Alright, no promises about the frequency (or quality!) of my comments, and if anyone objects (as I know this game wasn't initially a fully commented game) I will stop, but here goes nothing. I have had a decent amount of success in gunboat and nongunboat games so hopefully I can say something interesting.
A couple interesting moves, and I will work my way around the board:
In the west, France made a very bold opening, sacrificing Portugal for safety and tactical momentum. The good news for them is that both Germany and England made pro-France openings so all if good. France now has very interesting choices for the fall. If England covers London and France doesn't go for it,, England will be very tactically feckless against France, and in a lot of trouble. If France gets London, though, that is even worse for England. Probably the most obvious choice for France is supporting Burgundy to Belgium but another interesting option would be to order support to North Sea from Denmark, as this could set in motion a rapid dismantling of England.
At the same time, England is in OK shape. Norway is uncontested and Russia is going south so there is some flexibility. If they want to guess London will be untouched, they could even try something like Yorkshire to Norway Norwegian Sea to NAO and all of a sudden France would be on the defensive a bit. Another option is to try to coax an alliance out of France, perhaps even supporting the army to Belgium.
Germany is definitely going for Holland, the question is the other two units. Should he bounce Sweden? It depends on whether he wants to pile on to England or help keep the balance of power in the west. An interesting option this fall is to move Munich to Burgundy, likely either denying France Belgium or even getting past the Maginot Line. Such a move would make France really regret not trying for Portugal sooner.
Russia's moves were very, very anti-Turkey, so Russia is going to be hoping that Austria and Italy get the memo. A supported move to Rumania, covering Warsaw, and going for Sweden almost seem like a given. The real question is which unit to move to Rumania. I would say Sevastopol just to take away all ambiguity of intentions, but that is more of an opinion than anything.
Austria hedgehogged, just trying to be as safe as possible, which I don't really like. If Trieste were in Albania right now they would be in much better shape.I personally think that the hedgehog opening is kinda an artifact of an earlier time in the game's history when it was played a little differently. I know President Eden would disagree with me, but only a bad Italy attacks right off the bat as it is easy to take them down with you. Now Austria is in a bit of a pickle, which I will talk about in the Turkey part.
Turkey's moves will almost certainly be Ankara to Black Sea, Constantinople to Bulgaria. Russia opened hard against them, so I would say turkey's best shot is to make sure no traction is made now, so they are a less desirable target. The real question is the movement of the last unit, and it is a true 50/50. Bulgaria wants to move to the one of Serbia and Greece that Austria does not. If Turkey gets this guess right, Austria will be in a lot of trouble and Russia will likely just pile on.
Italy probably needs to cover Venice in some way as Austria is probably moving there again.It is too bad as Italy would really benefit from being able to have an active unit in Piedmont with France's opening so army-poor in the south. I would strongly consider as Italy moving the fleet to Tunis instead of convoying to try to bait pro-Italy builds from Turkey, but I still expect that we will see the convoy.
And that is that.
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Anyone fancy a game?
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