Weak Press

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Carl Tuckerson
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Re: Weak Press

#21 Post by Carl Tuckerson » Sun Apr 28, 2019 7:11 pm

Octavious wrote:
Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:26 pm
We are very different players, I think :-) . A good thing, as the game would be painfully dull if we were all the same.

To give you a nice illustration, in a two day phase game (which is my preference these days with annoyances like work rudely taking up my time) I make a point of never having a strategy until the second day. Sure, every nation has its sets of possible options, but I won't make any serious attempt to choose one of those options as my preferred way forward until I've had the chance to speak to everyone. What do I want Russia to do? Get 18 centres. How do I go about doing that? It depends totally on the personalities surrounding me.

There are some tactics that are universal. There are others that can only work when applied to certain personalities. There are some players who will see you leaving an open border as a sign of weakness, others who will see it as a gesture of trust. Some who are far more willing to take chances than others. Some can be relied upon to act in their self interests at all times, others are more easily swayed by emotion. Until you know your enemy you will not know what tactics can work, will not know what strategies are viable.
This still doesn't seem to me to be exclusive of swordsman's angle. I'm sure there's a world where you're England and your French neighbor really truly honestly will be your best friend for the whole game if you let him into English Channel on the first turn and that he holds no ill affectations toward you. If you manage to get that read in the first turn, then sure, let him in, adjust your expectations in light of the knowledge that you have secured a strong game-long ally.
But you certainly would start with the presumption that he has to prove to you that he is that player, and not just another cheeky Frenchman with a lot of chutzpah and an eye for a convoy to Britain in A01. The tactical and strategic realities of the board make that outcome far more likely than the one where he really is going to be your friend. That doesn't mean you categorically write off the offer but that the presumption against the offer is higher than one in which France seeks to DMZ English Channel and support you to Belgium in A01.
To reject that is in essence to reject the idea that tactics and strategy can ever inform how you begin a game. I think that clearly goes too far.
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