasonable followup. Belgium was clearly going to be contested, possible that Germany could have supported you in, but convoy to Norway is less risky because Russia will sometimes avoid bouncing you (as they did here) in order to build in StP.
W01:
I would be curious who you were planning to attack with F EDI. Because it shouldn’t be France. It’s a pretty reasonable build if you’re trying to E/G against Russia in the north. It risks turning Germany against you, as it’s another fleet not being used to fight France. But I actually think this was an opportunity to develop into an E/F the next year, if you focused on securing Norway, positioned yourself for StP or Sweden, by which point France gets their 5th center and will have to decide who they are attacking. Perfectly reasonable to leave a fleet in London during the entire year, or to keep bouncing in the channel, while you wait for this situation to develop.
S02:
If you wanted to attack France this year, you probably should have just built F LVP? Sending your fleet to Yorkshire looks like a misguided attack on France, because it’s one of those awkward moves to get closer to somewhere by awkwardly scooting around an occupied space, NTH in this case.
I think you made a reasonable choice to build F EDI and you should have stuck to what I assume was your plan, to defend Norway as part of an E/G. That means EDI to NWG. Bouncing the channel again (turns out it failed, but still) is fine. You can’t assume kindness from France here. But following through with EDI to NWG was the better play here.
NWY to SWE and NTH following into NWY is fine? Given that Germany was going to get BEL, you might guess that they would support you into SWE. And in a world where EDI goes to NWG, there’s no need to send NTH anywhere else (and you don’t want to leave NTH vacant and give Germany any ideas). You could have done something riskier and sent NTH to SKA (with the option to backfill NTH with LON), but that might have pissed off Germany.
A02:
Fyi, I won’t carry over any moves suggestions for multiple turns. I’ll always write based on what state the board was in during the game.
France mostly held in the spring…which is strange. All hold happens, people ready by accident. Only moving 1 unit is weird. I would instantly label them as unreliable and not much of a potential ally.
Norway is lost if Russia wants it, and Sweden might fall into German hands in that case. I think the right move here is to cut your losses and ignore trying to defend Norway. Even if you lose it, you’ve turned that army into a fleet which is better than nothing, and you should position yourself now to regain a 4th center next year. Problem is, nothing really looks that easy to capture.
This is a rough turn and I’ve already written a bunch so I’ll stop for now and pick this up tomorrow or something. Last thought is that you could have guessed that Germany would try to send Belgium to Picardy, either the way they did or with support from Burgundy. If you make that guess, you could have done a supported attack on Belgium, either sending ENG there or convoying Norway there and hoping that France doesn’t cut ENG. Yes, you’re attacking your ally, so it’s a gamble. But Scandanavia seems closed off and repositioning to attack France might take too long to make any meaningful gains. Just a moveset that I saw so I wanted to write it down in case I forgot it by next time.