+1 ^

Paused till Monday by request.

cheers ..

any commentary for us from the Profs ??

what are +1 :-(

I like the Russian position the most. He has the right allies and enemies who can't be bothered to order units to move.

Bump for commentary. Professors?

I haven't bumped for a while, so Bump.

Wonder what happened with Turkey/Italy there - it looks like there *should* have been supports for each other, but they just didn't happen. Definitely odd. The move to Serbia from Italy just makes no sense unless it was supposed to be supported by Greece.

France is in trouble, England is in a good way, Russia is doing OK but may be stuck for a year or two, Turkey seems unlikely to survive, Austria v. Italy is complicated - neither has a clearly effective attack on the other, but both are under threat from Russia...

Austria, you were going to solo this game, and then you gave it away. Obviously the NMR was brutal, but that wasn't the real problem. First, you had to build a fleet in Autumn 1904. You *had* to. When you play dip, you have to think not only about what everyone is doing next turn, but what they can do in the future. Not going fleet there (and retreating to Prussia, what?) is like a shining arrow to Russia that he is not a long term ally for you. And you're already attacking Italy. So it's pretty clear what is going to happen. Probably what you will think while reading this is "I thought Russia was about to attack me anyway, so I had to build an army." First, if this was the case, don't build in Trieste. Second, that's not true. The point is that you need to have units to work with your preferred ally. If you don't, they basically have to fight you. Now you have zero fleets and are going to have trouble getting an empty Trieste in the foreseeable future, so you and Russia are officially game long enemies whether or not the two of you admit it or not. And stop going to Burgundy that's crazy. That's playing to be the 4th strongest power in a 4 way draw, which really means playing to be the last player eliminated in a 3 way draw.

Italy, great job getting Austria's fleet in Bulgaria popped. That was an excellent response to the stab, for all the reasons talked about above. After that, though, it's not clear what your plan is. I kinda like going to West Med here to have optionality about how France turns out (probably the move is to help France here which I assume you know), and I like not zeroing in too intensely on Venice.

What I don't like is the seeming lack of purpose you have. It's nice to make ambitious moves (tricking Turkey in Con is nice) but they need to have purpose. If you are screwing over Turkey, take Greece too. If you are screwing over Austria, support Turkey to Serbia. What really should have been the goal is to procure a bloodless transfer of Venice. After the army build and the popped fleet, you should have been able to get Austria to just give it back and say "my bad."

Russia, make moves that actually *do something*. Your total progress last year was instead of armies in Moscow and Silesia you have armies in Prussia and Galicia. A wasted year. There's no reason you shouldn't have Sweden right now, for example.

Turkey, way to fight when you are down. It probably wasn't smart to separate your units in Greece and Black Sea. Greece was a loaner center for you, there was no path to relevance that didn't include you losing it at some point. So instead of defending it you wanted to use that unit for good. Basically, after popping that Austria fleet, you needed to get Austria on side against Russia and find some shenanigans from there. It would have been cute to convoy around the Con -> Bul move e.g. and go from there.

England, the commentary is the same. the after effects of the stab still are slowly playing out. You've made almost no progress *since 1903*. Hopefully people will take this situation as a lesson about stabs rather than thinking "he got in the end draw so it must have been good."

France, what's going on? You've had 3 years to make something happen, and gotten nothing going. Why isn't Russia attacking England? Why is Austria attacking you? Is Italy even attacking you now? You can't just play out the string.

@uclabb: Hehe - aren't you semi-famous for soloing as Austria with zero fleets? :-) +1 to everything you said though. Wonder if the new Austria can turn things around...

It's been said a million times - but it's always worth saying again: New player, new opportunities. The map is still the same, but lesson one of Diplomacy is that the *player* matters. The new player should hopefully already be trying to talk everyone's ear off, and vice versa.

Yeah I can't really see the study group moves being much better than the actual SoW group which is sad. You're supposed to have more experience.

Lets start a real study group game.. with me in it : D

@Gobbledydook: Study group doesn't have TAs, so that's a bit unfair, just IMO.

2016 Study Group 1902 Commentary

Sorry guys, I kinda forgot about this for a while. You can thank Bo for bugging me about it.

I’m going to go back through and do commentary on each year until I catch up. This will let me do commentary that’s informed by how things actually turned out. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than the normal way we do commentary, but it will be a nice change of pace.

So in 1902, the two things that stand out are the AIR forming and England stabbing Germany. I’m going to talk a bit about the AIR from the perspective of each of its constituents, and then talk about the stab.

If you’re going to run an A/I/R this is pretty much the way to do it: all three of you team up on Turkey, Austria and Russia go after Germany, and Italy goes after France. The conditions in the west were perfect too, as there’s pretty much no alliance there, with England, France, and Germany all fighting pretty much on their own once England stabbed Germany.

The way this particular AIR is run, I think Italy is in the weakest position. He’s leaving Venice open to Austria, and once E/G falls apart, his support for attacking France dries up, so now he’s stuck trying to take Turkish centers while everybody else can expand on both fronts. Russia isn’t in the best position here, but it’s certainly an improvement over the E/G we saw in 1901 and spring 1902. Austria has everybody moving away from him, a fleet in Rumania, Venice and Galicia empty, and he owns Tyrolia. This is a great position, as he retains the Austrian advantage of being able to strike out in any direction while negating the Austrian weakness of being surrounded.

Often in an alliance, there will be a moment or two where one person has to take a risk and hope their partner sticks with them instead of stabbing. Ideally, if you’re the one taking the risk, it should be well-calculated, necessary, and you and your ally should be well-convinced that they are better off not stabbing you. If you’re the one with the stab opportunity, you need to weigh carefully whether this is the right time to shake things up with a stab.

In this case, Germany made moves in the spring that left him pretty open to England, but he obviously thought they would pay off. There were too problems here. One, he probably didn’t anticipate Austria moving to Tyrolia and Bohemia. More importantly, he gave away his move on Russia by bouncing Sweden the previous turn, and then he took an *unnecessary* risk by moving directly to Sweden in the spring, leaving Denmark open, instead of supporting himself to to Baltic in the spring and then taking Sweden in the fall. Maybe England would have stabbed him for Holland either way, but throwing Denmark in and having Austrian pressure definitely made the stab more tempting.

From the other side, when you’re presented with an opportunity like this, you need to weigh whether the long-term gains from the stab outweigh the long-term gains you’ll get from sticking with the alliance. There is no doubt here that England’s stab is tactically effective. He has Germany crumpling, and he’s strong enough that France probably isn’t going to hurt him. However, it’s strategically problematic, especially when compared to the alternative.

First, with a strong France cutting off the Med, a resurgent Russia, and a strong Austria claiming the middle, England has effectively cut himself off from a solo shot. He’s pretty much guaranteed that he won’t lose, but in 1902, your goals should be much higher than that. At this point, in that position, your primary strategic consideration should be how you’re going to win. You don’t win in diplomacy by slowly growing until you hit 18. You win by having a path to 18 that is difficult to stop, and England is making all of his paths easy to stop here.

Second, if England hadn’t stabbed Germany here, he would have shown Germany that it’s *OK* to leave himself open and take unnecessary risks. If you have an ally in 1902 that is willing to be reckless with you, why stab him then when you can stab him in 1910 for 18? Once you make that stab, nobody is going to leave themselves open to you the rest of the game. This is compounded by the fact that, because he pretty much has no shot of beating England and Austria to German centers, France has absolutely no reason to ally with England here, especially once he talked Italy out of moving west. France has to fight England here, because if he doesn’t, he leaves himself wide open to England, and Germany has just demonstrated why that’s a bad idea.

If England had taken his other option here, he could have taken a shot at Brest of Mid-Atlantic Ocean. In this case, that wouldn’t have worked, but you know what would have been brilliant? Supporting Paris back into Brest. You give up the sexy three-build year, but you have a friend who can help you but can’t hurt you, and two obvious ways to growth that can lead to a solo.

Thanks for the commentary profs. Your +1s for commenting on the thread have been delivered.

Just looking back at the board history, I feel the need to point out:

Fall 1901: A Ukr S F Sev - Rum

F Rum has sat there for the whole game so far, and looks to be pretty much stuck. It's very good for *Austria* to have F Rum... but it makes stabbing Austria much more difficult for Russia. So if one is Austria and wants to play alliance with Russia in 1901, then this is exactly why one should ask for F Sev-Rum... :-)

Conversely, if you are Turkey and want to ally with Russia, F Sev-Rum is a sign that Russia doesn't want to ally with you, since he's crippling his ability to attack your common enemy.

These moves are so lacking. No one really made much progress.

I don't see it that way at all. England, Austria and Italy all did some important moves. Russia stood still, but Austria seems to be covering his bases well there for stab prevention, and he can't stab England, and probably doesn't want to help Austria by stabbing Italy either. France is doing his best, but is still fucked.

England's moves were strong. He did exactly what he should have done, whether you consider it boring or not. Russia has been a friend of his for a long time and there's no reason for him to turn his back on him until he's ready to take him on (which he almost is). The Scandinavian centers will be there for him when he wants them; there's no rush.

France's moves are interesting. I don't know how trying to convoy an adversary to the homeland of your immediate enemy is somehow boring. It would have been hilarious if Russia had tried it and actually bounced England's fleet. That would create a massive diplomatic shitshow.

Austria's moves left a little bit to be desired from my perspective. The move to Piedmont is non-beneficial in my opinion, though as it turns out, it allows him to defend all of his home centers that are threatened and Venice too, so it worked out in his favor. Unfortunately, he can't threaten Rome, which is what he would have been better off positioning himself to do.

Italy is now capable of defending the remainder of his homeland, vying to reclaim Venice, sneaking a build out of Greece so that he can refortify his Turkish and Balkan centers, and convoying to Albania all at the same time. How is that not interesting? The move to Apulia combined with his Adriatic fleet makes for a long, merciless battle between him and Austria. Frankly, I think Russia will be the one that decides the winner.

Speaking of Russia, you all that mentioned his fleet in Rumania are quite correct. It's useless there. However, now that Turkey has to leave the Black Sea in order to avoid elimination, that fleet is going to escape and it could very well be used against Italy.

I think this is fun stuff. I don't know what you're so grumpy about.

My biggest question here is - what do you do as Russia? Italy and Austria are locked in full combat. The only centers he's really in position to take are Italian....but doing so will just help Austria. If I were Italy, the second Russia attacks I would throw everything I could to Austria and fight against Russia.

As Russia? Wait. Bounce with Italy over Bul *and* Con to make sure Turkey is dead dead, then shuffle Rum-Bla in spring. After that you're looking at an I/R Juggernaut for 17/17, which is even more deadly than the good old R/T juggernaut, since Italy's builds are halfway through the med... And some may call it care bearish to go for 17/17, but OTOH, maybe there will be opportunities to stab for victory later.

I would do just about anything as Russia to get a fleet out to the Med. Hopefully the timing works out so that he doesn't have to wreck Italy in order to do that, but at some point, Russia needs Turkey. That's his only real way of growing.

I wouldn't shoot for a 17/17. Ever. Solo until the rest of the board turns the lights out.

And yup, agree with everything said by @bo and @goldie. I don't think any of the moves were particularly surprising or novel, but then, it is mid-game. Mid-game dip moves often *aren't* surprising.

Or, if they are, then they're often sub-optimal - e.g. Austria's Tyr-Pie instead of Tri S Tyr-Ven.

Does anyone have any theories on why Austria *should* be attacking or threatening France, when he's already fully engaged in a war with Italy, and probably has Russia either stabbing him or thinking seriously about it? Maybe he just has a grudge against France from bad press early on? I dunno.

@bo :-) Of course. But there's plenty of gain to be had in *saying* "let's roll the board together", and even in going most of the way with it. Peanut Gallery One game, anyone?

Besides, right now, looking at that board, I would *definitely* take an offer either as Russia *or* Italy to roll for 17/17 even *assuming* the other player is going to try to stab for victory later, and regardless of which side I was on, I'd be considering that the benefits well outweigh the risks for now.

I don't think Austria is threatening France. France can easily defend but I wouldn't recommend he bother.

I also don't think there is room to talk about a 17/17 until there's a clear path to it. That's just empty rhetoric right now. There's a lot more game to be played. You just said it's "mid-game," so why start scheming about the end game when you don't even know what the end will look like? It's a waste of time for more important press.

There should never be talk of a 17/17, period. Those should never happen.

Isn't that what you did in the early game when you ruined my solo bo? :P