Interesting historical bit, but "because it was a late addition" is a symptom, not the cause. Convoys got added/revised late because it's a difficult problem to design mechanics for. The game needs some way for armies to cross water, without infringing on the role of navies. The "original" mechanic functions, but its such a huge tax to essentially require two units to spend two rounds each getting set up, then a third entire round to disembark, all the while the army effectively is doing nothing in between. You'd never do such a maneuver unless you had no other option. The convoy rule is a bit odd, but the "line of electrons" example shows that you're never projecting where your navies couldn't have attacked in the first place, and they're very vulnerable to being cut, so "why not?" The game would probably be playable if you could only "transport" through a single sea at a time, rather than "convoy" around the entire board at once, but I think this way makes combined arms a lot more powerful, which is neat.

@lagg1e

2 ай бұрын

If convoys didn't work like that, Italy would be a lot weaker with a Lepanto attempt. It's already taxing having a naval unit not directly sitting on a center. Imagine if using that unit to transport land units were even more telegraphed. Instead of hitting Syria from Tunis in autumn 1902, you'd enter ship in autumn 1902, and would try to land in syria in autumn 1903 and disembark in spring 1904.

“The armies use the gravitational force of the fleets to increase their speed” Using a human-powered railgun to fire soldiers from Spain into Belgium only for them to bounce all the way back to Spain because someone else walked in from Holland is an incredibly funny mental image.

The old rules appear even weirder to me. Allowing two units in the same space would break an even more cardinal part of the design than having them effect outcomes more than one province away.

@DiploStrats

3 ай бұрын

That's also a super interesting part, although iirc it's only in each country's main port and army base that they're allowed to do that, and having multiple units there doesn't actually increase the strength. Still a massive difference and probably a good thing it changed!

That was my Reddit post holy crap!

we have to remember that each turn is half a year. so the slingshot is possible if the shipping line is clear and the troops transport can sail at full steam.

When fleet/army move they actually take time to occupy the province, organise supply and logistics, the movement itself doesn't take much time

@half55-qo1tq

3 ай бұрын

Then movement through friendly territory shouldn't take the same time

@easytiger6570

3 ай бұрын

@@half55-qo1tq You still need to feed and house the troops

@hellbach8879

2 ай бұрын

​@@easytiger6570same could be said for convoys, needing to stop to resupply and such

@omnitroph1501

2 ай бұрын

@@hellbach8879 The Navy is spending all of their logistical capacity to handle the soldiers, which is why they can't move.

the current rules seem pretty consistent, a fleet convoying cant move so is simply giving its movment to an army, moving n regions still requires n unit-turns of moves

Other channels (dumb and stupid): shorts are under 60 seconds! This channel (cool and right): shorts can be seven minutes. I don’t give a shit. You’re still gonna watch it.

@DiploStrats

3 ай бұрын

Anything less than an hour is a short. Nobody can change my mind on this

Great video! What a fascinating peek into the history of our hobby.

My head canon is, that it was changed because otherwise it would imbalance Austria-Hungary too much. Could be just because I'm from Austria though ...

@easytiger6570

3 ай бұрын

AEIOU

2:30 wait, that wouldn't work when you're convoyed by an ally tho 🤔

@droid-droidsson

23 күн бұрын

these soldiers/sailors are extremely flexible not only in what role they're supposed to carry out, but also in their loyalties.

Wait, so in the original version you would order a fleet to move into a province or have it already be there to have the army embark? What if the fleet isn't yours? Can you just hijack an opponent's fleet if you predict that it will attack your province or if that fleet is protecting the province?

@DiploStrats

2 ай бұрын

Both the fleet and the army have to issue matching embark orders, I believe, so you can't hijack it. But, that does leave the interesting question of a fleet holding an army hostage once the army has embarked! I don't think there's any way for an army to disembark without the fleet landing so you could force one of your opponents to play a supply point down until they have to disband.

hmmm what a funny and wacky convoy from st petersburg to smyrna unfortunately it wont ever actually happen in a real diplomacy game hey i wonder what would happen if someone were to try that in say a chaos game with 11 fleets convoying someplace to somewhere else nah what a wacky thought that would never happen