Diplomacy - variant WW1 (beta test) - Winter 1917

[CrystyB]

I would like an experienced Dip player to volunteer to test my WW1 variant of Diplomacy. Choose your side (E-efr or CP-agt) and email me your moves.
Note: i do not yet present here all the rules governing the gameplay. The subsequent posts during this demo play (in which the action will be revealed) are to be considered SPOILERS. I will do my best to ignore any remnant part of the knowledge of those. - which implies i need a second volunteer to post the rules as they unravel. Preferably a non-Dip player, since i will have to tell him/her all the secrets of this game.)

The map and rules are the same as in Standard TeamDip, with one exception: Russia cannot build fleets. And the starting units are not the same: Germany has an extra A Ruh, while the Entante countries are totally unprepared and only have garrisons in their capital cities. England's mighty old Fleet starts in the MidAtlantic.

NEUTRALITY
The territories of Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden are impassable, in addition to Switzerland. Fleets can now move directly between the Baltic Sea and Skagerrak. (No sea space is impassable.)
Initially, the territories of Italy (Pie-Ven-Rom-Nap-Tus-Apu), Bulgaria, Portugalia and Romania are also impassable.

The gameplay starts in Fall 1914, and must see an austrian atack on Serbia.
There will be LOTS of geopolitical torment... (at least until 1918, when any predictions of the future will have a high chance of being incorrect )

To win, the number of owned units should reach 21 or the conquered space should include all the 7 capital cities (Vienna, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, St. Petersburg, Ankara). It is NOT necessary to have control over 21 SCs.



[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 03-31-2003 12:30 AM).]

[Sparhawk]

I can help playtest.

[CrystyB]

great - choose your side and we'll just wait for the second volunteer.

[Sparhawk]

I will take England/France/Russia. I assume one of the unknowns in the game is which side Italy comes in on?

[CrystyB]

actually, not really . This is my variant, and not the widespread WW1 clone, remember?

[Sparhawk]

Okay, I will stop guessing!

[ChienFou]

I'll take the other if you like. head-to-head with Sparhawk looks l33t.

[CrystyB]

I don't mind, but i think you should know it won't be exactly 50%-50%... If you still want to play, go right ahead and send me those moves.

[mith]

Can I be the US?

[ChienFou]

So ... I'm Germany, Austria, Turkey, and play all 3?

Can you email me your variant Folder? - or does that give away too much?

As for mith, F NAO-Bos. No doubt you'll try to improve the flavor of the muck you call Tea.

Orders and Builds sent

[This message has been edited by ChienFou (edited 11-27-2002 01:35 PM).]

[Sparhawk]

Orders have been sent in.

[CrystyB]

Yes you play all three, but the SCs are not shared. Theoretically you could let AH be overrun by the germans, though you have very little reasons for that.

As for the variant folder, it had just the two txts in there (one in romanian and one in english) - but they were easily removed .

...

As for controlling US ((yes i understood you were joking)), i'm allowing it for this demo. You two will have to remember you are allied (that's why i had thought of them as French mercenaries - but you gave me a nice and interesting idea). Sure, you can have some toe-stepping, but don't over-do it!

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 11-27-2002 07:48 PM).]

[CrystyB]

ARGH! I had hurried to adjudicate and i forgot about the rules...

Initially, the territories of Italy (Pie-Ven-Rom-Nap-Tus-Apu), Bulgaria, Portugalia and Romania are also impassable. - thank God i had them grayed out in that map above...

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 11-27-2002 07:34 PM).]

[mith]

(I was joking about the US, but if you want me involved, let me know what I control )

{why the ?}

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 01-07-2003 10:47 PM).]

[ChienFou]

From RP, on trying to open the Variant "Cant find ..\WW1\WW1BW.bmp" Have you got a flag somewhere set wrong?

[CrystyB]

What's the need for B&W? Most (if not all) of my variants don't have that file...

And the question is 'have you got a useless flag set somewhere?' - since i can view it any way i try...

(also, try to copy the colourful file and rename the copy to WW1BW.bmp )

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 11-27-2002 09:56 PM).]

[AhoInu]

this BW problem is very odd. I created a copy of the colour map as you suggested and now it works. But the other variants don't seem to have the file even when it's named in the .var file. As I've now just seen the moves (from the dpy file you sent) that Sparhawk made you'd better ask him to resubmit and give his builds, as i guess he hasn't yet seen my moves.

Also there's no .gam file in the folder, so RP would have problems knowing starting positions if you just opened it from the menu of variants. I created a copy of the .gam file from the .dpy file you sent but obviously it won't be correct, as it has our first moves in it.

btw. Portugal, Portuguese in English (ref .cnt file)

[edit a bit later] Curiouser and Curiouser. My current version of RP (1.6.6) seems to crash on some variants but not others without a BW file



[This message has been edited by AhoInu (edited 11-28-2002 11:11 PM).]

[Sparhawk]

It sounds like I need a copy of RP. Where can I get a copy from?

[mith]

http://realpolitik.sourceforge.net/

[CrystyB]

Well you don't really need that, though it helps both modding and gameplay a lot.

John, about the gam file: get back in history to 1901 and BRANCH the history tree. Then make some changes to the orders, don't resolve, just save. Then edit in notepad to remove all the orders. That would get you a fresh-start DPY file. (ow i noticed a slip in the zip file: the variant as selected from the list of variants would be in its older form - much more allied units and the map is divided into spheres of influence. That's why i did not include the GAM file.)

i should've known the portuguese bit

PS Regarding the builds of Russia (they'll be up soon i hope) i'm going to interchange the colours of R and AH. The notion of Red Army will be a whole lot acurate!

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 11-29-2002 07:35 PM).]

[CrystyB]

Tactics to ponder upon: To maintain its fame as 'ruler of the seas', British Amirality COULD have ordered F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Brest, Build F London, Build F Edinburgh... Anyone would care to comment on advantages and disadvantages, desirability, etc?

STATUS: Adjudicated. No conflicts yet! Adjustments and Front Lines.
In order to stop popups, i made the option of having you open the 'ht_' file manually - with your usual browser application (eg IExplore).

What happens in Spring 1915: Italy joins the Entante (an army in Rome is already mobilised and can be used right away). Momentarily it can atack (and be atacked by) ONLY AustroHungary and Turkey.

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 11-29-2002 07:37 PM).]

[AhoInu]

I'm going to pay SparHawk the tribute of discussing this game fairly openly, as I think we can all gain from it.

Turkey: It seems fairly clear. I can envisage Spring 15 A Arm-Sev s by BLA and (A) Gal-War at the start, which means Russia has to advance slowly from Stp down the Baltic coast, or lose a SC.

Germany: has no way to get a quick 5th unit and is always in trouble. There's no defence to Lon-NTH s by ENG and then an attack on Belgium, whatever Germany opens (given I made a flat out Germany goes West opening). I think he *has* to be able to play Kie-Den or he's unplayable. It's obvious France *must* play Par-Bur, so I can't afford to go there myself, perhaps I should use Ruh to s Mun-Bur, but then I lose a unit. Maybe (G) can play Fall 14, Mun-Trl, Ber-Mun and Spring 15 Trl-Tri for a A Ber Build to stop the Russian advance, but ENG/NTH is still impossible.

Austria doesn't yet need an extra 2 units (he hardly needs any), given he gets Ven and Gre.

Austria: If I know Italy is coming into the game in Spring 1915, I should probably play F Tri-ADR. Build A Tri. I can then play A Tri-Ven s by ADR. I presume (G) can't support the Tri-Ven but could support him once he's there. Austria is better off as Greece is his in 1915 and F ADR can get to Tun before Italy has a mobile fleet.

what do you think SparHawk?

[This message has been edited by AhoInu (edited 11-30-2002 12:23 AM).]

[CrystyB]

IMO the fact that in Fall1914 you don't know about Italy is an important part of the game...

> I presume (G) can't support the AH A Tri-Ven but could support him once he's there.
Yep.

(and AH might find a use to those extra SCs in a campaign into Russia. I know their armies behaved badly in the real war, but a little sidetrack is fine)

Thinking of what you said of Germany's lack of options for its 5th SC. Should i have made Ruh a SC too? It is after all a very densely industrialized region...

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 11-30-2002 09:43 AM).]

[Sparhawk]

My comments:

England:
Obviously England's number 1 priority has to be to keep the German fleet out of the North Sea. Fortunately that won't be very difficult unless Germany gets a second fleet. The second priority is to get its army onto the mainland. [I thought of landing England in Brest to get another fleet into the game, but I think that a French army is more important.]

France:
France has the hard task of bottling Germany up. I was really worried about Germany forcing his way into Burgandy (even though it would cost him Belgium for a year). It looks like France won't be able to expand any time soon, so it needs three armies to defend and it needs to just defend.

Russia:
This was the hardest decision. If I don't take Warswa, I have only three units. If I take Warsaw, then Sevestapol is at risk no matter what I do. Also, I am outnumbered with both Austria and Turkey having nothing to do but attack me. [Fortunately the German fleet didn't head east.]

Russia appears doomed long term unless her western allies can help out. So it may be in Russia's best interest to sacrifice her possition to hit Germany from the East and hope that Germany falls quickly. I am still pondering that option.

Italy:
I didn't expect Italy to come in on my side this quickly. Obviously Italy has to relieve some of the pressure from Russia. Unfortunately, there is only one army, it is in a lousy position, and if Austria wants it can guarantee capturing one Italian home SC this year.

My prediction for the end of this year:
England, Germany, France: +0 SC
Turkey, Austria: +1 SC each
Italy, Russia: -1 SC each (but +1 unit for Italy)

[AhoInu]

Burgundy was a very interesting problem. I'd figured that if I took Burgundy then I would never get Belgium, and the loss of a unit would be crippling.

Warsaw/Sevastopol is interesting. Sevastopol requires you to guess my next move I think

We obviously agree about NTH, which is why my German Fleet moved West, rather than a Baltic opening

Let's play on a bit further, the three of us are good enough (but I will always bow to SparHawk) to help CB fine tune his game.

[CrystyB]

wow i'll never play one man games from now on. I could NEVER predict some of these moves...
(and i hope you understand why i couldn't give you a unit in Venice... AH homeland was NOT invaded when Italy joined the war in 23rd of may 1915)

STATUS: Adjudicated. New FrontLines.
'HTML' file is the same.

What happens in Fall 1915: Bulgaria joins the CentralPowers. A unit (chosen by the CP player) materializes in Bul. It can be chosen to belong to either the Bulgarian MinorPower, or to the protecting GreatPower of Turkey.

[Sparhawk]

Russia was a problem this turn. I decided to abandon Sevastapol because it had a 50/50 shot of falling anyway per turn. In exchange, I get some more pressure put on Germany. Hopefully Germany is nervous about a two-front war.

I was worried that Germany would try and force their way into Burgandy. I think I could have handled it (and with Spain impassible it isn't as bad as a normal game), but it would not have been fun to deal with.

The German move into northern Italy surprised me but I can see the logic. I wish I had seen it coming, even though I don't think there is much I could have done about it.

This next turn could be anywhere from very good to very bad for me.

[CrystyB]

Enlight me, what's Spain's impassability got to do with Burgundy?

[Sparhawk]

In a normal game, France controls both Spain and Portugal. If Germany gets into Burgandy, then when you dislodge them they can retreat to Gascony unless you have a unit there (as well as in Paris and Marsielles to protect them. Otherwise you just end up pushing the army into Spain where it is a real pain to deal with. In this variant if a German army gets pushed to Gascony they can be trapped against the Pyranees. It is still a pain and ties up too many units though. France really doesn't like to let a German army into Burgandy.

[ChienFou]

The move to Ukr (accompanied by ser H, and Mun-Tyr) was to try to guarantee Sev. I needed to hold Ser in case of War-Gal, in which case I was going to have some fun choices. I'd figured one of the balkan states would open hence the move to Con. Germany, well I've sorta given up on Belgium so I tried to neutralise the possible convoy from Wales. You got Pic or NTH but not both was my view.

The outright advance on Germany mildly surprised me, although it's the sort of thing I'd sometimes try. Austria is getting a much bigger game than is usual. I guess I have to play Germany as if being attacked by France and England in a normal game. I've had a lot of success with Germany, G/E in Dip 6, and G/I/T on another occasion, it's fun to be on the receiving end for a change. Will send my moves shortly.

[CrystyB]

Hmm sorry i missed adding the Italian army. Tnx CF for letting me know about it. I would probably have spotted it in the Winter, when i would have had to build in Italy...

Anyway, "German A Belgium can retreat to Ruhr." Or disband.

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 12-02-2002 07:10 PM).]

[ChienFou]

I'll take the retreat. I need to think for a while about my remove/builds. that'll have to wait 24 hours, as it's now 4 am, I'm as pissed as a newt, and I have to work tomorrow

[CrystyB]

no need to hurry. Take your time. And make sure you finish your work before turning to this.

A+1 G-1 T+2 ; E+1 I+1 R-1.

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 12-03-2002 09:56 AM).]

[ChienFou]

As ever, a slight surprise from SparHawk. I'm not terribly worried about Sev as I should get it back. Germany is still in trouble (and so's Italy!). Austria and Turkey are doing ok. Turkey in particular looks in good shape and I'm getting a lot of armies into central Europe.

Builds sent

[Sparhawk]

I think that Germany has been reduced to second power status, but Austria and Turkey are a problem! It will be interesting to see where the northwestern and the southeastern powers meet.

I was pleasantly surprised to have a shot at Sevastapol. I know it won't last, but it will hopefully slow down the hordes that will be heading north.

I agree that Italy is in trouble. Unfortunately, I couldn't see much possible to improve its position other than sending a French army into Piedmont one turn earlier. Even that wouldn't have made much a difference.

I am really curious to see what Germany disbands. I am guessing the fleet, but that isn't an easy call.

[CrystyB]

no html update yet, but here are the orders:
updated

Austria: + A Vienna
England: + F London
Germany: - F Kiel
Italy: + A Rome
Russia: - A Prussia
Turkey: + A Smyrna, + F Ankara

What happens in Spring 1916: Germany declares war on Portugal. Por is now passable - and becomes a new MinorPower. The build will have to wait for winter though. (silly germans! )

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 12-05-2002 07:36 PM).]

[Sparhawk]

I assume Portugal becomes a minor power for the good guys? Wouldn't have just been easier to let me invade back on turn one?

Did Germany really declare war on Portugal in WWI? Why? It seems rather strange.

[CrystyB]

9th of March 1916 Germany declares war on Portugal on the latter's refusal to give up seized ships.

Originally posted by http://www.ku.edu/~kansite/WWI-L/2002/03/msg00131.html:

---

Very basically, the Germans had been itching to get their hands on the Portuguese colonies for years, regarding them as ripe for the taking. Portugal, boyed up by the Allies had ordered the seizure of German ships in her ports in February, Germany responded by declaring war, after a suitable pause. This was, of course, most convenient for your friend and mine, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who looking for a way out of German East Africa promptly invaded Mozambique and roundly thrashed the desperately unprepared local garrisons.

There had been several border clashes on the other coast, between German South West Africa and Angola in 1914. In one case three Germans were shot whilst violating Portuguese neutrality, a fact which was seized and pushed as 'casus belli', but this calmed down after a while.

There is at least one, perhaps two if my memory serves me correctly, articles in SMALL WARS AND INSURGENCIES Vol. 12 No.1 (spring 2001) on the Great War in Africa concerning the often overlooked Portuguese contribution.

Yours,

Michael Margerison
Lancaster Library
Market Square
Lancaster
LA1 1HY

---

[Sparhawk]

Thanks for the info! That is nice to know. I hadn't thought about the impact of the European powers' colonies on the politics of WWI.

[CrystyB]

me neither!

Spring orders are adjudicated. CP has 2 units that were dislodged.