Fall 1906: Worst. Stab. Ever.

[Zvi Mowshowitz]

England: I have no idea how England got into the Mid-Atlantic but he did. The sixth build is secure, and France is in a purely defensive stance but Scandinavia is highly vulnerable to Russia. England needs to balance defending that area with making progress against France. If Turkey and Russia/France go to war, England can't choose to attack France and stay at peace with Russia because Russia will need supply centers desperately and has no reasons given England's uses for those centers to not try and take them. Thus, he has to either make a deal with France and mostly sit tight or he has to join Turkey. If he sits tight and gets paid for it with centers like Holland and Kiel, he can potentially aid with fleets to bottle Turkey up but there's lots of trust issues on all sides there and given Turkey isn't going to shrink short term it would be a tough pill at best. Joining Turkey creates a strong alliance since neither party can attack the other so they get to use every unit effectively other than the stuck armies while Russia/France have to watch each other. The danger is not that the alliance would lose but rather that going with E/T risks giving Turkey a solo victory, and Turkey doesn't have the ability to negotiate to make this that much less likely. England may or may not be all right with this outcome. Depending on Italy/Turkey's stance England should be in position to pick up a seventh center in Iberia this year, but his top priority continues to be to get those armies where they can impact the game.

France: Not using Brest to support into the Mid-Atlantic instead of Spain was a serious tactical mistake that made France's position much worse. Leaving the armies in place in Tuscany and Piedmont opens up possibilities for a Russia/France attack on Venice and Trieste, and bottles things up a bit for Turkey but also is the reason that the southern half of France is wide open. Those two units are two units France doesn't have for defense and if he's fighting on two fronts he needs them badly to drag things out. Now more than ever France needs a break in the alliance but he may have been handed one. The problem is that France/Russia doesn't win against England/Turkey, and France/Turkey ends up giving most of its gains to Turkey, and if England is an option for him Turkey may not even play ball. Turning England as well would turn the tide, but most important is to make sure Russia and Turkey go to war as planned since R/T can crush the other half of the map at this point with or without an E-F war. Figuring out how many units the two sides need to leave on the Rhine will be a big issue for F/R should it form, especially since England has the North Sea, and it's important to convince Russia to move on England fast if England can't be turned. If England can protect his holdings, F/R doesn't stand a chance.

Germany: Please disband your two units to let the game advance. Was good playing with you, and if we do a faster (5-minute turn style) game at some point I hope you'll join us.

Italy: Italy has accepted the puppet role. That doesn't mean he has to keep it, as he could at some point attempt to switch to the French side if he's offered refuge in another center, but Naples is permanently at Turkey's mercy. Survival in a draw isn't quite impossible, but it's hard to believe the other powers couldn't find a way to eliminate him, so chances are his best result is a 1-2 center survival in a Turkish win; if anyone else won Turkey would likely eliminate Italy along the way. Was this Italy's best shot? It's hard to say, but it's certainly a reasonable choice.

Russia: Well that didn't work at all, although it's far less awful than if Turkey had moved first and Turkey did leave the Adriatic. Russia has three paths. Path one is to sign up with France and fight F/R vs. E/T. The problem with this plan as stated above is that it doesn't work; Russia will pick up the north in many scenarios and can pressure Venice/Trieste but France will shrink and Turkey picks up Budapest, Romania and Sevastopol permanently. Even if the two work as a team the war is basically lost before it begins; Russia's quest on defense is to not lose Moscow in 1908! Option two is to unite the board against Turkey, somehow making England sit back and watch or actively help. This works if the allies have enough trust in each other and can coordinate, both of which are hard. In many cases they have to choose one or the other, since keeping the trust going prevents proper coordination. The third option is to count on the fact that no true harm was done other than to slow the timeline, and that slowing the timeline doesn't matter since there's no bad effects to race, and so return to the R/T Juggernaut if Turkey is willing to overlook what happened. In many ways, Turkey should be willing to keep the peace in most scenarios where he wasn't about to stab Russia in 1907 regardless. Not having a build this turn is far worse than it looks at first glance as Russia's units are way out of place for this fight.

Turkey: Russia made a move against Turkey, but Turkey saw it potentially coming and blocked, preventing the Russian build and securing three for Turkey. If Turkey moves north, he holds Sev, takes Rom and does a dance in Bud/Vie/Tri/Ven, potentially going down one center there and staying at 11 (12 with Naples) unless he gets into Spain. If France is on Turkey's side, or simply sends his armies home for defense, nothing falls and Bud/Rom turn yellow, forcing Russia to disband one on top of the doomed southern fleet. Russia has an army in Berlin that he can spare off the front, but the three fleets are stuck in the north and at least one army is too to defend Germany. Even if everything was free to move it will be a while before the units can reach the southern front, so Turkey has the initiative by far. However, it's not so late that Turkey can take on the other three powers and win so he still needs at least one ally, or at least a lot of distrust and dissension amongst the enemy ranks.