Since I don't want to clutter our very active 'Recent Diaries' list with a new Diplomacy diary, I've been holding off on posting anything - but then I remembered how much it annoys certain stuck-up killjoys who frequent this place, and decided to put one up post-haste.

For anyone interested, you can find the main game page here; and here's a .pdf file of the state of the game to this point. Now, while I am 'eavsdropping' on all the press in this game, events have conspired to make it impossible for me to give those notes even the usual perfunctory glance it's my habit to give to them. So I'm more-or-less at a loss to explain to myself what's behind the moves, who's really with whom, and who's playing whom for a fool - which makes writing this diary convenient, because I don't have to feign ignorance for a change. So here's where we stand at the moment (F1901R):

A couple things jump out: first, Germany's put up a wall of units facing Britain - but is more or less completely exposed to his southeastern flank. We'll see if his builds rectify that approach (A BER? A MUN?), or double-down on it (F KIE? F BER?). Second, the Franco-German assault on Britain looks awfully desultory - a lot of bounces between Britain & France, followed by an aggressive convoy by France, followed by France disbanding F MAO? Uhh, OK. Third, Turkey looks - OK, I'm going to avoid the bad pun. Turkey's in a bad way; Italy's convoy into DAM likely sealed his fate. If there's any hope for him, it's that these three-on-one pile-on's can be sustained only so long before the 'three' turns into 'two-vs.-one'.

Last thing: Tempi counts. Mostly unsurprising - Turkey & Britain are at the bottom of the pile in terms of efficiency, and otherwise (mostly) the rest are bunched together. But oh, what an exception ...
Austria: 6 tempi achieved/16 possible tempi (37.5% efficiency)
Britain: 5 t.a./18 p.t. (27.8% efficiency)
France: 7 t.a./20 p.t. (35% efficiency)
Germany: 9 t.a./20 p.t. (45% efficiency)
Italy: 13 a.t./16 p.t. (81.3% efficiency)
Russia: 8 a.t./18 p.t. (44% efficiency)
Turkey: 3 a.t./12 p.t. (25% efficiency)

81.3% of possible tempi converted? WTF? That's madness. It doesn't necessarily mean Italy's dominating the board - it's not hard to see how he might be vulnerable - but efficiency like that is a very, very good sign for him: if nothing else, it means he's reading the board very, very well. (I guess it's also a little surprising that Germany & Russia, who had very so-so first years, are showing as well as they are - but neither ended up being the 'odd power out', so success is likely to follow.)

Comments welcome!

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.