I made a career out of doing that.

Global Chat rarely want my commentary to actually be accurate though, so they would say that even when it's true. :P

Feeling better and better about my horse in the race. Go SD, go!! Hey-aaa!!

I'm confused why people think France will also vacate his homeland. Wouldn't it be a waste to convoy and trap a second army onto the island? Shouldn't it go do something more useful?

poor Russia

Russia's reign of terror is over and France's is just beginning.

TONIGHT! ytou get te honour of commentaRY By drunk HR!!!!!

usualy drunk hr is limited to mafia, mod chat, banninjg fuckers and discordl . sometimes in that oordert. sometimes not. but hey. drunk hr has to slot oyu guys into his busy schedule and tnoght it s the only available space before work so you gettttttttttttttt the double bareled rumming of your shity performances. i hope you did well else fuck you wh am i wasting my time adn energy writing aobut you. time to LOOK AT THE GAME!

England - well damn. you folow up helping russia by convoying againdst him like its 19 oh fucking 1. what is this bollcks. you chagne your mind like a girl changes fucking clothes. ypure hot ajnd your cold and yourre yes and ylure no. convoying was stupid. keepign the army was stupuid. everything was stupid. now france gfucks you and youve weakened the only major threat that woudlve stopepd france fucking you. all in al l fucking atrocvious like this is diplomacy 101 dont weaken the solo elader when yoru being fucked by 2 other people do you even know how to FUCKING PLAY?!??! 500 lines of 'what te fuck am i attacking russia here for' and hang uyout head in shame YOU ARE BARRED

France - woo! GOOD JOB! you obviously presed england into being a gigantic windowlicker and must take credit for yur success and hisidocy so congrazzles there yo. his convoy means you get BOTH lodnon and liverpool which is about as good as nayoern can get. you give me faith in humanity once mroe after the bollocks i just had to type about from the pink wafer brain. you can have a cookie but you know what? fuck cookies. have a double rum and coke and fucking neck it. hell yeah welcome to the brotherhood.

Germany - congrautlations on making the most fuckign obvious move in histopry and having it bounced. is almost like i called out that EXACTY FUKCING MOVE IN MY OWN COMMENTARY and told you russia built a mos to counter it but no. no. you gotta pretend you knoew better and do it anyway AND NOW LOOK. YOU GOT JNOWHERE. do you want franc et boss you? do you want to just bend over to his superior cock? because thats all youre doing in this suiposed f/g now. well don on moving kiel east but ITS WAY TOO LATe and if you were smart youd have coxnvoyed to prussia ready to support yoruselkf on a second convoy or an atack in autujmn but instead you decided to do the fucking obvious shit and get nowehre again. nowhere agaisnt eng,and. nowhere agaisnt russia. youre on the road to fucking nowehre and the little sohp of hortros is gonna eat you. 200 lines of "DONT MAKLE THE WORLDS MOST OBVIOUS MOVE WHEN ITS SO EASILY BLOCKABLE DIPSHIT" please adn thank you.

Italy - woo! you dd stuff! if this was spring 1902 id congratulate you on an excellent job. well guess what. ITS NOT SPRING 1902. so you get NOTHIN G. should you give up or shoudl you just keep cheasing parvements? who knoiws, who cares. youre still just austrais lil bitch. and your one unit of choice you just held in tyurhenian like youre daximus masturbating with an army in ruhr again. urgh. terrible fucking flashbacks. I thought iu was done with that crap. anyway woo you might get smynra and woo you then can use that build to... GO NOWEHRE COS YOU STILL AINT MOVING ON FRANCE OR AUSTRIA. theres about as much long term planning hjere as there is when someone picks up a ladyboy in thailand fort hte experienbce. YOU'll find a god in every golden clostier and if youre lucky then the gods a she. have a small brandy for being able to lepanto. well fucking done.

Austria - BALLS! YOU GOT BALLS! i mean sure theyre not very smart balls, but BALLS ALL THE SAME! disbanding biulgqaria was very good stuff so congrazzles there. convincing russia you wereo n his side was also very solid. not bad at all. i mean sure you still have no long term routes to growht but MINOR DETAILS WHEN YORUE STEALIONG HTE BALKANS FROM COCKY RUSSIAS. 2 builds this year and the choice whether to fuck italy like the lil bitch probabky desrrves or to help him inmto symrna. not bad. oh wait thats turkey in aegean not you nevermind you aint got shit there but yolo. you storming the balkans like youre serbians marching into a UN safe zone and its brutakl rigt now. Have a cookie! Have a rum! have a cider! eat them all together and do as I say. youre probabkyl fucked anyway but maybe not as hard yo. sitll cahcne to peace with russia if hes nmot a grudgeholder after this year balances you out too. all good shit.

Russia - well you just belly flopped harder than a sumo wrestler being shoved into a swimming pool. what happened man? did you just send gifs of you waving your cock in the air to everyone? after appanrtetly dominating the press game til now youve suddenly lost out hard in boht enlgand and austria; clearly outplayedb y france and maybe italy too. you got pwnwed by the corpse of an appranrelty once great player nation that has done itsb est to replicate my cat eating grass in constantinople,. yes, you fucked germany up, but germany decided to flail around like a baby on acid so you cant get shit for that. SORT IT OUT. MAKE PEACe. SOLVE YOUR BORDER ISSUES. becuase right now youre losing your great position to a france whos not had to make a single bold move all game and that is sad to see. 100 lines of GET YOUR PRESS BACK UP AND CONVINCE PEPOPLE IM NOT SO BAD

Turkey - woo! youre alive! im not wasting much more energy typing on you though. you fucked russia up so good job. have a small cookie and a shot of lager shandy. still all you deserve til you make epic comebax, which you probably wn.t YOLO!!!

Uh, well, that was interesting... Care to comment on the study group game while you're at it?

Valis, I must admit that drunk HR's comments are pretty accurate. That was dreadful. Hindsight is 20/20, but your fleet in Holland could have at least been taking the north sea with support from Hel, rather than holding. Likewise, the convoy was pretty terrible as well, and almost as bad as holding all those units. You could have been bouncing Sweden or GoB instead.
Vecna, I don't care what HR says. Killing yourself is pretty funny.
France, good job. You've taken absolutely no risks, and are about to become the board leader. There's not much more you could want in a game. I'm rooting for you.
Russia. Seems like you caught early leader syndrome. It's unfortunate, but was bound to happen eventually. Hopefully you'll be able to turn some of your attacks around and keep a strong position. Don't tell France, but I'm rooting for you as well.
Italy, I think I called your moves "Pretty useless" last year. I'm going to stick to that.
Ghug, I think HR is wrong that the stab was badly timed. You're getting Rum and Bul, and Russia won't be able to effectively retaliate while England and Germany are ineffectively poking his north. If the two of you decide to stay allies, (which I would suggest) you'd be on the same footing or even ahead of Russia now.

The only significant event of this phase that wasn't blatantly obvious a week ago was England attacking Russia. Fascinating dynamic there. I get the impression that England saw the weakness of Russia's position and took the opportunity to demand a high price for his alliance. Russia said no, and both are currently enjoying the inevitable kicking that such a diplomatic failure results in.

The question is who shoulders the lion's share of the blame? Did England demand too much? Could he have afforded to demand less? Was Russia a victim of overconfidence and pride getting in the way of pragmatism, or was the price so high he needed to say no to avoid being the game's doormat?

Exciting stuff.

France even has the wherewithal to spin his positive publicity to deflect the spotlight off himself. Damn my pick is top shelf!!

I mean .... (whisper) go france .. shhh

bump in the night

I wanna give a whole box of cookies to Russia.

Gosh, things are happening! Two day phases may be good in terms of getting diplomacy in, but from an audience point of view they're abysmal :p.

Let's see, Italy and France decide to dump Germany and Austria in favour of Russia? A solid enough call which had the ring of inevitability about it, but I have to admit that it's happened a good year or so before I'd have expected.

A little unsure why Turkey decided to get in on the act. With the Italians and Russians marching to the beat of the same drum, the benefits of keeping Turkey alive seem reduced.

"A little unsure why Turkey decided to get in on the act."

Does Turkey have a choice? In that position, if Italy and Russia come to you and say, "order this, or we'll just take you out", what options do you have? Land in Smyrna with your one fleet? Attack something pointlessly with your one fleet? Do nothing? Beg both of them to change their mind and just give you Con (or some other SC)? :-) I mean, if you can do the last, then fantastic, you win Diplomacy forever. But it isn't gonna happen.

(Just give you Con whilst letting you keep Smy that is).

There's always a choice, just not necessarily involving good options :).

It's impossible to be sure of what's been going on without reading the press, of course, but if I was Turkey I'd have been campaigning hard against Italy and Russia turning on Austria just yet. War is good for survival and Turkey seems to have facilitated a new age of peace in his immediate location.

Of course, if he's expecting this new age of peace to suddenly and unexpectedly collapse, then it all makes perfect sense, but it's well hidden behind the scenes stuff if so.

Any bets on Turkey being dead by the end of the year anyway? Because that's the real problem with anything Turkey chooses to do - if IR are cooperating, then T is dead unless they choose to keep him alive. Regardless of any Spring moves and/or diplomacy.

Well, kudos to Russia for turning what was looking like a pretty grim state of affairs into pole position. His last few turns have been the most impressive period of play in the game by far.

Disappointed by France surrendering the initiative, but he occupies a decent position nonetheless. Still looks promising for Rome. Still looks grim for Austria and Germany. I'm sure England and Turkey could have played their hands better.

Rip Turkey. Meanwhile because of lucky plays in Germany, Russia is now the raid boss. He is well past the stalemate line, if he can mop up Austria he wins. It's time to gang up on him...

Wow, nicely done by Russia. He's definitely in a strong position, not only leading the board in SCs, but also having sowed distrust between the rest of the board. It'll be especially interesting to see how Germany will react. He very clearly sent a "screw your stab" message to France this turn. France is still in a very strong position over Germany, and Germany doesn't have much power to change that, short of trhrowing the game to Russia, either "for lulz" or "to perform for the gallery" as goldie puts it. (PS: Goldie, I thought it was funny :P )

@ Gobbledygook

Genuinely curious as to whether you'd gang up on Russia if you were Germany or Austria? Considering how well that worked last time and all.

as Austria? Don't have a choice. Russia is attacking now.
As Germany? Depends on what France offers. If I'm not going to get in the draw I am throwing the game.

I'm bumping this. Sue me.

Is Germany just trying to commit suicide? I'm so confused. Certainly Russia looks like the happy pig in mud right now...

Mind you, it does look like FIA are lining up solidly, and I don't think Russia actually has enough units to hold against all three of them. So that's going to get interesting. :-)

Wonder if Russia will be able to afford to keep his English Janissary...

Like what thorfi said, but the opposite :p

Hehe. :-) Which opposite? I think I just wrote self-contradictory rubbish...

At first glance it looks pretty grim for Russia. Apparently badly outgunned by his enemies and the defensive line is looking a tad thin in places.

Russia's big plus point is that the FIA is looking more than a little shakey. At best the Greek incident points to some dire communication issues. At worst it is the end of the alliance between Italy and Austria.

Yeah, looking at it properly, I'm not gonna disagree (hence my second paragraph above).

R grabbing Berlin and forcing a G disband has kind of poked a hole in the maginot line stalemate... Might be a bit of a problem there.

The Greek Incident does look interesting. :-) Maybe Italy just said "hey, gimme Greece, I have these units doing nothing, so that's what I'm going to order", with Austria saying "no, makes more sense for me to get two armies and go north, then we're 6/6". I can't imagine it necessarily being a huge problem just yet though.

No? Both Italy and Austria occupy a position where they can jump ship and join Russia quite easily, with a good chance of success. Russia will almost certainly be courting both of them and offering generous terms. Even without Greece it would be tempting. As things stand it is arguable that not stabbing is the greatest risk.

That was a tad weird. Germany went to cover Vie but left Trieste empty so hard to really tell if they're mistrusting of each other or not. A bounce in Vie could have made most sense but maybe they were feeling like this was the best gamble that left room for the two builds.

Greece may have been either miscommunication or "miscommunication" (wink). Probably some assumptions of bounces in Const and the such, but that could have easily been choreographed given the set up it left.

I'd say if a betrayal is going to happen it's going to be Austria/Russia teaming up to attack Italy, but as we all know A/R has it's challenges for Austria as a long term alliance. That said, I take Ghug as the type open to taking on a temporary alliances with the keenness to know when to cut the line and bail before it becomes a problem. I'd probably be a little nervous if i were Italy were this in fact a "whoopsie".

Meanwhile France is running out of people he can make useful deals with so Russia may start looking appealing there if the negotiations flow well. Or he could try to organize Italy and the lone German army to make something happen, but the kingmaking does look like Valis is in suicidal revenge mode so wouldn't count on that.