Sorry, I only have an ipod for Internet right now so it's a pain in the ass to scroll through the map year by year. When I get a real connection, I'll share a quick EoG.

I'll get mine up this weekend for sure.

As England, my top priority is to find a strong long-term ally in either France or Germany. Sure, I must chat with Russia a lot, and Italy quite a bit, as well as Austria and Turkey to some extent, but most of my energy goes into feeling out France and Germany. I'm typically pretty good at getting a solid read on people, just on their press. Sure, most everyone in most every sends out an initial positive message to everyone else, and though it is a but meaningless, it sets a tone and the conversation that stems from that is how I determine who I hope to ally with.

As far as France goes, I asked him his thoughts on teaming up and being allies, saying I was interested, which I was, I'm interested in allying with anyone/everyone in 1901, you must feel people out somehow and interacting with people is how I do that. So, in response, I get the following message:

"(To: You, from France) - Spring, 1901: Yes I am indeed interested. Lets do a DMZ in the Channel, and we'll talk about strategy after we see the first moves."

That's it! Not one more message was sent to me by France until after spring 1901 orders go through. I'm not one to push the issue, I like to react to others, allow them to show me who they are, and then I react to that. I am a communicator, I talk a lot and the whole reason I play diplomacy is to work with others, I view it as a social game that is much more about the journey and working with others to achieve things I could never achieve on my own. Similar to how I view a NMR as a stab against me, I view virtual silence as a stab against me, at least in the sense that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem, and when I play a game of diplomacy I am looking to others to be a solution. So, based on the pre-game, France was clearly not my top choice for an ally.

When it comes to Germany, things could not have gone much better. The German was talking moves/strategy, being open and honest about things, saying he'd move to Bur if I move to EC, we really hit it off! We had great conversations and were just clicking, it was really enjoyable and we were in a mind set to take control of the game. I typically like to lay low in 1901 and not get too bold, but based on how poor early interaction was with France, and how great my interaction was with Germany, I decided to go all-in on an alliance with Germany. This is something I have been burned on in the past and something I do not like to do, since I know the only thing any Germany cares about in the pregame is to get England and France to fight, so I knew by opening to EC that I was putting my life in the German's hands, and that Germany would have all the power in this game, but again, based on how little interaction I had with France, I was willing to go for it.

As far as elsewhere on the board, the Russian seemed happy to open south and give me Norway, which helped when it came to me blitzing EC/France. I agreed to take Norway with a fleet and hoped Russia would indeed focus in the south while I was focused in the west. I'm sure at least shortly after spring 1901 orders went through I ramped up discussions with Italy to come help out with France, and sure enough, Italy came over to Pie in fall 1901 and that started some great discussions with Italy and I was very happy with Italy as an ally.

To back up a bit, A/I didn't exactly look to have the most friendly spring 1901 opening, but when you combine Italy taking Tyrolia into Pie in fall 1901 with a very obvious Jugg forming, it was very clear to me that I'd need to do all I could to help keep A/I strong enough to deal with a Jugg while I focused my attention on dealing with France. So, at the end of 1901, I had a very strong alliance with Germany against France, and even though I was not as involved with A/I, I was chatting with them both and considered them allies as I very much wanted to keep The Jugg in check.

1902: Things were going very well and I was feeling very good about things, so I got a little sloppy. I tend to do this at times, I get a bit over-confident in my ability to deal with a situation diplomatically, that I don't worry about the details too much. Well, that may not be entirely true, but it sounds good, right?! Anyway, France is not much of a concern of mine, Italy has loaned out his army in Pie, and the plan is to get Italy Pie, for a build, to fight the Jugg, and the German agrees with this strategy, as does the Italian. As far as Norway, I was extremely fearful of the Jugg, as I've said, and even though I chatted with Russia at length about not attacking Norway, the German was pretty adamant that I use North Sea to support hold at Norway. I didn't really want to lose London to France, but again, I wasn't overly concerned with France, and since Germany had been a very good ally, I deferred to the German's demands and hoped for the best, even though I very much wanted to call an audible and risk losing Norway by sending North Sea to defend London.

1903: Okay, I was pretty annoyed that the German was so adamant about me supporting hold Norway and the result was that Germany got two builds and I got no builds. France landed an army in London and things were actually a bit sketchy, what the hell?!?! (Nice playing, France!) Anyway, in addition to being annoywed with Germany, I was *extremely* vulnerable! I had already agreed to give Italy Spain, especially with Austria appearing to fall and Italy would need all the help he could get to deal with The Jugg, but I needed a build and I needed one *now*. Germany was in position to take Brest, not me, and I had no prospects in Scandinavia. It was panic time and I didn't know what to do. So, I tried to think of a way to talk Italy into giving me Spain, and since I figured once I got a build I could deal with France quickly, I cut a deal with Italy, Italy gives me Spain this year, then next year I give it back, and the following year he adds Portugal to his collection. So, in exchange for loaning me Spain for a year, I would give Italy an additional SC in our agreed upon split of Iberia, and Italy accepted, YES!! The rest of 1903 was pretty straight-forward at that point, we were able to knock France down to one unit, I got a build, and life was good...

1904: Life was good, but that didn't last too long, because now it was decision time. I had two really good allies, one in Germany and one in Italy. I had worked relatively well with both, and I did not want to stab either. If I couldn't imagine remaining allied to both of them, that left me with the only thing to do would be to convoy armies over to Norway and try to send armies through northern Russia to help deal with The Jugg, but Germany pretty much already had control of northern Russia and I couldn't just sit up in my corner and watch the rest of the game, so I had to make a decision. I do not like this part of the game. I like my enemies to choose themself, much like France chose himself for me in the pregame, based on actions/press. Nobody was coming to attack me, and I was at least partially indebted to both Germany and Italy. So, I chatted with Germany Italy and Austria quite a bit before spring 1904 orders went through, to feel out the situation, and try to make a gut call about what to do. I don't remember all the factors invovled, and perhaps the fact that the German insisted I support hold Norway when I did (that resulted in him getting two builds while I got none and I also got France running wild on my home island) was a bit of a tie-breaker, I don't know, but the orders I submitted in spring 1904 clearly show that I decided to attack Germany and stick with Italy (and Austria, but mostly Italy since I was much more involved with Italy). Another factor was likely that France proposed that I convoy him to Den and that France help me attack Germany. I didn't give France an answer, since I assumed he'd immediately go tell Germany, and in the end I gave that a try as well. The German pushed at Russia in spring 1904 in additon to moving against A/I, so this was a devastating blow to Germany, which I initially felt sad about since the German was a great ally early on. Killing off the German was super easy at this point, A/I were getting a foothold in the southeast against R/T and A/I was not about to come rescue Germany from me. I was virtually locked into finishing out this game, a three-way AEI was the likely outcome unless there was a way I could try to solo, but at this point in the game I was feeling guilty stabbing Germany and I wasn't looking for more guilt by immediately trying to solo, especially since that would just result in a huge draw, so I focused on the AEI alliance and killing off Germany for the time being.

1905: AEI, aka TVA (the vowel alliance), is doing its thing.

1906: We're still doing our thing, but one odd thing happened. Italy was about to finally take Portugal, per our agreement. Italy was always free to take Portugal based on our agreement, but other issues with Germany were more pressing, so Italy was supposed to finally take his fleet in WestMed to Spain and then Portugal, but WestMed went to Tyrr in the spring, which was odd, bit Italy said it was just a mis-order due to using his phone, which was fine by me, Portugal was his when he wanted it.

1907: In the spring, France NMR'd in Denmark. I view a NMR as a stab and grounds for voiding all agreements, which is not to say I do that every time, but I certainly feel justified if I decide to take action. This was actually pretty critical to my methodical mind, I wanted Den to support hold at Kiel while Baltic supporting Finland to Livonia, so I ended up not taking Livonia that spring because of France. I wanted to look past this, and tried, but as you can see by my orders thereafter, I could never fully trust France again in here, which likely led to my biggest mistake.

1908: Things were going well. I was really focused on killing Germany, perhaps too focused on that rather than how to try for a solo. I'd give a solo a bit of consideration, as I assume we all do, but each season when I looked at making a move it just didn't look like it would work. I was really happy with the AEI alliance, and especially happy with my alliance with Italy since we had worked so well together, so stabbing Italy was not the highest priority on my to do list. That said, my typical (though not 100%, it ultimately always depends on the specific game) MO is that if I can get a solo I will stab a long-term ally to do so, though within that context if it ever becomes clear I will not solo, then I will do nearly anything/everything in my power to see that long-term ally to the final draw, and would rarely ever (again, it's always game specific, I try to keep an open mind to anything within a game, based on what's happened in that specific game) reduce a draw from a four-way to a three-way (for example) at the expense of a game-long ally.

So, after spring orders go through, I decide it's time to take out France, and I figure I shouldn't tell him, which I discuss with Italy and we agree I should not tell France. But, in the end, even though France did NMR, he did help me out quite a bit so I felt I at least owed him the respect of telling him beforehand. How stupid am I?! That really pissed France off, and he immediately started talking to A/I about me, but since I had pre-warned at least Italy about it, it didn't come to too much of a surprise to Italy. So, after all that drama, I wanted to make good and sure France would die and the only thing I could think of going wrong was if Munich supported Den to Kiel, so I had Bur tap Munich just in case. In combination with that, I figured it was probably now or never on the solo attempt, so I shifted units to see what I could do and in the end I could not solo. I tried to make arguments to people to do things, but I had little to work with and even though I played around a bit longer than I probably should have I didn't see too much harm in it. Of course Turkey promised to stab A/I to give me the solo, which of course I tried to argue as to why that was a good decision, and in the heat of battle that may have actually played out in a live or F2F game, but with 48 hour phases there is far too much time for Turkey to be more than happy to take a draw.

Let me know if anyone has any questions, hopefully I'll remeber and/or have an answer! ;-)

Great read. I'm curious as to why you didn't back off so that we could try to kill Turkey once it looked like we were going to make the line first. We would have at least reduced the draw size, and there was a possibility that you could turn around again while we were fighting and take another shot at the solo.

ghug, for the most part, I'll give a solo one shot and then be done with it. Some people on this site will lie repeatedly, over and over, trying to get that elusive solo at all cost, but I draw the line in the sand in a different place. If I would have backed off in this game, I would not have tried to solo again (more than likely, but I also never say never, so who really knows, I'm just talking about the odds being highly stacked this way), I would have just gone for the three-way, but in the end I don't put too much value on a three-way over a four-way, it would have been a meaningless task in my opinion that would not have proven anything, and I have better things to do with my time (like join new games or take a break from the site).

On a side note, and the more I think about it, I am a firm believer in the social aspect of this game and how there is honor and there is respect (or at least that there could be and that there should be) within a game of diplomacy. Somebody recently told a story on our forum about playing a live game with Edi Birsan and that this person got "beaten up" a bit during the game and in the end Edi was adamant about including him in the draw even with just one or two centers. I'm not sure if Edi was merely looking to reward someone for trying hard all game long or if Edi thought this person was not catching any breaks for most of the game and Edi decided he should catch a break in the end, or what, but I very much like that frame of mind and I will encourage it in my games. Sure, Edi could have easily killed that small player off and not include him in the draw, but everyone knew that was easily possible of those who were playing in the game, so the act of actually doing it can be viewed as kicking someone when they are down. I understand this sort of logic can be taken to an extreme and one could then argue you should never solo because a solo would just be all about self-glorification and beating your chest, etc., etc. As with most issues in life, there are a wide range of views on the topic, and I fall somewhere inbetween the two extremes. I understand everyone will have their own opinion on that, and I will respect everyone's opinion, but that does not mean I should not argue on behalf of my opinion even if it risks people viewing me arguing that way as being "holier than thou". And, speaking of "holier than thou", and at the risk of digressing on this current digression, isn't that merely a logical biproduct of having an opinon? If I have an opinion on a topic, and someone argues their opinion to me unconvincingly, the mere fact that I have considered their opinion and stick with my opinion means that I think I am "right" (based on what I know, but also always knowing thinking I'm "right" is just an opinion and not a fact). So, if I think I'm right about something, or even if I merely think I have a argument to make about something, the fact that I make the argument adamantly can easily come off as me having a "holier than though" attitude... Okay, time to shut up, sorry it took so long for me to figure that out...

this NMR as stab thing is such bullshit. Its a story you used to allow for you to kill me off after saying you were taking me to the end.

The first thing you said when you attacked me is "that I always knew this was coming" then you changed your tune. I don't care, I did know it was coming, but don't insult my intelligence and say it was over the NMR when it CLEARLY was not

and I knew you were going to kill me before you told me, when you moved troops into Livonia and Prussia and bounced a unit off of denmark the prior turn it was obvious

and the NMR was a complete mistake as I explained several times, I accepted your proposed move, I am sure I also picked it in the drop down menu, and then something happened, I either forgot to click ready, or the window closed out and I forgot to put that in. I apologized right away, there was no gain for me in an NMR, and actually it was quite costly, so if you actually thought you couldn't trust me because of that fluke, its even more puzzling.

bottom line why this peeves me so much is that I went out of my way to be committed to that game. I knew I didn't have much future when I was invaded by 3 powers, but I didnt say woe is me and allow myself to be swallowed up, saving time and effort like propapbly 75% of players did. I convoyed into England to continue the game.

Then, when my worst enemy in the game had me cornered, I didn't take the easy route, harass you for 2 more turns and use my death (which would save more time and effort) to make your game more difficult. I worked with you, painstakingly convinced you of my plan, and then supported you, knowing, despite your claims I was probably going to be swallowed up.

Yet despite all this evidence, you try to portray me as an uncommitted player and ally. Had the nerve to say "I was only in it until Germany was dead" and spin this ridiculous tail that you were all for keeping me alive until I proved myself unreliable. And what for? An easily recognizable fluke

I was not unreliable, I was the opposite of reliable. I put more into that game that the vast majority of people who faced the same situations. This is more than me being bitter about being killed off. This is you, grasping for excuses to explain your unkept promises, painting me as a completely unreliable player, which is unbelievably unfair.

*I was the opposite of unreliable

I've gotta agree with Santa here, while it is certainly true that you can't rely on someone after an NMR, I don't think the plan was ever to let him live, and I think you might as well just say that.

no worries ghug, he already did

"(To: You, from England) - Autumn, 1908: Your life in here was always temporary, you knew that, you were living on borrowed time."

I wasn't in that game, but want to point one thing out. If you wish to do all holds and not have the !! appear, you actually have to save another order and then reset it to a hold to save. So just because you see an !! doesn't mean someone isn't ordering. They may have chosen to do all holds.

I meant to support Kiel though, I remember putting it in, but I must have never clicked the button and let it sit there till i closed the window for some reason. I actually wrote "OK" when he asked me to do it. I NMR'd in that i didn't record a move, but I was around, as I was around when right before he finished me off, with like 8 hours to go before moves were due, he acted as if I was about to NMR again. I logged on with plenty of time and saw a message saying "I know its the weekend but its obvious that you are just not into this game. I better just end it for you" This REALLY pissed me off because I had just offered him a whole plan of attack on how to stab italy! He used it! and here he sends me a message saying I'm obviously not into the game whe I just wrote a 3 paragraph blue print on how HE could stab Italy? Please.

The truth of the matter is that he was probably entertaining thoughts of keeping me around if possible (If he was able to while accomplishing his objectives). But when he was able to take out Russia himself and move armies into eastern europe I was just extra. He realized this and wanted the build to help him solo, so he used the NMR, 4 turns earlier as an excuse (it was the third of three reasons he offered). No one likes to be a liar, and he wrote so many times he would keep me around, when I called him on it he wanted a way to explain it.

Wow. Not sure what to say. Santa, I told you it would be an interesting challenge to keep you around the entire game. That is what I wanted to do. That is what I meant to do. That said, we had an agreement that you would do as I decided, within the context of you could offer ideas for me to consider, but I always had the final say. To me, if you broke that agreement, the agreement was off, period, this was a very unique situation and that was the pecking order that you agreed to.

Things were going well. Then you NMR'd. Intentional or not, you did it, and I lost faith in you because you could not submit one order properly one phase. How was I to know you wouldn't do that again when it was a more critical situation? Hell, the season you NMR'd was critical to me, I 100% intended to take Liv that season, and I 100% intended to convoy you to the main land, likely Prussia, the next season. If you do not believe I view NMR's as a stab, I have no problem with that, I'm not here to convince you of anything, I'm just trying to share my honest thoughts on the situation. If you think I'm lying and what I've said makes you angry, I am sorry, but I cannot control your reaction, that is your own to do with whatever you see fit.

Anyway, I did send you that message, I assume: "Your life in here was always temporary, you knew that, you were living on borrowed time." Who is to say this isn't the lie? Who is to say this isn't the truth, along with my first statement? Truth be told, I had hoped you and I could make it to the end, but in order to do that, you would have to be a complete and total lap dog of mine. If I said to do something, you had to do it. If you betrayed me in any way, such as suggest to Italy or Austria to do something, and I heard about it, you were dead. Hell, if you smiled at Italy or Austria I would have been justified killing you for that, in my mind, this was no normal relationship. It was that sort of messed up relationship that you had to be completely submissive that caused me to doubt our ability to last the entire game, it was not me merely lying to you. Again, you have gone on and on about how unreasonable I was to not trust you since I stabbed you and you had not stabbed me, yet your entire EoG is all about how you wanted to get revenge and get yourself on the stalemate line and "get even" or whatever, you were tirelessly looking for a way to break our agreement. SO, I absolutely was right to not trust you, at some level, and when you NMR'd, it showed me you may not follow through in the future and that you weren't as focused as I needed you to be to help me, so I ended it. I tried to look past it, for several seasons, but again, look back, I never fully trusted you again, I tried, but it wasn't meant to be, I had lost all faith in you, so I felt it best to move on.

I love how the diplomat in MM comes through even when he isn't in the game. :-)

Yeah, I was totally set to side with Santa, then I read that and started to reconsider.

EOG statement:
1. Initially I decided to ally with England cause: A. I'm afraid of England when I play Germany, I'm not afraid of France B. England was more communicative
1902. England and me also allied with Italy so that we weep out France faster.
I really liked the fact that France convoyed into Lon. that could give me control over both England and France.
1903. I attacked Russia to signal England that I wish to remain his ally so Russia was my only possible target. England had to take care of France in his homeland anyway.
To maintain good relationship with italy and Austria I supported Italy into gal.
1904. France convinces England to get convoyed into den and England stabs me.
at the same time I told italy that I would support him into war. my true intention was that he believes it so that he doesn't support war to hold, so that I can get it myself. Didn't work out.
Before the English stab I told him that if he stabbed me he would just create a big draw. He responded with the amateurish :"When people tell you reasons for not stabbing them, then it's time to stab them". Well that's just crap and turns out I was right cause the game ended in a 4 way draw, while if England stayed allied with me we could go for a 2 way or someone could solo (stabbing the other in the end).
After the English stab I expected everyone to see that England would became a dominating power and support me against him.
I got stupid reactions like "we cannot trust you, you have tried taking warsaw blah blah".
Those stupid reactions finally caused my ranting and the game was over.
Till 1909 Italy never thought of actually attacking England which once again proves my rant was justified.
There is not much to say about this game.
I didn't like the fact that England was my bitch till the time of the stab. I surely expected more from MM.
I didn't like the fact that 4 players were just too blind to see the English threat just because I was ranting. I have told you uncountable times in the past that diplomacy is not a popularity contest. I will never accept seeing other players allowing someone to almost solo with the poor reason that I was not polite enough. Fuck politeness. go back to kindergarten.
The only thing I appreciated from this game was the excellent French maneuver to be convoyed into den which in combination with the English stab (also provoked by France) change the course of the game.

Hellalt, England was definitely getting dangerous. But supporting you against him would have resulted in you remaining the dominant power, and he has proven to be much more trustworthy.

On another note, you're completely wrong about diplomacy not being a popularity contest. The point of the game is getting people to like/trust you so that you can manipulate them into letting you win.

"I didn't like the fact that 4 players were just too blind to see the English threat"

I think you underestimate the amount of diplomacy that went on about this topic. Italy and I discussed this plenty . You can see that I moved conservatively in the East in order to insure that I could hold that stalemate line.

Re: NMRs -

I'm in MM's camp on this one. If someone I rely on NMRs it makes me very nervous. I'm never sure if they did it on purpose in order to have an excuse to ruin my plans or if they're just unreliable. In either case, it gives me plenty of reason to stab them.
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Diplomatically, this was actually a pretty tame and boring game for me. Perhaps it was because I was never a real threat and was facing such an obvious juggernaut but I never had much conflict with people. Turkey and Russia were cordial with me even while attacking me.

Even MM (not that I ever actually knew it was you) was never really misleading or aggressive towards me diplomatically. He never pushed me to leave my border more open to him and was ok giving me Moscow, giving Italy Portugal etc.

I think the end of the game was an example of someone pushing for an unrealistic solo and it costing him in terms of draw size. That being said, you can't solo if you don't try.

Yeah, I agree. I spent most of the game moving my fleets back and forth across the med as I had to commit to something different every turn or so.

I honestly don't think MM really cares about draw size at this point though (nice job on breaking 1000 GR, I'll be enjoying my share of that), so he had no real motive to not try and solo.

Also, Ghug, you have a good record and a high GR. Not sure why you didn't take a more controlling role when we were discussing tactics.

I was ranked 1002 when we were discussing tactics, and my brain hasn't been working properly for the past month or so, so I didn't trust my judgement completely.

Well, congrats on the big jump then.

Thanks.