yes, the french support would succeed.

germany would more to ruhr, and munich would be vulnerable.

But you are relying on germany making the self-bounce.

The more common example i've seen is between italy and france in 1901; marseilles becomes open to attack from piedmont, and france chooses to bounce spain with burgundy... italy counters by supporting spain to mars, denying france his build from spain AND denying him the ability to build in mars.

The move would have worked - I've used it (and had it used against me) several times.

Sure, that would (have) work(ed)!

Ah - orathaic beat me to it. Apologies for the repeat.

Same here.

in your example you have two units to attack Ruhr, and thus you can ensure you take it by simply forcing two in - usually this is the safer bet, as it gives you the territory and you can advance rear units toward the front line.

You might prefer to take munich, if you're a gambling man, but without knowing what germany is likely to be doing (meaning careful diplomacy) you're crazy to try...

Whereas the french-italy conflict is more obvious because it is the 'best' french responce... i'm sure there are a few more standard openings like that, but i can't think of any off the top of my head.

Oh, there is a rule which prevent you from forcing your own armies to retreat. So if you supported munich to Ruhr, and had an army in Ruhr, then the support wouldn't have counted.

That is one of the obscure rules which people rarely need.

It is only important if you support yourself to attack a province which you already occupy, and then you can't force your unit to retreat (and possibly disband) even if the enemy supports you in...

However, a caveat to orathaic's addendum is that the attack by both Mun and Hol (being German) would cut any support orders Ruhr attempted to do.

Okay, thanks guys. I tried it as Germany did that in the spring, and I thought I would go for the centre in the fall.

I'm still a nooby inexperienced player, I made far to many mistakes that game. Was only my second ever gunboat. I prefer talking games.

Hey, 1 win and 4 draws out of 8 games. Nothing to sneeze at Minty. You are doing quite well.

As a new player these are exactly the kind of questions you should be asking, and the community forum is really here to have these kinds of conversations, imho.

I actually don't see how Pic could support any move into Ruhr… but I guess you mean you had your unit in Bel? If then

G A Mun - Ruh, A Hol - Ruh (fail)

F A Bel S G A Mun - Ruh, A Bur -Mun or vice versa would have worked (supporting the army from Hol into Ruh and moving Bel into Hol, but this could have been stupid for most situations.)

"So if you supported munich to Ruhr, and had an army in Ruhr, then the support wouldn't have counted.

That is one of the obscure rules which people rarely need."

I actually use that one quite frequently, ora

"I actually don't see how Pic could support any move into Ruhr… but I guess you mean you had your unit in Bel?"

I was going to say the same thing, X3n0n.

Draugnar: "However, a caveat to orathaic's addendum is that the attack by both Mun and Hol (being German) would cut any support orders Ruhr attempted to do."

Not so. An attack by a country on one of its own units does not cut support. (4th ed, p14).

I knew someone would say that. You miss the point that both Mun *and* Hol attack so a support to Mun would be cut by Hol amd vice versa. Two attacks guarantees cut support always because support can only be directed at one of the two SCs. Pwnd! :-D

In our scenario A Ruh is also German, so that doesnt fly. Any support Ruh will have given against Hol or Mun is void anyway.

Unless A Ruh is French (there seem to be two scenarios in this thread), in which case youre right!

Yeah, I was runnign off the A Ruhr was an enemy of Germany because we were saying supporting one of them in wouldn't dislodged it, but it wouldn't dislodge it either way cause Germany can't dislodge it's own unit and France can't assist in dislodging it's unit.

@goldfinger, care to illustrate an example?

I know that you can attack your own unit to defend the position, but when do you support an enemy into a position that you hold?

Say, for example, we had German: A Mun, A Hol, A Kiel
and French: A Bel, A Ruhr, A Bur.

So, Ruhr can be defended by A Bel S A Bur - Ruhr; (by two, supporting Ruhr to hold can get it three)

But instead, I could order A Bel S A Mun - Ruhr (and this will be cut if and only if it would make Ruhr dislodge) If however Germany orders A mun - Ruhr, A hol S A kiel - Ruhr (for whatever reason) Then belguims support will cause a bounce between munich and kiel. (not dislodging the unit in ruhr so the support isn't cut.)

what are we talking about again? I thought Ruh was empty, there were French armies in Bur and Bel (aka Pic) and German armies in Mun and Hol. The plan was to let the German army from one of the two SCs slip into Ruh while at the same time sneaking into the liberated SC? But I am apparently lost…

I'm talking about the more interesting case where you can't support an attack on your own unit.

Oh and i gave the positions of the units in my example.

Say you're trying to set up a stalemate line in the West Med. You have fleets in Tus, Tyr Sea, Ionian, and Tunis. France has units in Pie, GoL, West Med, and North Africa. As you can see, this is not yet a complete stalemate line. By tapping Tuscany, Pie can break it. So, you must do the following moves.

Tus -> GoL
Tunis -> West Med
Tyr S -> Tunis
Ionian S Tyr S -> Tunis

In a more generic example, you may want to support your enemy.into your own territory if you think he will attack it with support but knows it can be used as support against an equal strength attack against his attacker and also be suppprt held so the support wouldn't get cut. In that case, you enemy might tap the unit from a second.position to guarantee the support is cut and you, by supporting the second attack, cause him to self bounce.

In the hypothetical situation wherein Picardy and Ruhr were contiguous, then yes - what you said would work.