Smid's Diplomacy Game Thread #3

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I find the occurrences in Western Europe this turn bizarre.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The title of the next Act of this play: Death of an Austro-Hungarian (or Two).

And it's quite a plot twist from the end of 1902. I actually thought that a strong Austro-Italian alliance might prove to be a winning combination. Of course the Spring of 1903 found my thoughts to be misplaced.

And the map now appears thus:

     It paints an even starker picture to consider that at that point France & Austria were tied for the lead with six supply centers each. I think that I should start doing a power graph based on the SC strength of each country over time.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The title of the next Act of this play: Death of an Austro-Hungarian (or Two).

And it's quite a plot twist from the end of 1902. I actually thought that a strong Austro-Italian alliance might prove to be a winning combination. Of course the Spring of 1903 found my thoughts to be misplaced.

Yep, it turns out Austria was an untrustworthy so-and-so...

In my defence, I'm still a novice at this.

Tip: never tell Russia you plan to move to Galacia. If you must, ask him if it's okay first

     I think Austria generally wants the move to Galicia to fail, actually.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The actual lesson is check the state of play before stabbing someone...

     For that matter, don't stab someone unless you are confident you can cripple/eliminate them. It also helps if you aren't fighting a war with the stabbee's assistance & if you can commit more than two units to actually invading your victim.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Interestingly, Russia has been sitting on five supply centers this whole time. Picked up Rumania in Spring 1901, swapped it for Berlin in Fall 1902, & has remained stable ever since. Only one other country on the board has entered a Winter season without having lost any supply centers in the previous year.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Shouldn't France (and Italy too, actually. And technically everybody else as well) have time until after Spain has withdrawn? There are after all two options. (Three if you count disbanding.)

     He said he'll take builds once the English fleet has retreated, so I'm not sure what you mean, exactly.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I'd never seen that mapping software's builds map before.
And they seem to be the one thing it does great.

     It's pretty cool, I must say.

     I'd like to take the chance to point out that my first army from Smyrna at the beginning of the game is currently stationed in Rumania whereas my first fleet from Ankara is floating in the Adriatic Sea. I wonder where everybody else's first units are.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Somewhere Austria's doing well.

Apparently, two in five Austrias go before spring 1904, so I'm doing about average.

     Austria's not bad if you can hang around for a while, though you need to gain & hold a solid alliance with one of Italy or Russia. On the other hand, being attacked by both Italy & Russia immediately leads to a quick end for Austria. You did pretty well in that you tied down Italy & Russia enough that they couldn't lead a significant offensive against you, though tying them down completely proved impossible. It didn't help that Germany was forced to withdraw from Eastern Europe.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Can we delay or skip the next turn due to xmas

or, perhaps, process the next turn on, say, thursday, then the following turn on on the 9th, so that we make 2 turns where there'd normally be 3, to give everyone time so they can family it up

     How about delay the end of the current turn for a day or two? I'm not big on losing out on time where turns of Diplomacy can be had.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Did you receive my orders?

[Associate Justice PiT]

*cough*

     Waiting on a couple sets of orders last I heard (I blame Christmas, personally).

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Something that worries me as well, though from what I understand there will be a return to regular deadlines this weekend.

     There's also the issue that a new Tsar might be needed, since Teddy has said he's leaving. If he's one of the ones that Smid is waiting on orders from, that might cause another delay.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     The holy warriors of the great Ottoman Empire wish the best to the new President Muromtsev.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Also note that I moved to Syria. At this point, I think the list of provinces/sea spaces not ordered to yet consists of:

Armenia
Black Sea
Finland
Skagerrak
Wales

[Associate Justice PiT]

Interesting action around the Straits of Gibraltar. England plays a gambit by dislodging the Italians in the Spring, when they might strike into England's home centers in the Fall. The gambit could have been mitigated by attacking from English Channel, but that leaves the Irish Sea fleet with no other purpose than to harry the Italians.

It seems to be Liverpool's fate to fall to the scum of the Mediterranean periodically.  They survived the Frogs, they'll survive the Eyetyes.  (Note, this post should not be quoted out of context and used to "prove" racism on my part.  It's purely in-game.)  Rest assured, Jas isn't getting off this easily.

By the way, the way we kept him out of Tunisia was hilarious.  That fleet did its duty, even if it was scuttled in the process.

     The fleet's duty was to keep me in Tunisia?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Retreating to Moscow, as previously announced via the orders pm.

I expected that (and indeed, I think no other province would have been legal) but I figured I'd give you the chance to change your mind if you wished.

Of course. I was just bragging.

Now I wanna know what Mikado is doing.

     I think we should have a strict deadline for making retreats, so we actually know what the situation on the board is when we diplomacize.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     England re-captured Liverpool, though, so I think your numbers are...slightly in error.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Looking over the map, 11 supply centers have been under the dominion of the same power throughout the game, all of them home centers.

Ankara
Constantinople
Edinburgh
London
Marseilles
Moscow
Naples
Rome
Smyrna
St. Petersburg
Warsaw

     As a distinction, Turkey is now the only one to have not lost possession of any home centers at any point.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Epic order on Russia's part.

     Anyway, my fleet shall retreat to Brest.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Heh, I gambled on Russia gambling against my position in Silesia & got burned. Kinda wish now that I had gone ahead with my original plan for this turn.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Smid, aren't both Moscow and Kiel now in English hands and not in Russian?

Copied straight from the Realpolitik update thing (I learnt how to "Save Status" as a txt file, which halved the time it took me to do my update). I'm guessing the programme updates after the retreats.

Strange thing is how it recognizes the possession changes where there are no retreating armies, even though those too are shown in the colors of their former owners in the map.

Or maybe it's the English units in Kiel and Munich that need to retreat.

By comparison, Jdip that I use shows the possession changes in both number and color immediately after the fall moves, and modifies them with the fall retreats.

     That's one of the things I like about jDip over Realpolitik. That & the tracking of ownership of each supply center over time, as well as the superior Youngstown map & option of using planes in the Modern variant.

[Associate Justice PiT]

England's fleet in the Mid-Atlantic Ocean retreats to the Irish Sea and Germany's army in Munich retreats to the Ruhr and the German army in Kiel retreats to Berlin.

I believe this will lead to Italy receiving two builds and England receiving one, while the Russians are faced with two disbands.

I'll update the map once I get home from work this evening, people can get back to me with their builds as soon as is convenient.

     Already took care of it.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     What of the builds?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I suppose disbanding army Norway is punishment for stabbing you those years back, eh? To be honest, I would have done the same in your position.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I suppose disbanding army Norway is punishment for stabbing you those years back, eh? To be honest, I would have done the same in your position.

Oh, you would, would you? Damn. Should have insisted on being allowed to retreat to Syria.

     Actually, I would have done it a year earlier. England really would have done well being able to walk into Norway & Sweden with Turkey blockaded by armies in Livonia, Moscow, & Prussia.