Re: Diplomacy
 

@Ranior I do think you are right, As Russia given the board, I wouldnt have allied with England as well. So you are right there. I think you played a great game to end up apart of the draw.

Re: Diplomacy
 

I don't think I just left any important conversations unanswered at any point, but sorry you felt that way. Regardless, not cool to just have stuff purposefully ignored and feel like one is playing a game for unclear reasons, but whatever.


I agree that I think I did fairly well given the position I wound up in. I do think it was fairly key for me to at least slow you down in the north and for me to help prop up Germany just a bit longer. Italy did well too to turn to the southern seas just in time. I think this was very close to being an England/France stomp, and I think it was largely Italy and myself that recognized and responded to that danger just quick enough to secure the stalemate line. It was unfortunate I think that part of securing that line came at the expense of solidifying my own position in the south, and that is where the tempo loss of 1901 really came to hurt.

Re: Diplomacy
 

I know @Knight of Scape indicated that yes he will play in the next one if it gets started in April or May

Re: Diplomacy
 

Can you explain what you mean by *gunboat violations* DS?

I'm ready for another game, particularly now that I have some clue as to how to play the game.

Here are a couple of thoughts/explanations for some of my moves:
Because I didn't know what I was doing, I did not believe Russia early on about the strength of England and France. I felt I had established a pretty good working alliance with Italy and that once we eliminated Russia, we could take on England and France.
However, I was concerned that if I left Russia in the game at that point, that Italy might turn on me and that he and Russia would eliminate me at some point.
The main reason I would not settle for the 4 way draw was that I felt that if I had listened to Russia, we could possibly have eliminated France and England and I wanted to atone for that mistake. I am certain it was frustrating for Russia knowing that he was correct and that I wasn't getting it.
Italy had asked earlier in the discussion about discussions between Austria and France in S1903 (as well as Russia and France.) I had indicated to France that I was looking to stab Italy in F1903. However, looking back at it, my press to France was the same that you and I discussed Italy. No promises, but I always threw in your stab of 1901 (it ended up being the gift that kept on giving as I think other countries understood just how fragile our peace was during that time of the game.)
And finally, yes I decided to jerk France around at the end because I had made clear that I would not eliminate Russia. France refused to accept a five way draw. I am easily amused, and I figured that if the game was going to continue, I would amuse myself.

Re: Diplomacy
 

Here's my EGS. (D_S, you can update the OP with 5wd on the results)

1901

My goal in 1901 for Italy was to find a real direct path to 5 centers. Somehow in only playing 5 games, I have been Italy 3 times. So I suppose I have a little bit of history with them and had relative success at staying on the board (2wd and losing with most centers in my previous 2 games)

I had a lot of negotiations with Austria about Greece, but ultimately he declined. I probably would have grubmled and let that stand but Russia was being very communicative and Turkey had agreed that if I attacked Austria early he would either 1) Let me have Greece or attack into Serbia. GREAT! So with two seeming allies I made the decision to stab into Trieste.

However when the fall game Turkey did a 'soft stab' of me by failing to take Serbia as he had promised. This allowed Austria to stay in the game by getting to 4 centers (he would have been stuck at 3 and dead to rites with Russia/Turkey/Austria all at his doorstep. At this point I decided I couldn't trust Turkey. Probably ironic, but instead I would try to set up repairing the relationship I had just destroyed with Austria.

1902

To really complicate matters was the fact that Russia got hosed in 1901 and couldn't be counted on as having enough reliable resources in 1902 to continue pressing against Austria. Austria was game and followed through on everything that we proposed and we made devastating move after devastating move to dismantle Turkey and southern Russia.

At this point I was thought I was in great working relations with England and France and was making a plan to now see if I could hit Austria......but then.......

1903
France builds a fleet in Marseilles. Now I'll be honest. France and England hadn't been the best on communication. England's replies were fairly sparse and while France had built and moved exactly as requested up until this point we had a bit of a verbal altercation around Munich in 1902 when he asked me to attack Munich and I wanted assurances I could take it by asking what England was doing to cut supports. He accused me of being a German spy and it didn't go well although he did offer a half apology after some more discussion.

I already covered some of this earlier, but basically during negotiations France abruptly stopped and said after discussions with Russia and Austria have I have decided to attack you. Well that made my move decisions very simple.

I had to full on retreat my fleets to protection of my western coast. I pleaded with Austria to see the wisdom of continuing our alliance even though I would now be exposed to him and thankfully he did.

What a great partner @Dragon Ruler was. Sensible and accommodating even after a stab. Major respect. He agreed to let me get 2 centers in 1903 so I could build 2 fleets and outnumber France in that department.


1904
Not too much. We continued dismantling southern Russia making progress there. I made some greedy plays in the seas which squandered my numbers advantage. England made a couple of dishonest promises or statements that solidified to me he wouldn't be turning on France anytime soon.

1905
I saw the stalemate writing on the wall and we wrapped Germany and Russia into an agreement to try to hold off the advancing English and French, but we were unsuccessful. To my eye the game was over at this point with the current alliances. Nothing over the next 5 years changed anything on the board.

1906+
Nothing really occurs in the next 5 years. I thought I had a play in the seas briefly but it was covered by a move to RUH. England wouldn't discuss an alliance with Austria/Italy until Russia was eliminated and how that went down is well documented by now.


I really had a blast in those first 5 years, and the second half of the decade mostly dragged on although it had some interesting points. Overally I had a lot of fun. Major props to @Dragon Ruler for being my long time partner this game. Being able to work together as well as we did after a turn 1 stab by me is a credit to you and I really enjoyed playing with you! Russia I also enjoyed playing with. I know being down early hurt your attention devoted at times, but I enjoyed our discussions, and if you hadn't been cut out so decisively in 1901 I could have seen things go very differently.

Turkey, I'm afraid we were doomed after you went back on our 1901 agreement. It didn't help you were a little difficult to communicate with in a timely way.

I had very little interaction overall with England or Germany. England rebuffed my early attempts at a E/I/A 3wd saying Austria was too strong, and then my later attempts by saying Italy was too strong. Not much more than that.

France and I were amicable enough in the first two years and then had some very tense and frustrating exchanges after that. In the end, France was never in any kind of position to stab England which loomed large over any of the plans pitched to me where he stabbed England.

Thanks everyone!!

Re: Diplomacy
 

Good question! "Gunboat" refers to the game setting that means that players don't know each other's identities.

It's ok to have hunches, though those guesses (even by KD and Kinseth, who have been doing this the longest) are often wrong. Especially earlier in the game. But don't give away your identity, or try to expose anyone else. That's not cool.

Re: Diplomacy
 

@Dragon Ruler Was France the only person you had discussed things with about stabbing me in 1903?

I assume based on what I've heard is that this would have likely eventually led to an English solo, but I was wondering how serious this got for you and France. I figured it must have been pretty serious for France to end diplomatic negotiations with me that year implying discussion wasn't worth his time at that point.

I'm not sure how I would have reacted. It probably would have depended on what England said to me diplomatically.

Re: Diplomacy
 

I had no alliance with Austria, Russia, or Turkey. I was just tired of your condescending press.

Re: Diplomacy
 

Well it is best not to waste both our time, that's for sure.

I am glad to hear it was a bluff though. You had me very worried you had some alliances and that I was doomed.

Re: Diplomacy
 

@Dragon Ruler

I believe you are up for another one and I think you mentioned @OEAO as well? I know Knight of Scape is a yes, and sounded like Ranior as well.

That's 5, even though it may be a bit premature for a count for the next game as people may still want to digest and discuss this one, but there seems to be a lull so I thought I'd bring it up.

Re: Diplomacy
 

Between law school and CoVCon, I’m out for the foreseeable future. I’d be interested in playing someday though!

Re: Diplomacy
 

I'm ready, I'll try to convince @OEAO -- it's really not that much time and by the time we get this going you'll probably be done with spring finals.