S1901M Press from G to G

    * NZMB Diplomacy Ajudicator ** JKs Tim Miller and Mario Becroft *

New registrations will be reviewed for completeness, and deleted without
warning if found incomplete.

If you want to play using two e-mail addresses *do not* register twice.
Use the iamalso command instead. Send "get index" for more details.

          There is a limit of 70 games. 68 games are now ongoing.
                    No unmoderated games are permitted.

Status, local time in Auckland, and more on WWW: http://gem.win.co.nz/judge/
  For info on local dedication point system send "get dedpoints" command.
               Thank you for using NZMB, running njudge 1.2.0
****************************************************************************
Message from [benjamin.harris_at_mindspring.com,bwarner34_at_charter.net as] Germany
to Germany in 'teachme3':

> I was confused by the link/e-mail address on someone else's post. Yours, I suspect.
  Yep. I wanted to have this game, but I also wanted to coach in it, which was difficult because of the gunboat thing. I was able to get Thorfinn to volunteer to GM, and then I channeled everything through him, so that I wouldn't know who the other coaches are. Of course, I had to do all this without explaining why I was doing it, because I couldn't tell people that I was coaching!

> I'm in 3 full press games, one of which is nearly
> finished and one of which is starting to head downhill.
  Great, thats the perfect experience level for this game. You've gotten the basics down, and can now work on perfecting tactics and strategies.

> I'm 32 & married with one 3-year old son and a girl on the way, due in
> January. More biographical details to follow, I'm sure.
  I'm 23, and engaged to be married in August next year. My fiance has a son who just turned 5 on Monday. We live together in a duplex, which is why I generally only get on the computer there at night.

> The rule of thumb, as I've seen it on the web, is to play the players &
> not the country.
  I have to admit that when I started I wasn't a big fan of this rule either. I'd often go in with an idea of the alliance structure that I wanted to create, and use my opening e-mails to try to create it. This is nice in some ways, in that it gives your opening messages direction, which is something they often lack. It also allows you to be in control of the situation rather than the situation controlling you. However, I've found that there is a serious reason the rule is there. No matter how much work you put in, you're occasionally going to find players that you just can't work with. If you've staked your entire strategy on them from the beginning, you're left with a plan that you can't execute, and that you can't change without losing credibility.
  While this game is a bit different in this respect, I think its still similar enough that we're better off trying to get a little idea about the players before we start planning our path. In both teachme games so far, there have been players and coaches that for whatever reason just don't mesh or get into the game very much. It wasn't because the coaches weren't good, it was just because they never found a good way to communicate with their player, or just plain didn't have the time to do it. We want to make sure that we don't tie ourselves to one of these players and go down with them. So I'm fine with you deciding that all things being equal you'd rather side with England than France, but I wouldn't do anything in press that would lock you into that plan until we know the players a bit better.

> was tempted by all the nice stories about success with a patient E/G against France
  Yep, it can definitely work. You can check out the history for sincere on USIN for an example of me as England leading a very effective early game attack on France, or gutsy2 also on USIN for me as France getting taking apart by a very similar attack! A third option that I wouldn't completely rule out is an opening known as the Centrifuge. It involves setting up for an early attack on Russia while trying to get England and France to fight each other. There is information about it on the Pouch. One problem is that its supposed to be a surprise opening, but in a game like this everyone is going to be familiar with the Pouch and thus recognize it. However, it can still be effective, as I used it in my only e-mail game as Germany which netted me a three-way draw despite the fact that was immediately recognized.

> I hope we win.
  I've been told that you're always supposed to figure out which 18 centers you are going to get to win from the beginning. I've never been very good at doing that, but it sounds good in theory. So, we'd have the 6 Lowlands centers. From there the most logical extensions sseem to be to Norway, Sweden, England, Paris and Brest. That gives you 13. Where do you think your other 5 centers would come from? Is there a reasonable way to reach 18 without attacking England?

Brent
Received on Thu Nov 14 03:08:36 2002