Second, thanks to DJBent for inventing the new opening: The "Bent Gambit".

F Edi->NthSea
F Lon->NthSea
A Liv->Yor

http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=11898

i pulled england again, like the hundredth time lately. so sick of england.... agh....

have some neighbors i knew, some i didn't. i was open to anything, and then i TOTALLY messed up my first moves, and pulled a "bent gambit" bouncing myself in NTH. DOH!!!

it turned out a bit for the best, b/c Russia was getting triple-teamed. so he needed the build, and i got a stable front to the north east. things seemed to be going swimmingly with France, and Germany was trying to woo (or was it France trying to wooooo me?) with promised of snuggling aboard battleships anchored off Denmark’s North Sea Coast.

the French player is a slippery character from what i'd seen and he only built a fleet at BRE, not at MAR. along with the press i was hearing gave me the goose bumps in spring 02. so i went for EC but i was wrong, he wasn't actually lying! i felt bad, but i got NWY and still was on good footing with Russia. Germany, of course, was not too happy.

then it was France's turn in the "channel dance" - and that got me angry, but it only seemed fair on some level. still, he promised to leave, and i believed him, foolishly. so i closed in for the kill on Germany.

aumtumn 03 saw me totally screwed over by France and Russia, and i was livid. i was supposed to get Holland and Kiel, but i forgot my own rules (don't be greedy) and thought they'd support me. stupid me. they probably would have confounded me anyway. still, with Russia on the ropes thanks to turkey, i thought i could work something out.

France's lies didn't stop at this point, so i just had to tune him out. and with his grab of MUN and threatening BEL and KIE, i started trying desperately to organize others against him. at this point he told me only plays to win, not be known as a good ally. i let him know that you can't win without allies. that would come back to haunt him.

04 brought russia solidified in Germany, and the German in exile in Vienna. but i still couldn't get France out of the Channel. where tactics failed, diplomacy prevailed, and against all odds (or so i thought) Italy turned on France. SWEET!!

grappling and no progress was the theme for 05, and then we draw. i did get Russia to put pressure on Turkey again (so that Turkey wouldn't snip at Italy, forcing Italy to stop attacking France) and by the end of the year improved my tactical situation slightly, but it didn't matter. this last year the French were begging everyone for help - my sage advice came true. or something.

super fun live game. i really appreciated playing with skilled players who stuck to their commitments, had fun, and were always willing to talk. and a warning to others - beware the "bent gambit"!!

djbent (801) as England: 5 supply centers
wooooo (706) as France: 8 supply centers
airborne (84) as Italy: 4 supply centers
DonXavier (687) as Germany: 0 supply centers
Biddis (108) as Austria: 3 supply centers
Xapi (218) as Turkey: 7 supply centers
jbalcorn (417) as Russia: 7 supply centers
7 way draw
Italy's EOG
Ok where to start. Well lets start with my new opening combo which has been effective in a couple of my FtF games recently.
Apline Ambush
S01 A Ven Hold A Rom-Apu F Nap-Ion
F01 A Ven-Tyr A Apu-Ven F Ion-Tun
W01 B F Nap
S02 A Tyr-Pie A Ven-Tus F Tun-Wes F Nap-Tys
This has won me a game so I thought hey I can do it. wooooo and I have played quite a few games together and knows my taste for the fancy but, this a new opening surely he can't see it coming wiht cunning diplomacy.
Unforunately Austria totally dropped the ball in F01 and told Turkey who told France. Well crap, I turned around and took Trieste and help my weaken ally, Russia.
Then it was a fight between Austria/Turkey vs Italy/Russia. It didn't go so well and I was forced to make a pact with my old buddy and France took Tunis. Then my game climaxed when I took the Ionian back and the choice? Attack Turkey at Greece and support woooo into Vienna or attack France. England managed to dislodge me from attacking Turkey and attack France. I took Tunis back, then chaos happened with Turkey taking Rumania from Austria, which I was telling him Turkey was going to attack. Russia who had a truce (I think) I tried to convince him to attack Turkey with Austria I thought Turkey would be so hard of a nut to crack that I could finish my Western trip and turn back in good shape. I offered Austria Rumania and Russia Sevastpol I had I powerful plan which Austria would destroy the army in Rumania and expose Sev to Russian attack. Austria dropped the ball...again. Miscommunation I guess, still we stayed in touch and were allies for the majority of the game.
Then we had to draw since we were playing for 6 hours. A good game, all around.

I'll post when I get home, or tomorrow.

A great game indeed.

Oh, and I really expect to see Biddis' EOG.

lol i dont know if ill make any sense out of it though, it made no sense to me :S

I hadn't played Russia in a while, but I was up for anything, this being a live game.

I had arranged for peace in the South, since I had ended up allied with DJ many times, I thought I'd turn the tables on her. Unfortunately, her 'Bent Gambit' may have hurt me as much as her. With Norway beckoning to me, Turkey and Austria decided to renege on their promises to let me have Rumania, and Germany bounced me in Sweden, and violated our DMZ one turn later. The build from Norway turned out to be the only thing that saved me.

Turkey supported himself into the Black Sea, and the writing was on the wall. Sev had no chance, and nowhere to retreat to, so I focused on shoring up what defenses I had. Luckily, Italy attacked Austria from behind, which releived some of the pressure. Meantime, I moved GoB->Baltic and put pressure on Germany, taking Sweden and allowing England into Norway in return for peace in the North.

France was beginning to ask for my help. I took Denmark from Sweden, but Sweden was open and Germany was in Ska. I offered to support England into Kiel (in global, accidentally), but France pressured me to not support. As it turns out, I made the right choice - got England to move to Sweden, and bounced there, since Germany would have cut my support to Kiel anyway! But it did screw England pretty badly at the time.

Meantime, I used Prussia and Baltic to take Berlin, and I was feeling much better. StP and Moscow were holding Turkey off, and I'd stopped the bleeding.

France, meantime, was actually becoming threatening, and I decided that since he was looking like a steamroller all by himself, I wasn't going to listen to him anymore. I got Turkey to agree to a cease fire, since we were wasting firepower on a stalemate, and turned west to take out the last Germany outpost and confront France. Italy turned on France at the same moment, and France turned from threatening to plaintive. I almost felt sorry for him - and he had 9 SCs! :-)

Turkey pulled off a surprise move on Austria, and I saw an opening to continue my attack west but ALSO get Sev back. I had originally intended my cease fire with Turkey to last a while, but the opportunity to recover my southern border was too good, since Austria now had a beef with Turkey.

The game ended just as I eliminated Germany ( we ended it there to be sure he shared in the draw) and I started back at Turkey.

It was a lot of fun to play 1901-1905 in the space of 6 hours. I actualy was surprised it was only 1905, it felt like much more!

Thanks everyone, and don't let me do that again. I need to get some work done!

Other Players
France: wooooo and I have played in many games and knows my characteritics a. indescive b. taste for the fancy c. generally a survivalist
Today he was the target. Now I had a tingle in the back of my neck that he knew about my tactic since I played something similiar in wooooo the game http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=8747
I'm sure that he had no clue what was up till Turkey told. I had a heart attack. Next year I became a French puppet for awhile till I turned around and bit him.
England: She dead that's what I thought in S01. But, she came around and survived we stayed in touch and somehow got me to bite France.
Russia: I felt REALLY bad that I was going to abandon him to the Austria/Turkey but, I saved him, pyrrhic victory on my part
Germany: No comment
Austria: My Ally then Enemy then Ally again. Oh sure he dropped the ball twice but, we managed to stay friendly and in the end allies.
Turkey: The most dangerous player in my game. Through I'm pretty sure he paid more attention to Austria then me as a snack.

haha one small correction airborne, austria-hungary was also ruled by en empress. altho i guess i was queen of england, not an empress. empress sounds more fun!

Russia+: Saved him as in painting a bulleye on my back instead of his :S

Oops

@jbalcorn not one mentioning of me. cold :P

Ok, here goes.

The game started off normally, I wanted to keep a good relationship with all my neighbours for the time being. Italy almost immediately sent me a complicated list of a ‘special move’ he does which involves moving to ty and then moving all units swiftly on France. During discussion with turkey about Italy and whether we were going to move on him or whether he was a threat I stupidly told turkey he was going for France :S

As for Russia I was all for having a good relationship and leaving him rum, then the ‘bent gambit’ happened so obviously i needed to keep it balanced, to stop him having too many scs, and took rum myself, don’t blame Russia for not being too happy about that though.

Unfortunately for me Italys detailed explanation of his move on France all went to pot and he attacked me instead (i have no idea why I didn’t defend myself, I obviously believed Italy completely :S)

Me and Germany attempted a little alliance but with my disband in gal I wasn’t much help to him although he did help me back to tri and then I helped him to vie (where he sat back happily for the rest of the game).

Then things got a little complicated and I started to dither, I was prepared to give turkey my scs to fight against France (as long as he was going to not allow Italy to win and hopefully move against him). I accidently forgot to change my moves and kept holding rum :S Then turkey didn’t reply for ages so I offered alliance to Russia, who accepted my alliance just as turkey replied saying no hard feelings, WHOOOOPSSSSS. So I was in a bit of a mess and dithered and didn’t know who to pick so just supported my units whilst annoying Russia AND Turkey by confusing them and um yes messing there orders up a bit I think too. It finished on Turkey finally stabbing me (which was clearly going to happen at some point) and me attempting to join with Russia to take Rum back.

Sorry that’s my first end of game statement, I often ramble. Give me some feedback on it guys.

LOLZ

have yet to EOG
France
Turkey
Germany

"Me and Germany attempted a little alliance but with my disband in gal I wasn’t much help to him although he did help me back to tri and then I helped him to vie (where he sat back happily for the rest of the game)."
You thought that I would use A Vie for support and he wandered into Vienna ;)

i supported him to vienna, i would rather him be ther than u, that was the point.

tsk. I still got Trieste till I let you take it :P

yup, ah well if the game had carried on we'd both be dead. Lol

I can't wait for woooo's EOG he was the beastly of the game.

@airborne - well, two mentions: "Italy attacked Austria from behind, which releived some of the pressure" and "Italy runed on France" - both mentions as in things that helped me. We had planned on an alliance, the taking of Trieste helped, but we never actually got to work together. One more turn and we would have started the process to rule the world! :-)

Oh sorry didn't read that.
Yeah like I said I came within a hair of abandoning you ironically, Turkey saved your life since he ruined my plan and got me to attack Austria (Turkey late confessed he didn't really think about the results of telling France)

Oh I forgot to mention I was on my DSi browser the whole game.

Yeah, I was very surprised that you were as active as you were, using a stylus to type out messages....

gaming abilities :)

I've decided I hate playing Russia. Too many options, and everyone is gunning for you - unless you get a Turkey that wants to Jugg, and then you're pretty much locked into a game-long alliance.

I actually like Austria better. If you can survive the first 3 years, having your builds in the middle of the board really helps.

yea that is actually pretty impressive airborne

I was playing Nintendo since I was 5 and the DS for 4 years

and the song that inspired it all...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_hz2am90Hk

michael said it could apply to anything you want. obviously, in this case, it's "don't stop till you get enough diplomacy"

Well, my EOG to the most contrived game I ever played.

Much like Biddis, I went for a neutral opening that would allow me to ally with either Austria or Russia if the situation arose.

So that's what I did, and after spring 1901, it seemed like attacking Russia with Austria was the way to go. Of course, I could still play dumb for a phase going after Greece, so I did.

This is where I told France that Italy would attack him. My idea was for him to man up a defense, because I didn't want an over the top Italy controlling the Mediterranean at will. Sadly, France confronted Italy and got him to shift his focus towards Austria and me.


At this point my strategy was pretty much set, attack Russia and start thinking about a defense from Italy.

I took Sevastopol and then Ukraine and I had my fleets in the Med, but Austria was loosing the struggle to Italy, so it seemed some sort of mini-stalemate had been reached.

Then England started to alert all of us about the danger of France.

I reacted to it partly out of a real concern and partly because of interest, I wanted Italy to back off a bit.

Also around this time, Austria offered me to take Rumania. I sent the order and she supported her hold, wich might have looked like a stab to everyone else.

So, I got a NAP with Russia and asked Austria what her intention were.

The set of moves that Austria said she'll do were an invitation to a stab, and I took it, while I placed my fleet in the Ionian to help Italy against France (really).

There we came to the end of the line. I wish we could have ended the game, because it was a good one, but, all in all, fun was had and points were evenly split, so it was all good.

I thought it was " don't stop till you get enough players for a live game".

hahaha, that too

I'll get some comments up tomorrow. I'm really tired, been working a lot, and i'm on two hours of sleep.

And, don't forget, he played a live game of diplomacy for 5 hours. Whew!

what does EOG stand for?

end of game. Nice comments lads.

Germany EOG:

Well in the pregame my intention was to ally with the french against the english...
As the germans i never feel comfortable with the english still alive...
Well djbent started sweet talking me and we agreed to turn on france... DJ's plan was for me to support a convoy to belgium...
Well as the germans i never want to see the english in belgium or holland or it's lights out for me...
I moved to ruhr and dj moved to ENG...
From that point france would have been in deep trouble... ENG was supposed to attack pic and i was to capture bel...
Unfortunately DJ got a wild hair an turned a 180 on me... moving ENG - NTH and the French moving in to ENG...
From that point on France, England and Russia began taking turns pounding on me...

Also in the beginning the italians told me they were going to hit france...i doubted it considering his opening was blatently anti austrian, even though i've seen a french attack done that way before... at this point i was going to attack france as well so i told them that the italians were coming so they would loosen up any defenses on our border...

I tried to keep the austrians alive throughout the game... as the germans i have an affinity to austria...

Of course i stood russia out of sweden when DJ pulled her bent gambit... and after pulling that one when i said i wouldn't i moved berlin to prussia...

All in all i got three way'd... probably could have done better if i hadn't been so greedy with england... i asked her to help me get belgium and sweden in one turn... realized it was asking too much later... my deplomacy wasn't up to par on this game... germany shouldn't put himself in the position to get three way'd...

bump for wooooo

bumpety-bump

pmub

bump

i'm not sure we're going to hear from wooooo after all...

Okidokie.
First off, this is tbe best live game I have played. Even though it didn't end, it was defnitly enjoyable.
From the begining I had 0 plans. With France I don't like making the first move. France is very capable of defending itself, so I prefer waiting.

In the start, I wanted no one in Burgundy naturally, and didn't care too much about Bel. I got Bel by default when England messed her moves up.
My goal at this point was to use the weak France to contain Germany, while I got a foothold in the Med. To disspoint Airborne, I was going to go after Italy from the onset at this point, and I was actually able to get him to back off by telling him that I knew about his attack.

Now trouble started, as I expected England went to the channel. I can let her enlighten you on the press we had, but I got her to leave. At the same time, I proposed to Germany that we support ourselves into Burgundy (thus leaving BEL open). I lied about that as well, supporting hold in Bel, and sneaking into Burgundy.From this point on, Germany was done.

However, I couldn't risk channel support so I had to move there as well, thus delaying my Med attack. This is when the dance started with England, and thee was no safe way to become allies again, so I figured I would press my advantage as much as possible.

And by the way, saving my build was possible the best play I made that game, allowing me the chance to see who the theat was.

I knew Italy was going to fall, so I offered him the position of the stalemate line, if I got Tunis. It worked for the time being, until Italy got bored. This is the one part of the game I didn't understand, as Italy simply lashed out at me although his chances of survival were greater sticking with me. I am not a fan of random choices, and this dissapointed me. Nontheless, my great start was noticed, and I got ganged up on, and I think Turkey would have made solid gains with everyone focusing on me (possibly solid enough to win the game).

I think people might focus too much on SC count rather then position. I was spread out with no prospects for expansion without help. I was not a huge threat. TUrkey had 3 immediate countries that did not threaten him, as well as being weak (weakish).

France/Russia relations should always remain strong, so I propositioned Russia many times to join me. I guess England did a better job with this, to my dissapointment as well. If we had joined Forces, Russia simply would have gotten all of Scand and then England wouild have sat in the Isle while I was able to expand to the Med and Russia whould have the pieces to attack Turkey finally.

However, my dreams are not what make it into the game. I had fun, and a good crowd of players made it that way.

@airborne; :(

Actually, We recognized that Turkey was the next threat. I still think your position was much stronger than you claim, since you had an edge with England in no position to threaten you by sea. But we just wanted to knock you back a peg, while using your 9 SCs as a way to stop Turkey's expansion, until we could go after Turkey. :-)

haha great comments wooooo, and i totally agree with the saving the build - that was a brilliant move. and highly under utilized in most games.

turkey was definitely a big threat, but as england, i guess i was less concerned about that. ;)

@wooooo another what if? I was actually a hair away from attacking Greece and supporting you why I changed my mind I can't really remember now...