If this is what I have to look forward to next time I try a high pot game, I will respectfully decline.

I was France, and things started getting wierd with my first exchanges. I sent my usual messages of love and peace to everyone, and started covering my bets almost immediately:

I told Russia and Turkey that I'd love a secret three way alliance

I told England and Germany I'd love a Western Triple

I told Austria and Italy I had no freaking idea what was going on.

My goal, of course, would be to work with whomever I could maximize my benefit with.

Germany was uninterested in a Triple, and wanted to beat on England. My contemplation of this concept didn't really go anywhere, because he *lost his shit* when I would be making the safe France opening: Par > Bur with Mar in support. This way if Germany moves to Bur and Italy moves to Pie I can still safely take Spain.

I informed E and I that Germany was out for my blood. Italy asked if I would support him into MUN, which I agreed to.... but felt suspicious of.

I continued to discuss the situation with G, but it wa fruitless. In the meantime, I was feeding just enough info to T and R that they felt I was keeping them in the loop... but nothing that would actually let them anticipate what others would do.

By the end of 1901, Italy was in Munich, and G and I had bounced in BEL. I built an army, but tried to patch things up with G - encouraging him to jump Italy. He did, which was great, as Italy had planned a stab at the same time. He lost MUN - and England made a move that gained him two builds at the expense of R and G. I had one from Bel.

During builds I was trying to convince Italy to disband one of his fleets so I could afford to go after E. I fed the same line to G and R. It was a load of crap, of course - the only thing moving on E would get me was a stalemate and Italy attacking me from the rear - but it sure would have been nice of Italy to do so.

Oh, and Italy posted some 'don't have metagame alliances' comment in the main channel, but kept claiming h

patience, fig - I'm on my phone ;)

goddam it; half of the post is gone. - will fix tomorrow

Sorry, I did wait 30mins! :)

Wow, lovely little teaser there though - I'll definitely be back for Episode 2!

As England, I opened my diplomacy playing it safe.

France and I hit it off well and while we didn't plot out any immediate targets, we agreed to a DMZ of ENG and an open discussion on BEL in F1901. Germany approached me with a proposal to beat on France and so I agreed, without revealing much about my opening moves. I made lengthy peace propositions with Russia regarding Scandinavia and Italy was quite chatty so somewhere during the first phase me, France and Italy starting talking about him going to TYR and using France's support into MUN. Austria and Turkey were pretty silent throughout the game, but Turkey eventually started feeling me out regarding an all out war against Russia.

In S1901, I moved NWG, NTH and YOR. The other openings were as predicted, except that R and T had managed to DMZ BLA and it looked like a lepanto vs. jugger in the South.

France, Italy and Germany wanted me to convoy to NTH and move to BAR but Russia had been very clear about peace in the North, and I had already promised him about taking NWY with a fleet. Somewhere down the line, I decided to make a compromise and took Italy's suggestion to convoy to NWY and leave F NWG holds. I tried to ask Russia how he felt about this but it was two hours before the phase. One more confusing thing was that Germany had apparently promised Russia Sweden, but I knew all of Germany's moves at this point (and I'd passed them on to F and I) and he was moving to SWE. So when I asked Russia what he thought about moving to BAL and letting me take NWY and DEN while allowing Germany to go to SWE, Russia refused. So at the end of 1901, Russia didn't have SWE and he had an army in NWY so he was pretty infuriated. Italy and France managed to take MUN and block Germany out of BUR with the info I'd passed them. Austria got SER and GRE. Russia got RUM.

After a long and difficult negotiation process, I convinced Russia to build A MOS and leave STP open. Germany had no idea I was working against him with France, but he accused me of having withheld information from him regarding I and F's moves (this was true - sorry Germany). I denied this and I think we made peace when I told him I was building F EDI and moving towards STP. I told Russia I was moving to HOL and garrisoning NWY and NWG. Instead, I moved NWY-FIN, NWG-NWY, NTH-HEL, EDI-NTH. This was risky - attacking both R and G in one fell swoop. But F had assured me of his alliance. Germany allowed Russia into SWE, but I managed to get both DEN and SWE that year. But in S1902, Italy moved towards France, having apparently made peace with Germany and gotten kicked out of MUN. It looked like a Central Triple vs. EF vs. Jugger at this point. Italy and Austria kept apparently asking France to move against me, and they were feeling me out regarding attacking France as well (just to be clear, this wasn't going to happen until Germany had fallen). Italy made a pretty strange retreat (MUN-TYR, which eventually ended up in BOH. He could've saved a turn and retreated directly to BOH).

By the time the Agent K saga occurred, Russia had retreated to BAL (instead of SKA as he had promised me he would so as to make my life miserable). Germany and I weren't on talking terms. And everyone wanted to cancel the game since Agent K (Austria) had come out and identified himself. I was pretty pissed because I'd just gotten into a position of power and my 1500 bet had become 1800 something. I still think we could've continued playing if Agent K had not identified himself (since he got unbanned anyway).

But I'd like to hear from the others. I think Italy was MM, but I might be wrong.

My last finalized orders were builds - A LON and F EDI. My plan was to convoy to NWY with A SWE's support, move NWY-BAR and EDI-NWG, for a bid on STP. I was going to let France get bottled up in Germany and Iberia (against Italy) for a while, before going to his 'aid' with a few fleets :P

But alas. The game ended.

Also, Turkey why on earth did you stab Russia in 1902 for RUM when you had no other allies in your sphere?

First off, Im sorry that i identified myself, i just thought that some other player had already seen Austria banned. Secondly, ill post my statement after i know who Turkey is. Everyone in the game said that Russia was Marx. Is this true?

It was either Russia or Italy.

(Guessing based on times when MM was online and I received messages from those countries)

Also, based on the fact that this was a 10500 point game, I expected more all-out self-interest going on. Everyone was surprisingly chilled out. Kinda disappointing.

I will just add that I was in this game - though I had planned to take a hiatus after my two league games, this was too interesting of a game not to participate in - specially since it would be TOTALLY anonymous ;)

I will not say who I was just yet, as I'd like more of the players to show themselves and hear their MOGs first.

meanwhile - I WISH I could go back and re-read the press since so many players were talking to ME about how some other player was playing or diploming like Babak or how I was NOT playing or diploming like Babak... kinda funny - but alas all gone now.

Haha I know who you were then, Babak! I saved a copy of all my press and global before I cancelled. Just in case.

do you have a copy of the global tab? because I did not read the last 4-5 messages...

The last few messages on Global:


04:10 PM (To: Global, from you) - is anyone else even following this?
~07:38 PM (To: Global, from Gamemaster) - (figlesquidge): Wow, careful! Nothing personal Agent K but I haven't said that. I do not think you are guilty and am working with Ghost to try and confirm this, if only for our own sakes.
In my personal (and incomplete) opinion, Agent K had a few dodgy games earlier in the year, but these were finished long ago, meaning his rise in points and GR have been down to ability.

I am incredibly sorry for causing this situation in the first place, and only wish I could explain just how deep the story behind it is!
08:21 PM (To: Global, from you) - Figlesquidge has spoken. Agent K is innocent and won't be banned.
08:08 PM (To: Global, from you) - I have emailed figlesquidge regarding the Agent K situation. I am confident that he will reply soon. If this takes too long, I will cancel, and since I won't have the chance to do this when I cancel - my sincere apologies for holding this up.
Sat 04 PM (To: Global, from you) - Suit yourself.
~Sat 04 PM (To: Global, from Turkey) - That's all fair enough. In the meantime I think I'm gonna look for a new game.
~Sat 12 PM (To: Global, from France) - I gotta agree with E. I would prefer we have some type of resolution on the whole Agent K thing before we cancel - and I'd prefer to wait a bit before we restart so we can do so from a relatively clean slate

Sat 01 PM (To: Global, from you) - My two alternatives -

If Agent K is not a multi: we cancel and return to our lives. Maybe restart.
If Agent K is a multi: we wait for him to be banned, draw, earn the extra 250 , return to our lives, and maybe restart.

My issues with restarting are primarily that we know each others' diplomacy styles quite well now. Even in a semi-anon game it would be pretty easy to predict who is who after a few turns.
~Fri 06 PM (To: Global, from Turkey) - It's not important. But the game feels pretty tainted by non-game related personal concerns at this point, which at least fulfills the spirit of meta-gaming as much as anything could. Let's just exit and redraw the lines.
Fri 06 PM (To: Global, from you) - Ok, I have a quick question. The gamemaster message only identified Agent K, not which country he was playing. Why in the hell did Agent K come out and start talking about it? Agent K could have just cleared his name outside of the game and we could've played like it was hunky dory.

So far we have

Ava (England)
Stratagos (France)
Agent K (Austria)
Babak (unknown)
MadMarx (unknown)

+ 2 others.

Im really curious as to italy was as well, because i feel that I won them over and want to see if they were as committed to the full game alliance between us as I was, or whether they has some inside deal with Russia and were going to stab me soon.

I've never been a fan of discussing who is who in anon games, or of EoGs. If I hadn't created the game I may even deny having joined! ;-)

...alright, I admit. I was Serbia. Screw all of you. *pouts*

@MM I suppose you don't get to 24k by explaining your thought processes in AARs/EoGs ;-)

A shame it got cancelled. It would have been interesting to see who came out on top.

bah. If you guys aren't even going to man up enough to name what countries you are, let alone your MOGs, I'm certainly not going to waste my time finishing mine.

So i'll end with my first line: what a farce

Play with wankers, and you'll get wanker results.
Certainly no surprise.

bump...i have to mark this one to read it in full !

@ mapleleaf - but you weren't in the game!
@ strat - ahhhh c'mon... we want to hear
@ MM - hmm... that is an interesting policy and I sympathize. I actually do like EOGs but I agree with you on the anon policy and that it is quite annoying that so many people try to guess and discuss identities as early as 1901. kind of crude actually - but I cant change people's behavior.

I am willing to do my MOG because I feel England deserves it considering her better position and her request that we provide it after a cancel. besides, I do have a few bones to pick with a few players and a few juicy comments to share. I'd love to see who people THINK I was. I've already heard from a few of you about your guesses. Was anyone even positive that I was IN the game in the first place since I never said anything about joining?

lol strat I wasn't even in the game
just taking a leaf from Thucy's trolling book

@Eden - I kinda guessed that based on your point total ;)

@ Babak - The only person I knew was in the game was MM; I figured out that ava was in later based on a reference he made to a Chicago-area games group, then a message in the forum referencing the same group shortly thereafter. I didn't try to figure out who else was playing, and I really didn't care...

Note: the only reason I knew MM was in it was him creating the game, and his various attempts to plead for people to join. Past that it wasn't on my radar until I threw down a gauntlet to step out of his comfort zone - which he stepped up and took, I might add.

@Babak - I know you were in the game because in your first post you mentioned something that I had sent you as press.

strat, don't be that way, everybody loves your writing, give the people what they want!! :-)

Were people serious about giving this another go? strat appears to be a bit jaded, but thought I'd ask anyway.