Spring 1907 – angry with Austria, delighted with Italy

To go back to the previous entry, click here.

Developments: Austria that m*********!

• Boy-oh-boy am I glad I made Austria think I would cover Berlin so that I blocked him here in Munich successfully. I sensed this would come sooner or later. It pays to be paranoid in Diplomacy.
• Thank goodness I was able to help Italy into Marseilles! I really like seeing him get another fleet build – potentially very anti-France, and he can’t go help Austria up into Munich or something.
• I’m gravely disappointed that Russia covered Norway instead of trying to Edinburgh, but he did still support-hold Denmark (you can’t see the failed order on this map), so as far as I can tell he still does want to be allied to me. I myself certainly think that I have been his best ally. Austria is trying to make peace (sort of) with Russia, but I hope Russia senses that this is a sham. Italy seems to recognize this; Italy would have built an army if he thought Austria would really ally Russia.

Strategic thoughts: @$#%ing Austria, trying to ally Russia?

• I really really really really don’t like that Austria is trying to ally Russia against me. First of all, that’s really bad for me (Germany) at this juncture, and even bad for Austria maybe, and second of all with England and France still in the game, even Austria attacking me by himself could be extremely bad for me.

Orders: I have to defend against Austria 

To be honest, this is the only moveset I can think of.

• The army at Kiel move to Berlin.
• The army at Burgundy move to Munich.
  • I think I simply have no choice at this point. It pains me horribly to call off my attack on France before I could capture even 1 center. Gosh-darn-it, I wanted to be able to take Brest or Paris, which seems so close and possible with the Italian attack pressing ahead. But I have zero trust in Austria right now. I need to prevent him from sneaking in, which will deter Russia from allying him as well I should think. If I actually get into Berlin and Munich, then I may help Russia attack Austria in revenge or something.
• The army at Picardy move to Burgundy.
  • If France supports himself into Burgundy, he’ll get in, but that seems really unlikely to me; France can barely defend himself with the 2 armies he has. I’ll probably get into Burgundy and backfill, or else bounce France, which is fine with me.
• The army at Denmark move to London (via convoy).
• The fleet at North Sea convoy an army to London from Denmark.
• The fleet at English Channel support move to London from Denmark.
  • If Russia continues to be my ally, he NEEDS to support-hold North Sea with Norway. It should be really obvious to him, as it is to me, that England will move into North Sea with Edinburgh supported by London. There’s no other logical English plan – now that he regained his home centers, he needs to regain control of North Sea, no two ways about it. Moving out of Edinburgh won’t harm England here as there is no Russia fleet in Norwegian Sea (sigh).
    • So if Russia is really my ally after all this time, now is the turn for him to actually help me – support-hold North Sea so England can’t take it, and then my convoy is almost certain to work. If Russia does something else like move back to Norwegian Sea, my defensive perimeter will be all screwed up and I’ll have to bring both my fleets back into port to guard against England, and probably the North will just lock in some kind of standoff where neither I nor Russia trust each other enough to fight England with enough units.
    • If Russia supports England into North Sea, then he’s a backstabbing piece of crap. I’ll have to just turtle against Russia and Austria and hope for the best. Allowing England to recover would be a horrible mistake for Russia, in my opinion, because England will, sooner or later, come after Scandinavia because Russia has merely 2 units committed to the North.
  • Anyways, it’s not a disaster if my convoy fails, because that will leave my army in Denmark guarding against Russia (who would have to have either betrayed me or been a crappy ally for this to happen). If I have to back off, I’ll probably retreat my fleet to Heligoland Bight and bring English Channel back into Belgium next turn.

To continue to the next entry, click here.