So sad to hear the new members around here don't care what I say, but then again it's not untrue of the old members either.

This was an incredibly frustrating game for me.

I initially decided to try to open with a Key Lepanto, because I love the opening (even though it is risky), and the Italian player, from press, did not seem to be the kind of player to stab during it. My opening got hard countered by Russia, which left me somewhat on the back foot.

The Turkish opening gave us a massive potential advantage, though, as if Italy bounced him in Aegean he would likely be forced to build in Ankara, giving Italy an easy Lepanto opportunity and allowing him to dismantle Turkey reasonably quickly while I was on the defensive vs Russia. It certainly wasn't ideal for me, as Italy would be growing much faster than I would be, but we would have the advantage over the Juggernaught and with me forced to stick to this alliance due to the Key opening it was extremely important that the alliance had the upper hand.

I got Italy to agree to bounce Turkey in the Aegean. Unfortunately, he decided to go back on that and take Tunis instead, which allowed Turkey to get into the Aegean, build a second southern fleet, and put us completely on the back foot vs the Jug. Taking Tunis gave him a build, which he used to put an army in Venice and went and annoyed France with it. It was this point I realised that I had made an incredibly bad decision going for the Key in the first place, but now I was forced to stick to it.

'02 was just us sticking to our position (as we could not advance) while R/T slowly maneuvered into a position from which they could take us out. There was nothing I, or Italy, could do to stop this due to that A01 convoy to Tunis, and so instead of waiting around Italy decided to use a couple of units to annoy the French and get him to attack us as well. I had good relations with Germany (who had bounced Russia out of Sweden on my request), but he was being very quickly torn apart by his neighbours, and England did not really want to help me either - although he was probably the second most talkative player in the game, behind Russia, even at that point. As such, Italy and I were on our own.

In '03, still having gotten no builds whatsoever, with Russia on my border, Turkey about to take Greece, and Italy about to be steamrolled by France, I went into panic mode and offered R/T my support into Serbia in return for them not eliminating me immediately. They agreed, and I did so, and although I did not think this would work out well for me, it was a much better option than anything else that was on the table. Russia did not attack me, which was unexpected and put me in a bit of a better spot.

In '04, Russia stabbed Turkey and Turkey stabbed Russia at the same time. I initially offered my help to Turkey, not supporting Russia's army in Ser to hold, but then Russia offered me the Balkans in return for my help, and this was one case where siding with the stronger power seemed to be the better option. If I wanted to be included in a final draw, I needed to get out of my HSCs and expand a bit, otherwise it would be too easy to eliminate me.

So, at the end of '04, I finally got my first SC outside of my HSCs! Things were looking up! Italy still didn't trust me, but he wasn't directly attacking me as he was too busy fighting France, and Turkey looked to be falling quickly. England was also starting to be a solo threat, much more so than Russia, because France was not doing a good job of holding Italy back and Russia had strengthened me enough that if he attacked me, it would take a long time to break into my lands - this meant I could use the English solo threat to stop Russia from being able to stab me, which was very handy.

'05 was pretty much just dismantling the Turk. I also made amends with Italy and helped him back into Venice in an attempt to have a power which could put up a more coordinated defence against England in the Med. I think R, E and myself also started talking about narrowing it down to a 3WD to finish here.

In S06 I made my second major mistake of the game (the first being proposing the Key). I completely underestimated the strength of R/E's trust, and attacked Italy, hoping to be able to eliminate him and set up a stalemate line before England could push too far into the Med - something that would have been certain if Russia had worked with me. However, in doing so, I also left my back completely open to a stab from the Russian. I thought this was safe, as if the Russian stabbed me I could throw the solo to England, but stab me he did. And hard.

In S07, to my amazement, Russia went all-in on me, despite England having a clear route into the Med and being able to take Munich if I helped him. I was extremely critical of Russia at the time, expressing my annoyance at what I thought was a very short-sighted and game losing action. I tried to convince him to back off, explaining that although I would help England into Munich there would also still be one way of making a stalemate line that could 100% stop him from soloing. I thought he would understand that and take the offer, so I continued attacking Italy, hoping I could eliminate him before we had to set up the line.

The Russian attack on me didn't stop. The English took Munich, but Russia gave it to them freely. At this stage I did not know what to say - there was now no way to stop the English solo if he wanted to take it, and Russia did not seem to care about that possibility anyway. He was convinced England would 2WD with him. Having spoken to the English player I very much doubted this was the case, but at this stage I pretty much gave up as there was nothing I could do to change the game's outcome. I tried to play King of the Hill with Italy to get the last non-R/E centre, and once I realised England was serious with the 2WD I tried to convince him to expand it to a 3WD, but to no avail.

I spent the last year posting paintings of the Battle of Lepanto and writing bad poetry while I awaited my inevitable fate.


So, my thoughts on this game?
- I was impressed by Russia. I discovered fairly early on that he had the mindset commonly referred to as the 'carebear', but while said players tend to do badly in competitive games, he was able to use negotiation to stop a solo. I am annoyed that he stabbed me when he did - I still think that was a foolish move - but his diplomatic skills more than made up for it.
- I was very disappointed by England. He played the game extremely well, communicating more to me than my direct allies were doing for most of the game, but he gave me the impression that he was a good player and looking back at his game history, I can see that that is the case. However, the ending let him down - allowing yourself to be robbed of a guaranteed solo by pure negotiation is not a play I would have expected from the England I was talking to, and I cannot believe you let it happen. I know it was apparently for novelty value, but I do not think that is a great excuse, and in any case it seems much more likely that it was down to Russia's negotiations.
- I think, given my start, I played as best I could. I have been criticised in game for siding with Russia, but there was no way I was surviving otherwise and I came back from a failed Key Lepanto and being on 3 centres until 1904, to almost being in on a 3-way draw. I made a massive mistake at the start proposing the Key, but other than that and attacking Italy in S06, I do not regret anything that I did.

England not solo'ing is shameful.
17/17 non-stalemate draws are the lamest.
I am saddest this was done by a Webdipper.
I am horrified that I feel this way about someone who is clearly a better player than me.

That is my EOG review.

From watching the game from afar I had pegged this as a solo and was getting ready to congratulate the winner for being the first to advance to the next round... sadly there is no one to congratulate though. This is not to try to take anything away from them just that while they both are likely to move on it's not in the bag yet. Well done to the two of you though!

I don't get it, why didn't England solo? No offense to Zane but he really ought to have lost this one.

No, clearly everyone else who was playing to win and not "find the other carebear" didn't play well enough.

Get good losers.

The only thing that matters is the result, that's Diplomacy for you. How it's achieved or what standards people hold themselves to are irrelevant. Remember, the meta of game dynamics and expectations is a living thing and shifts. Evolve or die.

Why, you ask, VI?

Integrity baby

Austria or others should have been better diplomats and offered something to England more than winning the entire game in a WTA scenario.

"Ah, but that's Diplomacy
everyone has their own agenda
everyone has their own win conditions"
-A Wise Man

Ever noticed how Mafia games have a rule you have to play to win, because it ruins the games for others if you don't, but Diplomacy doesn't have that rule? That's because Diplomacy is a superior game that doesn't ruin the fun for multiple people when players play for reasons other than winning.

My theory us that England, being fairly certain of advancing with either a 2 way or a win, was trying to fill the second round out with carebears to make it easier for him to get to the final.

You play to win the game... you don't play to just play it!

One of my top three favorite sound bites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5-iJUuPWis

Wouldn't that make it just as likely this person would care bear with somebody else? I've got to think tying with somebody ranked #16385 in the GR has really got to deflate that 'victory'.

Maybe this one could have done without the EOG drawing added attention to it.

The occasional two way keeps life fresh. I dislike going solo too often; it often leads to a sore hand, and when you go up to a 3 way, you know it's not gay. Four ways and above start to cause a bit of gossip though; and I wouldn't want to ruin my reputation in the village.

I love me a seven way... Makes me feel cheap and easy!

On the subject of the ODC, I may be needing subs again. PM me if you're interested.

Step One: Kill Austria
Step Two: Six-way draw
Step Three: ???
Step Four: Profit!

Well, it started out kind of good for me. But I clearly put too much trust in England. Then again, in an alternate scenario, if I would've been less willing to be nice to England, I might've gotten overran by an Anglo-German alliance.

Then, I built armies to attack Germany. And then I attacked Germany.

In Spring 1902, Italy stabbed me. He says he didn't, BUT, we made a DMZ! Someone needs to explain Italy DMZs. That's basically my gripe with everything that happened in this game, Italy doesn't understand DMZs.

So, at that point I had two enemies, Italy and Germany. Because Italy doesn't understand DMZ, he moved back because he thought he hadn't done anything wrong. And the Germany war was made easier with England and Russia helping.

And then Spring of 1904. Damn. I ignored other players who wanted me to defend against England, and instead built another fleet to help with Italy. I also made my moves with the assumption that England was going to stay allied to me.

Obviously, that was false, and that's not really something to get mad at England about. Stabbing is part of the game, and I left myself open to it. I can handle tactical stabbing, but I can't handle accidental stabbing because someone doesn't understand DMZs.

In my defense, if England had stayed allied with me, all those moves would've set me up to continue the attack on Italy and Germany. I could've done quite well, indeed. And maybe in this alternate world where England wasn't planning on stabbing, preemptive defending would've changed his mind and made him stab.

The rest of the game was just my carcass slowly getting devoured by England, along with a stalemate against Italy in the south.

Basically the main point is this: Italy needs to learn what a DMZ is.

Secondary point: there is a fine balance between 1) trusting and helping someone, which can build an alliance, 2) expanding into enemy territory, and 3) leaving yourself protected against a stab. Those who can achieve that balance are called "good players."

I'd be very frustrated if I was in this game. It's a pretty senseless conclusion to a fun competition that 7 people presumably put a bunch of time and effort into. I'm really not a competitive person but I always thought that a large part of the appeal of games is the struggle to try and win. If not everyone has the same idea (even loosely) of what constitutes a win, then the whole activity is muddled.

Good job getting to the 17th centre but I'm not sure if it's fair to the 5 other people in the game to have not taken the solo.

Why would you be frustrated, Yonni? Anyone who fails to put themselves in a position to to dictate the result loses the right to complain about it. I have no time for carebear notions of fairness and decency. What is fair is determined solely by the will of those with the power to enforce it. I have won half of my last ten games. I am not opposed to winning.

The truth of the matter is simply that Zane is one of the finest negotiators on the site. He identified a weakness in my armoury and exploited it to secure a 2 way, which is something that in over a hundred games no one else has achieved. Diplomacy is not an obvious game. I have discovered as France that one of the best ways to invade England comes from building armies. Zane, in a very short time, discovered a way to push Octavious into a 2-way.

He is to be congratulated.

How did he convince you that a 2WD is better than a solo? And, Jesus, you've been on a streak. Well done.

I will not give away another player's secrets, and certainly won't shine too bright a light on my own drawbacks but I will say this...

As much as many of us like to trumpet the win at all costs mantra, the truth of the matter is we all play by our own set of rules and constraints. A more obvious example is chainsaw diplomacy. It is a perfectly valid tactic that many players won't ever use, regardless of how effective they may believe it to be, simply because it violates their personal rulebook.

What we rarely admit to is that we are all bound by countless numbers of these rules and prejudices that constrain our actions. They can differ enormously from player to player, which is why we are so often surprised by the actions of our peers. The best players I have seen are those who are quickest to identity the barriers we create for ourselves. Barriers far more imposing than a mere fleet or army. By exploiting them you can defend your supply centres with apparent thin air, enemies can retreat from you without you even advancing, and you can annoy the hell out of gunboaters who tend not to understand these things.

What Zane achieved was to identify constraints I had which I never even knew existed. I could no more have taken that 18th centre than if he'd flooded the board with a hundred armies. It may well have been a fluke, but I suspect not. Regardless, it was a damned impressive display.

I do understand what flaw he could possibly have found to counter a 4 vs 2 matchup on the 18th center.

Unless he spoke to you as no man has ever spoken to you before...making you feel so special and forging a friendship whick will last for decades.

Lol! That is good. The fewer people who understand the better :).

It's an EoG - isn't this the forum for discussing it? Unless he was offering support in the next round of the tournament, I don't really see why you wouldn't be able to chat about it here. It's explicitly stated in the rules and in the tournament description that the best possible outcome is to get a solo. I'd be very interested to know what someone could have said to convince you that'd you'd rather not win.

I think, my frustration would be two fold:

1) My general feeling is that if I'm eliminated, the people who are in the draw 'beat' me. If one of the people who beat me had, for all intents and purposes, positioned himself to give up a solo I'd be pretty pissed that he was rewarded for the play

2) Negotiations are predicated on the idea that the goal of the game is to get 18 centres. If one person is playing their own game then it fucks with everything. I'm not suggesting you're not entitled to do what you like. You played well enough that you had the luxury of doing whatever you wanted. It would, however, be a very frustrating game to play in if someone was doing that.

How much of the stuff written in EOGs do you think is actually true?

Zane promised to execute a kitten for every supply centre I took, and posted images of them on a file sharing site. After the 14th I just couldn't take any more... So much blood, and such a cruel use of a potato peeler...

I like to think most of it is true. Other than Marx's EOGs, they all seem to be more or less honest explorations of how the game went - at least form a single person's perspective.

Explorations is the key word. I have heard EoGs of games I've been in where I've barely recognized any of it. And the parts that involve me directly can be so far from the truth it's funny. Some people intentionally lie to make themselves look better, others genuinely misremember to make their game narrative make sense, and others pack their EoGs with assumptions. That actual truth of what happened in near impossible to find.

I appreciate the feedback, especially from other players. For those of you that think I'm all sweetness and light, I will refer you to Germany, Turkey, Austria and Italy in this game. I confess that I settled for the draw and didn't go for the solo. I know that some of you will fault me for that. Octavious negotiating skills were like nothing I've ever encountered. I was quit incapable of going for the solo. Mea culpa.

No kittens were actually harmed. It was all done with special effects.

Zane, can't tell if you're joshing or not but I think it's the other way around... ; ) Octavious was the one who settled for the draw.

Octavious, but this is your EOG. You only said you weren't going to elaborate on it because you didn't want to give away some else's secrets. I just honestly don't get that. I guess you just piqued my interest.

Could one of you elaborate on how the 2WD came to be instead of the solo?

It was also interesting how Russia was convinced to defer all his builds for the last few years. That must have taken some diplomacy for sure to swing that.

Look, even the most aggressive of us aren't above the occasional two-way draw to reward a competitor/ally that's done enough to earn your unwavering respect, but there's no place for that sort of thing in a tournament as it's a bit of a spit in the face of the nature of it. It could be in line with what PW said where he's trying to pad players in the next round with people he knows he generally plays wall against/with but chances of that really helping him in a tournament of this size that's anonymous seems like quite the long shot. This was just goofy.

But hey, if it brings some glory to PlayDip i'm down with that.

As for the 2-way draw, I am quit sure that it was a lapse on Octavious' part and that it will never, ever happen again. Had I played *sensibly*, the game would have ended in a 3- or even 4-way draw. I would have worked with Austria to build a stalemate line against England. Italy would have been included or not depending on whether he was necessary to the stalemate line. So, please don't overlook my role in what some of you appear to regard as a debacle, a smirch upon the very integrity of the game of Diplomacy.