What a disappointing end to a potentially fascinating game. I hated drawing, and the only reason I did was because England was CD and the rest of them (probably) would have attacked me if I had persisted in refusing to draw. Anyways, I do have some observances about the global only variant that I thought were interesting.

It surpised me how extremely TIMID everyone was. I think that England and I were the only ones who really stabbed anyone. England with Spain, and myself in fall '01 preventing austria from getting any builds (of which I'm very proud). During the course of the game, everyone else seemed to be reacting to our moves. That is, France was attacking England only because he was attacked first. Russia and Turkey were simply holding everything, and Austria was just scrambling to survive. I think Germany may have been more aggressive, but England's CD kind of put a stop to any designs he may have had... he had no support.

One frustration with the game that I had was everyone's refusal to commit to _anything_. I understood that committing to something meant making yourself a target... but the complete lack of progress seemed to me a symptom of too much caution. For instance, in fall '02, I tried as hard as I could to hint to Turkey that I wanted him to move towards Russia. If he had tried to take Rumania with Bulgaria, and move CON->BLA and Smyrna->Armenia, russia would have been toast, especially with England bearing down on him. That would have formed a very strong alliance between myself (Italy) and Turkey against the budding alliance between Germany and England.

Anyways, I think that the next time I play global only, I will be even more bold than I was this time. Stabs in global games are much, much more dramatic because everyone instantly knows what happened. Which means they are that much more powerful. If two powers could coordinate their stabs, they would quickly become dominant. That's my opinion anyways.



I'm looking forward to the next global only. I hope there are no CDs. :)