Wow. Interesting year, but nowhere near as strong as the first year. In no particular order:
***Germany vs England ***
Germany, I don't like your move to Ruhr. There's nothing it protects against while you own Burgundy and England only has a fleet in Belgium.
If you're going to stick with England it would have been better to start moving towards further goals for the E/G, like moving to Tyrolia to ensure that the south goes your way (or, bounce with Italy - since I expected Ven->Tyl this spring).
Since Italy didn't go there, how much better would your current position have been with a unit in Tyrolia this fall?
If you were planning to stab England, then I think you're making some terrible choices. England is perfectly positioned to work with you (and critically, can't work against you), and the south is currently not making good choices for defending against an E/G. Currently, sticking with England will roll you both across the stalemate line.
I'm assuming taking Belgium was agreed, but forcing it was not necessary. In fact, I think forcing it was a mistake, because you don't want to pop that English fleet.
Maybe you might think that forcing it gives you the opportunity to claim you're fighting England, but:
1) If that's the case, I hope players are asking you why you aren't in the North Sea?
2) You can just say "I'm pretty sure I can walk into Belgium this year" if you want the rest of the board to think that you're going to betray England. Betrayals don't have to be supported moves.
***Italy moving to Piedmont***
I really really don't like this move, UNLESS France asked you to. You're facing an E/G, who will be coming for you once France has fallen. You don't want to speed them up, you want to slow them down. So, you want to either:
* Prop France up
or
* Slow Germany down
I think slowing Germany down is categorically better, as you want to unbalance the E/G so that it breaks. One way to do that is to slow one partner down much more than the other. Speeding France's death won't unbalance them.
Additionally, moving to Tyrolia moves you closer towards the goals of an A/I alliance (Munich). For this reason, I would have expected you to move to Tyrolia in the spring.
I don't think that propping France up with a single unit in Piedmont is likely to work for very long, and I don't think you can expect England and Germany to turn on each other - it would be bad play for either of them at this point.
I'm happy with the move if France asked you to move there - it means that when he falls, he might be prepared to support you in to his centres. But, if that's the case, I think you should have moved your fleets west instead of against Turkey - it's also true that Iberia and Marseilles are your goals in an I/A alliance, but with Germany in Burgundy, you need more than one unit to take them.
If France did ask you to move there, I think it would have been better to say you'd move to Tyrolia to slow Germany down instead, since it's more likely to be effective long term.
Perhaps you're moving to Piedmont at Germany's request, but that seems short sighted to me - you're competing for the same centres in France. If Germany were to stab England, it would be better to have more centres over the stalemate line first, so (assuming the goal is for Germany to look at a solo shot) I think a stab of England would not be coming for a couple of years.
It's a good request for Germany to make of you, since you being in Piedmont will speed up France's death. But, I think it's a bad request for you to follow through on, since I don't think it makes sense for Germany to give you any of France, and I don't think it makes sense for you to speed up France's death.
Perhaps you moved there because you didn't have anything else to do with that unit, but then I think the golden rule of Italy is "if you don't have anything to do with Venice, send it to tyrolia".
*** Turkey ***
I don't know what you're trying to do, diplomatically, tactically or strategically, but I don't think any of those things are fitting together. Some review:
* You have no allies currently working with you to further your position
* There's an E/G in the west which is going to tear apart France and come for you all in the east, unless it breaks, but I don't think it will yet, because it's going to tear apart France and come for you all in the east.
This is great for Turkey! You're being attacked by an Austria/Italy alliance, and there are two alliances that are better for defending against an E/G. They are: A/I and I/T. They're both good because of the immediate central pressure they create - although I prefer the I/T because the Italian fleets can immediately pressure France, and block England from entering the med.
This is an important general point- all alliances have mid term goals - like centres across the stalemate line. For an E/G, the first centres over the line are centres like Vienna, Warsaw and Tunis. Another way to break an alliance is to prevent them from achieving their goals. This is why I/T is good for breaking E/G - you reach their mid term goal quicker than they can.
Consider the juggernaut Russia/Turkey alliance - if Russia loses StP, they're not able to build northern fleets, which means that their mid term goals (dominate the top and the bottom of the board, using Austrian centres as fuel) are hard to achieve. Same with an A/R alliance - if Russia loses StP, the alliance is set back massively in tempo - and if StP is lost for good, then it's hard for the A/R alliance to make sense much beyond the death of Turkey.
So, I think you should be looking at trying to move to an A/I or an I/T for strategic reasons. But, you've built three fleets in total, which make it hard to work with Italy. And, you're attacking Austria, which makes it hard to work with them.
If you're working with Russia, why are you supporting your fleet to Bulgaria's south coast? If it gets in, then none of your units are in a good position to work with Russia - except for Rumania, which really should be a Russian army in the first place, so they don't get much out of working with you.
Also, if you *do* R/T, long term then I think Russia will quickly lose StP, for the reasons outlined above.
In the spring, I think you had a good opportunity, but it was blown for tactical reasons:
Bulgaria is either going to move (to Rumania or Con) or support (something to Rumania). You can guess it's unlikely to move to Con, because cutting a support in Con is of lower importance than affecting Rumania. If it moves, then Greece is probably busy either supporting Serbia to Bulgaria, or moving there itself. If Bulgaria stays put, then Greece is moving to Aegean.
This means that Con->Bul, Smy->Aeg is categorically better than the supported move to Aegean. There are too many enemy units around Bulgaria to mean that you having a unit in Aegean will make a difference.
Aiming to pop the fleet was a nice idea, but I don't think it's very realistic. For a good postmortem, here's a set of orders that would have worked.
Bla c Sev->Rum
Sev->Rum
Con->Bul
Ukr s Sev->Rum
Rum->Sev
War->Gal
A good way to learn is to write alternative orders once you know your opponent's orders (ie, after the phase has gone through), and figure out what thought process you could have gone through to have written those orders *before* the phase went through.
You're already behind in tempo, so you want to be doing things that are more likely to work, or things that defend against more attacks. I'm glad to see you cut Bulgaria this turn.
Lastly, consider what happens when Italy takes Smyrna - once that has happened, what does Italy need Austria for? This is another important point about breaking alliances - you can speed one party up. Long term, Austria can promise Italy one or two Turkish home centres.
You can *give* Italy the Turkish home centres they would have gotten from working with Austria, meaning that Italy no longer has any reason to keep working with Austria- the goal is already achieved.
You'll die if you don't break Austria and Italy. You have options:
* You could have asked Italy to support Eastern Med to Aeg, breaking your fleet for an army rebuild
* You could point out that you're a better strategic partner for both A or I than either of them are together (at least while there's still an EG in the east).
* You could speed up Italy, meaning that Austria is no longer necessary in the partnership.
You won't succeed by making moves that don't work for your potential Russian ally, though. And you definitely won't succeed by making poor moves overall - A/I might look at your strategic argument and say "well, sure, it makes sense to work with you given what's happening in the west but my current ally writes way better orders, so I think I'll take my chances".
*** Austrian orders ***
Ogion! You're a great player. Your strategic read is strong, and your press is very good. (for those playing at home, I recently took over a game for Ogion, which was a privilege and honour. I've also been following his games since he smashed me in a SoW study group a couple of years back - in part due to my terrible decisions, but also because he played very very well).
If you have a weakness, I'd say it's having difficulty breaking opposing alliances - but that's not what I want to talk about here.
Why are you writing these moves? You and Italy have the upper hand on Russia and Turkey. There's no reason to write cautious moves - especially with a strong E/G in the west. I don't like:
* Tri->Vie - I see you're trying to surround Galicia here, but it seems very likely that Germany will go to Boh. There's an uneasy E/G/R happening in the north, and while Russia is pressuring you, it makes little sense for Germany to attack Russia. That move to Sil is almost certainly coming to Boh in the fall. This means Tri->Vie is very likely a bounce, so Tri->Tyl would have been a better move.
* Bud->Rum in the fall. It's clear that R/T will be working together, and it's also clear that Bulgaria will be cut now that there's a unit in the Aegean. You had to know that wasn't going to work - so I think it would have been better to go to Gal (or to look at alternative orders for Bulgaria/Serbia/Greece).
* Serbia supporting Bulgaria. The point of the Ven->Tri->Ser train is to give you an extra army on the front. The point of armies is not to write support holds.
This is another important general point for everyone- SoW posts often complain about units holding (because holds are *usually* tempo spent for no reason). But, remember that unnecessary supports can also be rewritten as holds, once the orders have come through. Each time you're writing a support that you might not need - which a support hold always is- then consider what else you could do with that unit. I would argue that 90% of the time, there's something better to do.
uclabb is unarguably one of the top players on this site. Here's a game he soloed:
gameID=164615 - in that game, he submitted 190 orders over 22 turns. Only 14 of them were support holds.
*** England / Germany / Russia Alliance ***
"But professor ATC, you keep saying there's an EG, but I can clearly see an EGR"
Sure. I guess.
But if I'm Russia, what do I get out of that? Not being attacked? That's not a great outcome - I want more from an ally, especially if there are two of them. In this game, I *definitely* get a Germany who moved to Sil in case I made up with Austria and went to Sil myself. That's not awesome either.
So, what are the mid term goals that I can get with England and Germany on my side? Currently, they're the Austrian centres. But, Germany's goals are the same centres. Supporting me in doesn't make sense - the only reason Germany would support me in to an Austrian centre is to put me out of position so they can come in for the kill.
Note that giving Russia an Austrian centre is completely safe, since Sweden can belong to the E/G any time they like - Russia wouldn't even get a build. And, it's even great for the E/G, since it would further destabilise the east.
Russia - if your hearing that there's an E/G/R, then I put it to you that there isn't. They get a lot more out of it than you do, and I don't see any long term potential for you. If Germany gives you Austria, then you'll be Germany's next target - they have nowhere else to go.
And, if there is a real E/G/R here, then why the hell don't you have Norway? Seems like E/G should have a really good answer that isn't "so Germany could get Belgium to have more threatening armies in the centre of the board". Because that is not good for you.
You have a build this year! You should use it wisely. And by that I mean you should build an army in Moscow. I hope this was your plan.
You should also read everything everyone has said about breaking enemy alliances, and figure out where *your* mid term goals are. Then figure out what moves you can make to help your potential enemies move away from you. If you don't do this, I think you'll be out of the game in a few years.
*** England and France ****
England, I don't like that you broke a french army on a fall turn. I think that's a spring move, since you want to take advantage of the turn it has to spend before it can be rebuilt.
France, to win out on tactics here, you need to get very lucky. So, I think you should write moves that allow you to get lucky. It seemed likely that Burgundy would go to Paris, and that Picardy would be cut, so supporting one or the other to Brest seemed like it wouldn't work.
My moves for you this turn would have turned out worse, though, so I'm glad you didn't do them.
Remember the bit about mid term goals for alliances - you can speed England up by letting him go past you into the med. This gives you options to start looking at England's long term goals, which don't *necessarily* involve a dead France. His current short term goals definitely do - so getting him to skip past those is clearly an advantage.
*** Hey it's builds! ***
Turkey, you should build an army. You don't have any builds though, so I'm hoping you get to live long enough to use this advice.
Italy, you should be using the build you got from Munich to build a fleet to go west. But you went to Piedmont in the spring, so you can't.
England, you should be building an army since that's what the E/G needs to put through StP or into Gascony. But you inexplicably gave Belgium to Germany, so you can't. Remember that you're ahead in tempo - there's no reason to do anything fancy, just keep rolling. Mucking about with Belgium and Norway "swaps" does not help.
Germany, you shouldn't even have a build, so I hope you don't build a fleet. If you do build a fleet, then why the hell aren't you in the North Sea? I think you're going to build an army, and I think it'll be in Munich.
Russia, I've already spoken to you, but an R/T normally builds a northern fleet when they pop the southern one. In this game, it seems a bit late for that- E/G will definitely crush you if you do.
France has a build! This is my favourite. You get to pick an army or a fleet - I feel like only one of those things makes sense at this point.
*** It's only a game ***
I've been pretty mean to everyone here, and two (possibly three) players are on the ropes. Remember why we're all here (other than to have a meaningful experience with another member of the hobby) - it's to learn generalisable lessons that can apply to other games and perhaps life.
You can absolutely learn that while getting defeated, or while reading a post that some asshole bashed out over two hours alone in his house.
Also, if you don't like my advice, hey, maybe it's wrong.
*** Oh, I almost forgot ***
Russia, please build in Moscow.
Why is Terrorism the only time people feel a visceral response?
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