It's not a defeatist mode, I'm having a hard time finding time.

@ duckofspades:
I think JMO hasn't had time to catch up on the back log of posts and read your reasons on page 8 of this thread.

Also....
Bump.

@duckofspades- I suggest you read jmo's post and learn from it. Your disbands were objectively really bad.

I looked at the post and see things could of been done better.

Bump

Phase has passed

What Scoggle said... :D

Spring turn has gone through, though profs may want to wait for retreats before commenting.

I'm going to wait for retreats before talking about the board overall, but I did want to cover the set of moves around Tunis. France should have had a 50/50 chance of holding Tunis, instead his moves took away any chance of him holding that center.

In this situation there were a few important things that needed to be considered. The number of units everyone had, the position of those units, and the likelihood of each unit being used for attack or for supporting an attack.

In this situation France has to assume that Italy is going to try and take Tunis. You then have to assume, and this is EXTREMELY important, that he is going to use the Ionian Sea to support himself into Tunis. The reason you have to make this assumption is that the Ionian Sea is the only unit that France could not break support for, no matter what moves he entered. So if you know that the Ionian Sea will be supporting a move then you know that either the Western Med or the Tyrr Sea will be attacking.

At this point you need to look at your units, what are you most likely to use each unit for? You have to consider this because it's what Italy will be considering. What he sees is that you have 3 units. Tunis, Gulf of Lyon, and North Africa. The Gulf of Lyon cannot support Tunis's hold, so he has to assume that North Africa will support hold Tunis.

So knowing that, Italy's only logical move is to attack Tunis with the Tyrr Sea supporting the attack from the Ionian Sea while using Western Med to cut your support in North Africa. So the logical counter to that attack is using the Gulf of Lyons to support Tunis into the Tyrr Sea. That would have canceled out his move and left you with Tunis instead of a disband.

The other option I would have liked to see is you using the same reasoning, but then deciding to support Tunis to the Western Med from North Africa while bouncing Tus in the Tyrr Sea. This would have forced Italy to disband a unit, and while it would cost you a center it would have given you perfect position to move more fleets into the region and probably break into the Tyrr Sea next turn.

S 1906

With very little resistance in the north, England is growing quickly, which should give the rest of the board reason to be concerned, especially now that England has five armies safely on the continent and in very dangerous positions. Just to clarify - five armies is a lot for England, especially in 1906. You've been warned.

jmo did a great job with his analysis of the moves around Tunis, and I'll add one more important detail. France is about to run into a problem of diminishing returns to scale with his Mediterranean fleet. The premise is simple to understand. Because there are a limited number of spaces around Tunis, you can only throw so many fleets into the area. Italy can sit back and defend quite easily with his four fleets. While this situation is by no means permanent and can be easily changed by outside factors, this is one of the classic stalemate scenarios. With only one more build likely, France is very rapidly approaching a natural limit with no more options available for builds.

5. GERMANY - Hey, you're still here. Cool.

4. FRANCE - Tunis is a major fiasco for you and a big loss, and the fact that you don't get a retreat only compounds your problems. You better hope England is silly enough to help you into Munich, otherwise, England has more than twice as many armies as you, which should NEVER happen as France. With England getting at least one, possibly two builds, you are in trouble.

3. TURKEY - I put you ahead of France this turn, but just barely. You had the opportunity to stab at a great opportunity but gave up in favor of a seemingly easy build in Sev that you failed to take. Not a great turn for you. With a looming solo threat, you're now balancing your growth options with the very real possibility of throwing the balance of the south out of whack and potentially letting England have an easy solo.

2. ITALY - Taking Tunis was a great move, as has been said numerous times already, and effectively stalemates France's efforts to retake the center. Having good relations with Turkey is essential right now, because you can't afford to spare any armies. You've got five at the moment and you need to solidify your stalemate line around Munich. All hands on deck to keep England from reaching 18.

1. ENGLAND - You're on a roll. Five armies on land, at least one, likely two builds, and no resistance in sight. Nicely done. With the right moves, you could go +3 this year and set yourself up for even more next year. You need to be seriously thinking about how you're going to get to 18 centers. Moscow is a nice bonus if you can get it, but holding onto it expends valuable resources that could be better used elsewhere. Right now, though, you've got a big advantage on land, so press that advantage. St. Pete only needs one fleet to hold, so that frees up the rest of your fleets for use elsewhere.

Turning a big lead into a solo is a delicate and tricky business. Good luck.

What about Russia? No words of wisdom like "Duck and cover"?

Oh, you're still here? I don't know, don't die?

"Don't get dead". Good advice :D

Bump

Retreat went through (a few hours ago). Spring comments?

Spring 1906

JMo (who is famous for winning every game he's ever played) and 2WL (who is just generally better than me) have examined both the minute tactics (France's blunder around Tunis) and the big strategy (England's route to a solo). So with everything well enough examined, I'll go have a second cup of coffee this morning. Just kidding, I'll talk about the board.

1. England. You've been in first place for a while now. Some of the comments have suggested that England should have built a bunch of fleets and stabbed France last year, but now as I look out upon a continent being swarmed by pink armies, it's clear that he's played this just perfectly. JMo, 2WL and I all think that England has a nice potential to get to 18. That being said, it's awfully easy for an England to get to 12 or 13 coastal centers and then get stuck, since the final 5 or 6 centers are landlocked and must be captured by armies. Fortunately for England, he's put so many armies onto the continent that getting inland centers could be possible. He should start counting to 18, because it's easy to think that you have a winning position, but if you don't know which centers to go for, you may get stuck at 17.

2. Italy. Italy declined to offer support to Turkey, which is awfully interesting. The support holds suggest that the little attack last year has been smoothed over, but the lack of support for Turkey suggests that Italy wants him to stay at exactly 5 centers. Italy just has to figure out exactly what he wants to do. Does he want to solo? Stop another player from solo-ing and force a draw? He needs to consider that this is a Winner Takes All game, not a Points Per Supply Center. The counterplay against France is going nicely, but I'm not sure that Italy has a completely clear plan in mind.

3. Turkey. I'll agree with 2WL and consider that you are slightly better than France. Turkey isn't being attacked at the moment, but, then again, Italy declined to help Turkey break into Sevastopol, suggesting that things are still a little weird between them. At this point, it's almost as likely for Turkey to be included in a final draw as it is for him to be eliminated totally.

4. France. JMo explained how France could have played around with the logjam in the Med. If I were France, I would have probably moved to Tyrr and then moved into the Ionian in the fall, just because it would irritate the heck out of Italy and Turkey. Last turn, I tried to hint that France should get on the phone with Turkey and try to orchestrate a two front war to eliminate Italy. Since that didn't happen, things don't look so great for France any more.

5. Russia. It would be ironic if Russia gets Warsaw and Warsaw turns out to be the deciding unit that prevents England from solo-ing, and Italy ardently support-holds Warsaw the rest of the game, allowing Russia into the final draw. That would be universally right, since Russia spent most of his game sitting in Warsaw. In the end, he could be vindicated.

6. Germany. Unlike Warsaw, Munich is not as likely to serve as a keystone.

I know we aren't supposed to unduly impact the game, but I do think it would be cool if the path to a solo (in general, or even in this game specifically) were discussed a bit around now. I know pretty exactly what my plan would be if I were England now.. it's about that time.

Maybe we can save that talk for post game and use what happens in this game as one example? Now this example may be "that is how you stop a solo" but that is valid as well. :D

@uclabb - Such a discussion at this point would "unduly impact the game" at this point, especially if it was discussed in the terms of this game specifically. Commentary and questions in this thread should deal only with things that have already happened on the board. Any more than that is unfair to the players.

I know that if I were a player, I would want to learn what would be a good (the right?) thing to be thinking about right now.

Yeah, it's much more fun to watch the players do things wrong and then yell at them afterwards for messing up ;)

I thought the TAs were helping us with what we should be doing right now...

That's fine in private PMs, but the path to a solo is a discussion I'd like to save for after the game is over.

@uclabb. That is what the TA's are for.

The issue is that good strategy is the difference between average play and advanced play, and it's impossible to talk about strategy when the topic of discussion is just the previous turn. jmo wrote a great write up on the tactics around Tunis last turn, but the truth of the matter is that the important thing about the moves around Tunis really have to do with what Italy and France's goals ought to be, which are almost 100% dictated by England's impending solo try. And it's a bummer that that can't be talked about, as that is the whole point of the mid to end game. It's especially a bummer because many (most?) games on this site barely even play the end game and just collapse into boring 3 or 4 way draws.

As has been mentioned before, this is why we have TAs. As Italy's TA it's clearly something that I'm interested in talking about with my student, and I suspect England, France and Turkey are all having these discussions with their TAs as well. We may not be as good as the profs (I've learnt from this process, for sure), but we should be good enough to give some idea of strategy.

Russia and I are talking about how we get to 18. Its really a question of if it will take us 9 or 10 years :)

I'm pulling for Germany myself

Is that a euphemism?