I just wanted to say thanks to Bo and the Profs for setting up and running this. Looking forward to a great game.

I'm really looking forward to this as well. To echo PF's statements, thanks to Bo and our professors for doing this.

So that I understand the guidelines here, as a player I should *not* be commenting here on this thread about the game itself, correct?

Uh oh, eliminate them.

Thanks Bo, peterwiggin, and uclabb for making this possible!

Obligatory repost of pw's past lecture:

Lecture 1 Spring 1901 Diplomacy
Title: Looking at the Game

We have no moves to analyze quite yet, so I will spend our first lesson describing how I think of the game. Some of this is completely original; a lot of it, however, is based on articles I've read in the Pouch*. This paradigm will be the framework for my future analyses and lectures, so pay attention!

There are three primary skills and three primary dimensions to Diplomacy. We will consider first the dimensions. The most obvious dimension is material: the goal of the game is to be the first to 18 centers, and it is easy to count the dots and armies and fleets and tell who is ‘winning,’ and for many players, that is all on which they judge an ongoing game. However, more advanced players will know that having the most centers doesn’t mean you’re winning (unless you have 18, in which case you’ve won!) – they will consider other factors, which I will divide into the dimensions of time and space. Although it is material that ultimately decides the game, advantages in time and space can be traded for advantages in material, and it is thus important to consider them. One example that illustrates this is the Orient Express opening for Austria and Italy, in which Italy leaves Tunis empty and Austria lets Italy borrow Trieste in Fall 1901 in order to gain time and space by moving the Italian fleet into the Aegean Sea. When done right, over the next few years, Italy and Austria will easily make up their temporary sacrifice in material by using their advantages in space and time to take Turkish and Russian centers.

On one level, evaluating material is as simple as counting the number of pieces a player owns. However, it must be noted that some pieces are stronger than others (but all supply centers count the same when the game ends!). For example, units that are far from their home centers represent a significant investment in time (more on that later!). The forward unit becomes even more useful when it is behind the enemy’s lines, as it can often tie up two or three opposing units all by itself. On the other hand, a unit tasked with defending multiple provinces is weak, as a savvy opponent will exploit it to break a line or pressure it, force you to reinforce it, and then shift his attack.

Likewise, there is more to space than looking at the map and seeing who owns what. Owning a space is not necessarily the same as controlling it, and it is often possible to control a space (although obviously not use it) without owning it. For example, a mistake beginning players often make is to leave no or very few forces around an agreed-upon DMZ, seeing only the fact that it is empty and missing the fact that their ‘friend’ has the units around to control it. This control can easily lead to ownership as part of a stab.

Time can be as simple as counting how far each piece has gone from its starting home center. Whenever possible, a player should strive to have his units be active – for them to actually be moving rather than bouncing, issuing supports, or worst of all, holding. Each turn is a chance to improve your position on the map, and the best way to do that is to move your pieces. That said, there definitely are times when bouncing and supports are essential: this makes time the most subtle of the dimensions to evaluate in a game, but the important thing is to keep in mind that freeing up your own units to move is generally good, as is tying down other powers’ units.

Therefore, when considering the board, good players seek to create and exploit advantages in time, space, and material in order to achieve victory or prevent somebody else’s victory: this is strategy. Strategy is the most long-range, and therefore the most difficult of the three skills to master, and, in my opinion, it is what separates the great players from the good players. When formulating strategy, in addition to the dimensions mentioned above, it is also essential to consider geography (stalemate lines, where can you or somebody else get the necessary centers to win) and your relationship with each player. Once a strategy is formulated, the skills of tactics and diplomacy are used to achieve it.

Tactics is the discipline of using units to achieve short-term goals. There are many quality articles on tactics out there+, and I will merely summarize a few of the tactical considerations and tricks available. The basics of tactics are described in the rules: moves, supports, cutting supports, and retreats. From there, we gain the more advanced concepts, such as purposefully disbanding and rebuilding, forward retreats, covering possible retreats, arranged bounces, unwanted supports, convoy switches, and, on some judges (not webdip), unwanted convoys.

Diplomacy is the art of convincing others to fall into your strategy. Persuasiveness is a large component of diplomacy, but it also includes discernment and building rapport. Diplomacy can be short term: convincing another power to support your move THIS TURN, or it can be long-term: building up relationships and knowledge of the other players so that you can better exploit and persuade them later. It is easy to assume that diplomacy is limited to press, but your moves also communicate to the other powers (in gunboat, that’s all the communication you get), and how well your moves and your press correlate can be the most influential factor of all!

I strongly suggest that anyone who hasn't read through some of the past SoWs to look at the opening posts from past SoWs (links are in the current SoW thread). It's a bummer that some of the past ones are gone.

It's hard to write a post that isn't largely a retread of past opening posts. What I would stress is the following:

1. Diplomacy isn't primarily a strategy game. It's a social game. The most important thing is to develop (working, not necessarily positive) relationships with players on the board and to make sure that the story of the game that you want and see is the story that plays out on the board.

2. When you stab someone, you probably did something wrong. By this I don't mean that you shouldn't ever lie to people or attack people. What I mean is that your goal should be to make small moves and build solid relationships such that you never have to make a game changing move because the game is already warped in your favor.

3. People want to do what is easiest. So you should make it easy to work with you and hard to work against you. There are two main elements to this. Socially, you should be fun to work with and unfun to work against. Be a generous ally. Gossip about other players on the board and cultivate an us vs. them mentality. Don't be a sociopath and actually mean it when you say you want to work with them. Strategically, think about the in between moves that remove the ability for people to attack you. Find people places to attack that aren't you. Work hard during the build phase to get units on the board that will lock people into moving away from you.

4. People want to say yes. So ask for what you want.

Please PM me any questions/thoughts etc and I can post in more detail either about this or anything else people would like discussed. I'm hoping peterwiggin and I can get a dialogue going as we think about the game in fairly different ways, I think.

Yes, you're correct. Once the game starts, players will not be permitted to comment in the thread. You'll have an opportunity to make some EOG statements and discuss afterwards.

As always, looking forward to this as well

Looking forward to an exciting game. I shuffled everything and set the game up again this morning so everything should be all systems go.

For starters, to those of you in the game, please keep up with the thread. It's a really important part of the game and even if you don't want to read every word, at least skim comments. Hopefully there will be a lot to pick through but you might find some of it really helpful.

Pulling a Leth here:

The end of the Spring
Armies move across Europe
Where will they end up

what an incredibly boring opening sequence for all but Germany.

To be fair, Germany's opening (presumably) took a lot of organization and plotting. Not only did he have to get France to agree to DMZ Burgundy (and stick to it), but I imagine that he and Italy also discussed the move to Piedmont, preoccupying France's other army. There's a lot at play in that move. If England had followed with a move to the channel, it would have been really, really interesting.

I am just impressed at his current position.

It's a good move, sure, but he's going to need to keep the momentum going. France is capable of defending himself fairly effectively so long as he can keep Italy off of him and England stays away.

France cant really take Spain however so its essentially a 1 build phase. Which isnt really that bad for France. However Germany doesnt seem to have alot to worry about or any reason to back off.

Nope, no reason to back off at all unless Russia or England cause him bother.

Personally, if I were France, I wouldn't necessarily be against moving Marseilles to Spain. Having Germany in Marseilles in a place where a) I can cut his support so that he can't move a new unit to Burgundy, and b) I can ideally find a way to take Marseilles back without him being able to support it at some point down the road. The main concern with that move would be if Italy tries to go for Piedmont again, because then Germany might have support.

Can't wait to see how that side of the board works itself out.

I appreciate everything about Peregrine Falcon's comment.

I would agree. Leaving Paris open is probably the riskier thing to do actually

Might be. It's difficult to quantify which is worse at this stage. That's basically what I mean when I say that Germany hasn't actually achieved anything in this front against France yet because until he has support, his attack is simply a rogue unit that is obviously annoying but not a huge detriment to France. Makes me wonder what Italy's role in all of this is going to be.

The main point to make here is this- France's moves are incoherent. If Italy is going to Piedmont, that means he has heard some word that he has help from somewhere. DMZing EC is ok because that fleet is better in MAO anyway, but not moving to Burgundy is unacceptable. You are very likely to get stabbed and the bounce is fine as it leaves you with 2 builds no matter what. Furthermore, you have a good diplomatic reason for requesting it (can't make yourself too juicy when Italy is coming west) and Germany isn't going to want the bounce, so now all of a sudden instead of trying to convince Italy to move west he's going to try to convince him not to.

The rest of the moves are very basic and boring. In general, this favors the outside powers like Turkey and England (and Austria to a degree) at the expense of powers that have a less fundamentally solid position like Italy and Russia.

Leaves blow in the wind
As invasions scour the land
The neutrals will fall

Textbook Lepanto
yet Turkey attacks Russia
who answers Rum-Sev

France and England bounce
while Germany grabs Paris
and denies Sweden

The central powers
Completely kicked ass this year
Nobody else did

*Sev-Rum
wheee I love being able to edit my posts

are you volunteering to dev Lethologica? :D

Touché.

2016 Study Group 1901 Commentary

Most of this is pretty standard, without any moves that really stand out as particularly good or bad. I’ll talk about the few that do, and then speculate on the possibilities for each power.

Obviously, the moves that stand out here are Germany getting Paris while France got bounced out of Belgium. Once Germany got into Burgundy, France had hard decisions to make in the fall. Burgundy could have gone for Belgium, Paris, or Marseilles, and France needed to guess correctly with his armies in order to pick up builds. Going for Belgium, however, is sub-optimal here unless France has really good reason to believe that England will support him in, and even then it’s risky. Here’s why:

1. pic-bel is very likely to bounce. Either England or Germany can independently bounce it.
2. If Germany’s not bouncing you, he’s either going to Paris or Marseilles.

Basically, pic-bel was unlikely to succeed, but left Paris undefended.

mar-spa is equally likely to lose Marseilles, but this isn’t nearly as bad. Marseilles is more difficult for Germany to hold than Paris, and mar-spa is guaranteed to succeed, so you don’t end up in a case where you lose a home center without gaining anything.

Of course, as Germany, in the absence of other information, I’d probably go for Marseilles. That he didn’t, that England bounced Belgium, and that Germany bounced Sweden leads me to believe that E/G coordinated their press here, so that England tricked France into leaving Paris undefended in return for Germany keeping Russia out of Sweden. Usually, I don’t like the bounce in Sweden, but if I get Paris out of it, it’s hard to complain.

So now, power by power prospects.

England: You seem to have a solid ally in Germany, Norway is probably safe, and neither France nor Russia are going to be in position to hurt you. You need to be thinking about what your next build and the build after are going to be though. I would probably be working out a deal with Germany that gets me into one of Belgium or Sweden this year. Possible builds are fleet Liverpool, for taking the fight to France, and army Edinburgh, which is more flexible, and could allow me to convoy one army into Belgium to begin the French campaign while convoying the other into Norway to begin a northern campaign. If you played that right, you could even pick up St. Petersburg AND Belgium in 1902.

France: My big goal right now would be to turn England against Germany while I work on taking back Paris. The only viable build here is army Brest.

Germany: Good position, but no time to be complacent. I need to keep England on board, while giving France some semblance of hope so he doesn’t suicide against me while donating centers to England. I want to be taking either Sweden or Belgium this turn while completely breaking France’s defense to prepare for taking Marseilles or Brest next year. I’m also thinking of timing my move for Warsaw.

Russia: Getting bounced from Sweden is annoying, because now you have needs in the north and the south, and only one build to plug two holes. In the south, the fleet in Rumania says you’re working with Austria against Turkey, and begs for a build in Sevastapol to push south. However, that would leave St. Petersburg rather undefended, and against an E/G, that would mean losing St. Petersburg.

Italy: Lepantos are boring, but they work pretty well when Austria and Russia are onboard. My goal here though, is to make sure that when A/I/R breaks down, I’ve got enough builds to not be an easy mark, and that both Austria and Russia prefer me over the other.

Austria: Two builds, empty Galicia, and a fleet in Rumania make for a good first year. My goals now are to take Bulgaria, and then to make sure that when A/I/R breaks down, but Italy and Russia prefer me to the other. I might also start thinking about getting somebody from the west to pressure at least one of Italy and Russia.

Turkey: The fleet in the Black Sea is nice, but if you can’t break A/I/R, you’re going to have trouble. I would focus now on getting Russia to focus on the north while also making sure that E/G don’t let up on him. Meanwhile, I start pointing out to Austria that he’s going to get squeezed between Italy and Russia, and point out the benefits of an A/T. I also build a fleet in Smyrna and tell Italy that if he Lepantos, he’s going to end up a year or two behind Austria based on my defense, and that he’ll do much better if he works against Austria instead.

Bump

The German setup this game is a great example of overextending beyond one's own scope of power on the board. I hope a professor gives a moment to discuss that concept.