Dip 1101 Setup

A solo victory for Turkey

Rules

1. The first phase of the game is a Winter 1900, in which players may build whatever units they choose, as long as these units do not exceed the number of Supply Centers controlled.

2. Ownership of non-Supply Center provinces (other than provinces unequivocally within map borders) is in the same way as ownership of Supply Center provinces. Nobody may own a water province.

3. Builds may be placed in any unoccupied, owned province, subject to the restriction that no fleets be placed in landlocked provinces.

4. Finland is considered neutral at the start of the game. No one can place units there until it is captured by that player.

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Final Map

Click on the hyperlinked names for the EOG

Players

	Name	Nation	Duration
GM:	Stephen Worthy		Spring 1901-end
Players:	Randall Shane	Italy	Spring 1901-end
	Kendall Johnson Alex Maslow Scott Troemel	Russia	Spring 1901-Winter 1901 Spring 1902-Winter 1902 Spring 1903-Fall 1907
	Sandford O’Donnell Eric Grinnell Stuart Kieler Scott Troemel	Germany	Spring 1901-Fall 1903 Winter 1903-Fall 1905 Winter 1905-Winter 1909 Spring 1910-end
	Jorge Cisneros	Turkey	Spring 1901-end
	Robert Park Sam Norton	France	Spring 1901-Winter 1903 Spring 1904-end
	Robin Yang	England	Spring 1901-end
	Tim Beaman	Austria	Spring 1901-Spring 1906

History

1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913

Sam’s EOG

I think I'll keep this brief - best way to draw a respectful curtain across some poor play....

I took over France from the Spring 1904 turn. This was my first attempt at playing gunboat, and I
greatly enjoyed it, although it was significantly more different from normal dip than I had
expected. Hence quite a few mistakes. I particularly appreciated the ability to 'communicate' via
misorders. Very intriguing.

Early on my priority was simply survival. I guessed that the German/English cooperation was fragile,
and so it proved. Unfortunately I followed through on the logic of that by attacking Italy at the
wrong point strategically (ie it gave the game to Turkey, in effect), even though it was beneficial
in the short term. Then when I realised the error of my ways, England was still in the game and
poised to grow again - taking SCs off Germany as well as me. (Quite why I'm not sure, unless it was
to ensure the solo for Turkey). My major tactical mistake was a gamble in Fall 1911 when I thought
the Turk might change his angle of attack - which he didn't, and that really wrapped it up for me. I
had voted against the solo before then, but in favour of it afterwards. I had also not fully taken
on board the change in the rules about build locations, which made the stalemate line impossible to
hold. I guess whoever had been proposing the solo from an early stage had a fairly clear sight of
the implications.

So; very enjoyable and a good learning experience. My thanks to the players and to Stephen for
GMing.

Jorge’s EOG

Thanks to Stephen and the rest of the gang for the game. This is an interesting variant, and once RL

clears up I'd definitely play more of this one!

As Turkey, my top priority, believe it or not, was to occupy Livonia. Usually Turkey gets stuck at 17 trying to get Munich or St. Petersburg or Berlin, so I figured that if I could get a fleet in the Baltic I could remedy that problem. So I started off with my builds to head north through Russia. Unfortunately, he was expecting it, so I shifted gears west toward Austria.

The Setup rules allowed me to reinforce my lines a lot quicker, and I was able to keep the pressure on Russia and Austria as I moved along. How I managed to take St. Petersburg was a mistake. I remember changing my orders at the last second just to try it, and sure enough, Russia moved out and I eliminated him. Go figure! :o)

As my neighbors were wiped out, I set my sights on Italy. I think France was first to see my growth potential and started coming my way. I tried to force France's hand in getting rid of Italy: I moved in such a way so that either he took Randy's centers or I would. That and Germany's retake of Munich reduced Italy to one center.

After that it became a land battle with the German. Once I finally reached Livonia, I built a fleet to

break the stalemate lines in Germany, taking Berlin and later Munich. Thank you, Robin, for that last attack on France and Germany! And that pretty much ended everything.

All in all, a great variant. It definitely has the potential of getting rid of the regular stalemate lines we're used to, though we'll have to see if the Winter 1900 builds is fair (Stab! does this, and it usually affects England or Russia in a bad way). Fleet Livonia: it really DOES work! :o)

Good game, everyone! See you around.

My EOG

First of all, apologies for my less than perfect recollection of this game – everything before Winter 1903 is lost to the mists of time due to my laptop crashing terminally. We’ve had three Russia’s and four Germany’s, a statistic that would have been worse without the amazing resurrection of Scott. I don’t think that the rather high turnover of this game reflects on the variant itself. Unfortunate contributors were my loss of e-mail addresses and a certain serial abandoner who disrupted two of my games.

Anyway, I was a player on the first playtest of Setup and found it to be my favourite variant so far. I’m personally unconvinced by the Winter 1900 phase and consider the mainstay of the game is the chaos builds. As Jorge pointed out, it really allows an aggressive player quick expansion and should add a new element to stalemate lines. It’s yet to be seen whether it reduces draws, since the first playtest ended in a 3-way draw. The next step, presumeably, is a full press game.

Congratulations to Jorge on his win. I’m taking a break from GM’ing to concentrate on the games I’m playing, but I suspect I’ll return to GM a new variant in a few months. I may even try and launch one of my own variant ideas on the world, incorporating either UN peacekeepers, fatigue or blind rules.

Scott’s EOG

I don't recall the years I started but the first time I came in to cover Russia. For that tour of duty I was trying to contain Turkey but that was pretty difficult to do when he could build so close to the front. I kept my units south to try and get England/Germnay to pull out up north. I was trying to find a way to get Turkey to back off so I could recover STP and then head after Scandinavia.

Some time thereafter Germany went missing and I jumped in for that. I recognized the ability to build anywhere as the gold mine it was but couldn't exploit it. But the more important thing was that it also meant you didn't have to have HOME supply centers. You only had to have territory. So the strategy was to try and stop a steam rolling Turkey from rolling right on over the board. For a minute I thought England, France and I had it under control. I sent in a bogus order so ENgland knew taking EDI was alright and I hoped he had the sense to see that I couldn't afford to lose any more than that and still keep Turkey back. He didn't. The abiity of Turkey to build in Livonia was devastating and he grabbed a build and put it there at the worst possible time for me. However I didn't think that was the end to it. I was still hopeful about getting STP and coming over the top and I think I could have done it. Well, at least until England pulled that rookie move. Had he left well enough alone and sailed into the med we might have been able to get something done. But, no, he comes in and snags two from me and one from France when none of us could afford it. It was at that point that I finally voted for the Turkish solo since there was no way I was going to be able to fend off both England and Turkey. Besides that, he only needed one or two to solo at that point anyway and those were readily gotten. Up until then, both as Russia and Germany, I had been voting no to the solo proposals.

I still don't understand why some people do as England did. There are only solo's and draws in Diplomacy. There is no second place. When there is a solo the person with the next highest center count is the first place loser. BUT, that is all water over the dam at this point and I'm sure that practice will continue as long as people play the game.

Thanks to ALL who were involved, it was a ton of fun. This was a variant that I'd definitely play again.