RoganJosh wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2019 6:58 pm
Sorry for the delay.
jmo1121109 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:47 pm
For
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=163988 which part do you consider a 50/50 guess? And why do you believe that press played no impact in that especially when you see that France and England coordinated in their choice? Once I hear your reply to make sure we're not discussing different parts of that game I'll reply in detail.
Last season, in Autumn 11. Turkey needs either Berlin or Munich to win the game.
Turkey has two options:
A. Defend Munich with 3 + Attack Ber with 1
B. Defend Munich with 2 + Attack Ber with 2
England/France has two options
C. Attack Munich with 4 + Defend Ber with 1
D. Attack Munich with 3 + Defend Ber with 2
[Note: For both sides, there are a bunch of different sets of orders that realizes each of the options, but it doesn't matter exactly which set they pick.]
{A vs D} or {B vs C} and Turkey reaches 18 and wins
{A vs C} or {B vs D} and England/France completes the stalemate line and it is a draw.
Either way, the game will be over after this season.
The only coordination of orders is the France should order Bur S to Mun from Ber. That order works both with C and D.
Press? Well, Turkey could try to convince France to throw the game. But I think it is safe to say that's not gonna happen.
So this game is interesting because it is anything but a coin flip. What I mean by that is there were 2 options available to England and France. The first was to engage in a single turn gamble where it was ensured that Munich could be taken, but not ensured that Turkey would not then take Berlin.
Or there was the ensured route of stopping the solo which was unfortunately missed.
Pie->Venice
Tyr support Apu to Rome or Tyr move to Naples
Tus support Apu to Rome
Apu->Rome
results in a forced disband of the Turkish fleet, and with the supported move into North Africa, the following turn Tyr Sea taps Ion Sea and Western Med and North Africa take Tunis. Game over, almost no risk, it's a very atypical move and easily missed because everyone tends to hyper focus on Germany for stalemate lines. Turkey would have had to take multiple risks that simply did not make sense for him to even have a hope of preventing that. You can swap around which unit attacks quite a lot so this scenario is pretty complex, not just a 50/50.
Now that said, let's pretend that Rome was locked down hard.
There are 3 enemy units bordering Berlin at the end of Spring 11. And 4 enemy units bordering Munich.
Everyone on the board should realize that England and France can take Munich without fail but only if they move from Berlin into Munich. Now Turkey actually did not realize this which we know from his global press statement of:
"5 Autumn, 1911: You know what sucks? If I'd supported myself to Berlin like i did in the Spring, I WOULD HAVE WON"
So his odds of solo'ing were actually 0, because he'd never considered the correct counter.
So right there I have to think that anyone playing with him all game may have been able to pick up diplomatically that he was weak tactically. This was also reflect in earlier failures like Spring 10 where he should have bounced England in Gulf of Lyons. But we can also see England failed to take Tyr in Autumn 10, so there was some lacking tactical skill all around.
So there's definitely a decent chance that any of the players involved could have been getting press reads around the skill failures to understand who was likely to do what.
Now getting back to what everyone should have known, it was that Turkey's only chance of surviving was using 2 units to support himself into Berlin.
Again everyone should see this, but might not. So this is where diplomacy has to play a part. Who's seen the possibilities, has the opponent said anything like "this is gonna be close" or is the press more like "you know you can't win can you just draw the game already?". And figuring out who's seen the options without revealing them to someone who hasn't...which takes some skill and probing. At that point you're introducing different factors that change anything from being luck by using your press to attempt to influence the outcome. Italy is still alive and possibly mad that he knows he's going to be eliminated because his allies are dumb, so Turkey can try working with his anger to get info on what England and France are going to do. There's a number of skill based things that should have been going on here.
So overall result is this game was not anywhere close to relying on a coin flip or luck. The most luck I'll give this ending, was that Turkey wasn't faced with anyone with any tactical skill who would have shut down even the slim solo chance he had sooner...though if he'd had any tactical skill he could have solo'ed with better moves in the 2 prior turns. But you get my point.
This game is so complex with so much going on that an entire game coming down to a single coin flip just is not feasible.