And second game you and I have been head to head tonight Zmaj

... but I must praise England, at least in the opening years.

gameID=98475

pjmansfield99 (England), your scheme to destroy me (France) was perfect. I could only watch you pull me apart while dictating the pace to DingBat (Germany).

What surprised me is that DingBat, who I remember being quite good in some other games, acted like a noob here. While a stalemate was still feasible, he played like it wasn't a WTA and fought England, the power that did everything to share his success with him. How ungrateful can you get?

Of course, most praise goes to the winner, loftus99 (Italy), whose bluff in 1901 paved the way to success against, it must be said, inexperienced Russia and Turkey, who kept bickering among themselves even when it was clear they would be doomed unless they cooperated.

A few things from my perspective...

Italy faked out Austria with the fake French opening into Triest in the fall, which is actually what I guessed would happen. Great, we eliminate Austria and as Turkey and I started to work on Italy, Turkey decided to stab me for a single dot, which ruined both of our games.

I attack Turkey to get him whittled down as fast as possible (even though I knew I wasn't getting back in the game) to force the west to lock-up the stalemate line. I was hoping that if I got lucky, I would be included in a draw with my eventual last dot in StP. Germany gets too greedy trying to eliminate me from the draw and actually supports Italy into Warsaw, and then proceeds to throw the game.

I must say my opinion was that suddenly Dingbat was playing PPSC. Be interesting to know if that was the case?

And thanks Zmaj. It was purely Italy's opening that made me think I could get the jump on you and even when he reversed it into Austria I felt commited and kept going.

Zmaj, we were doomed either way. Turkey's one-dot stab completely blew my position and it was only a matter of time before I was gone (especially with Germany sending a couple units north.

Rather than try and fight it out and eventually be eliminated, I felt my best chance was to force Italy to get huge and try to get included in a draw with StP.

But yea, Germany completely threw that game. Makes me upset that my plan actually would have worked had he decided to set up the stalemate.

I was watching that game and Germany passed up the chance for the perfect stab in Spring 1904. He could have taken Norway, Belgium and Edinburgh and been set up with a fleet in the North Sea and army in Edinburgh, and with any luck England holding a bunch of French dots (that didn't happen). I was very saddened to see such a lovely stab go to waste, especially when England was not helping Germany very much at all. It was obvious Italy was steamrolling at that point so it would seem that helping out France would have been the smart thing to do in terms of grand strategy too.

I also think Russia made a big mistake not retreating Armenia back from Turkey and guarding Sevastopol. He threw the game to Italy almost as much as Germany and Turkey did.

That's my thoughts from the peanut gallery.