The Diplomacy game 'nanook'

The powers were played by:

Power	Name
Gamemaster	Chirchill
Austria	Thorsten Behrens
England	Henrique Moreira
France	Michael Hoffman
Germany	Glenn Ledder
Italy	Mike French
Russia	John Lichtenstein
Turkey	Karlis Povisils

In the tables below the following coloring scheme is used:

In Spring 1901 we see nothing special except from an anti-russian opening by Turkey. France enters the English Channel and seems to go together with Germany against England. Both bounces are agreed to by the bouncing parties. Italy opens to either attack Austria or to go for the Silesian corridor or the Lepanto.

The anti-russian warfare of Turkey continues. Russia can defend her position in Sevastopol but has to allow for Ankara moving to the Black Sea in return. France does not succeed in getting into London but prevents England from getting a build. Germany defends Munich against a possible attack from Tyrolia as does Austria who guesses correct about the italian move. Austria and Turkey divide the Balkans, leaving Italy with no build.

The builds are no surprise and put grounds to supposing that France would continue against England, while Germany leaves everything open.

Austria and Turkey are moving against Russia and at the same time cooperating against Italy. The same holds for France and Germany, who ally against England.

Where else shall Russia retreat?

The move to Bohemia was a surprise to Austria, while the attack on Trieste was forseeable. Italy decides to not gamble any longer and take his guaranteed build from Tunis. Had Turkey only supported the attack on Sevastopol with a single unit, Russia would have lost it. But this was judged as being too unlikely by Austria and Turkey.

The retreat to Silesia was agreed upon by Germany after intensive communication. Austria would use it to move against Russia, while Germany promised to support the austrian position against a combined attack from Rusia and Italy.

Nothing unusual here.

Russia had to choose between defending St. Petersburg or Warsaw from Moscow. He choose to defend the north, perhaps hoping for the bounce and also - due to german messages - not expecting a move from Silesia into Warsaw. After all Germany had entered austrian homeland only a season before and Austria had entered german soil in revenge. Why should they change their mind and make peace with each other?
Turkey finally managed to enter Sevastopol. Loosing Rumania in this process was no problem, because it could easily be regained.
In the west, France was advancing quickly against England. Germany had to bring some units there to defend against being the next victim of France. After all, France had to move against either Italy or Germany then. Both would be helpful to Austria/Turkey in the short term but not at all in the long run.
The turkish fleet in Ionian held to fool Italy on one side and to not leave this vital sea area open on the other hand. Italy now stands with both Tunis and Naples open.

This was the only possible retreat and necessary to get back into Rumania in Fall.

Finally the italian army was dislodged from Tyrolia, thus making progress against Italy possible. This all was possible only because we tricked Italy around the Ionian. Italy will now lose Venice in the coming Fall at the very latest.
Unfortunately, Austria has no home center free to build a unit. Trieste had to be covered against Ven-Tri and moving Bud-Ser to have a home center free to build would have let to disturbances in the AT alliance.
Germany obviously feared a french leakage of information to England and thus decided to cover Holland instead of attacking the North Sea from Belgium.
France makes good progress against England and - had Germany taken the support - would have had a very good position to turn against Germany thereafter.

Well, perhaps this leads to some french intervention in the backside of Italy? Let's see.

Hmmm. A french fleet in Marseilles is of course not good for AT. France might decide to support Italy with this fleet.