Game 3 (gameID=151632) has concluded, resulting in a four-way draw between Lando, mendax, Tin Can, The Minister.

Ranking by Points:
3 - Lando, mendax, TMOW, ATC.
0 - Valis, CodeBomb, Zmaj

Each player can now unpause Game 4.

I really think that little point logo on the forum is kind of D umb

(sheesh, and then it even doesnt work)

My game 3 EOG as Russia:

It was a back and forth game from the get go for me. I didnt get Swe or Rum, so a zero-build 1901. I had nothing much to do but bump them both again, and then suddenly I got them both. I was blindsided by a suprising move by England going Den-Bal, which I thought was waaaay too risky. I was sure that G and myself would be able to handle E easily.

But to my great surprise, Germany did - literally - nothing for several seasons. I still don't get this: CodeBomb, tell us what you were thinking! :-) I was trying to fend off E, but was all alone and eventually lost that race.

In the south, my fleet was disbanded, but my front was holding. I figured that this would herald a new period in which R/T could steamroll Austria and Italy. It seemed like a logical thing to me, but Turkey instead opted to keep me pinned down with an army in Armenia. Possibly he didnt trust me enough for the Juggernaut? I don't know. Either way, I wasnt able to vacate Sev like I wanted, and ended up standing still quite a lot in the south. I found this so frustrating, that once the end game had set in, I made an utterly irrational lunge for Turkish centers. I figured that if I would not gain, at least T would not make heavy inroads further East and be able to eliminate me. And indeed, I couldnt gain much, and ended up being utterly dependent on T to prop me up on the stalemateline.

All in all: lots of standing still.



ATC: what was with the army Armenia the whole game? We could have steamrolled A/I easily!



I was so frustrated at one point I made an absolutely pointless lunge for Rum/Bul, as much out of spite as out of strategy. At the endgame, I was worried that

Haha! Man, I'm sorry about that. I had pretty much the opposite frustration - I was all "can't Russia see I'm trying for the R/T now", and couldn't work out why you wouldn't go for it. I think I even supported you against Austria for a few turns, but you never took it. I would have moved Arm out as soon as I saw you go against Austria - I figured it was best to stay there supporting you while I had nothing else to do with it. But, I see why you weren't willing to work with me while my army was there.

I am not very good at gunboat.

The funny part was that I think I opened myself up to your lunge to Bul trying to demonstrate that I wanted to work with you. Shoulda moved Arm instead, I guess :)

TMOW: Did you intend to cut off your EoG half way through?

And yes, we should fix the number of times "points" turns to (D). It's currently a little aggressive.

Lol, no my EOG was done. But when I edit I have the nasty habit of putting unused sentences aside at the bottom of my window. In this case, I ended up publishing them anyway :-)

It's a great example of where GB communication can be really subtle and easily misconstrued. In a way, communication needs to be entirely unambiguous in GB. And even then... At the later stage, you vacating Bul was pretty clear. But by that time I was more eager to piss you off than to work with you :-P

Another interesting topic of analysis is that people (as did I) can play pretty rational - up until the point that there is not much perspective left. Once I decided my best possible outcome was landing on the stalemateline, I could pretty much piss you off all I wanted to! :-)

Hahaha! Well, at that point, I would have eliminated you if I could have. So, good job making that impossible :)

I'm pretty proud of my anti- bohemian crusher counter gambit but France moved South much more quickly than expected.

I made no friends and of course that led to elimination. It was a fun game though!

France:

Having committed myself south very early, the gamble I was taking was that I could sweep up Italy before the E/G conflict was resolved, hopefully allowing me enough time to reposition and start making progress in the north later. Unfortunately, despite making good progress against Italy pretty quickly (and cementing my position in Med-based stalemates), Germany's passivity meant that England was already dominant in the north.

I could have probably moved away from the front in the med a lot quicker to try to fend him off, but with the way I played it was much safer, I think, as by letting England run rampant through most of France it meant that I became invaluable in holding the draw.

Bump. Come on Code Bomb, give us your point of view! ;-)

My first time noticing this. Will try and contribute sometime today. Specifically, I will try and explain my thinking on the aggressive early-game moves.

^ I'd like to read that.

I was wondering if/how you guessed that you would make it. I really thought you made a mistake at the time. I was painfully corrected.

Game 1 (gameID=151629) has concluded, resulting in a well-deserved solo by Lando.

Ranking by Points:
16 P oints - Lando
3 P oints - mendax, TMOW, ATC.
0 P oints - Valis, CodeBomb, Zmaj

Each player can now unpause Game 5.

I'll write a short EOG later, but for now I'm really curious to hear: was there any way we could still have locked up the front after that rogue unit broke through? Any and all advice welcomed.

England: I think we could have sown it up if you had moved back one single turn earlier! Ah well.

Russia - After a truly horrible start, and a few years durdling around at 3. I decided that my only real shot at the draw was to help Italy get to a position where they were threatening a solo, and then clinging to the line in the north.

Maybe I misread the board, but I did truly believe that there should be no problem holding the MSL in the west.

As an extension to this, it feels like the game was lost by F/G continuing to fight for a little too long.

@TMoW, not sure what you're talking about, I was England and I was eliminated by a sea lion a couple years before any kind of sowing was down I believe.

Game 3 EOG
----------------------
Openings were all standard but builds were really beneficial to me, England. No stp and no new german fleet. Plus france in spa sc in 01. Opportunity for me to be aggressive, I went to ska and hel knowing knowing I had guarantees. The position was so good as long as France didn't mess with it, I would eventually win the bulk of the centres. The best part was I could do it with lots of armies on the land which would be great endgame position. There really wasn't much Germany could do.

Anyway, I stabbed france eventually and a combination of good response and poor endgame work by me eventually got the game stalemated. I drew from there without waiting for Russian to be whittled, he earned the draw in my opinion.

@Valis, my bad, I meant France. I agree we fought too long, though the window was actually not long. I turned around to fight Italy in S12, France joined me two turns later, in S13.


Game 1 EOG - TMOW - Germany
--
Fun game for me, though a bad result. The game looked to be starting very bad, with France moving and building aggressively (two armies in 1901). His abundance of armies would come to dominate my choices in the game.

The early game, England moved into the North, and France moved into England. This put me in the position to choose, I could attack the four (!) armies of the French mainland, or help topple England then move in later. I chose the latter. My goal was to create a solid fleet domination to ensure I would be able to get France from the sea eventually. When France moved his second army to England, I decided to breach his line and try to force him down too. I sacrificed some of my East front, since it was my estimation that we were getting to a three-way draw of R/I/G. I couldn't realistically hold War/Mos, and Italy couldnt get Iberia. Or so I thought.

While whittling down F, Italy decides to go for the solo. I immediately turn around to cover Iberia. I still have time to get an army into Por, but France is still angry at me and pounding on NTH. I open my back entirely as a signal and then we're in business. But it seems we're too late.

If I missed any moves in the later stages of the game, let me know mendax. I was going for a three-way and think I moved back when I should have. Also in the stalemate, I looked extensively and couldnt see better moves than the ones I made.

And, as Zmaj notes in the public chat, it was extremely hard to get the moves coordinated right.

Bump for unpause

ALL PLAYERS UNPAUSE GAME 5 PLEASE.

Please dont repost asking for an unpause, as to preserve anonimity.
If the unpause lasts I'll PM all players.

Bump.

We're in business again. GL all.

We seem to be missing a player - one game got caught right before the NMR, and one game went through with an NMR. What's the plan from here?

I'm not sure what you expect, but based on the list of players here I expect them to be high caliber members of the site who would only and only NMR on a temporary basis due to things outside their control.

if they require a pause, I believe the operating procedure is to contact the mods for a gun boat game.

hopefully it was a one time thing and won't happen again. Is there some other plan that you were hoping to hear of?

This case has been referred to mods who are not me or TC.
Like Valis, my assumption is that this is a one-time thing and incidental. But I'm guessing. I would ask everybody to withhold comments on this as to not break anonymity.

When there's more news from me or the mods, we'll post in this space. Apologies for the delay.

Games are going again.
If you need a pause, please mail the mods.