Turkey: Short game for me. I opened to Armenia and got an unexpected bounce in Bla. this put me in a very poor position, and Austria decided that he would ally with Russia rather than me. I did my best to change the outcome but Russia refused to see the oncoming Austrian taking over the south, and took himself down with me, rather than work to stop him.

Not much I could have done differently that would have changed my outcome, just one of those games I guess.

Hey guys. I was sitting for Tom in the final turn of the game. I don't have much to add to the EOGs, I know Tom will be back within 4-5 days or so.

So, anymore EOG's for this game?

Sorry. Been out of town. Will post something up within the next 24 hrs.

Forgot as well to put it down. Will do later today!

I was teh only person besides MM to post an EOG in the invitational game i was in, so I hope y'all understand if I wait until 2 or 3 to go up before I do mine.

A short one, as I am tethered to using public computers while mine hopefully gets fixed.

Early years:

1901:

I draw Italy. My least favorite country to play, but I tried to start the game with an open mind. I was hoping to try something out of the ordinary, such as a Key, or possibly a 3 fleets opening, but Austria didn't seem to keen on many of my ideas. It was a little frustrating, but I was having good talks with Austria and he seemed like a good candiate for a long-term ally. Regarding the other powers, I hit things off fairly nicely with France and England. The rest of the powers had generic opening year talks with me.

I heard from both GER and ENG that FRA seemed like he was going to be the odd man out in the west. Since I had good relations with AUS, I decided that it might be wise to see if I could grab a piece of FRA if he was to fall, hence the opening to Pie. In the fall I was able to slip into Mar to get 2 builds. A good start in my eyes.

1902:

FRA is upset, but still polite in our talks. I don't have much to say here Sarg except that the situation made attacking you the most logical thing for me to do. That being said, FRA's tactic (I think) was to try to let ENG expand while holding on to Iberia which gave him the best chance surviving long enough to make an impact in the end-game. This was bad news for me as my prospects of expanding any farther west looked pretty shot. Turkey was lobbying for me to help him as he was being attacked by both AUS and RUSS but it didn't make sense for me to attack a strong AUS. I'll note now that RUS and I had some talks about an alliance against AUS potentially down the road, but it never panned out. AUS was getting large, but I was pretty confident that I was still safe from his units.

1903:

This is where I made some critical mistakes. AUS and I agreed to DMZ Ionian to build some trust. In the spring I was able to snag Spain under the agreement that I would help him into Por in the fall. I thought this was a great idea since I was having good talks with ENG and pretty poor talks with GER. I thought that it would not be difficult to talk ENG into attacking GER while I moved to slow down a fast growing AUS. In the spring AUS moved to Aegean which worried me greatly. To counteract this, I broke our DMZ agreement and moved to Ionian in the fall. This hurt my relationship with AUS. I lied and said I forgot about the agreement, but I don't think he bought it (?).

1904:

BAD NEWS. It becomes clear to me in the spring that ENG and GER are more tightly allied that I had anticipated. I knew that I was in trouble with the convoy into Gas. I start talking to AUS about a 4-way draw possibility. The original idea was to 3-way it by cutting out GER, but that wasn't going to happen. Even worse, AUS comes back to me saying that ENG and GER won't draw until I am cut out, and that he is sorry but is going to move against me. I still had some hope as AUS and I were on quite friendly terms throughout. In the fall I lose Spain and GER moves into Tyr. AUS builds a fleet in Trieste. That hope I was talking about pretty much disappeared.

1905-end:

I figure that my best strategy is to get ENG close to soloing while holding on to Tunis so that I may be included in a draw. I tell this straight up to ENG and he seems to understand and says he is willing to go for it. I send my units towards AUS and retake Tyr while allowing ENG into the Med and into TyS. I know that I have to remain close with AUS to put up the illusion that I want to attack him, but I really just want a stalemate in the south. At this point I needed a sitter and basvanopheusden did a great job for me. I guess there was an NMR which helped lead to the draw, but someone else will have to touch on that.

Overall impressions:

I was lucky to get a draw. It was great to play with slyster who was lots of fun. I also got the chance to play with Jacob with whom I had pretty good communication. Tough luck Sarg and Balaran, but sometimes that happens.

To damian and uclabb: Sorry I didn't talk much. I was having computer troubles, and press had to take a hit somewhere. My lack of talks with GER was my downfall, and I was lucky to come out with something better than a defeat.

Until next time gentlemen!

I'll give this one bump and then let it drop off forever.

I'll put mine soon, I'm just running out of time these days!

Alright! Finally, here I am! There goes my EoG's post, as promised earlier:

1901:
Most probably the best opening year I had as Austria for a while! All of my talks with I/G/R/T went well, luckily. First, I started with a nice communication with Italy, which is always what I want first as Austria. I know he was a bit frustrated at me for not wanting to Key Lepanto, but I just wasn't feeling it. I exchanged couple of messages with Germany who confirmed me I wouldn't see a Tyr OR a Tri opening. Talks about a central triple were being made. Always nice to start with. Then, I was talking with Turkey, who claimed he would do an anti Russian opening if we decided to play together in the beggining. He claimed he wanted to play Turkey differently this game. Told him I respect that a lot since I like funky moves as well (when possible to make). Then, me and Russia start this game well with an agreement to not go to Galicia. We shared lots of information at that time, so I had faith in him.
Italy and Germany claimed they were going 3 on 1 on France.
France claimed Turkey told him he would open anti-Austria, which I told to Russia.
Messaged England, poking him and asking him: So! How's your French invasion fares so well? He basically answered me: And who on earth would've told you that? I was mostly teasing him... Then moves came. Everyone stood to what they were saying, it felt like I had less pressure on my shoulders. A01 came, and Italy kept his promise not to slip into Trieste, Russia got Rumania with his fleet. Everything was feeling good at that time.

1902:
Me and Italy make an agreements with DMZ territories and our communication continues to go well. Tells me he's committed West but that we can start moving things when France will be dealt with. I felt the same at that time, but I also had great communication with Russia, and we made the split for Turkey, told him we'd better finish off quickly with Turkey so we can move on west faster. We still on the same page at that time. Although, I got a feeling he's gonna get screwed up north by EG, which he does. At that time, England wanted to feel how I felt about this move, if that convinces me to move against him. Timing wasn't right, and I felt we needed to continue what we decided against Turkey. Turkey, knowing he's gonna get screwed, tries to convince me to help him out but that he knows he's not in a good position to help me. I tell him right away I won't lie to him and that he can expect to get attacked. I mostly like to keep those things straight with people. At that time, Turkey guesses who I am, since we've played together in that last ABI-24 game. Luckily, Turkey guesses my moves wrong and I get a surprising two builds this year. I feel people will trust me far less at that time... I discuss with my neighbours about my builds, tells them I can do only 1 build, but finally I decide otherwise since Italy could've decided to move against me with Russia at that time.

1903:
This is mostly the year where everything changes. EG claim they're moving against StP so that I can feel free to join the party. At that time, Russia is committed to play with me, hoping I would respect what we decided about me helping him into Turkey, so he could get some units and fight EG. Germany asks me if we should move together against Warsaw. Told him I would and decided to keep Italy as a close ally, since we mostly kept our word for everything we said and our communication remained good for all that time. I tell Russia I'm moving to Galicia to support him back to Warsaw to prevent Germany from taking it. Autumn 1903 comes as well as my stab against Russia. Germany is happy with me supporting him to Warsaw but tells me he still fears my "awe-inspiring tanks" which made me laugh for a while. Nice one Germany ;0) Surprisingly, Italy moves into Ionian. He claimed his move to Ionian was a "mistake" but I didn't buy that. Although, his explanations seemed true and I reassured him that I would see no reason for me turning against him since I have Russia and Turkey still on my back. We start planning moving against Germany. I then feel he's gonna move back west to prevent England from taking the med. At that time, England starts messaging me about the possibility of a 2 way-draw. It looked like a game we could, but we just didn't exchange that much info, so I didn't know if I could trust the guy. Told him from now we had to exchange more to see if we could move against either of our allies.

1904:
Russia is hella pissed at me. Claims he will do everything to bring me down. I can't blame the guy for saying this, I did screw up his chances of comming back. He claims he's gonna leave his SCs to Germany so he can attack me soon. My ally, Italy, is also in trouble. England and Germany are going against him. There's nothing I can do about it! I see he's committing to play with me and moves back against England that takes him Spain. I'm telling him I'll do everything I can to try and get him in a draw but he looked kind of freaked out at that time because he thinks he'll be the odd man out. To prove him my will of playing with him until the end, I commit on positionning against Germany, but the attempt was just a mess, so I backed.

1905:
At that time, I feel Germany is not trusting me at all and Italy starts to mistrust me with me backing off. Feeling he's gonna be the odd man out, he decides to turn against me to help England solo. At the same time, he tells me he just wants to stalemate him in Tunis so he can be part of the 4 way draw. I actually thought at that time it was a pretty good plan for him, and I gave him credits for that. Germany, even tho I feel is not trusting me at all, knows he has to trust me so he moves back against England so he doesn't solo. I started to like the situation pretty much as, at one time, Germany would have to be open to me, and from there, everything was possible: 4 way-draw, 3 way-draw, 2 way-draw or solo. So, I start dealing with Germany how we could do things. I didn't feel I really had an opening for this year, so me and Germany just decided to eliminate Russia.

1906:
England NMRs after the long break for RL reasons. That's where I liked my position the most, but decided I would follow with the 4 way draw 1) To get my long term ally, Italy, in a draw and 2) I didn't feel it was good taking advantage of an NMR while someone had a situation to solve IRL. The NMR was unfortunate, but I understood the circumstances.
Pretty short game, but really interesting from A to Z. Thanks everyone for that!

Tom: I also really enjoyed our communication, it really was a lot of fun exchanging with you!

Damian: I also liked our early game communication! Too bad I had to stab you at that point. I hope we can eventually play again together under new circumstances!

Jacob and Sargmacher: I didn't really communicate much with you guys, but I mostly put it on the distance of our countries.

Uclabb: I feel we started good, but at one point, I feel our communication was being altered with my "awe-inspiring tanks". I know you didn't trust me much (or maybe I'm wrong, you tell me) but am glad we got something going together at the end. I'll look forward to hear you EoG as well, you're next on the list!

Balaran: An other great game played with you. Too bad for the bad game, I guess that's what happens once in a while! Catch ya later!

Last bump to let the other 4 players do their EoG

I'll post one tomorrow night, especially if I don't forget :-P

Ok, here goes:

1901: I logged on really late (like 24 hours late) so I had to make quick decisions. France sends me a message that says that we should just "split Holland and Belgium fairly" and move on England. I don't necessarily have a problem giving France Belgium in a move on England (although I think that giving France 2 English centers makes more sense), but I certainly didn't like that France was pretty blatantly trying to manipulate me into giving him Belgium right away. Meanwhile, England wanted to move on France, so I said why not, as long as he agreed to stay out of North Sea starting in 1902. I also really liked Russia and was fully planning on moving on England once France was neutralized, so I made plans to move my fleet to Holland and bounce France in Burgundy to get France tied up and my fleet in position for a potential later stab. I also talked to Italy and Austria about the usual CPA stuff and I think that it helped that we talked about Tyrolia for a while and then set up the move on France. I just liked Italy for whatever reason. I kinda felt like Austria was being a little too diplomatic for my taste, basically ignoring my questions and asking me a bunch, but such is diplomacy. I ended up just question spamming him back. Fall was basically just a continuation move as Spring went near perfectly.

Although honestly, the whole game after that was kinda a continuation move. England, Italy and I talked about splitting France and it involved giving England Portugal, which I thought Italy would never do, so I was planning on stabbing England around then. Instead, Italy apparently intended on supporting England in after all, so I figured I would try to make Italy the odd man out (it sure wasn't going to be Austria), so I did that. At this point, it was almost the holidays, and so I was just trying to convince Austria and England to bring us to a quick and easy 3 way draw, but they were having too much fun. England stabbed me and so I had to play up England's solo opportunity to Austria, and we got coordinated, and it was over.

I dunno, the end was boring. Did I miss something?

Personalized messages:

Jacob: Tell you what, I can't say I ever trusted you or thought we had great chemistry or anything like that, but whenever I considered moving on you, there was something about the board that made it seem like a bad decision, and I'm sure that was largely due to your ability as a player, so kudos.

damian: Sorry it didn't work out. I wasn't blowing smoke up your ass in the beginning. It was just that England duped you in Spring 1902 with the whole move to Norway thing and I couldn't say no to a free center when I still needed his help in France. Although perhaps I was cowardly. Either way, my apologies and I look forward to playing with you soon!

Sarg: For me (and I think for a lot of people), little things can grow into a big thing, and your message I mention above as reading a little manipulative to me led to me responding more positively to England's opening messages than normal, which I think led to England committing to moving on you, which led to Italy piling on, and so on. I'm sure the next time we play we will have a completely different result.

Tom: Your messages have a good vibe or something. I don't know what it is, but it's there. So that's good. I wish we could have gotten something going in the mid game, though. When you told me that you didn't have plans for any more centers after Spain, I felt like you were making the game a competition between the two of us as to who would be the third person in the draw, which made me wary of discussing a move on England with you for fear of it being passed on to England. Ah well, next time!

slyster: I enjoyed our messages most of the time, and they were filled with subtext for me. First, you sounded a lot like a diplomacy player to me. damian sent me a message in 1902 that you seemed like a slippery player and it definitely was true. At the same time, my vibe from your messages was that if you thought as someone as your long term ally in your head, you would be very wary of stabbing them. So I tried to get up there in your head or whatever. Your "awe-inspiring tanks" were scary though for sure (I mean, you DID attack me with them!) and also added to my wariness of moving on England.

Balaran: We didn't really talk, unfortunately. Hit me up if you wanna play some time!

Nice read Uclabb!
I did try, one turn, to attack you with them, but it really was because I considered Tom as my long term ally in this game, and that's the kind of thing I do for my long term ally in games, when trust has (almost) always been there through the game!
Also, I think you found there were lot of subtext in our press maybe because English is my 2nd language and that sometimes, I may be writing things I don't want to say a certain way?

Anyway, good game everyone and I hope I'll have the pleasure to play all of you again soon! = )