Only SoW I and III are ongoing. II just finished with a Jacob victory and IV finished with a 6-way draw.

I know I haven't really been doing much commentary lately, sorry... Life's been busy, as I gear up for college. (This won't prevent me from playing though!)

Ok, I just won one of the two games I was in, so I have plenty of points for an SoW game.

As soon as a SoW starts, I would love to join in as well.

If we were one short, I'd be happy to sit in again :) But I wouldn't want to bump a spot for someone (as I was in #2). If I wasn't in the game, I wouldn't mind giving some more elementary commentary?

I'm with jason on that point as well.

well, our fearless leaders babak and djbent haven't posted in a while. I think that with the update we kind of lost some steam.

In my opinion, we should finish the remaining two games and then put together some sort of evaluation questionnaire type thing and let everyone give feedback. Then we should revamp things a little bit based on the feedback and start up another round of games!

hi all-

sorry to have been absent. i was going through a time with limited moments to get online, real life and all that jazz.

it seems there is some interest in a new School of War game. i also know that Babak had an idea for a "post grad" course or something, but he never revealed that. we're in a game at the moment, so perhaps we can discuss it, or he can simply post it here.

i agree some steam was lost with the transition, but we were losing steam, or commentators really, before it happened as you'll recall. so an evaluation is an excellent idea Jacob. i know that Babak posted something previously, six simple questions, and we can use that, as well as some additional tools.

private messaging may well also help out the School of War instruction, as others have already noted. so basically, we'll have to revamp a bit for a new school year. when we open admissions for a new game, we can make a new thread, and keep track of folks from this thread who were interested.

i also still need to finish posting some of the commentary to the blog. although, now that the threads are preserved in perpetuity, maybe we don't need the blog? i do think we'll have some robust discussion on the forum, in this thread or a new one, about how best to make School of War the best it can be, going forward.

Please, keep posting on the blog :)

You did an awesome job there.

The way information is organized on the blog is just GREAT to keep record of past games, with the maps from each turn and the relative posts. It helped a lot when I joined and there were 4 SoW games already going on.

There are always new players joining the site, so the blog is really worth when someone begins to follow a game has already started. Something that would be a bit crazy to read back in a thread with 430 replies about different games which will tend grow.
The blog is a good library for School of War.

Very quiet in the old SoW thread these days...

SoW 1 (gameID=10755) has a very lively end game. Could definitely use some comments.

Same with SoW 3
gameID=11113

SoW 3 gameID=11113

Turkey be careful. You don't want France to collapse. If you are looking to win somehow you need to hit France AND England in Germany, after finishing off the Russian once and for all. That crosses the stalemate lines and is relatively neutral in the E/F conflict.

But yeah, this is a three way draw unless either England or Turkey is careless and lets France get killed for the other players gain.

hi all - I have been MIA from the new forum for several reasons - one of which is RL... the other is that this forum structure is less conducive to participation I think (m personal thoughts)

I would humbly suggest that with the new school year starting, we hire a new Dean for the school, and I would gladly step aside for djbent or jacob to take over if they like.

on the grad course - the idea was to have a game with 7 SoW grads ... but each should be assigned a specific vet. so 7 grads and 7 vets. the vets would not get to see the press (unless the grad shares it of course) but the vet is then able to give FAR more specific and personal advice on how to interpret the press as well as the moves...

lastly - you would want to keep the same 'commentator' structure on the forum.

this is not a perfect system as each vet has their own style etc, but none of their advice is binding, its just advice after all... but it would give each of our grads one-on-one time with a vet from the community ---- and it allows a vet to be engaged in a game without having to risk their ghost-ratings ;)

THAT was the grad-course Idea I wanted to share.

thoughts?

Sounds like a good idea. I'm just wondering if we can find 7 vets that are willing to commentate throughout the whole game (which takes a bit of time and commitment I'm sure). I guess if they only had to be responsible for 1 player each...

I think the whole idea has been successful overall (although maybe 4 games at once was a little ambitious in glorious hindsight, although the interest was there).

Who would the 7 graduates be? Is there a waiting list we can pull from this thread (if the players are still interested?)

I think interest tends to slip a little as the games progresses to the late game. Not sure if this is because it becomes a game with less players, more tactical or if the shine has just worn off a bit...

Just as an aside, with the last 2 SoW games getting closer to the end, I wouldn't mind organising a game (or 2) with the original 4 SoW winners/survivors for some post SoW play if anyone is interested. Not sure how many players this would include, but I've had a great game in SoW III and I think the other games have probably been just an intense with a great calibre of players. Basically just an excuse to get some good players back together for a couple of games really. We could rank it by centres at game end?

Stay tuned for EOG statements from SoW III one day soon maybe (in a separate thread perhaps?)

One thing that would help out tremendously is if we had a section on our home page (below our own games) for games that we are watching. This would make it much easier to keep up with the games.

As far as taking over as dean, that's not really going to be feasible for me right now. Too many other responsibilities :(

I might be willing to take over for a semester at some point in the future though.

In fact, to avoid burnout it might not be a bad idea to follow a school-type schedule for the school of war. Have a fall and spring term and then break for summer and the holiday season =)

I agree with Jacob about the terms and breaks. Summer seems to be a busy time for a lot of people (myself included). I don't know about the holiday season, it also might be difficult to play then.

Interest in the school is definitely waning (probably a combination of 0.9, summer, and the fact that the games are almost all done), but I would hate to see it fade away. I think that the idea of the school is great and I would be happy to help with keeping it moving. Up til now, I have not played in a game as intense or as much fun, as the one I played in SoW3.

Anytime anyone wants to start a post-SoW game, for any reason, I will definitely be available to play.

I don't think interest is waning. I think that the people putting the most work into it have been busy :/

You're right Jacob. I should have said participation.

I'm the opposite... summer was easy for me, but from now till november, my time is -extremely- limited. I coach and ref football, so sunday afternoons is my only free time (and I watch NFL, then), and will do 99% of my dip'ing at work....

SoW III has concluded. Thoughts?

predictable, no?

Hm. Having looked over the final positions, I think if I were Turkey or England I would have gone for a 2-way draw rather than a 3-way. France's position was fairly weak, especially if Turkey and England had cooperated. Or, at the least, agreed not to attack one another for a couple of years.

I think the game was Turkey's to win, and I feel like he gave up without putting much effort into getting through France's fairly weak lines in northwest Austria and Italy.

That said, well played everyone. Looks like it was a fun game.

@pyro - i think 2 ways are very unstable, and require a huge amount of trust (some would say they should never happen) whereas in a three-way, you know that if one person breaks the deal, usually the other will help you against them. i know that would have gone into my thinking, if i were T or E.

I suppose that's true, but I still think there was a lot of opportunity for that game to continue. No one's position was so solid that they could say "You know, we might as well draw, because this game isn't going to go anywhere."

It may not have ended in a two-way draw, but I think it certainly could have ended in a win, especially if Turkey bought a year or two of cooperation from England, as his position in Russia was less-than-desirable against an English attack.

The reason I voted for the draw was I felt that France would bottle up the Med in the end and make sure he was in a position to be included in the draw in the end anyway, so I decided that it really was going to end in a 3 way draw eventually anyway. We could have kept going but I doubt we could get into a 2 way draw or a win. France would not have allowed England or Turkey to get into a position to win alone and would have played us off against each other. France would never have allowed me (England) into the Med.

It was a great game :) Expect EOG statements soon I guess.

You guys are lucky France didn't solo =) Good job containing him!

I wondered where the Babak cheer-squad had got to? ;p