I believe there is a typo in your mailing address.
Is it actually [email protected]?

Yes, its [email protected].

I received your press (England), so Im waiting for 5 more.

I haven't forgotten. I'll get to it when I have a chance. Things have been crazy. Also, that game sucked.

I can empathize...on both counts.

As can I. Should we use this as an EOG thread, or are we going to wait to do that until the press comes out.

I'll get this finished tomorrow.

I think posting an EOG here woupd be fine. I thought about including them in the finished product.

Perhaps this would defeat the purpose, but couldn't you find/ recall a good game and petition the players for their press to share? If quality is the question, perhaps an "honest" game is what you need instead of a "staged" game?

After seeing how absurd that game was I agree with dubmdell.

Heh. We sure like drawing together, don't we Ghug? ;)

Is that four of them now?

For reference, gameID=89081

@jmo/Tom I know that this wasn't a good game by any stretch of the imagination, but calling this game absurd is a bit unreasonable, especially given that the only reason the game played out in the way it did was the initial actions the two of you made. The game ended a little earlier than most, sure, but any attempt to limit the draw would have almost certainly led to one one of us soloing, and none of us really felt like we were in the position to try something.

We had initially decided, as Tom would expect, to stab Austria and three way draw once we had broken through. But I guess we all got lazy later. It's very hard to get momentum back once you've lost it.

^err, wrong account. I'm Manas, sitting this account currently.

i want to apologize formally for missing the phase. I was Haert's sitter and, as stated in public chat after the fact, things suddenly got busy, to the point where i barely had time to check my own stuff

@Manas, I assumed as much, but I felt that I had to gamble, as Turkey was almost in position to do exactly what I did, and it's unlikely that a WT will actually survive to the end in a game with high quality players such as this.

I also agree with ghug on this one. I don't feel the game was "staged" or "absurd". From my point of view, playing as France, England and I initially were going to move on Germany and had it pretty well established. After things went sour with Russia, we opted for a Western Triple. I moved pretty poorly for a good portion of the game fearing a stab at regular intervals with units spread pretty much anywhere.

The WT was formed because there was a pretty clear Juggernaut on the board early on and I had already set it up to work with England for a while. I also anticipated builds from it that I never saw. Things were also screwy when I met with some difficulty attacking Italy, Austria or Turkey. I'm not the type to play for a draw, but given the circumstances, a draw was a really good outcome for me as I had no solo potential without really giving that opportunity to another player (most likely Austria). I also needed either England to be up for stabbing Germany or Germany up for stabbing England, and to try it alone would have meant pretty poor results, and getting another player to stab wasn't there.

I'm pretty shocked England and Germany didn't stab me after Russia was gone and I was still at 5 centers while their combined center count was 13 or 14, nearly triple mine, and my units were located near Russia, Turkey and the Italian peninsula. I had one unit at home and was sweatting bulltes.

Outside, that, it was a pretty normal game that ended in a draw. We could have cut out one country bringing it to a 3-way, but that's about it.

No, I would still call this game absurd. Mainly due to the overreaction to the juggernaut that has become prevalent on this site lately. What I was trying to do, and what would have worked fine, had Italy not refused to contact me for years at a time and played one of the most indecisive Italy's I've seen, was convince Tom we were in an alliance and then stab him with Italy. When everyone saw Russia and turkey support each other for a turn they panicked, decided what I was saying about wanting to work with Italy was a lie and went from there.

No offense Tru, but I have no idea what you were doing half that game. Did that one fleet just want to play explorer? That aside nothing baffled me more then the western triple. That was the first successful triple I've seen in a game I've been in. No stab attempts, you three held it together well...and then you just gave up. Austria had 3 units stuck in turkey, less fleets then France in the Ionian area, no way to stay alive against you three. Just a very bizarre game.

By "staged," I simply meant that, in the back of your minds, you all knew this was a game for posterity. It might have affected your play without you consciously meaning it too.

If you want to stage a game, though, you might as well do a key lepanto, jug, and sealion. I really don't see how a jug can work well for Russia without a sealion either, so it'd be good to show the kiddies how that works for them. :)

*...meaning it to.

@jmo, the Juggernaut doesn't have to be a big deal, but when you're Austria, you kind of have to make it into one. You both stabbed me in A-1901, and Italy had a crucial misorder in the same phase. The board at that point looked like a pretty powerful F/R/T was forming, and that was enough for me to call bloody murder and for the others to listen. I know that I talked to both of you several times in the following seasons, basically until you had lied to me several turns in a row and Turkey decided that I was the more useful ally given your slow demise.

As for the fact that I could have been killed, it would have been a long, slow slog, it probably would have been enough to give someone a solo shot, and it would have been much easier to eliminate someone else like Germany, who made a very strong case for himself.

I do think people overreact to juggernauts, it's not really signifcantly scarier than any other two country alliance. But in this game, it was to our advantage to spread panic about it.

Exactly. A Germany facing an E/F would do exactly what I did, and a growing triple in the east would jump on the bandwagon in exactly the same way.

I wasn't overreacting to the Jug insomuch as picking a new course when our attempts to attack Germany went south. England and I had a very solid anti-German plan laid out and Russia spilled the beans and out of fear he would move to defend making our fight slower. We were telling Germany about a Triple and planning a stab instead. When Russia told him about it and then sent copy-pasted messages, we switched. The Triple was created part out of the RT that did support one another in the same seasons our anti-German plans were to set themselves in motion.

Yes, though, my fleet and army on that side of the map were very crappy moves on my part. I was expecting my army to receive support into War (which it didnt) and my fleet to fight Austria but neither Turkey nor Italy was down for it, and it floated and floated and floated until it found a target.

All I needed was confirmation from some eastern power that they would move on Austria or Italy and no one was with it until I moved on Italy and promised Austria a cut in the draw.

Also, I still need Turkish press and Italian press

Sorry. I'm out of town until thursday and playing on my phone. Wro get to it thursday. I promise!

Yeah, both the Juggernaut scare and the four-way were quite essential elements of my game plan after France's stab in 1901. I never fully trusted France after that, which was amplified by my conversations with other nations and my own "gut feeling" in conversations with him.

England I trusted slightly more, but not by much. It didn't help that, positionally, I would be easy prey for him if he could negate the potential threats of Russia and France. I chose to work on Russia's downfall, and made a point of leaving France alive (but not too strong, when I could influence it). There was no way I was helping England into France in the late game.

As for Austria, I had a good relationship with him throughout, and always preferred him over Turkey. Keeping him alive as insurance against an EF was a given, and Juggernaut fear was important to keep all three of my "allies" focused elsewhere for as long as possible.

Considering that Austria was the only nation I could "easily" expand against, and he was the one least likely to stab me, pushing the four-way was obviously superior for me.

@Tasnica: May I ask why you didn't trust me? Specifically, would you have distrusted me if Russia had NOT told you I was in on the France moving to Munich plan?

@Manas: Reviewing the messages some more, it looks like there was really just one main thing early on. Either it had a lasting impact on me, or Russia and the others just did that good of a job at arousing suspicion.

That thing was your suggestion that you convoy to Belgium. That can be either anti-French or Anti-German, but combined with the fact that when combined with your otherwise French-friendly movements (fleet Edinburgh, for example), I was leaning toward anti-German.

That said, I didn't contest that point too much, because I realized that if you _were_ on my side then the army would be useful. Furthermore, one of my contingency plans was to throw everything to you if both you and France stabbed me, in the hope of unbalancing the alliance.

Distrust later on was mostly positional. I was keenly aware throughout the game that I only had one fleet and had no excuses to build more, and that if you chose to stab me I had little capacity to counterattack. The only force capable of thwarting you was France, though maybe Austria could help help me hold a few centers in a pinch.

I trusted France less, though. You walked the line rather well.

That's funny because I didn't trust our Triple either. I can see where you didn't trust me but I didn't trust you or England either. Looks like England had a really powerful setup going on if he would have capitalized it.

The funny thing is, there was no point in the game when I actually intended on stabbing you. I've rarely profited from the takeover of France as Germany with a strong England around, and knew that with you gone I would be a tempting target to even the friendliest of Englands.

England almost always comes out the best in a WT, and it is the job of Germany and France to make sure he doesn't successfully stab them or solo. In this case, we actually both seem to have pulled it off.

@Tru: That was the original plan, to get you to stab Munich to sow distrust between you and Germany (while also getting Belgium without looking greedy), and hopefully use that later to stab you with Germany's help, and then stab Germany. But I thought Russia's bean-spilling made Germany mistrust me as well, so I was pretty unsure Id get German help, and was forced to stick with the Triple.
I wonder what made you distrust me though. Later in the game, there was a stage where you had only 5 SCs while both Germany and I had at least 6 each, but you seemed to have lost your trust in us even before that, in Spring 1903.

@Tasnica: Yeah, I agree that WTs favor England, Im usually surprised at Germany's who agree to it, since I think Germany is the least favored in a triple.

So, we ever getting this thing posted?

Oh shit. Forget to send mine. Sending now. Sorry all.

So, my two cents about the game:

I was pretty unhappy in how it ended, mostly becuase I was defeated (duh!) but also because I thought the 4-way draw was premature. I thought there was significant play left and that everyone more or less took the easy way out.

This is specifically geared towards ENG and GER. AUS was put in a hole with the jugg, and his reaction was sound in my eyes. The fact that you got your way into a draw instead of getting wiped out by the WT is impressive.

FRA was clearly the weakest position-wise of the WT, so settling for a draw was a safe option.

I don't however, like the fact that ENG or GER refused to make a late play to push themselves into solo range. Simply trying to cut out AUS, or FRA especailly, would seem reasonable, and could have put ENG or GER on the path to a solo attempt.

All in all, that is my only beef with the game. I think there was a lot of game left when it was drawn.

I have everyone's press except Italy at this point. I'm going to begin putting the press together.

Alright, I figured I'd send out an update on Game 1's press work. I have completed all of 1901 and 1902 press which is about 50% of all the press sent in the game. I'm starting 1903 today and I project being done before September. I'll send another update hopefully sometime next week.

"Simply trying to cut out AUS, or FRA especailly, would seem reasonable, and could have put ENG or GER on the path to a solo attempt."

The problem is, I feel that whoever went for the solo would have inadvertently put the _other_ nation on said path. I, especially, would have invited England to stab me in the back with an invasion of Austria, and an invasion of France most likely would have seen England receive the lion's share of the spoils by virtue of his position and unit composition.

Oftentimes, it is the _second_ player to make a solo attempt that succeeds. In this game, neither England nor myself were willing to make ourselves a springboard for our counterpart.

I'll take the "easy way out" any day of the week when my reading of the board shows that soloing for the sake of soloing is a great way to hand a win to my rival.

Here's another update on the Full Disclosure press:

I'm nearing the finish! It has taken me quite a bit longer than I projected. I've gone through over 200 pages of press so far and I'm down to about 20 pages left to finish, which includes Italian, Russian and Turkish press from 1904-1909. I project that I'll be done within the next couple of days at which I'll proof-read everything for formatting issues, convert it to a pdf file and email it to everyone who played in this game, as well as Fortress Door who was the only player in Game 4 that sent me any press.

After a few weeks, I'll find a place to post it publicly for download so that everyone on webdip can enjoy it.

I have thought about adding the EOG's (if you can call them that) from this thread, but I'm not entirely sure if I will.

Again, a big thanks to everyone who helped me to put this together.