You have to achieve such a mix of draws and solos in the next round which nets you enough tournament points to advance to the finals. Once you compete in the final game, solo.
The details are somewhat difficult to describe properly in words since winning the Tournament is more of a matter of praxis rather than theory. The fact is that once you win the whole thing, you can safely assume you followed my tips reasonably well. Don't forget to give me credit for your success, useful advice is hard to come by these days.

Also, if I could sage this thread I would do it so sorry for exciting you by offering the possibility that recent new posts in this thread might contain some useful information in regard to the actual course of the Tournament. Take my tips as a humble act of apologizing on my part and forgive The Czech his involvement in this little offtopic.

I was excited but my disappointment at not receiving any news was abated by the sage advice you have given. I really feel I have a chance of winning this thing now.

Very good, you're starting to get the hang of it. Feeling the chance of winning constitutes exactly 0% of the work necessary for winning, which means you are no closer to winning after receiving my advice than you were BEFORE receiving my advice. How cool is that? Pretty much! It even deserved the CAPS I slammed on it to sugarcoat that whole pointless message.

I think we're successfully elevating this so-far useful thread to the polished standards of this forum. Once we rehaul the live games thread as well, the top page won't be disturbed by this weird thing called Diplomacy anymore and we can finally enjoy the peaceful chats that are abundant in this corner of intertubes.

I have a question:
How many games does each person play in this tournament?
I played only two games, substituting for 2 CDs.

4 games in the first round. More if you advance obviously.

Gotcha. Thanks. So I guess I won't be moving on.

To move on you just need to get better scores, it's that simple. I hope that helps for next time :)

Listen to the man, zultar, a wise man taught his this stuff.

LOL, I wasn't a part of the original tournament, Sarg. I just helped out with two games that had CDs. Out of those two, I had a three way draw, so I was close to the cut off. Hence, I was wondering how many games everyone else played. :)

anticipation bump.....

keepin' it on page one bump.

what?

3-A is over. I was hoping more people would get eliminated so I could advance, but since everyone else voted draw... Well, I was in no position to dictate the course of the game at that point. GG all, I'll post a full EOG later.

I was disappointed too, but i couldnt elimnate france, france wouldnt eliminate england(which i thought was a mistake). Nothing more i could do without dangerously extending myself and having others fear i was trying for a solo. I would have been very happy with a 4 way draw. Even a 5 way draw would have been not too bad. I was hoping not everyone would agree to the draw and england at least would be eliminated. I pushed draw thinking that most likely the few points would be enough for advancement to the 2nd round.

BTW, Trustme...you were one of the best gunboat allies i have ever had. kalelchase, that was an awesome comeback, sorry i spoiled it, but Turkey was such a good ally I had to go west.

To perhaps provide the opposite perspective of Trooth's... Trustme, what were you doing! Why didn't you take all of Italy while I was literally handing it to you on a silver platter?

bump

Prolly cuz that would have left you in the game, and he would have made an enemy of both me and russia already maybe. just theorizing.

Prolly cuz that would have left you in the game, and he would have made an enemy of both me and russia already maybe. just theorizing.

For anyone interested in seeing how 3-A played out: gameID=60568

As Russia, I got off to a stunted start. Stymied in the south and the north, I ended up being forced into a defensive position early on. In Fall 1903 I made the mistake that created the Turkish monster: I stopped supporting Sevastopol and tried to take Rumania. It was a terrible decision in hindsight, and it's what allowed Turkey to swarm Austria the way they did.
In the north I was able to hold St. Petersburg and maintained a 3 SC empire for a while based on the simple reason that I was too out-of-the-way for anyone to finish off at the time. I defended myself, tried to take Sevastopol back... nothing was working. I couldn't get traction anywhere, and I knew if I didn't start gaining SCs I would eventually get destroyed, so in 1907 I gambled and invaded Germany, who until that point was dominating France and England and was threatening to run away with the game. The sudden Russian advance threw him off and -- I like to think -- created the conditions that allowed France to surge back.
Then fearing that France would gain too much power, I pulled back and advanced on Sevastopol again. I managed to enter it for the last time in Spring 1911, then wheeled around and attacked Rumania. I was hoping Austria would see that attacking Serbia would be the best option on that move (only A Rumania could have supported it and was obviously about to be used to attack Sevastopol) , in which case Rumania's support would have been cut and I would have earned a build in Moscow... which I then could have used to help retake Sevastopol again and seal up my southern border. Alas, it did not work out. Still only 3 SCs, and I knew after Austria was gone Turkey was going to roll over me. I had to do something quickly, so I surged into Scandinavia. Germany read it right and supported me into Sweden, which ended up being my saving grace, allowing me to build enough armies to stop Turkey's advance.

Like I said in my last post, I was really hoping more people would get eliminated. I was kind of hoping Italy would wheel around and take down England and France, thus forcing Turkey to attack... I was basically hoping for a 4-way IGRT draw so I'd have a small chance of advancing to the 2nd round. Not this time, I guess. See you assholes in the winter one :D

@twa
You are right... I was mad at myself after that 1911 move when I didn't go for Serbia. I was just getting so frustrated that Turkey and Italy were taking so darn long to eliminate me that I stopped thinking too much about my moves. My apologies.

@Trooth. Look at his position in Autumn 1912... I was already basically dead, so I am not saying it for my sake. He probably had the solo had he stabbed you right then. France had no fleets to stop him, that's for sure. After you didn't choose to work with me after I made favorable disbands and gave you Greece in the 1906-1907 years, I really only wanted to make you stabbable by Turkey, which I did, then he didn't do it! It was devastating. :)

No worries uclabb, shit happens, we all make mistakes. I agree with your surprise that Turkey never stabbed Italy and instead opted to keep pushing everything north. I had a pretty decent defensive position as long as Germany kept guarding my back. Turkey wasted years just taking Warsaw when there were much greater potential gains to be made moving west. But hey, obviously I'd have preferred it if Turkey hadn't kept attacking me :)

Is the scoreboard up to date? How many games yet to finish to conclude round one?

Is the scoreboard up to date? How many games yet to finish to conclude round one?

We're waiting on two games to finish:
gameID=60565
gameID=62175

The score board is almost up to date. It just needs the recently finished Game 3A to be accounted for.

tinyurl.com/gunboattournament

Up to date now!

bump

bump.