Centurian is correct. Draws score equally for all participants.

Why was this game drawn? It looks like it wasn't completed...

People tend to draw so that they can ensure they get points.

Stupid!

Yea, drawn must be only when there is no possibility to win. Generaly stalemates.

I was in this game and it was drawn for several reasons:

1. F-G formed a fast and solid alliance whose goal was to sweep the board.
2. To counter that it forced a Grand Alliance of everyone else because the F=G moved so fast towards the East. That meant that we needed all of us to form a stalemate line and stop them. That took A=I=T=R. There was no incentive for the Grand Alliance to break since the F-G were on our borders and so much as a single blink would have resulted in the loss of the line and the eventual grinding down to elimination of everyone.
3. France made it very clear he was playing for points.
4. A Grand Alliance so formed tends to have an emotional commitment which derives some of its strength from the pressure of the aggressive pair making the denial of their goals an achievement in itself for the smaller allies. As the single largest power in the Grand Alliance I certainly liked the idea of forcing a 6 way draw on the F= G pair because France was so intensely opposed to it.
4. The perception of the scoring system for the TOURNAMENT s that you get points as follows:
For the Draw 34/6 or 5.66 PLUS 1 point for every center therefore
France secured 17 points for the game.
5. France was very frustrated with the situation and had some nibbling away at the Germans first supposedly as a result of a German failure to do a stand off and then when Germany missed his orders and wound up losing Munich temporarily.
6. The French decided to accept the draw for public reasons that he was a little burned out and over committed.
7. It became more fun to force a large draw than it would have been to whittle down the draw size for points, which were meaningless to most of the players in the Grand Alliance but only important to the aggressive pair.

The lessons for this game was really a text book set of cases on how alliances that are perceived to be unbreakable, cause their own demise when players are active as the rest of board unites to stop them and form a stalemate line. Face to Face players of high levels of experience see this all the time.
Players get away with the Lock Step alliance structure in PBeM because of the high number of NMR's, Drops and the difficulty in getting a Grand Alliance together to stop them in the PBeM environment.
Quite frankly I have seen quite a bit of pouting on issue in a few games where a Grand Alliance was formed and the aggressive pair thinks it is unfair or boring or whatever but they all usually fail to see their role in creating their own doom.
The lesson being that even if you have a locked alliance,
1. you do not want everyone to know it
2. you do not want to appear so overwhelming in force that everyone scrambles to stop the alliance at a stalemate line as they know the alternative is being ground into dirt and eliminated (remember that here we have a KILL system for draws.
3. there is a need for subtle balance in playing the other players to make the formation of a Grand Alliance difficult if not impossible to make.

Indeed. One of the best games I participated in was the best because the initial alliance was beat back down by a grand alliance only to have the pressure shift on to a new leader. The shifting continued until an argument caused the downfall of one side and a single victor was proclaimed. It was perhaps one of the most active games I participated in and it was much fun.

I always have a great time organizing a grand alliance though it can get tense, especially where time is of the essence and some deal of luck is required to pull it off. For example, in one of the league games I was on the way to organizing four countries to mobilize a desperate stalemate line against two countries who had somehow managed to get the majority of centres without much resistance. It would have been a worthy six way draw having overcome the odds, but the pair turned against each other and now the game has essentially begun again!

2 cents from Italy

Being a person who kindof dislikes premature draws, I was somehwhat out of character this game, and was constantly trying to think of ways out of the situation.

Unfortunately however, in a balance of risks (as Edi poins out) the Franco-Germans could much more easily betray the betryees of the `Grand Alliance`.

I, in particular, felt somewhat stressed out due to the immense and disconcerting presence of Austrian and Turkish units.

In creating his defensive line, Edi caused a betrayel of our alliance to be difficult for both sides. This reflect Edi`s important role in creating an environment very receptive to drawing.

That said, the Grand Alliance was not as secure as Edi makes it out to be. Madmarx and figlesquidge did have it in thier power to break us apart, and both Turkey and I (at least in correspondence) contemplated breaking out of the alliance structure.

The game was decided on personality as much as anything else. (In my opinion)

Personally, I spent far too much time worrying about risking position and am not particularly proud of the general result, but I stand by my conservative playing.

Oh, and apologies to those who tried to talk to me in the last two turns. I was somewhat MIA and my account was temporarily babysat (Madmarx and Ghostmaker in particular)

Oh man! I just looked at the game that was drawn. When the GFDT game seedings were done I looked through the rest and I thought this game had the toughest competition and I was interested in seeing how it came through. Needless to say, a six way draw was not expected... yet in a way... it was expected...

I'm flattered Chris.

Since we seem to be doing EOG statements, here's mine:

The game started at an unfortunate time for me, so my opening negotiations were slim, and my forethought rather slimmer. Given that this was the first time I was playing Turkey, this lead to a bad start (I attacked Russia, only to be stabbed by Austria and Italy too. I was pushed down to just two fleets, with Italy in Smryna, but had some alliance with Austria. Austria looked to large for my good, so I allied with Italy, such that he would attack Greece, and I would get Smyrna back. Russia was also happy with attacking Austria because he was so large. Then, not so long after, Tunis was taken by France, and that was a real trigger for the Grand Alliance, which then quickly formed.

The Grand alliance then quickly brought F-G to a halt, and the draw came after (Edi got a unit in Burgundy, which probably prompted the draw).

As for my planning to attack Austria, I ideally wanted to get three things:

1. Italy on-side. This wasn't quite there yet due to the babysitting.
2. Russia on-side. This had happened.
3. "Loan" of Tunis. This was the least likely, and not totally necessary.

I would've withdrawn my draw vote had it been possible (the grand alliance all voted for a draw early on, to apply pressure) but that would have made what I was doing quite clear.

Toughest competition huh? Good thing I was there to dumb things down a bit :P

Being sandwiched between Edi Birsan and MadMarx is... interesting.

"That said, the Grand Alliance was not as secure as Edi makes it out to be. Madmarx and figlesquidge did have it in thier power to break us apart, and both Turkey and I (at least in correspondence) contemplated breaking out of the alliance structure."

Tis true, we tried. Unfortunately I made a mistake when the game was unpaused after Christmas and missed a turn. Had I not I agree we were on the brink of breaking through the stalemate. Sadly, after the uncharacteristic error (I don't normally miss turns!) France understandably lost faith, and although the situation was retrievable went for the quick stab. Having made partial progress, but with an Austrian unit behind lines, he approached me with further suggestions, including the draw. As the grand alliance had forgotten to remove their draw requests I agreed and we rushed through the draw before any other player could remove their say.

Oh, and Ghost - I don't know what France actually felt, but we were seriously considering the loan of Tunis for you!

haha, well, we thought France's 'stab' was likely feigned when we first saw it.

The real catalyst for potential stabbage was Edi's expansion and breakthrough into Burgundy.

You and MadMarx probably could have easily broken up the alliance at that point, wehn you were realistically vulnerable.

But all of this is idle speculation.

Speculation is always the fun part of the game and why in social games the talk at the bar or coffee shop is often funnier than the game itself.

There was and always will be great temptations in any Grand Alliance, it is a matter of focus and using all the techniques allowed by the setting (in this case the whole public draw technique was a critical factor).

Glad to see...errr read... that there was that flexibility, remember that one of the important things about forming a Grand Alliance is that you must reinforce the concept that the opposition is a Locked Pair.

Yeah, Edi's probably glad that the draw happened when it did now.