I did that once a few weeks ago.

Think before you act? That's just crazy talk.

Even true if you are taking a center but giving one up to a retreat when the one you are taking you can't hold.

Unless of course you are at 17 centers in which case the game ends before the retreat phase and you win. I was on the bad side of that deal on a France vs Austria game. /bangs head against wall.

I was recently on the good side of that deal in an Ancient Med Game. Yay!

That's a good point... does the game end before the retreat phase even considering that the retreat my take the 18th SC to the strongest player?

I had almost experienced this situation (in the end it didn't happen) in a game and I was counting on the retreat)...

Yes, the game ends before the retreat phase which is wrong in the few cases where a retreat could lower a player to 17 supply centers. But in most cases it speeds up the end of the game when the outcome is already decided.

This has been reported on the dev forum but it isn't a quick fix without causing the majority of games to have to go 1 or 2 extra phases before ending so we just have to live with it and be happy to have this great Diplomacy implementation as it is now.

re Ald - you keep reminding people of this :P

Well, I got burned by it, although I likely would have lost that game anyway, but it was a fun game and another few turns would have been more fun and who knows, maybe I would have come back in time.

Plus, it just seems really wrong. Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now.