Okay. I'll leave the move explanations out as I think those have been examined well enough and go to my thoughts on events as I believe that this is what has been left unsaid and need to be voiced. I'll pick up where I left off and summarize the final turns.

Summary:

Russia: We reached a point where his advances and moved too far westward and I had reached a boundary where I could either move against Italy or against Russia. Of the 2 Russia was the easiest and at the time the stronger of the 2 by far sc wise so I choose to go north into Russia. Plus Italy had proved to be the most useful and trustworthy ally, at least to me, and Russia offered the best opportunity for growth.

At this point I was counting potential sc's but didn't really see how I could reach the magic number unless I grew strong enough to influence other players which I tried with Russia after the stab but soon realized that way was a dead end.

I kept advancing and tried desperately to get Italy to move towards France the year before they both built to fight. Unfortunately Italy continued to play safe and didn't move from Ion until after the builds. I think that if he had moved before as I wanted then he could have reached the stalemate lines before they had been set. Sometimes one move can make or break a game. In this case maybe it wouldn't have mattered but I think in this one it would have. Perhaps he suspected that it would give me a chance to win the game? I don't know. I'm still not sure I could have but maybe.

France: We'd had a cordial relationship the whole game. I think I made a mistake during one of our chats about Italy during the England and Russian takeovers. I misread the situation. I was thinking of a I/F/T draw which I had mentioned to both of them before but neither was warm to the idea. I had encouraged Italy to move against France as I was worried about a France victory once it became obvious that England was going to surrender without a fight. I also saw that, left unhindered, France had the capability of taking Scandinavia and Germany. Probably before I could get there to stop him. I thought he would have a good shot at winning so when asked to stab Italy at that time I responded that I absolutely would not. I said I didn't need Italy to win.

My thinking was that if I seemed to be a trustworthy ally with know real goals to victory that France would see the proposed I/F/T alliance a good possibility. I also thought that my assurances that Italy would stop attacks would seal the deal as it looked that he was doing my bidding at this point. This was a mistake on my part.

The next message I got from France was very different than the previous ones. Very closed and not at all what I'd been expecting. Instead of the 3-way alliance for a draw I got an ultimatum to attack Italy or we would have the 5-way draw. Honestly I was so surprised that I logged off for an hour to gather my thoughts and consider things. When I returned the global message had announced the ultimatum to all and I had to sigh. My last hours plans flew out the window.

I'll admit I was a bit offended by the approach as I didn't think it reasonable and I honestly thought a bit premature. So I started thinking furiously about how I could break the obvious agreement.

Blank.

I couldn't think of anything so I re-read his message and went to the forums where I found the new Ghost-rankings posted. Then it hit me. A last-ditch act of desperation. Attack his pride. WTH? I'm not going to attack Italy and have everyone against me so maybe I can attack his pride and he'll take the challenge.

Now I proceeded to imply that he was scared, weak, and only interested in GR. I said things like "afraid to lose to a student in SOW." What you can't beat a student?" etc, etc. I'll admit it was a weak attempt on my part but after the global message I thought I'd give it a try. Once it proved not to work I apologized and congratulated him.

I will admit I was initially disappointed by the quick finish but I must say that I've been playing a lot of gunboat games recently due to my lack of time and now I'm starting to understand his motives better. I find myself watching the board at the middle point of the game and making moves to ensure that someone else doesn't win if I can't.

I'd like to finish by saying that I enjoyed the experience and it was interesting to have commentary about the game I was playing. I was happy to learn that I could confuse good players and mask my intentions pretty well. I learned that I was a better player than I thought but I also learned that there was another side to the game that I hadn't considered yet. That side has now been noticed and I'm working on that now. I thank statagos for that.

Thanks mates and I hope to play you all again sometime.