And here we see the downfall of the Bohemian Crusher. It’s inherently anti-Austrian, so its going to be laughably difficult to convince Austria that 3 armies bordering their Home centers are harmless, no matter how many phases you go without explicitly attacking.

bump

I'll have some more thoughts tomorrow, but I'm confused about the moves everybody but France.

England, putting that army to use =/= moving to London.

Turkey, you fool of a took, you left Bulgaria open.

I can see why Russia, Italy, France and Germany did their moves. They didn't do too bad

Actually, I take it back. Berlin and Munich should definitely be doing something

Wow. This is the perfect situation for an IT. No Lepanto, no fleet in EMed. A common enemy in Austria, a distracted Russia, a F/E fight, a strong Germany. The board is set up exceptionally well for that alliance

That said, they're pretty difficult to keep together during the mid-game

At the very least, Berlin and Munich could've bounced in Kiel..

Fall 1902

Really, folks, some of you need to study tactics. They are important. There is no reason for not making the most basic moves. This site has a basic tactics page here: http://webdiplomacy.net/intro.php . Advanced tactics problems and study can be found here: http://www.diplomatic-pouch.org/Zine/W1995A/Tactics/

If you want to take your game to the next level you need to be a good tactician. Review the first link. Spend time on the second link and work through all the problems. I promise it will help your game.

AUSTRIA

You gambled. You lost. I'm guessing the Italian press was persuasive. He probably convinced you he was worried about the juggernaut. Sometimes it's hard to tell. I like the move against Russia. It was aggressive. But for the Italian stab, I guess you can call it that if you have a broad definition of the term, you would have done well against the Russian. Retreat A Trieste to Serbia and F Greece to Albania. Disbanding the fleet and suiciding on Italy is one option. I help Turkey. Give him Rum. Support him to Adriatic. Italy must pay a steep price. But that's just the way I am. I don't take stabs and lies well. Maybe you can find common ground to stop the Steamroller. But on the other hand, Italy probably didn't buy it last turn.

ENGLAND

Looks like you have an ally in Germany. It's good to allies in Diplomacy. You have the services of F Belgium for another year. The move to London was not wise. Yorkshire could have protected all of your home centers. You are probably losing Liverpool or Belgium. It's not a slam for France though since you can possibly slide into Irish Sea and support A Wales into Liverpool in the fall. You will finally need to abandon that albatross center you call Belgium.

FRANCE

You passed on Belgium to gain position against England. A deal with Russia where you take Munich and Russia Berlin seems imminent. Looks like you have hitched your wagon to the RT. Or maybe its an RF, and Turkey will be the odd man out. The sick man does seem to be headed in his own direction.

GERMANY

Good on you for finding an ally. Looks like both of you need to stick together for as long as it lasts. The alternative, is for you to backstab England and play the toady. Not sure if that is as glorious as going out in a blaze.

The tactics were bad. At least a self standoff in Kiel keeps A Ruhr out. If you offer France Bel, maybe you can hold onto Berlin and Munich.

ITALY

It looks like the Bohemian Crusher operated as intended. You executed the tactics to capture Trieste excellently. However, what happens now? Austria retreats to Serbia and you will need all three units to hold onto Trieste. Turkey misordered so he won't be available to help you tactically for another turn. But if you can hold on a bit, Austria probably disbands his fleet now. You need another fleet to hold Turkey out of Ionian.

RUSSIA

Swinging for Germany seems like a good move. The fleet in Rum wasn't doing the Turk any good. You have a decision. The global commentary by the board suggests everyone is worried about the Steamroller. Guess who bears the brunt of board resistance. You. But, you can retreat to Bul and bust up the alliance. The Turkish player tactics are abysmal. Unless he gets better in a hurry, maybe an alliance with Austria could work out. Austria desperately needs an ally, and it isn't going to be Italy. Move A Sev-Arm; F Bul-Black. Austria is going to be tangled up with Italy for a while. Arguably, you have time to exploit your RF in the north.

TURKEY

Sign. I'm guessing F Con-Smy was a misorder. You cannot order units to switch positions without a convoy to dipsy-do the move. Your position is still ok. Maybe you can talk Russia into disbanding F Rum. He can rebuild A Sev. Let you take Black Sea. And the Steamroller rolls on. You have diplomatic work to do.

Most of us are in this game because we need help with out tactics, not because we are already perfect at it.

So sensitive.

Signing up for a game like this requires playing in good faith and many moves this turn clearly just weren't thought about or double checked.

I don't think his comment comes off as being sensitive at all. I think his point is perfectly valid. The players in this game have already self admitted they need help with playing and want to get better. For somebody to give their analysis of the board and then call them out for not being perfect tactically, that seems pretty foolish to me.

Misordering in a game where people are putting in the effort to write entire educational essays for you is rude as fuck.

Attacking a player who has completed a whooping six games, playing in a game set up specifically as a learning experience, for making an honest mistake, is rude as fuck.

In this topic, I learned that making a mistake is unacceptable, rude, and inconsiderate.

I'll write more later, hopefully before builds, and I misspoke about Italy who did indeed have a good turn, but here's why I didn't like Russia's moves so much. (Everyone criticized the move to Silesia in the spring, but I liked it as a way to ensure Germany couldn't convoy to Livonia. I think now that may have been a coincidence).

Finland had two options: support hold Sweden (which Germany is almost certainly trying for) or support St. P to Norway. Assuming England takes a chance on EC covering Belgium and moving North Sea to Norway unsupported, they both have the same functional result for Russia: no builds for anybody. From Russia's perspective, that's good! England is in trouble with France and will be declining soon (which you don't want to happen too fast, but fast enough). Germany has to face armies coming in on both sides. So, while taking Norway results in Russia having the same number of units, it also means risking Germany getting a build by taking Sweden. That is indeed what happened! Now Germany can build a unit in Kiel to make it impossible to easily get Denmark. And this doesn't even ask, what if England gives up on Norway to go fight France, and the support isn't even necessary?

It's possible with good moves that Russia will recover Sweden in the next year. But why give Germany the margin? Why set up a situation where you have to play much more strongly to keep England and Germany from taking another center? It's always better to give yourself some leeway if you can. And this doesn't even consider the worsening situation in the south, which can keep getting worse. What if Italy gets mad at Russia, what if Italy and Austria and Turkey make up to keep attacking Russia together, what if anything bad happens?

You can do tactical study like eturnage said--you should, if you want to get really good. But you can just do what I do, be mediocre at tactics but do OK because you think carefully about two questions every turn:
--How do I want the board to look like what I want that's realistically possible (ideally in consideration with what your medium- and long-range strategic goals are)?
--What is every unit relevant to me most likely to do this turn?

Did Russia want the board to look like where Germany gets a build and Russia has a disband? No, probably not. No one except perhaps Austria moved in a way which should have been an unpleasant surprise to Russia, so Russia should have done something different.

If I had a dollar for every hour I'd spent studying guides on tactics and strategy, I'd have 50 cents ;). If you're the sort of player who enjoys reading up on that sort of thing, by all means do so. If you're not, then the occasional glance when you feel you're stuck will suffice. The worst thing you can do in diplomacy is stop enjoying the game. Once that happens, you've lost.

I have been known to misorder from time to time. The amusing thing is that, once you have a reputation for being quite good, people start assuming that's what you intended to do. More often than not they're not the end of the world, although occasionally they can lose you a game. I tend to give myself a slap on the wrist and move on.

At this stage no one is down and out, although some clear leaders are emerging. Funny how in global the bogeyman du jour is still the juggernaut, when really the other twosome is doing a bit better.

Well, mistakes happen. Rude or not, let's not belabor the point. Instead, maybe now is a good time to talk about how to fix them.

Mistakes at the very least will set your plans back by one turn, if not longer. It sometimes reveals your tactics, overall strategy, and/or alliances and enemies. In short, you're caught with your pants down and looking rather foolish. So what do you do then, with all eyes on you for your blunder.

Try to turn it into an opportunity.

If your press style has utilized large degrees of honesty, use it. You've been served your plate of crow, so eat it. Ply humility and admit the mistake to your allies. Better yet, if the situation called for it, admit it to your enemies. If your read on your opponent is that they are open minded, maybe you can use the mistake to forge a different direction, maybe even a new alliance. It won't be easy, but it's certainly possible to leverage humility and honesty into a new alliance. If your mistake reveals who you're attacking and they're incensed to the point that they're going to war with you regardless, then there's nothing you can do about it anyway. But there's no harm in trying.

It's also important to keep in mind that your current allies might see your blunder as indicative of a poor tactician. Communicating with your allies the reasoning behind your mistake is essential to keeping them friendly, because no one wants a liability as an ally. So if they were planning a stab in the future, they might be thinking to bump up their timetable, and you need to get ahead of that.

Resist the urge to lie and say that a mistake was planned. You might be trying to salvage your pride, but in the end it generally makes you look more foolish and far less credible. These are just killers to your in-game reputation, and would encourage others to simply ally against you. Planned mistakes as a tactic is a discussion for another time.

In short, don't let a mistake ruin your game. Make the most of it. You can always try to turn around even the most crippling of blunders. If it's fatal, so be it. But if you don't try to fix it, the failure is on you.

Quick thoughts: This turn was all about failures to understand what Russia's motives are, and England and Austria paid the price.

So what was Russia's interest? He had a slow start, but there was real opportunity in the north. Further, he needs to get established in the north before Germany falls for real because he needs to be a viable ally for France who can hold back England. If England can just roll him in the north, he is careening toward an E/F/(A or T) draw. Similarly, Turkey falling quickly just means he would have to hope that he isn't next (and Austria just built two armies!). What this means is that he needs time to get himself established. Germany or Turkey falling (yet) are not good for him.

So what should England have done? First and foremost, don't help Russia and Germany untangle! That's the worst move of the turn. Russia and Germany were badly out of position to work together, and now they are in great position to work together. That's a disaster. You needed to push him in that direction- point out that between you and France you will be cutting Kiel and Munich next turn so Berlin is guaranteed if he moves Livonia that way as well. At least don't let Germany into Denmark. Never allow other players to establish clean boundaries.

How about Austria? One of the most important things that happens in 1901 is whether Russia takes Rumania with a fleet or with an army. Basically, if Russia takes Rumania with a fleet, Austria is safe, and if he takes it with an army, the juggernaut is on. When I play as Austria, it is my number one priority to get a fleet in Rumania, and I'll do extreme things to get it. For example, in gameID=164615 I promised to build a fleet in Trieste for my first builds if Russia went fleet Rumania. Here, there is army Rumania, so that's a big red flag. There's simply no reason to expect Russia to work with you here, and you don't need him to anyway. There's very little reason to go for Bulgaria here- the slow part of the Lepanto is the fleets. It would have been much much better to go to Aegean Greece and Serbia. Also, if you are going to do the moves you did, at least just move Trieste to Serbia and do something else with Budapest. It's insane to move your pieces in some absurd chain that can be bounced at any point.

Finally, sort of similar to the England thing- Germany, you have to have to have to pop the French army in Ruhr there. France is all in against you right now; he only has one fleet. Your need to create a clean border with France and give him the opportunity to switch course. You are unlikely to lose Holland if you do so, and even if you do, who cares that's fine you are further unbalancing the E/F.

@uclabb I think you posted this in the wrong thread.

That's what the other thread told me. Surely it works for one of them

bump

He did, but that was my fault. He posted it in the correct thread first..

The Austria comment applies to this game anyway. Russia is committing north and he has a fleet in Rumania. Don't mess with him and you will be fine. 100% you needed to prioritize defending against Italy. Instead you blew apart your safe border with Russia for no reason, basically begging him to attack you.

I'm old. I speak blunt. If I say your move was abysmal, don't take it personally. I'm talking about your move not you. If I misorder, as we all have misordered, I'm hard on myself. I'll call my own move abysmal.

Do you want to be a better player? Don't settle for just being average at tactics. Tactics are the easiest of all three diplomacy legs to master. Just be good at tactics will make you one of the better players on webdip. That second link I sent you was a really cool set of challenging problems written by an old guy named Matthew Self. He is an entertaining writer. He makes learning tactics fun. If you want to play at a high level, you need to have tactics. Once people recognize you in a game as a player with skilled tactics, they will fear you. They will be less likely to stab you. You need to master them if you want to be a great player. You can be a fine player without them. You will be a better player with them. They are not that complicated. Diplomacy is a simple game and there is a ceiling for tactical skill. You should easily reach the ceiling with just a bit of effort.

It wasn't even my move. Perhaps you should know who is who in the game when you are giving out "advice"

Do we want to be better players? Um, isn't that kind of the point of signing up for this?

Don't settle for just being average at tactics? Um, see the last response.

I will have to check out this Matthew Self guy if he makes learning fun. In fact, maybe you should check him out as well.

The fastest way to drive off new players on the site is having a core of elitist know it all's talking down to the new players.

That is probably not your intention, but it is certainly coming across that way.

I know who you are. I also know you didn't misorder. I also know you're not supposed to be commenting here. I understood that my job was not just for the players in the game, but for the entire community of people who want to learn how to play. I don't have to do this. I am happy to resign as professor and let you guys go forward without me. What do you think PF? Am I being too hard on the little teacups?