Question about keeping captured provinces

[Lank]

Hello, I am new to this game and I'm playing it for the first time with my friends. I found a pdf of the original board game rules and I've read the changes for the online version, but this still isn't clear to me. Say I'm playing as France, and I move a fleet down to Portugal to capture it. If that fleet moves on to Spain.SC, will i still keep Portugal and the build that comes with it? Or does a unit have to be stationed at every foreign province to keep ownership?

Thank you!

Edit: This is assuming I occupied Portugal in Fall and already have control of it

[Philover]

Ownership of provinces is changed after every FALL move.

So to use your example, if you moved a fleet to Portugal in the fall, then moved it to Spain in the spring, you would keep both provinces (as long as you still had a unit in Spain after the fall move). However, if you moved to Portugal in the spring but moved that fleet to Spain in the fall, you would capture Spain but NOT Portugal (unless you moved another unit into Portugal).

Hope that helps!

[Lank]

Perfect, thank you!

[Charleroi]

And once you have captured a province by occupying it at the end of a fall move, it remains your province until someone else captures it (by occupying it at the end of a fall move).

[ColonelApricot]

Ownership of provinces is changed after every FALL move.

The timing of ownership of provinces depends on whether a supply center is present. Ownership of non-SC provinces occurs immediately upon occupation (the color changes to that of the new occupier). New ownership of SC provinces takes effect after the Fall phase.

Ownership of non-SC provinces is important in Fog of War games as it provides useful information about the movements of opponents units.

[gareth66]

To address an implied ambiguity in the OP, there is no difference between the board game rules and the interpretation of the rules by PlayDip. The principles behind SC ownership are a pretty fundamental aspect of how the game of Diplomacy works, and what has been described in response applied equally to play on the site and to the board game.