Austria EoG: http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?
gameID=115286Not a fan of Austria in gunboat, but that's the great power I had in one of my other games, so I used the same "Barn3tt approved" approach as in the other game, as far as opening moves. My plan was to ally with Italy long term, though of course being open to whatever the board may suggest regardless of that. Italy got in position to Lepanto, which was great. In spring 1903 I was able to support Greece into Bulgaria, which was exciting, but Italy convoyed into Greece that fall, which was not a big issue for me, I was fine with equal growth between Italy and myself. Spring 1904 saw the Italian army in Greece support hold at Serbia, a province that had only one enemy unit adjacent to it and thus was not under threat, rather than support the clearly vulnerable Bulgaria, which made me Mad. Clearly Italy did this on purpose, to limit my growth. Not much I could do about it at the moment, but the scenario was not lost on me. By spring 1905, Italy had claimed Bulgaria for himself, which in the moment seemed fine since he took it from Turkey, but I still felt it should be mine, and when you add Italy taking Munich and having an army in Armenia, it appeared Italy was about to bust out and since he surrounded me, I assumed my days in the game were severely numbered. Luckily for me, that spring phase France shifted to West Med, and had Tunis free for the taking. I hoped Italy would vacate Greece to get in position to take Tunis back the next year (guessing Italy would build a fleet in Rome or Naples and thus use Ionian to support that fleet to Tyrr in the spring), to go along with Venice that was unexpected left open when Italy walked into Munich in the spring, and it played out as I had hoped.
That was about the only thing to write home about this game. I enjoyed being surrounded by enemy fleets with no armies to present any threat for some time. France was a major annoyance in Ionian for a few years, but luckily England stabbed France and got him to give me enough breathing room to take out the Turk. I assume one of the better gunboaters could have grabbed a solo once England and France got into it a bit, starting around 1911, but I had trouble pushing north and west while Turkey was still of enough size to cause me major headaches, so I went conservative and focused on killing Turkey, which gave E/F plenty of time to stalemate me.
Thanks for these three gunboat games, everyone, I'm glad they are over! My only other game will finish in the next few days, then I'm taking a few months off, at least, but I probably won't be back until after I run the Columbia Gorge Marathon on October 27th!! :-)
)
Pause error?
)
)
)
)
)