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!!