I believe I've said this before, but I believe there were several main lessons to learn from this game:
1) Never stop talking to people. France used his relations, especially with the smaller powers, greatly to his advantage.
2) Tactics are vital, especially in the end game. Throughout the game, several player continued to make tactical errors and/or not make use of all their units.
Italy:
Your main problem was an inability to choose a direction. This is a very common problem for Italian players. You get to Tunis and then don't know where to go. The worst part is, you can go quite a while without having any actual enemies, so many people don't even realize they're doing poorly. Unfortunately, your lack of expansions was further impacted by some very serious tactical errors early in the game. Leaving ION open and an army in APU in the first year, for instance, severely crippled you.
There are things you should be commended for, though. While your moves were weak, I do think you were actively looking at the board and trying to compensate for changing dynamics. This is a very important skill to have and I'm glad to see you honing it. Too often, a player will pick a direction and hammer away at it no matter how fruitless it becomes. You certainly did not have this issues, although you do need to scale back a bit from the other extreme. You also fought hard to the bitter end, which is also a sign of a good player. Many people in your position would have given up and while in this particular case it didn't work out, you never know when an opportunity to come back may arise.
Turkey:
You got off to a rough start as well, but your early game moves were much more solid. Without seeing your press, it’s hard to say for sure what exactly went wrong, but having no help from Italy meant Austria had a lot more freedom than he otherwise would. If nothing else, I hope you take away the excellent defensive capabilities of Turkey.
Unfortunately, either to spite Austria or because you were swayed by France, you wasted your mid-game revival. By allowing France into ION, you artificially prevented your own expansion and ensured that France would be able to control most of the South. Your continued assault on Austria when France was steadily making ground against him was one of the deciding factors (along with England’s delayed attack) in France’s solo. As I mentioned in my EOG to Italy, it is critical to continually evaluate the board. If a player is rapidly growing uncontested, you must be willing to make amends with past enemies.
Russia:
You fell into a very common Russian trap: expanding too quickly in each direction and ultimately you were unable to hold the line. This, of course, was not helped by some erratic moves and your untimely exit from the game. By far, your largest mistake was attacking Turkey when he clearly had no interest in fighting you and you were currently fighting a 2 front war. This is a learning game and I believe etiquette should be part of that learning. Leaving a game not only does a disservice to yourself (even your dire position could have been salvaged with some expert diplomacy), but it also is very rude to everyone else who devoted so much time to the game and the SoW.
Austria:
You got off to a very strong start and it is not entirely clear what went wrong. You had a bit of bad luck with some erratic neighbors, but you also failed to secure any lasting allies, which is critical to the survival of Austria. By fighting both Russia and Italy without giving Turkey an avenue to expand, you ensured you’d be fighting on all fronts for the entire game.
You also had a bit of an issue seeing how your actions impacted the board at large, which was devastating to the late game. By assisting England against Germany, with no clear benefit to you, you helped the EF alliance fast-track through Europe.
At the end, your plan to hand your centers over to France was the right one and one I would have tried myself in your position. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to put yourself in a position to make yourself needed for the stalemate (or at least you weren’t able to convince Turkey that you were).
Germany:
Like Austria, you seemed to have a problem seeing how your actions were impacting the board at large. You also put much too much trust into the Western Triple, which clearly was not going to last, as England and France slowly surrounded you. As Germany, it is critical to ally with either France or England. Clearly that wasn’t happening this game, which put you in an awkward position. By working with EF, you were able to kick the can down the road, which would have been good if you were able to prepare yourself against their inevitable attack. For this to work, however, you would have needed someone’s help. Russia would have been your best hope, but that opportunity disappeared once you took WAR.
After the initial stab, it was critical you received help from Austria or England (preferably both), but you got neither, which was devastating. I’d really like to heard about why you weren’t able to get Austria’s support into MOS.
Out of anyone, though, I give you the most credit for hanging on in the late game. While most people would have given up, you stuck in there and managed to make it to the end. If Austria and Turkey could have worked together, I think you would have been critical in stopping the French solo.
England:
In a lot of ways, I think you played a very strong game. Unfortunately, this was overshadowed because you were the largest factor in France’s solo. It can be hard to stab a long-time ally with whom you’ve worked closely with, so I can sympathize with your position. Perhaps and argument can be made for drawing with a loyal ally instead of stabbing for the solo. No argument, however, can be made for sitting back and letting someone take the board.
Around 1906-1907, you were looking good. You had Russia locked down and Germany was all but destroyed. France was rapidly expanding uncontested in the south, though, and you were quickly running out of centers to take. There was a brief opportunity when you could have stabbed France and we may have been congratulating you on an English solo. Unfortunately, by the time you did decided to go after France, your units were trapped in Russia and you simply weren’t able to hold your line.
France:
You played and excellent game and it can be hard to criticize someone who soloed, but no one gets better by being told how great they are, so I want to comment on a few things that I think would have not worked so well for you if you were playing with a more experienced board.
I think leaving an army in BUR for so long would have been a dead giveaway to a more experienced Germany that you planned to stab him. I doubt you would have so easily gotten into RUH, which helped you a great deal. I also don’t think Austria and Turkey would have continued fighting once you had consumed Italy, which means you probably would have been stuck in VEN. Most importantly, though, I think you left your north a bit weak and a less friendly England would have easily taken advantage of that.
None of the above matters all that much, though, as you were playing on the board you were playing, not some fantasy board of perfect players. You played a great game, but it’s important to remember the same tricks don’t work in ally circumstances.
If anyone has any specific questions, I’d be happy to answer them.
I hope my commentary has been helpful, but if you have suggestions on what I could do better (besides being more timely) I’d be happy to hear about that as well.
Good game, all. Thanks to everyone who participated.