After 1912 I offered to Austria and Turkey to reduce the number of powers remaining in the draw. A six-way draw with 3 powers with only 1 SC would be just ridiculous.

But either they didn't understand it or they didn't want it.

he should've ordered to Bohemia. That would've made it harder for Zmaj to strike back

Yes, it was a weird endgame. No idea why we all survived.

Silly Zmaj. Playing for vengeance usually doesn't help you in the end, though in this case I guess it turned out all right for you. I kinda figured that might have been you starting with the Crusher. Then when you sacrificed the rest of your game in order to be spiteful, I was almost sure of it! I'll bet NoFog wishes he would have taken Venice from you when he could have, but I guess you were pretty useful to him.

I couldn't understand how Russia kept helping France against me after it was pretty clear that Turkey was stopped and that France was the big solo threat. I tried sacrificing my game for vengeance on him at that point, but it didn't work. But in the end it did.

Well played France. You almost pulled it off.

Well, there was no reason for letting you survive

Oh, and Zmaj, "Angels are dreaming of you"

I didn't really understand this game, I admit it.

First of all, Russia played strangely against me (Turkey), basically retreating and attacking Austria instead of defending. And Austria did the same. I felt almost guilty, and when Russia came to his mind, defending properly, I was caught off-guard (I admit I played 3 turns underestimating him, and this lead to a landstall in my sector). When I played reasoning on my moves again, it was too late.

Even Italy attacking Austria did my dirty job (Zmaj, this time you didn't play your best game...), but by harassing Germany he played for France too, so I suppose he was being fair :D

I tried to go for it hoping for a weak Russia, but as I said he defended properly with his units (and I played poorly).

France came out at the end, so we organized the stalemate.

A very funny thing happened in the end, France retreated to ask us to eliminate some Country (R, G and I had 1 SC), and it must have been a funny sight, us fighting under his gaze :D

I eliminated Russia (sorry again, Obscurity, I feared that else France wouldn't accept the draw), but defended Germany, Berlin risked to be the 18th SC. Italy and Austria fighting at the end was a funny sight.

As I thought, playing a 350 pot sure is fun, and I don't mind if this lower the chances for my wins.

If it wasn't for me holding you out of Berlin, then you would have soloed. Maybe Turkey was grateful for that?

Sort of interesting that a 3000 point player is feeling bitter about a failure to whittle a few players from a 350 point game. It would make sense if your plan was to sweep back in after a little whittling chaos broke up the coalition, but you didn't do that when Zmaj was trying to fuck things up there at the end. Why not?

cspieker, I know vengeance is not profitable in gunboat, but I savored every year knowing that you had to think about that army lurking in Silesia.

You could've been a killer if you didn't walk the way you do... and you do.

I kept thinking that fucking army in Silesia was going to get destroyed as you got eaten up, but it had some staying power! After it was clear you were just there to harass me I should have just devoted one army to shadowing him so he could take at most one center instead of always defending with 2 or 3 pieces. Oh well.

cspieker, I was grateful for that, the same way you must have been grateful I run to Sil to defend your Bal - Ber hoping for Austria to understand my intentions. Luckily, he did.

As I explained to NoFog, I could have considered to take Berlin if I had an army in replacement of yours. If I took Ber and in the meantime France moved Kie, Mun, and Bal... too risky in my opinion. With Russia, I had that position covered.

I tried to support Austria against Italy at the end (he had still 1 SC), but Austria attacked from Tyr instead of Pied. Maybe NoFog would have been happier...

Points... I don't really mind.

Maybe I should have retraited Denmark and Sweden also

In a situation like that Russia can't hope to defend Scandinavia or St.Pete. France is always going to be able to overwhelm St.Pete when the eastern bloc has no fleets. Thus once France had Tunis the only place he could be stopped was Berlin. So with my last two little failing units I tried to keep France out of Berlin at all costs (instead of spitefully attacking Russia). Luckily Turkey realized the importance of Berlin too and got some units up there to pull Berlin into the stalemate line. Nice job also recognizing that Livonia needed to be held to keep the line intact.

It was a ragged coalition, but it held up. Almost made it worth sitting around entering a hold order for half an hour :D.

Yes, I was waiting for that. And the fact that you didn't just where the situation was risky, kept my defense up. Anyway, I didn't want to be Terminator... :D probably I should care of your goals, but when I play I try not to eliminate if I'm not going to win. Suppose this could sound odd to a lot of you... I'm sorry.

I was pretty taken aback by the culture of draw whittling on this site when I first started playing here. It is a little strange.

NoFog, if you wanted people to feel safe why didn't you just give up Tunis? and back out of the Med entirely? Then the worry of losing Berlin to you would be gone. You gave up Munich, but how could anyone feel safe that they would hold that with three different powers all around it, and unable to coordinate.

It was pretty amazing that you weren't able to work the seams and break through somewhere with so many players in the draw, especially with Austria doing all that monkeying around in there.

cspieker, I had the stalemate well in mind since 1907, when I lost Tunis. I knew perfectly what I had to do and where, my concerns were about Austria and Italy understanding the line in time. But since they were good (or very good) players, it worked.

What the lot of you didn't maybe realize is the importance of Russia returning to play in that precise turn, retrating to Moscow, taking it and forming the defense. Had it remained out of the game, desbanding StP, we would have lost - I didn't have an army to put to Moscow, If you see I was moving Apulia away just for it... :D

In the end my intention was only to reduce the number of powers to france turkey and austria. That's all. No try to win anymore. Did not want to make it an endless game.
But I somehow had the ridiculus fear that if I retrait too far away, Turkey may just eat up austria also and try to run for a solo itself...

How could I? I needed Tunis and Munich, out of the question. And armies in the Balkans.

We were working on Italy, anyway. You drew a bit too early... I was destroying the italian Gal army and supporting Austria to Ven, while putting an army in Serbia. I couldn't afford a war against Italy before covering Ser.

I drew, because I thought you either didn't understand my intention or you didnt want to reduce powers. Sorry about that...