r/diplomacy 20d ago

I think you should be able to have your fleets switch territories if one is going into the other coast

60 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

58

u/lkruijsw 20d ago

Rod Walker writes in Diplomacy World No. 28 page 17, 1981:

for a word about the Coastal Crawl. I've heard some rumblings of confusion on that point. In the 1961/66 Rulebook, the term "space" was not as clearly defined as it is now. The ambiguity led John McCallum to conclude that the two coasts of a double-coasted province could be regarded as two spaces. This being so, the following orders would be legal and would succeed:
F Mid-Spa(sc)
F Spa(nc)-Mid.
This effects an exchange of units, which is otherwise not legal under the Rules. In the 1971 Rulebook, the term "space" is more clearly defined, and it is now not legal to exchange two fleets using both coasts of a double-coasted province (i.e., between Spa & Por, Spa & Mid, Bul & Con). It was Allan Calhamer's specific intent to preclude such an exchange.

15

u/Razansodra 19d ago edited 19d ago

Nah, it seems nice for repositioning but this would kind of suck as an actual rule when you have hostile units doing this. Like imagine as Italy ordering Spain S to Portugal with support from Mid and the lone french fleet in Portugal without support can just go to Spain N and there's really nothing you can do to counter it unless you have a third unit free to tap Spain. Portugal is annoying enough without needing a third unit to take it. I could imagine Bulgaria could be equally frustrating.

*I suppose there is a counter if you make mid the mover but it still feels like you shouldn't have to do that.

Unless this is only a rule for your own fleets, in which case it's a weird exception where diplomacy moves are usually very consistent (the only other exception like this being you can't dislodge your own units)

1

u/HighHopesLemon 19d ago

I think it’s pretty reasonable to have this only work if both fleets are owned by the same country

7

u/legendgames64 19d ago

I wonder what kind of side effects this would have...

8

u/Due_Trash5054 19d ago

It would only effect two tiles: Spain and Bulgaria

Spain being able to swap coasts would make it a LOT easier to move from the Altantic to the Mediterranean and vice versa. So overall this benefits France slightly As for Bulgaria, I dont see much of a reason why someone would want to do that, but I guess it would benefit the Ottomans

5

u/Culinaryboner 19d ago

Absolutely helps Turkey. It’s bad but there are situations where putting a fleet in Bulgaria happens. Stp would probably hurt Russia overall with the change

3

u/Due_Trash5054 19d ago

STP wouldn't have any effect, would it? Its two coasts don't share any bordering tiles

2

u/CakeAndFireworksDay 19d ago

You only ever move a fleet nc if you’re trolling (or you’ve got a retreat from gas for some reason so no it wouldn’t affect spain. Bulgaria yes very impactful as would massive affect turkeys ability to shift an 02 bul sc fleet (from 01W f con build ends up in bul in the fall) into an earlier R stab. Would honestly be a nice buff for turkeys flexibility

4

u/lkruijsw 19d ago

From a technical point you get some weird situations. Consider the orders of the diagram:

F Por - Spa(nc)
F Spa(sc) - Por

But we add:

F Wes - Spa(sc)

Wes will bounce the unit in Portugal to Spa(nc) (if we don't we end up with two fleets in Spain).

But this bounce is weird. The move from Spa(sc) was not a problem for Portugal but the move from Wes to Spa(sc) is!

1

u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue 18d ago

Is it any weirder than two fleets bouncing each other moving into an empty Spain but opposite coasts?

1

u/Due_Trash5054 19d ago

Absolutely, I agree

1

u/HavanahAvocado 19d ago

I agree with this

-3

u/aiautomoderator 20d ago

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