No way. Although Italy almost screwed it all when he started moving on me. When Russia went CD everyone but Austria wanted to cancel/draw, then when Austria started to retreat Turkey pulled his draw. If I let Turkey get Italy he would have enough fleets to break through my blockade and solo. Not going to happen on my watch

Ok, here's my quick notes from early in the game:

Russia didn't get bounced in Sweden in Fall of '01, what was Germany thinking?

'02 Wow, I got both Rumania and Sev? That's pretty nice. A bit surprised by Italy going to Aegean, but w/ 2 builds that shouldn't matter.

'03 Russia goes CD. That always sucks. I should probably click draw or cancel, as someone else (I think Germany) had done.

After that, it looks like I will not be able to get far enough forward to break the stalemate line, which is what ends up happening. Another solo attempt bites the dust.

You are right though, DILK, I shouldn't have pulled my draw, I just didn't feel that Austria deserved to be included, as he didn't seem to play very well.

A tainted solo if you got the solo, if I may say so sir.

Seriously, instead of support holding Bud with Vie he moves Vie to Boh?!?!

Not really DILK, you don't need more than two fleets to blockade the Iberian, England already had them. Even if all you had were armies, you'd still hold Turkey out -
Portugal support holds Spain, Burgundy support holds Marseilles, English channel support holds MAO, and nothing gets through.

If you'd given up Tunis and retreated to the line, your three fleets and one army in Gascony or Burgundy would have been more than enough.

I can't disagree with you, DILK. But 280 > 28 any day of the week.

This is true, but I was annoyed that this game even continued, so I kept my little buddy Italy alive :P

@Lakers : I was thinking Russia would go to the Baltic. If I'd ended up in Sweden, that would have made life very uncomfortable. If he went to and got Sweden, then he wouldn't be in position to support an attack on Berlin from his unit in Silesia. Lesser of the two evils.

Err, 140 > 28, I should say. But if you had let Italy perish per Santosh's recommendation, we each would have gotten 7 more w/ 35 as our winnings.

That is a good point, santosh. I think the free bounce is generally correct, but I see your logic.

Hey though, I at least put up a Draw flag. Lots of players who get a huge lead early don't even bother to put up a draw or cancel vote and just go for the solo.

Indeed it was kind of you to do so, but that game would've just gone on indefinitely if you hadn't drawn. I bet Italy is happy with me at least :)

I am sure Italy is ecstatic. And that's obviously why he didn't stab you in Spain when he had to retreat from MAO.

Ah, no, I meant at least I put up a flag once Russia gave up and Austria kept proving to be inept. But like you said, Austria didn't chose to draw then.

I don't think Austria was inept, probably just frustrated at the Russian CD. Can't blame him.

I think it is interesting that people think you should have drawn this game when this Russian player left the game. I've played quite a few live games on this site in the last couple weeks and frankly, that Russian player stayed in longer than most seem to do around here.

CD's seem to happen frequently for no apparent reason (probably the person figures that they don't have a good chance of soloing), and happen very often once a player loses a home center or two.

Sorry to say it, but If you drew every game in which that happened, you wouldn't finish many live games around here. It's probably best to just consider it a part of the game, and not call people out who solo in a game that had a CD in it.