As is every game I play as England (don't read this if you're in my league pls thx <3) my plan was to work my way destroying any opposing ports starting from STP, to BER/KIE, to BRE. I felt an extra impetus to send out good press and succeed since it was my Invitational, which really only resulted in higher than normal S01 press.
The only press I received from France was "sounds good, I'm going after my neutrals", so I decided I couldn't risk NOT moving to the English Channel, where we bounced. Afterwards we agreed to go our separate ways, but the English Channel would become contentious again later.
The assault on France is not something that I was told about, and I think France believed me there. I figured a two-person assault on France, where one of them had been denied, would take too long while also keeping France weak, so I decided not to join them. This was my philosophy all game and mostly worked until the Russian and French NMRs, and maintain it was a smart or mostly correct choice. But more on that later.
Besides Italy's move to Piedmont, which isn't at all bad just not popular, the east was fairly standard. Even when I take Norway with a fleet, the fact that France and I got over our differences so easily makes Russia very mad, and he accuses the EC as a planned bounce despite what I told him. I didn't understand why he was antagonizing me when Germany was the one who bounced him in SWE and I didn't convoy to NOR, but I didn't receive much from him throughout the game.
In 1902 things continued to go my way. Germany and Italy and France kept fighting amongst themselves while I made a whole-sale assault on Russia. The only snag is that I didn't trust France or like his press and wanted Germany to trust me so at the end of the year I take STP, support Germany into Sweden so he can build more not-fleets.
By the end of 1902, things are incredibly tense between France and I. I just helped Germany and moved my fleets back south. However we try to work over our differences and I build my army and he builds an army as well. By the Spring of 1903 everything is good again.
Then the Italian Nation attacked. And Russia NMRs.
I assume France let his guard down against Italy because of his emotional rage at Germany. There wasn't much I could do there. I make a massive stab against Germany, but I make a mistake of taking Denmark with an army rather than a fleet. This is my major tactical error as I can't get enough fleets to touch Baltic. In addition, Russia cannot reclaim War or Mos, and the rest of the game will not reply to my messages explaining how he could. I don't know if he just didn't give a shit about my problems, was more mad at someone at the south than Germany, or some other option.
A03-S06 are roughly the same. I refuse to attack France hoping he'll hold out and continue attacking Germany, but the fact that Germany has three extra SCs in WAR/MOS/SEV give him extra defensive units to fend me off.
I'm not saying Germany was bad tactically or anything, what I was saying was that if he didn't have those two extra units (three from Russia with one unit to defend them giving two extra units against me), he would not NEARLY have survived as long if at all. But that's how the cookie crumbled.
At one point Germany crowed how he held off with only " 6 SCs (at the start) vs. 12" and it's just such a blatant lie and stupid thing to say (That France and I magically combined all our units to attack him [i.e. space or Italy doesn't exist] AND he gets to use this bullshit 6 SC starting figure?!) I decided nothing he could say after that would be worth hearing, but I'm sure my willingness to mute people is a discussion for another time. It didn't go over well.
At this point France is becoming very unresponsive. Somewhat related, I just had to replace him in the School of War game because he won't respond to PMs, didn't check that game for 4+ days, etc etc. I hope he comes back at some point. Anyways, he retreats to NAO, claiming a misclick or something, and all-holds/NMR. Now it's over for that strategy. I attempt to call a truce with Germany and go take my home centers back.
I clean up the LVP fleet as Italy and Germany clean up POR/BRE. Now, no one doubts there's a CPA. It's been obvious for years. And I pretty much accused them of that forever now. The question is how to break it up. I think clearly the answer is Austria: I haven't had any quarrels with him, he's farthest away from me, and he can make real gains against Germany
About A06/S07, I put Austria on full blast. I'm not going to give the full conversation, nor are any of my quotations actual quotations, but it goes something like
"
-You're not actually playing this game as it was meant to be played,
-I won't respect you as a player if you're not even trying to win,
-a 5-army power is just going to get crushed and squeezed out by this Italy/Germany,
-I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get you to attack Germany, even throw if necessary
-Germany is leaving so much of himself open to you by continuing to build fleets and all his armies are on extreme ends of the map
-etc etc etc
"
and basically just every argument I can put out there, not that I don't think any of them weren't true. After a couple hundred words he gets fairly receptive and we start outlining a stab of Germany. Which we don't tell Italy which of course will be important later.
It's W07. Germany initiates a conversation about being friends, I say it depends on his builds. He responds that I'm his bitch, I live or die by his decision alone, etc etc etc. I go to Italy saying I'll support him to BRE. I don't necessarily believe it'll happen, but I figure if I choose to go to North Sea it'll at least convince him not to move to the Channel, and that if he does want to attack me it'll have to be 1 by 1 through MAO.
I think Bo is pretty confident in his abilities to eliminate me, I'll let him speak more publicily about it if he wants, but I feel I had a defensive position, or a the very least that the amount of effort for Germany to break through DEN/SWE/HEL/NOR and Italy to break through EC/two-armies-on-homeland would be such a *high* activation barrier that Austria would be too hard to ignore, especially if Austria went through with the stab, and if he didn't stab then it would be too tempting.
I'm going to claim that my idea was both executed and succeeded.
Austria and I sincerely was planning on a AIE, but it doesn't seem like Bo was willing to try it, which isn't an unfair thing. I mean, I'll take the draw at this point, so it's not a problem to me.
Thanks everybody for coming out! All in all it was a fairly intense game. Everyone I invited were people I somewhat knew or played a single game with and wanted another with.
Tyran - someone I knew from live games
Maher - someone I knew from live games
Bo - someone I knew from the forums
2WL - someone I knew from Boston
RLH - someone I knew from Boston
SD - someone I knew from reading EOGs and wanted to test my mettle against
Sorry I don't have more detailed notes, but (and this is like the 3rd time I've written this this weekend) going from 54 pages of unorganized message archives is hell. Happy to discuss anything and everything.