The other thing that catches out inexperienced players occasionally, is that in games players are shown every possible convoy choice..for example England has an army in Edinburgh, and a fleet in the North Sea. France has fleets in English Channel and Mid Atlantic, Italy has fleets in Western Mediterranean and Tyrhennian Sea, and Turkey has a fleet in the Ionian Sea.
The software is set up to offer the player with England every possible convoy destination for that army in Edinburgh, it's theoretically possible that the player with England might convince France, Italy and Turkey to use their fleets to convoy his army Edinburgh to Greece.
So it will offer that option to the player with England, it will offer all possible choices.
So inexperienced players sometimes assume that they can make convoys that use other players fleets simply because these "convoy destinations" are offered as choices.
There's two basic "parts" to a Convoy... First part is moving the army to be convoyed..eg army Edinburgh to Norway, or army Edinburgh to Greece.
The second part is using a fleet of fleets to transport the army.. So for army Edinburgh to Norway, one fleet, in the North Sea or Norwegian Sea is needed and has to be given the order to Convoy from Edinburgh to Norway.
For army Edinburgh to Greece, then fleets North Sea, English Channel, Mid Atlantic, Western Mediterranean, Tyrhennian Sea and Ionian Sea.. ALL those fleets each have to be given orders to convoy the army from Edinburgh to Greece.
Those are the two key parts of a convoy.. Army to be convoyed, and fleet, or fleets to do the convoying.
Another separate part is using a support move..eg army Serbia or a fleet in the Aegan Sea gives a support move to army moving to Greece from Edinburgh.
Then there is making sure fleets doing convoys are not displaced. Attacking a fleet is not enough in itself to prevent a convoy, the fleet has to be displaced.
For example.. Army Edinburgh to Norway, fleet North Sea convoys army Edinburgh to Norway..... And France moves fleet English Channel to North Sea..An unsupported attack does not displace English fleet North Sea so the convoy is not prevented by French fleet attacking. But say Germany has a fleet in Denmark and it gives a support move for fleet English Channel to North Sea
Now the attack on the fleet North Sea has a support move, and if the fleet in the North Sea doesn't have a support hold, say from a fleet in London, then the fleet North Sea is displaced, has to retreat from the North Sea and the convoy fails.
Convoys use lots of resources, so it pays to get them right there are few things that can cause as much delay, cause opportunities to be lost as convoy attempts that are successfully blocked or that fail because of poor orders
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A Series of Unfortunate Events
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