Ma Duece fight

Yes, I know... I have way too much time on my hands... So sue me

Map analysis:

Our enemy seems to be consisting of an experienced core of players, but with quite a few rookies that seem to be making alot of mistakes. The game setup is mostly balanced with one team on each side facing truly devestating odds. Turkey for them and France for us. We have the added benefit of having no enemies in the US area making it possible to reinforce france heavily.

Their countries:

Russian Empire:
One of the rookies in my initial opinion. Lost a few units already due to a clash with Finland. He has forts in all southern border provinces and in two of the border provinces to Finland. 10 visible units on the border to finland and one army moving towards finland border still outside view range. By all accounts he looks to be defending against Caucasus and pushing against finland. No ports and no airfields, but all his industrial provs have infastructure. We will be seeing mostly tanks from this one.

Communist Russia:
Did a better start than RE, but for some reason he took Tambov from cossacs, a province that don't really give him anything, and built a fort there. Only reasoning I can find for that would be if he's supposed to keep the border south defended while RE takes out Finland, but it's easier to assume that he got caught up in the initial rush and either didn't think or was forced to take that province to end the cossack war. Apart from 3 infantry in single groups on the border to Ukraine we don't really know much of his forces. He has some outside visual near Finlands border and he's sent one troop in a boat to scout out finlands defences it seems. Another sign that Finland will face some initial agression. When it comes to role in the war, he's definitly one of their two main airforce suppliers. He already have 4 airfields in industry provs. We will probably see interceptors from day 4 and tacs coming from mid-day 4 and onwards. Finland and ukraine is adviced to build AA for their armies.

Poland:
An enigma for me, and my first impression is that this is a player we need to look out for. Only visible troop he has is a single infantry in a fort near Romania/Ukraine border. I would guess that he has forces waiting in the city just behind to ambush any force trying to take that fort, hoping to force us into a battle in his fort. Ajacs will deal with this by bombing the fort with arty and see how he responds. He's built forts all around the Romania/Ukraine border, so I would guess that he either will send troops north or assist germany against france while he has some forces to deal with agression from Ukraine/Romania. When it comes to his production capabilities, they are a bit allround. He has one airfield in a industrial prov, but I would guess this is to give Commies access with their tacs. He also have one port towards sweden, probably producing subs. The other industry areas have infrastructure, so LT are my guess as main army.

Germany:
No real surprise here, he has multiple armies on the border to france. One of the 4 countries probably involved in the hammer/anvil to take down france quickly. One airfield near border to France, apart from that industry provs have infrastructure. Oddly enough he have wasted steel on a fort in Berlin, indicating either lack of experience or a belief that we will try to overrun him quickly. Important notice is that he has no ports.

UK:
Also seemingly a rather obvious role, UK's position makes it the natural navy builder. He has 5 ports, 3 of them in industry provs. For some reason he has yet to take out Ireland, making a possible tactical advantage for us to land a few units in Cork and keep him on his toes. He has already taken Netherlands and have probably shipped land units there to assist in the takedown of France. Forts in Glasgow and Plymoth giving credence to the assumption that navy is his primary role. No airfields at this time.

Spain:
Not much to say here, as his troops have stayed hidden. He has one army on the french border, but outside view range.No forts at all, and he's still working on taking out portugal. Might be indications of inexperience. I assume he will be part of the french campaign. 3 ports in industry provs on the mediterr. shows us that he will be providing navy for the southern parts. His inland industry has infrastructure, probably to feed LT's into france.

Italy:
Forts in the obvious places, but also a fort in Cagliari witch doesn't make much sense since the only enemy within sensible range is France (and he should know that france won't be able to go offencive lol). Just like Spain he has 3 ports in industry provs. No barracks in his capital shows us that he's inexperienced, as the manpower bonus would have been significant. No airfields. Recently invaded greece, witch seems to be counterproductive if he's supposed to help against France. Could possibly be their attempt to link up with turkey, but they must know that this won't be enough.

Turkey:
Their sacrificial lamb, if you please... Hemmed in on three fronts by our players, he should know that he's in trouble. However, he have yet to build a single fort and are even now sending troops into greece to take out an AI city (with 1 infantry and one AC). Obviously inexperienced, and seriously stretched thin considering his position. Has a 2 inf army in Kavala staring at Yugoslavias 5 inf army. The inf and AC sent to greece came from here. In short, 4 of his units will be cut off or destroyed easily, units that he really needed in his defence. No forts means the road to istanbul lies open. We've seen 4-5 units on the south border taking AI provs, but apart from that not much is known about his deployments. 2 ports in industrial areas hints at attempting to build navy units. The one in Istanbul is new and will probably not have time to produce anything before mid day 4. At top he would have one sub when the action starts. His other industry has infrastructure, excpet capital who only have IC and barracks.

Libya:
Not much intel here. Has some units near egypts border, but currently only 2 infantry visible. Egypt have an AC within sight meaning Libya should have moved some armor or AT to this area. So far nothing showing though. No ports witch is strange for this position. Industry areas have infrastructure, as does almost all his resource provinces. I would assume that his role is to put pressure on egypt, but so far nothing to confirm this. Libya has been complaining that his IC have been taking damage, seems to think that we have planted spies to do this. Nothing to prove this in the paper, and no other reasonable explanation.

Algerie:
Latecomer, started more than a day after the rest of us. Far away from any of us, so we don't have any intel except what we can read in the paper. Obvious rookie, as he's blown 10K RM on building industry in resource provinces. Unless the others are feeding him he can't have any real research done. His industry provs have only barracks, except one that also has infrastructure. The resource provs have only IC. Hopefully for him he researched AT and are producing them for defence, apart from that he's not of any use as far as I can tell.

Marocco:
Obvious air supplier. Got 4 industrial provinces with airfields, one of them also with a port. Airfields are still producing, around halfway done, meaning he won't have any air force until late day 4 at the earliest.
At this point spain have no airfields, meaning there is as of yet no route for the planes to take to any of our players. I would assume his units are either defending his coast against US invasions, or they are sent through spain to help against france. There is a slight risk that he's sending everything to take south US by surprise, and we do not have anything that far south in the ocean to safeguard against this, but the odds are low for this beeing the case as he must know that whatever he can send he will have to take down 3 countries by himself.

Strategic analysis of hostile plans:
Their obvious and even outspoken gameplan will be to take down France quickly, then turn their attention to the others. They will have to use subs to stop reinforcements coming from US and due to this fact they will have less naval power than our european countries availiable at the start. Italy's invasion of Greece seems out of place and difficult to explain. The wildcards at this point seem to be the african countries and poland. If they don't have the african countries send most of their troops by boat to Turkey, that country will fall quickly. It seems likely that RE and communist russia will try to take down Finland, although this doesn't make much sense strategicly as they would have to deal with sweden too. A wiser move would be to pour into caucasus, hoping to put pressure off Turkey and eventually link up in the east.

I think we should pop our intel here too... I've got a spy in Commie Russia at the moment so will pop info up when I get it.

We're well into the first day of hostilities, and while the fights in France has been going worse than we thought, we're pretty much right on track with our initial plans.

Russian Empire got taken totally by surprise by Finlands amfibious landing. At this point they lost two of their core provinces up north, with a AC speeding around grabbing more as we speak. Their answer was a heavy push towards finland, and at this point they have about 12 units abgainst Finlands 2 units in a prov without a fort. Swedish reinforcements might be needed. Down south RE lost a big stack against one of Caucasus' forts, with minimal losses on our side. Scouts have been sent out by Caucasus to see what they have left in their own forts. Can't really be much since they've lost alot already and so many units are tied up in the attack on Finland.

Communist Russia was taken for a spin by Ukraine early and lost several core provinces to a speedy AC. They have since that woken up and are now just hours away from taking everything back. They did loose many hours of important resource production though. CR have at least one interceptor working out from Moscow.

Poland has been quiet up until now with only some minor movements internally. At this time they have a 5 unit stack heading into an unprotected part of Ukraine on the border between Ukraine and Romania. German troops have been spotting following the same track into Ukraine, we might look at a heavy push starting here.

Germany did not participate so heavily in the French attack as we expected. They do have some forces, but most of what we've seen from that direction has been units from UK. It might now seem like they have been sending troops east. They still have no ports, and swedish subs are patrolling their coast.

UK has been doing exactly what we thought they would. They have forces attacking France and they have at least one sub hunting US reinforcements, so far with limited luck.

Spain has had good progress in their attack on France from the south. 2 provinces lost in France, and with not that much losses to spain. Heavy US reinforcements are landing steadily in France and should counter this threat easily enough...

Italy... Well what can we say... His mistakes in sending troops to Greece has been payed for by loosing core province to a single Yugo infantry, and Rome will fall too unless he manages to get reinforcements there within about 2 hours. He has some serious troops in Italy, and more notably, a destroyer standing outside Rome. Italy has about 10 units in France as well. Yugo is launching more amfibious attacks, and by all accounts it looks like Italy will loose several of their core provinces the next few hours.

Turkey has been defending better than we expected, but are loosing ground due to the heavy pressure. Ukraines landing went without any opposition, and Ukraines troops are currently taking Ankara where a single inf was stationed. In the north Caucasus have taken one of their mountain provinces, but heavy defence in Rize has stopped further progress there. Caucasus infantry is pushing around them to take out Turkeys oil provinces. In the west Hunts oversleeping led to 5 of yugo's units getting smashed into turkish fort. Situation there now is at a standstill while waiting for arties from romania to come to knock down the fort. A turkish sub has been engaged by Ukraine sub in the istanbul channel, they're both currently at 52% health. Could go both ways... In the south, egypt forces keep advancing and turks are loosing ground. First egyptian tanks are about to join the battle. Looks very much like a lost front for Turkey, and will eventually lead to the collapse of that nation.

Libya has forces tied up on the border to egypt, but they are unable to push due to egypts well defended forts. Standstill, witch works in our favor to take down turkey. No libyan troops spotted anywhere else and no ports or airports still.

Algerie. Well.... Nothing... Just simply nothing. No sightings, no developments, no news. Last thing they did was take down tunisia in day 3....

Marocco has been quiet so far too. I expect them to have a steadily growing air force, but with no airfields in spain they're not a threat at this point. I expect that to change quite suddently, with a path of airfields all coming into existence at about the same time leading straight up to France border. But so far... Nothing to report.


Our developments:
US reinforcements are steadily landing in france. After that initial sub attack there havn't been any reports of sub attacks, we might have been lucky and he sent the sub the wrong way. Our subs are aproaching the area now and will help keeping the ships safe. East France in desperate need of reinforcements!

In Turkey the assault on the west front have been stopped tue to heavy reinforcements in the turkish fort outside Istanbul. This is just a matter of time though, as artillery is close and will start shelling the structure within a couple of hours. Egypt is doing great strides from the south. Caucasus hasn't been able to push as far in as I had hoped, but with their unit having to stay in Rize watching the caucasus army, 9 turkish units have been taken out of the equation, helping taking the other provinces. I expect turkey to fold within the next 24-48 hours unless they get serious backup from somewhere. This is a setback from my previous estimate as it takes longer than I expected mostly because turkey is moving troops in a sensible manner.

Finlands actions in RE seems to have pissed him off enough to send everything he got. His assault in south against caucasus spent ALL his troops there, leaving his forts undefended. Caucasus is moving north obviously.

Right now it looks like the french situation is getting under control. German move to the east took us by surprise but we still don't know how much he sent. Poland/germany is probably the biggest threat in the east right now as the other countries are more or less locked down. RE units into Finland will force finland to pull back from the immediate front. Units from sweden would help.

No idea if anyone even reads this, but since I started I guess I'll keep writing...

It's a new day and we are definitly getting the upper hand. I won't bother going through every country this time, just doing some highlights...

Turkey is still clinging to life. They have 2 sizeable stacks of 8-10 units, well fortified. At the moment we are content to let them rot in their fort and just occupy everything around them. Once everything else is occupied we should have more than enough units to gang up on the forts, especially after some arty fire...

Russian Empire is pretty much done for. His last few provinces is getting occupied by caucasus and finland. He has one 9-unit infantry stack hidden away somewhere, so we'll probably have one last big fight in his capital or last major city. At this point RE is no longer a real threat.

Our defence in France have been successfull, although with some provinces lost. American troops are retaking these provinces as we speak and fortifying the borders. While this fight is far from over it seems plausible that we won't get any more province losses as we now have 4 of our player countries involved in the fighting.

Africa... Well, this is Ice's territory as he's playing egypt. And doing a mighty fine job of it too! Libya tried to assault him, but lost all their troops against egypts fortifications. Algerian troops is just now showing up at the border between Libya and Egypt, but at this point egypt has a good number of tanks availiable and I doubt there will be any problems repelling and even pushing back both Libya and Egypt. As a side note, a transport with 5 algerian troops was sunk by Hunt as it tried to launch a surprise attack on Yugoslavia.

Communist Russia is loosing ground, as it's now fighting against Caucasus, Ukraine, Romania, Sweden and Finland all at once. Poland is so far pretty much untouched, simply because it's more efficient to deal with CR first. Sweden have started landing some forces in Tallinn and will thus increase pressure on both Poland and CR. CR have been focusing (too much) on interceptors and have now 2 or 3 working overtime to attack anything within range. Our only airforce at this point is caucasus, and with the lousy range of lvl1 interceptors it will take time to get these to connect to CR's airforce. By all accounts, CR will be dead before our interceptors will reach theirs...