Congrats on the win Darwyn, well played.
My EOG:
This game started out terribly for me, and I got attacked from all sides, and nearly went down to one unit before I hatched a plot with Italy against Austria. That built me up to several centres, but left an Italian fleet in the Black Sea, hardly ideal, so I swapped back round again to go with Austria against his old ally Italy.
At this point, no-one had gone out, but most had looked down the barrel of the gun at some point. To stop Austria, Italy went for an alliance with Germany, bringing him over the stalemate line. I was less alert to the triple alliance between F/G/I than, in hindsight, I should have been, and it might have been an opportune time to hop aboard. A little later on I tried to make the switch, but it wasn’t really going to be possible- Italy and Germany were requiring me to do all the legwork without getting much in return... they didn’t offer support in any way, so I stuck with the alliance with Austria.
We were tactically at a big disadvantage here, so we did well to hold on as well as we did, and we were helped a little by the (inevitable) conflict between France and Italy, but we really needed to outplay Germany every turn to overcome the disadvantage, and it didn’t work out that way.
We were left with an F/G vs A/T, with the F/G clearly holding tactical supremacy. I couldn’t see a way forward with Austria, so I reluctantly stabbed him- Madmarx does a good job nurturing alliances, but needs must- aiming to go it alone and get a three way.
France did a few things that I didn’t see as good news for me, such as some fairly petty (in my opinion) lying with respect to the last Italian centres, preventing me from getting Naples, my having been honest with him about what I was planning to do. I don’t like playing like that because I don’t see that the lost opportunities for trust justify the meagre benefits. Nevertheless, it indicated a France who was not interested in alliance with me, and was rather dead set on an alliance with Germany to the very end.
This being the case, I needed something to force France’s hand. I considered trying to ally with Germany, but there was no incentive I could really offer- strong second means nothing in the game, so isn’t believable, and a two-way seemed on the cards as F/G already. Splitting down the middle by saying, let’s play for a two way, but giving you the better security, and possibly agreeing to duke it out from 17-16 in your favour to decide whether we have a two-way or a win for you was all I could do, and past experience suggests that such offers have a low percentage chance of succeeding at all.
I therefore decided that the thing to do was to force France to ally with me, so I deliberately defended in such a way as to give Germany the better opportunities. In this time, I sent a few messages to France, but either got no response or a response indicating a total lack of interest in talking to me, so I just waited for Italy to finally go down. When he did, I voted draw and sent a message to both of France and Germany stating that I was looking for a three-way draw (this was in a build phase). I figured if one of them voted draw, the other would likely follow. Germany responded to the effect that he had no reason to vote for a draw, whilst I argued (in vain, and I didn’t expect to succeed) that with 3 players, the best that could happen would be to to-and-fro indefinitely. France (again) didn’t respond, so I sent a further message to the effect that I had no choice but to throw the game if he didn’t draw, because as it was I was being defeated anyway. I stated that my disbands would be so as to let Germany take all the centres he needed within the year.
France reacted very badly to this (as was always a risk), and copied my message into the global. I figured that this probably meant the end of the game was soon to be upon us. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to give up, and avoided criticising France for his decision to copy messages to global (something else that I find is not worth doing), since that would just make him less likely to vote draw, my condition for resistance against Germany. I quietly explained why I needed to do it to France in our private chat- that as it was I was not needed by either France or Germany, and so I had to do something to make myself needed again, namely force France to ally with me to save the game. It was not to be; France didn’t vote draw. In the spring, not following through my threat would have been a disaster, because I would have aggravated France to no benefit. Sticking to my guns meant that I could possibly get him to come round next turn, and try to push Germany back. In the Autumn, it was impossible to prevent the solo without France’s help, which was not forthcoming.
Although I disagree with France's choice, being, as they were, totally against his own interests in the game (I suspect he will object to mine as well, and, if his in game demeanor was anything to go by, in stronger terms), I still think it was a very good game, and well played all.
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