I learned a couple tournaments ago that bothering to take pictures or write updates as the game goes on has an incredibly negative impact on my success, in a game where I'm already running overdrive physically and mentally, so I apologize I'm not particularly able to do that sort of thing like I used to, but I'll try to keep it going with the house games.
Anyways, back to Round 2 of Tempest in a Teapot 2016.
I drew Turkey. There's a good, experience player in Austria that I've played with a couple times. Very, very, very vengeful. Difficult to work with for me (I'm sure he feels the same way). There's a good, younger, but not new, player in Italy. There's a new player in Russia (same player who was England in my Round 1 game). That's the Eastern Theatre. I can work with this.
Here's the Western theatre:
England is an old guard player, who was Russia on my Round 1 board. We will come back to this. Germany is a very good, more on the quiet side, old guard player. France is a wild card, I haven't played with him before.
You see, England, and I tried to explain this to some player, although I can't remember if I happened to wait until AFTER they were screwed,
1) is happy to just declare his intentions openly
2) has a tradition of being willing to Western Triple on Sunday Games (i.e. the last game of the tournament where there is a forced draw at some time in the afternoon). Fairly obviously I think the main rational is that since there's a forced end the need/desire to stab each other can go down drastically (since it's easy to stall out a solo on the last day (someone with more experience than me in F2F scene can correct/approve me that solos don't happen in these timed rounds at a frequency anywhere near the (already low) rate of untimed rounds)). Anyways, he's going to Triple.
Well, as Turkey, I'm completely fine with this, although of course that feeling waxes and wanes throughout the game.
I go to Italy. I explain that, analogous to the WT Sunday Game reasoning, I always try to IT on Sunday. Because Italy doesn't have to worry about Turkey getting huge and having no more growth since we're not dragging out the game past 1908. He's all for it. He wants to move West. I'm OK with this. I don't think I'll need his help with Austria / Russia and can ally with at least one of them at least temporarily to take out the other. So we got a plan going.
Talk with Austria of course is much more muted and vague. He's gonna make sure he gets SER and GRE, won't even support me to RUM, but you know, we don't attack each other and can work together holy fuck this is annoying ally talk but I get through it. I know better than to attack him first.
I go to Russia and, I don't think with any particular special or interesting arguments, sell the fuck out of an RT. I get the BLA DMZ.
I order
ANK-BLA
SMY-ARM
CON-BUL
which all succeed.
Italy's moves:
NAP-ION
ROM-VEN
VEN-PIE
Germany's moves:
KIE-SWE
BER-KIE
MUN-RUH
yes you read that right lol
Of course it was a purposeful misorder. Two things point to this, one fairly unarguable, one that is a bit softer but I think pretty strong.
1) **spoilers** there was an unabashed Western Triple and he moved BER-PRU in the Fall lol
2) He purposely misordered, or wrote down orders that while valid were not even close to optimal multiple other times in the game (and he sure could write optimal orders when he wanted ;)
I told you Germany orders because their hilarious, and Italian orders because they're important. Otherwise it's pretty standard.
Fall 01:
Russia's not particularly happy, but I don't think anyone can blame him :) He ordered SEV Hold so he's not getting any southern centers without Austrian support, and Austria doesn't, what do you call it, "help"? people unless it's to hurt someone who's stabbed him. So that's not happening. Unfortunately the "misorder" of KIE-SWE means that Sweden is a free center, so Russia is going up at least one.
I offer him ARM-RUM via SEV if he supports it with RUM. He agrees. I don't do it of course. He purposely misorders the support anyway (was a theme that game!?)
What's MUCH more interesting this Fall are Italian orders. In two ways. One, I convinced him to try the VALIS WORLD FAMOUS ITALIAN opening, and he ordered:
PIE-TYR
VEN-TRI
and both succeeded. We somewhat agreed I'd be doing the ARM-RUM thing but I could easily talk out of it as I had a viable excuse (long story)
So, now, obviously, Austria has his target and he's gonna help France into all of Italy's dots, leave me the fuck alone, and I can stop sweating bullets. I should have this game in the bag as a 4WD with WT+me. Not bad for only 1 year in.
There's another Italian order! And, drum roll please:
ION-NAP
lulz.
Now, to be fair, in the long term I don't think it would have mattered. An extra unit would make France's moves towards him slightly slower, but he made the right choice with A VEN as his build and, well, it was unfortunate.
I'm in RUM, so Bulgaria is actually neutral, which is always funny. Two on SEV because why not, and not being in BUL *and* RUM is important to keep Austria docile.
Russia is more mad at the WT than me, thank god, which isn't something I really expected and wouldn't blame him for if he wasn't, so he builds A STP, but he's about to die and he knows it already.
I build A CON, with a promise to Austria to not bother taking BUL until RUM has moved farther North. At this point you just have to know that I play somewhat tip-toeing to REALLY make sure Austria will just suicide West while I still make gains on Russia.
Of course by now the WT is in full force.
Let's forward to 1904.
Russia is practically dead. Italy is practically dead. Italy decides to keep fucking with Austria more than defending against France, so Austria is still at 4, even without me exploiting him at all. I've only built armies.
*spoilers* I end the game with 3 fleets and 9 armies. They didn't have an award for "stupidest unit balance", which is a perennial lock in for me as many people I think would agree.
But I make sure those armies are, relatively, not next to Austrian centers, at least not more than 1 at any one point in time.
1904 I take Austria down from 4 to 1.
Russia dies
Italy will die in 1905, although his game ended years ago. In fact in 1905 he only had Budapest, which Germany piffed, so he was playing with 0 units for half the year.
Wait, did I say Germany in Budapest?
Yes. This WT is *full steam*. Germany is in Vienna and Budapest. England is in Moscow. Germany's in Ukraine. France is in in TUN/ION/VEN.
This is when my faith that the whole 'WT+me' thing was at it's lowest. I asked a couple players if "Sunday WT"s actually go all the way to CON purely out of fear and curiosity. I mean, Turkey can fucking turtle, but it's not like I had a true Line or anything. I'm around 8
3 Home
4 Balkans
1 Sev
1905 and there's only FOUR colours of units left on the board!
Luckily, I catch my break when France then turns on England this phase. I didn't get a huge explanation other than basically he wanted to break up the WT and he thought Germany would be on his side. I sincerely doubt my press to him affected his decision in a major way.
Germany was not on his side.
England pulls ALL the way back except for Moscow. He literally has, of his 7 dots, 5 units on his homeland. Germany tries to enter Burgundy but it takes a couple years. He moves many units west for Tyrolia/Venice/Piedmont battles. France pulls much back as well, including all his fleets.
And now I'm pretty golden.
This is getting pretty long, so I'll try to summarize the important aspects:
I basically ask for dots from Germany and he let me have them. I keep building armies to keep France happy (**spoilers** so I think) and have them fight it out.
I take Warsaw and Moscow by force after they've practically abandoned them.
I'm sitting pretty at 11 right now.
We agree to draw once Germany gives me Trieste since it will give me board top. France vetos a draw a year earlier with the statement "This needs to end with France or Turkey board top"
Then, two things happen, in rapid succession, or at the same time, don't remember which:
France turns on me. Claims I haven't helped enough, and that I didn't take Moscow from England even when I could (which was true to be fair, but it's not like that would have helped him...) Germany also "accidently" takes back Trieste. So we play on.
Anyways, now France is coming at me, WHILE GERMANY IS IN BURGUNDY AND MARSEILLES. And it's not like he's completely throwing, he's simultaneously **trying** to defend his home centers...and the thing is that even if he has some diplomatic/emotional legitimate reason, he's in NO position to fight me, even with me only have two fleets. And the thing is, and sorry if this is hard to explain, is that Germany is simultaneously working both WITH and AGAINST me at various points in space and time, so it's not like I'm posting huge losses.
**spoilers** final turn of the game
France is ready to make up with me.
Germany and England are (except for Germany still half-working with me in the PIE/TYL/TRI/VEN area where it's a T/G/F clusterfuck) going against me:
I have
A SEV
A MOS
A WAR
A UKR
but they have
A STP
A LVN
A PRU
A SIL
which means I'm going to lose WAR.
So what happens?
I get VEN due to Germany's ambivalence. (he JUST moved to SIL due to, guess it, a misorder of giving two different MUN orders last turn).
We call a draw vote.
Here's the story that they tell:
Germany told England to veto it.
England then put the WRONG vote in, and made some theatrics about it about him being really sorry, and that he had been voting to draw all game so it was just muscle memory.
Which, doesn't quite add up, since there's no reason for Germany to just veto himself as far as I can tell? Maybe someone can explain that one to me. Maybe it was to save face.
Anyways,
12 Turkey
11 Germany
6 France
5 England
All in all a VERY VERY good game. Much like Round 1, I resisted the instinct to draw and was rewarded for it, although maybe inappropriately so due to the draw shenanigans proposed above.
Which, wait for it, wins me Best Turkey! You can see it here (much more interesting than a mere placque!:
http://i.imgur.com/4IDYHNY.jpg
I think the major question in that game would be:
Valis, if you built more than 2 extra fleets ths fucking game, couldn't you have gone, say, all the way to MAR, much less grabbed ROM/TUN/NAP for yourself?
But I think the answer is a solid "no". France isn't the type to ACTUALLY throw to me, and England and Germany were already turning back onto me just for getting to 11, much less more.
What should you be more afraid of?
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