Ick. That pasted from notepad in a most ugly way. Sorry about that. Let me try again...

So I got France once again. At that point I had been France several times and always been screwed over by England and Germany. In talking with the two of them I proffered a three way alliance which I learned was called a Western Triple. I'd been really wanting to see what France could do against Italy when allied with England and Germany so this was my chance. So far so good.

Italy and I agreed on a DMZ in Piedmont, but nothing was said about the other southern territories. As it turned out, I never did try to move into Piedmont.

After the first move everything was looking good. England and Germany offered me Belgium so England could focus on Scandinavia with the caveat that England would get it back in 1903. Three builds from the start? Sure. And if they were pulling the wool over my eyes I'd either have three builds and Germany in Burgundy or two builds but a good defensive position.

Come 1903 Austria had been mostly eliminated (he wasn't even supposed to be in the game and went CD.) Russia, Turkey, and Italy had worked things out to face the western triple. England moved into Belgium as expected. (No it wasn't a stab, me moving to Picardy and Burgundy and taking Belgium back was the stab.)

So what led up to that stab? Mostly Germany telling me that England was talking about stabbing me. And I believed it. I was concerned about how much Germany had moved into Russia instead of south against Austria/Italy. That didn't give England much room and the whole alliance seemed ready to fall apart. So better it fall on my terms.

Italy and Turkey had been talking with me about how little progress I would make against them and we worked out a deal where I would turn against England and Germany. Of course as far as Germany knew I was only stabbing England and was going to support Germany against Italy.

Things went well against England except that I left myself wide open against Italy, putting too much trust in the new southern alliance. For the record I was only stabbed like a red-headed step child once. Once Italy stabbed me I had to look at my attack on England. While I was in both Liverpool and London, I would likely only be able to keep one. I decided to mend fences with England so he and I could focus on Italy rather than me being eaten between the two. Germany decided to help Italy against me and England decided to focus on Russia in Norway rather than stopping Italy so I was slowly eaten up anyway and that was that.

I'll post what I remember. This game went on longer than most games I've played because the phase lengths were so long.

Anyways, I played as Germany as one of the two veterans. I started out the game hoping to convince France to move against England, the other veteran with me. I wanted to get Marek out of the way and I was hoping that he wouldn't really be taking the game seriously at all. However, the idea of a Western triple was floated by France (and not either of the veterans as the commentators speculated) and I decided to go with it on the simple basis that it had been a while since I had tried a Triple.

From the get go France, Turkey, and Austria were the most receptive rookies in that order and in my mind I was aiming to work out a two-way draw with Turkey but have him stab me at the last moment to take the win. That was what I envisioned as the perfect lesson... but alas it would not happen, try as I might. I often gave advice and negotiated deals that were not exactly in my best interest, but more in the interest of giving a lesson. Turkey was friendly enough and continued with the banter but he was clammed up whenever it came to real business and it made it difficult for me to divulge much information or plan anything in detail because he was hesitant to open up about tactical detail and his future plans. Russia was difficult to access, and for some reason I didn't really build any sort of rapport with Italy at the start, though that would change somewhat as she became a more dominant player. Throughout the game though, I have to admit that I had a vested interest in Turkey.

The Western Triple was working out alright, with Russia and Austria going down pretty quickly, and all the while I was pressuring France to move with me against England. The crucial moment of the stab, I was banking on Italy and Turkey to do what I would have guessed most players to do, which was stab each other, but this was hampered by the fact that I couldn't get Turkey to open up enough that I could tell him beforehand that the Triple was collapsing without the suspicion that he'd tell England. So as it happened, I got stabbed pretty brutally and had four enemies and only one ally.

I quickly consolidated my forces in my home centres to make them unappealing to attack, but apparently this wasn't enough because France soon joined in on the fray! I thought this was a funny decision since Turkey had not stabbed Italy and there wasn't much opportunity for material gain, but there was a decent sacrifice of southern tactical position and diplomatic favour. When Italy hinted that she'd be moving horizontally, despite trying to be a little covert about it, it was patently obvious that France would be taking a huge hit, though not as large as I expected as she didn't move to Piedmont as well.

This entire time I've been urging Turkey to stab Italy while he has the chance, and he had many chances, though they dwindled as Italy stepped up her game and decided to actually put an adequate defense on the Eastern frontier, lest she befall the same fate that France did. I wasted no time in moving against France and building two fleets in an attempt to take the initiative in showing Turkey that I meant him no harm and that he should stab Italy. That didn't work, as Turkey's continued advances on Silesia showed, and then he supported Italy into Munich for another temporary stay, but again, I withdrew my forces to make my centres exceedingly unappealing.

By this time, the commentary had long stopped, and I had grown tired and bored of the game as its phases were much too long for my taste. As the others started to express similar sentiments, I decided I would try to continue making it as boring as possible and respond unenthusiastically so that Italy and Turkey would settle for a three-way draw, which was a reasonable result for me given my position. Despite Turkey's attempts to make it interesting, he stabbed Italy far too late and despite some tactical blunders on Italy's part, she got her stalemate line up easy enough, and taking out England was simple enough once I had Italian support. By that time, I think all three of us were happy with a three-way, and it ended with a completely unintentional stalemate line on my part.

I hope you all learned a little something. You all definitely have potential. There's a lot of room to improve tactical game and the sense of the balance of power, but these things come with experience. I'd especially like to congratulate gjdip on excellent diplomacy. Your good nature won me over right at the start and it's a testament to your diplomatic ability that you went the entire game without really being stabbed.

do people actually read this?

yes, they do.

Mine will be up tomorrow or Friday. I just started my MBA studies this week and now there seem to be 3 hours in the day all of a sudden.

I read them... I have no life... haha.

I read all of the EoGs for the SoW and a lot of other games as well. It's interesting to read about people's motives and strategies.

Oops. That was pootercannon posting above and this one, too.

I'll post soon as i get a chance, can't wait to hear gjdips comments. Good comments so far :)

I'm reading. This was a good game and it is interesting to hear the motives of the players in hindsight. Especially since this game started with a western triple which doesn't happen very often and is hard to pull off.

Wonder if Marek will post .oO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO i just spent abot 20minutes writing an EOG and my stupid internet went weird ahhhhh. Fine well you'll get an EOG when i can be bothered to try again.

This EOG may be a little bit different as I think Alderian and Chrispminis have done an excellent job summing up the history of the game. I will focus on how I communicated with and viewed each country as well as what I learned.

A little bit about my background and experience. I played PBEM between 1991 and 1999. I played about 15 games from the beginning and about the same number where I took over a CD position. Best result I ever got was a two-way draw as Austria (or was it three-way?). I was always defeated fairly early except in one game where I survived until 1912 or so.


Countries
========
Russia
From the start I wanted to try a juggernaut and he seemed agreeable. One of the reasons for that was that “juggernaut” was one of the few Diplomacy terms that I knew and I thought it would be cool to try it.

Taking the Black Sea was a mistake as I did not read Russia's comments before the deadline. He decided to go for Rumania as I had suggested while I had not changed my moves accordingly. Therefore, I immediately gained the upper hand and I would not have realized it had I not read Richard Sharp’s book and some of the comments in the forum. The temptation to take Rumania after that was too great so I took it. Despite that Russia and I managed to work together to a reasonable extent. Russia and I always had an uneasy peace but I think we were both driven by the need to stop FEG.

Once FEG dissolved I wanted to work with both Russia and Italy against the rest but I realized that wouldn't be practical so I decided to attack Russia. One of the reasons for attacking Russia was that he was apparently annoyed by my messages which were numerous and tended to be a bit long. Another reason was that I did not realize how limited my options for expansion were in the north. If I were in the same position again I’d probably attack Italy. A third reason for attacking Russia was that my communication with Italy was very enjoyable and she was easy to work with.

Austria
I never had much communication with him and when he stopped returning my messages I decided I wanted him out of the game despite warnings against doing so in the forum.

Austria was not one of the better players and it was not too hard to eliminate him.

England
I never had much communication with England except in the beginning and towards the end. He was honest enough and I don't think he ever lied to me. MarekP’s style is very terse and while he is no Jaroslav Hašek he is effective in his communication. Maybe Russia would have liked me better if I had been more like either of them.

France
I had quite a bit of communication with him. Initially, most of my communication with France were attempts to get him to divulge information about FEG and to scare him into believing that he'd become stuck or a target for England and Germany once RIT got their stalemate line set up. After France turned around and attacked England I did not talk to him much and our units never came into contact.

I’d like to thank France for being my sounding board after he got eliminated.

Germany
We got off to a great start. He was very receptive to my messages and indulged me by appearing to be entertained by them. I got suspicious of him when he refused to tell me his opening strategy. I wanted information regarding his policy towards Russia since I was still trying to work out whether to trust Russia regarding the Black Sea or not and he said he wanted to make it a surprise.

I always communicated fairly much with Germany and there was never any animosity or ill feeling in our press even if our moves were not always, err, “aligned”.

Germany gave me loads of advice and suggested various strategic options. I think the game would have been very different if I had listened to him more.

Italy
I made a mistake in the beginning when I signed my initial greetings message as Russia. Fortunately, she just seemed to find it funny. Italy was receptive to an attack on Austria from early on and after carefully feeling each other out we developed a lot of trust for each other. I don’t think there was a single turn where I was worried that Italy would betray me.

Italy always seemed a little nervous about me but at the same time surprisingly receptive to suggestions.

Attacking Italy was never really an option in my mind although I did get some encouragement to do so.

After Russia was defeated it was always at the back of my head that I needed to attack Italy to win and when I finally did so it was too late. She was just too much fun to interact with and she seemed to have a lot of trust in me which I was reluctant to violate.

Vets
====
I asked them questions that I normally would not have asked of other players in a game. My pretext was often that I wanted to learn about the game when I really wanted to learn about their tactics.

The fact that MarekP, Alderian and Chrispminis were the players with the most points and were all located on the same side made me immediately suspicious of some kind of an FEG alliance although I had never been in a game where one had materialized. That’s why I was so cautious about what I said to them.

What I learned
===========
Diplomacy
This was maybe the 15th game or so that I’ve played from the start. I have never been so straightforward with people (even though I have been accused of being evasive, paranoid and clammed up) and I was surprised at how much better that worked than my previous attempts at diplomacy (and Diplomacy).

I saved all my communication with every player in the game. It was a bit of work but since the purpose was to learn I didn’t mind. It came to a total of 89 pages with 36% between me and Italy, 25% for Germany and 17% for Russia which is a little surprising given that I didn’t communicate with him since Spring 1906.

An important lesson that I have learned (in other games on this site as well) is not to make an automatic or an eternal enemy of someone who attacks you. It may make sense for them to do so at one point and later in the game it can be beneficial for both to set their differences aside.

Tactics
I think this was my strongest (read: least weak) side before this game. I can't exactly say how my tactics improved except I think they are 'deeper' somehow.

Strategy
I believe my understanding of the board has increased. This game, for example, drove home the fact how limited Turkey's expansion routes are when Italy is allowed to control the Mediterranean.

I've never really bothered with openings; I have more or less chosen some random moves and if they "looked good" then I'd submit them. I knew, for example, that Lepanto was an attack on Turkey but I did not know the exact moves involved. That changed when I read Richard Sharp's "The Game of Diplomacy" with great interest. I think that is a must for all Diplomacy players, old and young, rookies and vets.

I downloaded jDip (http://jdip.sourceforge.net/) and it is by far the best thing I've come across since I discovered that you can find pictures of nekkid wimmin on the Internet last week. I used that on a couple of occasions to play out possible scenarios (both jDip and the nekkid wimmin).

Game dynamics
This was an immensely useful game. I had always known about stalemate lines but I had never studied them as I had never gotten myself into a position before where they were relevant. Before someone (Babak?) posted a suggestion for a stalemate line for RIT to study I had looked at exactly the same one and started to think about how we could set it up.

Previously, to me a province was a province was a province. Now I have learned that there are some special ones like the North Sea, Black Sea and Munich.

Conclusion
=========
I think this game improved my play a lot. The SoW is a great concept and it can really jump start a rookie’s playing.

I think my greatest achievement in this game must be the stalemate line and turning FEG away. I don’t know if FEG had broken up so soon if RIT had not been as tight as we were. Maybe I’m fooling myself by thinking that the stalemate line was a factor in that but there was a feeling of deep relief when I saw the French fleets sail away from Italy. I must admit that I felt a little bit lost for a turn or two after that because defending against FEG had always been such a clear goal.

I am very grateful that I got the opportunity to participate in this game (although I joined before I realized that I was not supposed to and didn’t have a way out). I am thankful for all the advice I got from MarekP, Alderian and Chrispminis. I would also like to thank all those who took the time to comment. It was great fun and very interesting to see how people were reading my moves and interpreting what I was thinking. Thanks also to those who organized the SoW.

Good read, thank you. And if I remember correctly it was TGM who posted/suggested the RIT stalemate line. If RIT had not been as tight, in particular you helping Italy defend against me, I probably would have continued against Italy. If I had it to do again, I probably would have tried to make a deal with you to split Italy and both turn north.

Great comments gjdip (especially the ones about me being fun to interact with :P), definately the defining moments of the whole game was how well we worked together to pull up that stalemate line. It is very true that without that i would be dead very early on in the game. I will post my comments soon i promise.

Oh and Alderian, very interesting to know that it was you who set up the EGF triple :)

Come on, Biddis! You can do it!

Bump