Dip 1232 – Stab!
Non-blind maps (zipped Realpolitik file)
Click on the hyperlinked names for the EOG
Players
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Power |
Name |
Duration |
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GM: |
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Winter 1900-end |
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Players: |
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Winter 1900-Fall 1909 |
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Dan Krane |
Winter 1900-end |
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Steve Frost Chris Morse |
Winter 1900-Spring 1907 |
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Randall Shane |
Winter 1900-end |
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Adam Kuehn |
Winter 1900-Fall 1905 |
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Winter 1900-end |
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Rodolphe Boulanger |
Winter 1900-end |
EOG Statements
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Congrats to Rodolphe on a well played game. Here are my thoughts: Early Game: My initial strategy was a southern one with a bias toward eliminating Turkey. Italy's quick exit did not bode particularly well for that strategy though. I felt that getting an army into England was essential to surviving. I was helped by stealing Berlin early on because it seemed to set Germany on the defensive and make it a bit easier for me to stretch across the Norwegian. Midgame: Austria self-destructed. Without that the mid-game could have gone on for a long time. I was glad to get a new France. Endgame: With Russia in England, England in France and France in Italy things were set up for Turkey to sweep through the Med. F-E-G-R had 5-6 units out of position at the end. Turkey only had a few units that were slow in arriving to the front. F-E-G-R seemed to coordinate reasonably well after 1910. It was good to see England hold on until the end. |
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Fresh and giddy from my victory as Turkey in
1233, I foolishly told Stephen that I'd be happy to fill in for him if he
needed a replacement in 1232. I'd
been watching the game progress in fits and starts. Unlike 1233, no one was able to establish a strong base and
steadily expand. In fact, one might
say that it really did look like a bunch of armies stumbling about in the
dark. I couldn't really identify a
clear strategy on the part of anyone -- not one that worked, anyway. I joined the game in 1907 and found myself in a
pretty untenable position. France had
two units in/near Italy, two in/near England, and one all alone in
Paris. Prospects for advancement were
poor, and the defensive position was even worse. One of the biggest mysteries for me was why Germany hadn't
conquered the whole country already. It seemed that Russia and Turkey had both
started to gain some momentum at this stage.
Even without knowing exactly where everyone was, I was sure that
Turkey was the real threat as soon as I saw Russian units in England. A simple unit count was enough to figure
out that if Russia had those units that far from home, there couldn't be
sufficient forces at home for defense.
A Turkish stab seemed imminent, so I decided to leave my Northern
units where they were, thinking I would make further gains in England when
Russia was forced to fall back. To his credit, I think Germany did recognize
the danger from Russia and realize that attacking France would be a
mistake. Unfortunately, I think he
chose to simply turn turtle (i.e. holding fast within his shell) rather than
go on the offensive. It was
disappointing to see how many turns went by with all or nearly all of the
German units not even showing up in the report. In the Med, all I could do was try and prop up
the Italian. It worked for a season
or two, but eventually one of the gambles failed and the Turk had broken
through. Meanwhile, England was sitting in Spain &
Portugal, pouting apparently. I
dropped back my fleets and used them to take Spain. This kept my unit count up for another year and had the amusing
side-effect of turning the remaining English fleet into a berserker. He spent the rest of the game attacking
POR > SPA > MAR and back again.
It was a different type of challenge for the Turk and I to try and
anticipate these attacks and make them work to our advantage. The end was pretty much inevitable. Russia had Germany to check him in the
North, and Turkey had the far less formidable Anglo-Franco-Italian
non-cooperative alliance in the South.
Russia is really the only country Turkey needs to fear in a gunboat
game anyway, so once Russia decides to ignore him, he's home free. Congrats to Rodolphe for a well-earned
victory. That makes Turkey two for
two in the current Stab! round. I
know Stephen has wondered if this might be an indication of some inherent
advantage to the Turkish position.
The answer is no. It seems
much more likely that Rodolphe and I are brilliant players. ;-) Seriously, though, I do think Turkey's
defensive position is quite strong.
At the beginning, he really only has to protect against Russia. There aren't going to be any Lepantos when
Austria and Italy can't communicate.
For the same reason, I think the odds of getting Greece are greater
than in a regular game, since it's a bigger risk for Austria to send two
units that way. Another factor which helped me, and which may
help other Sultans, is the tendency I've noticed for Russia, when allowed to
select his opening builds, to more often choose a Northern opening. I don't have enough experience to speak to
statistics, but I think the tendency for most of us when when allowed to
choose our opening builds is to do something "different." For the Tsar that most often seems to be
to try to grab Scandinavia. In fact,
I remember in particular reading the EOGS from your first or second Stab!
game where Russia said exactly that.
I think it's a mistake, myself.
My feeling is that in a gunboat game Russia must take out Austria or
Turkey first, then the other, then move West. Nevertheless, the urge to head toward Scandinavia seems to be a
strong one. I gambled that my Russia
in 1233 would do that and the gamble paid off. Having said that, it is clear to me that this
game played out much differently than did 1233. This game took so long to develop that it's hard to credit
Turkey's victory to some kind of built-in advantage. As I said earlier, when I looked back at
all the turns it was hard for me to discern a coherent strategy behind any of
the player's moves in the first few years here. Once Turkey and Russia did get rolling, it was still within
Russia's ability to stop him if he had only tried. Instead, the Tsar sent way too many units into the West. Conquering England without protecting your
Southern border is foolishly suicidal, in my opinion. So, that's that. It was very educational to try to salvage a losing
position. Tough to do in gunboat, and
even tougher given the blind orders and movements of Stab! Nevertheless, I love this variant, I aside
from a couple very minor changes to the way support orders are reported (or
not) I urge Stephen not to change a thing. Thanks to Stephen and good luck to all! |
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As with Chris, apologies for the delay. RL’s been busy for the last few months, but the completion of my other GM game means that I have a bit of time to sort things out and recover some hopeless positions in the games I’m playing! Firstly, I love the variant too. I’ve never played it, as I’ve never encountered another GM prepared to run a game (each adjudication takes about three times as long as a regular game), but I know it’s a very popular variant. I’ve run four games and each has filled up faster than any other variant I’ve run. I also have great fun being the omniscient GM watching half-blind players feel their way across the room. As a non-player, I don’t have the insight others will have into gameplay, but every now and again, I get an insight into the time people put into the game from their comments. Chris was particularly good at keeping me posted. The depth of his analysis and my experience of Rodolphe’s gameplay suggests that he may be right that Turkey doesn’t have an unfair advantage. The temptation for Russia to dominate Scandinavia does, as Chris points out, encourage a Northern opening which strongly favours Turkey, but perhaps next time Russia will pay a little more attention down south. The results of the four games of Stab! I’ve run: 926: Russian win 1004: Turkey, England, France draw 1232: Turkish win 1233: Turkish win One issue several players have noted over time is the need for easier communication. I’d be tempted to tweak the rules as has been suggested to allow more misorders, but then again, the trickiness of communicating is exactly what drove one or two players to some very inventive methods of detecting hidden moves (or the absence of certain moves, at least). I’d be tempted to run the similar variant Megastab next, which has slightly different blind rules, so do check that out on http://www.variantbank.org and let me know what you think. Well done to Rodolphe and all who played. Watch this space for new games, although I’m going to pause a while to sort out my woeful positions in the games I’m playing. I’ll be back with my triumphant 20th GM game soon though! |
