Full press non-anon

[MadMarx]

So... I don’t have a lot of time or interest in getting into most of the minutiae here, as there were some complicated things going on... As far as the I/T alliance, it was very fun, interesting as well as complicated and stressful, which all were reasons it was worthwhile... Anyway, the best way to shed some light on the I/T alliance is to share about the year of 1907.

The context of spring 1907 is that Italy and I were trying to figure out how to legitimately two way draw as I/T, as complicated an endeavor as my brain can imagine, and one I could not yet wrap my head around. As I understand it, some Diplomacy players do not believe in two way draws (I see myself as someone who is good at games in general that does well playing Diolomacy, rather than a “Diplomacy player” that has a firm grasp on every nuance of the game, so I claim ignorance here), but I personally do believe in two way draws. Here’s an example, where I got a two way as Turkey with England, it was pretty straight forward, at the end both England and I tried to get France to throw us the solo (which we both failed to do), and we ultimately agreed to two way. So, in spring of 1907 in this current game, the idea was to try to figure out how to get this current game to play out similarly to that I/T two way (or to figure out that we can’t, again, in 1907 we were still merely exploring the possibility, there was lots of game yet to be played) and here’s the link for reference:

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=22163

In a game of Diplomacy, sometimes you take risks if your sights are on a big reward. I’m confident that after spring 1907 orders, Italy understood that if Turkey’s top goal in the game was to solo, that Turkey would *not* stab Italy in autumn 1907, since a grand alliance would immediately form and the end result would be a five way draw, so Italy was willing to risk his precarious position another year with his focus on pursuing this unlikely result, again, knowing we could pull the plug on this two way draw experiment at any time, knowing he’d get two builds at the conclusion of 1907 to shore up his back door a bit, etc., etc.

The reason I say I’m confident Italy understood that, is because I understood that. I did not “stab“ Italy in that moment because I felt it was my best route to a solo, largely because I understood that clearly it was not my best route to a solo (and because I was more focused on pursing the two way in fall 1907, knowing that pursuit could still lead to a solo before all was said and done), there were multiple other things going on that came to a head, that Italy and I then had a bit more incentive to address, and as far as I’m concerned all that’s between Tom and me (though of course he’s free to discuss whatever he’d like as no binding NDA’s were signed).

Clearly the orders I submitted in autumn 1907 sabotaged the I/T pursuit of a two way, something I absolutely regretted shortly thereafter, regret today and will continue to regret, it was a “rookie“ mistake that I largely blame on being a bit rusty (especially when it comes to handling nerves and the stresses of a classic full press game), and I say that to help me sleep at night, even though ironically I’m typing all this on my phone in the middle of the night while I cannot sleep. Anyway, we still had some opportunities to get on track, of course, and we tried to do so, we simply couldn’t recover, and credit goes to the competition.

One final note, if I had sent MAO to NAO in fall 1907 while Italy got two builds, etc., I think it would have opened the game up for an interesting conclusion. The two way attempt may very well have blown up in 1908, or maybe it would have continued on for several years, ideally with Italy and me unlocking unexpected secrets of the endeavor, who knows, I’m not very good at seeing into the future, I take the game one season at a time, and bottom line I failed the 1907 test miserably, definitely not a proud moment for me to say the least. I tend to be more focused on the journey than the destination, and while the destination was obviously a positive one for me, the journey could have been and arguably should have been much more rewarding, even if (perhaps especially if) the destination ended up being different.