i'll bite. EoG to come

I feel like you overreacted, ssorenn. There was almost 0% chance of me soloing.

i know that, italy would not have let you

Then why the draw? Just because I was thinking over a sequence that would lead to an unlikely event doesn't mean you should end it. I figured I could get Munich protection from Berlin and then move into a more comfortable position.

i told you why, and if you did not want draw you should not have put yours up

Dude, I didn't even respond to your last remark.

when you a 10 sc France and im a 10 sc Austria, and were going to kill a 3 sc Germany, you dont need an entire turn to think about your builds, and if you think i dont know you were talking to Italy, your sadly mistaken-- the only thing could be aspirations of solo

I'm going to reference an ongoing game. Please don't read too much into it or ask me questions about that game, it's just a useful comparison. What I say I feel is objective to an observer.

Like every game where I'm not Turkey, my first and only goal was to make sure to eliminate Turkey. I've played too many games as an Italy or Austria where Turkey doesn't get eliminated and thusly around 5 years later completely destroys everything, read: me, in it's path. That was the number one goal.

Austria was on-board and a-Lepanto-ing we go. 1901 is off to a great start and then out of nowhere Austria gets three build. Three builds for Austria? He managed to sneak into Warsaw somehow. In the mean time we have a full fledged anti-England Sea Lion going on so I don't have to worry about France quite yet. Little to no friendliness between R and T mean we clean up pretty well along the Balkans/Turkey.

Spring 1903: I get SMY with AUS suport. I also move TUN-NAF for the lulz. I shouldn't have done that because now I can't follow it up with an additional convoy. Lesson to all y'all out there: sometimes holding is boring but don't just do random moves for the lulz.

Autumn 1903: I'm a bit nervous based on Austrian press. I'm just getting my 5th center and he's getting his 6th and 7th. I thought I asked for support to CON, but I don't feel like it's coming. Turkey comes to me and asks for support BUL-GRE. I call an audible and take ANK instead of moving CON and give the support. I've successfully done this before where you just stab both sides and use the stab to the loser as an excuse to the winner. For what it's worth ssorenn, I honestly thought you were gonna give me support to CON so when it didn't happen I felt completely justified. Someday webDip will have a message archive that doesn't make me hate life and I'll see what was specifically said.

Now I get two builds and I do some damage control with Austria. My builds make it fairly obvious I'm still with him and France is still trying to finish England. In this game the Sea Lion doesn't go balls to the wall on England in order to also take a bit out of Russia, so that's still going on. This means I'm fairly comfortable and can finish CON, get some good relations with Germany and Austria going, and move west. I somewhat successfully move west, but Austria gets both MOS and RUM, and while I'm assured ANK next turn, he gets two builds to put him at 9 and I'm still at 6, all of which are way far from my home centers.

A bit of a shit storm ensues.

I ask, and then tell, Austria not to build because if we're allies we should stay relatively close in unit number and that they'd basically only be used against me.

He then tells me that he has to protect his home centers, and how dare I not let him do that.

And I'm like...what?! Building next to my completely empty home centers "defensively" seems incredibly hypocritical and a blatant lie.

There's some more reasons I don't find any credence with and a lot of yelling. I mute him. AUS makes a final declaration that no one gets to tell him what and whether to build and he is going to build a fleet and it's final.

It's funny and worrying at the same time but whatever it's just a game. I rush back while convincing Russia and Turkey that after stabbing/attacking them over and over it's all in the past and we have to stop the Austrian solo threat.

After a phase or two I unmute him and start talking to him again. I don't remember exactly how, but especially with France getting big we patch things with a lot of press.

I give him a list of demands:
I get VEN and ANK
He stays in GRE/TRI with his fleets.
He pulls any funny business and I throw the game to France (very easy for me to make sure France gets Tunis as an 18th, very hard for Austria right now to get past the stalemate line or stop me from holding TUN till France gets there)

He agrees.

I stab Turkey one last time (<3) and take VEN back. France is getting super big and now it's just a question of whether we bother to cut out Germany. Because of various reasons tensions are very high between everyone, and the stress of playing Peace Maker between the two solo threats and, if I may, forceful personalities, that is France and Austria, I'm ok with letting it be a 4-way draw. Austria relents.

I'd like to say I played "sitting on the stalemate line as Italy" perfectly, but that's nothing to be proud of.

whoops, forget that first disclaimer. I decided against talking about the ongoing game even with the disclaimer due to some divine justice I've received before.

Vashta, can you teach me how you instill so much fear in ssorenn? He never takes me seriously when I'm about to solo : (

I'm pretty sure it wasn't Vashta who put the fear in ssorenn...that was my job.
Instilling anger in ssorenn? Vashta's got a tenured position at Harvard for that.

There's been a lot of talk about press lately. This game taught me an immense amount about press and specifically how to tailor it to various people. Press with Vashta and press with ssorenn is *VASTLY* different. I put a huge amount of effort figuring out how to talk to ssorenn in a way he responded positively to. It was when he just unilaterally decided to build F TRI I realized something needed to be different.

An alliance can be salvaged and/or destroyed by how one decides to, or not to, change their press style to fit their partner.

I will concur that I don't make ssorenn fear me so much as I have an ability to piss him off.

Valis you can stroke my hair anyday

that may be the most correct thing ive ever heard from Vashta

Disclaimer----I like Vashta, i just think hes a complete ass in game

@Abge, do you really think anyone takes you seriously when you talk about your solo efforts

Vashta pulled some very questionable moves, like holding up builds to talk to me a bunch about them only to throw it in my face and building more fleets.

Fun fact: I got Germany to promise to hit SIL so that France could re-arrange his continental armies to actually hold MUN. If Austria got MUN and I left all the Ankara Crescent unguarded to complete the 6-unit southern stalemate line, Austria may have been tempted to go for the solo, especially if the game wasn't such a drag. I think we had a really long pause at some point or something?

I have a sporadic press style, this is true. However, it is apparently good enough to keep me from dying most of the time.

Hey! It'll happen one of these days!

Yeah, when I become a mod.

if you want ill post my first half of game EoG as Valis covered the end well

abge has become a mod more times than you've won a game of Diplomacy Vashta ;)

ssorenn, if it's not too much trouble, I'd love to hear your whole story even with overlap

well ill do it in halfs then

also despite the inference, Beaumont, Your Humble Narrator, and DeathLlama9 were in no way Monsters and very pleasant to play with.

IIm Austria, in 1901, i got decent press from Turkey and Russia, yet i wanted the italian as my ally, because there was a CT forming. Because of the good re pour i started with both Russia and turkey, i pitted their moves against each other under the guise i would help them both. The Russia decided to split forces which meant no Warsaw move to galicia, and with that i offered the turk rumania. By fall i was in galicia and had guaranteed myself to be five build. the Russian was pissed i was in galicia after breaking DMZ(i would have been too) but i offered support to rumania so he could bounce the turk in BLA. i also offered the turk rumania so he would not try to bounce Greece. At the same time, i got the Italian to set up lepanto.
, the Russian and turk bounce in rumania and instead of bounce in BLA the Russian made a move to Armenia as an offensive move against the turk. instead of supporting the Russian to rumania with galicia, i took Warsaw to start as a 6 sc Austria and war has broke out between turkey and Russia---i was licking my chops---Russia a 4sc and the turk trapped in the corner......the German is moving over the top of russia and all is well. the only problem was the F/G alliance forming--England falls quick, the Russian in shambles and the turk stuck in corner with italy in lepanto position
I start working on sowing the seeds of doubt between Germany and France, and Italy has taken most of turkey, which was my offer to keep growth equal. as i wanted the Italian ally, i was always looking for the opportunity to stab, in agreeing to let italy have all of turkey, i knew id have his forces split and an opportunity might present itself, if nothing else i had an ally that got what was discussed. Then when the final nails were to be put to turkey and Russia, the Italian seemed weird and had asked for something strangely. I decided not to offer support and it worked to my favor, and if i had supported, i would have gotten screwed and the turk would have gotten life. Now i was pissed at my ally and he had to pay, but with the french getting too strong cooler heads had to prevail. we worked it out and i sent the Italian after France.

My favorite part was when I was ssorenn "sent [me] after France" like an errand boy!
<eagerly awaits part 2>

Desperately tried to avert Lepanto.
Got Lepanto'd.
Gg

As someone who was dead from the get go, this game was purgatory. The pauses, vash not locking in, ssorenn being angry all the time, this interminable write up...Thank you for finishing this game.
That said, if you boys wanna play again, I'm in, just hope not to get sacked.

This is my 1st attempt at writing an EOGA.

Pregame chatting has Russia asking me to allow him to take Sweden and Austria proposing CT. France proposes WT vs SL. We both decide to pursue SL. Then France says no to SL, then goes back to it. In the end the SL is the plan.
Spr 01 – standard openings all around
Fall 01 – Continued to SL England by a move into Nth Sea with help of France. I allowed Russia into Sweden knowing that he was moving Warsaw to Ukr to Rum and having tipped off Austria that that move by Russia was coming, I figured Austria would take Warsaw and Russia would have essentially split his forces. Austria pulls of a 3 build 01, which has everyone concerned. Austria and Germany maintain talks of an alliance.
Build – Austria builds 3 armies, making me nervous but states they all will move away from Germany. I build F Kiel and A Berlin. I wanted to build A Munich after Austria got 3 SCs yr 1, but France, Italy and Russia all asked me to build in Berlin. So I acquiesced, figuring I could move it to Munich if I needed to.
Spring 02 – France was unwilling to tell me exactly what he was going to do in the assault on the islands for fear I would leak it to England, but said he didn’t need my help. Offered to support Russia into Norway so that I could take Sweden. Russia declined saying he would prefer to bounce Norway. So I ordered support into Norway from Sweden anyway and moved my fleet into Baltic with the plan to take all of Scandinavia and to start to come over the top into Russia. I also moved to Berlin to Munich because I was nervous about Austrian and Italian armies. This was maybe a mistake because it provoked strong messages from France and Austria, perhaps sowing seeds of mistrust mostly on the part of France. But in messages to each country I blamed the move on the other country.
Fall 02 – Took Norway with Sweden and began setup to move into StP. Self-bounced in Ruhr to appease France’s concerns about the Munich unit. At this point the plan is to continue an over-the-top assault on Russia and stab France be swinging under Switzerland. (Tyr to Pie to Mars). Run the plan by Italy and Austria to get their OK and they veto the idea. They were not comfy with me moving two units adjacent to their home SCs (for obvious reasons). So I scrap that plan.
Build – Built a fleet and army Kiel and Berlin, respectively, assuming the SL is still on.
Spring 03 – Agree to support France into London, continue moves to come over the top in Russia (Sweden to Finland and Berlin to Prussia).
Fall 03 – Get bounced in StP because of miscommunication with Austria about support cutting. Managed to get into position in Nth S and Nwg S to take Edi in Spring. Italy starts working with Turkey and also asks me to move against Austria with him. I was not totally excited by the idea at the time as I was thinking of how I would have to fight France in about a year. Did not want 2 front war.
Build – No build :(
Spring 04 – This is where things start to go downhill. France stabs me by offering to cut support so I can get into Edi, but in fact takes Nth S from me (I will never regain it). Simultaneously Italy makes a move towards the south of France. On the upside I am able to take StP with Austria’s help. France and I discuss his stab and he says that the stab was unfortunate for him given Italy’s unanticipated moves and states that he would like to get back to working together. I offer two options: first, disentangle ourselves and work together or second fight. He states he’d rather go disentangle. Unfortunately I believe him. France also convinces England to work with him in return for being kept alive.
Fall 04 – France does not keep his word on the plan for disentanglement and instead takes Holland. I help Austria take Moscow to contain the Russians away from my border with them so that I can focus west. At this point Austria asks me if I would go against Italy and mend fences with France to work toward an F/A/G draw. At the same time Italy asks me if France and I would help against Austria for an F/I/G draw. I reach out to France to see if he is interested in peace (again) and working against Italy or Austria. France seems open to peace and would prefer to side with Italy. France assures me he will not attack me. I don’t believe him this time and I decided to stick with Austria who had been a straight shooter of an ally for the game thus far.
Build – Disband F Barents >:(
Spring 05 – I support Austria into Tyr after he agrees to make it available to support Munich and I send my Livonia unit west to help shore up homeland defenses against France. France takes Ruhr, and assists England back to Edi. Austria and Italy start to fight on the Italian peninsula. Italy writes stern note about my siding with Austria. I message back that his anger would be more accurately directed at France for going back on his word a third time in the game.
Fall 05 – Continued decline to France who adeptly got into a position of advantage on me. Lost Munich. Russia and Turkey fall.
Build – Disband F StP >:( Decided to disband in such a way as to keep maximal defensive effort on France even though StP SC was essentially undefended against Austria should he want it.
Spring 06 – England has been leaking to me what France has been asking him to do for the last couple of turns with the hope we could turn around at some point. Says France has asked for support into Nth S from ENG. I predicted France would move to SKA to threaten both Den as well as both Nor and Swe. I guessed wrong and France took HEL, spelling the ultimate doom for me.
Fall 06 – France takes Nwg S from NAO and also gets Kiel. I retreated to Barents to at least hope to bounce in StP.
Build – Disband F SKA >:(
Spring 07 – Lose Denmark and Austria finally takes the open StP
Fall 07 – Managed to hold my last 3 SC, failed to take back Munich (was hoping for some Austrian assistance but didn’t appear). England got eliminated.
Build – Disband F Barents >:( and Draw declared before Spring moves. I would have cut Silesia support into Munich to keep Austria from breaking through stalemate line and try to keep in the draw.

My mistakes:
1. Trusted France after he stabbed me.
2. Should have pressed harder for Austria and Italy to let me move under Switzerland to attack France, or just done it, as at the time they could not have stopped the initial move.
3. Allowing my press to wane as I started losing ground against France
My good moves:
1. Keeping Austria as an ally through the game (i.e. not turning on Austria)
2. The move against Russia to take Scandinavia and StP. Without those SCs I would not have survived.

Overall impression: I enjoyed the game a lot and would play with any of you again in a heartbeat. This is the first game where I've played against opponents with a high level of skill who I could not count on to make bonehead plays or reap benefit from NMRs. Also the press in this game was significantly better than in other “non-password” games I've been able to get into. I learned quickly not to take things said at face value, but rather to try to understand the motive behind statements in press (or, to quote Cicero, ask: Cui bono?).

Any feedback on my game play is welcome, and if you are kind enough to provide it be frank, I have thick skin.

bump for awesome EOGs and Austria Part 2

Assuming ssorenn and vashta are still interested, or would they rather not give away all their secrets when we are playing in the leagues?

ill finish, i promised

Le Bumpeau

bump for French Vashta and Hungarian ssorenn.

I'm not writing anymore unless Vashta chimes in

we're doooooooooooooooooomed

Vashta pls