@entunage. Not quibbling at all. I mentioned Octavious’s comment. Experienced players rarely agree. I also thanked you for taking your time here. I just agreed with Bo. God help me

The France-Paris-Gascony-whatever conversation encouraged me to go back and check. My last five regular games with France:

Solo: Brest-EC, Mars-Spain, Paris-Picardy
Draw: Brest-EC, Mars-Spain, Paris-Picardy
Draw: Brest-MAO, Mars-Spain, Paris-Picardy
Draw: Brest-MAO, Mars-Bur, Paris-Picardy
Draw: Brest-MAO, Mars-Bur, Paris-Picardy

I would not have guessed I am so committed to opening to Picardy.

"The France-Paris-Gascony-whatever conversation encouraged me to go back and check. My last five regular games with France:

Solo: Brest-EC, Mars-Spain, Paris-Picardy
Draw: Brest-EC, Mars-Spain, Paris-Picardy
Draw: Brest-MAO, Mars-Spain, Paris-Picardy
Draw: Brest-MAO, Mars-Bur, Paris-Picardy
Draw: Brest-MAO, Mars-Bur, Paris-Picardy

I would not have guessed I am so committed to opening to Picardy."

4 of 5 of those games involved either a move to the English Channel or a bounce in Burgundy (interestingly no overlap there), so it's not actually very surprising to me. It's obvious why you would couple Brest - Channel with Paris - Picardy, and in the case where you're bouncing in Burgundy, moving to Picardy makes it quite likely that Belgium is yours.

I am a bit surprised that you don't have the set of orders Brest - Channel, Marseilles - Burgundy, Paris - Picardy in there.

@ssorenn no worries.

Well, one time when i play again, let's see what you got.

I am in!

So, a couple things I want to touch on, in what has been a really juicy spring 1901.

First - why Yorkshire? What was England's intention with the move to Yorkshire and not Wales? Is he truly anti-France? France opening conservatively and to the south could mean he wants an early jump in the Med and is willing to risk an English fleet in the Channel to ensure Belgium doesn't become German. Breast, I'm, is actually pretty safe and France is still in a good, albeit defensive, position.

Second - why hold Munich? Was there supposed to be a bounce in Burgundy? Did he know of the move to Tyrolia in advance? Why open to Holland if you're giving up Belgium? There's either something wrong with these moves, or a plan with France/Russia in the works. But Germany is overtly anti-England.

Third - seeing that Germany is anti-England, England has a unique opportunity to punish him by convoying to Denmark and taking Belgium with a French support. Russia in Scandinavia isn't all that scary provided no new fleets facing open ocean. Though do be wary, Russia can quickly become a monster in the north. But that's the thing with Russia - you can only really concentrate in one area in the beginning. Spread yourself out too much and you lose everywhere. It's only around 8-9 SC's that you can start covering 2 of your 3 fronts.

The east though is really tempting. Italy is actually in quite the hole. A supported move to Trieste along with Austria supporting Bulgaria to Greece could leave Italy without a build. But if Italy goes for Tunis, he loses a bit of momentum against Austria. I would almost say he has to try for Greece.

Turkey is in a really, really, really good spot. Frankly, if he doesn't take one of Rumania or Greece, I will be disappointed. That's right, you heard me. Rumania. You can take advantage of this situation to get a jump on the Russian by forcing Austria to support you to Rum and starting a A/T. With Russia so focused north, you'd deny him a build in Sev and essentially deadlock him immediately with just two units

I'm really looking forward to this fall

Wow I didn't know this game had 10 profs. Amazing. I'm jealous.

PE, I don't know either, but I have a theory. If I'm moving to EC, it probably means I am fairly confident about my relationship with Germany, which means I want to DMZ Burgundy.

Open commentary is by far the best commentary, Demon.

I remember being sad that my profs didn't say that much.

I like not being on a commentary timeline. Being Prof is too much stress. Besides, one thing I missed when I was a prof was an active discussion section on my commentary

Yeah, this is a great start to commentary. I hope everyone, profs and spectators keep it up!

Bump for star

I think a lot of commentators may be making the mistaken assumption that England moved to the Channel proactively instead of reactively. It makes much more sense that England would try to bounce a suspicious French player out of the Channel, while keeping his convoy to Norway alive, than it does for England to be making an offensive move to the Channel and leaving the army in Yorkshire instead of Wales.

"PE, I don't know either, but I have a theory. If I'm moving to EC, it probably means I am fairly confident about my relationship with Germany, which means I want to DMZ Burgundy."

That's fair. Maybe I'm being grubby but I think I might actually want to force the bounce, since forcing the bounce + moving to the Channel makes Belgium a virtual certainty. Then again, maybe you should just be going for +3 in 1901 if that's the scenario...

There's some really good commentary here from the peanut gallery. I hope the students take advantage.

Over 20 hours until the next phase. It just ain't fair. I have an suspicion, assuming certain people follow through on their spring agreements, that the fall will prove to be highly amusing :)

I just got here. I love that French opening. Great play.

I knew you'd say that; it's the opening you recommended last SoW.

I am paying attention - interesting reading your commentary without you having insight to the communications. It actually helps because your comments are all about the strategy potential regardless of how the diplomatic efforts get (or don't get) you there. Thanks!!

bump

With builds coming up, here's some grades for the turn. I'm going to clump some of this discussion together.

ENGLAND: C+
GERMANY: B
FRANCE: B

So, we either have a late-breaking or a hidden western alliance here, it looks like to me. My best guess is that this was planned all along, because France did not cover Brest. I don't know to what extent Germany was involved; maybe Germany expected French help against England? Either way, I find this opening very strange, although I think I get what they were going for. Nobody wants to just advertise, here's what we're doing! The element of surprise etc etc etc.

Sometimes we can overthink things and outclever ourselves, however. As either a late-breaking alliance or a carefully hidden plot, what was gained by all this? Russia got Sweden, England only got one build, and it's going to be a bit of a headache to pry Russia out of the north entirely.

All that said! England, France, and Germany all have friendly neighbors, they all got the average number of builds, and they can trust each other in a way they couldn't in 1901. So, way to go on that. But this isn't as well-positioned as it should be. The WT doesn't really need to hide itself on the board, though in press is a different matter. France should have a fleet in Spain, not Portugal, England should have Norway, and Germany should have a fleet in Denmark. The western powers have traded a year's worth of positioning to either build relationships or unnecessarily obscure their moves. A year in Diplomacy is a long time.

AUSTRIA: D+
Better than last year, but still bad--still real bad. But better than last year. Two builds means you can at least have a shot at outguessing your enemies if they make suboptimal moves, especially on your eastern front. And, you get the plus because you have the only real leverage available: you can punish parts of the alliance against you. Stopping Italy is probably not going to happen, but you can stick it to Turkey in fun and exciting ways, and you've forced Turkey into either a kind of useless army or a fleet that will make Italy mad.

TURKEY: C-/D+
You didn't make any gains, but you didn't really make any losses. Russia has a lot more leverage now than it looked like before. Better press is my main issue; you should have been able to convince Austria that you knew Italy was going for Trieste and kept the support out of Greece. Or, support Austria in and make a pretend (real?) friend. If this is a real juggernaut, your build is obvious here. Italy is pretty much stuck on what Italy is doing; can you take advantage of that? How are talks with the west? Do you know what France is doing? Most importantly for right now: What is your next build going to be coming from? I don't see obvious avenues for Turkey to get a build in 1902 without help from multiple sources. Everything in Diplomacy is important to everyone; what France intends to do is going to be a big deal for Turkey, because it will influence what Italy can do. This grade should maybe be lower. Next year might hurt.

ITALY: B
It's a thing. You are doing what you're doing, and if you have a good relationship with Russia, you're guaranteed gains against Austria. Austria getting Greece matters way less to you than it does to Turkey. The downside is, your 1902 is set, and if anything disrupts it, you're in trouble. Plus, it looks like France is headed your way. Tunis can't handle the requirements for a 1902 fall set of moves where there is a Turkish fleet in Aegean and a French fleet in GoL. Italy needs to have a really good relationship with Turkey and Russia right now.

RUSSIA: A-
Doing good! Not quite perfect because you've got a problem coming your way up north, but you're as well-positioned to deal with that as imaginable. See mini-sub-lecture below. Russia is going to have a fight somewhere, because they have more concerns to start the game than anyone else. Having a perfect south is much more important than having a perfect north. Russia has a basically perfect southern front. Austria is strong enough that people need Russia, but not so strong that they're in, I don't know, Ukraine and Galicia. Turkey and Italy both depend on Russian help entirely. This could be better, if you had England or Germany or France helping you fight one or two of the others, but this is a very good opening game for Russia.

MINI SUB LECTURE
One thing about Diplomacy that I think people don't appreciate enough is that every power is basically playing a different game from every other power, because of geography. Two builds for Russia, two builds for France, and two builds for Italy in 1901 are very different situations.

Austria, Russia, and Turkey are good comparisons here. Austria has a lot of different concerns everywhere. Turkey's southern and eastern fronts are mostly safe, and a Turkey with foresight can head off a Lepanto with ease. Russia doesn't have to worry about an attack from the east, but Russia has two almost-unrelated areas of diplomatic concern that usually can't both work (you can't dominate Scandinavia and the Balkans/Black Sea area at the same time without enormous help). This is why people hate playing Austria (wrongly, Austria is the most fun)--Austria is in immediate peril on three fronts. To bring in another eastern power: People overstate it, but you can have a good game as Italy without committing to really anything in 1901; leisurely go get Tunis and be ready if France does something weird in Piedmont. Russia has to commit in spring at least which theater will get the most attention. On the flip side, it's very easy for Italy or especially Turkey to get stuck at four or five builds. But if Austria prospers through 1902, they're usually set for big gains, because many avenues of expansion are open.

Ha, what fun!

But after the carefree joy of the first year comes the build phase, in which players must start to limit the vast array of options open to them. I'm always slightly envious of those nations, like Austria in this case, who have such an obvious set of builds they can just go ahead and do them without sending out diplomatic shockwaves. Four days of focusing entirely on the spring diplomacy whilst around you neighbours have to show some of their cards is quite a positive.

Now we see how well the early relationships have been forged :)

The poet John Greenleaf Whittier said, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

As a Diplomacy player, I love the exciting bold games. Cautious play, I’m not a fan of. I’m not particularly criticizing the players here because it requires two to make bold moves. But there was so much promise for an exciting start to this game. Instead, we get, well, bleh. There will be no grades this time.

Austria:

I like your risky move to take Greece and acquire a fifth unit. You took a chance on losing Trieste to a supported attack by Italy and the gamble paid off. Well done. Now, you place two more armies in Vienna and Budapest. Those units, with the right tactics, makes you a tough nut to crack. This is especially true with a Russian fleet weakly sitting in Rumania. You made the boldest moves of all and I salute you. May your diplomacy be successful.

I gave Italy some homework below on the Steamroller Alliance. You should read ahead and see what happens to Italy.

England:

Considering where you started the turn, I guess some would say this was an improvement. I was hoping for a lot more out of you. At least you get a build.

You had options. Convoy the army to Belguim (with support of English Channel) and persuade France to order A Burgundy to Ruhr. You didn’t even need French permission. With two more French army builds, the E/F alliance would be in real business against Germany. You could have sold the decisive anti G strategy to France. That would have been a compelling strategy for both of you.

Some might argue convoying your army to Belgium means that Russia get three builds because you ceded Norway. Is that so bad? The rest of the board freaks out about the RT and a mammoth bear. It probably would have helped you cement France into an alliance with you. What’s his choice? Help the RT get even fatter?

If the Frenchman is throwing big a tantrum about F English Channel, just take Brest and beg for an anti-French alliance with Germany. It would have been cool to use both fleets to convoy into Brest. I know that’s not ideal move, but you could tell Germany that a seven center Russia is an immediate threat. Germany have to help you resist the Russian in Scandanvia.

What is this we have now? A western triple with both Germany and France supporting you to Bel? It could be a good strategy for you if Germany is crazy enough to buy into it? Maybe you can use the threat of the RT to persuade him. But unless Russia collapses, I don’t see it leading much of anywhere for you. More likely, you will be stabbed by France in the fall of next year.

France:

You remain an enigma. You get your Iberian builds. Who will you attack now? Italy? England? I’m guessing F Brest is in the cards. If you continue playing this neutral and/or western triple game, you will move to Spain(sc) and Mid Atlantic in the spring. This sets you up to move strong to the Meditterranean or stab England.

I criticized the move of A Mar-Bur. I was still hoping you would make me eat my words. I wanted more out of A Burgundy than support for England. Did you consider supporting Italy to Munich and going all in with Italy and England against the German? Russia and you are natural allies. England probably would have been onboard and convoyed A Yorkshire to Belgium. You could have dismantled Germany and crushed him with help from your secret ally Russia. The R/F is a nice vehicle to drive toward a French solo. This is long range strategic thinking.

Germany:

You get two builds. Congratulations. But I am going to criticize your order of F Holland supports F English Channel to Belgium? Your support order for England will concern Russia. You just gave Russia Sweden. Now you support England who Russia is obviously attacking. This is maybe not good strategy. Too much indecision. Too many mixed messages. Maybe you can sell the support order as a deception setting up England for a stab to help Russia into Norway.

The support indicates a western triple alliance? With that strategy, you must face down Russia and leave your back to France and England. Is that wise for Germany? Did Russia threaten you in the negotiation phase to cause you to change course? Again, your support order here potentially throws a big monkey wrench of suspicion into an alliance with Russia. You would have been better off to order F Holland to Belguim or support for the Frenchman’s A Bur to Bel.

Looking at the board, it seems to me you need an alliance Russia. What if England and France decide to attack you now? Your best bet now is to offer Belgium to France and hope France will work with you and Russia against England. In my opinion, you still need to build a fleet in Berlin to keep Russia honest. But that’s going to be another setback for your Russian alliance. My guess is that Russia will pressure into not to building any fleets and then will move to Baltic Sea while taking Norway.

Italy: The Bohemian Crusher move. You can find the Italian opening strategy in your materials. I am still questioning the long range merits of an Italian-Austria war. Maybe you get Trieste. Russia will probably help you. But what is the long range future of holding it. This is especially true now that you see Russia and Turkey are all lovey-dovey in the Black Sea.

If I were playing Austria, I would be telling you, Italy, that if you persist in the attack on Austria, that once it’s apparent I am going to be eliminated, which is usually inevitable when three powers continue to attack, then I will be throwing my centers to Turkey and Russia. My guess is that the Hills are alive with the sound of this Austrian music.

I would like to see something new. Maybe Bohemia to Galacia with Austria support. Maybe Munich is in your cards? Maybe Austria gives you Greece in exchange for an alliance. You have some options other than softening up Austria for the Steamroller Alliance. Your homework Italy is to read up on the Steamroller.

Russia:

Nice job negotiating a dmz in Black Sea. The bad news is that the DMZ lets everyone know that there is an RT alliance. The RT, which is reportedly one of the most powerful alliances in the game of Diplomacy, makes Russia an early target. You need good diplomacy with the Italian. He cannot get worried about the Steamroller while you take apart Austria working with Turkey. You have to sell Italy on the fact you are his true ally and that Turkey’s days are numbered after the Austrian is dead. Don’t get greedy. Help Italy get and keep Trieste for a fleet build.

In the north, I would build A Moscow and try to capture Norway. You have a couple of nice strategic options against either England or Germany that point toward a Russian solo.

Turkey

That was not a good fall turn for you. You took a shot at Greece, ok. Instead, you might have built an alliance with Austria. Austria is desperate for an ally. Take Austrian support for A Bul-Rum. Stab Russia. Gain control of Black Sea. Build a fleet in Smyrna to keep Italy in check. In my opinion, working with Austria here would have made for a much more exciting game for Turkish play. Plus, nobody likes an RT and you would have received the thanks of everyone on the board except the Russky.

You have settled on an RT. It is a viable strategy. It might work out for you in the end. Whether it does, or it does not, depends on Russia. It seems to me Russia is a bit of a bully. He didn’t accept F Ank to Black Sea, which is a move, though slightly more risky for Russia, is best for the RT’s efficient and equitable progress against Austria. If Russia sticks with you for the short-term, I think Turkey could be the odd man out when Austria is dead. Italy is probably the true Russian bride. Which means you get crushed in the corner after Austria.

I’m not saying you made a wrong choice, Turkey. Just a different one that I preferred. I like exciting games with lots of twists and turns. It’s the artist rather than the mechanic in me.

Italy, you can go ahead and fire your TA for suggesting a bohemian crusher.

To expand a bit on the Western Circle, I'm not as certain that a Western Triple is in play. Yes, France failed to cover Brest, but Germany remained in Munich to cover and failed to bounce Russia out of Sweden. And while a WT is pretty easy to spot early on, a double support of the English into Belgium is an unnecessary giveaway. Obviously this is conjecture, but I think it's more likely that England was hedging their bets and asking for help/alliance from both Germany and France simultaneously. This is problematic now for England as they have to press and press well. It's embarrassing for both France and Germany to have supported England, and now they may well band together to fight England. So England now has to either seriously woo one over the other (a difficult task now) or make a genuine case for the WT.

I'm hoping those two Italian armies keep going and end up in Pru and Sil.

@meme - I remember a Game I played with Italy last year - i sent an army to help Russia support stp against England. It made it to mos in 04:)