fleet support into the "wrong" coast ?

[Tibarius]

Game: Search for Life
Turn: Autumn 1911, Fleet Norway (NWY) Support Hold Fleet St. Petersburg (STP) south coast (sc)

I always thought a fleet cannot support move/hold orders of another fleet moving/standing into the "wrong" coast of a province. The original avalon hill rules linked in the "help / Intro to Webdiplomacy" (down at the bottom) section state on page 10:
"However, it must be next to the province into which it’s giving support and must be able to legally move there itself. "

Fleet NWY can only move to STP (nc), and thus i would expect it is not possible for a fleet in NWY to support hold a fleet in STP (sc).

Anyone familiar with this question, or has an opinion on this matter ?

[noname672]

The "there" in that quote refers to the province not the coast. Also, from the paragraph right after the one containing that quote: "A Fleet that can move to a province with two separate coasts (a Fleet in the Mid-Atlantic, for example) can support another Army or Fleet into that province (in this case Spain), without regard to separate coastlines."

[Tibarius]

Can't find the section you are referring to. Only on page 8 the rules for fleet movement and provinces with two coastlines. The MAO example is not hitting the spot, because you can move MAO=>SPA(sc) and =>SPA(nc), that's not the same setup as NWY and STP (sc). Nevertheless thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[cdngooner]

Correct. Support holds are support for a province, not a unit. Support to move, though, does require that the supporting unit be able to move to the target coast.

[David E. Cohen]

This is the text of the actual latest edition of the rules (Renegade Games):

"The specification of Support to a specific coast in a split province such as Spain must match the move of the piece ordered to that province. For instance:

France: F Portugal S F Mid-Atlantic - Spain (sc); F Mid-Atlantic - Spain (nc)

The movement is valid but the support order is invalid because it identified an incorrect coast. If the order was F Mid-Atlantic - Spain (sc), then the support order would be valid."

The concept of "matching" was undefined in previous editions of the rule book, and while I can understand the opinion of those that wanted matching to be limited to a province, rather than a coast, I feel that this clarification aligns more with the overall spirit of the rule.