@goldfinger, assuming that you will have a draw due to stalemating Turkey, do you think Italy is going to be in it? My guess is that England will take Tunis, and Italy will be eliminated. However, that does present certain risk to E/G since Turkey might sneak though the risk is small by my estimate, even impossible though I have not game it out yet, if England uses F West Med, and immediate deploys F English Channel to the Med.

I think by not keeping France alive and by not pushing as hard as they could for Spain, Italy removed themselves from the draw, yes. The only way they potentially keep themselves in this is if they flip and rapidly encourage an English solo. However, England seems utterly disinclined to make any move on Germany

school is out for profs?? actually the press on global makes up for ;-)

I am a tactician, less of a diplomat, (excellent 1 vs 1 rating, bad diplomacy ratings). My guess it that Turkey is weighting Turkey's move. The issue for Turkey is E/G has a stalemate on Turkey, but Turkey does not have a stalemate on E/G yet. The English can bring up to 5 fleets to bear on Ionian Sea, and the lost of Boh, and fluidity of Tyrolia erodes land based stalemate. Maybe Turkey is concern about a E/G 17/17 split which is possible if Italy plays ball with E/G. However, the odds is still in Turkey's favor unless Italy helps England get 5 fleets on Ionian Sea(3 English fleet, and 2 Italian fleet; getting F Tunis, F TyrSea, F Naples, F Apu[only 4] within this year), and gets Turkey tied up in the Tyrolia area.

Now, I don't think E/G would go for 17/17 since it is very hard to achieve, but it is definitely possible for Turkey position to be pushed back by E/G if Italy hinders Turkey's effort since the English+Italy does have the fleet power needed to break Ionian Sea before Turkey can react.

Number of centers makes no difference in a draw though, so E/G has no incentive to push forward past the stalemate. They can't eliminate Turkey, and growing too much would give England more incentive to stab, so it's not going to happen.
There is a reason that everybody but Turkey have voted to draw.

They can eliminate Turkey that's the point, Turkey does not have a stalemate line yet. It would be difficult to do so, but not outside the realm of possibilities.

Thank you guys for trying to keep the commentary going. I think that I can speak for all of us when I say that we have missed having it these past few phases. Even if the game is winding down.

I think England and Germany can defeat Turkey. How ? Get Germany's armies back to Germany from France, replace them with English armies. Force the attack into the Mediterranean, first take Tunis, then the Tyrhennian Sea, invade Italy ( if Italy won't join England and Germany ) if Italy can be persuaded to join Germany and England, even better, but England and Germany are obliged to treat Italy honourably if that occurs...no doublecross without cause.
Weight of numbers and the boards design make a defeat of Turkey quite possible.

+1 Sandy

Agreed

I haven't posted commentary because 1) Only retreats and disbands/builds have happened since my last post 2) There's two reasons why Turkey has yet to vote draw - both of which will become apparent after spring moves and I don't want to spoil anything and 3) Y'alls commentary is whack. There's not a shot in hell that Turkey can be eliminated. All that would do is allow and English solo.

Whenever the game does draw, I'll do some EoG thoughts.

Eliminating Turkey means a two way plan that either side could easily turn into a solo. Once they're far enough into Austria, it really benefits Germany more than England.

My thoughts on this:
I am not sure whether Turkey can be eliminated, but I agree that if it would happen, it would most likely result in either a German or an English solo. If I was Germany or England and the other one would suggest to go for Turkey and two-way, I would be highly suspicious. For this reason, I don't think that Germany and England will push Turkey back and so I don't think either Germany or England will solo.
Since Turkey is stalemated (assuming Germany and England play correctly), he cannot win too. That is why, as I see it, the best Turkey, Germany and England can go for is a three-way draw and eliminate Italy. This would mean that England takes Tunis and Turkey takes the Italian peninsula. This should be completely safe.

By and large, I agree with you, Mercy

Is it just me, or is the tactical choices of all remaining players seems odd/sub optimal?

They seem fine to me. They're not trying to do anything earthshattering. Turkey and Germany are shoring up their stalemate lines without losing units. Turkey is moving against Italy. England is working with Italy, but could merely be using that as an opportunity to get into position to eliminate them with Turkey.

Nobody is trying to shake up the board state too much, because to do so would be to lose a sure place in the draw.

Alright, well a few comments here.

Italy - good job getting England onto your side. As i hinted above, there are two reasons why Turkey won't draw: 1) He is trying to eliminate you or 2) He is trying to goad England into a solo shot, and England has asked him to not put his draw vote up, so it can appear England is on the good side and wanting to draw. Both of these are not great situations for you. And you did the right thing by ensuring England has Tunis (necessary for the solo) and so long as England wants to solo, he'll try to prevent Turkey from gaining ground in Italy. At some point, when the tides shift, Tunis is your best shot at survival. So be sure not to lose it!

As for tactics, I think you should've been able to anticipate the convoy. With three German armies just to the north, He would've been taking too much of a risk to take Venice with Tyrolia or Trieste - it would open up a hole in his line. As Turkey's moves show, he's playing this very conservatively. He's content to chop you up one small piece at a time - he's in no rush. The other point that I'd like to make is that while its nice to have England on board, it would've benefited you to have Germany as well. Tyrolia is a terribly important territory at this stage in the game. Getting a German unit there while holding would've put you in a better position than you're in now. Why Germany didn't spring for it, I don't know.

Germany, had you done Silesia SH Bohemia, Bohemia support Munich to Tyrolia, you would've been in much better shape. Worst case is you swap Bohemia for Tyrolia, which puts Turkey out of position, but leaves you in a bit better shape. I'm also curious to know what the Brest bit was about. You also must start thinking about what England is doing with allll those armies in Scandinavia, and what's his excuse for being in North Sea when most Germanys would've demanded it vacated years ago.

As for Turkey's tactics, they're ultra-conservative, but still fine. Turkey, Ukraine to Moscow, Warsaw to Liv would've been better (with Gal backfill. This is what Germany was trying to avoid) or Ukraine to Moscow, Warsaw support Galicia to Silesia. Should Germany successfully dislodge Warsaw, you merely retreat it back to Ukraine for a guaranteed fall move, or forward to Prussia to threaten his main line. Remember, when you're thinking of moves at this point, be mindful to think about what your moves will make the board look like in 2-3 years.

Those are indeed weird English moves in Scandinavia. I am guessing that Germany took Brest to make it harder for England to go for a solo, and England should not have problems with it unless he is indeed praparing for a solo.

Players: A+
Tutors: B+ at least ;-)
Profs: tbd ... holy crap the game got dismissed fast... sad for school of war

If Turkey is going to consistently not enter moves on time and the profs have given up caring (like I have at this point) can we get some kind of forced draw to wrap this all up please, it's becoming a bit of a drag.

Its happening every turn. Can someone do something about it please?

suggest messaging peterwiggin - only he can do something about.

I'll take a look at the game tonight.

yeah its happened again. getting quite irritating to be honest

As an I bell. As an I. If I have one take away from this SoW it is that the community, profs and players all took part half-heartedly. It was s far cry from the Abgemacht SoWs and honestly wouldn't recommend it to new players, since it doesn't reflect anything close to a real game in that the profs can directly influence the game. I mean you can see how NOT SoW this is by the shear fact that players have been commenting in this thread about the game on a regular basis with no repercussions or warnings. Hell we have players not entering orders on 48 hour phases that's how little they care.

My EoG is going to detail the game, but it will also be a critique of this iteration of SoW and how poorly it was handled. I don't blame PW for this either. This falls on the profs lack luster commentary, also in not sure how anyone else's TA performed but Bkaderunners struck the perfect balance that an advisor should. From some of the press I got into seemed TAs were simply playing through their players.

This game seemed about as active as the last SoW from my perspective.