I was on three centers for twenty game-years! And I might qualify with a total of seven SCs in three games combined! Being small is not always bad. :-)

@Trooth: Looking back at the map, you were stalemating France and England while Italy had just betrayed me. (this was my big mistake in not betraying Italy first; I saw it coming, but for some reason I thought I could keep him on my side).

Since there was no progress in the north, and there was no hope in holding out against Italy and Turkey together, I figured my best bet was to force France and maybe you to attack Italy. The only way to do that was to let Italy get bigger. I had very limited options.

Makes sense. I can see that. I was lucky to have the opportunity to turn it around.

I do not like being 7th on the list.

I like money.

bump

bump

^

bump

"I do not like being 7th on the list." lol

Congratz TheCzech on a great victory!

5 minutes ago, I was like, cool, I'm the first one to notice the last game ended. Now I just want to mute Ursa :)

Qualifiers:
TheCzech 90
yebellz 75
uclabb 60
ulytau 60
Trooth 45
urallLESBlANS 35
JesusPetry 35

Rest:
UnknownHero 30
Sargmacher 20
Ursa 15
Dan-i-Am_88 15
AlexNesta 15
rdrivera2005 15
Hammac 15
gramilaj 15
Lando Calrissian 0
Dellez 0
Maniac 0
mapleleaf 0
Troodonte 0
Zachattack413 0

So, I just need two people to mysteriously drop out because of food poisoning, etc? Great.

Congratulations everyone!

Good win to the Czech.

Congrats to the qualifiers. I expect we'll be watching some very good games if the second round was any indication. Good luck to all of you.

Good win, Dellez? More importantly, why did you allow it to happen? We could have held him to a draw if you hadn't concentrated so much on attacking Russia instead of following the rest of us to the stalemate lines.

I thought it was a good win. His momentum at the end was so good nobody had time to react. Including you in the south helping to stop him conquering Iberia. You did a good job with that comeback though.

I wasn't trying to take away from the win. My congrats go to The Czech.

I do think if Austria had been played competently (forgive me) then this would have been a draw.

Iberia wasn't necessary. Holding Tunis and Warsaw was. If Austria had left Ankara to Russia, the Russian armies could have held a stalemate line and Dellez would have been in a draw.

I dare to say that the second round offers a clear moral. 3 of the 4 solos happened because a small power was threatened so much it was forced to throw the game. Either directly (like AlexNesta in my game) or indirectly (like rdrivera2005 in uclabb's game). Directly means "you had your chances and blowed them so let's lose together" while indirectly means "this is my final warning: unless you accept the fact I'm drawing as well, we'll lose together"

hammac did it directly as well. More importantly, Dellez had no chance of advancing to the finals even if he drawed, not even a 2-way would be enough. Under that circumstances, he might've decided that the only benefit of a 4-way would be marginally better personal statistics and the utility from gambling for a 3-way was higher. If I were in his shoes, I would also consider this course of action if I were in an adventurous mood since such a feat would be something I would remember for a long time (get rich or die trying?) Although if failed, such a grave underestimation of Germany would be probably worth an apology on my side.

Don't take it as an authoritative explanation of Dellez's behaviour, just my general outlook on the end-game prefferences. Also, I'm not belittling TheCzech's win, he rode the momentum and he rode it great. He played the way it should be played.

Well played Czech.

For me it was still a possibility that we could salvage a draw despite the excellent position Czech had built. It was a shame Dellez didn't want to include me in that draw - so I made sure that Austria couldn't be part of it either! I was careless in Spring 1915 when Dellez voted for a draw. I should perhaps have waited and not immediately moved away to form the stalemate line.

Woohoo! Congrats and thanks, TheCzech!

Congrats to everyone who made it to the final round! I can't wait to see who will be the new gunboat champion!!!

One fun thing is that I'll get to play the Summer Gunboat Tournament when it's actually Summer in my neck of the woods.

Yes indeed - well done all the qualifiers, thanks to everyone for an enjoyable set of games throughout and, of course, thanks to Geofram for organising it all!

Can't wait, really looking forward to it. thanks again to Geo!

I should let you all know that I'll need a 2-week pause in the second half of January - unless, of course, the games end really fast.