@ strat - i take the same approach to anon games. I play them so I DONT know who i'm talking with, and i diplome at face-value.

@ ava - you mean you figured out I was in the game the first time I wrote on this thread that I was in the game? that is brilliant! if that was not what you meant, I dont know what you mean by 'post' vs 'press' in your comment above.

@ MM - I could conceivably want to play again, but I'm not 100% sure... will have to think on it. maybe if someone creates it... then I can decide if I want to join or not...

@ strat/MM - agreed, I'd very much like to know who MM was. and I'll admit I thought England was Ivo! but no clue if he actually joined this game or not.

Hello. I was Turkey.
The very short version of my game was...
I've never played a successful juggernaut so I wanted to use this game as an opportunity to give it a go. Russia was very receptive and we had- in my opinion- a very good relationship all game.
To answer your question, ava, the Rum move wasn't a stab. It was arranged in advance with Russia and originally designed to coincide with trying to let him slip into the Med through Con. Didn't wind up working out.
Most of the rest of the game wasn't too exciting. I fell for France's gambit at first, but after a couple turns I felt like his info wasn't really any help.
Italy and Austria worked on me relentlessly the stab Russia. I never felt particularly compelled to do so, since their advances always seemed pretty blatantly self-interested and I never had any reason to trust them over my established ally. That being said, I was suffocating in the corner, and Russia was having problems with England. As the game wore on I started to come around to Italy, since he was a pretty convincing guy, and also because it was possible his moves indicated a forthcoming move on Austria. As I considered this I got in touch with England about meeting in the middle of Russia if I decided to go that way. But I was holding my ultimate decision until I saw a move from him that confirmed it- sadly the game ended before any of that was resolved.

*"move from him that confirmed it"- meaning a move from Italy that confirmed he was attacking AH.

@Babak - I was referring to your comment about other players saying that someone was/wasn't playing like Babak. I have a copy of my press to your country that on that exact subject. So let's not pretend like you weren't in the game :-)

@Babak/MM - come on guys. It's not that big of a deal. Just do it!

@DaveH - pleasure to hear from you. I was wondering what on earth was going on down there...this at least gives it some clarity. Not a bad plan, trying to get the Russian fleet out into the open seas - unfortunately Austria wouldn't back off for long enough for that to happen!

strat, please explain how I'm being a hypocrite. It is a fact that "the people" want to know the rest of your thoughts, so I speak on their behalf. You claimed you would finish your thoughts. To say you won't finish your thoughts because I hold a different view on sharing my thoughts, could be viewed as childish, but you won't hear that from me! ;-)

My guess is that Ivo was Italy and that Babak was Russia. I was Germany. My game started with the Frenchman dictating to me that he would support an attack on Burg and if I didn't like it, tough shit. Russia then carefully explained to me how Sweden was his God-given right in 1901, another interesting neighbor. Austria and Italy appeared to be interested in typical peace agreements with me/Germany, at least in the pre-game, but Italy's move to Tyrolia in spring 1901 clearly painted a different picture. England seemed to be quite nice, especially in comparison to my other neighbors, so early on I put all my faith in England, which England quickly used against me. It was a miserable game for me, to say the least, though fascinating nonetheless and I certainly learned a few great lessons, so I am grateful for that.

If strat doesn't want a rematch, then it won't be the same, so I won't restart or join a similar game at this time.

@ava: yeah, i know a lot of ppl were shocked at the Rum move. i was more than happy to let it sow a little confusion but it was ultimately kind of disappointing that the russian fleet didn't get out. austria kept us pretty well hemmed in.

i'd love to hear from italy just to find out if he was at all serious or if he was just setting me up. i rather suspected the latter, but i was getting desperate enough to risk it, anyway.

and i have no games going right now so i'd join another high stakes under the same conditions if one starts. just pm me.

Ah. So it was Dave. Never played with him before.

Anyways, i guess ill do one of these things. I cant look back at the game now since it got cancelled so ill do it from memory.

From the start, i spent most of my time trying to win over Italy, promising him many gains and whatnot and the usual press. I asked if he would be interested in doing an oktoberfest and he said yes, although i guess Germany wasnt in the loop. Regarding Russia and Turkey, After the first move, it became pretty clear that they were allies. Russia was interested in me supporting his fleet Rumania to Bulgaria in the fall, but i preferred to be safe and take Greece. Russia and I were in long talks regarding Galicia and we bounced. There was a move where i actually believed he would turn on Turkey, and it involved me supporting Galicia to Rumania, i think, while he moved to Black Sea. If the real Russia wants to confirm this or not, they can. regarding the stab of Russia by Turkey, I sent both of them messages saying I knew what their little game was and what they had planned to do: trade Rum for Con so an army could be in Rum.
this didnt work and Russia was down to 4 units after England took Sweden. Italy was driven out of Munich so i was counting on Italy to stay allied with me even though are growth was slow. The game ended at this point, so what i want to know is whether Turkey or Russia were close to turning on each other, and whether Italy was about to ally with either one of them against me. I didnt have as much info regarding the West since i had no business there, I was just trying to convince France to head north so Italy and i could worry about our own stuff in the East

Here's a little more, now that I have a bit more time:

By the end of 1901 it was clear that England was lying to me and passing on every word I wrote to all the other great powers in the area. Of my five neighbors, I was confident that four (England, France, Italy and Russia) were against me while one (Austria) was completely indifferent. Going into 1902 I felt that the Italian betrayal was the worst of the four since Italy is typically at least at peace with Germany, so I wanted to do all I could to insure Italy would benefit least from my impending death, so I kicked Italy out of Munich. The rest was just me flailing around making a fool of myself, desperate to find a true ally, though resigned to the fact that I would not.

As far as this being an anon game, in 1901 England told me that more than one person suspected Russia was MM (I assume Austria was one of these people, since DaveH does not appear to care and Austria is the only other person who could be part of such a scheme), thus there was a movement to take Russia out of the game immediately. I responded by saying that was odd and that I thought France was MM because France was being such an ass, which England appeared to take as a valid argument, though England informed me that England already knew France's identity in this anon game and we hadn't even gotten to fall 1901! At one point Russia said something to me about it being somewhat of a compliment for people to think you are MM or Ivo, which I quickly replied that I would much rather be compared to Babak, thinking that I could be speaking to Babak, but unsure at the time (though Babak's post on this thread is why I now believe Russia to be Babak).

Again, I am of the school that it is not in the spirit of an anon game to discuss anyone's identity within that game. I am clearly in the minority, which is frustrating, but I suppose if you can't beat them you may be forced to join them (which is to say that once people were discussing identities in this game, I participated at a certain level to try to confuse those identities, though it is not to say I will ever start it in any future game EVER). Honestly, I think it to be more of a personality conflict, that people who discuss identities immediately tend to be relatively impatient and have little concept of delayed gratification, but I am still thinking through this theory.

@ MadMarx, I did not comment or try to figure out identities at all in this game. I think it was mainly England, who messaged me saying he (and others) thought Russia was you. I responded by telling him that there was no way to tell for certain and that it didnt matter who was who, i would play based solely on press.

@Agent K: I never wanted to stab Russia during the game. That being said, I was reaching a point where I felt like I was running out of other options in terms of realistic directions for further growth. Italy made a pretty strong case, and I was starting to warm up to him. The only real issue was I couldn't see any reason why I should trust him unless he moved against you. Also a factor was England's upcoming invasion of Russia. If he wasn't going to make it I wanted to at least get some of his centers before it was too late.
When the game ended, I still hadn't completely made up my mind, but I was pretty close to throwing in my lot with Italy even without assurances just for the sake of breaking the deadlock.

Regarding identifying people in an anon game- MM is right in that I don't really care who's who very much. But that not-caring extends to not really minding idle speculation, either. For what it's worth, I thought that MM might have been Italy, based solely on message length and frequency.

Thanks for that clarification, Agent K, I agree with and respect your views of the game, which I cannot say the same for ava, at least in that respect, though I do have much respect for other aspects of ava's game, of course.

First, a preface. My son is ill, work is... frustrating at this moment, and I haven't had a good night's sleep since *ponders* the 12th. So I'm far beyond cranky and right into surly territory. That doesn't mean I intend to lash out at anyone, but I'm much less interested in parsing logic right now.

@ MM - My 'hypocrite' comment was based on your refusal to answer questions about which nation you played, but then asking me to continue revealing my own thought processes. While it is your right to keep your thoughts to yourself, it's a bit galling when you take me to task for doing the exact same thing - the reasoning behind the decision notwithstanding. Smileys only do so much to counteract stuff like that, as I'm sure you'll agree ;)

As for our relations in the game, I will reiterate what I told you in the game - which was the truth: we both saw things from different sides of the same divide. You saw my choice to move to BUR as a threat; I saw your strong insistence I not do so as one. The critical difference is that you basically said "If you don't do what I demand there is no future in our relationship" - which pretty much tells me all I need to know about working with them. Either I do what they want or there will be war, so my choice is to agree to everything they put forth or face conflict. Since there is eventually going to be *something* I'm going to balk at, when someone tells me "Do what I want or we're at war", I pretty much assume we're going to be at war sooner or later, so why give them any advantage?

I am not saying that to say you didn't have your own way of seeing things, but - IMO - you pretty much guaranteed hostilities between us when you went there. The "you're a liar who had no interest in actual discussions" message after Spring 01 pretty much sealed the deal - not only was it untrue that I was totally inflexible on the issue - just that you had failed to put forward a compelling argument why I should *not* do so, that was more effective than "I don't like", it *seriously* pissed me off. Whatever your *intent* was, I pretty much wrote off any chance of working with you long term at that moment, and while I continued discussions with you, I was totally uninterested in doing anything but using you past that. Your statement became a self fulfilling prophesy: our relationship had no future.

The second half of what I originally posted, recreating from memory:

***

Oh, and Italy posted some 'don't have metagame alliances' comment in the main channel, but kept claiming he didn't have a specific reason for this. This just ticked me off, as his primary threat at that moment was *me*, and even implying I'm a cheating scumball is a great way to tick me off. I will cheerfully perjure my soul in the game, but I take my meatspace honor seriously, and throwing forward absurd politician-level ad hominem attacks is another great way to guarantee my ire. So I had a second enemy who I vowed would have to go to the wall - and if that left me open to an England stab, that was because his diplomatic skills were better.

We then had the whole Austria fiasco. I felt the arguments that the game was 'ruined' lacked merit - but I was also not a neighbor to Austria. The kicker, frankly, was that I didn't want to listen to the whining of those players who would bitch that the game was 'unfair' when they were eliminated later - it's a crock, but you *know* one of them would have tried to justify his or her loss by any means necessary, and Austria was a dandy scapegoat. I was pretty disillusioned by the time the whole thing cropped up - I felt that everyone was so focused on how big the pot was or the GR bump or *whatever* that there were more fixated on winning than having a good time. The only person I had a decent relationship with was England, and that was because neither of us seemed so freaked out about the horror, horror of possibly losing, and hence we were able to keep bantering without trying to manipulate the other with every single freaking message.

As for Turkey's comment that he didn't feel I was feeding him useful info - alliances work both ways, and neither you nor Russia were exactly forthcoming with data in return unless I pressed you. I didn't feel any allegiance to you because I received none in return, so, yup, started censoring what I was sending. Whether it was you (and R's) intent to use me or if you're just naturally closed-mouth, I pretty much wrote off working with you guys at the end of 1901.

Well just to address that statement... I was one of the players to vote to end the game. But this was not from a fear of loss, but rather because I felt the tenor of the game had turned rather poisonous. Not that I expect Diplo games to be a love in, but it felt like there was a lot of anger in there that I didn't want any part of.

@Dave - agreed to that; what I've yet to gather is why everyone got so pissy

@MM - I think we must agree to disagree vis a vis identity speculation. I used the speculation to foster mistrust between my enemies and create confusion where I saw none. I'm sure you've played diplomacy to agree that this is dirty, but fair. I've played ftf games in which one player has repeatedly bought his neighbor drinks so that he will be too drunk to see the stab coming; another game I played I had a deal with an ally to distract a mutual acquaintance with the offer of a cigarette break while the others plotted behind his back. I think such things are fun, and if you don't, then we can agree to disagree. Other players (such as The Czech) will vouch that I guess identities sometimes. I don't do it all the time, because then it'll be obvious who I am. But when there's scope for it, sure.

strat, I merely asked you to do what you said you would do, on behalf of "the people", regardless of my personal views and regardless of my own desire. I find no connection between you refusing to do what you said you would do (based on my views), and with me being a hypocrite, and I still don't. Just because I encourage you to do what you said you would do, even if I would not do what you said you would do (which I ultimately did what you said you would do), that does not make me a hypocrite, it just makes me someone that is willing to point out that you decided not to do what you said you would do (even if you ultimately did it). It's as simple as that! :-P

FTR - The way in which you took my reaction to you dictating that you would support an attack on Burg, is exactly how I took you initially dictating to me that you would support yourself into Burg. So, I maintain my claim that my stance on the topic was merely a mirror image of your stance, that I reacted to you, not the other way around. This clearly ended the game for me, as it turns out, and I hope to not make that exact mistake in future games, but I was 100% positive in my gut feeling that you were dictating our relationship to me by "informing" me of what you would be doing rather than approaching me to discuss the issue. Hmmm, I bet we could go round 'n' round like this for days, as we proved in the game! :-)

*played enough diplomacy

@strat - regarding "everyone [getting] so pissy," I think Italy was one of the most vocal against continuing the game...he requested that I "respectfully" consider canceling. I still don't understand why, so will the real Italy please stand up?

@ava - Yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree, I do think that is dirty, but perhaps just because I am unable to take my game to that level and perhaps a bit jealous of your skill level.

Ok, I can't decide whether to be burned or scalded by that last comment!

After further consideration, I would like to throw out the idea of restarting the game. DaveH and ava have both said they'd consider the idea. Babak will consider it, but is unwilling to officially say if he joins or not as he doesn't want others to know he is in (which is the exact stance I'd like to take, but it is tricky when you start the game).

BUT, here's the condition I'd like EVERYONE to agree to: There will be no discussing anyone's identity in any capacity within the game, period. It would obviously require an honor system and I would hope that if the likes of ava did agree to this before the game, that that person would not be lying and start discussing identities within the game, so it would ultimately come down to the honor system and showing me a bit of respect personally (regardless of if I've earned it or not).

ava, what do you say, do you want to try again and agree to not discuss identities within the game?!

@MM - as I said, I'm kinda pissy right now, so I'm unconsciously looking for a reason to fight. I'm *aware* of them, am doing my best not to lash out at people, but I'm not really succeeding, and am pretty much interpreting anything over the last day or so in the worst way possible. So, I'll just say 'sorry' and leave it at that, as trying to discuss the whys and wherefores is just going to end badly.

We *could* go around for days related to our initial diplomacy, but I think we're in agreement on the core issues - we both thought the other was out to get us, and that fed everything. Discussing what-may-have beens is kinda irrelevant IMO, and I think the core (from my point of view) is that you pretty much threw down the gauntlet when you threatened war, and I didn't have a compelling reason not to pick it up - especially given your disastrous opening. There was no reservoir of goodwill between us to motivate me to try to help you, so I did not.

@MM - I never said anything about considering a restart :P

But if the restarted game began this weekend, and I somehow found my way into it, then, yes, I'd follow the guidelines provided they had been explicitly stated by you, the game creator, as conditions to be followed in game.

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?newsendtothread=645562&viewthread=645562#postbox

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=40604

By joining you agree to not discuss who is who in the game.

password: mustbeanon

@strat - No worries, we're all good, at least in my book! One of the things I love about diplomacy is the fascinating way we all respond to unique situations, it's often very exciting and unexpected and even crazy. The most random and/or insignificant word from one person's point of view can illicit a truly frightening response, the variations being limitless. Big pot games can add a whole new dimension to the Madness, but it is not for everyone. I'm not sure I like big pot games, but like roller coasters, even my fear of heights cannot keep me from experiencing the unique adrenaline rush.

Next time one of you guys want to start a high stakes game, PM me with the ID and I'll be happy to post it for you, thereby keeping it completely anonmymous seeing as I will never have the points to play in them.

Heh. I should post a 1500 point PW protected game that only have the PW for, just to throw everyone off if they look at my point total