France, why didn't you go for the solo?

Yeah. While I do thank you for keeping me in the game, by all rights you could have and should have gone for the solo.

Of course thats always how could-have's and should-have's work. In truth we should have kept the peace and broke into Russian mainland. Hehehe.

Let's recap a little. My early attack on France was due to my newly adopted tactic of choosing an ally early and sticking with him. I turned a blind eye to the actual situation on the ground, which could have told me that this was not a good idea. The day was saved only by iba keeping a cool head.

After that, England decided to stab me, to which I could only react by asking for French help. This plea for help was answered by France by the taking of Belgium. Apparently a small price to pay for survival. His dry answer to my outrages was as follows: "Oh, I'm sorry, were you using it for something?". Very understated. ;)

The unavoidable demise was followed by a brief German interlude in Scandinavia. By that point I had gotten wary of all the French fleets closing in on me. I have to admit, at that point I tried to enter into talks with Russia. For a peaceful cooperation on our borders I promised to help him make a stand against France.
That plan quickly fell through, though, since both Russia and I were being pretty dishonest. Hehehe.

The taking of Holland by France was, believably explained by him, due to jitters. For the record, at that point he did express some regret about that decision and promised to not attack me to kick me from the game. And amazingly he kept to his word, while otherwise it could have been easily a 4 way draw or even a solo.

I have to admit this has been one of my most entertaining and thrilling games. Thanks to everyone for being such good sports.

*unavoidable demise of England*

First off, thanks to everybody in this game...great press from everybody, I had a good time with all the politicking.
The short answer, why I took the draw, is that Mujus is a great diplomat. The long answer, I'll get to.

This game started for me with the rather embarrassing experience of both me and Germany supporting England into Belgium. Germany, despite building a second fleet, saw fit to attack me anyway. My one great accomplishment at this stage of the game was to persuade him to retreat into a vacant Belgium, ending the threat of a joint E-G invasion.

It was around this time that Italy and I made a pact, one that I took very seriously, to ensure each other's survival for the duration of the game. Maybe Mujus is really charismatic, maybe I was smarting from a nearly-averted invasion, maybe I'm just paranoid because Mujus figured out my real-life identity and I'm worried about getting a flaming bag of poo on my doorstep. But I decided that I would be his best friend in this game, whatever it took.

At this point, I recognized the long-term R-T threat and spent three turns pretty much doing nothing, offering some rear-lines support to Italy and otherwise promoting the grand western coalition.

Then England and I decided it was time to take on Germany, and for a moment, it looked like it was going to happen. But as he started to talk more about attacking Russia instead, I realized that I wasn't going to grow quickly enough to balance him, and that a Germany ally would ultimately be easier to keep in check than an England that was already ruling my end of the board.

Once England was done with, I had cemented a pretty good relationship with Germany, and the honeymoon was still far from over for Italy and me. I also recognized that stabbing my allies would only play into the hands of the stagnant but still solid R-T block on the other side of the room.

It was only when Germany and I persuaded Russia to disband a northern unit that things started to change. When Germany built a fleet in 1909, I realized that I could never fully expect him to be on my side (he had, after all, been duplicitous about the whole England-in-Belgium thing and his incursion into Burgundy), and that I finally had enough units in the north to reach the stalemate line on my own. So I went for it.

If this had been a higher-stakes game, or if Russia and Turkey had shown more signs of cracking, I would have attempted the solo. But that would have required attacking Italy, my nearest and dearest ally, at a time when I didn't have enough units in the south to hold those centers. That, and the fact that I had been telling everybody that all I wanted was Austria out of the game so we could at least get a 5-way, meant that my word was on the line. I also didn't want to see Germany eliminated (just out of my way), so the time was right to end the game.

I just think five-way draws are generally non-optimum results in press games.

Nice EOG. I feel like a little playball now, to be toyed with. Heh.

I see your points about my builds being too ambiguous to be trustworthy. Will file it under learning experience.

I'll write one later.

Honestly, I think you could have taken out Germany, France, but that would have been about the extent of your conquests. Russia and I had already started forming a pretty solid stalemate line in the north, and it wouldn't have taken long to have it fully cemented. Great game all around, though.

I really enjoyed the first opening years, as I saw fairly good growth for Turkey. My alliance with Russia seemed fairly solid, and I wasn't overly worried about betrayal on that front. I really wanted to build up my army base, in case I ever needed to stab, but Russia kept asking me to build fleets, and I acquiesced to Dusty's requests in order to prevent distrust in our alliance, that I fully intended to break eventually.

However, this got me in trouble with Italy, sorry Mujus, I'm typically not that bearish haha. Despite my trust issues with Italy, I still found my way into the Ionian, and I was absolutely thrilled. I thought I would have a chance to do some damage and then possibly stab, and make a run for a solo.

Unfortunately, this was not to be, as Russia requested that we make the appearance of turning on one another so that we could expand more easily. This did not work at all, as Mujus cleverly spotted our trap, and I had to disband Ionian, ending any chance at personal glory.

Russia and I feigned aggression for a while, and after that I was stuck. By this point, it was too late to turn on Russia, as I would have given the game to France, and Mujus had me locked out in the west. So I sat there for the last five years, arguing with Mujus about taking out Austria; after what seemed like an eternity, we reached an agreement haha.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed the game. Well played all. Sorry octo, would have loved to work with you at some point, but we really had trouble communicating throughout. My apologies.

The Russo-Turkish alliance hung in there tight, pretty much guaranteeing survival for each of them. It would have been scarier if France hadn't been willing to lend me the support I needed to stand up to them, but they were pretty obvious, which made it much easier for Austria and I to work together.

Also, thank you to Adam and Zach for all for the kind words, but I'm not all that clever--I've just been burned by the fake-fight thing before--and while Adam was determined to keep his word, I think the solid RT made it easier to keep his resolve. :-)

Move-wise, Turkey made the game frustrating for me because I'm more action-oriented, but I was glad that Austria and I were able to coordinate after that first little spat. Thanks to all, and I look forward to playing with y'all again soon. :-)

Thank you all for the entertainment and patience over the last several months. I thoroughly enjoyed the paranoia from start to end!

Thank you Zach for being a solid ally, Mujus for the poetry and keeping it light, Brown for being as schzophrenic as any German I have seen, Adam for always being straight with me and Sacred for giving me a chance to stand Germany out of Scandinavia in the mid game.

My only regret is the stab of Octo in the early years. His reply was classic: "Nice move. Now prepare to die". At the time, I thought that was a pretty likely outcome. Sorry Octo, I had truly hoped to form a Russia-Austria alliance but our comms were delayed at a critical moment and I had a good rapport going with Zach. Maybe next time.

I'll look forward to joining in another tussle with one or more of you.

Zach, there is one part that I recall a bit differently though. When you took Ionian, I was set to push on through with my fleet. I was under the impression that you disbanded to appease Mujus and maybe that you were afraid that I might stab you at that time. It was at that point that the "How not to be a Russian doormat" posts started up ;-)