Best Moves Wanted for Diplomacy Master Class

[marotta]

Backgroud
I am working on a Master Class for Diplomacy. I think I am a good enough player and a good enough teacher for some of what I know to be helpful to others. But I recognize that my knowledge is finite and other players continue to amaze me with their skill and knowledge won by experience. I would like to include more than my finite wisdom, so I am asking players to contribute some of their ideas for such a master class. PLEASE NOTE that anything shared here may end up being in such a class.

Format

Game and Move: If you can, please submit a real world example. You know your games and finding examples is often half the battle. So think about your most brilliant moves and go and find them in the game. provide the game id number and the move.

Description: Describe the situation, your decision, what made the move risky, brilliant, conservative, or whatever you were thinking when you made the move and the other options you rejected. Generalize what you can. Alternately show how the specifics mattered. Strategies for all boards and all variants are welcome. Fog of war offers its own tactics.

Name this principle: I am interested in developing a tactics vocabulary similar to other games. So if you can think of a visceral name that fits the idea, let me know if you have a nickname of how you think of it in your head. This will help people remember. For example, there is a common technique of two units bouncing in the middle to keep a player out of that territory. There is another common technique of supporting one of their units against the other, often to vacate a supply center you want to take. I think of this technique by the simply name "unwanted support."

In addition to specific moves, I am also interested in posts along the lines of "I would think a Master Class would include this article or the work of ...." Along with a link. As an example, I found that studying the map you are playing on critically important. I lost my first Ancient Med game to a player who said, "I know that board well." I took several weeks studying the board, stalemate lines etc. and have worked my way to the #1 player on that board. For the classic board, I found the work of BrotherBored incredibly helpful for each power's likely supply center in a solo gunboat win, for example England at https://brotherbored.com/diplomacy/gunboat-solo-win-intro/england/

For now, I would like to limit this class to Tactics useful in a gunboat game. PRESS Diplomacy is closer to psychology and how to stroke egos and lie well. I may let someone else do that Master Class.

[Fatmo]

Spring of 01:

Fleet London to Belgium
Fleet Stp S.C to Norway



Mostly wanted to just mark this thread, because I'm sure there will be some good stuff here eventually. I've done some moves I've been incredibly proud of, but most of my games are so old I don't remember lots of context behind them. Some of my games are so old that all the maps with the moves on them for all the turns are gone, and all I can see it literally the text of the orders and the final map.

[Fatmo]

Oh, just noticed you're looking for mainly gunboat. So I probably have pretty much nothing to contribute there lol. Though do 2PC games count? I did OK in that tournament, having not played much gunboat or ever playing a 2PC game.

[ColonelApricot]

One of my favorites is when Turkey and Austria form an alliance.

At the end of 1901 the Austrian fleet is in Greece and the Turkish fleet is in Aegean. In spring 1902 the Austrian fleet is supported into Ionian and the second Turkish fleet goes into EMS. In Fall the Turkish fleets dislodge F Ionian and it retreats into whichever of Naples or Tunis that Italy has been unable to cover.

This was not gunboat however so I don't know how achievable that would be.

..CA

[V]

May I suggest webDip could yield a greater response to this exercise as I noticed during my sojourn there for ODC, that they take Gunboat very seriously. I never established why, but it may fit with your ambitions of a Master Class.
I notice a tongue in cheek aspect to the responses here & personally I never play Gunboat & don’t consider it Diplomacy.
Diplomacy without diplomacy may be an amusing game, but is so radically changed it needs a new name.

Best Regards V

[Aeschines]

May I suggest webDip could yield a greater response to this exercise as I noticed during my sojourn there for ODC, that they take Gunboat very seriously. I never established why, but it may fit with your ambitions of a Master Class.
I notice a tongue in cheek aspect to the responses here & personally I never play Gunboat & don’t consider it Diplomacy.
Diplomacy without diplomacy may be an amusing game, but is so radically changed it needs a new name.

Best Regards V

https://media1.giphy.com/media/wog2xSk0v0LT2/giphy.gif

[drillbit]

That could have been a really interesting thread. It looks like it has been hijacked though by players who want to let you know that they don't like gunboat.

[Fatmo]

That could have been a really interesting thread. It looks like it has been hijacked though by players who want to let you know that they don't like gunboat.

Gunboat is really cool though. I'd love to see some people that actually play lots of gunboat come and give cool moves/strategies. Might be a way for us who don't play it much or who aren't good at it to learn and improve our style.

[marotta]

There are multiple aspects of Diplomacy. Gunboat is the way to learn pure strategy and tactics. In PRESS play that is an extremely helpful skill to have. And in PRESS play it is more difficult to tell when you are weak on tactics and when you are weak on Diplomacy.

But yes, there have been, so far, very little in the way of helpful posts. I think this may be partly because players don't review their games after they finish. I always take the time to review every move of the entire game. By doing this I have been able to see where I went wrong in my moves and where other players were brilliant. This helps improve my own game. I've also found collusion in gunboat fog of war where two players were clearly working together even if they did not directly support each other's moves.

Anyway, I am probably a strange player and enjoy a strange side of Diplomacy. Perhaps I am talking to other players who love to play gunboat. Here are the top 25 gunboat players.

I would love to hear from any of these players:

Top 25 Members for gunboat

1
JohnFletch (2147)
2
Putski (2145)
3
machor (2014)
4
marotta (2009)
5
uzes90 (1982)
6
drmullets (1709)
7
Mr Aedron (1619)
8
TTBen (1610)
9
Lelemud (1564)
10
lauzista (1552)
11
Strudeldunsenman (1550)
12
Von Ubercastel (1539)
13
Reggie89 (1516)
14
cesspitt (1515)
15
LordCardigan (1510)
16
Durkeety (1508)
17
cleacy (1498)
18
Gaudenis (1497)
19
bagrationi (1463)
20
Uffington Horse (1459)
21
The Tibetan Blackbird (1454)
22
grdg (1452)
23
muller11 (1444)
24
StarWatcher009 (1442)
25
Darryll629 (1433)

Interesting to note:
Lelemud has the highest gunboat solo rate with just a few games (5/12 = 41.67%) and also bagrationi (2/5 = 40.00%).
Then machor with a gunboat solo rate of (23/56 = 41.07%).
Then me (marotta) with a gunboat solo rate of (88/232 = 37.93%).
JohnFletch and Putski (1 & 2) must have beaten higher ranked players.

At any rate, I am still interested in receiving some of your best moves.

[Phlegmatic]

Hi Marotta,

Hopefully I can provide something pertinent for you here!

I haven't got much time to devote to this post, but I recommend you review game number 154386.

The key here is not any particular move, but the ebb and flow of the game, and how Bagrationi orchestrated that in the face of a determined alliance of 3 other powers who were trying to stop him solo.

Bagrationi's experience allowed him to recognise that he was up against Russian, Austrian and Turkish players who understood stalemate lines and how to build them. So he repeatedly backed off as far as he could without damaging the integrity of his position, such that Turkey (me) could then slowly take out Russia and Austria one at a time. He no doubt hoped for me to make an error so he could grab the solo, and I'm proud to say I didn't allow that to happen, so we ended with a well fought 2-way draw in, amazingly, 1945!

Obviously with that many years played it's a fairly onerous task to go through the moves, but worth it if you want to see how a true master can make the board dance to his tune, so please take a look.

I hope that helps!

Phlegmatic