Whenever Bob Genghiskhan puts a fleet in North Sea, it has a strength of 11.

God is on the side that controls the North Sea.

No one? I'm kind of disappointed. If Diplomacy is your hobby, it'd seem that at least someone out there has an example of a major clash over the North Sea in one of their games. It is one of the most critical territories in the game.

Anyone? Bueller?

How many fleets have you had in the Atlantic, as any power? Any more than 4 fleets, and you're probably wasting builds. And no more than two powers can ever get the full force into that battle, because two members of an alliance won't ever both have large forces in the Atlantic. If it's an even battle, they won't go through with the fight, and skirmish elsewhere until it's an uneven battle. If it's an uneven battle, then one of the sides lost some forces, and the battle will contain 7 troops or so. A big fight, but nothing amazing. Haven't seen it myself, though. Probably a rare event. The fact is, if you're fighting over the North Sea, both of you have lost already. It needs to be seized, not fought over.

I'll see what i can find, and for the record, the North Sea borders 6 SCs tied with Serbia, so the fight over the balkans is too a well contested one

This game had too much focus on the North Sea, though it was a gunboat game. I was involved in it, and was worried it would end up leading to a loss.
gameID=145847

gameID=152790
gameID=150918
the first one is better, i had a solid line of fleets in England's east coast at one point :P

Yes, I see the North Sea as the most important sea zone, but I think that in any game, the war over it is relatively small (compared to what it could be) because at the time any power(s) need to storm the North Sea, their armies are equally small (10 units or less with less than half made up of fleets).

I can't picture a scenario where two or three countries would need to fight over the NTH with 11 total units. If two or three countries have that many fleets at their disposal, it's probably because they're close to winning, at which point the Island is almost assuredly locked down and the fight is about keeping someone behind a stalemate line.

Would anybody be interested in a variant game, where whoever holds North Sea at the end of 1910 is declared the winner, no other conditions?

@tru In the game I posted, there were 9 units involved.

I would hate to play as Austria or Turkey in that game since it's a guaranteed loss...

Plus, it's easily conceivable that a player wins by (or prior to) 1910.

It's not a guaranteed loss for Austria or Turkey, if you ask me, just very, very unlikely.

It's a guaranteed loss for Austria.

Austria pumps out 1 fleet per year. That means by builds 1906, he's just getting his 7th fleet on the map. Then, that fleet has to sail from Tri to the ADR to the ION to the TYN to the WES to the MAO to the ENG before it can be effectively used. That's 3 years of movement BEFORE it can assist a fight at the CLOSEST location.

That means Austria can't bring 7 fleets to bear on the NTH until 1910, and even then, they wouldn't get control because someone else would already control those zones.

Turkey could, but again, it's a stretch because of the ION bottleneck he faces getting fleets out there.

The only winners in the variant you're suggesting would involve Russia, England, Germany, France and less likely Italy.

Also, France can use three fleets to stalemate Turkey from getting across, so his only hope of getting there is to attack countries by land to reduce their presence.

This makes 1910 too soon to really call a game fairly, but if you extend it, each year increases the possibility of a solo victory prior to your winning condition, unless you disallow a typical solo requiring players to have 17 or fewer centers at any given time.

I'd say for all practical purposes, it's a guaranteed loss for Austria or Turkey. Theoretically though, anything is possible, which is why I was curious about the thousands of other games which have already been completed.

better game idea, you get points according to the number of territories that are your color,
so i russia controls galicia, it is worth as much as him controlling budapest in points.
example gameID=152790
Russia: 28
England: 11
Italy: 7
Turkey: 6
France: 2
Austria: 1
Germany: 0

sorry i said p-o-i-n-t-s and it abbr it to (D)

any other points we need to clear up? i hate when someone points their finger at me. damn

damn you webdip abbr

@ James - that's an interesting idea. So you'd still need SCs for builds, but you'd score points for occupying non-SC areas too..... What would the victory condition be? About 34 ?

55 land territories, so 28 to win? Too bad there is not an even number. :(