Note how webdip doesn't make you specify the coast of the destination location when entering the support order; you just specify the coast for the move, and the support will be valid whichever coast you choose.

K tnx!

Legal

Sorry

Apology

Accepted

TheMinisterOfWar: Yes, though you may want to check your abbreviations. ;-)

y2kjbk: The original game doesn't make you specify either.

I believe there's a rule about this in the original game, that says that you MAY specify coast, in which case the order is only valid if the unit you support targets that coast. That's a way of controlling where another person will land in exchange for help. I don't think this was in the original webdip rules, but it became part of the jurisprudence.

I do not believe the board game rules ever had the option to specify, and from a theoretical perspective, why would they? "Support" in a military (or economic) sense involves taking some action that forces the target to divide his forcers, thus making him subject to defeat. If I land a small diversionary force near Valencia, that still diverts troops that are then unable to repel the "real" invasion at Bilbao.

@JECE: I use standard notation! 4th Ed rules. To be honest, I think notation on this site is horrible, why not use the canon?

@VirtualBob: I stopped using military parallels when I realised that a 'bounce' was basically undefendable :-)

TheMinisterOfWar: They've changed the abbreviations over time?

The self-bounce may make some sense in terms of spreading out forces. Bounces between different powers make some sense in terms of retreating back to your trenches/camps after open warfare. Now for supporting another power's designed self-bounce to sabatoge it? That one is a little weird.

Not really.

I see the self-bounce as a means of cutting off an unsupported army by spreading troops, as you said. If the troops from both starting points have been told to stop when they meet each other, and another force chooses to cut off one line of troops, the other will likely radio for help, forcing the original force to move into the territory to help out.

ghug: I don't quite follow. I'm talking about, say two German armies moving Hol-Bel and Pic-Bel. An English fleet in Nth can support Hol-Bel and the bounce ceases to be.

Yeah. Generally a support would involve distracting the army you're not supporting so that the one you are supporting wins. If you start hitting one unit as the two of them are spreading their forces, the other one is most likely going to move to protect and compensate, no?

Nothing in any edition of the rule book out at wizards of the coast from the oldest to the newest mentions either requiring a coast (except to say it isn't required) or what happens with the support of you do specify one.

The question is: what happens if you write, in your orders, "Wes S MAO-Spa (SC)" (assuming I've got the acronyms correct for a second). There's nothing wrong with that order. MAO-Spa (SC) is a perfectly good order, that can be supported, but if MAO decides to move to NC it clearly is not doing what the support order suggests. I believe for this reason it is either written down, or commonly understood among Diplo players, that the support is only given if MAO does in fact move to SC, although the situaiton rarely occurs.

(and when it says it isn't required, I think the only interpretation of that is the interpretation I provide above. If it said that it isn't *allowed*, that would be an entirely different problem.)

Moreover, about the order of MoW: the specific move F MAO-Spa(nc) cannot be executed by WMS itself and clearly the intention of the move is exactly that, the north coast of Spain. In an official match, I would judge the move to be illegal...

Redhouse, I buy your first point, but the second is just wrong. If you border a province, you can support something in from any other territory bordering said province.

The paramount requirement of a support order is that the *unit that is providing the support, could perform the move that it is supporting itself*. MoW's order completely violates that principle with the "NC" added to his order, that clearly indicates an order that Wes could *not* perform itself.

The rules clearly state that coasts are the same province, they also clearly state that the support is allowed. How is this even an argument?

Well, look at what Draug wrote (assuming he's got his facts right): addition of a coast is *not required*. Clearly, that means that you *could* add a coast name, and that that coast name has meaning. Otherwise, the rules would have clearly indicated that this rule disregards coasts altogether, which it absolutely doesn't. The issue is linguistic rather than legal, if you ask me. Where's semck? He's good at this kind of thing.

See, redhouse, I think there was a bit of conclusion created by your referencing TMOW's questions and then saying something you had already said. It can be fairly assumed that because he is asking on this site, the site's order input functionality applies, and thus the orders he is discussing are: F-WMED S MAO-Spa and MAO-Spa(NC). Having already stated your feelings on the matter of issuing a more specific support order, your reference to his post made it sound like you were extending your opinion to supports in which coast is left unspecified (as it should be per the rules). Furthermore, allowing someone to specify a coast in a support order is, in essence, allowing someone to add a condition not originally allowed to his orders, which should not be allowed under any circumstance. Therefore the support should apply to a move to either coast.

ghug: I still can't picture your military explanation. Maybe I'm not getting something. Maybe it's because you're using words like "supporting" and "hitting", ha ha.

TheMinisterOfWar: I just checked. In the version of the game I've got (4th Edition 2000) it's definitely Mid and Wes. What you said was obviously understandable, though and thus would fly per the rules.

@JECE: I don't know what to say, you're right. I seriously thought that my use of MAO and NAO was canon, even including writing all capitals for sea spaces. Now it puzzles me, where did I pick that up then? Anyway, yes, I need to do something about my notation...

While we're talking on the topic of my stubbornness, I think the Dip notation system should be adjusted to mine.

A lot of the old pbem engines required MAO & NAO. They also required things like WES & EAS (rather then the now-common WMED & EMED) as well as insisting on distinctions such as NWG vs. NWY (which could be ambiguous) and LVP vs LVN (which could not). Anyway, I think that is where the canon came from, not the game itself, but I could be wrong.

People use MAO, WMS, NAO, etc. all the time. Some abbreviation lists even suggest this convention. Either way, its perfectly clear.

"The paramount requirement of a support order is that the *unit that is providing the support, could perform the move that it is supporting itself*. "

False, Red. The actual statement is that "the unit providing the support can move to the *province* that it is supporting to, regardless of coasts". This is *very* clear in the rule book.

As far as the argument that you should be able to specify which coast to issue the support to, I like it, but it hasn't worked that way in a practical sense for the last 50+ years. Your statement not withstanding, it is *not* generally accepted and the judges nor the official World Dip Tournament recognize it as such.

Support Moves from the rule book (retyped as the 4th edition rules on Dip archive are scanned so no text, please forgive any typos).

"The *province* (emphasis mine) to which a unit is providing support must be one to which the supporting unit could have legally moved during that turn." Not it clearly states province, not coast.

It continues...

"A Fleet that can move to a province with two separate coasts (a Fleet in the Mid-Atlantic, for example) can support another Army or Fleet into that province (in this case Spain), without regard to separate coastlines." Clearly it is the province, not the coast, that is important.

Now regarding specifying a coast on the support, I could find nothing in my rereading to indicate either way. So we have to go on history where the Judges (PBeM) and the World Dip Con rules are the authroity. The Judges do *not* allow a specificatyion of coast on support move and I have never seen anything in World Dip Con that allows it there either. So, despite being an interesting idea, it is not canon or standard practice or common knowledge or generally accdepted amongst the Dip community at large.

That's different from what you said in the beginning, where specifying a coast line wasn't required.

And "without regard" is vague. Its most obvious interpretation (and one we can all agree on) is that Wes *can* issue MAO-Spa without specifying a coast, whereas usually, Wes would *have* to specify a coast. That's the strictest interpretation to *without regard* and that's the interpretation that I believe is the correct one, and the one that led to the current webdip programming.

However, I'm not yet ready to accept that it *also* means that IF the fleet in Wes *explicitly* states SC as a part of its order, that MAO-Spa NC should be supported all the same, because I simply see two conflicting orders there. The reason I don't believe it does, is that I believe that if the person who wrote that had considered that option, he would never have written "without regard to separate coastlines", but instead, he would have said that "no coastline may be specified when a ship carries a support move order." as that would have been the most unambiguous formulation.

And by usually I mean if Wes itself wanted to go to Spa.

I just checked, and UDSP uses MAO/NAO notation. I guess i picked it up there.

And, oh yes, what Draug said flies ^

(Obviously, it should be a little stricter. Sorry. "The fleet that supports a move to a province that has two coastlines cannot specify which of the two coastlines the supported unit will be supported to." Something along these lines.)

In even other words - and then I'll stop and wait for semck to join us if he chooses to - when I pronounce the sentence by Draugnar "A fleet that can move ... regard to separate coastlines" the CAN is emphasized in my head. CAN in its form of adding an option ("You can join if you want.") and not in the form of an instruction ("You can participate in the elections if you pre-registered.")

PS above, where I discuss the meaning of the word can, it is the second mentioning of the word in that sentence (before "support another Army or Fleet").

Okay I'm finished.

LOL! Red! Please! My sides are hurting at that last volley! Want to clarify which "a" you meant too? J/K.

As far as the creator's intent, we will never know unless his recent widow or children dig up some memoires of his that happen to mention this subject or one of us invents a time machine and goes back to at least last week to ask him.

In regards to the original question:

Yes, the order is valid according to the rules of the game.

In fact, this situation is even explicitly mentioned in the rulebook.

The latest edition of the rules (2008 reprint available at http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/diplomacy_rulebook.pdf) states on page 10:
"A Fleet that can move to a province with two separate coasts (a
Fleet in the Mid-Atlantic, for example) can support another Army
or Fleet into that province (in this case Spain), without regard to
separate coastlines."

This rule is even explicitly mentioned in the rulebook of the first mass published edition of the game (see http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/rulebooks/1959.pdf):

"A fleet which may move to one of these provinces may 'support' in such province (see below), without regard for the separation of the coastline into two stretches."

The DATC test cases also acknowledge that this is legal, but while discussing a larger issue of whether or not the coast needs to be specified in such circumstances (see issue 4.B.4 at http://web.inter.nl.net/users/L.B.Kruijswijk/#4.B).
Note: the website essentially takes position "e" (where coastal specification in a support order is not given and hence universal) on this particular issue.

As for the philosophy of why this is possible:


This is a highly abstract game. Whether or not it is possible from a realism perspective is hardly a meaningful argument. However, even still, one could argue that a fleet in WMS could help the attack on the north coast succeed by harassing the south coast, thereby forcing the defender to split his forces and weakening himself to be overtaken from the north.

From an abstract practical game play perspective, it kind of makes sense (and is perhaps more conducive to creating more tactical options) to let a unit have an impact any adjacent territory that they can reach, even if the "action" ultimately occurs on the other coast.

What Red is saying is to take it to the next step. He says "OK, fine, you don't have to specify coast and the support can be to either coast, *but* I *only* want to support this unit in if it is moving to this specific coast and not to the other coast." In other words, he thinks (and nothing in the rules disagrees with it, but it has never in my 30+ years of playing ever been interpretted in this way) that we should be allowed to qualify our support by specifying a coast. It's kind of along the lines of the old "hijacked convoy") that would cause two units to swap when one of the units didn't want to be convoyed and wanted to bounce instead. We'll call it the "unintentional support" because the specific coast couldn't be specified.

Exactly, Draug. That's the correct interpretation of what I'm saying. I'm also saying that the order has to be correct. Hence, TMOW's order is illegal, IMHO, and when the SC was picked and MAO had gone for NC, it would have been void.

There's a whole discussion about whether specifying the coast should be required, unnecessary, ignored, irrelevant, or otherwise in the "debatable issues" of the DATC (see issue 4.B.4 in the link that I posted). The website takes position E in the list of alternatives.

LINK (POSTED EARLIER)
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/L.B.Kruijswijk/#4.B
ISSUE 4B4

TMoW's order was completely legal. The rules state "without regard to separate coastlineand "support to a province it can move to". The only change your request would do is limit the support to that specific coastline but because the entire province is support hold/support movable without regard to coastline, the order is legal. On that you are demonstrably incorrect.