School of War Summer 2019

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Balki Bartokomous
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#41 Post by Balki Bartokomous » Tue Jul 02, 2019 11:01 pm

* Unfurls 16-foot map of Europe.
* Casually pours glass of 1945 Romanée Conti.
* Sprawls out over the Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia region, concentrating on the lines of division below.
* Hums something or other from Gustav Mahler's middle period.
* Slowly looks up and glances at the packed, standing-room-only, 500-capacity lecture hall.

Hello.

Well, this is why we don't declare winners and losers after Spring 1901. England, who looked like some kind of genius a season ago, looks downright JMOian now. And Russia, who endured some public ridicule for his opening, is large enough on my map here to accommodate perhaps 13 or 14 Professor Balki forearms?

* Some front-row gunner raises her hand and asks: "Professor, how many JMO forearms could Russia accommodate?"

I mean...considering we could fit 15-16 JMO forearms in Portugal, I'm not really sure I want to embarrass anyone by doing the math.

Let's focus on what's important: Who has a lousy mentor?

*Glances down.

Ick. Looks like that's Italy and England.

Folks, this game is about people. Italy and England, like everyone else, can do practically nothing without a co-conspirator. And you both failed to get one this first year. That's your problem. It doesn't really matter where you move your pieces if you don't find someone who sincerely believes that your growth is good for them and wants to help facilitate it.

But I have good news. We don't declare winners after Fall 1901 either. There is plenty of opportunity for literally each of the seven powers. Go connect with someone. Use your build as leverage. Tell them how your growth or survival will improve their position on the board. Sometimes, you can even mean it sincerely.

I am going to draft a message from the perspective of England, but really this approach can be applied to anyone else on the board:

Dear France,

Welp, that sucked. Look, I attacked you. Germany led me down the garden path, made me believe he would support me to Belgium, and here I am with no builds. Damn! That guy is such a good player. He seemed so sincere! It seems clear enough to me that he just wanted to lock us up in an endless war to give him complete freedom on the board. Looks like it worked.

So what to do now?

Here is my general thinking. I am legitimately angry at Germany. I try to play without much emotion, but the way he played me there is a little bit humiliating, and I feel like I need to exact some form of justice. I'm going to be moving my fleets west.

I feel like you have a choice here. You certainly have the ability to attack me. I mean, I'm not an easy nut to crack, but you can pick off my centers eventually. The issue is, you've only got one build now, and you probably have to convoy an army over to England before you can take anything, and then you're going to be awfully vulnerable to attack from what appears to be a fast-growing Germany on your flank. Maybe you can make that work.

On the other hand, you can use my displeasure with Germany to your advantage. I'm basically willing to move completely in Germany's direction and support you into Belgium and then Holland if it means you'll work with me over him.

It's kind of a funny start to an alliance, I know. But, I think (1) you're pretty clearly going to be in a better position two years from now if you use me to knock out your biggest competition in the west, and (2) you can be pretty damn sure I'm telling you the truth as you can see for a fact that I am not working with Germany, and I don't have any intention of trying to do so ever again. "Fool me once, shame on me, etc."

I'm sure Germany will send you a sweet, reassuring message. I know that because I've received so many from him myself before Belgiumgate. But I hope you can see from my position on the board, and my message here that I am absolutely motivated and focused on changing course, and if you link up with me now in this sort of unorthodox way, I will work very hard to make you glad you did.

XOXOXOXO,
The humble three-center islanders
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#42 Post by jmo1121109 » Wed Jul 03, 2019 2:41 am

Review of the Fall 01 Moves

*Finishes listening to Professor Balki's lecture
*Nods in approval at the elegant press example.
On a very serious and critical note, the length of press that Balki just posted is an ACCURATE example length of the press you can expect to receive in high quality games. Get used to fully expressing yourself. I strongly suspect his example is longer then all the press some of you have sent combined. That shouldn't be the case!
*Quietly notes that Balki seems to be underestimating his skills just like the only time they've played together.

Now as we continue in the game I'm going to spend some time explaining my thought process for the turn before. What I would have expected everyone to do, in a level of detail I won't go into before the turn happens to avoid unduly influencing the game too much.

England:
So England, last turn I intentionally avoided putting much attention on the possibility of you convoying into Norway, but that is what I was hoping to see. It was an ensured build against a previously weakened Russia, and would have let you promise Germany Sweden in the fall, which may have changed what we see now. Sometimes the ensured move is the best. The most important thing in 01 is to make sure you get a build. While I can appreciate your move to the MAO due to it's unexpectedness and out of the box thinking behind it, that style should be playing more of a role in the mid and late game then in the early game. You want people to underestimate you off the bat, and proposing tactically creative moves in alliances like taking MAO in 01 is likely to scare neighbors.

Now as Balki already mentioned, your position is redeemable, especially because France's moves were especially bad and only netted him 1 neutral when he should have had 2 since it appears obvious he knew how you were going to move. Now you're in an interesting position in needing to make Russia weigh the pros/cons of letting you into Norway next year vs building north and helping crush you.

The main lesson you should take here is looking for secondary motives behind ally's plans. If Germany was behind the plan to have you convoy to Belgium, and I suspect he was, then you should have been asking yourself what happens if he's lying? What would this move-set do for him over others? If he also knew you were planning the move to MAO then he'd have known he could bounce you and prevent you from building entirely, and that is all too tempting an opportunity to open yourself up to on year one.

France:
Ahhh France, you were so close to having a brilliant set of moves there, but you slipped up. What we can see clearly is that Germany let you know England's plan to a letter, but you appear to have been concerned on his truthfulness, which explains why you went with the cautious self bounce in Brest instead of securing the 2nd build you should have had. In my mind looking at this board, having 2 builds and having one of England's fleets trapped in MAO without a build would have been a masterstroke for you and Germany. So what you managed to do right was find an ally in Germany. What you did wrong was not trust that ally enough, seemingly worrying if he was setting you up for an English convoy into your mainland. Losing MAO here to get Spain would have been absolutely worth it from a tactical standpoint. And in failing to do so, you revealed to the board the level of detail that Germany gave you about England's plan as well as the level of scheming Germany has been doing. That's both a good and a bad thing, it means that everyone on the board right now likely knows that Germany is a very smooth liar having clearly fooled England, while appealingly having passed their detailed plans onto you. This is going to make it a lot harder for the east to ignore the alliance the two of you have and might be the deciding factor for Russia in choosing whether to aid you two, or choosing to re-enforce a weakened England to allow himself to concentrate in the east.

This is something you learn through experience, what do your moves tell the board? Are your moves going to convoy that you had information you shouldn't have had? And if so, can you adjust your moves to make yourself appear to have just been lucky with a guess instead of having entered the perfect defensive moves for a scenario you appear to have been warned of?

Germany:
The good news, your plan was brilliant. You appear to have taken England, led them along with a carrot right off a ledge, and in a way that nobody should have known the extent of your betray aside from England. At which point it's your word vs theirs which is a winnable battle in public opinion.

The bad news, France didn't entirely trust you and used moves that defended him against England AND you. And in doing so showed he knew exactly how England was going to attack, and in doing that, showed you were the mastermind on the board. Being outed as the best schemer early in the game is a dangerous spot to be in. But it's a workable one too.

The other good news is, you can be appealing to Russia to help take out England in return for Norway and an alliance now that England's weakened position has been shown to be your work, which is massively to Russia's benefit. If you and France remain allied you have a decent position for an alliance. But diplomacy over the next turn or two is going to be critical to see how the east reacts to the very interesting events in the west.

Russia:
Sometimes as the saying goes, it's better to be lucky then good. England should have been sitting in Norway with an army, and instead you now have the chance to take Norway without contest. You should need to be concerned about your southern allies, but they are in no fit state to threaten you right now. You have 2 builds and a world of options. Everything from attacking Turkey, Austria, England, or Germany is on the table. The next game changing move is yours. Carefully consider the balance of the east and the west before making it!

Austria:
1 word. Masterful. A brilliant counter to Italy's positioning and you overcame a huge problem many players have. They refuse to risk their home centers. You could have protected your home centers without risk while keeping 1 neutral center. But you went the aggressive route, sacrificing Vienna for absolutely amazing positioning on Italy who only gets 1 build when they were hoping for 2. And with Turkey and Russia spatting with each other right now, your position is even better, yet not threatening enough that anyone else needs to be worried you'll grow too quickly. A+, now find an ally, and quickly!

Turkey:
Sir, the possibility of successfully taking Rumania with a convoy this turn are approximately 3,720 to 1.
So lets think this out logically. Russia moved all his southern units in a way that stated with absolute certainty that he was interested in taking Rumania and nothing else. He was not going to use a single unit to take Rum that turn, and in fighting him on it you wasted a valuable opportunity to weaken Austria or have an attempt at controlling who took Greece. Seeing that Austria and Italy were bitterly entangled I would have loved to have seen you and Russia make an agreement for him to take Rum with an army and then you two take Serbia and move against Austria. In fact it looks like Russia may have been thinking that's what was happening and got stabbed doing so. I don't know that for sure, but I suspect from his moves he was expecting to take the Black Sea in exchange for giving you Serbia in a turn and happened to be clever enough to cover himself from a stab with one of my favorite diplomacy moves, supporting yourself into a center you currently occupy to free that unit to move without worrying about losing it. It's a really nice strategy that I wish I saw more use of in games.

Back on track a bit, you need to find an ally. And quickly...luckily for you Austria seems to be in the market. Unluckily for you, so is Russia.

Italy:
And this is why I rated the previous turns moves poorly, because there was no guarantee that taking on Austria solo would turn out well, and a good chance it would go really badly. Austria now has really good position on you and you need to be engaging in some serious diplomacy to get out of the situation you're currently in. You got VERY lucky that France did not take Spain because he only needs 1 build to go after England with Germany and he knows your fleet is going to be tied up with Austria so Tunis would have been looking very tempting to him. Get creative with your press, make your other eastern neighbors consider the next few years, and if they want to see Austria eat you, can you incentivize them to aid you in any way?

I'm overall very happy with parts of this turn, because the stabs and clever move sets demonstrate that a lot of press work is going into this game, and that many of you are actively consulting with your mentors on advanced tactics, which is EXACTLY what we want to see. Please keep in mind that our criticism is to make you try and think about the game in different ways. Balki, Captain and I all have different play styles, but we all also *understand* each other's play styles and the play styles of nearly all successful players in the game. We like our own style the most, but we're flexible because we know how to adjust ours to a given situation. That's what you should be aiming to learn here. Doing what VillageIdiot mentioned (he's a top rated player on the site for those who don't know) watch all of us, find what you like, but make sure to pay attention to everything and learn how to read people's styles.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#43 Post by peterwiggin » Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:10 am

I just want to take a moment to provide some examples of how good these professors are.

For jmo:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=71371

For Balki:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=226807

For Meme:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=182619
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#44 Post by Durga » Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:17 am

Can't wait for your commentary on the game pw!!
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#45 Post by jmo1121109 » Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:19 am

peterwiggin wrote:
Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:10 am
I just want to take a moment to provide some examples of how good these professors are.

For jmo:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=71371

For Balki:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=226807

For Meme:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=182619
*sighs
*Hits ban button
*Remembers I put blocks in place to stop admins from being banned
*Considers effort needed to remove said blocks.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#46 Post by Percy Williams » Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:36 am

peterwiggin wrote:
Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:10 am
I just want to take a moment to provide some examples of how good these professors are.

For jmo:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=71371

For Balki:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=226807

For Meme:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=182619
*When you're dealing with legitimately good players, so shading on one requires you to promote another*
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#47 Post by peterwiggin » Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:37 am

Durga wrote:
Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:17 am
Can't wait for your commentary on the game pw!!
It's actually much less stressful when I don't have to run the thing (remind professors to post) or post commentary myself.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#48 Post by captainmeme » Wed Jul 03, 2019 12:34 pm

Alrighty!

Spring and Autumn have been and gone, and I want to give something of a continuation lecture to my opening one. The big focus of that lecture was around whether it's a good plan to open aggressively or not, and what the benefits and downsides of doing so are. Now we've got some actual examples on the board to look at as a followup to that!

In my eyes, there were three particularly aggressive moves right off the bat in Spring 1901 - the English move into the Channel, the Italian move into the Tyrolia, and the Russian move into Rumania.

The Channel

Let's start in the North with the English opening. There was a slight chance after S01 that this wasn't a breach of a DMZ and was arranged with France beforehand, particularly given the army move to Yorkshire instead of Wales, but given the autumn moves we can scratch that as a possibility and assume the move into the channel was breaking an agreement and an act of aggression against France.

In this theatre, we also had the exact opposite approach to forming an alliance coming from France, respecting an extremely risky DMZ in Burgundy on turn 1 to show trust. This had the potential to massively backfire, especially given the English opening, but France had a solid read on the German and instead it seems to have worked out incredibly well for them.

Either way you look at it, Germany is the real winner in the west for 01. Both neighbours made extremely pro-German moves, leaving the German able to pick and choose which option was best going forward - the willingness of England to jump into the fray immediately to give the alliance a momentum advantage, or the huge amount of trust France showed by leaving Burgundy open in S01. Either option would have been a good decision in my eyes, and you know you're playing a good negotiation game when every option is a good option for you.

With regard to the actual English moveset, I actually like it quite a lot. With this kind of opening, you're going all in with the German for a huge momentum advantage, and the E/G could have had an absolutely insane advantage here - imagine if the French orders had been Pic-Bre and MAO-Spa or MAO-Por, while Germany moved Ruh-Bur. An undislodgable English F MAO with F ENG and A Pic coming in the next round? I'd have taken that chance as England here.

With the benefit of hindsight (and probably with a German tip-off to France as to exactly what England was doing) it looks like a horrible move, but there was a significant chance of France playing those kind of orders, especially if they had the mindset that Jmo has talked about with regard to trusting Germany completely. Should England have accounted for the self-bounce being a possibility? Yes, it was a somewhat likely defence - but I do think it's at least likely that England was being fed incorrect information by Germany in this respect, and I don't blame them for taking it as truth given the potential payoff of the E/G alliance working out here.

Quick aside, I actually disagree with Jmo on the point that France should have taken Spain - I like the French self-bounce a hell of a lot and I think forfeiting the one build to stay a little safer (and to hold position in MAO to either be able to support into the channel in Spring or be adjacent to Liverpool by autumn) is well worth it in this scenario.

As we can see, this initial aggression has cost England dearly because that alliance they were all in on didn't work out - and that's the nature of this kind of opening. Where there's a huge reward, there's almost always a huge risk, especially in the early game, and that's why I don't generally recommend openings like this.

So what should England have done here?

As I said before, I don't think that going all in on the E/G working was a bad idea, but an important thing to remember there is that E/G has to deal with Russia as well as with France. A convoy into Norway, instead of one to Belgium, would have both been a guaranteed build and would have given the alliance far better positioning in Scandinavia at the cost of a tiny decrease in momentum on the French front. It was completely justified and outright better for England than the convoy to Belgium imo, even in the context of being all-in with the German.

Obviously we can't see press, but the other thing England needed to do was make the deal seem better to Germany than whatever France was offering. Only England and Germany know how good of a job England did with that - perhaps Germany already had his mind made up and there was nothing England could have said to change it - but given how central German co-operation was to England's strategy, England needed to be giving a detailed longer term plan that looked extremely good for Germany. I do think this would have been much easier to do if A Norway in F01 was part of the plan, because that way Germany both has complete control of the army front in France (which is something he probably wants) and a quicker guarantee of Sweden (also something he'd want).

Tyrolia

I just want to take a moment to say how much I love A Tri-Ven here. I'm a huge fan of just going ahead and taking Greece and Serbia anyway when I'm attacked by Italy, because it puts the fleet in a far better spot and you usually still have a 50/50 on being able to hold everything if you send your army to Vienna - but I like this move to Venice even better in this scenario. It would have absolutely destroyed Italy had they gone for the Crusher (Tyo-Boh, Ven-Tyo) which was a distinct possibility here, it's no worse against a supported move to Tri than going to Vienna would be, and in the case that actually occurred, it gives the ability to easily retake Vienna and gives a potentially incredibly strong retreat option to Apulia, which will have Italy fully on the defensive for some time.

This act of aggression didn't work at all for Italy, and all I can really do is restate what the other professors have said here - the problem was again, the lack of an ally. Trieste or Vienna look tasty and easily accessible in 1901, but if you're going to make a move that aggressive that early, you need a bigger payoff than just the one or two centers - it needs to be the foundation of an alliance, and most importantly that ally needs to be able to help you. Italy's #1 priority needed to be turning players against Austria, and they have completely failed in that regard.

So right now, our risky aggressive openings are 0 for 2. How about our third one?

Rumania

First off, we need to quickly talk about why this is an aggressive opening (or at least, why it falls into a similar category as the other two). I've seen many a new Russian arrange a DMZ in the Black Sea, and then decide to send F Sev to Rum - since they're not sending it to the Black Sea, it makes sense to take the SC with it, right?
Most players learn very early on why this isn't a good idea. Rumania is an incredibly important space on the frontline in the Balkans, usually with the ability to attack or support moves into all of Galicia, Budapest, Serbia, and Bulgaria. By putting the fleet there, the options are restricted to just Bulgaria or Black Sea - essentially, you limit yourself to only being able to attack Turkey unless you find a way to cycle the fleet back. In this way, an opening to Rumania where the players understand this is enough of a commitment to siding with Austria that I would count it with the Channel and Tyrolia moves as one of the 'I want this alliance and I'm not afraid to show it' aggressive openings of the game.

Along with the Galicia DMZ, and trying to move Ukr-Rum instead of Sev-Rum with this attempt to get Turkey to back out of the Black Sea, Russia has very, very clearly signaled to the entire board that he wants this alliance with Austria. So, is it working out for him?

...we don't know yet. As with the opening to the Channel, this has put Austria in a huge power position, where he can pick and choose an ally from his two eastern neighbours according to what he thinks is best going forward. The difference here is that Austria has not actually had to show his hand yet - that decision will almost certainly have to be made next Spring. There are benefits both ways - Russia has spent time building that trust with the Austrian, but Turkey's fleets could be very useful in the war against Italy - either way, we won't know whether this was a good or a bad decision by Russia until then.

So, we're either at 0 for 3 or 1 for 3 depending on what happens in the Spring. Not a good result for our aggressive friends! It's another batch of evidence to add to the pile - AGGRO OPENINGS ARE RISKY AND BENEFIT YOUR POTENTIAL ALLY FAR MORE THAN YOU. None of this is to say you shouldn't do them, but it's always going to be safer to make less of a commitment in S01 and wait until you've got a bit more to go off before you make your move.

What's in the future?

As the other profs have stated, none of these powers are out of it. I focus on moves a lot because that tends to be my area, but negotiation is the key here. Good negotiation, and turning a former enemy into an ally, can get you out of almost any bad situation - you just need to figure out an angle to work from and try to make your offer sound more appealing than the alternative. Be clear about plans going forward, propose plans that overly benefit the player you're pitching to, and try to show why working against you will leave them in a worse position overall.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#49 Post by captainmeme » Wed Jul 03, 2019 12:38 pm

Quick note - Apologies for using 'he' for every power in my lectures. That's probably not going to stop anytime soon, but I try to use 'they' or the power's name wherever I remember to do so.

It is true that right now the majority of Diplomacy players are male, but hopefully that's something that will change going forward.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#50 Post by captainmeme » Wed Jul 03, 2019 12:49 pm

peterwiggin wrote:
Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:10 am
I just want to take a moment to provide some examples of how good these professors are.

For jmo:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=71371

For Balki:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=226807

For Meme:
https://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=182619
This is actually a great point as to how profs aren't infallible either. Not going to comment on the other two, but Fish is a game I would often reference back to when I was mentoring - it has both some of the gameplay I'm most proud of (in the earlygame momentum play) and some of the biggest mistakes I've ever made (in lategame positioning and being far too averse to stabbing my main ally). I credit that game with making into the player I am today in a hell of a lot of ways.

Never be afraid to look back on your mistakes and take lessons from them - you'll learn far more from where you failed than from where you succeeded.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#51 Post by dargorygel » Wed Jul 03, 2019 12:55 pm

I want to thank our three profs with GREAT warmth and enthusiasm. These lectures have been incredibly informative, relevant, and interesting.

I ALSO thank you for posting without any pressure from the GM. :-)

Don't forget, EVERYONE... if you read the lecture, +1 it... This is their paycheck. Reading a lecture and not +1ing is like a dine and dash.

It's a Learn and Leave.

Thanks to the no-longer-thankless Mentors. Most of these players and mentors have already built up a relationship, and it's great to see the results displaying in the game.

Finally, thanks to the players, who give us something to look at, study, analyze, and enjoy. Without you, we wouldn't have a SoW.

I can't wait to see next season's moves!
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#52 Post by dargorygel » Wed Jul 03, 2019 12:57 pm

That karma-add button is so conveniently located... right down there, in the lower right. It's hard to miss it. Click it. :-)
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#53 Post by jmo1121109 » Wed Jul 03, 2019 5:06 pm

So the one point I want to double down on and disagree with captain on is that England's moves were worth the risk or may work out in a different game. I absolutely disagree with this assessment and think that England telling Germany they are moving from the channel to MAO and convoying to Belgium will result in a stab EVERY SINGLE TIME. Because any Germany should immediately recognize that by leaking the MAO part to France and by moving to Belgium with 1 unit, they can create a no build England. And I don't care who you are or how convincing you are, I will stab you EVERY SINGLE TIME if I know I can keep England to 3 centers. That is the golden ticket for a G/F alliance. Aggressive moves are not necessarily bad, they can be amazingly effective, but they have to be done in a way that is not going to expose yourself in a way that will ensure you get stabbed.

And I'll show you an example of this, this is a board of top players on the site, and the end of the year openings are absolutely insane, because skilled players will adapt and consider out of the box openings if they believe they will work. (http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameI ... #gamePanel see autumn 01)

I'll write something up later showing the pros and cons of France's double bounce vs taking an extra center.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#54 Post by jmo1121109 » Wed Jul 03, 2019 5:15 pm

I also want to make one more point and this is the most critical point I will make this game. This applies to both the mentors and the students. If you stop talking to someone after being stabbed by them or after stabbing them YOU ARE WRONG. You should never, at any point, in any game, cut off communication with another country. If you do that, stop or go play gunboat and stop wasting real press players time. Even if you know that talking to someone will get you nowhere you can still drop false hits about your moves or get hints about their moves that can let you out maneuver your opponents. I can show examples of this later, but this is the single most critical advice I can give you in a game. NEVER STOP TALKING TO A COUNTRY.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#55 Post by dargorygel » Wed Jul 03, 2019 5:20 pm

@JMO... are you implying that there is more to press in Diplomacy than getting someone to do something you want at THIS particularl moment???
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#56 Post by peterwiggin » Wed Jul 03, 2019 6:04 pm

jmo1121109 wrote:
Wed Jul 03, 2019 5:06 pm
So the one point I want to double down on and disagree with captain on is that England's moves were worth the risk or may work out in a different game. I absolutely disagree with this assessment and think that England telling Germany they are moving from the channel to MAO and convoying to Belgium will result in a stab EVERY SINGLE TIME. Because any Germany should immediately recognize that by leaking the MAO part to France and by moving to Belgium with 1 unit, they can create a no build England. And I don't care who you are or how convincing you are, I will stab you EVERY SINGLE TIME if I know I can keep England to 3 centers. That is the golden ticket for a G/F alliance. Aggressive moves are not necessarily bad, they can be amazingly effective, but they have to be done in a way that is not going to expose yourself in a way that will ensure you get stabbed.

And I'll show you an example of this, this is a board of top players on the site, and the end of the year openings are absolutely insane, because skilled players will adapt and consider out of the box openings if they believe they will work. (http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameI ... #gamePanel see autumn 01)

I'll write something up later showing the pros and cons of France's double bounce vs taking an extra center.
I'd argue that those spring 1901 moves are also pretty insane.
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jmo1121109
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#57 Post by jmo1121109 » Thu Jul 04, 2019 7:32 pm

01 Builds
It's not often that I am left completely baffled by moves, but here we are. My best guess here is that France messed up and meant to build a fleet. It's a pretty critical misorder that completely removes any advantage that taking MAO over a 2nd build provided.

I'll let the other professors weigh in here before I go in depth anymore in case I'm just completely missing something about the state of the board that would explain this.
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goldfinger0303
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#58 Post by goldfinger0303 » Fri Jul 05, 2019 6:18 am

I have my own theory on the French builds, but I'll refrain from elaborating until after the spring moves. I don't want to give anything away.

Question for the professors - why didn't Germany hit Sweden in the fall? If your hypothesis is correct that Germany is the mastermind of the moves in the West (which I think is unlikely, but I digress), why would he ever want to allow Russia into Sweden? Of all of last fall's moves, that's the one that's ringing alarm bells with me.
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#59 Post by peterwiggin » Fri Jul 05, 2019 6:51 pm

Question: if I'm Germany, how do I feel about A Bre?
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Re: School of War Summer 2019

#60 Post by Octavious » Fri Jul 05, 2019 7:27 pm

Or indeed the Smyrna fleet. You get the feeling that quite a few game changing conversations have taken place recently.
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