I was too. Thanks, Austria.

Meh, I liked Valis, and if his draw vote wasn't up he would have gotten a three-way, I wouldn't say 'lucky', but good persistent diplomacy

But yeah, sorry for screwing the CPA up.

Hey it lasted about 3 years longer than I thought it would.

I lasted about 5 years longer that I thought I would!

Italy EOG:

S01: Moving to Piedmont is never a bad idea. It makes France nervous and gives you the upper hand when you decide to go that way, plus it's hard for him to kick you out.
A01: Guessed wrong on Marseilles. Happens. He built an army anyway, probably because Germany was scaring him a little. At this point, the premature outline of a CPA had already formed.

S02: Pissed off Austria by convoying back. Not gonna lie, I wasn't *not* thinking about making a move on Trieste, but I was hoping that he wouldn't lose so much ground to R/T. I knew I couldn't beat them to anything more than Trieste, which isn't worth it.
A02: France nabbed Munich but Germany got Warsaw. At this point, I thought Germany was suiciding for the I/A. I wasn't complaining.

S03: France should have built a fleet. I thought the build in Paris was a little cocky. I get the logic, but it was clear that he wouldn't be blocking Marseilles in the spring. It was a little unfortunate that he got a retreat to Burgundy or I would have cleaned him out in the fall. Got totally lucky with the convoy to Greece, but I'll take it.
A03: Getting Germany into Burgundy was huge and outguessing Turkey on Greece was even better. This was a fabulous phase for me.

S04: Probably a bad play on Marseilles but I figured he would go for the Western Med and take it from me anyway, so I took a chance. Outguessed Turkey again and got some indirect assistance from Russia. At this point, there's hope for Austria and Germany is eating France up, so we're doing well. The only concern is England. Had he convoyed into France and taken Germany at the same time, I think he would have become a solo threat pretty quickly.
A04: All obvious moves. Disbanded Greece. Nothing worth mentioning. I still say England would have benefited from stabbing both Germany and France but I don't know if he would have gotten German support or not.

S05: Got Marseilles. France did the right thing to retreat but he built a fourth army instead of a second fleet, which opened up the MAO for me. That was his downfall.
A05: Got position on the MAO, let Austria build off of Greece. I figured Turkey would attack the Ionian at some point.

S06: French NMR made life easier but didn't change much. The French retreat to the NAO en route to Liverpool changed a lot, though.
A06: France is dead and taking England with him. Couldn't be happier. Turkey also made a smart play and retreated so that he could cover Armenia. I was worried that I might not be able to get to him.

S07: Good guesswork against Turkey, and with a build coming.
A07: Make that two. More good guesswork against Turkey. I feel like attacking a SC without support is the most basic move ever, and it's so obvious that a lot of players assume it won't happen. Figured why not...

S08: This phase was weird. Austria stabbed Germany (and didn't tell me, understandably) - no surprise - and England fought Germany - no surprise. Moscow surprised me a bit. The move with Brest was weird, though, because the plan was to vacate it in the fall and take the channel, breaking the convoy. Given where the board was, I honestly don't think I would have gone through with that. I probably would have forced Germany to disband three and watched him fall and maybe open something up against Austria in a year or two. Luckily for Germany, the four of them already had their draws up, and I felt bad for the sucker, so I drew.

All in all, this was fun. There were a few talkative players, which was nice, and a couple not-so-talkative players. I felt like Tyran was continuously mad at me from the very start. I don't know if he sent me anything other than a line or two in any message, but like I said to Germany, I think he knew what was coming and wasn't gonna waste his breath. The CPA was fabulous. The juggernaut was strong in the beginning, but it died quickly, which saved Austria. At that point, bringing him back to life was a pretty obvious choice because I figured Turkey would be a real threat to me if I let him grow. From then on it was pretty easy in the Med; most of the drama stayed up north.

I do want to make the point that the CPA works best when Germany is ahead. At the end, Austria had too many armies and I figured he would probably use them to go for the German midlands soon enough. I made sure that he wasn't building any fleets (angrily), which meant that even if he got Germany, he probably couldn't do a whole lot in the way of a solo. Still, I think we could have had a three-way draw without Turkey and England like we had so idealistically discussed before had Austria been content to sit in the corner and mull over the meaning of life for a little while. Ah well.

@Valis ... stop muting people dude. That's just... blegh. Every channel is useful at some point and it's not hard to dismiss people and tell them you have nothing to say to them without muting them.

Good game all around. Would love another, but I'm not joining anything more until late August or September, so play one without me if you want.

I'm writing a book for mine. I'd better abridge it.

why are all the CPA players blaming me for having my draw up and ending the game?!?! you know you guys have control over that too right?

all my EOG later, but thank you everyone for participating! that last round of diplomacy with Austria was key.

S01 – Pretty standard fare. Italy seemed really friendly. Austria did too. England was willing to go north – that’s better than me dealing with him in Belgium so I was glad to see it.

A01 – It seemed like the least I could do to help Austria was deny Russia Sweden. It is definitely true that you gravitate towards the press that is most similar to your own. France’s intense staccato really made me distrust him so I decided I should go with England and see if we couldn’t overrun France.

Builds – I said in the pre-game to England that I wanted 2 fleets. Boy is Valis slick. I don’t know why I didn’t go for it – if I had the game would’ve been a lot happier for me.

S02 – France was unhappy with my Burgundian expedition. I probably should've bounced him in Ruhr with Holland but I wanted to try and seize Belgium and didn't want to guess wrong about Munich. Two enormous things happened here: (1) England pitched me his “Let’s destroy St Pete” strategy that almost was my undoing, and (2) I saw that Russia was still miffed over the earlier denial of Sweden. I didn’t want him trying to squeeze me from the east while France did from the west so I went to Silesia, hoping to be able to deflect any westward revenge moves from Warsaw.

A02 – England put me back into Sweden leading to a Russian destroy order. I figured I should go for Warsaw while I was adjacent. I was genuinely stunned he didn’t bounce me. Things in the west were looking ugly. I could see France sitting in the channel not doing anything to England – bad sign, and Italy not doing anything to France – bad sign. I’m starting to worry. I practically abused Italy in my press this turn.

Builds – I needed the army to fight France.

S03 – I started the turn with one of those sinking feelings, “England could really mess with me.” Well he did. You don’t just demilitarize something you spent a year militarizing. I withdrew to try and maintain a northern defensive position. Sweden hurt. Heligoland was nearly fatal.

But there was some great news – I retook Munich (although France grabbed Silesia which could’ve been really bad). Even better – Russia NMRed so I could snag Moscow. Best of all – Italy attacked France. That would save my bacon in the end.

A03 – The turn of decision. If it went well I still might die, but it would take a lot longer.

I try to work England hard here. I tried to get him to reevaluate the board, to see France's weakness. In fairness to England, I wasn't willing to offer much at the time, but in fairness to me, I was just trying to open the door to negotiate. Instead, England bluntly informed me the only thing I could do for him was to "give him some of my circles to help him count to 18" or some crap like that. I told England if he wouldn't even listen to me then I would help France win. England said he didn't care. I informed France of this and invited him into Berlin and to Munich. I actually intended to do it for about 5 minutes but it offended every one of my sensibilities so I decided to fight it out just about the time France was rejoicing that I was going to concede Berlin to him.

Italy tried to help me with England, who offered me some bogus agreement to destroy my fleet and I’d be left alone. Uh…yeah.

I compelled Burgundy with Italy’s help. I denied Russia and France resulting in both of the threatening units being destroyed.

S04 – I was able to get Ruhr up – a move that would ultimately save me from England. I formed the northern defensive line that would last me the rest of the game. Italy lost ground in southern France but I thought he’d be able to re-establish it.

With Russia nearly dead, the East is a mess. I was still betting Turkey would emerge but I liked Austria so I was hoping for the best from him.

A04 – I manipulated Russia into giving me Sev, guaranteeing me a crucial build in my ongoing war with England. Things looked bad when England got a unit onto the continent. Even Italy was writing my eulogy at this point. France retook Marseilles and got a build. I was worried at this point again.

S05 – The big turn. With some careful tactical play I destroyed England’s army, preserved my defensive line and Italy was able to get into Marseilles again. I’m also trying to keep 3 SCs with 1 army, which amazingly would work for 3 more years.

I was openly taunting England in the global – posting the Barney song and “I can’t hear you – your mouth is too full of water” after I put his army into the sea. I wanted to do some psychological warfare. He wouldn’t negotiate with me and he was just seemingly attacking me suicidally. I was starting to worry Italy might grow too quickly if France went and I wanted England to be a check on Italy. He blocked me.

I’m also trying to keep Italy and Austria from going to war. I’d try to get them to go to war but that started later.

A05 – England is threatening to get around my defensive front by getting an army in St Pete. I realized I was screwed if he could get into the GoB so I blocked it with Baltic. Efficient defense again denied England the foothold he wanted.

S06 – Denied England Livonia. Again 1 unit trying to keep off 2 seems to be working. I get an army in Moscow. Russia should be dead by Autumn (if I bounce with him in Sev. – he almost NMRed again which would’ve been bad.) My defensive line is shored up – England isn’t even trying anymore. Italy broke out into the MAO. England knew the game was up and negotiated a DMZ in the Baltic which he had to keep this time. Between the Italian MAO penetration and my move into Gascony, my long war with France was nearly over. France NMRs. His retreat winds up putting him in position to grab an English center which both will spell his doom and compel some realignment of English troops.

We started really talking 3 (or 4 way if necessary) draw around this point.

A06 – Austria’s looking strong. I’m glad he didn’t stab me and grab Warsaw. I build an army designed to secure it. I’m sure England tried to get him to. (His decision not to here made me really surprised when he tried what he did in 08.) I take Belgium. France guesses wrong and I take Paris. My armies march under the Arc de Triomphe after the near end of my 5 year war with him.

S07 – I position myself to secure Warsaw and destroy Brest. I’m “playing nice” under the new DMZ terms with England intending to stab him at the first chance I get. I would’ve stabbed Italy at some point but I never really thought I was in position to do so meaningfully. I also considered Austria but he had a lot more armies than I did – I was pretty weak in the middle of the board.

I ceded Sev to Austria as per an agreement we’d had earlier. I really didn’t want to but I thought about all those armies he had and decided to defer the question.

A07 – I build a third fleet. England gets really mad. I’m happy. England votes Draw. I’m happier – this would be a huge thing later. RIP France. Things are looking up.

At this point I realized Turkey would take a while to fall and I didn’t want my allies sitting around with nothing to do except imagining taking my stuff so I started advocating a 4 way draw.

S08 – I give Italy Brest. I figure I can’t keep it and Munich and Austria’s been more trustworthy. Woops. Austria stabs me and takes Moscow and positions himself for Munich.

Italy seemed genuinely surprised by this and asks what we should do. I realize that England and Austria had draw votes up. I said, “Let’s [screw] them and draw.” To my delight, he did. We ended the game on our terms and denied them the pleasure of seeing me go down.

I really appreciated the invitation to the game. England seemed too Burnside-ish (Civil War reference). Had he re-evaluated his strategy after I built my defensive line, he and I could’ve done some wonderful things. Instead he bashed his brains in against it over and over. (He got really mad when I pointed out I held off him and France for like 6 game years. It’s true, bae. Accept it.)

I think Austria should’ve stabbed me earlier. Italy played well although I didn’t get his early game paranoia of Turkey.

Thanks again everyone.

Tl;dr – I fought a 2 front war and survived. Valis muted me. I sang him the Barney song. Austria stabbed me but forgot he had a draw vote. That’s amore, punks.

You couldn't have stabbed me, lol.

Yes, but I was trying to sell him on it. Something something give him MAR and VEN.

That's what I thought, too. I didn't get why England kept railing about "Stab Italy." You were like half a continent away from me.

That was the most fun I've had on this website - past (as glomek) or present.

Seriously? If I kept control of the MAO, all I needed was my Portugal/Spain fleet to SH Marseilles and I was fine. The only way he could have gotten to me was through Tyrolia, and that wasn't happening with both Austria and I growing more and more defensive.

I didn't think it would work, hence the "something something" and "sell". I was just doing everything I could to make Austria scary, and I'd like to think it worked.

You would have to ask him. I would say that he would have done what he did whether you asked him to or not.

I thought he'd stab me the year before when he was adjacent to an empty Warsaw and had a lot more force on the continent.

I do intend to write an EOG, but just to chuck it out there, Valis did do good press, BUT, I didn't stab Germany before for two reasons. 1) I liked him. 2) Perhaps this was silly, but I knew that the CPA was a strong thing, and that one member going against one, would likely incur the wrath of the other member. Although Italy and I had worked well together, things were tense at times, and with Turkey still around it could have led, in my mind, to an IT, with G fighting on me. Also it would have secured a big draw (like we did have :P)

^^ This fucking guy....

"but are you sure it won't be a 5 way draw?! but are you sure it won't be a 5 way draw?! but are you sure it won't be a 5 way draw?! but are you sure it won't be a 5 way draw?!"

then leaves his draw vote up. <3

I didn't send that message, so quote marks are misleading. I did totally forget about my draw vote, although, I'm not sure I would have taken it down if I remembered.

Oh, sorry, I didn't think anyone would take the quotation marks seriously...any quotation marks I use in this thread are simply for clarity or humor, not actual quotations.

Thanks Socrates - I liked you too, bae.

Loved reading about this game.

As is every game I play as England (don't read this if you're in my league pls thx <3) my plan was to work my way destroying any opposing ports starting from STP, to BER/KIE, to BRE. I felt an extra impetus to send out good press and succeed since it was my Invitational, which really only resulted in higher than normal S01 press.

The only press I received from France was "sounds good, I'm going after my neutrals", so I decided I couldn't risk NOT moving to the English Channel, where we bounced. Afterwards we agreed to go our separate ways, but the English Channel would become contentious again later.

The assault on France is not something that I was told about, and I think France believed me there. I figured a two-person assault on France, where one of them had been denied, would take too long while also keeping France weak, so I decided not to join them. This was my philosophy all game and mostly worked until the Russian and French NMRs, and maintain it was a smart or mostly correct choice. But more on that later.

Besides Italy's move to Piedmont, which isn't at all bad just not popular, the east was fairly standard. Even when I take Norway with a fleet, the fact that France and I got over our differences so easily makes Russia very mad, and he accuses the EC as a planned bounce despite what I told him. I didn't understand why he was antagonizing me when Germany was the one who bounced him in SWE and I didn't convoy to NOR, but I didn't receive much from him throughout the game.

In 1902 things continued to go my way. Germany and Italy and France kept fighting amongst themselves while I made a whole-sale assault on Russia. The only snag is that I didn't trust France or like his press and wanted Germany to trust me so at the end of the year I take STP, support Germany into Sweden so he can build more not-fleets.

By the end of 1902, things are incredibly tense between France and I. I just helped Germany and moved my fleets back south. However we try to work over our differences and I build my army and he builds an army as well. By the Spring of 1903 everything is good again.

Then the Italian Nation attacked. And Russia NMRs.

I assume France let his guard down against Italy because of his emotional rage at Germany. There wasn't much I could do there. I make a massive stab against Germany, but I make a mistake of taking Denmark with an army rather than a fleet. This is my major tactical error as I can't get enough fleets to touch Baltic. In addition, Russia cannot reclaim War or Mos, and the rest of the game will not reply to my messages explaining how he could. I don't know if he just didn't give a shit about my problems, was more mad at someone at the south than Germany, or some other option.

A03-S06 are roughly the same. I refuse to attack France hoping he'll hold out and continue attacking Germany, but the fact that Germany has three extra SCs in WAR/MOS/SEV give him extra defensive units to fend me off.

I'm not saying Germany was bad tactically or anything, what I was saying was that if he didn't have those two extra units (three from Russia with one unit to defend them giving two extra units against me), he would not NEARLY have survived as long if at all. But that's how the cookie crumbled.

At one point Germany crowed how he held off with only " 6 SCs (at the start) vs. 12" and it's just such a blatant lie and stupid thing to say (That France and I magically combined all our units to attack him [i.e. space or Italy doesn't exist] AND he gets to use this bullshit 6 SC starting figure?!) I decided nothing he could say after that would be worth hearing, but I'm sure my willingness to mute people is a discussion for another time. It didn't go over well.

At this point France is becoming very unresponsive. Somewhat related, I just had to replace him in the School of War game because he won't respond to PMs, didn't check that game for 4+ days, etc etc. I hope he comes back at some point. Anyways, he retreats to NAO, claiming a misclick or something, and all-holds/NMR. Now it's over for that strategy. I attempt to call a truce with Germany and go take my home centers back.

I clean up the LVP fleet as Italy and Germany clean up POR/BRE. Now, no one doubts there's a CPA. It's been obvious for years. And I pretty much accused them of that forever now. The question is how to break it up. I think clearly the answer is Austria: I haven't had any quarrels with him, he's farthest away from me, and he can make real gains against Germany

About A06/S07, I put Austria on full blast. I'm not going to give the full conversation, nor are any of my quotations actual quotations, but it goes something like
"
-You're not actually playing this game as it was meant to be played,
-I won't respect you as a player if you're not even trying to win,
-a 5-army power is just going to get crushed and squeezed out by this Italy/Germany,
-I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get you to attack Germany, even throw if necessary
-Germany is leaving so much of himself open to you by continuing to build fleets and all his armies are on extreme ends of the map
-etc etc etc
"
and basically just every argument I can put out there, not that I don't think any of them weren't true. After a couple hundred words he gets fairly receptive and we start outlining a stab of Germany. Which we don't tell Italy which of course will be important later.

It's W07. Germany initiates a conversation about being friends, I say it depends on his builds. He responds that I'm his bitch, I live or die by his decision alone, etc etc etc. I go to Italy saying I'll support him to BRE. I don't necessarily believe it'll happen, but I figure if I choose to go to North Sea it'll at least convince him not to move to the Channel, and that if he does want to attack me it'll have to be 1 by 1 through MAO.

I think Bo is pretty confident in his abilities to eliminate me, I'll let him speak more publicily about it if he wants, but I feel I had a defensive position, or a the very least that the amount of effort for Germany to break through DEN/SWE/HEL/NOR and Italy to break through EC/two-armies-on-homeland would be such a *high* activation barrier that Austria would be too hard to ignore, especially if Austria went through with the stab, and if he didn't stab then it would be too tempting.

I'm going to claim that my idea was both executed and succeeded.

Austria and I sincerely was planning on a AIE, but it doesn't seem like Bo was willing to try it, which isn't an unfair thing. I mean, I'll take the draw at this point, so it's not a problem to me.

Thanks everybody for coming out! All in all it was a fairly intense game. Everyone I invited were people I somewhat knew or played a single game with and wanted another with.
Tyran - someone I knew from live games
Maher - someone I knew from live games
Bo - someone I knew from the forums
2WL - someone I knew from Boston
RLH - someone I knew from Boston
SD - someone I knew from reading EOGs and wanted to test my mettle against

Sorry I don't have more detailed notes, but (and this is like the 3rd time I've written this this weekend) going from 54 pages of unorganized message archives is hell. Happy to discuss anything and everything.

Let's be fair now. I didn't start my over the top stuff until after you told me you wouldn't negotiate with me.

Valis, you did have a defensive position. That's why I took your support to Brest. I was going to wait it out until you gave me an opening, which wouldn't have taken long. You would have had to convoy pretty shortly if you wanted anything from Germany at all, so I was just going to wait, probably let Germany start to fall (three disbands would have sucked), and make my move. It would have been my solo run.

I don't like unstable draws much. I don't necessarily want things to be pretty, but I want them to be fairly safe, and the AEI really puts me in a tough spot because I have to line up units against two completely different nations on either side of me. You're naval based (by the way, if you had built more armies and put them on the mainland, you could have had a solo shot), he's all armies, and I would have had to cover the Adriatic before he built a fleet. That said, I would have had three or four more builds, none of which I expected to have, so it may have been doable, but not worth the risk of getting on the wrong end of someone else's solo.

Also, I would appreciate it if you could at least explain your stance behind muting people.

Anytime I don't think there's anything interesting to be said, or I don't trust anything they say, I mute.

Example: THM just stabbed me a bunch of times so I muted him. His word is literally worth nothing to me and the only thing I'll respond to is his actions and he knows what actions I want him to take.

Next example is with Maher. This is how I viewed the conversation:

G: Please don't attack me
E: Sorry I'm attacking you
G: Why?
E: [Reasons]
G: At least be honest with me
E: OK, you can't convince me not to attack you
G: [1000 words yelling at me]

1. I have no duty to change my mind just because you write a lot of words
2. You asked me to be honest, and when I was you use that as an excuse to yell at me. All you've done is tell me that being honest with you gets me a load of yelling in return.
3. I don't think he understood. It's not that I would NEVER not attack him, it's that
A) I thought it was my best choice at the time
B) He couldn't convince me otherwise.

I gave him my honest stance, and in addition none of his arguments were good enough to convince me otherwise, so I told him honestly I was going to keep attacking him. So he kept yelling at me.

So I muted him. It was clear he had nothing interesting to say to me. As soon as you go from trying to convince to me to yelling at me for your failure to convince me, it's worthless. And he went there pretty fast.

I have no idea why or when I muted you Bo if I did, but it probably falls under
Italy wants me to stab France
A) I didn't think it was the correct choice for me
B) He couldn't convince me otherwise.

After a certain amount of time/words, if you can't do B, but you keep talking to me, there's no point.
------------------------
I try to read and respond to press ASAP in my FP games. But what that means if I'm always checking and always thinking and always expecting to respond to press. (shout outs to ssorenn who I've muted before too in the same boat with Bo/Maher/THM/xpedior/OBGYN).

If I'm in a position where I consistently or severely find myself receiving press from you I find worthless, I'm going to mute you so it doesn't distract/both me. (Almost everyone, even THM, gets unmuted within a year or so, most often that phase the next day)

MAYBE I miss something critical

MAYBE it just shows I'm not mature

but my piece of mind in
A) blocking out messages I don't want to see
B) Making it absolutely clear that I choose to listen to someone or not
is worth it to me and my play.

and no it doesn't always work out but little does.

I once hit the mute limit on threads so now I have to periodically go back and unmute all threads. It's almost certainly just a personality/playstyle/lifestyle rather than some deeply thought strategy that I've exogenously adapted.

I've also muted players IRL, at the 2014 webDiplomacy F2F tournament held at The Boroughs by Abge, I came back from a 1/2 center England with French armies on my home island to a 5-center power that decided whether or not we draw. I muted the French player; I announced to him and everyone else I wouldn't talk to him until his army was off my island. Now, who knows if that resulted in a better or worse outcome than if I didn't do it. I also did it to a French player (coincidence!) at Templecon. That game went more poorly, with me getting into a 7-way draw with 1 center (in a center, not player-count, scoring system).

I love all the little side strategies the game offers. Which is why I get so mad when people don't play to win, because I think the idea of throwing the solo win to be the most interesting and coveted thing in the game; the entire game and strategy and balance falls apart without it. I love the idea of muting, purposeful misorders, throwing, etc etc. I don't want to play it as "gunboat with semi-bluffs".

When we have Bridger EOGs, or if we don't then just in PM, I'll ask THM if honestly my muting helped or hurt my end result, whatever it may be.

But let me tell you the response from everyone on this site has been overwhelmingly negative. Most people just cannot fathom it's use outside of someone spamming pron links or something. Yes, I understand it's incredibly bold/risky/shuttingDown. But sometimes the situation calls for that. It's a way to make myself absolutely clear in an undeniable way, and a way to protect my sanity even if it may cost me some press.

EoG of Bridger, Bo is a fucktard----end of EoG

Haha, sorry I probably shouldn't bring up an ongoing game, but it was a clear example of what Bo asked about. We'll keep those for the actual thread ;)

Excuse me, *was a fucktard*

Actually it was more like this:

Maher: Uh, dude - France is falling. Maybe we should talk about your on-going commitment to him.
Valis: Philosophically, I just don't believe in EGs.
Maher: Really? You do realize if France falls quickly Italy may get out into the Atlantic and wreak havoc on your coasts.
Valis: Disband all your fleets and we'll talk.
Maher: Well I just built them. That might be a bit tough. Do you have other proposals?
Valis: Contribute your little circles to my collection. I need 18.
Maher: ...[Now comes the ranting.]

[Next turn passes. I guess right on defense again.]

I personally love the sheer variety of philosophies and personalities that are brought to these Diplomacy games. Also all the flavor and "voice" to be found in these EoGs. There's nothing like an entertaining EoG.

Props to the players in this game. There was a lot of good play here. There were mistakes, too, but those who have written EoGs already are clearly good at thinking critically about their own play.

Thanks Tas! Glad to be entertaining at the very least =)

Turkey doesn't visit the forum much, I'll send him a link hopefully we can hear from him. I'd be very interested in that.

I wasn't going to post an EOG (just not my style, except IRL), but I'll give a quick summary at Valis' request.

Overall, I was disappointed with my play, and the diplomacy on the board in general. This isn't sour grapes, I've lost many games and will no doubt lose many more. It's probably just my reaction to the difference between online and FtF play. In FtF, diplomacy is about people- you listen to their words, you read their expressions, you compare them with the other people, etc. And in FtF, you typically don't wantonly lie- you do lie on occasion, of course, but doing so consistently, throughout the game, is just generally regarded as poor play- it means you're not confident in your ability to be persuasive, and/or you don't know what to say.

But in this game, lying or saying nothing useful seemed to be the default for almost everyone. Virtually every single season, at least one person would tell a blatant lie to me- typically, for no clear reason. I'm almost certain one player in particular didn't tell me the truth the entire game. Sometimes, they got offended when I pointed out their frequent lying and indicated I had trust issues with them now- they seemed to think there should be no consequences. Now, given that almost everyone did better than I, I suppose this is simply a facet of online play I'm not used to, and evidently it does work just fine. But it was very discouraging. There was very little diplomacy, there was no shifting of alliances, there was no negotiation or debate or discussion over strategy or tactics. There were vague platitudes about "being in the draw" (long before a realistic draw was even plausible), a lot of talk of "alliances" and "treaties," but virtually no getting into details about specific moves, plans, or goals. And the few times there were, they were lies.

Again, this isn't sour grapes. It isn't even an indictment of online play. It's just an observation, from a long-time (and, for what it's worth, very successful) FtF player, on the differences between FtF and online play.

As for the game itself, I wanted to ally with Russia, because he seemed like the best bet for me to get out of the box- that didn't work out, and I spent the rest of the game trying to get anyone to work with me. I was not successful.

Good game, everyone! Maybe I'll try it again sometime :-).

Thanks for the commentary, RLH.

When you say "no shifting of alliances," I assume first and foremost that you're talking about the CPA. I understand your point of view, but can you really be that critical? Look at where it took us. Look at where it would have taken us if Soc Dis could have kept it in his pants for another year or two. Even in FtF, a strong triple alliance will crush the board as long as each player remains loyal, and while it's inevitable that at some point someone will decide to go their own way, they work beautifully when done right.

I was pretty vague and just generally not forthcoming with you that entire game. I love the I/T from the Turkish side and hate it from the Italian side. I'll basically never even give it a chance. That's just a style thing, and you're welcome to convince me that I'm wrong. When we did have a serious discussion, it was usually a front to try to split you and Russia apart, and in the end, it worked out for us.

Valis, I just don't see the purpose of closing alleys of communication. In FtF, it might make a point. I don't know, I've never tried it in the few FtF games I've played. I just don't think it has that effect here. It tends to get people angry with you and then you'll just have a player like me that tries to get you to go back on that decision to mute. It's really a waste of time, which is why most of us use that feature so sparingly.