Question: Should you play moves that are pedestrian and expected or do something that's wild and crazy? -Hazel Rah

Answer: If you're playing well, your moves should surprise your enemies and catch them off-guard, but they shouldn't surprise your allies. (If, after the move has gone through, your ally sends you a message saying "Hey, I though you were going to support me", then he's probably not going to be your ally much longer.) I'm definitely a fan of weird openings, since I don't play them often enough. Weird convoys are usually fun. Weird alliances I like (Austria/Turkey; Italy/Turkey). So if you want to impress me, do any of those things. Particularly this last turn, I've seen a lot of moves that I didn't expect, and they were all bad. If you're going to make an unexpected move, it should at least be better than whatever the expected move is. That's a good rule of thumb.

Question: If you say I should use all my pieces, why did you encourage the idea of waiving a build in some cases? -A Tin Can (Player)

Answer: You do want to use all your pieces productively, whatever that means. For example, Italy may have to keep an army in Tunis for much of the game to ensure that France or Turkey doesn't try nabbing it. In my opinion, that's a productive use of that piece. Hopefully most of your pieces find more interesting lives.

So, when would you waive a build? Consider two examples.

1. I'm Germany, and you're my ally in England. It's 1901, and I was lucky enough to get 3 builds (Denmark, Holland, and Belgium). You only got 1 build (Norway). Since you haven't been my ally for too long, I want to make sure you stick with me. So I might waive one of my builds so you don't think that I'm doing so much better than you and that you should stab me.

2. I'm Russia, and you're my ally in Italy. It's 1905, and we've been allied the whole game. I'm at 12 centers, and you're at 10. I might waive two of my builds so that, even though I have more centers, I only have 10 pieces on the board. This might discourage you from stabbing me, because you'll be less likely to think I'm gunning for a solo or trying to outnumber you to set up for a stab.

So, the build waive is an advanced diplomatic technique. It sacrifices some of your potential growth in order to shore up your allies.

bump

AT is a weird alliance? It's my first choice every time I play Austria or Turkey!

cool peter! I like that one too quite a lot. Maybe we'll play together and make an A/T happen

Bump.

I'm having a problem trying to convoy and army
It allows me to choose convoy
Then I can say where to
But it only says "..." When it should say where from

bump.

Bump. 1903 Autumn retreats.

Before anyone crucifies me, I bogged up my order. I'd intended Bel-Ruh, not Bel-Bur.

I have plenty of positive commentary for you France. Nothing to fear. Ill wait until retreats are processed to comment on the fall turn.

I don't :)

Aww man, can't win 'em all :)

to the top!

bump, sorry for my vanishing act. I'll be posting some commentary later today.

Fall 1903

Finally, a stab! Well, possibly the most polite stab I've seen in some time. "Here, before I attack you, please, let me help you have an extra center or two." I don't understand the logic, so hopefully France's EOG provides some insights for us.

I guess this is as good a time as any to initiate a discussion of stabs. Why? When? How? Lets take a deeper look.

Backstabbing is an essential part of Diplomacy. You can't win without working with, and later attacking, an ally. Whether that ally was a close friend or simple acquaintance, it will always happen, and how you initiate or respond to a stab speaks measures about your skill and tact as a player. Inevitably, it will happen to everybody at least once a game, likely more than once, and it will always feel like a kick in the balls. Its very easy to get discouraged after a stab, so properly assessing the situation and keeping a rational head can help immensely when facing a sudden attack.

Lets start at square one - how do you stab? A perfect stab has several components: it is unexpected, it nets you centers and momentum, it catches an opponent in a compromised situation, and (ideally) minimizes the chance of a prolonged war of attrition. A good stab is quick and painful but also maximizes the chances of crippling an opponent to minimize resistance. The last thing you want is to stab and end up having to dedicate more units to the attack than originally planned, due to unforeseen circumstances (such as a lucky retreat) or bad timing on the attacker's part.

Obviously, no two stabs are the same, and anything goes in full press, but a successful stab will always have certain characteristics that make it so. With that in mind, lets examine France's attack on Italy. How does it fit into this model?

Well, not very well. I'll break it down.

TIMING - France decided to throw his fleets at Italy during a fall turn. Normally, this is a good idea - grab some easy builds, hopefully cause one or two disbands, catch your opponent unawares. France does have a build here (at least for the time being, pending the English retreat). However, Italy has two! While France will likely get Tunis in the spring, Italy can put himself in a position where a drawn out stalemate in the Med is inevitable, which puts the pressure on France to keep getting builds in Germany. Otherwise, Italy may just be able to turn the tables. This also touches on one of my characteristics of a good stab - momentum. France has zero momentum and Italy is FAR from being crippled or caught off guard by the stab. Instead of a quick and painful stab, France has merely started another drawn out conflict with minimal possible gains.

POOR PLANNING - Remember last turn when France decided to help Italy take Vienna? Italy was wisely able to parlay Vienna into taking Budapest as well, giving him two builds this year, a possibility that France likely overlooked. That unit in Tyrolia would look pretty nice sitting in Venice as well. Unfortunately, since it was tied up with the only possible French build, it was useless in the stab. Italy clearly trusted France enough to ignore that unit and leave Venice open. If that is the case, that army should damn well be headed straight to Venice. Missed opportunity.

BAD LUCK - The English retreat falls into the category of dumb luck. France informed me that Bel - Bur was a misorder which should have gone to Ruhr, which makes more sense. However, that's no excuse. Double check your orders! Now, your build is possibly compromised and, should England disband, it also threatens Belgium next turn with the remains of Germany. A silly mistake.

All in all, not a very good effort from France. A pity, really, since this board really needed a good stab to open it up. Now, the south will just stay bogged down with minimal progress for the foreseeable future.

Nice write up on the French stab 2WL! I agree with everything you said.

Other things I think might be interesting to talk about this year, as some discussion topics:
- Austria has absolutely collapsed, and it didn't have to be that way. None of his pieces even moved in the past three turns. What could he have done differently?
- I really don't like the support hold of Norway by Russia this turn. It was pointless. What could he have done instead? i think this is a good one to talk about just because France has a similar decision to make this coming turn.
- If you were Italy, would you have arranged a bounce in West Med this past turn? I think I would have, not sure though, but I definitely would have considered it, and given the result, what should Italy have been thinking about when making that decision?
- Should England retreat to Belgium? (Maybe wait until the decision is made)

The support hold in Norway was only pointless if Russia didnt know that Denmark was going to bump North (as he had done for 2 years straight).
I doubt England would risk losing control of the North Sea to take back Norway (by moving to Norway from North thus allowing Germany into the North Sea)

I don't agree.

Good questions, uclabb.

- I was going to touch on the Austrian situation in my writeup, but enough has been written about his problems in the past few turns that I felt it unnecessary. He made some terrible tactical decisions in the face of the Italian stab that absolutely killed him. After the stab, he was basically a zombie - he did nothing of consequence, not even bothering to fight off Italy - even though he was in a great position to retaliate.

- The support hold of Norway was hardly pointless. Take another look at the setup from last turn - England has F NTH, SKA, NWG and A Hol. Germany's F Den had been hitting NTH each of the past two turns. If England wanted Nor, he had to double support NTH - Nor, which meant likely losing NTH and have that German fleet touching two home centers in a turn where England was only looking at one build. Plus, Russia moved up A Mos - StP to bolster support on Nor. If he ended up losing Nor this turn, Russia could easily retake next turn. That aside, a support for Nor was entirely necessary this turn.

- Italy had no reason to believe that France was a threat, given the support to Vie given by A Tyr last turn. Italy had a great opportunity to deliver a knockout blow to Austria and assert dominance over the southern half of the board, so in that situation, covering ION and moving east is a good move, especially if Austria disbands F AEG, which would give Italy free reign over Gre and Turkey. Looking at the board now, even the possibility of three French fleets really shouldn't give Italy too much cause for concern. He'll lose Tunis, which is negligible, especially if he can replace that center next year.

- I don't want to discuss the English retreat/disband until the next phase.

What I'm saying with Norway.Sweden is that I don't see a reasonable move by England that would fail due to Sweden supporting Norway's hold and would succeed without it, especially if he knew that Denmark was going to North Sea. I definitely would have ordered Sweden to Skaggerack, Norway supports Denmark to North Sea.

bumpity

Alright, I'm going to talk about a few of the countries in poor positions and then a few more general topics that this game is lacking. Global press for example.

Uclabb, at your point about the support hold in Norway from Sweden, I agree that your moves would have been better logically. However it is a "riskier" move, especially if made by a newer player who isn't completely used to anticipating all the moves on the board.

Austria, I'm sure in hindsight you realize the issue with your moves. You had Bulgaria for the taking, but you got caught up in defending a home center that you didn't have a chance of saving. Even though your position isn't great in this game I really encourage you to keep playing. My personal goals in a game are these: 1. WIN, 2. Draw, 3. If I can't do 1 or 2 then I cause as much havoc and confusion as possible!

You can still have a significant influence on the negotiations of the game. Keep talking with your TA and use this game to improve your skills in reading the board. Start predicting the orders everyone else is going to make and send those to your TA. See if he agrees and why/why not. It sounds simple but it's the best thing you can do short of playing more games to improve your diplomacy skills.

Turkey, you got caught in the trap of the corner powers. England and Turkey are both awesome countries to play because they are so easily defended. The problem you see now, is that while they are easy to defend, they are also easy to get stuck in. You really have to work on making a quick expansion into either Austria or Russia and if your plan doesn't work, you make a new one! You can't stick to the same attack if it doesn't work. As soon as you failed to take Sev or make any ground against Russia you needed to show him you were trustworthy, and you never did that. You could have easily let him take the Black Sea, he has no other units around there right now to attack your home centers with, so what are you worried about? You're ignoring the most important aspect of the game right now, the diplomacy. Talk to Russia, make a concession that will make him comfortable enough with you to work together. There's still a lot you can do to help each other, but none of that can happen as long as you keep bouncing him in the Black Sea. Keep in mind that after this long in the game he might not trust you enough to even bother listening to what you have to say now, but in future games you need to be versatile and you need to learn when to make concessions in order to better advance your long term goals in the game.

The last thing I'll talk about right now is the global press. I've posted more messages in your global chat then everyone besides Turkey and England...that's terrible! Global chat is beyond useful. You can use it in so many different ways, from "accidentally" posting messages to an ally, to just talking to other players about comic books. It gives you insight into how someone writes press, how they talk when they are interested in a conversation. Which you can then use to compare against the messages you're getting from them. I've blocked many stabs before by noticing something "off" with an allies press to me compared to the messages they were posting on global. Even if you aren't posting in global for in game advantages, it's just a fun part of the game. You have 6 other people playing in a game you like, I'm positive you could all have some entertaining conversations. That's how you get invited to games in the future, get along with the people you play with.

I'm not a global press player for the most part, though I do take advantage of it in my full press games, so I'm sure one of the other professors can add on to the reasons to use global press.

Later today or tomorrow I'll post something about the art of the stab.

Fall 1903

Right now, I'm playing in 5 games. In 2 of them, I'm doing quite well. In 1, it's too early to tell, but things look good. And in 2, I'm getting horribly killed. In all the games, particularly the ones I'm losing, I'm having fun and learning something. I hope that the students in the SoW, particularly those who are getting their head handed to them on a platter, have learned something. We'll likely have an intermediate level SoW over the winter, so there may be opportunities to get in on the action again.

Be sure to read 2WL's evaluation of the French stab above and JMo's summary of Turkey's failings and a guide to using global press.

1. France. As 2WL mentioned, your Italian stab wasn't particularly textbook, and your decision to help support him into Austria was bizarre, but you're doing well enough to be at the top of my list. French attacks of Italy can always be seen from a mile away. I mean, look how much water you have to go through to get there; there's no sneaky way to do this. France lost Belgium, as well he should have, to the British retreat. And, it's true, he will not be able to defeat Italy without help from Russia or Turkey, but I'm always a dot grubber, and I like the idea of nabbing an open Tunis. With France's disband, he gets a build, which is likely F Mar.

2. Italy. This was a great year for you. Italy wiped out the Austrian homeland, and his armies are tightly packed and ready to keep marching. Tunis is going to be lost, but does it matter? His fellow eastern powers are too uncoordinated to mount any kind of an attack on him. I'm expecting builds of A Venice and F Rome.

3. England. Once again, France dropped the ball on the Holland support-hold, but you're apparently getting used to that. At this point, England is sort of attacking Russia and sort of attacking Germany and not getting too far with either. Fortunately, there's ideas of regaining Holland and taking Kiel and making some nice progress. Putting fleets in Skagerrak and Heligoland is something I usually discourage, though, since those are places where fleets often get popped (attacked and forced to disband). Hopefully he'll get that fleet out of the quicksand fast enough. F Edinburgh is a likely build for the Brit, considering his choice to vacate the North for a season.

4. Russia. You have an awful lot of centers, and not a lot going on. Russia has managed to pacify Turkey with a perpetual bounce and lock up his position in Scandanavia. But still, he has so many great armies that are being entirely unused. Imagine if his 3 armies were working together. Look at what Italy has been able to do with 3 coordinated armies. He gets to build the undesirable A Moscow this year, to add to his collection of barely used armies.

5. Turkey. I think JMo did a nice enough job evaluating your deficiencies this game. It is hard to get anywhere as Turkey with only one fleet, particularly when that fleet is bouncing every turn. But good diplomacy could have improved things awhile ago. As usual, no builds for Turkey.

6. Germany. Germany may have fallen into NMR at this point, which is something to pay attention to. If he comes back, he'll build an army in Kiel.

7. Austria. Sometimes when I play Austria and I get attacked, I'm able to survive as a 1-center pirate in places like Moscow or Tunis. Unfortunately for our Austria, it doesn't look like he'll make it to any of those places. Austria will disband one unit, probably the fleet.

bump. This thread keeps getting pushed down by the stinking troll threads. I'll answer questions from spectators; feel free to post questions. Questions from TA's and players can be sent via PM and, if its a question i can answer publicly, i'll post it with the answer.

Apparently 2WL has been silenced on the forum, so i have an entire day to say nefarious things about my fellow professor. Mwah ha ha

ugh, dammit goldie, now I really have to make sure I get a post in tomorrow.

bump

Bumpitty Bump