SoW Spring 1906
England - A good move set countered by a little bit of good fortune in the south makes this a very successful phase for you. You put that much-needed army in motion right off the bat and, if you choose, it can immediately secure you another build. You also managed to set yourself up to take Tunis *if* you can hold Austria out of the Tyrrhenian Sea another phase, which would be a very, very critical center for you in the long run.
Obviously, the flip side to this is that Germany made an aggressive maneuver with his fleets toward you, but I think this is little to worry about - at least for this phase. I say this because Germany has made a couple of minor tactical errors that now come back to bite him, namely that he has no way of defending Holland. If he forces the North Sea to retreat, you can move to Holland and then have two builds, making you largely unbreakable in the short term. The build you helped him get in Marseilles is absolutely critical to him as well, so losing that would mean that he has no way of strengthening his northern defenses against A/R, something he desperately needs to do right now. Long story short, I think you can talk him out of this ill-timed attack.
France - It may have been inadvertent and it may not have been, but you protected yourself for the time being by breaking England's support of Italy into the Tyrrhenian. He likely had an agreement in place with Italy to support him into Tunis (or something along those lines), but now that's dead, which means that you aren't yet. Accidental or not, good job.
Italy - The flip side of France's move is that your move failed, leaving you highly unlikely to retain any centers. Your game is probably over, so if you have a last "fuck you" to make to someone, make it now.
Germany - Your patience paid off in France, allowing you to grab Marseilles. Germany doesn't often get Marseilles, but in a game shaped like this one, it can be a very critical center for you to hold because it allows you to shuffle an army (or more) through Piedmont and turn the tables on Austria. In this sense, you could attack Austria from his backside - his weaker side - and take the offensive rather than simply defending your stalemate centers from him. It may not be feasible yet, but down the road it might be something worth thinking about.
With regards to this budding A/R, I caution you against letting your guard down and moving Burgundy to Ruhr in an effort to secure a better future defensive position. Were Austria and Russia to work together to take Munich this year, it would fall unless you offer both Burgundy and Berlin for support, so please be wary, and if you are going to take that chance, you should be very, very certain that Russia and Austria aren't working together.
As for your move on England, I don't think that it was a bad one. You timed it well in that he isn't able to support the North Sea because of moves that you presumably knew he was making, and you have undoubtedly considered that he might retreat to Holland if you boot him out. That said, Austria's maneuver makes this a poor time to attack. You should put some effort in in the remaining 24 hours of this phase to remedy your relationship with England if you haven't already and potentially come up with a plan that allows you to defend yourself and make a move on England at a later point.
Austria - Very well done all around. You have an opportunity to go a number of different directions right now, all of which lead to some pretty substantial growth and increase your solo chances. You could move your fleets toward Tunis, which, if you take it, gives you likely permanent control over the Med assuming you defend yourself appropriately. You could also move toward Turkey, which, while not as tactically advantageous as Tunis is, eliminates a Mediterranean threat preemptively and gives you three centers as opposed to one. As for your armies, you made a decisive move toward Germany, particularly Munich and Berlin - arguably the two most important centers for any soloing power on this board, but especially for Austria - and you also moved defensively to Galicia, which you could use to your advantage by taking Ukraine and threatening Russia even more.
I'm sure you're aware of this, but the next 2-3 years are the most critical in your game so far. You are 8 centers short of a solo but you are working on closing that gap. Some might think that everyone knows you're a solo threat, but this is clearly not the case - Russia is friendly toward you and Germany is making a move on England, neither of which would be happening if they were concerned that you are an imminent solo threat. However, if/once you take Munich, that's all going to change. As such, these upcoming phases are extremely critical as you can set yourself up to the greatest advantage possible before you really get the rest of the map's attention. One mistake could lead to a serious hole in your position down the road that could wreck you. Talk to your TA about this. I would love to provide examples and show you what I mean, but I'm worried about having too much impact on the game itself, so I don't want to do that.
As for your unit placement and stalemates, you have 9 total units right now. It doesn't appear that you are going to gain any more centers this year (though it's not impossible), so you will be standing at 10 centers at the end of the year and you can make use of that build you were forced to postpone last time around. You have 6 armies, four of them - Tyrolia, Bohemia, Galicia, and Rumania - in an offensive stance, but not yet outside of your territory. These armies need to keep moving. If they get stuck, you'll have difficulty getting them moving later (basically, you would have to wedge your way into Russia through Armenia and the Black Sea in order to break them free). You have 3 fleets, all of which are in position to move either east or west simultaneously (or potentially split up with 2 west and 1 east, but this is chancy on both ends). Your other two units - armies in Bulgaria and Greece - are static for now.
The question you need to ask yourself is where you want these units to end up. You will continue building if you successfully put yourself into prime solo position, but those units you build will always be *behind* the units that you have now. The units you're using to make this charge are the ones that are going to end up in your 16th, 17th, and hopefully 18th centers when the time comes. As such, you should set yourself some targets and figure out whether they are achievable - where do you need to get in order to solo? How much resistance are you going to face and how much resistance can you handle? If you can't handle it now, might you be able to later? These are all basic questions that come to mind and questions that we can discuss in more detail later.
Of course, this sort of attitude requires that you expand past 10 centers, which, as of right now, isn't even guaranteed. As before, you have work to do in the next few phases in order to set yourself up. You still have to nearly double your SC count in order to win, so it's a long, hard road ahead.
Turkey - Success! Russia moved out of Smyrna *and* the Black Sea. You can probably take Smyrna back. That said, you need to be wary that Austria might be coming your way, but even at three centers, you're a formidable opponent, one that's very difficult to take out. You need to look closely at the board and see if there is any path you might be able to take that gives you some room to grow again, and I promise you that there is one - Turkey is never dead until he's dead.
Russia - I've been on your ass for awhile now but I don't think you made any major mistakes this phase. You chose to continue to work with Austria (or at least from my point of view it appears that way), which is not in itself a bad thing, though failing to break into Germany all but guarantees that he grows through your mutual cooperation and you don't grow or gain any security at all unless he supports you. As I'm sure you remember, he didn't help you in Turkey last time you played this card, so I wouldn't be confident in that.
This was theoretically preventable, as we already pointed out - moving Livonia to Prussia instead of to St. Petersburg, which isn't defendable anyway, would have netted you a build in Berlin but Austria would not be able to acquire Munich, giving you a little bit of leverage over Austria by having the capability to hold him out of Munich. This is important because, as things stand, Austria has the leverage over you. He has more armies than you and he already used his positional leverage over you in Turkey before. Now it appears unlikely that you will be able to get to Berlin before he gets into Silesia, thereby forcing you to defend as opposed to attack.
Obviously, though, hindsight is 20/20. While you certainly could have known that Germany was going to move out of the Baltic Sea, I don't presume that you did; otherwise, this move would have been a no-brainer. For that I want to cut you some slack. Likewise, it's very possible that you thought England was preparing to attack Sweden or convoy his army to Holland, so putting a single army in St. Petersburg makes a lot of sense if you didn't expect it to be attacked with brute force. I can't blame you for that either.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is this - your moves made a lot of sense given what you knew. This was not the time to stab Austria, so continuing your friendship with him makes sense. This was also not the time to continue pestering Turkey because you will probably need his help soon, so moving out of Smyrna makes sense, and, as I said before, the move to St. Petersburg over Prussia makes sense as well given that you couldn't have been omniscient as we are now having seen the development of the board. All that said, you were quite unlikely here, particularly in that England is attacking you as opposed to Germany and you likely won't be able to stop him. You played the cards you were dealt and you simply didn't win this hand.
Moment of Silence for One of the Best Webdip Threads Ever
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