Hey, remember way back when I said I'd write a brief EOG? Well, it turns out my desire not to do work was a lot stronger than expected. Feel free to ignore most of this.
The opening negotiations:
The first few hours of this game were unusually intense. There was a lot of information being thrown around, and I opened contact with every country but England almost instantly. My initial impressions were very positive towards France and Italy, mildly positive towards Germany and Turkey, and negative towards Austria (and England, kinda). F/G seemed very open to a Sealion, which I pushed for, so all was cool in the north and west as far as I was concerned. Italy and Austria clearly had something going, and I was a bit frustrated that I couldn’t find out exactly what it was but had to instead rely on assurances from them both that everything was cool. But I was content that Austria would maintain the GAL dmz, and bouncing Turkey in BLA + a move to UKR should ensure RUM.
The opening years:
Austria lies to me about his ’01 moves, for no apparent reason. His place on the naughty list is confirmed. Otherwise, I’m delighted with how things have gone. Turkey is faced with an obvious Lepanto (because apparently Austria didn’t sell his moves very well?), so he is ‘in my back pocket,’ so to speak. Everyone else has followed through with their promises, and France is in the channel. Groovy.
F/G follow through with the Sealion. Sweet. I’m given a nice out with England after the stab, since I can claim that I agreed to these moves before I got any message from him. This enables me to keep that relationship relatively intact. I waltz into RUM. Italy and Austria botch the Blue Water Lepanto (not sure what happened there), which hands me the initiative in the south. Italy has continued to be less communicative than I would like, in that he refuses to tell me his builds, even though we’re “allied” and it’s not really vital information. I don’t really appreciate the seemingly flawless alliance between A/I; it is not keeping me in the loop and seems unbreakable.
I’m gift wrapped another great excuse. Turkey and I suffer communication breakdown, enabling me to jump into BLA as I promised A/I and claim that it was not too anti-Turkish to Turkey. I don’t know if he bought it, but with the Lepanto underway he doesn’t really have a choice. I think I let England off the hook too easily. Seeing him held at 3 centers, and securing all of Scandinavia for myself, I start to push France to move on Germany and to foster G/F conflict, the idea being to keep them all in one big mess in the west while I pick up the pieces. But I underestimate England’s abilities, and in hindsight I should have waited to create that F/G conflict for another turn or so.
I gamble and decide to just go for it in the south with a convoy to ANK, support to SER, and move to GAL. Biggest move of the game, IMHO. But it looks pretty, and I think that there’s sufficient animosity between T/A, and their positions are so entangled, that I can get away with it. My plan is to support the other non-messed up power, Italy, against Austria/Turkey in order to cool off my expansion, since I know I’ll be facing a coalition soon. I’d also like to get France to a bigger sc count than me so that I can push people that way. The dual-assault serves my purpose of a) creating an imbalance between A/I and b) keeping my closest neighbors in disarray. But I’m banking on Italian aggression toward A/T -- at least one, preferably both.
The Middle Game:
Well, so much for that Italian support. I receive a message from him saying that he still will not move against Austria, at least not for a couple years. That timetable is way too slow for me. More damningly, he refuses my offer of support against Turkey, preferring to support me into Turkish territory. Well, I’m trying to slow down expansion, and this would completely overstretch my position. I suspect Italy knows this and is trying to pull me out too far so that he can swoop to T/A’s rescue and beat me back. I can’t win in the south without any ally at all, so I decide to patch things up with Turkey. That’s fine because he probably doesn’t have any other offers and I’ll always be the dominant partner – BLA is mine as long as I want it.
Turkey does well to resist my trying to push him into BUD. I want to spread out his forces and further entangle everything in the south. I gain a lot of respect for him as he tells me to shove it.
The biggest problem facing me was the emergence of the anti-Russian coalition I had feared. I thought I would have one more year before that came around. Darn. England was far more accommodating of that French fleet in the Channel than I hoped – I agreed to go after Germany on the mistaken assumption that F/E would be a bit less cozy together than they were; I thought E still needed a friend. The curse of being Russia – the big purple giant provoked a reaction I doubt an 8-center France would have. But this is the first phase where I don’t know everyone’s moves, so all things considered no complaints.
Germany’s a bit weird and doesn’t try to help England into Norway. Great, it gives me another turn to work on England, and I convince him to go after an unreliable Germany instead of me. I think that was the right call for us both. And jeez, I actually didn’t want VIE there, but Austria’s gone rogue and I just walk in. So much for trying to lose ground to France. Ideally I’d keep Austria around for a while longer to keep things dynamic, but he stops responding to my messages, so I can’t afford to keep him around. Support VEN-TRI. I had a sneaking suspicion that Italy would be bounced out of TYO, which I was ecstatic to see. Also nice to see the bounced disband in ALB, which again was unconfirmed but expected. Italy finally wants to cooperate, but it’s too late now. The position mandates a R/T. I can keep BLA on the pretense that I want to go into the Med (which I do).
On a side note, this is the first turn where I begin to suspect that F/E relations are much much too strong. England lets slip that he knows I’m going to KIE before I tell him. France must have told him. This is a problem. I redouble my efforts to get France to a) stay in the channel and b) stab England.
Ah, we see the anti-Juggernaut alliance. This is my first genuine shock of the game. I didn’t think it would come so quickly, what with my army having just left ANK. A credit to Italy, to be sure. Very impressive fear-mongering getting that alliance block formed so quickly. Germany is a bit irrational – it’s clear to all the world that he is a pawn of the F/E alliance, but he’s not having it. Frustrating. Still working on France to stab England but losing hope. Glad I went to NTH; this game could have been so much different had I lost ground in Scandinavia there. It was just a feeling that something was wrong from the press – turns out I was right.
G should have been supported to NOR, but there’s clearly a bit of dysfunction in the G/E relationship.
Italy is playing the rest of the board like a fiddle. Nice. But frustrating. Something has to change, i.e. I’ll have to stab Turkey soon, but I’ll let him get into Italy proper and really cram up their position first. I let him take VEN in spring. I hint to Italy that I might be willing to stab Turkey and thus get a bit of insight as to how that situation will play out. I gather that Turkey will have to either disband VEN or force a disband in APU. Either way, now’s the time to stab: before Turkey disbands and can rebuild in CON or after I/F lose a unit and Turkey is stuck with an army in Italy. And my excuses for not dmzing with Turkey have run out.
In the north, E/F are already talking about a 3-way draw. I don’t like that. Too soon. I understand why England would do that, but I think France could have been a bit more adventurous. In any case, I play along and agree in principle – hopefully that will earn me some breathing room before I start my solo-push proper. I expect that England will violate our agreement in Scandinavia, so I support myself back to SWE so as not to lose the fleet.
Going for the solo:
England’s stab is different than I expected; I personally would have tried to force the disband of the fleet. Funnily, I’m delighted that I lost STP; I can earn brownie points by letting E have it for a turn, it assuages fears of a solo for another turn, and it’s indefensible from England’s side. I play along with the 3-way for another turn while positioning myself to blitz Turkey and Scandinavia. Not building in MOS convinces E/F of my good intentions (I think), so the northern army leaves for HOL. The north is very vulnerable now. I’m getting builds to retake STP. England and I negotiate the transfer of KIE; I try to persuade him to let me have it for one more turn, but no dice. I’d rather wait one more turn before making a solo push, but he (wisely) won’t afford me that luxury, so I just go for it and trust to my tactical skills to get me over the line. I’m also pretty sure that one or two of T/I/G can be converted to my side. And the fact that there are so many players left, with so much entanglement between them, lets me think I have a very good shot.
Germany goes to RUH as asked. France takes VEN, Italy takes TRI as designed. That couldn’t have gone better. I/F will have coordination problems now. I think it was a mistake for Italy to disband TRI.
As expected/hoped, I win one of the 3 small powers over to my side. Turkey, with the infamous imagur incident. I think that’s been sufficiently covered elsewhere .
I hope to solo that turn, but Germany screws me over (again) by reneging on his promise to let me into MUN. Very frustrating, since of everyone he has the most reason to throw the game to me.
After Autumn ’08 I thought it was pretty clear that I was going to solo. I wonder if everyone else legitimately believed that they could stop me, or if it was just bluster?
A couple notes from the endgame:
1) It was legitimately mortifying when Germany did not move MUN-RUH as he promised in fall ’09. I’m confident 97% of players would have done so in that situation. I was trying to prep him for that move for ages, but he decided to go for a draw he was never going to get in on instead.
2) I don’t think it was a great idea to force the disband of the French fleet in APU. The Med was my main weakness, not the Austrian balloon Italy was fond of pointing out. In general, I think you could have been more aggressive in the eastern Med.
3) We seemed to have different goals in the north. I was mostly concerned with making sure none of my fleets were forced to disband, and that was what I played for until the last turn. The way I saw it, the “equilibrium position” of that endgame had me in SIL/BER/BOH/TYO(?), so it was going to revert to a classic stalemate line, the difference being that I would have fleets in HEL/SKA/DEN to break it.
4) I was very impressed with the fleet to KIE move. I didn’t anticipate that, and it gave you a good shot at holding the line.
5) Just in reference to Italy’s last comment in global, the last turn was fascinating tactically, probably the best tactical position I’ve ever seen, but I was pretty confident that I would win. The only moves that would have prevented the solo were BAL-BER supported by KIE and RUH s MUN. But even with that, I think I would have won on the next turn, since BER would have been indefensible.
All in all, a very fun game. I’m glad I went for the solo, because that really was a great endgame, and I’m not just saying that because I won.
Happy ANZAC day holiday to those in NZ and Australia
were worth it.
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