The way I see it, France, you miscalculated your continued offensive towards me, which led you to lack forces to form the stalemate line in Iberia. On my part, there was one rather silly army disband when I needed to disband a fleet.

The war of 1906 was the game-ending mistake. Turkey's rate of growth is apparent at that point, yet I chose to still keep beating on England and France chose to still keep demanding my centres - while already the Mediterranean fleet situation is 1 French against 3 Turkish - not going to end well!

But that's Gunboat for you. :)

True enough. I should have pulled out earlier.

I've been trying to convince England via DM that you showed him no aggression between 1907 and 1909, and that he should have moved to NAO at least to assist me in holding off Turkey and make himself indispensable to the draw. MM, was your York move unambiguously aggressive or were you just hedging your bets in case England kept fighting you (or me, as the case may be :P) ?

This is Englands DM to me, I hope he doesn't mind but I'm just trying to get my head around this seemingly huge disparity in interpretation of what happened.

"Sorry, you have the facts wrong. He took London and Edinburgh AT THE SAME TIME I took Belgium, not as a reaction to it (and I could see it coming from two moves before anyway). He had no reason to defend himself from me, because it made absolutely no sense for me to attack him. I had every reason to defend from him, because he could try to eliminate me to reduce the draw, which is obviously what his intentions were. I value a survive more than an elimination, so I'm satisfied with this result. It was Germany that blew the chances for a draw, not me. If he wanted me to move west, he should have moved away from Norwegian and North. There was no reason for him staying there. Certainly not to defend from me. And he was also moving his other two fleets towards me instead of leaving them in the east. It was very clear his intentions were to eliminate me way before I moved towards Belgium and Holland. I'm sorry you didn't get the draw because you played correctly (you correctly supported Kiel to Munich the turn before last), but I was not going to let Germany get away with eliminating me and then drawing."

At the start of 1910 - when I reinstated my offensive against England, you had just lost Spain and were in an ill position to hope to gain it back for good. I did the math, counted Turkish gains and decided I could just have a fun little war in the North. England ended up surviving

Fair enough. If he had moved to NAO and assisted me around Gibraltar would you have left him be? He seems to be under the impression that you were trying to eliminate him.

When there was still a chance for a draw (in my opinion and in my assessment) I didn't fight England. When I decreed the quite ordinary stalemate line had been breached, I knew it would be a victory for Turkey, and started a war on England. I botched up in that I had too many fleets ( the mis-disband as I mentioned earlier ) - which could've allowed us to keep Munich in the end.

Also, Moscow-Warsaw wasn't secure in 1907 - and a more experienced Turkish player would've taken the 50/50 chance to gain a centre from me. 1907 was still when we had all out war - a mistake commonly shared.

MM: I was expecting you to move a fleet to Yorkshire for me (England) to destroy so you could build an army. I didn't understand why you kept your fleets in Norwegian and North which only served to threaten me instead of moving one to NAO and the other to Yorkshire to trade for an army. It's true that you didn;t have a stalemate line fully formed in the east, but Turkey still had to deal with Austria, so there was still time...

I am not saying I didn't make mistakes as well. It is a Gunboat game, you know. Miscommunication comes rather easy when there's no communication at all.

I still had time, France's had sadly ran out. But all in all, a good game. :) See you chaps in others!

France only needed to keep Portugal and MAO. Spain and Marseilles were not essential if you were able to get Munich back (which you were). Even as late as 1912, had you ordered NAO to support MAO and Kiel to Munich, we could have drawn. But you were set on destroying me just for fun instead.

I had, as earlier stated, a different assessment of the situation, and it's easy to be wise afterward, though it is rather pointless when it's a no-communication game - hence you cannot rely on communication or intricate arrangements.

And you could've gone to support France with your fleets just as well. The reason you didnt was the same as mine, no communication, fear. Because third time's the charm:

That's Gunboat for you!

The difference is that I had every reason to fear, while you didn't have any reason. I wasn't able to eliminate you even if you moved everything away, but you would have easily been able to eliminate me (and maintain the stalemate line at the same time) if I moved away. This is not a matter of hindsight, this was quite clear to me even at the time. I'm not even saying you played wrong in trying to eliminate me, the only move I fault you for is not supporting MAO in spring 1912. Trying to reduce the number of people in the draw is a reasonable thing to do, but only secondary to ensuring the draw in the first place.