Then a mod needs to force the unpause. Or France needs to draw.

Bump!

BTW, I'd like if we could write EOG statements after this ends. I think it has been a very good game so far.

Bump

OK, I give up. Thanks to all for a great game. I'd be interested in EOG statements, but perhaps others could start.

Here's an edn of game statem,ent for you - You should have had a mod force the unpause. What austria did is metagaming and the mods will forcibly unpause it. I know because I pulled it once to get the draw and the mods declared it a form of cheating after that and said from now on, if you refuse to unpause, they will force the unpause. You did not have to draw that game.

No, Draugnar, Austria was OK. He probably had a weekend commitment and unpaused it back soon enough. There were no implications for the game.
Now for the EOG statement:
I'm very fond of playing Russia, so I started with a usual and tested opening to get two builds in 1901. England was coming for me with full strength, though, and I lost Sweden in 1902. But seeing a friendly Turkey, I disbanded in the Black Sea to let the Juggernaut roll. We managed to keep the status quo in the south against a very combative and integrated Austria-Italy alliance while England kept coming with full force to break into StP. But then two crucial things happened at the same time:
1 - I've managed to take Budapest with Turkish help;
2 - England got greedy trying to get another build and left an army trapped in Moscow instead of securing St Pete.
I had had to disband in the Spring, so I got a build for 1906 that allowed me to force England's army to a corner until he decided to disband it (by this time France was starting a stab on him, as Germany had already been eliminated. Austria missed a turn but managed to recover Budapest, which left me with no builds, but back in a composed formation.
By this time, England got busy trying to save himself from a massive French attack, which led Italy to prepare himself for the blow, because he was certainly the next in France's list. Austria became mostly unguarded, so I managed to get Vienna and Budapest for myself, and England disbanded everything that was near me, so I poached the empty SCs before France could reach them. That led to England's elimination. Sorry, England, I calculated that I could do that without risking the game to a French win, and in fact, I needed the builds to form a stalemate line against France, because there was no Germany anymore.
Italy still managed to keep Austria barely alive, and with France coming into their direction, Turkey realized that keeping that Austrian center was important to avoid the French win. So I moved my newly formed battle front towards the center, while France struggled to break into the Med because Italy and Turkey started to cooperate just in time. My front started to make gains so swiftly that I thought I'd have a shot at the win, but France realized that in time and casted the last Draw vote. Good game, all!

OK, the record doesn't show when the unpause occured in relation to the draw, so I only had the comments here about him "not coming back" to go on. Fair enough, if he unpaused. I apologize for disparaging his reputation.

@JP: Could you please explain the comment "Turkey realized that keeping that Austrian center was important to avoid the French win"? I don't play much gunboat, so I imagine I am missing some communication here.

will enter my EOG during lunch.

@Aurens: It was the support hold to Trieste in Spring 1910 when I was offering a support move into there from Vienna. Turkey preferred to avoid the risk and maintain the stalemate line.

I guess what I'm asking is, were you and Turkey keeping A alive to signal to each other that you were committed to a draw, even if it had to be split more ways?

Sort of. I think Turkey was actually afraid of stretching too much on the front and losing the stalemate line, so he took the safer alternative.

Sorry for the delay in adding my 2 pen'orth (I was Turkey).

I found most of the game quite frustrating as Italy and Austria kept me well bottled up after I'd hoped to go for the Juggernaut as JP also mentioned. From then it was unlikely that I would have any chance of a win. When I realised that France was heading for a win I decided I would try for the stalemate in the med with Italy. This was proving difficult and indeed it seemed wise to keep that austrian army in trieste. Either Russia or I could probably have taken trieste at one point or another but I felt that may threaten russia too much and it was often a risk.

I was quite late realising that I could do it but I was pleased with the convoy of my army to apulia which increased support of the italian forces.

In all I really enjoyed the game although some of the middle game where italy and austria and I kept playing roughly the same moves did get a bit boring.

and well done france - you very nearly beat all of the rest of us united (or as united as is possible in gunboat)

I was certainly committed to a draw as the best outcome for me.

Hope that adds something useful - not very good at analysing my play or remembering what I was thinking at the time.

re: wiping Austria - you also have to keep in mind I had a keen eye on that - I was about a turn away from kamikazing on Turkey if he hadn't woken up to the French threat, and if I felt that I was going to be eliminated as soon as France had been bottled up then I would have had no motivation to prevent the onslaught

what's EOG?

EOG = End of Game. A summary of what you did and why as well as what you perceived out of other's and why you interpretted their chats and actions the way you did.

I thought the English game was particularly dramatic. A strong start, then some catastrophic reversals (with an army crawling all the way to Sevastopol to die), and then, at the end, a last-ditch defense that wasn't enough to stay alive but did keep me from winning. Impressive throughout.

Yes, England was a kind of unsung hero in this game.

Any other EOGSs?