Diplomacy No press Game 01 LURKER THREAD [NO PLAYERS]

[sunrise089]

What system are you using to assign countries? Some sort of preference maximizing thing, or something snake pick order?

I think it goes without saying that I favor some sort of weighted preference system with an auction component for country assignments

[regoarrarr]

The judge assigns powers, and I'm not sure exactly how it does it.

I *BELIEVE* it's osmething like it takes everyone that has france as #1 pick, rolls a die, gives France to one of them, same with Germany, then it eliminates F and G from everyone else's list, rinse, repeat.

I tried to search online for the system but couldn't find it

[regoarrarr]

Okay player 6 set preference FTRGIEA

and said

Since this is a no-press game, I can't do any super fancy strategies that require complex coordination. I'm just going to stick to simple, straightforward strategies that don't leave me open to an obvious stab. France and Turkey both start in the corner, so they can sweep across the board with no vulnerable rear. Russia can sort of do that too, but it has to worry about 4 different countries that can attack it. Germany is just a powerhouse that can explode quickly and run away with everything. Italy can sort of do that too, but only if it gets lucky and eliminates austria or france immediately. And poor Austria is just surrounded by enemies with no safe areas. Normally it survives by diplomacy, but wih no-press that seems too difficult.

[regoarrarr]

The 7th player set FTGERAI and we are away!

[regoarrarr]

So the final preference list was:

Player 1 has set 'GEFTIAR'.
Player 2 has set 'GFRTEIA'.
Player 3 has set 'FGRTEIA'.
Player 4 has set 'FRETGAI'.
Player 5 has set 'FRGTEIA'.
Player 6 has set 'FTRGIEA'.
Player 7 has set 'FTGERAI'.

I debated on whether or not to include the players names in this thread. I guess, at least for now, that I will keep them out.

[regoarrarr]

So, given those preference lists, here is who got what:

Player 1 has set 'GEFTIAR'. He got England
Player 2 has set 'GFRTEIA'. He got Germany
Player 3 has set 'FGRTEIA'. He got France
Player 4 has set 'FRETGAI'. He got Austria
Player 5 has set 'FRGTEIA'. He got Russia
Player 6 has set 'FTRGIEA'. He got Italy
Player 7 has set 'FTGERAI'. He got Turkey

So, this is how I THINK it works / worked. I'm not saying this is the ideal way to do it, but it's at least somewhat fair (barring the official sunrise089 weighted auction method ). The judge does it automatically - I had nothing to do with it.

1) 2 players have Germany first, we get a random number to decide between 1 and 2. 2 wins it and gets Germany.
2) 5 players have France first, so same thing - random number between 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Player 3 wins the 20% roll and gets France
3) Now we remove F and G from everyone's preference list.

That makes it

1: ETIAR
4: RETAI
5: RTEIA
6: TRIEA
7: TERAI

4) Player 1 is the only one who has England first now, so he gets England
5) Same random rolls for Russia (between player 4 and 5) and Turkey (between player 6 and 7). 5 and 7 win the shootout, leaving us with

4: AI
6: IA

6) So player 4 gets Austria, and player 6 gets Italy.

Again, I'm not saying it's the perfect way to do it, and I didn't come up with it in any case. Still, given everyone's love for France (and Germany to an extent), and everyone's hate for Italy and Austria, somebody was going to be disappointed. And given these preference lists anyways, you can at least say to Player 4 "Hey at least you didn't get Italy" and to Player 6 "Hey at least you didn't get Austria"

[regoarrarr]

This was the broadcast I just sent out to all the players

Greetings everyone!

Our 7 players have officially signed on and we can go ahead and get started.

As I mentioned earlier, the deadlines for this game are at 11:30 pm judge time, which appears to be -0700 (US Pacific). Again, because this is a no press game, it shouldn't matter as much that it may be in the middle of the night for some of you.

Or is it in the middle of the night for any of you?!?!? I'll never tell!!! :-)

The first deadline (for Spring 1901 moves) is Saturday night / Sunday morning. Each phase (moves, retreats, builds) has a deadline of 24 hours.

There is a map of the game on the judge website at

http://usak.asciiking.com/webtools/gamelist/rbnopress01

If you need help submitting your orders, there are instructions on the new user's guide, which is at

http://usak.asciiking.com/guide.html#Step_10a

Any questions, you can send me "press to m" through the judge or just drop me an email / chat.

[regoarrarr]

Update from England

Don't expect constant updates, but at least for right now, we'll see how accurate I am.


England figures out Spring 1901:

First, let’s try to figure out what my neighbors are going to do. Being gunboat, there’s not a lot I can do to influence the A vs. T vs. R and whatever Italy tries to do, nor is it terribly meaningful to predict what that means…yet. Also, a key priority here is tactical flexibility.

Projected moves:

Russia: F StP – Bot, A Mos – War/Ukr/something south. Without the ability to secure an ally, I don’t see how Russia has a choice but to have 3 units to keep Austria and Turkey from pressing him too hard; Sev-Bla is a given, as is Turkish Ank-Bla. So I should only have to worry about Bot-Swe in the spring, and not A StP – Nor via A Mos-StP this turn. Also, Russia wouldn’t even be able to take Norway in 1901 anyway with a second unit; we’d be looking at a bounce instead.

Germany: Kie-Den and Ber-Kie are standard. Holland is his if he wants it; I don’t really see why pressing on for a mess in Belgium makes a whole lot of sense this early. Mun-Whatever, I don’t really care.

France: Bre-Eng, probably Par-Pic and Mar-Spa. Assuming these are his moves, then my options are rather curtailed:

F Lon-Eng to bounce that fleet

F Edi-Nth

A Lvp-Yor

With anticipated fall moves there of A Yor-Nth-Nwy and F Nth C Yor-Nwy, and the other fleet will either be doing:

Lon-Eng (again) or likely Eng-Bel. HOWEVER, I get into the Channel, AND there’s only one French unit and one German unit capable of getting into Belgium, then Nth S Eng-Bel is possible.

- England.

He's probably right that moves to Eng and Bla (and Gal) are more likely in no-press games, but they're by no means HAVE TO move, at least IMO. If you can somehow signal an early alliance, it can be very successful in a no-press game (because it's harder to organize stop the leader and any other alliances)

Also want to point out that imo kie-den is not a given. kie-hol is just as standard an opening. Coupled with Mun-Ruh, it gives him the best options of 3 builds

[Jkaen]

Well, since it was the only 6th choice that was awarded, and that nobody seems to give them much hope, think I will cheer on player 4 for now.

Think its best to keep them secret from us too, although maybe if you told us the 7 names in a random order it would be interesting to guess who we think is who just from their playstyles

[regoarrarr]

So I can see what all the powers have submitted for their orders. Should I put that info in here or just wait till the moves are resolved?