bump.

I'll have a go at this. In no particular order:

----England----

Excellent job dealing with the difficult position that your NMR put you in. You're definitely on the back foot, but you're not dead. Having said that, it's likely that you'll make some losses next year.

If I'm you, I'm working hard in press to ensure someone comes to distract France. I hope that last phase you were pushing Germany to move against France, and that he turned you down. If not, consider how you would motivate each player who could help you. Great press is about great motivation- and you still have opportunities to turn your position around with some good talking.

----France----

I don't really have much to say. Your moves put you in a strong position, even with the bounce from England. You could reasonably have expected a bounce in Bur, which also would have been fine. Had Germany supported himself to Bur instead, you'd have a bit of an issue, but nothing that some good moves and solid press could have dealt with. If you prevented Germany moving to Bur with your press, then you deserve to be commended. If you are left alone, then you will make some good gains this year.

Yours is the position I would most want to take over if everyone CDed.

---Germany----

I have to say, I don't really like your moves this turn. Too much was sitting still for no real reason.

Each turn, you want each unit to help you be in a better position than the last one. Yes, you got a build, but that only required two of your units. The bounce with Russia is fine, because you're keeping Russia away (and you weren't expecting a build in Warsaw). Bel support Hol was unnecessary, since there's only one unit on Hol (and it's a friendly unit, so it's unlikely to be a problem for you). You essentially ordered Bel to hold. I'm also not clear on why you're supporting Italy with Mun.

In general, you want to only support someone who can help you in return. Each time you help someone, you want to get something from it. Italy won't be able to help you directly for many more turns (and by the time you get there, you'll both have bigger problems than repaying old debts). And, he's got nothing that he's helping you with indirectly - Austria isn't a threat to you, and him being under attack isn't really helping against Russia very much either.

Instead, you could have offered your units to other powers. How much better would it have been to force Bur this turn? You're already friends with England - why not solidify that friendship by helping against France? Your inaction has resulted in three units on Bel, when you only have one on it to defend. This is not good.

If you don't want to open against France, consider what else you can do with your units that give you options to further your position. Perhaps you're being inactive with your units because you're worried about other players panicking after your strong 1901 - but spending your early advantage in order to allow other players to catch up is not a sound strategy.

----Italy----

As others have pointed out, you're in a difficult position fighting Austria with nobody helping you. Germany is protecting your units, yes, but he's not directly helping - he's not making Austria's life more difficult. You want your allies to have the units that your enemies hope aren't hostile. Munich and Sil are not those units.

I like most of your moves, although I'm not sure about Ion->Alb. You weren't expecting a build this turn, so if Austria goes all in and goes for (and gets) Ion next turn, then you can't stop him taking Tun. If you try to bounce him in Ion, then you're spending a turn undoing an earlier move, which is always bad.

I have to assume the move was expecting a bounce, ensuring that you can take Trieste next turn if Austria had no build. In that scenario, though, how much better would Ion->Gre have been? It also works well in other scenarios - if you didn't get Greece, you would have kept your position in the Ion, and potentially denied Austria a build if Austria didn't have Russian support.

---- Austria ----

Very good work making a friend of Russia. With Germany working on Russia, Russia can't get tempted to come down and take the home centers that you're not currently able to defend. I figure you were expecting Italy to cut support in Greece, so well done in securing that necessary support.

You're the position that I'm most looking forward to watching develop. A good diplomacy game makes for good TV :)

---- Russia and Turkey ----

I've actually run out of time to comment - I'll leave this up to the others, and if they haven't commented by my tomorrow morning, I'll write something up.

Ah, just realised I didn't get to the player who bumped the thread after the moves. Sorry! I'll start with the bumper first next time.

Right now the game seems to be breaking down into the following conflicts : France vs England with Germany watching; Germany/Italy/Turkey vs Austria/Russia. This is a little unorthodox and should keep the game kind of interesting.

ENGLAND : Unlike A_Tin_Can, I didn't like like the defense strategy of England. Yes, he did well by covering Wales and London. However he used his Norwegian Sea fleet to assist Germany into Sweden, thus exacting his revenge on Russia, but at the cost of not having his home defense ready for next year's invasion attempts. Had he put his fleet into Clyde, he would be in a ridiculous position to defend all three of his centers. Now, he is assured the loss of at least one center next year unless Germany even if Germany comes to his rescue.
Speaking of German rescues : I am left to wonder if Germany had promised England he would move into Burgundy in exchange for the assistance into Sweden, and then reneged on it. If thats the case, its a great play by Germany playing on the desires and desperateness of England.

FRANCE : Not much for you here. Many would see your army moves as agressive to Germany but I just think your getting your units lined up for convoying. I am certain you and Germany have an understanding that for now, you both have other things to do than senseless stalemating.

GERMANY : Many would disagree with me but I am totally ok with you not moving to Burgundy. With France likely to have 3 armies + EC to break support, you couldnt realistically have held it anyways, so it would have needlessly turned France towards you while your Russian situation is still up in the air. Germany really cannot fight on two fronts and Russia was your front in 1902. That said, your not so deeply committed against Russia that you couldnt switch fronts. You need to think really hard here, communicate with Russia and France, plot out how 1903 will work out and build accordingly. I like both choices but you need to play it right, France would take finesse and Russia will take wild abandon.

ITALY : You look like a genius this turn as you have a good chance at Trieste if you play things right but you gave up the Ionian. I have to admit, I didnt see the move to Albania since its rare to leave the path to Tunis/Naples open. If Austria hadnt moved Serbia to Bulgaria, your fleet in Albania wouldnt have helped you any, but as it stands it does. Your choices may seem obvious to you on the surface but you should look at all scenarios. I look forward to praising or demeaning your Spring 1903 moves.

AUSTRIA : I asked for you to prove me wrong and you did surprise me. I suspect the whole board expected you to rest on your laurels after taking Greece. Course, its a build which you can't use due to the classic Austrian issue of being backed up into its home SC's but its something.
Italy has given you quite the choice in 1903. I am curious to see which way you go. I spent a bit of time wondering what I would do if I was you and I finally settled on a decision.

TURKEY : I am guessing you expected Austrian support into Rumania? Or were you just trying to break support if Sevaspol moved to Black? In either case, it didnt work out. Looks like you arent in a position to fall anytime soon, but you also arent in a position to do anything but wait for Russia/Austria to break down. There is some diplomatic work you can do to hasten that but even that may take time.

RUSSIA : I like your fleet disband so you can rebuild an army. I hope you used that disband as a negotiating tool with Germany. It definitely signals to Germany that you dont want to waste time on fighting over Scandinavia. It also signals you intend to build an army to defend the heart of your territory, so he needs to come at you with more than two units.
Your assisting Austria into Bulgaria was awesome. You hurt your enemy by giving your neighbor an SC he cant use. I love it.
Going into 1902, Germany was the man with all the options and you were the guy I thought most in danger. Going into 1903, its you with the options. Can you turn Germany away? Do you stick with Austria? Do you cut a deal with Italy? Do you convince Austria to help you bust into Turkey? All very interesting things to discuss.

I take back what I said about Italy :
"If Austria hadnt moved Serbia to Bulgaria, your fleet in Albania wouldnt have helped you any".

Assuming Austria didn't take Bulgaria and had an army in Serbia, by having the fleet in Albania, it would have forced Austria to make choices between Serbia supporting Trieste or supporting Greece against a joint Italy/Turkey attack. With the fleet in the Ionian he would have simply defended Greece.

Bump.

5 hours til phase shift and 3 people without orders in, one of them hasnt been on in almost a day.

Yay, we got all orders in. Also, bump, because phase went through.

Fatal misorder.

The Italy misorder? Doesn't seem fatal, but definitely sad.

Bump, Fall move phase gone through.

1903: Alright, so, this was a pretty messy year.

Instead of talking about grand strategy, I want to pick up on a few specific moves that I think could have been improved. This means that some nations get bigger writeups than others, so feel free to ask questions via PM if you feel I haven't written enough about you. I also welcome to more experienced players following this game to weigh in - their commentary tends to be better than mine.

---Germany---

It's good to see you putting every unit to use. Hopefully you haven't waited too long. I'm not clear on why you supported Mun to Boh though - nobody was going to contest you for Boh. If you were going all out against Russia like you seem to be, I might have been tempted to either order Sil->War (to break Warsaw's possible support of St P->Liv) or Sil->Gal with Mun->Sil (betting that Germany would protect Warsaw given that it was a fall turn).

Something that's often said is "spring is about position, fall is about centres". Although I like the saying, every turn you want to be improving your position. (it's just that sometimes that position includes being in someone else's home centres). So, if you're unable to take centres in the fall, you should be using the turn to improve your position instead. I don't think your eastern units did that.

I said I wouldn't talk much about strategy, but this year you poked France in the spring, but then in the fall you pulled a unit back from that front to be half way between France and Russia. I'm not sure that was the best choice for you. If you're going to open a new front with someone like you did this spring, you want to make sure it's a decisive start, leaving you with certain gains.

Over your next couple of turns, I hope to see you make it clear which centre is your next centre.

----England----

I don't really have very much to say to you except your turn was the turn that made me cheer. Not because of your moves - you don't have many options remaining for defence - but because of what I assume was your doing in press.

I hope that the French stab of Germany was your doing, and if so: good job! Turning someone via press is a great skill to have. I might talk more about that later in the game.

---France---

Looks like you're choosing to make a friend over some guaranteed gains. You're in a very solid position here, and probably the current position favourite for me.

I don't have much to say on your moves (though the other commentators might), but I do want to say that you didn't make the moves that I would have. Remind me in a few turns, and I'll talk about that - I don't want to influence you too much.

----Italy----

That Austrian unit is going to be a huge pain for you in the turns to come. But you already knew that. I covered why I didn't like the move to Alb in my last commentary, and although it was a bold move, I don't think it has paid off.

I'm not going to comment on your strategic choice to stay and try for Trieste rather than worrying about the fleet in the Ionian - but, even if your goal was to ignore Ionian and go for Trieste, I think you could have ordered better moves this turn.

Austria is able to put two additional supports on Trieste - so you need three supports to take it. Of your possible supporting units, two of them can be broken: Alb and Adr. (Tyr doesn't count, since it can only be broken by Vie, which takes a support hold away from Trieste in doing so). If Adr is broken, then Austria hasn't taken Naples or Tunis, so you're good. If Alb is broken, then Austria could still take Naples or Tunis, AND you won't get Trieste. That's very bad. Also, Austria has nothing else sensible to do with Greece - so you can basically guarantee that he's going to tap Alb. Because of this, I would have ordered Alb->Trieste, supported by the others.

Although taking Trieste with a fleet isn't a great position, it does give you the option of potentially apologising and picking a fight elsewhere. As it currently stands, you and Austria are becoming more and more entangled, and it's not really benefiting either of you.

----Austria----

A painful misorder from you this turn cost you Trieste. As I said to Italy, I don't think this fight is going to be good for either of you long term. Perhaps you are already doing this, but I would be looking at ways that you can disentangle from each other.

----Turkey----

You get a build! Unfortunately, that fleet in Bulg (nc) is going to hamper your position - it points you even more at Russia, and can't be used to open west at all.

The fight with Russia has been costly in terms of time - you're now stuck in a position that's worse than the typical Turkish 1901, as we head into 1904.

I hope you're thinking about what lead to the fleet builds from you and Russia in 1901, and whether it could have been avoided. Yes, Russia moved to Rum with a fleet, which is typically bad for Turkey, AND he had Austrian support, but it didn't ensure that you had to fight. The fleet builds did that. Perhaps you did everything you could to avoid the fight in press already - but any lessons you can take away to avoid this situation in the future will be valuable.

All is not lost though - you do have some interesting things that you could be doing with your build. I'm looking forward to your next few turns, and hoping that you escape the box.

----Russia----

A lot of no-movement from you is very worrying. That stand off with Turkey is costing you, and Austria's not going to be available to help you any time soon. Have a read of what I wrote to Turkey.

I said at the start of the game that I would be commenting on holds and bounces, and that's just what I'm going to do here. You know that Germany is hostile - you've held him back with a bounce in Livonia and correctly supported Warsaw. However, you've ordered three holds - Sev, War, and Norway.

Sev: When I saw the map, I assumed that Sev had supported Rum->Bla, and had been cut by Arm. But, no. Perhaps you were concerned that you might lose Rum in the case that Rum->Bla succeeds (a reasonable worry). However, in that case it would have been better to order Sev->Bla as well, also protecting against Bul->Rum s by Bla.

War: The order that makes the most sense with Warsaw is to support StP->Liv. I see why you might not have wanted to successfully take Liv (in the case that Germany moves to Bothnia, defending St P will be a pain). But, if you were expecting that move, then I'm not sure why you held Norway.

Nor: You know that Germany won't be receiving English help for several turns (if at all). So, you want to stop Germany getting two units on any of your centres. In this situation, Germany is either going to order Swe->GoB with Den->Swe or Den->Ska s by Swe. Norway->Swe fouls one of those - forcing him to use GoB to support Den in next turn. Given the German orders this turn, ordering Norway->Swe would have bought you an extra turn's grace in which to defend yourself.

I am going to briefly discuss something that is rarely talked about but is a critical skill to have in in diplomacy : move prediction. I am talking about the ability to accurately predict what moves an opponent will do. The best way to hone this skill is to play a few Gunboat games. Yes, I know that Press players look down on Gunboaters (I am/was one of those snobby players) but Gunboat is largely about predicting and countering other players moves. You absolutely must look at things from other players perspectives...not as you
Now I bring this up because 1903 has a few good examples of successful move prediction and failed move prediction. I was virtually giddy with anticipation of Spring 1903 because I wanted to see if I or any players predicted correctly.

FAILED:
Italy Spring 1903 :
Before you decided your moves you needed to look at the game from Austria's perspective. Assuming he isnt a fool, he can see that using Greece to hit Albania could protect Trieste UNLESS you attacked from Albania. So he had two options :
1. Bump Albania and hope you didnt realize this, then deal with the issue again in the Fall.
2. Assume you will attack from Albania making his bump pointless and instead move to Ionian and take one of your SC's.
So what should you do? In this case I would have :
I think #2 was the most likely scenerio but you could have hedged your bets if you had Ordered Adriatic & Albania both to Ionian. Then in the Fall order Albania to Trieste with full support. Austria would have been forced in the Fall to try and bump Albania which would have failed.

Italy Fall 1903 :
Austria had just one set of orders to do :
Ionian to Naples. Greece bump Albania. Any other set of moves loses him Trieste.
Knowing this you absolutely have to attack from Albania. This would also leave Venice in a position where you have the option of protecting Rome.
Both of these are examples of Italy viewing things from his own perspective of wanting an army in Trieste instead of a fleet which blinded him to the reality of the board.

Turkey Fall 1903
You predicted that Russia would support hold Rumania/Sevaspol.
Looking at it from Russia's perspective, he knew you were attacking one of them with support. The only one he could really do anything about that would be Black Sea supporting Armenia to Sev. Plus we all know Turkey gets a hard-on just thinking about armies streaming North into Russia. So if YOU were Russia you would instead break Black Sea support over a support hold.
So lets assume Russia is as smart as you. What could you do to counter his breaking of your support?
Attack Rumania or Sevaspol from the Black Sea. Using Armenia/Bulgaria to support or break support.

SUCCESS :

Austria Spring & Fall 1903 :
Austria accurately read the situation with Italy and realized that if Italy played his game correctly he couldnt hold Trieste. So he moved himself into the Ionian and moved Bulgaria to Greece figuring he could always use that army to bump Albania or cover Bulgaria in the Fall.
Yes, you didnt predict Bulgaria being lost to in Spring but it was just likely Turkey would have used Constantinople to support Black Sea...plus if Turkey really wanted Bulgaria he could have just supported himself in. You had to take the risk, it just didnt work out this time.

Russia Fall 1903 :
You predicted that he was going to try and move to Livonia and you bounced him.
You didn't support St Petersburg with Warsaw which I thought was interesting and I am curious if it was intentional as you wanted to keep a unit in St Pete.

So looking at 1904 I see a lot of opportunities for people to practice proper move prediction. So your homework assignments are below. Obviously Diplomatic Press will play a part in this so I am assigning this assuming the status quo remains.

Germany : Write down what you would do as France if he was to continue attacking you. What would you do to counter, negate or take advantage of those moves?
Do the same for England.
Do the same for Russia.
Dude you have too many enemies and it seems you picked those fights...do something about that.

England : Write down what moves you would make as Germany & France given their situations. Sometimes its useful to predict moves for two phases in advance when you are the smaller power and predict openings or situations you can take advantage of.

Austria : You need to put yourself into Italy's position and figure out what you would do to defend yourself. How can you counter that?

Russia : If you were Germany, where would you go next and with what combination of units? Can you counter, negate or take advantage of those moves?

Italy : Your situation isnt needing to predict Austria's moves quite so much as predicting what the situation will look like if you :
1. Put everything into holding Trieste
OR
2. You pull out of Trieste. Where will other people's units be positioned in Fall 1904? You need to know this so you know where your units need to be to make good things happen before the next build/disband phase.

Turkey : If you were Russia, how would you defend yourself from all his enemies? Remember, its not just about looking at Turkey vs Russia...you want to also take into account any other threats Russia is dealing with. Press will help you weight certain scenarios so make sure you are talking.

Bump, Austria NMR.

Is Austria going to NMR again? We have 18 hours to the phase change, but he hasn't been on in three days.

A note to everyone - I strongly recommend putting draft orders in every turn - although some players use the "orders saved" state to determine that you've made your mind up (a fairly inaccurate signal, in my opinion), I think the cost of that possibility is far less than the cost of an accidental NMR.

Okay, I've mailed the mods about Austria, given the 3 hours left to deadline and Austria not being around for anything in the phase. Are we going to have to replace him or something?

Sorry guys, looking into this now.

Would anyone object to resuming this game after Thanksgiving so I can either contact the player or find a replacement?

I have no objections.

No objections here.

no objections here either.

Well him missing turns doesn't just mess up the game for himself, it messes it up for everyone else too. I don't object to restarting after thanksgiving but I'd be happy with someone dependable.

ATTENTION WEBDIPPERS!! We've had an Austria leave the game, and (I believe) we are looking for a replacement. If interested, please post.

I could fill in for Austria but my EOG record is 0 for 2 so far...

You should contact abge, he's in charge of the whole thing.

I'm interested :) Always looking to improve my game!

@RAZ, it's all yours. I'll contact the mods to put you in.

@fire

If RAZ can't take it for some reason, I'll contact you.

@abge, can you also have them unpause once he is in? Unless we'd rather go forward after the weekend.