I never start these when the game is in its beginning stages, so much of the early content is hazy. Drawing Germany, I decided I wanted one of France or England as a partner, with France being the preference. I reached out to everyone, with longer press going to England, France, and RUssia. I tried to make myself as amenable as possible in the early goings just to get a feel for how things would go. I felt my initial goal was to convince France to move with me against England, although I offered the same suggestion to England just to cover my bases, and encourage discontent with Russia amongst its southern neighbours.

S01: I don't recall why France and I bounced Burgundy, and it became a bit of a wasted move. I'm not sure if I read this here before, but a bounce in S01 is simply a failure of diplomacy. I was enthused to see Warsaw go to Livonia.

F01 is when things started to get tricky for me. England bounced me out of Belgium while France gained Holland and had 3 builds. I don't remember the conversations we had around Sweden, but obviously I let Russia in. I saw the Warsaw build as an "oh S&&&!" moment, convinced I was going to be the odd man out in a 3 v 1 scenario. That's when I started going crazy with the press, trying like hell to juggle and weasel my way out of the situation.

02 was tricky. England went to the Channel instead of trying for Holland again. That was a plus, I thought. France decides to support themselves into Burgundy while I sent Munich to Berlin (decidedly anti-Russian move). England then went a little nuts...taking St Pete, then Denmark. I think that led to any future dealings with them to be done so very skeptically.

04 France started to hit at me and took Munich while I did manage to regain Denmark. That Russian fleet in Baltic held out there a lot this game and was a source of stress for me. I convinced England to help me take Holland from France. Meanwhile, I was beginning to worry about a juggernaut developing because Russia and Turkey were working very well together. Much of the middle of the game was spent juggling between England and France working one against the other. Finally France was on board for a more committed attack on England, which did whittle them down. France's southern builds were promising.

S09 I started to make my move against France, feeling that England was substantially down. Throughout the entire time, Russia was continuing to issue calming orders and press. It took some convincing, because I did see the strong Russia/Turkey coming this way. Against my better sense, geographically, but because Russia had not made an antagonistic move against me all game, I decided to commit to the talk of the 3W draw. I wound up with 4 units sitting on 3 of their centres. I knew it was going to look bad so I sent an apologetic press to France.

From then on it was a matter of strongly collaborating on moves to eliminate France and England.

In reflection, I think good press wins out, along with stable moves. I think England played too chaotically to make them a trustworthy partner if we ever got that far. France...hard not to like them, and it hurt to put the stab in, but I think I sat with the grief they gave me (Munich, etc) earlier on, and it fed my moves. Or, it's how I rationalized the stab to myself.

Turkey was very committed, even with France and I trying to encourage them to attack Russia. Had that happened, this may have come out quite differently. But Russia...Crazy Anglican did everything right. Good press, enough details to be reassuring. The original Austria was one of the quietest actors in here. I felt bad for Italy. It sucks to get saddled with a neighbour like that because you never know what's going to happen.

nice of you to forget the army that went into Silesia Hamilton :-)

At the beginning of the game, when Russia approached me with the usual Juggernaut talks, I mentioned that I didn't want our collusion to be too obvious. From that point, we were able to collaborate on moves, even without it always being apparent. Italy made some noise about working together against Austria, and France did the same about Italy, but neither one was really willing to do so. Throughout the game, Germany had the "best" press, with France close behind, but our shared interests meant that Russia and I were able to work together most effectively. (That and the fact that A/I were going for a Lepanto, so France and Russia were my only realistic options, despite my attempts to work with Italy.)

When France convinced Austria to move all west into Italy after having been aggressive toward Russia and me all game, that was the first time we were able to gain a foothold. At that point, I figured the most likely result was F/R/T and maybe England, so I figured I'd wait and keep my options open.

Around 1906, I would have been ready to attack Russia due to France's ability to stalemate me completely, but then England's attack drew France away, and I was only too happy to take the path of least resistance, even knowing that doing so likely would force the game into a draw.

@Crazy Anglican...you're right. I did forget that, and the press history is so far back that I can't reread the circumstances, my response, and your rationalization of the move.

Seems like there were some lucky breaks happening throughout the game. I really thought I was going to be a quick departure.

Hey all,

I was the original England for this game. Apologies once again for not being able to finish the whole game with you all, but I was checking in on the game when I had time to see how it was going. Glad to see that Germany was able to be part of the draw in the end.

The part of the game I played was quite bizarre for me, as it was quite difficult to pick a good ally. From the beginning I pegged France and Russia's press as particularly strong which is why I started that way.

Can't remember what my reasoning was for moving to the Channel was... However, Russia's initial convoy to Sweden was worrisome for me but we seemed to have worked it out. The real turning point was the move into St.P. That was actually supposed to be a bounce with Russia while we worked on taking down Germany. However, Russia and I had some miscommunication which got me into St.P.

From there I figured I would try to push Russia some and convoyed in. However, Russia proved that he was willing to move on Germany so I was willing to back of and go with the initial plan of hitting Germany.

However, after the initial move against Germany I looked south and realized Austria was leaving their east side completely exposed to Russia. For me, this meant that if I didn't deter Russia in the north he would have no enemies and would have quick growth. Thus, I tried to make peace with Germany and convince them to attack Russia. Unfortunately, (probably rightfully) they didn't trust me and the plan of me getting to Sweden while giving Germany Denmark back failed. Fortunately, Germany trusted me after some press and we were able to make some progress up north. We stalled Russia a bit and I was trying to get Turkey to turn on Russia as well, but I didn't send enough press to make it happen I think...

I then wanted to help Germany grow after being pushed to the brink by France, so we set our sights on France and I supported Germany into Bel. I was planning on bringing a fleet in from the north, building one and launching an attack on France with Germany while trying to convince Turkey to hit Russia from the south. Unfortunately, a lot of work came up for me and I was not able to continue and finish the game the way I wanted. Missed a build as well, which likely really hurt whoever took over otherwise I feel like my position would have been fine.

All in all, it was a pleasure playing with you all and apologies once again for not being able to complete the game. Glad that a replacement was found to continue the game and it all worked out in the end.

Thanks for posting. From reading your EoG it really makes me feel like my position was pretty tenuous. Luckily I was persistent.

Thanks for the EOG arj. I was wondering who had played England first. It does make me wonder how things would have worked out if you had stayed. Thanks for giving ample warning to get a replacement too.

I just want to start by saying that I really enjoyed this game, up until we had to replace England. From there it just wasn't as good, simply because I was vulnerable and it didn't make sense for England to really ally with me when he could try to take me out instead. I would be curious to see what would have happened if arj11 had been able to continue, but games go this way sometimes and I wasn't able to adjust very well.

That being said, I enjoyed the press with England and Germany very much, and Russia was a great communicator as well. I have to say that it was annoying to have so many flip flops of alliances in the beginning years, and to answer @Hamilton Brian's "question" in their EOG, the bounce in Burgundy was brought on by you. I didn't want to go to Burgundy at all at the beginning and continually tried to convince you otherwise, but your final statement to me before the phase turned consisted of "I'm going to Burgundy, and you can either bounce me or let me in". At least that's how I remember it going lol. This is what caused me to eventually take Munich with Austria's help, because it seemed like you were setting yourself up to eventually take me out anyway, so I thought I might get the first shot at you. England going back and forth between alliances didn't help either, if I'd had a solid go from them toward you then things might have ended up differently then. I felt that I had a good shot, but each time I thought that alliances would shift and my move would be vulnerable and useless.

Italy, I didn't want to come after you really, but I thought I had mended the bridges with Germany and England, and really thought that I had settled us into a strong Western Triple, so my only option was to go south. By the time that I realized the WT wasn't materializing, I was already fully committed to attacking you and kind of stuck. Hindsight is 20/20, so I would rather have focused on the north, but at that point I was getting desperate.

I have to commend Turkey for their dedication to Russia. I was pressuring them very hard, with many valid points, that they should be stabbing, but they continued to hold their ground and it worked out for them.

Overall I enjoyed the game for the most part, but I didn't play this the way I normally would have. I was the one that had a mod tutor, and that worked for a while, but communication fell apart with the mod once Yoyo took over England. I'm sure it was my fault more than the mods that communication didn't continue as well as it had at the beginning, but it was me that was being tutored.

All that to say, I would be interested in trying this again as a full press game and playing it my way the whole way through to see what happened. I did enjoy playing with all of you, and this was one of the best groups I've played with in a long time.

I disagree with you about one thing - I don't think it made sense for England to keep attacking you when the Jugg started rolling. (Though it certainly made our job easier.)

That's true, but at that point I think I also was just bent on taking England out and threw everything to the wind and let the Jugg keep rolling lol. The move to the English Channel first move Yoyo made after taking over after I tried to appease him and make peace caused me to just throw it all north and see what happened lol.

See? Hazy memories. I have to dig into the brain bank to determine why I thought it was an important enough move. I do think it is one that I would remove from my repertoire as Germany. Not permanently, because it does have a place, but Munich>Burgundy seems more suitable for gunboat.