Winter 1911 (Builds) – Russia took a hit

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Developments: I get a build off of Russia; nothing else happens

• • France and Italy repeated their standoff. For now, this is good. I don’t want France eliminated per se until France gets in my way or I’m resigned to a draw.
  • It looks like Turkey is trying to make peace with his neighbors, or at least demonstrate that he’s no threat. I’m sure he’s trying to communicate to the other players that he’s not going to harass them while I (Germany) go for a solo win, so that perhaps they start moving away from him (to get him a place in a the draw, and reduce my chances of a solo win). This is unfortunate for me. I want Turkey to continue fighting and threaten the other players, perhaps drawing valuable units away from the stalemate line.
    • I also don’t want Turkey in the draw; Turkey got reduced to 3 units early on and hasn’t done anything since then.^[1]It’s frustrating to share a draw with a player who doesn’t seem to have done anything to deserve it, but that’s the way Diplomacy games play out all the time. If my solo win plan fails, I’m going to refuse to vote draw and try to coax whoever is left into finishing off Turkey (assuming Turkey continues to turtle…he could be faking it and plans to attack to ensure himself a place in a draw).
  • Italy and Austria continue to fight but accomplish nothing. They’re even making the same moves over and over. For now, this is good. The longer Austria and Italy lock down each other’s’ units, the less time and ability they have to form a stalemate line against me.
    • However, I eventually want them to start cooperating again if I give up my solo win plan and want them to eliminate Turkey.
  • Austria attacked Russia again, even though Russia signaled that he wanted peace. This is awesome; it shows Austria to be an unreliable threat to Russia’s survival. This is exactly the kind of diplomatic struggle I need to keep alive my solo win chances.
    • Specifically, if Russia believes that Austria is not to be trusted, then Russia might give up any presence in the north and cede the whole thing to me, knowing that I am powerful enough to eventually grind him down anyways. Russia might do that, thinking that his only hope of getting into the draw is to stay alive in the south (beyond Germany‘s reach) and force the other players to ally him against Germany (because I threaten to solo win if I take too many Russian centers). If Russia thinks along those lines (because Austria is greedy, backstabbed Italy and kept attacking Russia even after Russia signaled for peace) then Russia may feel like he has to force the issue by abandoning the north quickly (so as to maximize the threat of a German solo win).^[2] I often call this strategy “taking yourself hostage.” I frequently try this when I am losing, and I think it is pretty effective. You communicate to the weaker power(s) that you will cause a solo win if they keep attacking you by giving up centers to the biggest power attacking you. If Austria and I (Germany) slowly grind Russia down, then that could put us in a stable pattern towards a small draw.
    • It gets even better: not only did Austria attack Russia, he didn’t attack Rumania, which Austria would have taken if he had used maximum force, which means Austria doesn’t get a build while also showing extreme hostility to Russia.
      • It would be pretty good if Austria took Rumania even though it would mean he get a build (because that would scare the crap out of Russia), but I think it is slightly better for me that Austria didn’t get a build, because if Austria does not make peace with Russia eventually (which is probably what I want for my solo-win plan), then I want Austria’s advance against Russia to go slightly slower than mine so that I pick up Warsaw and Moscow for myself (and not for Austria).
  • Finally, boy-oh-boy am I proud of my attack plan on Russia. As I thought, there was no way in the world that I was going to get two builds from Russia. However, my choice to not go for St. Petersburg worked out very well for me indeed!
    • Now I have Russia corralled, which I have been hoping to accomplish for several turns now. I will surely never let Russia into Norwegian Sea now that he’s shoved back into St. Petersburg. This is a big deal and will make my attacks on Russia this year much easier and involve a lot less guesswork.

Strategic thoughts: I need to think carefully here

This time, this section might be better titled “tactical thoughts” because what I’m trying to analyze here is how I can progress my attack against Russia so as to inform what build I should make (fleet or army).

• First off, something that really stands out to me is that Russia could force my Livonia army to disband (“blow up”). I don’t know what unit he’s going to disband for his build, but for right now he’s got Livonia surrounded with 4 units and can also cover the retreat location in Prussia. If Russia wants to blow up Livonia, he can probably do it. And unless I commit a lot of my moves to keep Livonia from being blown up, he can probably succeed in blowing it up even if he makes only a modest attack on Livonia.
• Next, I have to consider how I’m going to get rid of Russia’s fleet in Gulf of Bothnia. Now, I am pretty confident that I will eventually be able to blow up Russia’s fleet in St. Petersburg because I’ll probably be able to corner the fleet (there’s only 2 spaces that fleet can even move to – Norway and Barents Sea). But that fleet in Gulf of Bothnia is trickier and, if Russia never voluntarily disbands it, could be a nuisance for a very long time unless I find a way to force Russia to disband it. Is that even available to me?
  • Probably I would start by supporting Sweden into Gulf of Bothnia with Baltic Sea. If Russia doesn’t (successfully) move Gulf of Bothnia into Livonia, then Russia would have to retreat the fleet to Finland. If Russia’s fleet went into Finland, I would likely be able to blow it up and that would be that.
  • So the other scenario is if Russia moves Gulf of Bothnia to Livonia (likely supported by Moscow and/or Warsaw). Russia might do that to give himself the biggest possible defense against me and to not get his fleet forcibly disbanded. However, I do have a counter-play to that: Baltic Sea support-hold Livonia + Silesia move to Warsaw. If I were going to make this counter-play move, I would probably wish I had built an army in Berlin so that I could move it to Prussia.
    • The tough part about making the counter-play of defending Livonia is that if Russia instead uses Gulf of Bothnia to harass me at Sweden, he could really gum up my ability to reconfigure my units (since without Baltic Sea, they would be moving around unsupported).
• Ugh, this is a situation I just hate being in. Here’s what it comes down to: in order to chase Russia’s fleet down and blow it up, I have to commit at least two fleets into the Baltic area (otherwise I can’t possibly dislodge Russia’s fleet) and it might not even work if Russia managed to bring his fleet into Livonia. But even if it DOES work, then I have pushed two fleets far into the northeast, which is very bad because they will eventually become useless, and also will be horribly out of position for ever coming westward – and furthermore would give away an intent to attempt a solo win if I were to bring them around westward.

Orders: build an army I suppose

• Build an army at Berlin.
  • It seems like no matter what I do or what unit Russia keeps, I want to have another army in the center – it will give me at least a little bit of a tactical advantage.
  • I could build a fleet in Kiel, but that has no immediate value and might spook Italy. I think I’m better off trying to fight with the fleets I have or build another fleet once I have no more use for armies.

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