No, clearly uclabb waived the build without discussing it with ATC.

*chuckle* Of course! Nobody sends press in these non-gunboat games, right?

(I meant whether ATC was insisting on it, or whether uclabb decided to do it mainly off his own bat, or some other middle ground thing. Obviously they talked - I'm just curious whose idea it primarily was.)

GOD THOFI WHY WOULD ATC INFLUENCE UCLABBS BUILDS? WHY?!
get yourself together and start making sense.

Can I just divide 1 by infinity instead? That seems simpler.

If uclabb's withholding a build, it's because he sees it as the only way to keep the A/R afloat. Whether that was ATC making demands or uclabb knowing that ATC was getting queasy and preempting those demands is largely irrelevant.

Really though, I think withholding builds is a tactic not used often enough. On top of being a useful diplomatic tool as it was here, it can also allow you the freedom to choose what to build later if you don't need the unit immediately (e.g. if you're Austria or Russia and you're going to need more than one new fleet in the future, though that doesn't seem to be the case here), and on top of that, patience is its own reward.

patience being it's own reward did not lend itself to uclabb's favor last time he was with ATC

If Russia decides to attack there's not much Austria can do to defend, especially with the F Trieste build. It might actually be prudent for Russia to attack at this point or negotiate a Rum transfer. Austria is virtually at 15 with Rom, Nap, Mar, Spa and Por for the taking in the coming two years. I'm guessing France rather throw his sc's to Austria than yield them to England after last turn.

Interesting game and love the peanut concept.

Not sure what France is talking about, sounds to me like my analysis was pretty accurate. He's primarily in revenge mode and chances are nobody see'd enough value to try to salvage his participation in a resistance right now. Only way Austria gets a solo off the current path is if everybody else's egos cause them to do foolish things. The tension over Norway isn't a great sign though, so maybe.

maybe someone else can weigh in, but I'm not even convinced they need France and Italy to stop uclabb from taking the solo. I feel like England, Russia, and Germany can probably do it on their own.

I mean, if it were me, I'd take France's deal just to be safe, but I'm not sure I'd feel like I have to.

Munich is 18 and if France doesn't feel like he's a valued member it will be non trivial to root out.

I'm not convinced *Austria* is the solo threat right now.

You can be confident that these players aren't really the type to take France's deal out of safety. Everyone still alive wants to solo, and they're going to let Austria be more dangerous to help them achieve that.

Well, I'd argue that France's deal probably helps France, Germany, and England if they ever want to get back in the game and try to solo. What it does for Russia is a more interesting question, maybe.

I'm not convinced it would help England more than an E/R or even just an E/G with some good tactics would right now.

Really, it just comes down to Austria not being the solo threat he's being made out to be. Nobody's going to sacrifice their own positioning to mobilize to stop him.

I think england will profit the most from the perceived solo threat. Will Russia already help attack Austria or is he gonna wait? What do you guys think?

I think he sticks with Austria for now. Austria doesn't withhold the build if he doesn't think he has a Russian friend, England just built A-Lvp, and Russia doesn't have good relationships France and England.

*bump for moves*

+1 for @ghug ? It's not Fall yet, though. :-)

So, a rather unsurprising turn, but a few tricks were missed there.

England: Well, getting France not to attack you with avengeance is a solid job, and you've held onto Liverpool for another year. I think you made a big error putting the army into Kiel rather than the fleet though - you can't defend both London and Belgium with your retreat now, which means you'll have to hope for a Franco-Russian bounce in Belgium if you're to get anything here, and you're also vulnerable to losing Kiel to a German attack. A-Lvp was the better build, but your position is still not great.

France: Noble though your quest to immediately prevent an Austrian solo is; Austria clearly saw it coming and took his own foot off the gas with Russia, and as a result, it's hard to see how your long term position is tenable here. Marseilles will fall, Munich is under only a very brief respite, and the MAO is likely to fall next year too, with Iberia after that. Survival prospects look grim if Austria and Russia go back to working with each other. Best that could be expected though, as the damage was all done last year.

Germany: Putting France into Munich was smart; keeps the conflict fluid down there as AR move on Munich, and means that you finally have a good shot at retaking Kiel this turn and *maybe* finally getting another build. I hope you can take the opportunity here, and won't be giving any cookies until you finally do, though.

Italy: You and Russia really missed a trick on Clyde there. That fleet should've been disbanded, guaranteeing you Liverpool and allowing you to build a unit down south or forcing Austria to stab you. GoL is just a continuation of your Austrian puppetry, and without a build, I still don't think you'll actually survive this game.

Austria: Good. The waived build and fleet build to try to stop Russia from invading you seems to have worked, so that's a definite kudos. Bulgaria is now safe, and you can defend Rumania in Autumn too, with Russia also kept out of Galicia. All round, solid defence. Italy remains on his leash, Marseilles should be yours, and the fleet build going toward Turkey makes that a very difficult prospect for Russia to easily defend. Solid job all round. Another cookie for you; the only one anyone gets this turn.

Russia: Disappointing. Clyde should have been disbanded, with Norwegian Sea covering Edinburgh to bounce Liverpool - the German support for North Sea was always likely to be enough. Getting Italy a build to defend himself from Austria should've been priority number one there and you really missed a trick in that - which also ties up Edinburgh and NAO for yet another turn, and indeed, Norwegian too when you actually make that move this turn (probably). Elsewhere - god knows what you're doing in Silesia. There's no way in hell you should be supporting Austria back into Munich, so the only way that's remotely sensible is if Austria has promised you Munich to buy your allegiance - and that would be very surprising. The failure to take Galicia is very disappointing - you should be in there whether or not you're allying with Austria, simply to have a measure of control over him. And with Rumania not an option because you convoyed to Ankara instead of Constantinople, and thus can't cut the Bulgarian support, you've further limited your options in the south. Working with Austria wasn't a bad decision, but the way you've gone about it was poor, and limit your own chances later in the game. 150 lines of "I shouldn't waste turns when I can disband my opponents units"

I think you're too harsh, HR. Neither uclabb or ATC will solo if they attack each other now. So they're working on a set-up where neither of them will be too tempted to attack, or too paranoid about the other party stabbing. That'll require both of them moving their units to less scary positions.

Sev-Ank is great, because the follow-up can be Bla-Con, and then Gre and Con can keep bouncing in Aeg. That's safe unless either party brings in an additional fleet.

War-Sil is a great move for Russia, because it removes an army away from Austria (although in the event of a stab it can always be used to cut Bohemia / support into Galicia). And with the army next to Munich and Berlin, ATC has bargaining value for England, France and Germany.

Meanwhile, uclabb is moving back to Serbia & Bulgaria, which should be easy to hold, and his chances to stab ATC aren't also that great. He'd need to move Tunis to Ionian, then support Greece-Aegean, and then it's still only a guessing game whether he gets Con or Smy. My guess is uclabb will prefer to use that fleet in the West.

I do agree that Nwg S Ska-Nth was a mistake.

Bump for England getting #SHREKT

So it looks like the RUM thing was bounced planned because if Austria truly meant to attack Russia he would have taken it with SER, not BUL, for obvious map related reasons. But it doesn't seem like wasting two units on MUN makes sense if he knew it was going to be support held by SIL. And it makes sense that Russia would want to offer something to France for the move to Belgium and such. So we'll see if that leads to any tension.

Moving to Sweden? probably not planned. Moving to Prussia sends a huge flag that Russia did it to actively move against Germany, who, now with France on his side and England #SHREKT he no longer needs. Pawns don't promote in this game bro, you either die a pawn or stop being one.

Italy getting a build? Probably not planned. Even now GOL is pretty boxed in for personal Italy growth, and any new build CERTAINLY will be. Again, advice about pawns as above. I say "planned" as in Austria was hoping that Italy would not get LVP. I assume Austria gave England advice such that the desired outcome would become reality, but clearly it was either too WIFOM or something else happened.

France gets a build, two if he disbands but that would be highly suboptimal compared to Portgual most likely, unless he goes A PAR and *A*, not *F*, MAR to further hide inland, which, frankly, is a fine choice both for trying to run from the solo threat and / or giving the solo away.

Those are some initial thoughts.

Let's look at 18.

For Austria it's POR/MAR/ROM/NAP/CON/SMY/ANK puts him at 17. SEV isn't holdable without GAL or some shenanigans with the Black Sea / Armenia being supported by Northern centers. Both possible but not necessarily ensured or likely. MUN is holdable from the North, and currently, but an angry playdipper german controlling that support line....I'll keep my money in my pocket.

For Russia, it's not nearly as obvious. Which is weird because he has 10 supply centers as well. But let's see. While I kinda just gave Antolia to Austria in the solo path, it's not nearly so obvious that Russia can just get an easy 3/4 out of the Balkans, especially if there's an A BUD build (Austria, bless his soul, already has enough fleets). In the North he can force Berlin assuming no French interaction, and from there probably DEN and KIE, that puts him up another couple, and maybe he gets all of England? Quite possible as well. It's not that he's less of a solo threat per se, it's just not as obvious where those 18 are coming from.

Personally I'm rooting for
#disband
#A MAR
#A PAR

I'm confused, because if ATC knew there would be a bounce in Rum, and he is stabbing uclabb (which the support hold in Munich seems to indicate), why not move Ank-Bul with convoy? That would've gained him a center, and created three new weaknesses for uclabb.

Not letting someone go past 10 =/= full on stab/attack.

Not to mention he could have not known uclabb would attack with BUL rather than SER for all we know. Not to mention I did mention it can't not add stress to that relationship.

I think the biggest development is the extra Italian unit - it changes the dynamic in the med.

After this turn, it seems much less likely that Austria will be able to easily eliminate the Italian at will, which puts a cap on any Austrian growth. Any count to 18 for Austria must now either include Italy's blessing (unlikely) or while fighting a front against Italy simultaneously (also unlikely). For Russia, any count to 18 needs to take some pretty large hurdles; either full conquest of Germany (up to Brest in some counts), or though full domination of the Balkans (also pretty tough assumption).

Also, 7.8/10 not nearly enough global banter.

Anyone want to take a punt on what the Italian build will actually be? :-) Army or Fleet, and where? I'm going to bet on Fleet Naples, but I really am not confident of that guess.


For that matter, none of the other builds around the board seem obvious either. A Mar seems the most likely, then... I dunno. A War, A Vie; A Bud, A Sev; A Tri, F StP/nc; in decreasing order of likelihood? :-)

I don't care to bet on the English disbands at all, all options seem pretty ugly.