That is an unusually rare survive, especially for a 100001 point game

As France i had a good start, then i stabbed England without wanting to (i was SO sure Germany would bounce me in London) and had to take on Germany and England together. After some really dicey moves germany and me had a stalemate on the mainland while i finished England. Then, with Russias help on Germanys side, we had a stalemate at sea aswell while Italy grew and grew. We turned around in time to settle into a final stalemate line before italy could do anything, but Czech included SD in it, against my wish. I can undestand why he did, still i think he should have been taken out. I was especially taken back by his decision because in the first turn where he/we could have taken STP we only failed to do it because either one supported the other and noone moved. Only after that fact did he decide Russia should live.

Still, a fun game.

And if i really were awake i would not have substituted SD for 2WL. :D

I don't blame your for taking London. It was a win-win situation for you. I haven't even intended to turn against you because of it.
I am quite surprised with the result. I'm not a fan of the whole idea of deserving a place in the draw.

Anyway, rematch?

I'd be in.

Gg all! @ Party maybe you should have taken Norway first if you wanted the 3-way.I assume Italy would have supported you to St.Peterburg next.I don't think Germany would have thrown away the solo to Italy in that case.
And yes,it was very well coordinated A/I attack on Turkey(especialy for a GB).

I really thought about it, but i could not be sure and i did not want to endanger the draw.

IMO I don't know if Germany survives this game w/o Russian help. My fleet in Norway helped Germany maintain a 4v4 fleet distribution around the North Sea, and by the time France found his way in, Italy had demolished Austria and was well on his way to a solo.

Not defending my inclusion in the draw, but that's my line of thought. Either way I'm not complaining :)

So you dared to spoil even this game by contacting the mods about forcing a draw even the game wasn't close to a stalemate at all. Crying to the mods just for a bunch of points. This site is full of psychos and sore losers.

Who are what are you talking about?

In regards to EOG statement - it was a good game, was very pleased to draw Italy. I went with Austria and we did good things against Turkey and finished that quick. I was glad to be in a strong position after the dust settled (despite AH being in BLS which would cause me problems). I knew I needed to stab then or else he would grow and I would lose my shot. Worked well, eventually it felt like Split gave up and dove at Russia. Meanwhile, there was chaos out west but it resolved so fast my solo dreams were dashed pretty early. A good line from F and G.

Now, yesterday I recognize what Germany is trying to do - signal he wants me to draw with Russia in the game. However, I see that france is disagreeing with this play. In my mind I want them to sort this out - I want Russia eliminated but I will respect the decision of my opponents. I think to myself (and e-mailt to zultar) I want to play one more phase, see if anything changes and also give myself time to think of a plan to maybe change things with my own actions.

A little while later, while I am not on this site, I get an e-mail from the moderators that Germany is not going to eliminate Russia and that I need to draw the game or offer some strategy that I plan on using. I explain that I have already communicated to a different mod that I have set a deadline for myself and I communicate this fact again. I received a response that if I do not either "send an official appeal," or "explain my strategy" the game will be force drawn.

I find this moderator behaviour extremely unfair. For one, the moderator who e-mailed me made reference specifically to Germany. From my understanding France had not been contacted. From reading this thread, there may have been an opportunity to actually coordinate with him to rmeove the Russian player despite Germany's wishes - this is something we will never know.

The moderator e-mailing me HAD an impact on this game. He provided me with incomplete information - he presented germany's point of view on the game and this was something that was allowed to settle with me - it made me feel as though I really should draw immediately for fear of being a poor-sport. I am not a poor sport and I would never play a game with the focus being to wait for someone to NMR or misorder.

I feel as though there was gunboat-based negotiations left to be had in that game. However, these were completely nullified when the moderator by-passed press rules and attempted to put his own mark on the game. Perhaps if this situation was left to a mdoerator who had an appropriate understanding of gunboat games this situation would have been avoided.

Later last night, after I drew the game once the pahse passed it did occur to me that France and I could have tried something - this was reaffirmed in this thread. unfortunately by that time the moderators had taken things into their own hands and imposed their own ideals onto us to have this game ended perhaps prematurely.

I should add that this is the second time that I have beenc ontacted about a gunboat game from the moderators in the past week. I do not believe that this is correct.

I think had France AND Germany agreed that they wanted a 4 way draw, than this game should have been drawn (even by the moderators). However, it does not appear that France e-mailed the mods or even confirmed it with his actions.

I truly believe the moderators need to rethink a number of their policies in this regard. Unfortunately, it is highly doubtful that they will bother to consider anything I write here.

Anyway, to my fellow gunboaters - I think that we can agree that all the players in our usual group are sportsmanlike and respectful. I think we can agree that leaving the moderators out of our games in the future is a much better idea than allowing them to break press rules and ruin endgames.

Indeed i was not contacted by anyone and did not contact anyone myself.
I would have much prefered to have it a three way draw, a fact i think i communicated well enough with my support move orders. It would have been hard to get Russia out of the game with germany disagreeing, but on the other hand the players in this game were all of the highest caliber and pretty creative. Had italy for example ceded some ground, allowed one of his centers to get lost i think i would have been more then willing to shift units to get, for example, into norway and then into STP with italys support.
Until now i had no idea that there was any kind of mod involvement in this, except when zultar asked me in the beginning why i put up cancel which was my mistake because i have fat fingers and a small phone. :D

So, really and truly Partysane, we both agree that this game should have been played on. A big part of the reason I pressed draw was due to the pressures imposed by the moderators. As a community, do we think this is fair?

I am... irritated and can't really make up my mind. I don't know if i would have had the balls to endanger the draw and would have needed a pretty strong sign from your side to make me move.
I agree that a mod involvement was unneccesary, the game had not reached a point where it would have been needed in any way.
On the other hand i had my draw vote up even though i really considered taking it down in the last year to make my opinion even more clear.

I was pointing out a subjectivety long time ago but the community was laughing on it... It's just a coincidence, I believe, how "precious" members are allways saved by the jury.

I think we are right to be irritated Partysane. I think that we were cheated out of the opportunity to attempt something - whether it worked or not - it should have been our decision to make 100% in our own minds (which is the reaosn we play gunboat - this challenge).

This was a really good game, and I had fun, i just wish it was allowed to end in the same way the rest of the game was played.

A point of contention, if I may add my two cents. Whether or not I deserved the draw is besides the point. Germany had made his decision and I was at the mercy if his double support. I will urge you, Lando, to keep in mind that despite orders for F BAR, France still had the draw vote up, which should be more than enough to sinal his intentions. The draw button is the only means of communicating formally during a gunboat game and the mods did not need to contact PS because his intentions were made clear through use of his draw vote. If he had taken that vote down, you would have an argument but as it stands, the mods were within their power to end the game.

Actually, 2WL, moves serve as a good way of communicating as well. And if we can learn from the EOG is that there was more to play even if it was for Party to see if he could get a good position.

Now, as for you 2WL - I am actually disgusted by your actions in this game. This builds on something I noted during the gunboat tournament. You have a tendency to stall games when you are not doing well. For a player who frequents the site, there is no excuse for it. It is downright poor sportsmanship and you will NOT be invited to gunboat games I organize going forward.

@Lando - If you actually thought the actions of the mod in question was wrong, why didn't you bump it up the line and email kestas? From what I understand, if we have problems with the mods he is happy to step in and mediate? We can only see your side of course, but you seem to have a valid point.

Delaying games,hmmmm...Just don't start with that question,they'll start talking about how you agreed to phase length and such sort of crap. Or about how they are busy in RL and they are able to make 500 posts a day only but have no time to make moves in games they are losing,only in games they are doing fine. But it's their right to be assholes.

Well you see Lando, if you had explained as asked, instead of cussing me out and emailing a moderator at their personal email address (against site policy) you wouldn't have had that problem. That is why it is very important for members to respect the site policies. They are carefully designed to prevent situations like this and only fail when members refuse to follow them.

As for 2ndWhiteLine, I am playing a game with him on vDip and he's doing fine, but still has needed extensions in his game for what seem to be valid real life problems. Yet again, if you would simply address matters calmly instead of blowing up at people you'd find many situations aren't as bad as you make them out too be.

jmo,

I will address several of your points here:

1) Your e-mail to me was not as you descibe it. I will paste below with some annotations:

"We've been contacted about a stalemated game, http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=115271. The player who is Germany says he refuses to attack Russia, and asks that the game is drawn. Since there appears to be a very solid stalemate line in effect the request is reasonable. [1] Do you have any strategy to advance your position in the game? [2] If so please let us know, otherwise please draw the game. "

[1] This represents your opinion. There was a stalemate line whereby I could not get 18 centres. However, germany's hold on STP was NOT a stalemate line as it could have been broken by France and Italian coordinated moves. You misrepresented the situation.
[2] At the time of your message I did not have a strategy. However, there were at least 24 hours remianing in the phase and sometimes it does take time to formulate an idea. I do not think about my games constantly and actually last night after I had hastily drawn the game to avoid moderator discipline, I did have an idea about how it could have been done (an idea that was shared by Party in this game).

Secondly, I have been e-mailing zultar at his personal address for a good period of time now. He has e-mailed me from this address as well. I do not mean to "out" him here as I am sure your venge-filled personality will attempt to get him "impeached" for this, but it appears that he and I were both OK with this method.

Now, after I explained the above to you in my e-mail (stated simply that he can ask zultar about this issue). I receive this:

"If you do not offer any information on your strategy for this game, or appeal my request to the moderator email the game will be drawn. "

To which I respond, here on this thread: do you believe it would have been appropriate to force draw the game without contacting France?

And, some more general questions that I believe the community deserves answers to: Why did you feel it was necessary/appropriate to contact Italy in that game before confirming stories with France? Why did you feel it was important to make contact with any players at the time you did (or, why did you not feel the need to wait a phase or two longer)?

Lando, I'm not sure why you feel you deserve special treatment, or where you got the idea you can tell the team you will no longer be following site rules, but it's absurd. Get off your high horse. When you are capable of posting without misrepresenting the entire situation I will reply to you. In the meantime I'm posting your messages to alleviate your concern that I am intentionally hiding your emails from the other moderators.


"jmo,

I appreciate your message. However, it is being ignored.

If you have concerns about this game please discuss with zultar. I have updated him and I will not be repsonding to further queries from you.

Regards."


"Hi zultar or other mod not named jmo.

jmo is sending me his usual shit despite having promised me he would not be involved in my "cases."

Worse, he is trying to deal with a problem that I proactively messaged zultar about. I would appreciate that jmo be withdrawn from this case so that zultar, who has the full amount of information, may be allowed to act accordingly. I trust his judgment.

For future reference, e-mails from the moderator account addressed from jmo (or anonymous) will be ignored.

Thanks for your time. "

"Hi zultar or yebellz;

As I understand jmo is intentionally burying my request for a second-look at this decision and hopefully disciplinary action against the moderator responsible for ruining a gunboat game, as such, I am bumping this in the hopes that it will not be lost. I truly hope that one of you sees this before he attempts again to keep this buried.

I would like to say that I believe that jmo the moderator intentionally ruined a GB game on this website. He contacted me and thereby broke gunboat rules. He contacted me and THREATENED to force draw a game without any reason to do so. My understanding is that Germany contacted the moderator and said that he wished to draw. However, my udnerstanding indicates that the French player was never contacted. As such, the threat tof force draw the game appears to have beena gross misuse of pwoer aimed to keep a friend of the mdoerators in the draw, depsite France and my best wishes.

I was intimidated by the moderator team to the point where I felt I had no choice but to press draw or further bring discplinary actions against myself- something I did not wish to see. I felt this was a real risk as I have witnessed people receive displinary actions for equally innocent things and knowing jmo and how he feels about me personally, it is impossible to trust him to act in any reasonable way.

I look forward to discussing further with zultar or jmo how we might improve the site on the basis of this error by your colleague.

Regards"

Don't mind Lando he's just had some sand in his vagina lately.

Dear Mod,as time goes by your crap smells more and more...

Are sure your motivation for posting them is not spiteful in nature?

I do not ask for special treatment, simply fairness something you have indicated many times you are incapable of.

Does this mean that all moderator correspondence is fair game? I understood the policy was that moderators are not supposed to share Case facts. Especially when the case involves a moderator. Does it seem right that the moderator is making a case against himself public knowledge?

Every gunboater knows that delaying a game is a completely legitimate tactic when you're in a survival situation. The last game of the first round of your tournament took two fucking weeks to process the last two turns. If you don't want turns to last 36 hours, play a fucking live game, otherwise it's not worth arguing about it.

@2WL - Shhhhh. Crazy's happening.

Or play with good sports which you just admitted not being.