I felt jmeyersd deserved to be in on the draw... he's the one that held you much better than us in the south... so I feel bad he was not included. but in the end it was obvious the others would not vote for the draw without his elimination.

This was a tough game for me... I never manged to get out of my Turkish shell, and just as I was advancing on Austria, Italy hit me...

great job Lando, well done to take the lead and force us all into a weary alliance.

As Austria: Tough game to weather, but felt I managed to weather it somehow.

In 01, I saw Russia move on Turkey (yeah!) and was set to pick up 2, with a possible 3rd. Decided to cover Trieste just in case Italy decided the juggerless east made an A-I war appropriate. He went for Trieste which was fine. However, he built an army (frak) which pretty much telegraphed his intent and limited his ability to change direction too. This was my greatest frustration of the game as I was still willing to work with him, but Split seemed hell bent on attacking me. Frustrating as we were the two least enmeshed powers at the time and could have readily picked up centers against other powers. In 02/03, I blocked Italy's advances (let him land in Albania so I could destroy his army in the hopes he would change course) and frustrated the Turk (I enjoyed popping Bul and tapping Con, Babak). However, it became clear that Italy would simply not stop. My next move was to take Russia out of Rum and open up Bul and Greece for Babak/Turk in the hopes of a A-T. Russia was increasingly distracted fighting elsewhere and was not going to help me. Anyway, Turk decided to push the attack on me, so I decided to play some chainsaw diplomacy in the hopes of scaring the Italian to my side. Thankfully this worked! From then on, Italy/Split was a great ally in holding back the Turk and setting up the line.

gg, all- I believe the game ended as it should have- though well played, jmerysd.

As Austria: Tough game to weather, but felt I managed to weather it somehow.

lol, that came out weird... writing in-between live game turns. Anyway, tough fought and dynamic game.

Some other impressions: Strong play from jmeyersd in Scandinavia and in taking Munich. Lando, nicely done with the French blitz. Look forward to some quality EOG's.

Barn - had to keep you allerted arround Trieste at the start seing Turkey and Russia weren't nice to eachother. Aus/Ita usualy finish with Austrian stab as Italy remains on 4 SC-s while he reaches 7 or 8. As soon as I got Greece I stoped to bother you. And looking at the French expansion what else we could have done?
Turkey was a bit a pain in the end as he expected my fully trust in him holding Tyrhenian and Ionian and not showing any trust in us covering his homeland and Bulgaria.I was pushing him to West Med and Gulf to keep the line but he wanted me to hold the line there and him to hold Tyrhenian and Ionian,right,if I were such naive!

I did want to keep Tyhenian and Ionian... you were right split... The russian was doing a good job with France initially so I thought I might have a shot to shoot over to Adriatic to either elimiante Austria or work with Austria to eliminate you... but yeah it didn't quite work out =P and Lando did advance faster than I expected.

It was a good game, and I felt there was never any 'real' trust between TAI so the fact that we held that line in the end was a testament to everyone's experience. Well done all around.

Sorry I took so long. The interesting part of the game was the start for me. England went all out anti-France and it didn't work for him. The result was Russia grew and Germany was stuck in a shitty spot. England then made things shittier for Germany by taking his centres out of desperation - a very questionable move in my opinion.

I took good advantage of what was given to me, but then I almost feel I did it took fast because I saw a front that was extremely united.

This is the last two 1000 games I played that I ended up so close to the victory. People need to be less effective at stalemates.

Or you should stop picking good countries and circumstances in your high pot gunboat games, Lando.
I bet the next time you play you'll get Turkey and Italy will go west, Austria will help support you into Greece and Rum and then move to fight Germany.
I wonder how good your "gunboat GR" would be if we ever get it implemented.

lol, England is my least favourite country in gunboat by far. But france is good. Italy's my number one.

I think live games will always skew GR and therefore I doubt my rating will ever be completely accurate for better or worse. Check out how both mine and the Czech's ratings fluctuate so much.

I have. I have an excel sheet that plots yours and the Czech's every month.
Ok, not really. :)

bye points, japanese version gameID=80337

zultar you up?

Thank you for the invite, but I am already in a few games, already a bit more than what I promised my wife, so another one wouldn't be a good idea.

I just like to banter.

fair enough.
bump the rematch gameID=80337

Whoa, almost missed this thread. As Germany I basically had to keep bouncing back and forth to take on both France and Russia at different times... until they both finally attacked at once and destroyed me. First I moved west towards France and had to defend myself from Russia (my first builds probably were a little too obvious as far as my intentions to take Sweden). Then by the time I had Russia on the run, France was gaining clear dominance over England and I knew I had to turn to try and stop the threat from growing. I couldn't get any real traction and Russia swept in behind me to finish me off. All in all a not-so-great showing, but hey, against players like you all I can't say I'm surprised :D

Now that I'm rereading my own post, I'm wondering how much of my failure was due to the attempt to take Sweden when my forces might have been better used just subduing France. I guess I stretched myself a little thin by poking the great Russian bear.

Seeing as zultar is out, I joined the next game.

As England, I decided to take a risk and open completely anti-France by going channel and Wales. Russia opened north, which was unfortunate and after that I was in trouble. France outplayed me pretty quickly. I'm not sure if retreating into Holland in 1903 was the right decision. I liked Germany as an ally but its not like he was helping me against France and I was just getting desperate to survive as best I could. Still, it was probably a poor move.

I also don't like England that much in gunboat.

What do you have against me, Sarg???

Hahaha. Very funny.

To make that sentencing clear: I joined because there is a space free after zultar left. Not that I am playing because zultar is not playing. ;)

thanks for the kind words, y'all. i kinda figured it would end like that for me -- unfortunate spot just off the stalemate line (stp-ber-mun could all go to france so long as tun didn't) and untenable defending from the eastern side. i made my attempt at the tricky art of throwing centers to france at just the right moment to be critical at the stalemate in central europe, but couldn't pull it off. but since russia is by far and away my worst gunboat country, i'm not heartbroken over my performance.
great game lando and well done to a/t/i setting up the stalemate. it's always nice to see that done properly. thanks for the fun game.

Will you join the new one Lando has created, Jmeyers?

gameID=80337

i'm out. enough gunboats for me until I get some real lessons from Lando or others... I really really really really SUCK at gunboats. that's my conclusion - and I don't need a GB GR rating to know it lol

Hey Babak,
I suck at full press games. May I get a game with you at one point? Classic map, WTA, no variant nonsense.

"I suck at full press games."

Lies.

What????
It's true.

@Babak I don't know if you really do suck at gunboats. You seem to be pretty capable to me. You should keep in mind high-level gunboat games end in solos far less than any other game type. They also have far more luck to them. But these things are fine. Makes winning that much better when it happens.