Muon2 Diplomacy Game B

[NOVA Green]

Count me in!!!!!

[NOVA Green]

Glad to see this is getting rolling.

Well thanks to Muon2 for helping to work through this, even with the whole image posting issue, plus IRL stuff that we all have.

I can shoot out some PMs to some of the other individuals that expressed interest, since my initial focus was on those of you who I had already contacted prior to inquire about interest in a new game, and not all of us are always checking up on the Atlas Elections thread (Myself included)....

If any of y'all want to join in the recruiting effort for those that you know who expressed interest, or those who you might be tight with on the Forum, who seem serious about the commitment so we can get a stable 7th / and hopefully 2-3 pinch hitters in reserve just in case......

[NOVA Green]

okay--- so I PM'd the players expressing interest on the old thread with a brief rundown of current status and estimated timeline, including those who expressed interest back in June.

Continue the recruitment drive!!!!

[NOVA Green]

Request: Can we also open up the "pipeline" for other potential players interested as well "just in case"?

Last game we had a couple drop-offs that significantly impacted gameplay, and although I suspect that will not be case from the 6/7 current players (Assuming that SO19 may have dropped out rather than not followed the modified posting timeline for that turn), we all realize that sometimes folks might have major life events that occur....

Additionally, if Oregon Blue Dog is not interested, should SO19 have left the game, I would also request that a recruitment drive specify that there is a potential time commitment and that checking PMs is a part of game play, etc.

Ideally it would be nice to have players that are actually invested, and at least willing to learn (Since I suspect all of us would help provide non-biased tips on questions of rules and gameplay etc)....

Thoughts All?

[NOVA Green]

Request: Can we also open up the "pipeline" for other potential players interested as well "just in case"?

Last game we had a couple drop-offs that significantly impacted gameplay, and although I suspect that will not be case from the 6/7 current players (Assuming that SO19 may have dropped out rather than not followed the modified posting timeline for that turn), we all realize that sometimes folks might have major life events that occur....

Additionally, if Oregon Blue Dog is not interested, should SO19 have left the game, I would also request that a recruitment drive specify that there is a potential time commitment and that checking PMs is a part of game play, etc.

Ideally it would be nice to have players that are actually invested, and at least willing to learn (Since I suspect all of us would help provide non-biased tips on questions of rules and gameplay etc)....

Thoughts All?

Good idea.

I'll be willing to step in if absolutely necessary, but I'm not great at the game and will probably have to be DMed to stay active.

We will help you if SO19 is gone as appears to be the case....

I can PM you some links to strategy guides, if you are interested. Muon2 will likely provide tips if you're not confident on the "advice" being offered by other players when it comes to rules and such.

First started playing Military boardgames when I was 8, and Diplomacy for the first time when I was 14 in the mid '80s....

Unfortunately, you would be starting from a slightly rough starting spot considering the current map, but it's early enough on in the game that you could easily recover, especially as Turkey with a "rear base" that many other countries don't start with....

We loosened up the rules a bit from the last game, so certain orders will give a period to respond in the event that the orders are clearly illegal. This was designed to make the game easier for newer players, or even rusty veterans that hadn't played in awhile such as myself who hadn't played in 20 Years, so that game-play wouldn't be massively disrupted because of technical interpretations of military movements and such....

If SO19 is in fact gone, welcome to Diplomacy as Turkey in Fall '02~   

NOVA GREEN

[NOVA Green]

Since S019 did not respond and Oregon Blue Dog did, I'm declaring that OBD is the new player for Turkey, effective this turn, Fall 1902. If you know of any others who might also willing to take over abandoned positions, please invite them to post their interest here.

Welcome Oregon Blue Dog!

[NOVA Green]

Question:

The Diplomacy 5.0 "House Rules" state the judge can declare a vacation (Which is totally awesome since IRL stuff can and should be built in the equation for the Judge, and Muon2 is allowed to actually have a life as opposed to just being here to host our Diplomacy game!!!

So traditionally orders are due on a weekly basis on Fridays by by 11:59 pm US Central Time, unless there are exceptions.

Question # 1: Can we anticipate that next turn's moves will revert to their traditional posted orders day/time, or will there be an extension, etc???

Main reason I ask is that we have an expanded diplomatic negotiation period this turn, and potentially a shortened once next week, or extended one next week at a point in the game where potential moves or combinations of moves perhaps become slightly more complex than in the traditional opening moves period.....

Question # 2: Not specific to this game, but perhaps a "House Rule Change" for a future game.

If a player has dropped out of a preceding Atlas Diplomacy game without notifying the Judge via PM or posting directly to the Game thread within the required interval, can we put them on a "wait list" so that we can recruit players that may be more reliable, interested, and committed? 

Just a thought....

[NOVA Green]

Well, I guess that's a wrap. Best of luck to you all, and I hope to play again someday.

Kudos to you for volunteering to step into a bad situation.  It's never much fun to do that.  Thanks.

I echo the sentiments of Georgia Moderate and Muon2....

Although you had limited experience to the rules of Diplomacy, you read the links to some of the strategy guides that I provided, submitted orders on-time and legal movements, made a strategic gamble in what was a rough situation, and attempted to survive in what was an extremely difficult situation....

Still, you do have one military unit left, so who knows, although statistically odds are low.   

Looking forward to seeing you next game to jump into the list as an "active" and not just "backup" player!!!

[NOVA Green]

In the words of the late great author Douglas Adams: "So long and Thanks for all the Fish".

Looking forward to the next Diplomacy Game.

Meanwhile for anyone who is curious Giuseppe still lives, although operating within the underground, while meanwhile Filippo Turati is building the Socialist Resistance against Colonial Occupation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQjfi-4oib4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Turati

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Zanardelli

The Italian underground resistance will continue to carefully monitor the political situation and communicate with all powers through our government in exile designed in a strategic plan for the Liberation of all of Italy against Foreign Occupation forces by all means necessary.

[NOVA Green]

Italian underground partisans claim credit for the deaths of (97) retreating French sailors and army folks, and the almost successful assassination attempt of the French puppet occupation leader now that self-rule has been administered by the Austrian occupation forces in Venice.

[NOVA Green]

Italian underground partisans claim credit for the deaths of (97) retreating French sailors and army folks, and the almost successful assassination attempt of the French puppet occupation leader now that self-rule has been administered by the Austrian occupation forces in Venice.

The French do not retreat.  They were advancing toward another front.

Italian Partisan armed resistance as the French continue their retreat....

The French desperately try to adjust for their strategic miscalculation, and now it's pretty clear that Austria will occupy all of the Italian "Boot" by next Fall...

(233) more French soldiers die at the hands of the Italian Partisans, plus the death of the French "Ambassador" to Italy at the hands of unknown assailants at the hands of an assassin...

It is now absolutely clear that France will die a slow death at the hands of a combined English-Russian-Austrian Alliance, because of their hubris, perfidy, and lies....

France likely brokered a temp ceasefire with England, to belatedly shift forces towards the Med Region....

Wouldn't personally trust France as far as you could throw them, and that's a long ways assuming we are not talking about the English Channel...

France is essentially getting down on bended knees begging for a mutual victory after they betrayed friend after friend, and now meanwhile the "Forces of Victory" are "Knocking on Heavens Door"....

"Never trust a Sicilian when death is on the line"   The attempt to recreate a Bonaparte regime has failed, dismally.... the French should have followed through with their promises to my political leadership as I advised them....

[NOVA Green]

Liverpool, Munich and Rome are now all guaranteed to be lost to the French by the Fall of 1908, and Naples likely the following Spring, and the Western Med is only a Year beyond....

The Bonaparte gambit appears to have failed....

In this case the Bonaparte retreat, which is nothing akin to Mao's "Long March" during 1934-35.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonaparte%27s_Retreat_(Pee_Wee_King_song)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March

[NOVA Green]

So is the game over..... or???

[NOVA Green]

I think we have to assume that the game is over, having ended "not with a bang but a whimper".  That being the case, I wanted to share a few of my thoughts during the game in case you guys were interested.  First, a little background: I was introduced to Diplomacy in college back in the mid-1970s, and played it quite a bit in a gaming group I was in during the years at my first job.  But I moved away for a job change in the early 80s and never found another good group.  I've played a face-to-face game maybe three times in the last 35 years.

However, around the year 2000 I discovered the online Diplomacy community and jumped into playing on the online judges, both regular games and no-press games.  If you're not familiar with no-press, it's the same as normal except there is NO communication allowed except to the game master.  There are some limited communication possibilities based on signalling via conventions in writing orders (similar to signals in bridge or pinochle bidding).  No-press obviously loses most of the alliance building and negotiation/persuasion aspects of Diplomacy, but it was a lot easier to find than regular games and a lot less of a time commitment.  On the plus side, no-press is a good way to learn about tactics and stalemate lines.  So I played that quite a bit (and got pretty good at it) but eventually had other interests take precedence, and stopped playing 10 or 12 years ago. 

So muon's first game was my first in a long time.  Being kind of rusty, I was happy to draw Turkey in the first game and France in this one, since I think they're among the easier powers to play due to their strong positions (although I probably enjoy Germany the most, it's obviously more difficult to play).  I started the game with no preconceived notions of who to ally with, but opened communication with my neighbors to see who seemed to offer the most potential for working together.  As I'm sure you're all aware, Italy wrote long novels and was a lot of fun to talk to.  England was also quite communicative and friendly, while Germany was much less so.  That shaped my initial strategy: nonaggression with Italy, and an alliance with England against Germany.  This all went very well at first.  However...

The non-presence of Turkey threw things out of balance in the East.  This was a worrisome development; what I feared most was a strong AI alliance.  Instead, the AR that actually developed was good for me at first, in that it kept Italy weak (and therefore inclined to be friendly and helpful to me).  But I didn't expect AR to remain solidly together; it looked to me like there were multiple opportunities for one or the other to stab the other for a big advantage, essentially controlling the entire East.

To digress a bit: I'm not fond of stabbing just for its own sake, but I definitely think it's warranted if it will advance your chances of winning.  My goal in playing the game is to win if possible; although there can be satisfaction in a well-crafted draw, I consider that a second-best outcome.  I recall a poll in an online group that went something like this: if you played three games, would you rather have one solo win and two losses, or three 3-way draws?  For me the answer is unquestionably the first one.  (IIRC, the overall poll results were about evenly balanced among each of those options and those who had no preference.)  I mention this as background to the effect that if I ever see even a possible chance to solo, I'll go for it.

And that's what happened as this game developed.  The EF alliance against Germany went swimmingly, while the FI alliance succeeded in blocking up the Mediterranean against Austria.  I would up occupying both Munich and Tunis, with their owners' (no doubt grudging) consent and had an army in Silesia.  With this position straddling the main stalemate line, I figured I had maybe a 40% chance of pulling off a solo; in a no-press game, where the defenders' ability to coordinate is limited, the chances would probably have been 80% or higher.  But even 40% was enough for me to go for it, especially as the downside seemed no worse than a 3- or 4-way draw, which was the likely outcome if we just kept slogging it out. 

Of course, there was always a chance that I could get eliminated if the defenders stopped my solo attempt, but this seemed unlikely and a risk worth taking.  You have to be willing to play to win, and not just not to lose.  If you'll forgive a baseball analogy: I once watched an Atlanta Braves game where the Braves trailed by a run in the bottom of the ninth, with one out and a man on third base.  The next batter hit a fly ball to center field, which was caught for the second out.  The runner on third tagged up to try and make it home, but the center fielder threw perfect strike to home.  Runner out, game over, Braves lost.  After the game, the legendary Braves manager Bobby Cox was asked why they sent the runner from third.  He replied, "They had to make a perfect throw to beat us there, and they did.  Sometimes that happens.  I don't regret it; if we don't get caught occasionally, we're not trying it enough."  That philosophy has always stuck with me and helped shape the way I play games.  I'll go for the win rather than playing it safe, and if that causes me to lose, well, that's the breaks.

So with a possibility of improving my good position into a winning one, the question became how to go about it.  The situation in the north was going well, but was reaching a point where England was about to make some gains in Russia.  I was always worried about a stab from England, as my push eastward had left me rather exposed to him.  If he built a couple more units, either they could be used to attack me, or he'd have more defenders at home, or he'd send armies over the top to Russia -- which would ultimately be available to help push back my advance.  All of these would hamper my chances to solo.

In the south, things were more or less stuck.  Although I could have pushed a fleet or two further east into the Med with Italy's support, this didn't seem like it would help much (the RA armies on the coast were essentially impregnable) and would have left me even more exposed to England.  Only if AR were to split apart would it be possible to make some progress -- and they sure didn't seem likely to split as long as the western alliances stayed intact.

After considering everything, I decided the best plan was to stab Italy in conjunction with Austria as the start of a "bootstrap" try at a solo: i.e. use the units gained from that stab to attack England, use gains from that attack to build more units, etc.  If this type of attack can cascade quickly enough, the momentum can be unstoppable to defend against.  So I talked to Austria and proposed that we take out Italy and then attack our respective alliance partners, Russia and England.  I thought there was some chance Austria might do so, which would give me a great chance to solo, but even if he didn't I'd still have a chance with the bootstrap attack.

A word to Nova: I love the way you play, and truly did regret stabbing you.  But against a united AR on one side, and a secure and expansionist France on the other, there was never going to be any other outcome for Italy.  It's a testament to your skill that you stayed alive and an influence as long as you did.

Well, the rest is history.  I got Germany on side to act as a Janissary for a while, but it wasn't enough.  AER got together, Gustaf outguessed me a couple times, and the solo effort fizzled out.  It's possible I could have pushed on a bit longer, especially after taking the North Sea, which created the possibility of convoying an army to England.  But by that point, things had changed for me personally.  As I mentioned earlier, in early November I took a bad fall and broke a vertebra.  This caused me extreme pain for a few weeks, which (thankfully) has lessened considerably.  As a result, I lost a lot of my focus on the game and the patience to keep slogging; when it became clear that the solo was unlikely to happen, I was ready to just pack it in, and proposed the draw.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for playing, and for your patience/endurance if you've managed to read this far.   And of course, many thanks also to muon2 for creating and running the game.

Cheers,
GM

And you say I write long novels...

Appreciate your extremely detailed exposition of your thoughts and strategy throughout the game. Although I was in frequent contact with all of the various players throughout most of my tenure in the game (Albeit with a few periods of radio silence with Russia and Austria), and of course the initial elusive Ottoman Government, certainly you were the player with the most frequent responses and communications on various items....

I was already concerned about your intentions towards Italy, even prior to the "stab", and believe I had warned England of my suspicions, including my sense that betrayal was coming and you were preparing something against them as well....

There were a few key moments where things could have gone a bit better, for example my attempt to parlay conflict between Austria and Russia, with a new Government in Turkey that was hanging on by a thread, and the sequence of moves that I suggested was a 50-50 gamble, which ended up working out no so well....

Another key one might have been taking your gamble on Tyrolia....

There was another opportunity, which I believe Austria was genuine about, which would actually have involved switching sides and allowing Austrian fleets into the region, in exchange for them helping me make a move against France...

All in all, despite the fact that I got knocked out earlier than anticipated, overall I think all of the players did an extremely good job, and it was a pretty good game (Other than a bit unbalanced because essentially Turkey didn't do anything until we got a replacement player and then it was a bit too late).

Would be happy to play again with all of you, and Oregon Blue Dog might well enjoy a chance to get a decent start from the beginning, rather than jumping in as a pinch hitter, where basically it was almost like drawing straws about *if* and *how long* with an extremely small chance of survival at that time....

My thoughts are that we have a pretty decent bunch of core players, so if anyone wants to start a petition for a new game, and we can find a GM / "Host" (Thanks Muon2 for running the past two games!!!!), would definitely look forward to participating.

Sorry about your injury.... I didn't realize that at the time, so hoping your recovery is progressing well....

I started playing table-top Diplomacy some (30) Years ago, although it had probably been (20) years since I last played, so was stoked when the first Muon2 game started on Atlas (of all places)!!!!

See you the next go around....