webdiplomacy.net

Game: Search for Life
Turn: Autumn 1911, Fleet Norway (NWY) Support Hold Fleet St. Petersburg (STP) south coast (sc)

I always thought a fleet cannot support move/hold orders of another fleet moving/standing into the "wrong" coast of a province. The original avalon hill rules linked in the "help / Intro to Webdiplomacy" (down at the bottom) section state on page 10:
"However, it must be next to the province into which it’s giving support and must be able to legally move there itself. "

Fleet NWY can only move to STP (nc), and thus i would expect it is not possible for a fleet in NWY to support hold a fleet in STP (sc).

Anyone familiar with this question, or has an opinion on this matter ?

The "there" in that quote refers to the province not the coast. Also, from the paragraph right after the one containing that quote: "A Fleet that can move to a province with two separate coasts (a Fleet in the Mid-Atlantic, for example) can support another Army or Fleet into that province (in this case Spain), without regard to separate coastlines."

Can't find the section you are referring to. Only on page 8 the rules for fleet movement and provinces with two coastlines. The MAO example is not hitting the spot, because you can move MAO=>SPA(sc) and =>SPA(nc), that's not the same setup as NWY and STP (sc). Nevertheless thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Correct. Support holds are support for a province, not a unit. Support to move, though, does require that the supporting unit be able to move to the target coast.

This is the text of the actual latest edition of the rules (Renegade Games):

"The specification of Support to a specific coast in a split province such as Spain must match the move of the piece ordered to that province. For instance:

France: F Portugal S F Mid-Atlantic - Spain (sc); F Mid-Atlantic - Spain (nc)

The movement is valid but the support order is invalid because it identified an incorrect coast. If the order was F Mid-Atlantic - Spain (sc), then the support order would be valid."

The concept of "matching" was undefined in previous editions of the rule book, and while I can understand the opinion of those that wanted matching to be limited to a province, rather than a coast, I feel that this clarification aligns more with the overall spirit of the rule.