GAME SUMMARY,
gameID=100000Classic, WTA, full-press, non-anon, 100
, PW protected
Turkey: DRAW '17, 17 SCs, Sandgoose ('S01-S'03 - banned) redhouse1938 (A'03-A'17), Balkan concentration
England: DRAW, 9 SCs, achillies27, Churchill opening
Germany: DRAW, 5 SCs, rokakoma, Blitzkrieg opening - Dutch variation
France: DRAW, 3 SCs, gramilaj, Atlantic opening - Belgian gambit
Italy: Defeated '14, WarLegend, Classical Lepanto
Austria: Defeated '14, Fortress Door, Galician Gambit
Russia: Defeated '05, Zachattack, -
"EoG by Turkey: Dynamic Play"
Introduction
I was following the "live games thread" one day and I noticed how the gameIDs were hitting the 99900s. That was interesting! It could be an oppurtunity to ensure that the 100.000th game would be a real classic WTA FP game! So I created some games when the late 99900s appeared that were all named "A Hundred Thousand Games" and luckily, my tries included
gameID=100000!
I wanted this game to be dynamic and high level, so I set the phase length at 24h and I picked the 7 best players who applied for participation in the game creation thread. Unfortunately, Russia NMR'ed at the start and never came back to full participation after that. It's no surprise three of Russia's four neighbors made it to the last four players to draw the game.
Sandgoose went on holidays and I sat his account and to ensure continuity in the game after he was banned I decided it would be best if I took his place, so gramilaj sent me the password (TY) that I'd forgotten and I finished the game for Turkey, almost soloing it, but falling one SC short.
1903-1907: Rearranging Alliances
When I started playing in A'03 first as a sitter for SG and then as myself, I perceived a huge problem, that would dominate my play until A'07: Sandgoose had allied with Germany and Italy, while I perceived these nations to be the largest obstacle to my expansion. Also, he did not have good relationships with Russia and Austria, which I - despite their size - considered to be of paramount importance to my expansion. I'm a strong believer in dealing with small nations. In a WTA game, they can get you the solo. Moreover, it seemed like Italy was the major beneficiary of the IT alliance and Germany of the GT alliance.
I broke relations with Germany in favor of Russia, who ultimately didn't respond to my gestures at all and just gave up. He apologized for this. Moreover, I decided to stab Italy (who felt my disagreement with the way Sandgoose left his diplomacy in 1903 and saw the stab coming) and spent a lot of time trying to convince Austria I wanted him to be my partner.
1907-1911: War with Germany and Italy
In S'07, Germany, who had been allied to England since the beginning, makes a curious move: Kie-Bal. That move turns out to provoke a lot of the dynamics that dominate 1907 and even the years to follow.
For me, Kie-Bal (even despite its apparent compensatory move Swe-Den) can only mean one thing: Germany is preparing to stab England. He told me as much, and wanted to ally with me against England, but only at a moment of his choosing. I wanted this restructuring of alliances to be immediate, because I was afraid that by waiting, Germany was either holding a carrot in front of me that he'd take away at D-Day or that he was trying to maneuver himself into a position where he could dominate our alliance when it started.
The problem that I'm having at this point and the reason that I sent England the German press revealing Germany's plans, is that England doesn't feel the need to become closer to my nation upon Kie-Bal. In earlier EoGs, England's tendency to provide one-word answers has been commented on and I was baffled by his intransigence after Kie-Bal. This was the reason I sent the copy-pasted transcript, not to tell England that he was about to be stabbed, but that he just had been effectively stabbed. I'd never have done this if I believed that the stab wasn't in progress.
England then confronted Germany with his copies and they sort of re-ally, which causes me to feel a great frustration about the game. I put my draw and cancel flags up and tell the others that if they don't want to make place for a new player on board, we might as well stop.
And there's one more thing during this period that irritates me, the use of hold-orders. They really get my blood boiling. A Diplomacy game should be dynamic. In the period that everybody can still solo all units should be moving all the time. This is a belief that I only developed recently, but one that I really hope to convert a lot of players to. Only very, very rarely did I submit hold orders during this game (the only ones I can recall were the 1909 hold orders for Sevastopol, which was intended to stop any English advancement into my terrain, and the hold orders I issued when I was demonstrating my willingness to retreat from the 17SC southern stalemate line at the end).
A last source of my annoyance is with France. France is a very luxurious country to play, having the best shot at a solo of all nations. I told France that of the two games I played as France on this site at the same basic settings as this one (WTA FP non-live), I'd won one and 17-17 split another. It made no impression whatsoever. Again and again, France would ignore my advice to him and lose terrain. My first advice, in 1903, was to move MAO-Wes and move Gas-Spa so he could start an invasion of Italy with me. Instead, he moved MAO-NAO. If you follow the trajectory of this fleet until it comes back into MAO in S05, you see how absolutely pointless it became upon discarding my council.
Anyways, despite my Global press-diatribes against basically all players on board I manage to forge an alliance with England and Austria that eventually makes me the dominant player on the board.
1911-1914, Preparing a close solo or a draw
In the period between 1911 and 1914, after lots of negotiations and demonstrations of good faith, I broker a deal with Austria and Italy. I explain to them that I have the power to destroy both their nations, but won't if they help me solo. In exchange for surviving, they have to do exactly as I tell them.
Although I admit to eliminating both in 1914, they made a wise decision, because if I'd gotten to the stalemate line a second earlier, I would definitely have followed through on this plan all the way. I would have been glad to stretch out the game if I could be sure of a solo with AI in it as survivors. It made me very sad that in 1914, E/G/F had put into place a strong and effective stalemate line, that maybe I could pick one center from with France's help, but the chance of a real breakthrough diminshed to a point where I started suspecting a draw was going to be the more likely outcome and the agreement I made with Italy concerned only his survive in a solo, not his participation in a draw.
With Austria, during this period, I'd make an additional agreement to keep him in the draw, after he essentially begged me to do so. I was very uncomfortable with his attempt to extend our agreement, which in itself I had trouble keeping and convinced that an honest "no" would be detrimental to both my solo and my "narrow-draw" attempt, I lied to him about it.
1915-1917, Last solo attempt
Relations became very tense during this period. France was not online very often and when he was, his messages were often cryptic. I grew impatient with him and I don't regret that particularly; I come on this site to have fun, not to win primarily. If a person is hard to read and reach and I have to start asking all sorts of questions to find out what he means, I get cranky. That's something for grown-up Diplomacy. At the end of 1914 I inform Austria (and Italy) of their impending death out of respect for our previous alliance (I regret that now) and tell Austria that all I can do for him at this point is to submit a support-move order from Silesia to get him into Munich, which I follow through on. Possibly, Austria thought that this was a diversion for the scenario in which I only used one of the two units surrounding Vienna to capture it and he decided to bounce Vienna instead, to no effect.
Boh-Mun could have been a game-changing event. Austria would not have obtained Munich, but France would have obtained Ruhr, possibly souring F-G relationships very seriously. In fact, even if I'd had a good communication with France going throughout the game and would have known (in retrospect France hinted at the Ruhr attack without really saying it or even discussing it) that at this point he was prepared to go as far as invading Germany, then I would have most certainly tapped Munich myself from Silesia.
I believe that Germany at this point (A'14) should have regulated the Low Countries by an eternal bounce between Holland and Belgium, perhaps unilateral, without ever supporting Hol-Bel with Ruh. That way, the moment Bel-Ruh was succesful, Germany would have taken Belgium in exchange and force a French destroy, which would have made subsequent invasion of Germany harder. I do understand Germany's consideration at this point, that even proposing Hol-Bel could have aggrevated France, but if he could have conveyed the message that tapping Belgium was by no means an aggressive, but a defensive move, that would have been a diplomatic victory and given the delicacy of the A'14 situation, a better decision IMHO.
The following years are characterized by a cat and mouse game. As you can see, I combine my A'14 solo move with a massive retreat.
I want to show to France that I have a lot of space to withdraw to and that his inability to expand means he will be eventually cut out of the draw that he's now trying so hard to stay in. France effectively understands his situation and is clearly going back and forth between surviving a Turkish solo and trying to join the draw. To my rather cruel amusement, Germany is outraged with my continuing attempts to solo and to sway France to help me do it.
1917 draw
A few minutes prior to my draw flag ending this game,
gameID=89627 is wrapped up. I'd been planning my webdip retirement for some time now and felt that cutting France out of the 100000 game would have cost another 5 years at least and it was far from sure England and Germany would have participated in that plan (Germany was adament that he wouldn't, England I believe was not so sure about it). I wanted to basically concentrate all my units around Syria, then bring them back to a minimal holdout position that excluded Vienna, Moscow and Tunis (these would be transferred to G/E) and wait for G/E to kill France. But all of that required a dedication I no longer felt to my games on this site and I took the oppurtunity to end my both last games as part of a 4-way draw. After an almost-succesful solo-attempt, I was not too unhappy with the final outcome, I tried right?
On the different players:
Zachattack (R): you really need to make up your mind on whether you want to join a game. If you want to step out, do it in an orderly fashion: make a thread that asks for a sitter, or at least make the best possible defensive moves, such as issuing a readied set of support hold orders every turn that buys you time and slows down what you perceive to be the inevitable decline of your nation in a way that doesn't disrupt the balance of power on the board irreperably.
Fortress Door (A): you are still young and you will become a fine diplomat. GG.
WarLegend (IT): I can't really pinpoint a specific reason for your demise and don't think there is one. I guess Italy is a tough country to play and if our roles had been reversed I think the outcome, Italian defeat, would have been the same. GG.
gramilaj (F): I believe you need to open up to other people's ideas and identify countries that may not be immediate neighbors, but could be very valuable long-distance allies. An investment in these countries at the beginning of the game could spare you a lot of time reparing relations later in the game. GG
achillies27 (E): Start sugar-coating your press ;-) Also, your units are holding too much. Be sure to look into that.
rokakoma (G): First of all, your analysis of the board is superb. It is clear that your experience as a gunboater got you a lot of skills in this game. Then, your press: I found it very good. It was balanced, you made it clear when you were angry about something without completely letting the rage take over, which meant your anger influenced my play. Your strategy was very good as well. I'd say you were the best player on the board. GG
There's one error that I found you making over and over though. I already commented on it, and studying the game in retrospect with the knowledge I have of the way it ended, I stand by that single criticism: you submit too many hold orders and should make your play much more dynamic.
Examples:
A'05: Bel h, War h, Mun h? If you're moving Kie-Den, why not go all the way with War-Mos and Bel-Wal or Bel-Lon [Eng C]?
A'07-S'08: Den h, Bal h? Prepare an attack on England! He certainly is preparing one on you! (see S'09)
A'11: Bel h? Why not Bel S Bur h? (This was quite possibly a misorder)
A'14: Hol h? Hol-Bel of course! (see above)
PS: I'm sorry Germany that my criticism of your play was somewhat longer than that of the others, but there's a reason for that. You were the best player on board and that means that anything you do wrong is much more subtle than the mistakes of the others (including myself), requiring more explanation. Let it be very clear, AFAIC you were the best.
"A Hundred Thousand Games", EoG thread
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