Dip 1186 Shift Left Gunboat

I won as France in Fall 1912

Click on the hyperlinked names for the EOG

Players

	Name	Nation	Duration
GM:	Michael Boutot		Spring 1901-end
Players:	Scott Troemel	Italy	Spring 1901-end
	Jackie Burman	Russia	Spring 1901-end
	Curtis Novak	Germany	Spring 1901-Winter 1911
	Steve Schroeder	Turkey	Spring 1901-end
	Stephen Worthy	France	Spring 1901-end
	Stephen Wright Jeff Wachs	England	Spring 1901-Spring 1905 Fall 1905-end
	Martin Aaberg	Austria	Spring 1901-Winter 1911

Units/Supply Centres after Winter:

Red figures indicate the year each player reached home

Italy

3/4

3/5

3/6

3/4

3/3

3/4

3/3

4/4

2/3

2/2

Russia

3/3

3/5

3/6

3/7

4/5

5/5

6/6

7/7

5/5

6/6

5/5

Germany

3/4

3/6

3/5

3/6

3/4

4/5

3/3

1/1

0/0

Turkey

3/3

3/4

3/6

3/5

4/6

5/5

7/8

7/7

8/8

France

4/6

3/5

3/6

4/7

5/7

6/7

7/7

9/10

10/10

13/13

15/16

18/18

England

3/3

3/4

3/3

3/4

3/6

2/4

2/2

1/2

1/1

Austria

3/4

2/2

1/1

1/2

1/3

1/2

1/1

0/0

Michael’s EOG

Well, Shangri-Las, 6 folks (not counting replacement) here "fell for" the French leader, Stephen Worthy. He still got to 18 though he did not deign to take Sweden. He may "have come from the wrong side of town" but then all did in this 1. I like it a lot as it emphasises tactics as much as Dip can. Austria did not block France long enough but many other things went into the final result. It is a game of surges & they must be recognized by all & snuffed out. Congrats to Stephen & all the rest who stuck it out to the end. With 2 other games ending I may be able to start something soon even with 3 Ancient Med Tourney games beginning.

My EOG

Like Michael, I enjoyed this game for its emphasis on tactics, but also long term strategy. As well as working your way through or round your opponents, you have to balance objectives so carefully: trying to get home while protecting your turf, building your position and sabotaging others’. Of course, the variant has more obvious deficiencies than most: England is at a huge disadvantage and players are often not in control of their own destinies. However I’ll definitely be looking to play this again at some stage.

The crucial element of the variant is clearly building. With no builds at the start, the player who gets home first, can leverage an exponential advantage simply by using his new units to gain yet more units and so on. So my opening strategy was simply to avoid confrontation and get home as quickly as possible. I didn’t care too much about how many centres I had, as long as they sustained my units. This strategy prompted me to pass up on Denmark early on in order to slip past the Italian fleet into the North Sea and gave me the first ‘home run’. Thereafter my success would be determined by being able to build year in, year out.

I initially planned an obstructive strategy, blocking England’s way home and holding on to Germany’s home centres instead of picking up easy centres like Paris. The pernicious problem of Italy’s fleet forced me to give up this problem. He left a fleet in the north to slow my acquisition of his British centres, which played me a merry dance for years until I had to regroup and start again to avoid having to use all my units just to cover my centres. I was fairly sure I was dealing with a veteran, and if I had to guess who it was, I would have guessed Scott.

I decided that I was able to predict Germany’s play easily enough that I would fancy my chances of pulling out of Germany completely and retaking it later. Don’t get me wrong, Germany’s moves were nearly all the most logical set, but he needed to mix it up a bit more. After a while I simply anticipated the most sensible set of moves each season and he only foxed me a couple of times thereafter.

I pulled back, picked up the last British centres and drove the fleet into Denmark and out of harm’s way. That now left three different nationalities in Scandinavia, giving me confidence that they wouldn’t be able to co-ordinate later even if they did attempt a stop-the-leader alliance. It also gave me ten solid centres and the opportunity to take Tunis and possibly more from Italy.

I thought long and hard about whether to attack Russia, the apparently most threatening rival by the end of 1909, but I guessed Russia would head for Austria rather than trickier route of conquering Scandinavia. That gave me time to take out Germany while I invaded the Mediterranean. By sheer chance, Russia made the horrific error of letting Turkey take Sevastopol, swinging the balance of power completely towards the Sultan. I had anticipated Russia 9, Turkey 6 by the end of 1910. Instead it was Russia 5, Turkey 8.

Generally the game seemed to require flexibility, unpredictability and strong tacticsI’m a naturally methodical player, but even I had to gamble a few times in the early stages. Having said that, this could always be undermined by events outside a player’s control. Germany and Turkey were the most cautious players and yet Germany got all his home centres first and Turkey finished second. At the same time, Italy was the most unpredictable player (despite a weak patch when he got home in 1907), but never made it beyond four units. Of the others, Russia had his moments and managed a good run of early builds, while Austria and England never really got going.

The endgame followed its inevitable path, given that no meaningful co-operation was possible and there were too many players still in the game. Russia and Turkey got distracted by their own rivalry, which made things easier, but didn’t change the outcome. I managed to get away with a blunder in my final set of moves, whereby I forgot to take Sweden, but that was mainly because it was 4am and I was on my way out to catch a ‘plane!

Thanks everyone for the game and Michael for keeping it going so swiftly. I hope people submit EOG statements because I like to put them up on my website.

Key moment

Turkey managing to keep both Scandinavian centres when he should have lost both. This kept Scandinavia divided and stopped Germany and Russia building a power base.

Great moves

Germany: those armies supporting each other all the way back home

Italy: the northern fleet bouncing two of my fleets in 1905.

Russia: the fleet heading for home the long way, then popping up in the Adriatic a couple of years later, and the St. Petersburg army which trekked all the way through Germany to take Vienna.

Austria: grabbing Venice and briefly getting up to 3 centres in 1906.

England: running rampant in the Balkans and finally helping Austria home

Turkey: his subversion in 1909 of Russia’s self-bounce in Sevastopol.

Odd moves

Austria: not going for Rome in 1903 when he needed the extra centre.

Turkey: moving to Sweden in 1908 when Germany and Russia were obviously going to bounce in St. Petersburg.

Italy: playing it safe and failing to secure a build in 1907.

England: moving to Portugal in 1908, allowing me to trap him surprisingly easily.

Germany: in 1908, sending one fleet to Gulf of Bothnia instead of securing Denmark and the other fleet to the lost cause Constantinople instead of Bulgaria or Rumania.

Russia: in 1910, allowing the move A Arm – Sev to succeed when it was the only move it could make

Scott’s EOG

I think this was the fourth, maybe the fifth, time I've played this variant and I have to say I like it more than most of the others. The strategy I was trying for was to hold England as long as I could while wending my way home with the other unit(s).

As we all started moving I watched to see how I thought things would shape up. I knew we were in trouble when France got home and the rest of us were all more or less lost. Germany had the other key move tactic down very well and it worked for him. When everyone is scrambling to get home the key is to support yourself where ever possible.

Once France built that first navy I knew he was coming after me and I was more or less defensive from then on in the north. It was a wonderful guessing game and since I try to use moves "normal" people won't anyway things fell better than I had actually hoped. But in the end, they fell to France as I knew they had to.

I finally made it home and started to build but I was always far enough behind France to give him the slight upper hand that was needed. I think we all see that "safe" play of mine as the biggest mistake I made in the game (not the only one mind you, just the biggest). That build would have given me a better edge and with that gone and no chance of coordinating a move on the leader the handwriting was on the wall.

The most frustrating part for me was watching as the other fought each other as France just kept on growing. Those battles never stopped and that allowed France to seal it off with the 18. The first solo proposal was from me since I didn't see any way *anybody* could have stopped him. The second proposal wasn't from me and all I could think to say about that one was *DUH!!!!!!!*.

Well done Stephen, you earned that one for sure! Thanks to Michael for a great job GM'ing and keeping things rolling. If there is ever another gunboat of this please let me know.

Martin’s EOG

Although a bit late due to summer vacation beyond e-mail reach here is an Austrian EOG.

This was in fact my first time playing this variant and first time playing Diplomacy for a couple of years. No excuse though - the failure analysis follows below. But first thanks to Michael for GM:ing - job well done and I tried to lighten it up for you by commenting on what I - or others - was up to. Impressive that you actually managed to respond now that I see how many games you are involved in...

Now to the 1186.

I agree completely with Stephen that this variant is all about home centers and builds, but I at least partially disagree with Michael that Austria's failure to keep France out of her home country gave the game away.

In my pregame analysis I figured Austria needs to get home and it will be crowded when she does... I'll need all three units. I then proceeded to work out a rough plan that hopefully would keep me out of the mess at the top of the Italian boot. Why I ended up there ? Diplomacy Error Number One, changed the plan half way. Italy opened in an unexpected but very efficient way and at one point could have had me down to zero or one unit had I followed my plan and he punced on me. I chickened and hoped I'd be as lucky as Russia in getting through. Italy didn't pounce and I proceeded to fail (honestly, to continuously misguess) miserably in trying to get to Venice/Tyrolia.

Made Diplomacy Error Number Two when I for the second time had my three centers threatened and thought 'nah, won't play safe, it was OK last time'. Austria down to two and I lost my second to last unit as destroyed in one of the less predictable misguesses in northern Italy. After that my game was just try, try again and for some reason I got some help here and there but not enough to start growing. Near the end I was considering moving nortwest in order to carry my burden in a stalemate line to stop France but Russia's maneuvers both in my region and (especially!) Scandinavia made it clear that he had no such thoughts and that France would walk away with it... so why should I suicide ?

So there's my logic for my game.

As I said I agree with Stephen, but failed to implement. Disagree with Michael about my reponsibility for France as I'd lay that at Italy's door once he brought that army across. No way I could defend against an A-F combination so I figured it was his job then. (I'd take over keeping him out of Italy at the same time, when I decided to drop the 'take Austria from Alb/Gre/Nap' approach...). Along the same line I do recall one move where Packrat's desire to play unconventionally in effect let France walk into Brest and start getting those builds... That gave France the edge, but not the game. In my mind the serial mess-ups of the rest of us and especially Russia's actions late in the game did that.

If England or Russia have produced EOG:s I'd be interested.

Kudos to England's very efficient tactics keeping me away from home, but I think waiting with the fleet was disastrous in strategic terms (I specifically left a hole via Tun to encourage the armies to move north later...) - the thinking behind the late fllet move would be of interest. If you, England, wonder why I killed you in Serbia it was because by then I thought we should cooperate in our area: since you didn't I might as well pay you back for doing your job and keeping me out ;-)

Russia I found very unpredictable and it'd be interesting to hear if there was method to the madness or if it was simply playing each turn as it went that was so successful. Turkey played well but got stuck doing what I did not do (defend the starting position against new entrants), while Germany came through a bit too late, the French steamroller was already in gear...

Michael, I sent 'reply all', if someone is missing please forward. Hope to meet all of you on a board again!

Regards,

Talleyrand