Tournament Report:
In the first game I was England and I got up to 9 fleets, 0 armies. I took a center to build a fleet, then gave it back willingly to disband the armies. Sometimes it's fun going for silly strategies. Although as England it's not so silly. Couldn't make it past France but still did well.
I don't remember too much. It was classic playing-for-a-draw England where I closed as many Northern ports that I could from STP to DEN/KIE/BER to (unsuccessfully/eventually) BRE and made unbreakable fleet lines.
I got a 3-build turn that was nice, Russia eventually forgave me so much that I forgot I stabbed them at all until they quickly reminded me in the end of game recap when I posited otherwise.
I13/E9/F6/R6 4WD.
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In the second game I was France myself and got into a nice Western Triple with a very new German player who we eventually cut out. He did three really weird things.
1) Insisted on F KIE-HOL in S01. Wouldn't consider anything else. Now, it was obvious he wanted to try a GR alliance and R convinced him of it.
2) Asked for a bounce in Burgundy. Any good Germany player doesn't want a bounce in Burgundy (IMO). However he asked for one! I was all too happy to oblige.
3) Didn't ask for Beligum, in fact didn't put any fight up to England taking it. This is just inexperience IMO. A WT G needs that buffer and extra power for both his 12 and his 6.
Between (1) and (2) and (3) it was quite clear to England and I that we eventually would cut him out. It was only a matter of time. The first couple years are relatively quite.
Things however got very interesting! Imagine these German moves:
F03 MUN-BUR
S04 BUR-PAR
Now, the whole time I had absolutely nothing on my mainland, as I was going 100% ham on Italy (bo_sox). I had something like
A TUN
F GOL
F WES
F TYRR
A PIE
Italy was quite confident he had me on the ropes now. Germany was in Paris, I had not a single unit on my mainland and nothing I could do about it.
German orders F04:
PAR-BUR
There was much crying and gnashing of teeth that I could convince Germany to walk right back out of Paris, but, then again, that's why they call it "Diplomacy"!
Even then, I fought hard for England not to stab Germany until absolutely necessary, as my progress in the south was slow and I didn't want England getting too big. Eventually the EF teamed up with Austria to take out G and T and I 3-way drew with people who got a 5-way draw or worse first round, where I got a 4-way draw last round, putting me in the tournament lead after the second of three rounds.
E13/F11/A10 3WD
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As somewhat mentioned above, going into the final round in the lead was nerve-wracking. . On one hand you wanna come up from behind and not have a target on your back, but it's not like I could or would do purposely worse just to hope to do very well on the last round. Unlike SOME people here I can't just skip games and still win tournaments wink emoticon
I got Russia for my third game. One of my favorites, but as someone who recently destroyed and got destroyed as Russia at DipCon 2 weeks ago, I was pretty apprehensive.
Italy was a new player, Turkey was a good player, Austria was a good player who was in contention for the tournament win, Germany was a good player who was in contention for the tournament win, France was a good player who probably had no idea what his score was, and England missed a round the day before and I knew he almost never changed his mind from 01.
The moment I knew I had a shot at winning was S01
S01:
me to G/F: You should Sea Lion. I'll open North
me to E: "They're gonna Sea Lion. Listen to Chris Martin my man". (http://diplom.org/Zine/S2003M/Martin/London.html) (These were my actual words)
F01:
Of course everyone does exactly what I knew/told about their moves.
E to me: My units are yours, fuck F/G. Take NWY.
me to E: Let's kill G first
The moment I knew I won (assuming I drew at at least N-1 way of the other board) was in S04 when:
me to F: You don't want E suiciding into you, let's suicide him into Germany, he'll forgive you more if you ask for it. Germany is getting large and is super aggressive about him getting all the growth.
F to me: OK
That's when I won. At least partially, I like to think, of my own design. I all but literally wrote France and England's orders the rest of the game that were relevant to the North and/or taking out Germany (poor Randy L-H), until the final year.
I was keeping slight tabs on the other boards. As long as I got a 5WD they would need a 3WD, if I got a 4WD, they would need a 3WD and more centers than me.
Fun fact: the other board eventually had a 7-way draw.
Being fairly complacent, I made a stalemate line at STP with FIN/STP against the Austrian armies. I kept trying to ally with Austria but he had to eliminate me to place above me so it never happened, but I gave up the entirity of my southern power and kept STP/NWY/DEN/SWE.
I mentioned earlier about a Sea Lion against England. And how it wasn't really till 1904 that France stabbed Germany. So England was very much on the ropes. I controlled EDI. France controlled LON. England only owned an army in YOR and a supply center in LVP.
I convinced France that we should use England constructively. We convoyed him against Germany. Eventually he got a build, and I convinced him to build another army, which we convoyed against Germany again. Eventually he got a *third* build, being in something like Holland and Berlin. The whole time I own the EDI supply center and convince him not to take it. He takes it back maybe 5 years later, as an agreement, which I'm fine with per below of using him as a buffer against France.
At this point, I'm loving it. England will never ever attack me due to my loyalty and friendship to him this game. and now that Germany is dead or about to be dead, the only person who can get to me with any strength is France, so I want England to be strong enough to hold him off as an obstruction if France decides to get competitive all of the sudden.
It turns out that even with a last ditch effort to kill England, they can't even do that , much in part to the fact I refuse to go after him until the final year, and I just sit in NWY/DEN/STP/FIN holding my line.
A12/T10/R5/F5/E2 5WD
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There's some little things missing, and like I warned before I error generously on me being in control of the situation, I always welcome feedback / truth / etc.