I ask this question because I am not sure people see this from the same perspective.

I personally believe in the diplomacy theory of being the non-aggressor. Waiting for other people to show something and then choosing an action. Especially in gunboat. This tends to be a strategy that wins more than it loses but occasionally one person makes an outright move and another jumps on his bandwagon.

Now, as this situation progresses eventually I will realize that no third parites are arriving and I am doomed. What do I do? I make sure that the person who speared right for me loses out. He needs to learn that this is a losing gunboat strategy so I let the other person get as much as I can.

Do other people think about this kind of stuff? Who should be losing/who needs to learn something when deciding what to do on their way out of a game?

agreed. Munich is always a good spot to be!

1. Find a way to make yourself necessary to a draw that would stop a solo.
2. If you are unnecessary and really have 0% survival chances, throw your units at whichever bastard screwed you over most.

Gunboat or otherwise, if anybody had the audacity to convince me I couldn't win, i would surely spend the rest of the game making them wish they hadn't fxxed with me.

Not that I've even been in that situation, mind you :P

Depends on the mood. I usually surrender the last SCs to the guy who fought me consistently for putting up a good fight. Those who jumped on the bandwagon later will get nothing.

I don't agree with your analysis. There is always a chance you will survive, so you do the most to stay in the game as long as possible. Give centers away that are the hardest to hold rather than giving away centers based on which player you want to have them.

In gunboat especially, I find that even with 1 or 2 centers, you can become a nuiscance enough because it is difficult to coordinate your demise. Try to hang on as long as possible and you may get rewarded with a draw. When you start throwing units at one player, you are no longer thinking of your own survival and benefit.

I disagree with you Tom. We are talking gunboat so there is no getting a draw using words. Sometimes you are completely surrounded and you just can't survive. It happens. U want to know what guides people on the way out. And specifically, what people constitute "screwing you the most."

I don't think there is even (maybe extremely rarely) where you "just can't survive". There is always hope. And if there is no hope, then you can't really screw someone on your way out since you will be so weak.

gameID=72230
I was Germany and was being attacked by England and France and Russia. Stayed alive 7-8 years with 1-2 armies. It's particularly nice when the wolves bounce themselves in your unoccupied SC.

I use survive incorrectly. What I mean is "lose" since to me, a survive is a loss.

When you are a Germany and F/E have kept the channel DMZed all game and neither has made much inroads in any direction other than you. You are down to BER/MUN/KIE. I see that as a zero percent chance, given that the rest of the board is still not into the PRU-TYR corridor. There are many such scenarios.

I think this thread might be a waste. But also, it may have shown me what I was looking for. That I am alone in my opinion and nobody notices when I screw one person vs. the other.

Right, Spell, but you still didn't hold on. You held on a long time which means you have all the more opportunity to mess with what I would have chosen as England.

"That I am alone in my opinion and nobody notices when I screw one person vs. the other."

I think most good players do notice when one player is screwing another player, or throwing their remaining weight a certain direction.

If I see the way the game will take and not see a space for me there, I won't try to hang out longer just in hope some fluke will result in me taking a part in the draw. I'd rather go out with a bang than limping into state where I simply exist. Maybe you always see hope but I don't and I don't want to.

Part of my reasoning is in contradiction to Lando's. I love to try unusual openings and outright hostilities in gunboat. This strategy is an inferior one so I want to prop it up by supporting those who try the same in case I fail. It's refreshing to experience different developments of the game and I value this part of the game highly.

The longer you stay alive the greater chance you work your way into a draw. You cannot draw if you are not alive. You never know if the opponents will make some incompetent moves and you will be able to find yourself in a draw.

I'm with Spell.

I chose Russia because he feigned the move to Berlin that pulled me from the Maginot.

But in gunboat....I don't know what else you can do. These armies don't come with white flags :)

Interesting ulytau.

It is very hard to descrbe exactly what motivates me in these "on the way out" scenarios. That is why i brought the thread up. but it mostly comes down to, I think, which player played smarter (not better, because some people may show better tactics or whatever). But which player, in my own opinion, read the board well and acted correctly. This player I chose to reward. Or rather, the others I choose to punish.

This position is hard, Lando. If I'm an utterly beseiged center-board power, I sometimes (generally unsuccessfully) try a run at the weakest corner/edge power. If this works I have a better place to hide than in the middle, and it forces the two strongest powers to confront each other in the middle and hopefully leads them to a draw mentality. Also, often another mid-strength power will recognize what I'm up to and jump on that weakish corner power from another direction to scoop up some fire-sale SCs.

Tom, that is generally true and I don't think anyone argues otherwise. However, like Lando, I believe there are situations where you are finished. Imagine Austria with only Vienna and Warsaw while Turkey is already in Moscow and Italy is his best pal. Yes, you might still manage not to lose but it has ultimately nothing to do with your play other than guessing right when others screw up. It's fundamentally different for me than actually being an active agent in the game despite having 1 or 2 SCs.

Lando, it's hard for me to describe the motivation as well, that's why I also said it depends on the mood. I don't have a guide for acting in these situations. I once rewarded a player who executed a witty convoy move, just as my way of saying good job. Whatever feels like bringing me the most satisfaction in such a desperate situation is probably the road I'll take.

Ges, if I see a way to replace the corner power in it's geographical importance, I'll try to achieve that. If I see don't, I won't try. Maybe it will turn out I was wrong but that's the whole point of the discussion we have. Tom will always try, I will not.

@Lando
I'm with you. In press, if someone makes a dumb stab or something like that, you can tell them to their face and take steps to make sure that it doesn't succeed. In gunboat, you can't tell them, so you have to show them. That's not to say I don't fight for the draw, as I do. Luckily, these two things often go hand in hand, as a bad stab opens up a solo shot for another power, so if you can fight effectively against the person who screwed you, you can actually get to a stalemate, at least in my experience.

As someone who has not played a lot of gunboats but finds himself increasingly enjoying them, I have wondered if certain openings or moves are like bidding in contract bridge -- full of meaningful information for those in the know. (This is beyond the obvious, i.e. Italy shouting, "Hey world, I'm rushing Austria.") Is there a lot going over my head? For instance, when G heads west instead of to Denmark, is he signaling by not contesting Swe that he hopes for the Rus alliance?

I think there is meaning in every move, but I'm not aware of any well-understood guarantee that an opening means anything beyond what it *looks* like it means, and often not even that :P