Jimothy lived! I was amazed at that, kudos to you. A pity OB had to leave.

Well played all - I confess that my draw vote was a ploy to get Turkey to attack Russia! Unfortunately other matters grabbed my attention and my brilliant mentor, Fairfax just told me it was over before I could pull it! But I'd already lost my best shot at the solo having put an army and not a fleet into Den; trying to finesse a fleet into there and BAL cost too much time. Well played Espi; the others ought to throw you some points - without your sterling performance I would have won. Mind you In found England's obliging donation of his homeland quite mystifying, so it could be argued I shouldn't have been that close to a solo. Ref that damned F Bre going N or S - that took some considerable discussion twixt Fairfax and myself.

I have also to report that my health has been awful throughout the game after the first few turns, courtesy of a nasty new treatment, but I endeavoured to play on without holding the game up.

I'll let Jimothy pop in an EOG (and maybe OB_Gyn_Kenobi will too for the first season?) before I go through digging out my own commentary as Germany's TA. :-) I mostly agreed with Yaleunc's commentary - I think there were a few spots I didn't agree, but not strongly, if I recall correctly. I'll have to dig through the email archive to find them when I have time.

Good game. :-) It was interesting to have the doublethink of "well, the player at the helm is a relative gunboat noob, but they have quality TA advice so they should be at least advised of opportunities..."

I gotta say I especially didn't envy the French TA at later points, some of those positions were *ugly* tactically, and must have been quite difficult to write out analysis for. I think I got off comparatively easy. :-)

Yes, good game everyone. This was fun...my first real foray into gunboat and Smiley's coaching was immensely helpful in shining some light on the nuances and finer points of no-press communication and tactics. I'm happy to have survived but it would have been interesting to see how the stalemate further evolved, whether I could have still weaseled my way into the draw by being a needed buffer between Turkey and France.

I'll have more detailed EOG in the coming days. Looking forward to hearing others' analysis.

How were all of the interactions between Student and TA? I found myself agreeing with naked most of the time and appreciating the different view points he offered. Most of my moves went along the better options he presented, with a slight change only once or twice, when he left out a option he would have done to see if I would notice it. He would present several different options and his reasons for choosing them, then ask me for my opinion and analysis of the board, before we would discuss tactics and what option best achieved our goal. Sadly near the end I got very busy and wasn't fully able to converse with him as much as we had, usually entering my moves last minute, with only a short conversation with him before I clicked Ready.

I'll just copy and paste my last turns advice to Italy, since everyone seems confused:

I hate to say it but it's probably over for you. Frances draw vote and turkeys lack of one does not bode well. You won't be able to hold Tunis.

The only way to not be eliminated is to retreat into the position where France is the most threatening and pray he makes some progress in the north. (Munich means more or less that a solo is impossible without some of your main centers.) In this way, you really want him to take Tuscany, because it means you can more easily give him centers if Turkey does something wrong.

Your job right now is to balance stopping France from soloing and remaining necessary for the draw. Right now France is losing. That means you're unnecessary. Which means you should help him. Furthermore: he's voting draw!

So with that said I think you have two priorities: 1. Do not let Turkey into the Ionian. 2. Set yourself up to protect your home centers assuming worst case moves. How can you best do that?

I'd also like to point out that it worked perfectly and scared Russia and Turkey into drawing:-)

It did, that was probably the best move this entire game.

Am I the only one that sees France as having drawn in a won position? Russia has just one build here. I think I'd win this with press from here, even, but in gunboat, every key defensive piece is in the wrong place.

France needs Munich or an Italian home center to solo. He's in a position to take neither.

I was surprised as well. some of them are on going so I can talk about it too much but I'm always surprised at how people do not make the right moves to prevent a solo, even situations that shouldn't be one can be one and while there are such things as being a dick and not drawing when there's a stalemate, is absolutely no shame or problem with going and making everyone make the correct moves to stop you.

France continuing here would not have been trying to see if someone makes a Miss click or NMR, I want to make that clear, it's not a sin to draw on that position but there could easily still be game left.

Well France said he didn't actually intend to draw the game, but was only voting draw as a diplomatic move.

I get a Fleet in St.P SC, that means I can push France out of the Baltics, he has to choose then to push very heavily in the Baltics, opening himself up to me, or if he wants to get my Fleets out of the North. I don't know which he would have done, but either way I would have gotten another center this coming year and might have gotten him to disband a unit, as long as Turkey could hold up the South.

France had a chance to solo, simply by blocking me in the North and slowly pulling back into a defensive position, allowing his gains in the South to make up for any losses, his trying to strike critical blows on 2 fronts hindered his ability to do either very well. Had Italy not tried to survive, France could have been pushed back fairly easily on both fronts.

I would have lost the North Sea this turn, or Norwegian, but both could fall back (North into London or Ska and Norwegian into Barents), both are decent positions that still delay France. Sweden and Munich would have stayed in my position and France could only grab 3 centers from Italy before Turkey would have stopped him.

Any further playing would have worked in my favor, unless some really unexpected moves happened, but one wrong move from me would have thrown the game to France.

Which is why we have HDV, but not for this game sadly ;)

I don´t see the France in a won position, but the game was still open and I would have never voted for the draw in this position as there is no risk on going on a few turns and exploring some possibilities. Russia will never be a solo threat unless France makes some huge mistake.
And Valis is right, specially in gunboat there is no shame on forcing people to make the right moves. In full press when people clearly stated what will be done to stop a solo it´s another thing.

Hdv?

Hidden Draw Vote

I'm not sure how much I should say here, because it's a very complicated position and it might be instructive to play it out, in which case describing my plan as France would be a...poor choice. If we decide we're not going to do so, I'll do so in more detail.

I can tell you with 100% confidence that there is no forced draw for the coalition, and since it's a position in which France is never going to be out of the draw, that alone means my draw flag is never going to be set here. I haven't found a forced win yet, but I've only looked at it for a few minutes, so I also haven't looked more than 4 game years deep except at a couple of specific cases.

I see two lines for the coalition that lead to a decent chance of a draw but both are incredibly imaginative in terms of what they demand in terms of requiring multiple powers to do surprising things in a coordinated way, and therefore very unlikely to be found in a gunboat game. Beyond that, I agree that France has problems in this position, and there are certainly plans worth trying for the coalition, but I'd be a lot more confident playing for the win than trying to hold the draw. And, there are a lot of immediate mistakes that the coalition can make which end the game this turn, at least one of which is quite likely.

Espi, if you build F StP(sc) then it's 100% lost.

OK, that's not quite right. If you build F StP(sc), it's at least 96% lost immediately, but I think you can still defend if I make my orders public before your submit yours.

How so? I am able to pull back to a defensive position no matter what France took, and could defend myself against his Baltic fleet, pushing him back eventually to a stalemate line. Unless Italy, Germany or Turkey attacked me (Italy was likely, Turkey needed me to stop France and I had been trying to keep Germany alive) Munich would have always been mine, and Berlin/Kiel might have fallen given a lucky guess.

Baltic couldn't grab Berlin, Denmark would have required a unit to convoy into it, which couldn't be done until I had been pushed back, and that means Baltic was only useful to distract me and/or push into St.P.

Am I wrong on any of those points?

He would have convoyed a unit to Livonia.

How? Sweden would bounce any unit unless he convoyed Hol via Hel, which would risk my retreating to Hel and would leave Den vulnerable after he convoyed. If I didn't retreat to Hel I could always retreat to Ska which is what endangers Den, especially with a fleet in GoB able to hit Baltic or Livonia.

France *may* have won still, and he certainly *won't* lose, so it was a premature draw. Drawing as a diplomatic tool I frown upon severely from a personal strategic/tactical and cultural point of view. It can be useful, but unless you're on constantly to check it the risk far outweighs the benefits. But I do not think we will be drying to unscramble an egg, it was a good game and it has ended.

Espi, CS means that France could use Bal to convoy an army to Livonia from Kiel this turn if you build F StP SC.

and it would be hilarious.

Actually yes it would have. I didn't think he would choose to do that, it leaves several weak points (I can grab Hol which makes Kiel mine). Would you have done that Chumbles?

I hadn't looked closely enough at the orders at first to note that Italy was for some reason trying to get France into better position to take him out. As long as Italy builds F Rom and switches from trying to help F solo to trying to stay alive and lets Turkey move fleets into position to hold off France I don't see France gaining 5 net centers even if he does convoy an army to Liv from Kie, but I haven't looked at it closely enough to be sure. Russia is a little out of position to defend against the convoy to Liv, but he has enough fleets to get a second over by Bal and eventually knock France back from there and I think that happens before France can net 5 gains. Also if F StP SC moves to Liv in the spring then that of course bounces.