Italy should have too.
_ _
(.) (.)
{~}

Italy should have too.

I'd love to have a post-game discussion.

Sorry for all the posts. I can only see the "Aus should have listened to France." until i go to the home page then i see all of them. Bug?? Anti-spamming tool?? Does anyone know?

SOW II is about to finish.

SoW 3 has had another turn as well.

[SoW I - Official Question - gameID=10755]

Just a student here, asking a question for the teachers... Anyone can/should answer.


With France out and England almost dead, what advice would our vets and experts give to Germany and England to be part of a draw?

Should Germany work hard with Italy to try to beat back Turkey, or just turtle in Scandinavia and his home centers? Or something else that I haven't thought up?

Can England hope at all for any kind of place in the draw? Or is the game over for him?

Or, is the Turkish solo a pretty much inevitable conclusion to this game?

Turkish solo definitely isn't inevitable. Germany should be able to ally with Italy effectively against Turkey.

England isn't dead yet, but he has a pretty hard task to survive. As a general rule, as it starts getting to this level of desperation, try to find an ally, and then do whatever it takes to gain some level of necessity to your ally. If that requires lie/steal/cheat, go ahead, you have nothing to loose after all.

Hey, I'm not out yet. There is potential for me to still regain a center.

And Turkey is still containable.

My apologies to you, Alderian. I understand that there is definitely potential for you to gain a center. And, as a student in this school, I would love to hear someone holler out any way for him to stay in the game for more than a year. Like, what can/should he promise to Italy or Germany to help himself?

SOW II is over.

wow, so it is.

let's see some end of game statements, folks!

[ SoW3 - Official Commentary - gameID=11113 ]

Just want to pop in and say that the only way this game doesn't end in a three way draw is if someone screws up in a big way. France can't push through Turkey and has lost position to England, Turkey has no hope of soloing like I said before, he would need Italy and a push into Germany, which is just not happening. That leaves England, who could defeat a France who is divided by a two front war, but not otherwise. So unless Turkey attacks France (which would be really really stupid) its probably just a matter of cleaning up the "riff raff".

[SOW II - Endgame - France]
Man oh man, I called that from 1902... england wouldn't listen and was too interested in short gains (I left him alone to battle russia only for him to turn on me). Wish I would have just ran him over to have the SCs to work against jacob in the north...

Germany was smart, worked with me, made good adjustments. The NMR really did him in, though. He NMR'ed a build phase, missing 2 or 3 unit builds! Still survived with that handicap, though... I bet he learned a ton.

Italy didn't trust me when I came around to help him with aus. Unfortunately, he learned I was there to help too late, and I backed off due to his threats.

Aus wanted to stab, but waited a year too late. I tried to convince him to keep a few units behind to not let russia just walk over him, but he didn't listen.

But the absolute worst was when I -finally- convinced everyone to work against jacob, aus gave up (destroying tyr and tri) and gave jacob the game. We could have fought him back and kept the game going, but I guess the newbies didn't want to stick into it for the long hall...

The biggest lessons to be learned, from my perspective:
1.) Don't hold a grudge on someone who stabs or attacks you. They can be your biggest allies, especially when the chips are down.
2.) Don't look at short gains... yeah, you can go from 4 SCs to 6 SCs by attacking someone close, but that 10SC power is just getting bigger...
3.) Attacking someone who is between you and a big power is usually a bad idea, as you get half the SCs, but the big power gets the other half. Unless you are as big or bigger, you end up the next target...
4.) When someone is larger than the rest, GANG UP ON THEM! Go look at some big matches with heavy hitting vets... whoever grows quickly usually ends up squashed in a couple years by the rest of the map swarming them. You should be always willing to help out when opponents pull away from the battle lines so you can work against a big foe.

This all boils down to a basic fact: The game is attacking, defending, lying, stabbing... it is GOING to happen to you, as it is GOING to happen to everyone else... you have to keep that in mind and not take it so hard... don't trust your ally implicitly, and don't hate your enemy completely. Those roles flip at the drop of a dime, and you need to be ready to change your philosophy in the game at a moments notice...

That's all I got for now.

[SOW II - Endgame - Turkey]

I've started with a pretty standard move, trusting Russia wanted a juggernaut and preparing a fleet to go to the Ionian. Should have bounced at the Black Sea but was convinced not to.
I moved to the Aegean as planned and helped Russia into Rumania (while Austria was doing the same!). Then built a weird fleet in Ankara, because at that point I was already suspicious of Russia, although the damage to my position was already made. Soon I was struck by a double attack against which there was not much I could do. Found myself reduced to only one SC (Smyrna).
I made a cool surprise move to Ankara that bought me one more year of survival but couldn't possibly repeat that forever.
The funny thing about the diplomacy is that Austria played "bad cop" through the first year, which pushed me into Russia's arms for what looked like the only viable alliance. Meanwhile, Russia sweet talked me into doom, profiting from the fact I was afraid of losing my only friendly neighbor.

[SOW II - Endgame - Austria]

The biggest thing I learned in this game was to set a few boundaries - leaving a few units behind to cover my flanks. You don't need to be completely safe - but at least this would discourage a major stab.

Ultimately I was trying to play off it being a learning game and scoring a draw with Jacob - I came close to moving against him twice, but thought 'if I could just get that one more turn and finish off Italy for good...'

I thought Germany (particularly towards the end) played really well - he would have kept working with me (I think anyway) despite the continual stabs on my behalf, and he was a pretty solid centre in the beginning.

I was dissapointed with Italy - it was very hard to get a response from you on many an occassion, and then you wouldn't respond in detail; it gave the impression either you weren't really listening to what we were saying, and at the least were untrustworthy (whether you were or weren't).

England - everyones said this, but stabbing all around you probably wasn't the best idea :)

Of note, I think I caused a lot of confusion between Germany/England/France in the early game (there was one part where Jacob was prepared to pull out of hitting turkey, as he strongly suspected a western triple). I'll need to go back and read the statements to see what was actually done, but I'm sure a fair bit of lying went on!

The best moment in this game for me was what Turkey mentioned above - I proposed to Jacob if I could get Turkey to move against me by being subtly antagonistic, Jacob would have an easy run into the Black Sea first turn, and it worked like a charm :) I'm not sure what you could have done Turkey, I wouldn't have wanted to be in that position :)

France --- I was suprised and a bit dissappointed that you didn't really attempt throughout the game to turn me against Russia. I opened up press with you a number of times (even just to get a conversation going) but you were much more matter-of-fact than emotionally convincing, and you didn't ever press the point at all. I suppose there are different ways of playing - but i thought you would have tried a lot harder here.

As to France's comments about continuing the game on, you're most likely right - we could have kept going from just after the point where Jacob stabbed me. However, again, very limited press from yourself, and a very fickle Italian, I was more concerned about coming out with a survival. Note - not a survival against Jacob himself (he didn't need to kill me to win), but if I had turned against Russia and had France/Italy supporting me behind my back, I would have seriously risked getting caught between you as soon as Jacob had been put down a notch or two. I suppose if I were in a different position though (France/England/Germany) I would have wanted the game to go differently though!

Lastly, thanks to Jacob for a great game! I certainly learned a lot. Looking forward to your commentary!

Hehe, and it is bad to copy/paste text from the game? A couple of amusing bits and pieces.

So I guess we'll be starting a new SoW game then sometime soon...

[SoW II - EoG - Russia]

I started the game with the idea that I wanted to do a northern opening. This meant I needed Austria as an ally. Austria seemed quite interested and Turkey was friendly as well. I really felt rather bad about plotting to JesusPetry right from the start whilst maintaining a friendly facade...but, I kind of thought "JesusPetry" was maybe some kind of joke name or something and what kind of person puts "Jesus" in their screen name anyway? These were the thoughts that I used to assuage my guilt... Now I'm thinking perhaps Petry is Hispanic or something and Jesus is really his name?? I changed my opinion because he was quite the gentleman throughout and really earned my respect.

So what's in a name? "JesusPetry" just screamed "total newb, young kid, deserves to be taught a lesson in how fast you can get taken out of a game..." Again, I think my original reation to that name is pretty much dead wrong, but this brings up a point I was discussing with jason; people are human and sometimes make irrational or emotional decisions. It's wise to remember that in this game =)

So, my 01 double support into Rumania was not really what I wanted, but I think jason announced near the end of the phase that he was supporting me in and I wasn't sure that it was a good idea to try to change his move so I didn't say anything. It almost ruined things with Turkey, but with a little extra buttering up he still listened to what I said.

Germany really made a great move over into Warsaw which frustrated me enormously. I was absolutely terrified in 02-03 that Austria would move against me in the middle. I was committed heavily in Scandinavia and Turkey with precious few units covering my home centers. This is the danger of the northern opening I suppose... I used all my sweetest promises to woo Austria during this critical time for me.

We paused at the end of 02 and after the pause fortknox did some of the best diplomacy of the game. His retreat out of England was what I consider to be the best move of the game. It was really a brilliantly coordinated attack against me and Austria. Had he not done that I think this game would have ended sooner than it did. I think the biggest mistake though was not following through with continued Diplomacy to England and Italy.

In 03 jason and I were in a little bit of trouble. I had failed to take Turkey and we lost a little ground. If the other powers stayed united then we were going to be beaten back. I immediately started talking to Italy and England offering them 3-way draws that would become 2-way draws as soon as we took out Austria. I didn't really have any intention of that ocurring, but I just needed one of them to focus west in order for me and Austria to gain enough steam to win.

What happened really surprised me - they BOTH turned! Once that happened I was fairly certain I had the game won. All that remained was to set up a massive stab on Austria and England. I was really patient with the Austria situation. If/when I stabbed I wanted it to be for a significant chunk of real estate. I stabbed England first and then used Germany and Italy as excuses to move into Gal and Aeg. Stratagos was dead on in his assessment of what I was doing on more than one occasion....it made me have to do a little bit of extra damage control to make sure no one listened to him =)

In 06 I thought if I just explained to England, Germany, and Austria that I only needed one extra center from them to win the game that they would give in. Only Austria listened, giving me Vie. Next time I'll probably use a different approach.

This game boiled down to these factors:
>early invasion of Turkey
>strong A/R alliance
>F/G alliance bringing E/I on board to take down A/R. Brilliant retreat by F out of E
>Failure of F to keep E/I moving in the right direction (or maybe Success of R in getting E/I to turn)
>R stabs A for the win

The key year was 1903.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing in an SoW game and I would be happy to do it again. Thanks to everyone for a great game!

Why I didn't push you? England was in my grill... I was using your big alliance as the key to getting him out of france. If you would have turned on russia earlier, there was no reason for england to worry about turning around and hitting russia... he could have waited until he was done with me to turn his fleets. He hinted at that through my comm with him.

However, I did make the point that you were open to attack and it was just a matter of time. You were the minor person in the alliance, which is usually the toughest to sway until you are about to lose or you see the stab coming...
And the most recognized time of a stab? One turn from a major victory, like taking care of italy... because once that happens, you can change your forces directions easily... but if you are a turn or two away? Then you have to deal with a 2 front war to deal with the stab.

Jacob, I truly think that england had a grudge on me from my early hit on him. I tried comm'ing with him, but his responses were few and far between. I backed off of him, as he requested, to give him no paranoia in attacking you, but he ended up turning tail and coming straight for me. I told him EVERY YEAR how it would end up, but it wasn't until the 2nd to last year that he saw that I was right.

I tried to help italy, but he was convinced I was going to attack (I suspect he and E had comm going)... to the point where he allied with aus until I backed off (which allowed aus to surrounded him... which I warned him about).

I tried to be nice, tried to be helpful... I'm surprised no one realized that I -couldn't- expand while E/G/I fought you guys, but I was willing to sit back and help support hold everyone... yeah, one of the three would have eventually been a target for me, but not until we had really pinned down the R/A alliance.

@Jacob: that's my real name.

@Jesus - that's eventually the conclusion I came to.

I am a fairly new player, and I would love to benefit from the wisdom accumulated in the School of War. How do I start?

When is a new SoW going to start?

and to go with Morgoth's question, how does one get selected into a SoW game? I would like to make the suggestion for next time that each SoW game gets its own thread, would make it much easier to follow.

One or both of my games should end very soon. I'd love to participate in an SoW game as well.

Originally each SoW game had its own thread. But the powers that be at the school thought it would be beneficial to have them combined.

I'm back in for a vet spot if another SoW opens up, btw... preferably 36(+) hour rounds, though...