All of the above, but I'd particularly be interested to see someone going from 17 SCs to being eliminated.

Got some pretty awesome examples of that, unfortunately they're all over at playdip so linking is a bit harder. A couple good stories though.

In one I was working with this one player throughout and in my nativity at the time (my earlier years) I ended up getting stabbed pretty badly. I was able to rally the remainder of the other really small center players to work against this guy and did a decent job and guilted him big time about his lack of guts and integrity. He was convinced I didn't really care about the other players and would have done the exact same thing. After a tonne of dialogue he cockily wanted to test my ambition by proposing a draw with me and my allies that didn't include him (which you can do there). It was partially strategic as well because while he was at 16 he was hitting a bunch of walls so hoped my reluctance to accept a four person draw would cause waves with my allies. Then fall came, he got lucky and hit 18 centers anyways however before retreats went through we all accepted his draw and he ended up with nothing despite the final board showing him holding 18 centers.

Not that long ago over there they had a very high profile "top 7" game the Austria and Italy players ended up sweeping the board in a highly impressive super tight hidden alliance they formed in spring 1901. They a well formed plan where they'd side align with everybody, fake battles, and be so transparent they'd share every single message they received with each other. At the end they would ignore every kingmaker offer given to them as they inches towards their pact of a 17-17 draw. Both ignored near perfect opportunities to stab each other for the solo and take it all, they were just too tight. As they got to the last year where the two way draw would occur italy showed one last sign of good faith by pulling back much further then he would need to and Austria jumped all over it and stole the solo. It was a perfect game that was lost in an instant of due to an unnecessary gesture of respect and friendship.

gameID=69813

Russia was leading with 11 SCs at the end of 1904, but was ultimately eliminated in 1912 (the final year) of this gunboat tournament game.

gameID=60765

So many chances to solo that game. Several powers made it to 16 SC's multiple times. No solo

This game kind of promotes that - the more power you accumulate during a game rally's lessor nations against you lending to the epic fail scenario.

gameID=93086

France was eliminated in 1948 after reaching a peak of 14 SC's in 1909. France also got down to just 3 SC's from 1927 to 1931 before making a comeback to to 8 SC's from 1937 to 1940.

I thought "1948" was insane before I clicked on the link and saw that the game ended in 1975. That's wild.

It's not over . . .

Oh my god! That game is from 2012 and its STILL GOING ON! Is that the longest game?

No, but the longest game was a 17-17 split by 1920 or so and the players just decided to enter all holds for 100 years running, so it's widely recognized as the longest.

Is the longest in terms of phases (100 years) AND real life time? (more than the 2-3 years that game has been going on for)?

I doubt it took them two years to get to 2012 (I think is when it ended). I don't know the ID off the top of my head. Someone has it. Regardless, the 2012 World Cup is recognized as the longest game and every single player in it (including France - playing till 1948 and getting defeated sucks) deserves the pot and then some.

Yoyoyozo: Yeah, there are technically three games that have gone on longer: gameID=322, gameID=263 and (the one bo_sox48 mentioned) gameID=15821. You know you can search games for that on your own, right?

bo_sox48: 1914, it looks like. I don't think I ever noticed that France in that game was Le_Roi. I played gameID=12882 with Le_Roi: an amazing experience; I'm not surprised they managed to pull that off. I guess I also played Le_Roi in one of my earliest games, gameID=12290, which didn't pan out that well. I never played Bob.

bo_sox48: You know you can search for games too, right? I got that gameID in 5 clicks tops.

Of course I do. If I were the one asking the question, I would have looked it up, but I wasn't.

Le_Roi and Bob know each other in real life, so it's not quite as impressive as it seems.

I think Bob also pulled off the 34 center victory one time, which is also impressive..

I don't know if getting to 16 and ultimately drawing is an "epic fail", players make stabs all the time without proper foresight on how to follow up on it. That's fairly common.

Solo threats getting rallied against and eliminated is also pretty common, if you peak at 14 and the players holding the remaining 20 centers are going to bond and decide they're determined to stick my each other to a draw there's really not a lot you'll be able to do about that. Especially common in midrange games where players are credible enough to know how to work together but weak/unambitious enough to be content with a shared draw.

@VillageIdiot - I think for JECE's game, the epic fail is that its still alive...

As for mine, maybe not an epic fail, but still pretty humorous that Hanged Man and myself went back and forth on failed solo runs for 30 years.

"I think for JECE's game, the epic fail is that its still alive.." lol