@Tru That's a very optimistic description of what players should be doing in each phase. While we're waiting, could you discuss what players who are not in such great positions should do in the mid- and end-games?

Do we need to find subs for turkey Germany and Austria?

@peterwiggin: allow me to shamelessly quote myself :)

"If you're not the guy in the driver's seat, your role is to break up alliances that are against you and to continuously read the board and convince others that they need to target someone else to either prevent a solo, prevent a personal threat by getting others to personalize that threat as well, and to find your footing and growth to change the course of events that are not unfolding in your favor. "

A few examples of this are as follows:

--Early game: let's assume you're the odd man out and are facing a fight alone against an alliance. Assume you're England in the Germany/France alliance example. You need to work at breaking up the alliance. Here are a few examples:
1) in the Spring and Fall as alliances are forming and you aren't necessarily the "losing" force, you work to establish checks and balances. If I'm England, part of my press is sometimes (but not always or even a majority of the time) befriending Russia and/or Italy. If I can talk to them and get on their good side, in the event of a FG alliance, I may be able to convince Italy to push into France or Russia to push into Germany. You do this by offering them something in return. This allows you to have an ally in case things go sour.
2) If you can't (or don't) get the checks and balances guy to work with you and you find yourself in a perilous situation, you simply try to get someone to see your downfall as bad for their success. If I'm England and I'm going to be losing, Italy, Russia and sometimes Austria are my go-to guys. You have to paint a picture to them that gets them to believe that when you die, France and Germany are coming for them as their next target. You have to make it believable but you also have to offer an alternative. It's not enough to simply say "hey man, if you don't help me, you're the next to die". Most players don't buy into that sort of empty scare tactic because at the present, there's no evidence to support your claim. If you say "hey man, I need your help. If I die, you could be the next target. The only way to prevent that is to send even one unit to my aid. If you do, I will make it worth your while. I'm not looking for growth, but you are. If you can send even 1 unit my way, I can give it support into my enemy's nearby center(s)." This approach has both believability and something to offer. Even if the person you're talking to doesn't buy into your doom and gloom story, they will at least consider your offer because they stand to benefit. A note on this: YOU have to be the one to put the plan together. You can't count on someone else to come up with a plan to rescue you (and you shouldn't expect it, either). Some players (myself included) are often interested in helping a weak guy because they offer things without really asking much in return. I tend to like allies like this because of what they offer. Sometimes, I'm the guy that offers to help a weakened player in exchange for something profitable. (See my midgame segment below).

Midgame: If you're the losing party in the midgame, strategy depends on your scenario. Let's assume that you're Germany in the midgame and after defeating England, France decides his best means of moving toward the solo is to plow straight through you. You bought into his ruse to turn and fight Russia only to be knifed in the back. This is the part where keeping up a positive relationship with the east (or west if you're part of the east) is extremely beneficial. At this stage, you work to paint a picture to others of a very strong and dominating France that is looking to solo. You need the help, and if it doesn't come soon, France will be out of control. Again, this needs to be both (a) believable, and (b) carry some sort of reward. If France is genuinely a strong solo threat (even if he hasn't moved into a solo-possible position yet), others will see it and the reward is stopping the solo. This tends to take place in the endgame more than the midgame for obvious reasons. Therefore, you need to offer incentive for others to stick their necks out and help you. This offer is much easier to make because both spheres are condensing, alliances are shifting, and players are looking to other areas to make gains, so why not accept your offer to push into your sphere and take centers with your support? The drawback is that it carries risk. Anytime you're inviting someone over to play, you're opening up a player to become a possible solo threat by crossing the stalemate line. Second, and equally important is the possibility that they come to your aid only to side with your enemy and knife you further. Again, checks and balances comes into play. Always try to have a backup plan. This can't always happen, but you need to always *try* to make it happen. Simply allowing the game to go its own course only means you'll lose. You have to have the mindset that your position won't change unless you actively work to make it change. Keep talking, keep moving and keep making deals.

One example of this is a game I played recently where I was Germany. I got screwed early on by a EF alliance that I didn't think was on the map. I requested Russian aid and quickly found myself fighting 3 countries. At each season, I made offers to players and they would accept only to betray me again. I knew I was probably being duped each time I made an offer, but it had to be done. If I quit talking and quit proposing plans, then my game ends at that point, even while I have units on the map. I spent the remaining few years in the game offering myself to anyone that would have me. In the end, I had to settle to giving France everything I had just to screw England who, in my mind, betrayed me the most when he could have gained far more by working with me. I lost, and years later France soloed. It's not a happy ending, no, but not all of them are. It's times like these when things continuously go from bad to worse that you have to keep playing. I believe that THIS is what defines a Diplomacy player. The guy that can play to the very end. It doesn't mean that I didn't get pissed off and wish that this was a FtF game so I could punch someone in the gut (would never happen but it's nice to picture :), but I have to get pissed, take a step back, turn the game off for a few hours, collect myself and approach the situation from a different, more calm attitude.

Look at the board from the standpoint of other players. What would they want that you can offer? If you're them, would your deal be worth changing course? Back again to your shoes: Can you reasonably offer what you're offering or is it just blowing smoke up someone's butt? If you make an offer, what are the chances that things will instead get worse? What other offers can be put on the table?

For this reason, I take EVERY Spring, retreat, Fall, retreat and build phase to the maximum limit. I talk to everyone. I may stop talking to someone for a while because I feel that talking to them won't be productive, won't be believed, or won't get me somewhere. Sometimes people simply need you to be silent because listening and responding might be falling into another trap.

Last, choose your words carefully. This is Diplomacy--the game of skillful negotiation. You're in hostile negotiations. The last thing you want to do is say something tongue in cheek, half hearted, cocky, belittling, or anything that could be misconstrued in such a way as to cause others to loathe you, find you irritating, or not believe you. I try to picture my press going to the other person and imagine how it would be received. There's a time for bluntness, there's a time to refuse an offer and call the other guy an idiot if he thinks that you're going to accept such a ridiculous thing. There's a time to speak volumes and a time to say half a sentence. Part of this is knowing/getting a feel for the other players and what they respond to. If you send a ton of press to people with low attention spans, they're liable to read the first sentence, last sentence and not care about anything in between. Likewise, if you write short sentences to a very detail-oriented person, they may think you don't value them or think you don't care to take the time to really put forth the effort to communicate. Getting out of a bad situation requires more work than maintaining a good one.


Endgame: Here, it's important that you make yourself indisposable. Don't be afraid to put yourself in a crappy position. You're out to stop a solo. If you're down to a handful of centers, then guarding your homeland isn't priority-one. If you reduce yourself to protecting the one or two centers you have, then you're allowing someone the opportunity to solo just to survive. The way I see it, a survival under a solo is just as crappy as a defeat when the board draws. Either way, you lose, but by not protecting your piddly centers and instead throwing yourself out there to fight the flood, you can put yourself in a valuable position for the defending team. When you do this, the defenders WANT to keep you in this game because your units and their locations are vital to THEM not losing. That's what I mean when I say you have to make YOUR loss THEIR loss. When the game is on the line, it comes down to everyone else working without regard to who stays and who goes to lock the game up. After the game gets locked up and the solo threat is diminished, players can resume looking at the board and deciding if and how to trim the fat.

@Ogion: let's take a role-call first to see who is currently here in the game and see who is AWOL and then go from there.

I'm still around

I am here. All but one have voted unpause and the last one has moves in. The pause was supposed to be over a week ago. Why can't we just restart the game?

I'm in the process of ironing out a decision with Turkey's TA. It's likely that before the weekend is over, a replacement will be used, even if it's temporary.

Anyone remember the password?

OK! Things appear to be back (?) Turkey is here to unpause. If all players would unpause, we can get this thing rolling.

Unpaused, phase reset. Let me know if someone doesn't make it back.

Will do. Thanks bo!

@Tru
Thanks for answering my questions in such detail. You're doing a great job as professor. I'm wondering now how I'd do in a game against you; if you're as good as your commentaries suggest, you'd be quite a challenge.

Also, all my forum posts now are responses to tru . . .

Thanks peterwiggin! I do consider myself good competition, but we also have to keep in mind that (a) press has a big impact on an outcome and (b) everyone can lose their head in times of duress. If you ever wanted to see me at my worst, look at the Full Disclosure game where I played France. I should have died and it was my most notoriously bad play I can remember to date.

Fall 1910

This is in no particular order:

Turkey: Bad call ousting Austria in Serbia. Sure, you got a build from it, but your build comes in away from combat and the fact that you have only 1 army bordering Serbia means that the it will fall under French control next year. You really should have shuffled units around: Gre-Bul, Bul-Rum, Rum-BLA, BLA-Con. Either that or Austria should have made an attempt at Tri with it being vacant. Either that, or you should have supported Gre-Alb to look at the possibility of popping his army and sending it back home. France was going to plug the hole in Tri and unless that plug came from Alb (which was counter to where he was going), you'd have a clear shot at stopping him on your front.

Next, the BLA still hasn't moved. You've had 2 fleets trying for the ION for two and a half years. That's plenty of time to have put the BLA fleet into the waters, storm the ION and threaten France. Let's look at a scenario:

Turn back the clock: you just moved a second fleet into the AEG where France had 2 fleets present. The nearest French fleet to you was in the MAO and he was working at defending against an English rebuttal. At some point that season, you and England struck a deal to quell the French solo threat. You parked a fleet in Sev and allowed England the freedom to move his armies toward Germany without fear of a stab. Nicely done. Let's say, instead of supporting a failed move to Rum, you decided your best bet was to move the BLA to Con.

Now it's Fall 1908. You couldn't actually get the fleet there with all of the traffic.
Spring 1909: France moves Alb-Tri. This frees you up to shuffle units and get a third fleet in play to combat the ION. Put AEG-Gre, Gre-Bul, Bul-Con and Con-AEG. It's ugly and it's a lot of moving parts, but hey, it's there.

That means, by the Fall of 1909 and going into Spring 1910, you could have pushed France out of the ION and pushed a fleet into it. The French fleet going from Spain sc-MAO means he's out of position (he still was in Spa sc as well). This means that for Spring 1910 moves, you have the ability to hit Tunis, Naples or TYN, whichever you think will succeed. The French retreating fleet from the ION will occupy one of the zones but the other two will be empty. If he retreats to Nap, Tun is yours. If he retreats to Tun, Nap is yours. If he retreats to TYN, then you can bet he won't stay there and you can move to the TYN to avoid a 50-50 guess as to whether he defends Tun or Nap. Couple this by supporting a second fleet to the ION from the EAS and you've got a fleet that can cut support at the ADR giving you a firmer grip on Tri.

While you're camped in the TYN, you can hit Rome, GoL to threaten Mar, and all manner of other things.

But, for 5 full seasons, you've kept a fleet bottled up in a location that nets you less than nothing (it nets you nothing if you can use it to defend locations that an army could defend--like Serbia. Less than nothing because not only is it in a spot that's useless, it can't even support your current position while France takes Ser next year).


The bottom line in all of this is that (a) you really need to think about the most ideal unit positioning possible with a goal in mind, and (b) when stopping a solo, it's not about who has X number of units. The size of your army means nothing in a survival scenario. It's winner-takes-all. I would much rather prefer drawing with a 1 SC Austria than receiving a survival with a build coming to me.

Case-in-point, I played Turkey recently in a similar situation. France was looking to solo and England and I were trying to stop him. Austria was stronger than your current situation (5 units) and he was working with France, refusing to lay off of me and turn around and face a solo threat. My only option was to throw up a draw vote and tell a fledgling Austria to cast a vote and threaten France to his face if he didn't also draw, just to ensure that the game ended in a draw. Believe me, I wanted to eliminate Austria, who was a pain in the neck all game, for years. Nothing would have brought me more pleasure than to see him eliminated, reduce the draw size by 1, and teach him a lesson about common sense. Unfortunately, it wasn't something I could afford.


England--Not a bad year. The loss was of Kie was inevitable. At this point, France will take control of Serbia, so your job (and that of the rest of the map) is to prevent the loss of Berlin, Norway, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Denmark, Warsaw or Greece. One more loss and this game is over. That's 7 centers where France can hit 3 of them that are currently empty, or support himself into the other 4 with an attack/single support combo. To pour salt into a wound, you've got a disband coming (obviously from the Island) and Turkey has 2 units that will be of absolutely NO help at all (F Rum and F BLA).

France--start your celebration dance, one more year and you will be the first soloing player in a School of War that I have been part of. Since the SoW started back in 2009, I have been TA twice and professor 5 times and in each case, the game has ended in a draw.

For what it's worth, the last SoW study group also ended in a French solo... ;)

Ogion...who played France in that game? :)

Oh some noob. Maybe we should get him to TA..,

In all fairness, this one has been all VB. I've been mostly a sounding board but the plan has been his doing

There was an Italian solo fairly recently in the SoW also, but certainly they're not that common.

I wasn't part of the Italian solo or the last French one.

Sounding board or not, it is a pretty big deal to say that you've TA'd for France and twice it ended in a solo.

I would suggest that TA's, Professors and Players prepare EoG's. I believe this game will end this year.

For my EoG's, I plan on highlighting each players best moves and worst moves as well as where I feel things fell apart (if applicable).

Bump

Bump

Writing up my EOG now. Hopefully will have it for tomorrow.

Same here. A big congrats to our SoW soloist!

Congrats, VirtualBob!!!!
Was that the first solo ever for a SoW game?

In any case, congrats and one day may you beat your TAs and the professors!

I'll keep mine short and sweet. I was the TA for Turkey. Early on Turkey told me that he was more interested in the commentary than he was in one-on-one interaction, and that he didn't need/want much help from me. Save for a couple of times that he had a question, I had very little to do with this game. Congrats to France on the solo--that's pretty sweet.

Thanks for the kudos. I usually play exclusively gunboat for time reasons, and I have historically not done well on this site with full press. Ogion gave some excellent perspective on things and helped me through the difficult middle game where I usually screw up. In particular, he helped me see the latent threat from England and move both tactically and in press to preempt it.

From the beginning, I really thought that I would ally with England ... he seemed more stable than Germany, and several German "miss-moves" did not help. Then when Russia bailed and I made progress against Germany, things began to change for me. Italy was completely wild, so I had to address that, and when I convinced Germany to build 2 fleets in 1903, that pretty well dictated the strategy.

My ally, England was already demanding more of Germany to "balance" things, so I encouraged him to go ahead and take it, while still defending in the west with an eye to eventually moving on England as well. I put off actually attacking England for a couple of turns, but once I had eliminated Italy I began the solo push in diplomacy. The message to Germany & Austria: I will keep you alive if you help me solo. The message to England & Turkey: I will draw three ways as soon as you eliminate Germany & Austria. Germany played ball, so I kept him alive. Austria did not, but Turkey played ball by eliminating Austria, giving me SER in the process.

Earlier in the game, of England had eliminated Germany, (and if Turkey had been more aggressive in getting fleets in position to threaten me in the med), I might actually have gone for the draw, but once they began to work toward a 5-way draw, I was committed to the solo bid.

This was a good experience for me, and helped me see how my gunboat "read the board" has improved my full press play. I found myself less likely to be manipulated by press alone than in the past. And on the flip side, I was a little startled at how easy it was to convince others to ignore the board. Turkey refusing to bring the third fleet up and eventually taking SER was one example, but the German double fleet build was probably the best example. Getting England to back off one of his fleets at about the same time was also key.

I hope everyone learned as much as I did, and thanks a lot to all the professors and TA's for running this.

I'd like to hear from the players as well if we could