Sounds like fun!

pre-type copy and paste :-)

gameID=101520
Well it was fun. Game seemed to be a bit too good at start (England and France fighting, Russia with a growing Turkey at the south), so I could afford to choose my enemy at west and at the east. Austria got crunched, but Italy had to face a good R/T alliance (I still do not understand why many players starts attacking Austria with Italy...)

...only to see their SCs stolen by a good (and convenient) R/T alliance after 2 years. Anyway, when Italy lost his first center, he CD'ed, so probably he wasn't pondering the question too much.
With Italian CD and possibly (surely) Turkish fleets in Med, I left the French ground and went to eliminate England before he could ruin French defense... or, to be precise, I called all the English fleet to me to let France take Lvp and Edi. Luckily, Sagr knows how to play and took his chance. From there on, we did a good work against Turkey (SplitDiplomat, today not at his usual level I believe).

I had all the good intentions regarding Russia as soon as he was attacked by Turkey, but he did a mess constantly moving instead of taking my defensive supports, eventually CDing when he had two centres. Luckily again, I think I did well against SD, so Moscow wasn't decisive.

I decided to open anti-French, which I have not done many times. I guessed right that he wouldn't cover Brest (and if he did cover it, he would forgo his other Iberian center). I was hoping Germany would move to Belgium, knowing that France would almost certainly not try and go Munich because he would want Germany to fight alongside him, not against him. However, Germany covered Munich and then built F-Kie and A-Ber.....uh oh, not looking great. Germany did end up helping, though, and I guessed France's moves correctly in spring 02, but I just couldn't capitalize. Russia sending a second unit north and taking Norway just spread me too thin to do anything on either front.

For the next few years, I was basically just pestering France, hoping I could either slide myself into a position where I could take and keep one of his centers so I could get more units than two fleets there. I was also hoping Germany would help me back into Norway. Neither of these things happened, and I knew the game wasn't going to end favorably for me.

Germany telegraphed his intention to stab me, and at that point I decided to completely back off France and hope he would work with me against Germany. That, too, didn't happen. Finally, I decided to support Turkey into the MAO with my last remaining unit in hopes that France would have to worry about that instead of supporting himself into London the next turn (and also hoping that if France DID finish me off, he would pay for it). Those hopes also failed to become reality.

I guess you can say a lot of things didn't go my way this game.

Sounds like fun!

Skittles, in reality, as Germany, I tend to prefer French alliance. With that in mind, I covered Mun only because there was Italy in Tyr (and Apu). A war between you two was perfect, so why shouldn't I "help" you without being effective? (never in Bur and Pic at the same time, I didn't stop Bot - Swe knowing that it would result in Swe - Nwy in the fall, for example). And with your +F Lon, instead of +F Lvp, I expected a NtS - Hel (Lon - NtS), so I moved Ska - NtS and build a third fleet only to call your fleets, helping France, only because Italy had gone in CD.

Sorry for your game.... I didn't really want to help you, even if at a certain point I was wondering whether it was the best choice, since Russia was growing...

Oh, I wasn't saying you did anything wrong for YOU. I think you played pretty darn well for yourself. It was just bad for ME :)

And I knew my fleet London might have made you just a tad uneasy. I only build ther because I knew Spain was taking Portugal with MAO, so I wanted to move ENG-MAO and LON-ENG so I would be in a position to take Brest in the fall.

I had this doubt, but I did prefer to move "defensively" (so to say, it was a NtS attempt anyway... ^_^).