Hi all,
As Italy’s TA, this will be long, as expected for a power that had decisions to make in every phase. I am also probably the lowest rated TA in terms of all-round play, so I would appreciate any comments regarding my analysis. With that said, let us begin.
Spring 01
Spring ‘01 was largely about finding out where everyone lay. Russia seemed extremely hesitant to move on Austria, which surprised me. I remain unsure how much of it was down to Austrian press, or whether it was largely due to a fear of the professor commentary helping the board rally against any perceived R/T alliance. France agreed to fairly standard DMZs, meaning that there was to be no conflict on that border for quite a while.
Much has been said about the bounce in Trieste, most of it thinking that it was not a good idea for us. I, however, disagree. Before Austria proposed that arrangement, the Venice army was probably going to be holding, so we lost absolutely nothing by bouncing like this. In return, we gained confused professors for the others to read, a pretence of conflict early on where really there was none, and, most importantly, Austrian trust. I do not believe that the stab against Austria would have been nearly so successful had it not been for the bounces arranged in Trieste.
Fall 01
There was still no really interesting press with anyone else apart from Austria, with whom we hinted at a Lepanto with, and continued to bounce in Trieste (for the same reasons as in Spring), and indeed we carried on with the standard Lepanto moves, bounce notwithstanding.
After the moves, Turkey informed us that they were planning a fleet build. Suffice to say that we were not going to dissuade him from that. I was also incredibly surprised to see another bounce in the black sea, and Rumania stand open. At this point Austria started asking for DMZs in Trieste and Venice, which we rejected using the reasoning that there was nothing else useful for Venice to do.
During builds, we did indeed see a Turkish army (yay!) and an army in marseilles (boo!). Then, of course, there is that much-maligned fleet. Whilst it wasn’t expected (and I believe an army would have been more useful), it wasn’t a reason for us to panic. It was, however, an opportunity, as it meant there were only 3 Austrian units that could defend the homeland. Combine that with the fact that we’d built up trust through ‘01, and Turkey wasn’t a threat, and it seemed a good time to consider stabbing. At this point, the stab was planned for fall.
Spring 02
The talk about stabs this phase largely started as a defensive idea regarding the fleet in Trieste. Given that we were considering a stab this year anyway, press was crucial - especially since the fleet build brought it forwards by a phase. With Turkey, we tried to get them to support a Tunis -> Greece move, but the Turks were too concerned about the Russians to want to annoy Austria, so that was not to be either. This left us with only one route if we wanted to move east.
Meanwhile, Austria continued to insist that we vacated Venice, which was both annoying and worrying. The press between us continued to be about a lepanto, but with my student our conversation was far less sunny. A further concern was that the West seemed to be resolving alarmingly quickly, with Germany crumpling and looking like he was going to be the first to go, meaning that if we didn’t speed up the east we had no chance. The final straw, however, was just how insistent Austra was in urging us along his path. It was partly worrying, but also largely just plain annoying.
France gave his reasons for the Marseilles build - that he wanted to move Mar -> Pie -> Tyr, and they were fairly committed to this idea in press with us. This was rejected by us in press, as we didn’t want a French unit hanging around if we were moving East. Alas, that was not to be.
Fall 02
Well, with the exception of France, the previous worked out much better than expected. Not only did Austria move out, but they did so in such a way as to make it impossible to deny us centre number 5. In response, Austria responded with a mixture of flattery and suggestions that made no sense for us. I do not know what this was meant to achieve, so there weren’t many positive messages flowing from us in this direction.
Compliments were due to Russia, I still am not sure how he managed to gain that support.
France moved to Piedmont despite us specifically asking him not to. Thus, we had to cover Venice, just in case of a hero mission. Of course, we also wanted Venice open to build in, hence the double bounce. The convoy was for no bigger reason than the fact that is was just more useful in Apulia.
I expected Austria to take Bulgaria. Not doing so is, I think, just an error.
Wrt builds, the Marseilles fleet. build, in combination with his previous behaviour, led to a deep distrust of France, and this informed the next year’s moves. The other builds/disbands were pretty much as expected.
‘03
This year was an odd one. There was an army sat in Tyrolia that we didn’t expect to be friendly, especially given a fleet in marseilles. This lead to to the strange situation or trying to get France’s help in one part of the board whilst worrying about France in another. This lead to the strange (and, in hindsight, not good) move to Tyrr.
Then came Fall, and whilst the successful Austrian campaign continued, giving two builds, the misjudgement of France also continued. Elsewhere, Germany was finally breaking apart, but since progress in the East was far quicker than the German disintegration that wasn’t really a cause for concern.
‘04
For us, ‘04 was a fairly successful year. We took Serbia in spring, and by giving Turkey support in fall we ensured Turkish peace for a little while. Meanwhile, despite taking Greece, Turkey had made no real progress, and Russia’s problems in the north started to soften him up before we even got there.
Shifting focus back to the west, Germany was somehow still holding on and France had a complete brain-fart in spring. I do not understand what that set of moves was about - it was one of the strangest sets I’ve ever seen. However, we clearly weren’t complaining - by getting Tunis back we had a build, and this allowed us to outnumber France in the south, even if only temporarily. It was around this time that we began to seriously consider a 3-way E/F/I draw, along the lines of that which was possible deep into the endgame.
‘05
In the Spring of 1905, the Austrians were finally eliminated by our (temporary) Turkish friends, whilst we started working on the Russians. Unfortunately, the turks seemed discontent to just subsist off the scraps we threw them, and appeared to want a fight. This would go on to be an important dynamic for a few years to come.
I don’t know why Russia left Warsaw open for us, but I’m certainly glad that they did.
After negotiating a way for Germany to continue to survive, the lack of Bel -> Bur move in spring was extremely disappointing. Fortunately, that was rectified to some degree in fall to keep Germany alive, and thus keep France and England busy there.
Whilst England appeared to be having a lot of success, and the professors thought they were the nation most likely to solo, we certainly thought that with good play an Italian solo was distinctly possible from this position.
Regarding the conflict with France, we predicted GoL -> Tyrr, N. Af S W. Med -> Tunis for Spring, and our Spring moves would have put us into a position to almost certainly regain Tunis in Fall. Unfortunately, this prediction was wrong, and thus we lost Tunis for the year, allowing France an extra fleet. However, it is my belief that this double fleet build is what prompted France’s later problems, by leaving too many weaknesses open for England to exploit.
‘06
In 1906, despite the best efforts of the Tyrolian regiment, we said goodbye to Germany. With the exception of Spring 1905 they’d done remarkably well to keep themselves alive and relevant after a pretty poor start, and should be congratulated on that.
In the Med, we managed to regain control of Tunis in a way that was impregnable from the west, meaning that we could start work on convincing France that they were making no progress, and should turn around.
Turkey continued to take rather ineffectual shots at us in the Balkans, but with a fleet getting to the Aegean they looked ready to be an actual problem and thus much diplomacy was needed over the next year.
Russia’s disbands were disappointing -we’d hoped for Finland to stay alive and Berlin deleted instead - but apart from that they were still existing, and putting up a token resistance to England. In fall, we traded support, and this turned out to be very important for us (and less so for them).
England continued to make progress, but with France building a fleet in Brest it looked like that may be about to change.
‘07
1907 was very, very worrying. France’s moves on England were not the best on a tactical level, and there were some strange moves against us in the middle just to make life more difficult (F Tuscany, anyone?). Meanwhile the lack of French armies meant there was only ever going to be one victor in that war, and hence we needed to take centres to keep up with England.
On top of this, Russia sided permanently with England at this point, tricking us out of Warsaw and leading to a disband in Livonia. Meanwhile, Turkey managed to take another centre and go some way to making our Eastern holdings very, very shaky, though fortunately this came at the cost of having a fleet in Bulgaria.
Furthermore, England’s armies were poised to break France completely open, and they lost nothing from the French stab. All in all, it was not looking good.
‘08
Spring 1908 was another failure of prediction for us - in not predicting Bulgaria -> Aegean we effectively wasted a phase in our attack against Turkey. Meanwhile France decided to hold all the southern fleets for some unknown reason, and Turkey continued to press from the north. Russia was still here.
Come Fall, however, and things began to look up. Turkish errors allowed us Bulgaria, and the fleets finally got going. This gave us another army, which was vital in holding our lines. France finally got their fleets moving somewhere useful as well, and they did remarkably well to only lose one centre given their distinct lack of firepower on the mainland. Russia remained on the board.
‘09
1909 felt like a great victory in both diplomacy and prediction, in spring and fall respectively. By selling fears of an English solo, Turkey was convinced to move away, leaving a golden opportunity to finally break through. The new army could immediately be put into action against England, leaving little danger there.
I feel like leaving Bulgaria open was possibly the bravest move of the game, and it’s certainly the one I’m most proud of. Whilst there was some hedging with a fleet in Greece, I just feel that the empty centre looks really cute :)
I’m going to roll the rest of the game up with a few general comments, as beyond this we were practically playing gunboat, with the exception of trying to remain friendly to France.
Whilst leaving only one fleet helping out France in the West was risky, we believed that we’d be able to get a build quickly enough that we could build another to help out. This turned out to be correct - although France lost MAO - we were there in time to make sure England couldn’t go any further.
In Spring 1911, things began to get a little messy between us and England. We missed a opportunity to get France into Munich, but ended up in Silesia instead, with possibilities of breaking through the the northern side of the stalemate line and causing some problems. Fortunately, England was still completely focussed on the French, and thus didn’t take advantage of the weaknesses in Bohemia and Tyrolia.
By Spring 1912, we’d guaranteed a wrap-up of Turkey, and regained Galicia. Combined with the fact we’d got a unit into Prussia, and the ongoing Anglo-French war, and paths to a solo were on the mind. Certainly over the messy year we’d made considerable progress, and although the professors were looking at Marseilles, I believed that there was a chance that France would fight on long enough to leave Munich and Berlin weak. Perhaps this was not as good idea as it seemed, but for what it’s worth it worked.
It’s a common phrase in chess that if you’re in a better strategic position when you go into complications, you should be in a better position when you come out of them. Given that the tactics were on our side of the stalemate line, I felt that we should be able to work a mess into our favour, and thus we were looking for opportunities to break up the lines. This is also why in Fall 1912 we went for popping Bohemia off the board, and drawing England into a more extended position with less units in the East. This guaranteed us Munich (which we should never have had, and largely have France to thank for it), but the taking of Munich in 1913 was, I believe, the final factor that convinced France and England to make peace and work on trying to stop us.
By this point we were completely gunboating - England kept trying to send messages but only succeeded in being annoying, to the point were A_Tin_Can and I considered muting him. A couple more tactical guesses, and we had victory.
I apologise for how long this took to write up, and welcome any questions - there’s probably a lot of stuff I missed here because there was so much going on in this game for us, as well as it being my first full EoG.
BEEF GAME Needs one more!
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