Excellent game, gentlemen. Thanks to everyone for the lack of NMRs and CDs..

You played a very good game, Gobbledydook.

Opening anti-russian, boo.

I think Austria is can be very bad, or quite good in gunboat depending on whether Italy is unfriendly or friendly, respectively. If you go for the Balkans right out of the gate AND Italy is friendly you can really kick some tail. Plus if Russia is being nice (like I was) you are really set. Nice job.

I was Russia (both starts!) and it started out well enough. I got Norway, and things looked to be shaping up where Turkey was going to have to be my friend. Unfortunately, Germany went after me even though France had built all armies. Oh well, it seemed to work for him. Plus Turkey and my moves were just not meshing, and in my opinion he made a couple of choices/guesses that doomed us early. I thought building an army and a fleet instead of two fleets in 1901 was a big mistake. Like I said before, Oh well!

Well cspieker I wanted to try something more active as Austria and not get bogged down in a R-T vs A-I. Sorry...

England here.

Philosophically, as England, I see two ways you can deal with France: hammer them so hard from the start that you basically force either Italy or Germany to come in and administer the coup de grace, or hope France is friendly long enough that you can make it almost impossible for your back door to get opened up. Both strategies usually fail, but I really don't know of any other way to deal with the gigantic menace that is the North Atlantic Ocean shipping corridor. This game, I went anti-French. Russia opened anti-English, but they went for Norway right away. No problem, as far as I'm concerned. As long as I've got Germany on my side, Russia really can't hold Scandinavia unless he and Turkey destroy Austria right away, and the menacing sight of lots of northern purple will generally turn even the most anglophobic German into a giant fan of the Royal Navy.

As far as the gameplay went, it was basically a matter of beating France down and out, ensuring that worst case scenario, I'd be included in a draw. If I could have gotten a fleet into the Ionian, I might have considered the stab in an attempt at a solo, but as long as I couldn't get around the peninsula, I was happy to give germany good reason to commit totally to keeping Austria in check.

no problem Gobbledy. It seems Austria almost always opens Galicia in gunboat, so I expect that. Not to Rumania though! That worked out very well. Nicely done.