Spring 1917 – can I get France eliminated?

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Developments: Russia eliminated

I reached 17, which is a nice achievement but not enough to solo win. 17 is hard, but 18 is often impossible. I gave it my best! It was a good run.

There’s no way I can break through by force, and Austria, Italy and Turkey have shown that they know what they’re doing regarding the stalemate line. They will not make a tactical error that allows me to break through.^[1]At the time I wrote this, I really thought Italy would take a few turns to be lured into finishing off France. Italy was very paranoid about my solo win attempt for so long, way before I had enough centers realistically attempt a solo win. I thought that it would take a long time to convince … Continue reading
…but can I trick their defensive alliance into making a strategic error? Can I lure one of them into trying to eliminate the other, causing chaos I can use to sneak into a win?
- Almost certainly, they will hold their nerve. They know how to play.
- But of all the players, Austria has been the most ruthless in taking supply centers. Perhaps I can induce Austria to attack…?

I’ve got orders in for Italy to finish off France. If Italy won’t do it, I’ll keep retreating to make him feel safer and try again.
I’ll try to signal to Austria that he should attack Turkey.

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Footnotes[+]

Footnotes
↑1	At the time I wrote this, I really thought Italy would take a few turns to be lured into finishing off France. Italy was very paranoid about my solo win attempt for so long, way before I had enough centers realistically attempt a solo win. I thought that it would take a long time to convince Italy to attack Portugal, or that maybe he would never do it and I would be stuck with France in the draw. If I had suspected Italy might attack, I might have made another solo win attempt this turn. In hindsight, such an attack could have worked and I might have won. I had another chance to solo win this turn actually, but I didn’t see that even a remote possibility, let alone consider moves that might have worked. But in fairness to me, my possibility of winning also depended on Austria vacating Piedmont, which I think was almost impossible for me to predict.