Thanks to all the Profs and TAs for making this happen! It was both a pleasure and a privilege to be able to play. Below is the conclusion of England's EoG.
Part two: The difference between PPSC and WTA
At the end of part one, it was Autumn 1903 and I was stabbing Germany with the justification that I needed the German centres to solo. Almost every move had this purpose in mind, with one crucial exception. Rather than support A Nor into St P, F Bar sailed to Norg. To me, that choice was as just pivotal (and probably a lot more constructive) compared to the decision to stab Germany. That was the first move I had made in order to decrease the likelihood of an Italian solo, rather than increase the likelihood of my own solo.
As one of the Profs mentioned during the commentary, Russia can be thought of as a 3-centre power that starts with an extra centre. With St P in English hands, the threat of Northern fleet builds is removed. Russia still has 3 home centres, and we are effectively at peace if we want to be. I'm not sure if I wanted to be. An army in St P would have finally resolved the dead-end tactical situation that English players (myself included) often create by taking St P with a fleet.
However, last time my TA was working for Italy, that SoW ended in an Italian solo. That student is now has an impressive Italian record under their belt and is TA to our Italy. Looking at the board (the one player that never lies!) it is becoming increasingly clear that the Italy-Russia alliance is a one-sided affair, with the bulk of the profit going to Italy. Mentioning this to Russia while simultaneously invading Russia is not a credible way to make that point. Even worse, causing Russia to collapse at this stage when realistically I'm only after War and Mos, just to hand the other seven south-eastern centres to Italy doesn't seem like a good plan either. The fleet moves away, I am no longer fighting Russia.
My 1904 strategy is continuation of this hybrid plan. I'm gunning for those much needed German centres, while trying to work with France and Russia to slow the Italian advance. The results of this strategy are mixed. Holding on to to Belgium and gaining Denmark is good, but expanding at such a slow pace is useless when Italy is picking up a full three builds each year. The hasty DMZ agreement with Russia didn't go so well either. Worse, Italy is now taking Russia's centres with Russia's permission, and my warnings to France that defending against Italy is more important than defending against a retreating Germany have gone unheeded. Less threatening army movements up north combined with better diplomacy could have seen this year go a lot better.
On the bright side, Italy isn't at all happy about my fleet in NAO. At least I know that was the right move. Followed up with a fleet build in Lvp, I spend most of 1905 conducting a full scale press campaign to assure everyone I'm going to unite with them against Italy. Despite losing St P, I'm still shuffling my armies away from Russia in order to provide the assurance they need to stand their ground against Italy. This would never have happened in a PPSC game, and in my humble opinion, that variant is much weaker because of it. The dynamic shift required when a board of enemies and competitors suddenly has to reverse course to unite takes a fair bit of skill to execute effectively. Playing for "strong second" as I would have done under PPSC completely eliminates the opportunities to hone such skills.
I vowed not to attack Germany at all from now on, but was also determined not to lose any ground against continued aggression from Germany. Unfortunately, France was a different matter. Though we would need France's fleet in Por if we were to make progress against the Italian occupation of Spain and Marseilles, with Germany short on units (somewhat my bad) and none of the moves we'd agreed with France ever happening, it was time to invade Brest. Having a rogue army in Brest was superfluous to building the stalemate, and far too much of a liability should Germany lose Paris.
1906 went well. I was back to working with Germany again, and while I did want the French fleet in Por, I wasn't going to lose any sleep over disbanding it. We'd built the Western stalemate (thanks to mendax's wonderful advice on where we needed to get all our units) and we were in a good position to take centres should Italy make any mistakes. As ATC mentioned in his EoG, Italy did make a mistake this year, but it was diplomatic rather then tactical.
I think public chat is one of the most underused features on webdip (especially as we lack group messages), so when Italy failed to respond to my public message about not thinning the draw, it was a key moment needed to rebuild the trust that saw the anti-Italy coalition through to (spoiler alert!) the final draw. A lot can be achieved with one message when everyone sees it, and being public it carries a weight of authenticity that one to one messages often lack. From then on, with my draw vote posted and an uncontested statement on public chat, everyone knew where I stood.
The new-found trust paid off very effectively over the next couple of years, there was a lot less hesitation in private chat as we swapped units and centres around. Thanks to this, we were able eliminate a lot of the risk associated with having units positioned against each other when suddenly they needed to be positioned together on the stalemate line instead. For a more detailed analysis of the problem and solutions we came to, see PeterWiggin's posts about 1906 and 1907.
I'm afraid the rest of the game is a bit of a blur to me. The holiday season rolled around, and the main priority in between eating too many chocolate almonds was maintaining the stalemate line. My TA and I have very similar opinions about an acceptable level of risk when sitting on a line that would result in a solo if crossed, so despite prodding from other players to attempt something more risky in order to break through the line, I stood my ground knowing that greed would eventually win out and I'd get Por once Italy stalled on 17 centres (assuming Russia loses all but War, Mos and St P, which is a fair assumption since there was no stalemate line further south). Despite a shaky couple of turns where Italy managed to break into War, then Mos, thanks to the trust built in the previous years we managed to build a solid northern stalemate line.
We now had a nice little 4 way draw. Except, 4 isn't that little. The circumstances didn't seem that nice. This was SoW after all, and we were here to learn ALL there is to learn in a game of diplomacy. No early finishes, no possibilities left unexplored. I'd better be sure the game is truly finished before I vote to draw! In the spirit of face to face games, where you don't really know what the votes are until after phase end (and also often the votes are anonymous, which would have worked so well to my advantage here) I withdrew my draw vote with 5 seconds remaining on the clock. For the first time Italy was on the back foot. My fleet in Por gave me the position needed to push further into Spain and Marseilles, and for once I was the only one without a draw vote posted.
So what next? I doubted we could cut Italy out, though that was the line I was spinning to Russia. Germany had been an excellent ally in both the early and late game (plus rather fine to stab in the middle too!) so I didn't have any intention of cutting Germany. I doubted I could without giving Italy their 18th centre from Munich anyway. The only real consideration was to see if we could cut Russia out. Consulting with my TA, it was clear we'd need both Spain and Marseille BEFORE trying to cut Russia out of the draw. Since War and Mos form the stalemate line together, losing one would inevitably lead to losing the other.
The other problem we were facing was that Germany had lost Boh through a lack of communication about who was holding Warsaw. None of our eastern units were redundant anymore, so we'd have to play flawlessly to gain Spain and Marseilles without Russia turning against us. Italy is now finally in full propaganda mode, telling everyone in public press that I was trying to pull something. It all seemed just a bit too risky. I'd had my last hurrah, as Germany told me, it was time to click the button and be one of the fabulous four.