Diplomacy: Realpolitik

[4is111]

My, that's a lot of supply centers you've got there turkey.

All the better to win the game with

[Zjoot]

Oh, haven't done my adjustment, have I? I'll disband the army in Holland.

[Mael]

Good timing, I was just coming on to issue a 12ish hour reminder :)

Austria
Removes A hol
France
Builds F bre
Builds A mar
Germany
Removes F adr
Italy
Builds F nap
Turkey
Builds F smy
Builds A con
Builds A ank

New map looks like this:


Spring 1908 orders are due on Wednesday 7th at noon.
Time to get sharpening those daggers.

Edit:
It occurred to me that a clean map might be more useful than the above one, so here you go, enjoy.


Double edit: What are peoples preferred image size for the map? What size do other folk generally use around these parts?

[Mael]

This is your 24 hour notice.

[4is111]

****, can I ask for a couple day extension? RL has been giving me a load of **** and I've got a dozen unprocessed pms from various games.

[Mael]

****, can I ask for a couple day extension? RL has been giving me a load of **** and I've got a dozen unprocessed pms from various games.

Well, I did say any reason, so ok I guess.

Deadline is pushed back to noon Friday. Anyone who wants to change their orders can do so.

Is the one season a week schedule too much or is it just a one off problem?

[Mael]

21 hours to the postponed deadline.
Get your orders in if you haven't already done so.
Anybody who already submitted orders before Wednesday does not need to send in a new set unless they want to change anything.

[4is111]

I don't think its going to be a regular problem. I should have my orders in tonight.

[Mael]

Orders for this turn:


Which leads to:


Austria - The Grimmace

A bud Supports A tri -> ser
F iri -> wal
A tri -> ser
A vie Supports A bud


England - Murska

A wal -> lon
F yor -> nth (Bounce)


France - thewamp

A bel -> hol
F bre -> mao
F eng -> nth (Bounce)
A mar Holds
A pic -> bel
A por -> spa


Germany - Splynn

A den -> kie
A gal -> war (Bounce)
A mun -> boh
A tyr -> tri


Italy - Niezck

F ion -> adr
F nap -> ion
A pie -> tyr
A ven Supports A pie -> tyr


Russia - Vexen

F edi -> nth (Bounce)
F bot Convoys A lvn -> swe
A lvn -> swe (Bounce)


Turkey - 4is111

F aeg -> gre
A ank -> con
F bal -> swe (Bounce)
A con -> bul
A gre -> alb
A mos Supports A ukr -> war
F rum Holds
A ser Supports A gre -> alb (Cut, Dislodged, no valid retreats so is destroyed)
F smy -> eas
A ukr -> war

No retreats as the only dislodged unit had nowhere to retreat to, so we go straight to Fall 1908 movement phase.

Next orders are due Wednesday at 12 noon.
(May as well get back to that schedule now as there's no retreat phase this year)

Edit: Those maps are much too small, give me a few minutes to fix them.
Edit2: Slightly larger maps now in place.

[Niezck]

I feel quite sorry for England right now, so many fleets!

[Murska]

It's pretty hard for me to take over the British Isles in time to have an effect on this game. I start in Italy, and I only have one fleet, while Russia can leave an army on the Isles to make it very difficult to take quickly.

[thewamp]

It's pretty hard for me to take over the British Isles in time to have an effect on this game. I start in Italy, and I only have one fleet, while Russia can leave an army on the Isles to make it very difficult to take quickly.

Yeah, I disagree. Admittedly, you're not in the best starting position, but you had a hard time taking the isles, because you were more concerned with things other than taking the isles. Making enemies in the early stages going after me was stupid.

[Splynn]

Hmm. Any chance of getting the maps larger next time? I can make out everything on those just fine... it's purely a preferential thing.

[Mael]

Hmm. Any chance of getting the maps larger next time? I can make out everything on those just fine... it's purely a preferential thing.

Sure, my earlier one stretched the screen a bit which is the reason for the smaller ones in the last update. Any suggestions for preferred width?

[Murska]

Yeah, I disagree. Admittedly, you're not in the best starting position, but you had a hard time taking the isles, because you were more concerned with things other than taking the isles. Making enemies in the early stages going after me was stupid.

Certainly not true. All I did was delay you for one turn with one army (the one I can't actually use in taking over the Isles). Quite a lot of players did that, for example Russia against me. I did this because I knew that it wouldn't matter whether or not I had done anything against you, if you got to France before I got to England you'd attack me before I had my units in place - it's just common sense, doing anything else in that situation would be stupid.

It's not about making enemies - I could've made enemies by attacking Germany or Austria, though I doubt they'd have done much to me. From the beginning, in this variant, you and Russia are my enemies and nothing I do can change that. Delaying you meant I stayed alive for a couple years longer, the better of many poor options.

[thewamp]

Certainly not true. All I did was delay you for one turn with one army (the one I can't actually use in taking over the Isles). Quite a lot of players did that, for example Russia against me. I did this because I knew that it wouldn't matter whether or not I had done anything against you, if you got to France before I got to England you'd attack me before I had my units in place - it's just common sense, doing anything else in that situation would be stupid.

Well I guess there you misread the situation. I wanted to ally with you. Now I want revenge. Cest la vie.

And you did unarguably slow yourself up. If you just go as fast as possible you could have gotten there I think 2 years earlier than you did (and if you don't believe me, I'll post the exact move sequence to prove it).

[Murska]

I could've cut one year if I had full foreknowledge of Russian and Austrian moves. A second if I had no caution whatsoever and didn't try to safeguard my three units against possible attacks on the supply centers.

And yeah, everyone tries to ally with everyone on the outset. It would never have worked out, whether or not you would've been genuine in wanting it.

[thewamp]

I could've cut one year if I had full foreknowledge of Russian and Austrian moves. A second if I had no caution whatsoever and didn't try to safeguard my three units against possible attacks on the supply centers.

And yeah, everyone tries to ally with everyone on the outset. It would never have worked out, whether or not you would've been genuine in wanting it.

I mean, maybe that's true, only if you didn't want it to work. In this game, you make allies with whoever you want to. If it's mutual and it stays mutual, then you can make allies with anyone on the board. And sure, you make allies with everyone early and don't keep all of them, but you keep some of them.

Ideally, you don't hurt anyone unless you have to. Because good players will often, once they find themselves compromised, go out of their way to get revenge - just to make sure that people don't screw them over lightly in the future.

---

And you held your first home center in fall 1905. If you hadn't slowed up to try to mess with other people you can have an army in london in fall 1903. If Russia does a good job defending, maybe it is 1904, but that year's a pretty crucial difference. And if you had gone that quickly, Austria would've still been stopping me and you'd have gotten through easily. You'd still have Russia to contend with, but neither Austria or I would be.

My point is, England's totally playable and not even in the worst position on the board (though it's down there), you just didn't do a great job. Which whatever, happens to the best of us, cause it's pretty obvious that you aren't bad at this game and I don't mean to imply that.

---

And while I have everyone else's attention, look at how many supply centers Turkey has. We should actually do something about it.

[Murska]

Ah sure. You're right about Turkey - maybe you should turn those fleets that way?

---

I know not everyone shares my view but in every game I play, I start with the intention to try to win. If that proves impossible, I'll settle for a tie, survival or just hanging on as long as possible depending on the circumstances.

This makes me both a good and a bad ally. I won't ever attack or betray an ally in a situation where keeping said ally is of benefit. Once I am allied with someone, I will do my best to help both them and us, and I won't make very many gross tactical errors or NMRs. And I can be relied on to turn on my ally only after no outside threats remain - I'm not erratic.

But turn on him I will, unless we reach such a stalemate line that I can't. I will not agree to a two-way tie before I make certain I can't win. So on the long-term, I'm not a trustworthy ally.

My analysis and reasoning:

England is playable, sure - much better off than Germany or Russia, even. But in this particular game, a powerful France spells doom for me. England and Austria are the only ones between France and the French in the beginning. A quick and obvious negotiation followed - England is obviously going to head west so you just had to get Austria to move through Germany instead of Italy - an easy sell since it's the faster and easier route and neither of you want to collide.

This means you'll be in France pretty quickly. In any case, at least a year earlier than me.

Now, England, with an allied or powerful France, has only one option to attack - Scandinavia. Germany leads to an obvious conflict with France, and it is harder for England to project force into than for France. However, Russia has two fleets on the outset and will obviously be heading through Scandinavia to get to their own centers from the beginning - both of those fleets will be up there, and it'll be very tough for England with only one fleet to take it. Doable, maybe, but most likely slow and difficult.

France, assuming the best case to England that they're allied, has two possible targets - Germany and Italy. It's likely that neither will be getting to their own centers quite as fast as France, owing to more people in the way (Austria, Germany, Turkey, Italy and possibly France.) One of them will almost certainly be weak, and most likely this would be Germany. Whichever it is, France will find easy lebensraum. A French army in Venice could, with careful diplomacy, block the Italians for quite a while (as we saw). Spain and Portugal as well as Belgium and Holland provide more units for a general push eastwards.

In conclusion, France is likely to expand faster than England can. They also have easier routes for further expansion after their first conquest. And should they wish to turn on England, it is easier than usual since England has less fleets and worse positioning than usual. France only has to build a couple fleets, a feat they could do without even attacking Italy or Germany, to seriously threaten the Isles.

Ergo, I decided that I would attempt to get to the Isles while slowing down France as much as possible, then head over the Channel immediately to prevent such a threat. It failed.

[Mael]

It's really tempting to make comments answering some of these recent posts, but I can't as I'm not playing ...
Remind me when the game's over if you want my opinion.

[Splynn]

Since the beginning, I've had people telling me that Germany starts in a bad position. Now Murska is saying that I'm in the bottom two positions, potentially.

Would anyone like to explain why to me? I don't see anything that makes Germany so bad to play. I've made tons of mistakes this game, and I'm still doing fairly well for myself; I don't see the bad that everyone keeps suggesting Germany starts with.

[Murska]

Well, you start with a fleet in the Mediterranean (completely useless for getting Germany back) and two armies that have to file out through the Constantinople chokepoint. Then you have to trek through the Balkans, occupied by Italians trying to reach Italy, Frenchmen trying to reach France, Austrians heading for Austria and especially Turks aiming to get to Turkey. You'll have to bypass all these troops and you're a long way from home anyway.

Basically Germany has a tough time gaining control of Germany before one of its neighbours has their internal affairs in order and can move on to conquer it.

[thewamp]

Yeah Murska, I definitely agree. I think Germany might actually have the worst position. Admittedly, Splynn made it work, but objectively it's tough.

On the other hand, there's an inherent advantage (sort of a consolation prize) of having a worse starting position: people don't feel like they need to hamper your progress.

[Splynn]

Well in that case I'll consider this game a successful demonstration of my skills regardless of what happens, since I was one of the first to get home.

[Vexen]

Ironically, I don't think I would place Turkey as having the best starting position and look where he is. Diplomacy is the most important issue in this game. The Turkey-Italy alliance at the beginning of the game made all of the difference for Turkey.
I only sent out cursory negotiations at the beginning of the game, and didn't seek out a firm ally. thinking I could get get home before anyone else and that would allow me to negotiate from a position of strength. However, I underestimated how obnoxious it is to have two fleets when trying to retake a country with only one accessible coastal SC.
Not having good communications, led to not realizing the temperature of the game. I was completely blindsided by Turkey's continual thwarting of my efforts to land in St. Petersburg. oops.

[Murska]

And meanwhile you blocked me. :P

[Vexen]

Yes, but I was fairly honest about that.

[Murska]

Didn't make it any easier to get through.

[Mael]

Orders due in 23 hours.

[Mael]

I only have 3 sets of orders. I really don't want to process a turn with less than half of the players moving.

If people want a slower update schedule then lets discuss that, otherwise get your orders in already.