When the game started, I received a note from Germany and Italy jointly: they were going to bash France (or so they said) and they were proposing a non-aggression treaty. I said “yes” and turned my attention to Russia and Turkey as they both wanted to co-operate with me.

With 4 self-professing allies, I chose to act conservatively and see who would have been the one to hit me first. Turkey and I agreed on me getting Greece, which was a very good thing, given that Italy immediately tried to back-stab by moving in Tyrolia.

I was not sure whether Germany was allied with Italy against me or not, but it turned out that Italy was acting on his own, and Germany was co-operative in pushing him back within the boundaries of his country.

Italy ignored much of my diplomatic press, to finally answer by saying something like: “When I drew Italy I understood that I had no chance to win, and therefore for me is enough to bring you down with me in flames”. That was about the last time Italy wrote to me for the rest of the game.

The Italian refusal to play diplomacy... with diplomacy!, obliged me to a sort of gunboat game with him for the rest of the game, which was quite boring, also because France and Germany were busy with England and Russia in the north, and none of them was available to give me a hand with the Italian guy.

Meanwhile Russia totally screwed up and it appeared clearer and clearer that an alliance with Turkey was my only hope, as he was reinforcing every turn a bit more: I offered him my unconditioned alliance, including giving him some of my territories, if he did not want me to become as strong as him... but Turkey was answering only once in two or three messages, and never enough in advance to get a common strategy sorted out, although he did not play aggressively toward me.

However, despite the lack of support from France and Germany, and the lack of responsiveness from Turkey I somehow managed to position myself to give a severe blow to Italy in S04. I suspected Turkey would not have liked to have me growing that much stronger, so I offered him to take a territory of mines or even two, if he really couldn't refrain himself from doing so: at that point I was seriously investing all my energy in making that alliance work.

But that year Turkey made the mistake that IMO costed him the game: he not only took two of my territories, but he also disrupted my attack on Italy. While he got this way some sort of tactical advantage, strategically this was a disaster for him: France and England consolidated their truce and France arrived “en masse” in the Mediterranean, Russia attacked him too (somehow a futile move, but got Turkey off my back for a bit, which was nice), besides, my level of trust in Turkey plummeted to the ground and I began to think to other options.

In S07 it appeared clear that England and France were about to give Germany a hard blow, so I decided that my best bet was proposing myself as a third ally in the party. The final part of the game was interesting in that I needed to play ally with Turkey for as long as I could, if I wanted to get strong enough to be a “peer” in the alliance and minimise the risk France and England could consider a 2-way draw instead... Somehow I suffered within myself at the idea of fooling Turkey around for almost two years, because meanwhile he finally started exchanging frequent messages and I had the feeling we could have worked well together *for real*.

...but after all: this is Diplomacy, and I assume that co-operation plan will have to wait till the next game! ;)

The game ended with a quick takeover of the remaining of Turkey and Germany. And a beautiful 13-10-11 draw.

Thank you to all the players who contributed to make of this one one of the most strange and quick-changing games I have taken part in. Lot of learning for me in this one! :)