Okay, made it through A01, need to bail and get to work.
First of all, I very much do not appreciate the way redhouse presented Turkish-Italian relations. Where he wasn't grossly exaggerating my motivations/behaviors/etc. (which was most of the time) he was leaving out crucial information that mattered quite a lot to how one might perceive what I was doing. This information would paint a much more understandable light.
S01:
So it's just my luck that right as the game starts and everyone sends messages (this can be verified by everyone, game started very quick diplomatically), I get angry depressed texts from my ex-girlfriend while I'm working on an assignment due in an hour. Literally the first message in global and perhaps the first message sent in the game - anyone want to verify this? - is:
"oh shitttttttt
will send out press in a little while, need to quit screwing around, finish an assignment and make a phone call. cheers!"
So first of all, redhouse's redaction of this message rather greatly misconstrues everything about my opening actions. As it turned out, I missed class, even, because aforesaid ex was extremely depressed and I knew I needed to help her out, and consequently the first hour or two of the game was spent being unable to type anything of value. (Seriously, try typing in one hand and focusing on what you're writing while paying attention to a friend in need and holding a cell phone. Good luck.) And, interestingly enough, Italy actually *didn't* message me right off the bat. Indeed, in the time that he was busily writing away to Austria and apparently taking initiative and making big plans with him, he couldn't find the time to drop a single line during the JOKES (seriously, "hormone bomb"? get real, if you thought that was remotely serious) I was typing with one hand and maybe a 20th of my already-puny brain at the ready.
So needless to say, when I eventually get:
"Hello Turkey,
A good game to you! May our nations prosper!
If you have any ideas for a fruitful collaboration, I'd be very happy to hear them.
Regards,
The Italian King"
...with orders finalized, I'm already thinking that I can basically not trust Italy, but I go ahead and give the benefit of the doubt and write anyway (not that I wouldn't have otherwise). I did type out "I'd like to see you not run a Lepanto - whether you then choose to attack Austria or France is your call, as I can ally with either Russia or Austria respectively in either circumstance, but a Lepanto will not do." as an opening message, which I felt was a good baseline for starting talks. I thought about it and decided that if he was going to be brazen enough to send me a half-baked "you know how to contact me" message for his only communication *and* finalize that if we were ever going to have fruitful discussion, that was going to need to change. So I added in "You want ideas for fruitful collaboration, but you finalize orders before I reply to you... not looking good, my friend." Which, in retrospect, probably carried a slightly more commanding tone than I meant. Still, it seemed like an appropriate level of "serious" tone, to shift a switch from playtime in the Global chat, and the start of real negotiations; and I hoped that laying down a baseline as I did would be sufficient to get the talks going in earnest.
Instead I get, to his credit, an apology, though immediately after that there was this gem:
"Now, of course, if you would have taken the time to send me a message on your ideas on the game, rather than to clog the Global press with the many activities you employ unrelated to this game, perhaps we could have made a more expedient start: not looking good, my friend."
...as though (a) obvious jokes in global were not jokes; and (b) he had messaged me about my ideas on the game.
Now, the way I see it, you've got two kinds of players in terms of opening negotiations. There's the aggressive go-get-er type, I try to be that, who makes a strong effort to message people first, lay down concrete proposals from the get-go and get rolling. I didn't get to be the first messager for a lot of players here, but when I did message, I made sure to stick to that idea. The other kind is a more conservative let-them-come type, who sounds out people with basic opening messages, hears what others are planning and works with that. Not my style, but it works.
What *doesn't* work, in my opinion, is playing a conservative opening tack, but then messages you first and, when you do anything but reply to them straight away, takes offense that you didn't pursue the aggressive opening tack that their opening tack is designed to handle. That, in my mind, is a rather entitled mentality - if you're not going to bother to make any proposals, how do you have the moral high ground to criticize me for not doing the same as quickly as you wanted? - and was an immediate turn-off. Combined with the initial finalization I knew he had to have something up his sleeve, and since Austria had also finalized within the first hour or so of the game and sent an even shorter opening message ("Greetings Sultan, what are your plans for the Balkans?"), my guess was that it was Austria.
So, to reiterate, within the first 2 hours of the game, Italy and Austria had already finalized, their opening messages combined for maybe 50 words at most, and Italy had already presumed offense by ignoring the only important thing I said in global (essentially "hey guys, I'm busy atm, will respond soon, here's some stupid lulz to entertain you in the meantime") and construing nonexistent offensive intent out of literally nothing significant.
And apparently, with the game having ended several days ago, time for everyone to cool heads and reflect on the picture, Italy still doesn't get why I wouldn't be dismissive of him as a partner for collaboration.
Thankfully there was Russia. Russia, too, played the conservative tack, like A and I. The difference is that unlike A and I, he actually waited to hear what we could do together before finalizing. That just about forced me into his arms from the start; though again, Italy did unfinalize, it was clear from about the start that our personalities were not matching, and as Austria never unfinalized, it was clear they still had something good going, so his reluctance to conduct serious diplomacy with me combined with the personality dissonance left me with one option. Keep in mind, people, we're maybe 3 hours into the game by now. That's not a good thing.
So Russia and I establish early rapport. I also sounded out the Western powers for some ideas; recommended to France that he seek a Western Triple, recommended to E&G that they ally. Ah, if only... actually, no, that would have probably sealed my fate at A-I's hands quicker. In any case, F&G didn't go for it at all, though admittedly I didn't try very hard there because I was expending most of my energy figuring out how to salvage the home front. Which, of course, was failing. I reiterated to Italy why I was busy, told him more sternly that equating the two "offenses" was absolute bogus, and since I knew he and Austria were tight, I went ahead and suggested a Mediterranean Triple. That way, maybe I could worm my way into their deal and have an option besides Juggernauting. Response: "You're certainly charming your way right into that AIT... ;-)" Finalize. Okay, time to stop giving a shit about Italian relations, this is going less than nowhere and 24 hours isn't a lot of time. I wait to hear back from Austria, keep establishing good rapport with Russia, and then when Austria does write back, he says he's going to blitz Venice.
Not bad! I write back expressing my gratitude for that, since Italy had already proven himself utterly incapable of working with me, and if A-I fought with *Austria* initiating then the Juggernaut I was basically sold on trying would roll pretty smoothly. Offhandedly I mention that "there's a rumor abound" (hah) that Austria is going to Tri/ADS the first turn. Russia says he hasn't heard anything of the sort, and I figured one of them was lying and it was probably Austria. Having already been incredibly irritated by the Italian half of that duo, and now facing the likely prospect that Austria was lying to me as well, I pressed him hard about lying to me or to Russia. Austria denied lying to either of us ("plans changed" after he talked to Russia), so I ratcheted up the WT talk with France (no dice) and told Russia that I was firmly on his side in the face of the Lepanto. Finally heard back from England here (late to the party, which was probably why he got smacked the way he did), and he was rather worried about F-G. Prescient! I wished him well (not much to do, F&G both said "nope" to WT/E+G, respectively) and hoped for the best.
A01:
Well, turns out Austria was lying to... Russia! This is reflected in Russia's EOG, so I'm glad to see intuition succeeded. I apologized profusely to Austria, though, as I figured he was telling the truth to me, and felt like an asshole for pressing hard on something relatively minor that didn't turn out to be an event anyway.
...but then I thought about it, and I realized that that made no sense, he hadn't talked to me in the least, so why would he ally with me? And he wouldn't go to ADS if he were allied with Russia. No, he'd go for Greece to take Bulgaria in 02, no doubt about that. So that left a Blue Water. Unfortunately I realized I screwed myself a bit with the move Smy -> Con; that ended up preventing me from putting the fleet in Con in A01 and building F Smy, which I'd need to counteract the Blue Water. Absent that, I figured the right move was to bounce Black Sea - I trusted Russia the most, but in absolute terms I trusted him little, and didn't want to see F BLS while a BWL was running. Another tipoff during the phase was the fact that Austria asked me whether he should support Bulgaria to Greece or Rumania, then never said anything. To this day I have no clue if my pressing him about what turned out to be true re: ADS made him mad, or what, but he stopped conducting serious diplomacy during the crucial phases, and Italy was still basically ignoring me. In fact, records show 2 Turkish messages during the phase, 0 Italian messages.
England remained quite calm in the face of certain doom in 1901. I'd shared some concerns about a Sealion (just intuition speaking again), and I think I unintentionally built rapport when the Sealion panned out. Dunno if that mattered to England much but I got the sense he was a little more open to me, which was good, though we unfortunately never capitalized on any rapport we did build with direct military cooperation. France and Germany kept up the usual back-and-forth, which was nice.
A01 resolves and the Blue Water is on. Was pretty obvious, tbh, Russia and I had been talking about it for the vast majority of A01 diplomacy phase. Still hated being out of position, but no matter. F Smy build was plain as day. Juggernaut was on, though I didn't really trust Russia yet - it was less "I wanted to Juggernaut" and more "Austria and Italy wouldn't let me do anything else." Austria even sent another gem to confirm exactly what I felt, that he never took me seriously as an alliance prospect. Bear in mind this is in A01 builds.
"As Turkey I feel your only potential ally is Russia. It is nearly impossible to for Turkey and Austria to be allied long term. You wanted to have an army in Bul and Gre which only spells doom for Serbia and the rest of my home territories."
Boys and girls, men and women, listen up - this is one of my pet peeves. If you have a problem with working with me, DO NOT LIE TO ME ABOUT WHAT WE'RE DOING AND TELL ME YOU HAD A PROBLEM AFTER THE FACT. I deal with undergraduate students every day. The vast majority of them are immature, unreliable brats. This is the mentality they have toward everything, and nothing is more frustrating than having to turn in an assignment late because Bobby Frats over there didn't care about the project and got wasted the night before and didn't like what we were doing anything and thought I was stupid so there. I have enough of this shit irl. Do NOT bring it in-game with me.
Not that I needed any more reason, but that was the nail in the casket. Italy made it clear he didn't want to be allies, Austria made it clear he didn't want to be allies, Russia made it clear he was at least open to alliance. Is there any and I mean ANY wonder why I might have sided with him...?
The West carried out a Sealion as expected. I messaged France about him sending a fleet south to harass A-I and keep the East muddled. Thank you France for being mature and just outright declining instead of going "yeah okay sure" and then not doing it.
Hilarious misbuild with Naples, but I tried not to make a big deal out of it. Italy and Austria didn't, mindblowing really, but whatever.
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Happy ANZAC day holiday to those in NZ and Australia
were worth it.
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