Good game guys! Well done figlesquidge. Not quite though.

I knew. But he didn't trust you. Which is a good thing.

If I took Moscow then you would've been able to support yourself in. I was thinking about moving an army to Norway but then I thought Russia might kamikaze to give Italy the win.

I'd be interested to know why he didn't: England?
For anyone interested: gameID=19819

And ZaZa...I haven't played Russia in a while that was under such a concerted attack from England. Nice going.

Heh, I figured a Russian attack would do well in a live gunboat.

Especially since Germany gave you two builds in the first turn.

Read above figlesquidge.

Ah right. That last phase I saw you preparing the convoy etc, and was tempted to wait it out and let you take it. Then I decided that Russia had been a really good sport, playing right to the end and not running off into CD and grumbles when in trouble so deserved to win.
But yeh, the first attempt was a quite blatent attempt at taking over Warsaw from you.
After that I was preparing to support you in from StP, but as mentioned I felt some respect for Russia, so when you put your draw back up again felt I should accept.

Zaza: Yeh, that didn't get through before I posted. This is the trouble with people writing up after a live game: your mind is still running at 100mph!

Well thank you very much Figle. I try to the end always. Can't wait for the tourney.

@`ZaZaMaRaNDaBo`: yes I was worried you would try that and Russia would kamikazee

btw. anyone notice the first and second move of germany, check it out
the player is new, but I thought that was VERY smart
he sort of offered england an alliance, which he would have played better later on and italy not getting too strong could have helped him
just saying its a great gunboat opening for germany in my opinion, you get two scs, and england as an instant ally if things go well

I figured that you were going to let me into Warsaw so that you could win.

Agreed Sendler. Except for the potential army convoy to Denmark, haha. It wouldn't have gone so well for Kiel.

**correction**which *if* he would have played *a little* better later on and italy not getting too strong could have helped him

But he was also offered an olive branch from France in the form of Bel. He took it and then got bogged down in a fight to the west.

True, but then to be honest a stronger Germany would probably have helped me. As it was I kinda forgot about the region until the stalemate became apparent, by which time it was too late to break through.

yes I offerred that olive branch because, a) I could not take it anyways, and he could protect munich and b) hoping he would not attack me but england

And the CD of Aus didn't help any. With Turkey hell bent on attacking me in the south, that allowed Italy, who had a NAP (of sorts) with France, to move east with ease.

@fq: true a strong germany would have helped you BUT even a weak austria would have helped us ;)

haha, tuche.
I have to admit that I was going to go after Austria no matter what - I played another live game earlier and Italy attacked me for no apparent reason and refused my attempts at alliance, merely sitting there on one side of me as I defended whilst Turkey & Russia grew up towards me, so I was rather cross :P
I've let Germany know we're talking about it, but I fear he hasn't seen the PM. I think they might be one of C-Ks friends, but I'm not sure.

Oh and jim - thanks for more practice pre-tourney ;)

Glad I could help. Almost as glad as I am that you are not in my group.

Austria in Gunboats is the worst.
You always get entangled with Italy. I actually plan on posting on that subject soon. Got some strategy questions. Don't have enough time atm to write it down.

Haha, I'm sure there are better gunboat players out there to face!
Besides, I've only played 3 :S

Oh wait 4
Sendler: gameID=17811

Argh multi-posting sorry.
Sendler: I wish you'd just accepted my alliance at the start! Did you know I was trying to support-hold you with that WM fleet?

Are you trying to rub it in now Figle. Because it seems you are.

No I wasn't, but I can see how it does. Sorry world :(
Was merely the first example of Austria in a gunboat that came to mind. Besides, I wouldn't have done so well in that without more than my fair share of luck.

nice win, as long as you dont get into a fight with italy thats okay
but I find it way harder to avoid a fight when it's a gunboat
when you can communicate, it is easier, because you can tell your opponent what you will be doing and he will know you are doing it for defence and not for attack etc

also I find that France is even stronger in gunboats than in normal diplomacy games, would be interesting to check if thats true based on all gunboats here

Speaking of which, all of the articles I read concerning Diplomacy use stats from the 70s. Is there any way to access the stats on this site to determine, for example, how many Russia's won when they opened in a certain way? I think that it would be fascinating and really bring some up-to-date data to the community.

Interesting, I would have said that Gunboats favour Turkey.
However I think any unbalances can be neglected as long as you're not playing with brand new players. If you know a certain country is more powerful, you just adapt your strategies to deal with it

I expect you could get the required data, but I expect you'd have to request it.
I wonder just how big the database would be if dumped, because that would be a viable option: just have a complete database dump (obviously not including user data) and making that available.

@fq:I noticed in one year yes, but I still had to do those moves to protect
and I could tell pretty early it would be me and england against you
if I had attacked en you would have won for sure
btw. I think you could have won if you would have attacked me just a little sooner should have worked, not sure but maybe

Possibly. At that point I was still expecting Turkey&Russia would ally against me, so I was rather worried. Indeed I wasn't going to attack you at all until you moved your fleets down towards me one autumn, so I build up my Navy and turned to defend.

I would love to get ahold of that data. I'm not sure that I am the best person to decipher it, but I would give it a shot. I know my way around a computer. It would be fun.

Turkey never really gave me an opportunity to join with him. I thought, mistakenly, that Italy and I would finish off Turkey and that he would let me go against England. Wow...was I wrong.

I wanted to. Unfortunately by that point England had so much of Russia :/
when I took Seva of you I was intending to hold Warsaw&Moscow with you, but something went wrong with Warsaw and England got in :(

I might take a look at the sourcecode haven't got into it much. (but I do code php) I can very probable get the stats from a db, if I have it. If no one else trys I would in february. (finished with exams by 5th february)

No hurry. I just think that new data would be great. And most of the old data was done during postal diplomacy. You probably have a ton more games and, therefore, more relevant data.

The sourcecode is very clearly written, so shouldn't be hard to get into Sendler.
For taking a database dump: that would be easier just to ask Kestas.
It wouldn't be too hard to get a table containing Russia's 1901 orders and then how many SCs he ended up with, although I'm not sure how easy it would be to define Russia's openings in terms of specific moves, as each opening can be done in many different ways.

One last question before I go: you said you recognised I was Italy jim. At what point? I have to admit I didn't work out who anyone was!

I was just thinking of gunboat statistics ;)

Oh right, as in how the results spread?

That sort of data can probably be taken from the same source Ghost uses when calculating the GR.

Well...I figured that, with your points, you were probably going to be the best player on the board (no offense to anyone else. I did not know who else was in the game.) Your moves were very result oriented and you didn't have any wasted orders. I just took a guess.

Fair enough, and thanks. Quite a lucky guess I would suspect however - just as your points are low from being new mine are high from being old!
Anyway, thanks all for the game, I'm done for the night.

See ya.