Spring 1908 – things are going well

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Developments: France disbands Paris

• Huzzah! Another break for me. France disbanded his army in Paris. I know why France did this because I probably would have done the same: Paris and Brest are not defensible from from the south, and France’s defenses are just too compromised at this point to make Paris worth the risk. Instead, France is doing what a French player usually does when forced to play a defensive game after losing a home center or two: retreat into Portugal and Spain before it’s too late, and pray that someone attempts a solo win before the other players can dig you out.
  • See, Portugal is arguably the most impregnable supply center in the game, at least for a defending player with few points left. Portugal is only bordered by 2 spaces – Mid-Atlantic Ocean and Spain. Furthermore, those two bordering spaces are themselves difficult to get into because they are on the bottom-left corner of the map. With just two units in Portugal and Spain, a player (typically France) can sometimes last quite a while, because in order to flank those spaces enough to actually dig into them, an attacking player has to move many units far away from their home centers, which is a big risk – a risk they may not take just to finish off France.^[1]Exactly as I described here, France went on to linger for many years by hanging onto Portugal because Italy and I (Germany) had such a difficult time getting our act together for eliminating France (and because I sort of kept France alive hoping that France’s survival could help my solo win … Continue reading
  • That whole area – Iberia – is usually contested by players attempt to solo win. It is reasonable to imagine that players defending against a solo win will be forced to start support-holding your unit in Spain to stop a solo-win attempting player from crossing or getting up to a stalemate line.
• As for what this means for me, it means there’s little chance I can be stopped from taking Paris this Autumn, even if France drives me out of Brest. Since France only has 1 army and Paris is landlocked, France can’t defend Paris against even 2 of my armies, unless Italy finds a way to mess it up. I don’t see any reason why Italy would harass me.

Orders: I’ll try several clever moves

• The army at Yorkshire move to Edinburgh.
• The fleet at North Sea support move to Edinburgh from Yorkshire.
  • I made a pretty clever analysis here: the obvious move is to push my army right through the middle into Liverpool. England can only block me from doing that if he moves Wales there, and if he does that then he can’t take English Channel (since I’m moving there). But there’s a terrible downside: England can predict this move, bounce me out of Liverpool, and then make a supported move into Yorkshire with either of his fleets. If he does that, and I don’t move my north sea fleet into the right English fleet to cut support then my army will be forced to disband, because it won’t be able to retreat anywhere. That would be horrible for me, and furthermore, such a boon to England that I think there’s a good chance he’ll go for this move.
  • I’m loathe to move North Sea. If Russia continues to support me, England can’t take it back while defending himself. England probably won’t make a supported attack on North Sea anyways, but the idea of moving out of North Sea only to be juked by England sounds too horrible to risk. England is facing elimination and may try all kinds of desperate moves to hang on and avoid elimination. I’ve done that to great effect myself many times as England.
  • If England makes the attempt to blow up my army and my move to Edinburgh fails, I’ll at least be able to RETREAT my army to Wales, where it may continue to harass England.  England probably won’t be able to cover all his centers and blow up my army in the Autumn turn, so it’s critical that my army stays alive long enough to at least permit me to take an English center this Autumn. If it blows up in the Spring, that will surely leave England with 3 centers at the end of this year still.
  • So I’m going to try to defeat the anticipated English tactics by attacking Edinburgh instead. There’s some chance that my attack will work, as long as Russia supports me. The English counter plays are to poke North Sea with London or to support Edinburgh to Yorkshire with London. England might anticipate this move and make the counter plays, but these counter moves are rather specific and therefore a little less likely. If for whatever reason England does anything other than those counters, my attack will work and perhaps I’ll take a center from him in the Autumn.
• The fleet at Brest move to English Channel.
  • France can force me out if he wants to, but I’ll make up for the loss of Brest with Paris so I think it will work out no matter what. There’s a chance I may get to keep Brest while taking Paris, depending on how France moves this turn (e.g., if he doesn’t move to Brest, I might be able to move back and bounce him out).
  • I want to move to English Channel to bounce England or France from getting in there. I want to vacate Belgium so I can use my army to take Paris, but my plan will be screwed up if someone else gets into English Channel. If I move there with Brest, only a supported move would succeed in getting in there, which I rate as highly unlikely to happen.
  • If I actually get into the Channel, that’s pretty good too. I can continue to use the fleet to fight for Brest, or maybe pick off London, in the Autumn.
• The army at Belgium move to Picardy.
• The army at Burgundy move to Paris.
  • I’m ready to take Paris in the Autumn. There’s nothing I need to do other than move Belgium to Picardy, which can’t be stopped. I only need 2 armies to beat the 1 French army, and I can’t imagine Italy would try to harass me somehow when he’s trying to attack France himself and at point where he doesn’t have that many forces to use.
  • So with this move, I either get into Paris or bounce France out and take it in the Autumn when it counts. If I do get into Paris, then perhaps I can use my armies to maintain control of Brest! If I don’t, nothing lost.
  • At first I feared France might juke me and get into Burgundy, but I decided that 1) that seems really unlikely because France has to fight Italy and probably anticipates that I would backfill with Munich and doesn’t want to waste a move; and 2) even if France got into Burgundy, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I can guard Munich (obviously) and Belgium, and I would already be in Paris which is my main goal, so I won’t lose anything to France.
• The army at Kiel support hold the army in Munich.
• The army at Munich support hold the army in Kiel.
  • Russia has been my ally the whole game, but he has not shown complete trust and faith in me. Or at least, he isn’t fully committed to allying me; it seems like he’s either afraid of me, or hoping that an opportunity will arise for him to backstab me. He continues to leave his fleet in Sweden, guarding against a possible attack from me, instead of sending his fleets out to go fight England. 
    • In the long run, this is probably bad for him. If Russia doesn’t get any builds from England going down, I will eventually end up with another fleet build and become the dominant naval power in the north (since Russia wouldn’t have gotten any fleet build).
    • Since Russia has decided to play defensively, helping me attack England but not taking any risks himself, he may eventually decide to backstab or do so from strategic pressure, since Germany/Austria/Italy can play to a 3-way draw pretty handily. He would backstab me (Germany) because, now that I am stretched out against England and France, I can’t really retaliate against Russia. Furthermore, he no longer has any other viable expansion path, if he has ruled out attacking England:
      • Russia can’t attack Turkey without just helping Austria or leaving himself vulnerable to Austria, and Russia can’t break through Austria, so if Russia isn’t going to attack England, then he’s either going to peak at 7 points and hope for a draw, or backstab me very soon before I can finish off England.
  • Russia is the power best able to attack me right now. Russia could have 2 armies in Silesia and Prussia this turn if he wanted (although that would leave him open to an Austrian attack), and bring his fleets down from the north (which could be strong if he makes the right guesses, but otherwise I could probably block him). If he makes the right guesses in backstabbing me and I move myself horribly out of position, he would suddenly sweep down and CRUSH me by taking some combination of Denmark, Kiel, or Berlin.
    • If Russia were to attack, it would be because he’s gambling that I’m going to move every single unit I have against France and England. I’m not, for exactly the reason that I would invite a backstab. But that would be Russia’s thinking if he backstabbed me.
    • A Russian backstab would surely come this turn in the Spring, when he can cross no-man’s-land, and not on an Autumn turn).
  • There are so many possible attacks Russia could make against me, moving his army to Livonia or St. Petersburg (to backfill Norway when attacking), moving his Sweden fleet to Denmark or Baltic Sea, he could use his Norway fleet, it’s too many possible combinations of attacks to think them all out. There’s no perfect defense I can make against them all. So I have to prioritize:
    • Because I’m not moving North Sea, there’s a chance I could use North Sea to counter attack next turn by moving to Norway or Denmark. So Denmark is reasonably safe as long as I have an army in Kiel to support North Sea back into Denmark
      • If Russia moved Sweden to Denmark, Norway to Sweden, and Livonia to Norway, then Russia could cover Norway and support-hold Denmark. I’d lose Denmark if all that happened, since I wouldn’t bounce Russia in Denmark. I’m hoping, I suppose, that Russia anticipates that I will move Kiel to Denmark this turn and won’t move to Denmark himself because he thinks we will bounce, and instead attack, if at all, by moving to Baltic Sea.
    • If I don’t leave 2 units bordering Berlin, Russia could move Sweden to Baltic Sea and Livonia to Prussia and then make a guaranteed attack on Berlin. THAT attack seems more likely to me than Russia just moving into Denmark, because getting into Baltic Sea is extremely strong even if the attack fails, and because Russia likely reads a move into Denmark as likely to fail.
      • Since I have to leave two units bordering Berlin (but don’t have to actually have to have one in Berlin) and want to keep a unit in Kiel, I should just hold with Kiel. There’s no unit I can support-hold or any fake convoy I can use to make a visual message.
      • Similarly, moving Munich to Berlin doesn’t really accomplish anything other than scare Russia, if Russia doesn’t backstab me. Munich is a perfectly normal place to keep an army for defensive purposes, especially after Austria lunged for it earlier.
  • So here’s what I figure: if I’m not moving them, there’s nothing these armies can do other than hold, support-hold my own units, or bounce each other.
    • I’m afraid to make the bounce each other right now because, when I look at it in the preview, it looks like I screwed up entering my orders. That’s not a message I want to send to other players (that I would make a mistake). Players who make mistakes look weak and may get attacked.
    • I don’t want to just hold because that’s boring and may look like I didn’t enter all my moves, which would also look like a mistake.
    • The support-hold chain, although it accomplishes nothing, communicates, I believe, to the other players that I am not terribly ambitious and just want to keep myself defended while I go off to eliminate England and help fight France. It’s important for me to show the other players that I am not planning on a solo win or posturing for the opportunity of getting one, so that they don’t come after me and instead methodically finish off the weaker players (I don’t want a big draw; we should be able to get this game down to at least 4). Once I communicate my lack of ambition, it may help demonstrate to everyone that whoever attacks me is himself some kind of ambitious threat who we all have to unite against (be that Russia or Austria) because I wasn’t even inching slightly closer to anybody who wasn’t my main enemy.
  • Furthermore, if Russia doesn’t attack me, then there’s no harm done! I won’t have lunged towards Russia and perhaps antagonized him. Instead, I’ll have shown what at first glance a great deal of faith in Russia, because I did not move back into Denmark (the obvious defensive move). Perhaps Russia will take the hint that I am willing to play with him as my loyal ally until the conclusion of the game, and pull his fleet back from Sweden on the next turn.

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