oops, cut/paste error. Wish this site had an "edit" function for posts. Will try again below.

Spring 1901: I didn't think we'd get enough players. Surprisingly some of the gang did some last minute scrambling and we had our seven. I drew Austria? Austria is my favorite country. Nobody ever suspects Austria. I let the other players know what would be in store for them if they attempted a fool's mate opening and suggested that we collaborate on opening strategies. I was surprised again to discover that most of my neighbors wished to remain neutral. Surely this was to be a lively match. What I do know now, but did not know then, was that this match was to be the most skilled match in which I would play to date.

Autumn 1901: Turkey has agreed to bounce the Black Sea, which is always a good sign. France had moved into a rather Trendy opening, and had forwarded me some intel about the rest of the board. Both England and Germany had opened North. Turkey had used the standard opening. What's this? Russia blitzed Germany? Good Lord! He'd done so without any sort of official clearance. I realized (incorrectly) quickly that Russia would be no threat to me at all after such an opening, and felt an immediate surge of gratitude. I would have to cover the south, and began formulating a strategy. And then I had the first sign of trouble. Russia asked for support into Rumania.

Rumania? Why the Devil would *Russia* want Rumania. He'd need my help to take it, my help to hold it, and then it's sole value to him would be to chalk up a supply center for him towards a potential total of 18. Since it was way too early for those sort of considerations, I had to shift focus to securing Rumania. A shame - I could found far more profitable occupation for my armies than Romanian annexation. Alas. I set to "fingerprinting" my opponents using the techniques of open-source intelligence analysis. Ironically, I happen to be a professional in this field. I'm likely to be published at some point. Ironically, I got most of my opponents all wrong. I reached a series of erroneous conclusions about my opponents that misinformed much of the policy that I was to follow through my brief remaining tenure as Austrian General.

Spring 1902: Italy went for Greece? I can think of few errands that would have been more ill-advised. Christ's Money. Russia had grown inconsolable over the loss of Romania. This is where things really fell apart. The man had gone completely to pieces, and it was then that I knew who he was: Draugnar. Perhaps Turkey could be reasoned with? No one really wants Draugnar as a neighbor.

Germany had grown fairly chummy with me, which I took as a bad sign. Anyone that friendly inevitably grows to become a liability. England was quiet. What did I really know about him? I figured he must be non-American, probably not a native English speaker (wrong). France was clearly a serious operator. I built a Russian invasion force and tried to interest Italy in a Lepanto.

Fall 1902: I try for a feint on Italy in order to throw off Turkey. Italy moves to a conservative position. I'll say this for Italy - no set of orders was too conservative for him. Risk, ambition and conquest seemed completely alien ideas to him, concepts that I struggled to explain to his Italian intellect. Oh, and I flanked Russia pretty hard. England and France are at it in the Channel. With any luck I'll take Sevastopol and come in behind Turkey's line.

Spring 1903: The time had come to spring the trap on the Turks. Italy had moved to increasingly conservative positions. He'd probably already had enough excitement for one game and had retired to the Italian peninsula for safety, perhaps. Germany had, miraculously withstood a three-army invasion and had really shown the Russians what-for. I'd drawn the Russian line south as part of a relief mission.

It was at this point that I became sure (incorrectly) that Turkey was Achillies. He's probably my best friend on the site, so of course I needed to clobber him. Almost pulled it off, too. He beat me to the punch. Two battalions lost in fighting with Cossacks, and my Grenadiers - the pride of my military, walloped and abandoned their guns in Serbia.

At this point I was prepared to dig in for a protracted struggle, and appealed to the West for aide. Nobody wants a strong Turkey and nobody, and I mean nobody wants Draugnar to be in the game past 1903. Surely something can be done?

Fall 1903:
Promises of support from the West came pouring in. Italy, long brooding his increasingly dismal fate, moved into an increasingly conservative defense posture. Five regiments of German regulars arrived by way of assistance, lost and wandering in the wrong direction through the Alps. Word came in from France and Germany that a sort of accord had been reached with the enemy in England and that, finally some pressure might begin to be applied to the Ruskies. We hit the towel-heads with everything we had. Our position outside Athens held and we won the day in Serbia.

A parade was held in Belgrade. Draugnar began sending me an increasingly bizarre tirade of threats and aggrievances. I was to blame for all of his problems. I was solely at fault. He supported the Turkish navy into Romania, a province that not two days before he had sworn must belong to Russia for all time. Most of his infantry were sighted marching curiously along my empty resource center of Vienna, although wether this was meant to taunt me or as a training exercise we will never know.

Spring 1904: Russia backstabs Turkey? By Jove! I just might be able to pull this off.

Autumn 1904: Hope fades at Russia and Turkey patch up their differences. No help is forthcoming from the West. What to do? France is a knave and Germany is a ninny. Germany seemed a really decent fellow at first, but he tried to be everybodyies friend, which only makes you everybody's enemy. I grew to resent the pair of them. Here I was holding off Italy, Russia and Turkey, while they had a grand old time carving up resources in the West. They seemed content to let me do the dirty work. Germany was the real puppet. He couldn't see that France was using him. I knew I was done for, and so I cooked up a bit of a scheme. I muted most of the players, a tact calculated to rattle them. People who thrive on communication tend to loose it if you ignore them. I'd used this professionally before, and it appeared to work. I sent what remained of my forces towards Germany, with the hope of grabbing a couple of centers.

Spring 1905: Silesia. Berlin was open and Warsaw was open. Both Russia and Germany were probably too smart to let me just march right in, but I had to chance it.

Autumn 1905: They blocked me. I was finished. Fade to black.

Thank you for reading. I had long wanted to write an EOG and was waiting for an invitation. Thanks to all who participated. Hopefully we can meet up for a match again soon.

That was a great read -- thanks for sharing! Here is the link to the game:
gameID=107985

There is no way I could match what Swedgin wrote, but here is mine.

The concept of this game was that players were to be as snake-like, deceiptful, and stabby as possible. I was France and agreed to a DMZ the first turn, but had a hard time trusting England because of his terse press, which as it turns out is achilles' M.O. The other problem was Germany fell for the first trick of the game, where he went to bounce Sweden but Russia stayed put and Germany lost Denmark. Since Germany was being clobbered too quickly I need to figure out a way to slow that situation down, so I decided to hit England in year 2. He predicted my convoy attempt nicely and by that time Russia was growing too quickly so I helped to negotiate peace between F/E/G. I have to say that England is pretty unflappable. From that point on he did everything he said he would do and delivered the goods in perfect condition every time like a top-rated Ebay seller. Despite this, I was having a hard time trusting him enough to move completely away.

So once peace was struck, it was up to me to hit Italy. He sent one half-hearted "I don't think it's going to be good for either of us to stalemate in the Med." message but fell relatively quickly.

For the first couple years of the game, I found Austria to be an enjoyable communicator. At one point, however, he sent me a message by accident, so I posted this in global: " I just got a message from Austria asking me to patch things up between Germany and England so they can attack France. Well, as I much as I like you, Austria, I will not be orchestrating my own suicide at this point in the game." Immediately after that, he muted me! I couldn't believe he went into "I'm taking my ball and going home" mode. He says in his EoG that it was a tactic, but I think it was about that time that things started turning bad for him and he got pissy. That being said, I'll have to keep that tactic in mind.

Once Austria and Italy were gone, Russia and Italy had formed an unbreakable bond, so I knew I needed to get my share of Germany if I wanted to have enough centers to make the draw. I had been propping him up for far too long anyway (sorry phil_core!). Turkey was nicely asshole-ish right to the end, as the game dictated, continuing to attack every turn even as the formality of the draw had been worked out.

I enjoyed the game a great deal and was glad I got to play alongside phil_core, who is great for late night conversation. And I have to give props to achilles for showing more intestinal fortitude than I thought he had. The poor bastard is always getting knocked out early in press games, but I suspect it's because of his terse messaging style.

All I can say is I proved chainsaw diplomacy can work <grin>. If you don't believe me, just ask Turkey. We were in it pretty much all along. only when he let Austria get two builds did I even say anything and even then the follow up was a wink with "it's in the spirit of this specific game theme".

But overall it was some of my worst tactical play and so took some of my hardest negotiation to make it to 04. Once we had Austria gone, though, the reliability and perserverance between Turkey and I stood true and never waivered. We knew we had to stick together, found a minor stalemate line, and held it.

@Al: Brilliant recap. I gave you +2 for the recap, then deducted 1 for calling me a ninny - still +1

Here's how I remembered it.

Spring 01
Everyone is friends with everyone. No one is attacking, everyone is just going for neutrals, so I do the greedy German opening, Ber->Kiel, Kiel->Den, Mun->Ruhr with delusions of a three build in my head.Then Russia (who I pegged as Dragnar within 3 communications) played the German Attack opening. From the beginning, I was forced to retreat my greedy build opeing to defend my homeland, Der Vaterland.

Autumn 02
England takes Den from me, now I'm in the bad position of an England/Russia double attack.France and I are talking a lot though, both communicative types, which made the game fun. There were a few people who'd probably prefer gunboats judging by their press. Other than making friends with France Autum 01 was a complete bust for me, forced to retreat to my 3 home centers.

Spring 02
I started by taunting Russia for not getting any builds, and trying to show England the folley of his ways by allying with the only one on the board to not be successfull (in hindsight, neither was effective as they were both in the draw and I was defeated, but it was worth a shot ;-) At this point, I started to talking to my Germanic brothers in Austria, and picked up right away that it was Al ... because seriously, is anyone on this site as eloquent? I don't think so! As far as moves go, very uneventful for me, reduced to supporting holds in my three home SCs. Favorite quotes from Autom 02:
"England seems very afraid of wearing out his keyboard. Can you get him to type more than a couple of words to you?"
and
"I thought fagnaur always used fucktard"

I'll leave it to the authors to claim credit if they want to.

Autumn 02
I'm still trapped, but I'm able to get back Den and Russia pulls back because of Austria's move against him. I make some big promises to Russia, but it's because of him, that I'm in this position, so I don't intend on keeping them (again in hindsight, I should have, he would have probably been a better ally considering my caged-in position by England). Also at this point Austria starts telling me of far out plans that need the stars to allign 4 moves in the future to work out right, and Italy doesn't seem to know that you can support holds or moves. I think this is the season that France starts lobbying on my behalf to England to keep me around. I was tauniting England for Russia taking Sweden and he begrudgingly told me that He and France had discussed a WT and against his better judgement he was inviting me in. Then demanded "Do you accept?". What he really meant was "I'll keep you in a cage and not let you grow until I can convince France that you are no longer useful". This is also the season that Austria sends the eroneous message to France, then mutes him for posting in global. And the sesason that Austria failed to take an unprotected Moscow. As much as I enjoy conversing with him, I'm beginning to fear that Austria is going to be an unreliable ally. All in all a strange season. Favorite Quote from Spring 02:
"Italy doesn't seem to know how the game is played. Perhaps someone should post a link to the rule book on the global chat for him to study. I'll hold off on that until you take Venice though. I wouldn't want to be the one who informs him that you can actually support moves and holds, prior to you relieving him of Venice."

Spring 03
England continues to finalize very quickly with no chance for communication, Austria continues to make 4 year plans, Russia continues to alternate between cursing me and asking me for help and I continue to be curled up in a fetal position thanking my master for not beating me!

Autumn 03
Nothing exciting from my point of view, Austria now has a 10 year plan that I can't even see the first season working. people are starting to guess who is who. The most flattering moment of the game is when France thought I was Al Swernington. Not flattering for my game playing, but for my communication. That is indeed a compliment to be mistaken for someone as well spoken as Al.

Spring 04
Others might have enjoyed the game at this point, but I was still caged, not a lot of fun for me at this point.I did take Austria's sugestion for a move that had England asking me what I was doing, to which I could only reply "I'm not sure. I'm clearly not going to leave Kiel wide open to you and then move on Sweden though. I was actually humoring Austria because he's fun to talk to. He told me he had a trap for Russia that was 3 moves deep." Austria also disbands his serbian army rather than retreating to Trieste securing his SC

Autumn 04
The German people had a vote of no confidence against the Austrian ruler, and it is decided by the people of both nations to unite the germanic countries of Austria and Germany under one flag - mine. Austria mutes me for my initiative. Talk of a 5 way draw starts, since Austria and Italy on on their last legs. A well planned stab by Germany and France against England is discussed. I stupidly, thinking that I needed Russia's support, and thinking he would be thrilled with turmoil in the west at last, tell him of it. He immediately tells England, who immediately tells France who relays the info to me and we undo all of our attacking moves and play nice, waiting for a future opportinuty which never came. Then, the funniest moment of the game, after warning of a potential stab, Russia actually starts complaining about the fact that nobody was stabbing anyone! WTF?? Try keeping your purple mouth shut, next time! ;-)

Spring 05 - Autumn 07
I think the game was still being played by others, you'll have to read their EOG to find out for sure, but for me, just sittin in my pink jail cell passing the time and doing as my guards tell me. Lots of interesting conversation though. Me and Russia had a lot of good-spirited fucking with eachother. Me and France had lots of talk about stuff outside of this game, and England and turkey ... well I think they said a sentence or two when prompted. Favorite quote of Auttumn 07:
"Sorry man. You are awesome but have been voted off the island."

Spring 08
I'm done for - but as anyone who reads my opinions here regarding quiting will know, I don't give up easily. I offer support to Russia against England, I slip behind Russia's lines with a rogue unit for a turn or two, I try to stir shit up between France and England, Russia and Turkey, Turkey and the english language, what ever. Me and Russia have a very spritied "conversation" on the global where we both talk shit to eachother because we can both take it and dish it out (+1 Draug) and then my favorite quote from that year on the global from the mild-mannered Turkey who doesn't like mommy and daddy to fight:
"Based on Germany's response to this, I'm even more glad to do a 4 way draw"

haha - fucking hilarious!

Autumn 09 - the end - I die out one by one fighting all the way! and in the words of Al Schwerington ... Fade to Black

Great game every one!

Best. EoG. Ever.

Hey guys, I'll post an EoG sometime later...
Note: I have been working on my press a LOT lately, trying to get away from the short message thing (I started diplomacy playing live games... So I never realized the importance of long, in-depth messages until a while ago) so anyway, I think that a rematch is in order :) also, your guys' EoGs are awesome!
Seriously though, Anyone up for a rematch?

I'm in on the rematch.

Wouldn't miss it for the world.

Oh, and just to make sure that everyone understands, I regard all of the players of that game as friends. I did think everyone played well and would have shaken everyone's hand at the end. Ended up watching the rest of the game unfold and was secretly hoping for Turkey to win.

Favorite quote of the EOG so far:

"Nobody wants a strong Turkey and nobody, and I mean nobody wants Draugnar to be in the game past 1903."

Second favorite quote of EOG:
" I'll say this for Italy -no set of orders was too conservative for him."

Gentlemen,

Is there any opposition to merging the rematch with the Celtic Britain game? With any luck, we can unleash a level of violence on the Vdiplomacy boys that would make William Wallace proud.

How do you merge a rematch? What if everyone from both matches wants in? Somebody will be left out.

I loved playing in the game but I still have the 17/17 tourney, the GB tourney just started, and the Masters is about to start. So I will sit out the next one. I will come back for the "Free Victor Bout" All Star Gala in a couple of months.

These are some seriously entertaining EoGs. Had a blast reading them, looks like that was an intense game.

Draugnar,

I share your concerns. What would help me the most would be if someone would step forward as organizer - I would prefer to play a Celtic rematch variant but have no major objection to a more faithful recreation of our celebrated match. Let me know if you or anyone else will step forward as organizer. I'm flexible and would enjoy a good game.

Obviously, I'd be completely willing to write some promotional copy to support or advertise the match if someone is willing to organize. Just let me know the theme and tone of the writing and will cheerfully oblige.

Oh! I think I misunderstood. When you said Celtic Britain game, I thought you meant a game with players from Britain and other regions Celtic. I haven't been on VDip and didn't know there was a new variant. for it. How many players are needed for the variant?

I'd be up for that Al...