gameID=111957

Be sure to check out the global, very entertaining in spring 1905 and beyond :-)

I'll start out. First, this was not my favourite game - I did not play my best in either strategy or tactics, however, I was pleased with my end result with this considered.

As the game began, early negotiations had me getting along best with both Austria and England, these two powers were whom I determined would make the most conducive allies. I wanted this to work. Discussions continued and a move to the west appeared to be something that would pay off, England, Germany and I had a good thing going and made fairly short work of that situation. Meanwhile, things with Austria were going OK, together we didn't have enough units to deal with Turkey, so he was kinda treading water for a bit.

After France was on his last legs I knew something needed to be done. Further, relationships had changed.
- Germany and I really never had an easy time getting along, despite our work on France. I found him to be very focused on the short-term and not particularily open or chatty.
- England and I maintained great relations and we brainstormed many options for going forward
- Austria and my relationship fell off a bit. I think I may have made a bad-stab for TRI and he was super convinced that EG was a scary alliance. I tried to explain that EG was not a real alliance and that diplomacy doesn't work that way - its about making your own alliances, not worrying about the other ones.

Anyway, I knew something had to change. I figured by convincing England to move on Germany Austria would understand that I was not trying to screw him, and, it would give England something to deal with that wasn't me. This blew up in my face as France NMRed and did not bounce England in my Spain AND Germany took no preventative measures. Anyway, England came out of that turn hugely on top and I was back at the bottom.

From here, there were 4 major powers remaining and Germany. I tried to talk to both Turkey and Austria about working with me vs, the other so we could grow fast and mount a challenge to the growing England. Neither was interested. They both pretty much told me "I see you as untrustworhty, so there is no way I am taking that risk"

So, that made my life easy. They weren't going to work with me I was going to work with England. If they didn't wise up I would give him the solo. Fortunately they did, or, they appeared to have and I moved to create a stalemate with them. I figured this was safe as at this point I was necessary. I still felt a risk of being potentially cut, so, I asked Turkey to take a different place on the stalemate. Instead, he and Austria convoyed a unit to TRI. This was quite clear to me that they were trying to squeeze me. So, one last time I helped England. Turkey knew he needed me now, and, after I forced a set of moves on him we finalized our southern stalemate and Austria just had to tie up losse ends in the north.

I was pelased to get into a draw from the position I was in, not sure if I do the story "justice" here.

I do have some additional comments:
1) hellalt - I must say despite our early-alliance you are a chore to work with. You don't talk, and when you do say something it is not a negotiation, it is simply said. I never wanted to be in that alliance after it started so I was forced to try and break it up. It's too bad, because had we been able to actually work together the England solo threat may have been avoided.
Austria - I hope that from this game a lesson you take with you is that alliances are not always what they appear. Diplomacy is a huge part of diplomacy so to use only the moves and units on the boards to assess alliance combinations is not giving yourself the full story. Despite our ins and outs I think that if the two of us had put something together after the big English year, we both would have retained solo possibilities.
-Austria and Turkey - again, I get the impression from this game that the two of you put personal feelings ahead of strategic considerations. From the big English year, even without my helping England, there was no way that the two of you could finish me off and retain any solo chances. You both had that had you worked with me. Or, even, had you convinced me to work in a triple with you both. I believe you both cut your options very thin with your outright statements of anti-Italian thoughts. The moment that happened, I knew this game was going the way of a 4way or an English solo
-England - I feel bad for you, in some ways. I think I might have played you pretty hard in that endgame and while that is the point of diplomacy, I was not particularily honest with you. I knew I was not going to actually throw a solo unless I absolutely had to. I only really have once before. I think I did a good job of convincing you, and, I think my emotional reaction to A/T helped me sell it. I feel bad because I did it again in the game and still managed to turn it around. I am not a :stabby" player, I like treating peple respectfully in diplomacy and I may have fallen off in some of our interactions (or,,, results). I do not feel abd you didn't win, but, I feel bad about how I manipulated the situation to get into a draw.

I think there is tons to learn from this game. I think I demonstrated pretty well how to force yourself into a draw position. I think that AH and Turkey can both learn about alliance dynamics, and, have hopefully already learned a bit about stalemate lines. England, I think there were some stronger moves you could have amde at the end to force the game in the north. Hopefully you see these now, if not, PM me I am happy to talk it through.

Thanks for the game, fellas.

PS philcore - I definitely knew that was you the whole time. My fear was that AH was jimgov.

@Lando, thanks for starting this off +1

Mine is coming shortly. I learned long ago to write long posts in a text editor and then paste them, rather than try to type it into the site directly. So its a work in progress.

What gave me away? Was it the parallel thoughts I was expressing in game and on the forum regarding throwing the game? Being an alternate, I wasn't even on the original list of players, so I figured I would be fairly anonymous.

I was England. This game was weird and frustrating.

1901-02: Germany and Italy wanted to jump on France: sure, especially when France made some odd opening moves. Russia was curiously hostile from the get-go, so that worked for me. Everybody else seemed friendly and capable. Turkey was going to help with Russia, who it appears didn't talk much with anyone. Sorry that I kept pretending I was going to help you, France.

1904: in Autumn Italy and I stabbed Germany and the game got weird. I was having trouble getting the lay of the land in the east -- it seemed like everyone was getting ready for an anti-E/G alliance which I didn't want to see. Things were actually going pretty well with Germany but basically I felt like I had to stab either Italy or Germany, and Germany was vulnerable. Germany, sorry I told you I got tricked into doing the stab. At the same time, Austria and Turkey began a concerted-anti-Italy alliance.

Starting at this point, the global press got awesome. My favorites:
"(To: Global, from Germany) - Autumn, 1904: I mean chosing a stupid whore bitch insteadof someone who actually tried diploming."
" (To: Global, from Germany) - Spring, 1905: this is so annoying.
england go ahead and grab swe, den, kie, ber and par.
I ve done it with this game full of FUCKING MORONS.
yeah that goes for you two austria and turkey stupid bitches.
This was hellalt and I have to say americans are the stupidest on the fucking planet.
stop playing diplomacy and go back to tree climbing stupid fuckheads.
I m dmzing all my scs out of disgust to your stupidity.
fuck you fuck your country fuck your mother fuck the holy spirit and baby jesus.
that was relieving..."
"(To: Global, from Austria) - Spring, 1905: Frankly, I'm appalled. I thought that the Masters comprised quality players and I think for the most part it does comprise quality players. It's too bad that a few give the rest a bad reputation.

For the time being, I'll take the high road. The game is not over. If Germany and Italy want to throw the game to England, so be it, but remember Germany, it was England that butt fucked you, not Turkey or I. If you are such a poor player that you do not have faith in yourself to recover from a mess of your own making, then I understand your propensity to give up. However, you would hardly be demonstrating your 'superior' play by throwing in the towel. If you are truly the superior player you claim to be then play the game."
"(To: Global, from Russia) - Spring, 1906: You guys are like angry babies.....it amuses me."

Both Germany and especially Italy started talking about throwing the game, etc. This is when I thought I might actually get a solo because everyone was so mad. From here on out Turkey and especially Austria didn't talk too much to me, which I sort of understand since there wasn't much reason to.

But I didn't solo for a couple of reasons. I made some seemingly minor tactical errors which, in the close end game, proved to be very big. Second, there was a lengthy pause for Austria (which Germany didn't want to grant and which got a mod and more fighting in the global press) which gave everyone a chance to cool down and work things out in 1907.

So my last bet was to try to convince Turkey and Austria to strategize out how to cut Italy and Germany out of the draw. Once we got that discussion going, I mentioned it to Italy (which was not my real goal but I was hoping and it almost worked), and Italy got mad.

But! I made my biggest mistake of the game. I thought it had created another permanent rupture and in 1909 I made cautious and thoughtless moves in the Mediterranean thinking I had time to get a fleet down there. But it wasn't to be -- Italy went back into the stalemate line after a turn, I couldn't get Tunis, and that was it.

In terms of learning from the game as Lando mentioned above, this game makes me feel pretty about my diplomacy skills but not so much about tactics and related. I sort of feel like I should get some gunboats going to sharpen that up, but I don't like gunboats.

Thanks ck.

I'm finished with mine, but it's long ... Embarrassingly obiobi type long. I'll post in two parts for fear of bringing down the database ;-) since you posted two parts of the global that I also was going to post, i'll edit those out of mine to shorten it a bit.

I guess I had a lot say.

Part 1/2

1901: Typical press opening, neighbors being friendly non-neighbors proposing to share info. Russia is very quiet though. With Austria and Italy both talking alliance and Russia talking ... well nothing. Not a single word ... not one ... I had my first target.

1902: Attacking Russia proves futile, and Italy and Austria are on their way toward me. I try to reconcile with Russia, and I think I even did, although it was hard to tell through all the silence. At this point I asked if he was a gunboater - and he confirmed my suspicions by clicking pause-cancel-upnpause-draw. After rifling through the forum I found the gunboater communication thread, and was able to decode that to "Yes, I am gunboater". In Autumn, I was approached by Austria to join him and Italy to defend against a possible EG they saw brewing. Glad to be done with GB translator ring, I quickly agreed to the alliance I was hoping for in the beginning, anyway.

And here is a crucial moment in the game, that explains later behavior, by me and Austria. The very next message I receive after agreeing to Austria to join him and Italy, is from Italy wanting to know if I will move against Austria. My reply was that it seemed like a loyalty test, that's how odd it seemed to me. I didn't think that 2 players could work together to come after me, then offer to have me join them and immediately one of them asks me to turn on the other. It had to be a test. Then when I don't agree (thinking I'm passing the test) I get word from Austria that Italy is having second thoughts about me. We hadn't even coordinated one move together, and it's clear to both of us, that Italy isn't interested in working with either of us, but is trying to get us to fight eachother for his own gain. This is a great tactic, and when it works, it's brilliant. But when it doesn't you're exposed as a disloyal opportunist. This set the tone for the next several years.

1903: My suspicions about Italy are confirmed through a series of messages to me and to Austria saying basically the same thing - but about the other. When he says he tried to work with both of us, it is absolutely true. But it's just as true that he tried to work against both of us. In Diplomacy, when it's clear that 2 parties have a common enemy, it helps to solidify their alliance. It gives them a common goal. From then on, any pleading, threatening or rationalizing won't undue the perceptions created by the earlier attempts to deceive. It's a chance you take when you try that tactic. ITaly then Stabs Austria further solidifying our alliance.

Note - this was not an "anti-Italian" alliance. it was a "pro A/T" alliance. Italy just helped to create it and solidify it. Russia was our first target, after all, not Italy.

1904: A/T planning an attack on Italy, while Italy is still trying to play us against each other. Our communication is solid at this point though, so what one knows, the other knows. Again, from the outside, it might look like were not willing to be diplomatic, but that's only because our diplomacy between each other was so good, that we had a direction, and made a decision, and were going to act on it.

Autumn 1904: The first sign of an unstable Germany ... ticking time-bomb. Italy stabs Germany and Germany's response in the global: "I'm sorry that I chose italy over you france. I mean chosing a stupid whore bitch insteadof someone who actually tried diploming."

From there we decide that we have another with a common enemy in Italy. And maybe by turning his obvious disgust with Italy to our favor, we can get him to back off Austria.

I read a lot of EoGs, and don't always comment on them, but I've got to give you guys props for a very entertaining game and absolutely hilarious global chat! Also for some great and lengthy EoGs!

Philcore, go ahead and post your dissertation EoG! Trust me, I like them long. ;)

Part 2/2

1905: Italy lets it be known that he will throw his centers (and therefore the solo) to England if he doesn't get his way. This is a bit of a hot button for me, having seen slyster do the same thing in Masters Round 1 Game 6. Not for the solo, in that case, just out of a crybaby mentality that if he doesn't get his way, then he will run away from his own homeland to spite the person not blindly agreeing with him ... and in that case, I'm convinced, that he gave France specific instructions of which SCs he was vacating ... because it was perfect, and not what any france would have done that turn ... sorry side track - but that's my mental state when it comes to this pussy tactic that some try to toughen up calling it "chainsaw diplomacy" fuck that!! it's pussy diplomacy, period! ("full stop" for you brits)

So Austria and I are now going full-on double-diplomacy on Germany trying to recruit him, and it seems like it's working, and then I get home from work one day to KABOOM! Hellat crazy bomb goes off!!


(See ckroberts post for priceless quotes)

From then on for several years fantastic drama unfolds publicly (I really recommend it, it's a great read).

I reach out to England at this point appealing to his sense of right and wrong, saying that there's just no way that these two should survive this game, and asking for his assistance in teaching them a lesson. But being a lot less emotionally involved in the issue as the rest of us are, he just sees it as an opportunity he can take advantage of (and rightly so, I would have done the same thing in his shoes).

I was to the point that I didn't even care if England won, as long as Italy and Germany were eliminated. Then Austria requests a pause for many days. During the pause there was quite a bit of discussion on the forum about the same situation going on here. It was actually a comment by Mapu, that make me think about my own game differently.

in the thread, "Masters Round 1 Game 2 - France solo"

"As a player in the Masters, it is annoying to me that a solo like this was allowed to happen. Very selfish." -mapu

He wasn't in that particular game, but the decisions in that game affected him, as they affected all of us in the series. I hadn't thought of that. So even though the person mapu was directing the comment at was the solo thrower, the point was just as valid to the person who goes after the solo thrower, and allows the solo to happen - in this case, me.

So having the down time to get less emotionally involved, and the words of wisdom from Mapu, Gen Lee, Nigee and others on that thread, I reached out to Italy saying that the prevention of the solo in the Masters had become more important than a grudge in a single game. From that point we work together to get setup in the med, and Austria and I setup in the north.

All the while Hellalt in his last center in Munich keeps screaming at the world about how he's necessary and important and invented the site and made the rules and gave birth to kestas and that no stalemate was possible without him. It was quite bizarre. But everyone in their private messages agreed that he wouldn't be part of a draw, and he was basically ignored from that point on.

1909: I get two builds the prior turn, but we've already got two Austrian fleets with nothing to do, so I go Army Strong, one to move to Sev, and one to try to disband an Austrian fleet. This meant convoying with two Turkish fleets and one of the idle Austrian fleets to Trieste (owned by Austria, by the way) so that the following turn it could move to Alb with Ion support to destroy it - giving him an Army build to help in the north. Sure it might have been pointless, but the board was solid otherwise and it was safe to do at that time.

I get word from Italy that he's not staying in Tys - part of our stalemate line in the med. and that If I want to keep it, I must move Ion there. I explain to him EXACLTY what our intentions are and that Ion is needed for that and gave him alternatives to protect himself, without vacating Tys. But he did. He didn't trust the Austrian fleet that had been adjacent to an empty Venice for three turns by then, so he moved to protect everything losing the stalemate line in the med ... then blames US in the global!! and uses the move that I told him about ahead of time, as "proof" that we were trying to thin the draw. That we would use three fleets to convoy Smyrna to Trieste in order to attack Venice - rather than just use Adriatic? Now I know that ck had something to do with this after reading his EOG (well played, sir).

So more fun on the global, but looking at the board, and knowing we were so close, Italy and I again start discussing how we make up for it. And after discussing a couple of options of keeping Tun and getting Tys back, and not getting anywhere, because of a communication gap, He pulls the same "Well these are my move, take it or leave it" So even though I thought my suggestion was better, and that his was going to lose Tunis for us, I had no choice but to follow his game plan, because the discussion was over.

Well, I woke up the next morning seeing that his moves worked brilliantly and mine would have lost Tun. It could have very easily been explained to me the night before, but the attempt was never made. He knew exactly what we needed to do, but couldn't express why it was better than my suggestion. It had become clear to me by then that Italy was very experienced, but also a gunboater. I cut him some slack for that after seeing that he saved the stalemate for us.

So a few more years of positioning in the north with Austria, with some good guidance regarding finding stalemates from Italy, and the time was right to stop supporting Munich and let hellalt fall to the English. We decided to do it in the spring time, so that we could get his reaction in the global for a season. It was less than stellar - he'd probably used up most of his crazy for that game by then.

So all in all a very frustrating game, with a satisfying ending, considering where it was headed.

@Lando: I'm glad I got to play you without knowing it was you. Hopefully your suspicions that it was me and jimgov in the game wasn't impacting your play based on the goings on in the forum regarding landowner, but I can certainly see why you kept saying that we disliked you and were refusing to work with you, if you thought it was the two of us. I hope you learned as much from me about communication as I did from you about tactics.

@Hellalt: I will never knowingly play a game with you. You have the distinction of being the only player I have ever thought or said that about. Congratulations!

@mdrltc: With all of the accusations about us not communicating and not being diplomatic - I think we both know they were wrong on both accounts. I enjoyed our alliance together.

@Favio: puse-cancel-draw-undraw-uncancel-draw-unpause

@ckRoberts: Well played, and I respect you for never getting involved in the drama, but just keeping your eye on the prize. And you damn near had it too!

@qtip: sorry, I got nothing for you. I don't think we talked much and you went our pretty quicky, but I didn't want you to feel left out :-)

Thanks everyone!

It's funny you mention that post about throwing games, as I too saw it on the forum and was so, so mad. The last thing I wanted was for people to be thinking about that sort of thing.

And I really was planning on cutting out Germany (which was a given) and Italy. Using it to try to break the solo line was a secondary goal which sort of worked.

Blame mapu for making me see the light, he cost you the win! I year there's a thread for demanding justice ;-)

Here's a fun story. In that same thread, I got in general lee's case when he sarcastically said he'd be throwing all games from now on if he couldn't win. I failed to look back on the thread to see that has basically the same opinion as I do on the matter, so I didn't realize it was sarcasm at the time. I was so worked up about Lando, Hellalt and slyster that I went off on him completely unjustly. It was a conversation with mapu that made me go back and understand genlees position and apologize to him.

He's like jiminy cricket to my pinochio.

I have some more to say on this, but not really having time to write it all now.

I do have a couple of follow-up points to leave you with:

- I still don't udnerstand the convoy to TRI. I don't understand it under any context other than an attempt to remove me from the game - I was not scared of the Austrian fleet, but, that army as the army could have backfilled a line of some form. Maybe it honestly was the way you thought best to get an army to the line, but I could not understand it.

- I don't consider myself a "gunboater" or a "presser." I thoroughly enjoy both variants for different reasons and I believe when I play the press variant that I do it full-commitment. I understand some weaknesses I have in communication, but, I don't think I suffer from the "gunboater playing press games" problem that you describe.

- Continuing on the above, when it came to that move for TUN in the very-end game (sorry I don't really do well remembering years) I did try to explain why I thought this was the best route. I think it was a communication breakdown in a mutual fashion rather than my inability to explain. I believe we agreed that an English poke of TUS was unlikely while an attempt at TUN was likely. I see that when we spoke of an attack at TUN you expected it to be NAf-TUN while I thought of it as an unknown 50-50 guess which unit he would move. I understand the breakdown, but I don't think it is fair for you to pin it on my "gunboat tendencies"

I will expand on that more later, and, I want to talk about philcore's framing of my early "pit the two neighbours" strategy. But this will come later.

Nice reading your thoughts ck, philcore. ck - I will follow up on your tactics related question later.

PS - philcore, when I say I feared it was you and jimgov I was mostly joking. I pinned you for Turkey because what you were saying in the game matched what you were saying in the forum, and, it was written in a similar way. I actually think I am pretty good at this "odd" aspect of the game. I didn't let it affect me play - I didn't previously know much about your game, so, there was little risk.

As another aside, I actually thought England might have been Yonni. Which I was actually kind of worried about since when I created the game I made the password "Witchshark" which is the name of a beer in Toronto which would have liekly given away my being in the game. It wasn't, so no harm no foul.

As far as the trieste move, ill just paste a communication from Austria prior to that mive. Luckily Austria isn't draug, so I won't get sued for posting this:

" (To: You, from Austria) - Spring, 1909: I want Germany out, but we can let Germany go anytime. Right now it makes sense to keep Germany in place until we our line established. What PRU > LIV w/spt from MOS, UKR > WAR?

That allows time for ANK > ARM and SMY > Trieste. Trieste could then 1. Take ALB w/spt from ION if avail, thus, allow me to disband fleet or 2. Move to TYR with TYR > VIE or 3. move to VIE and I disband ALB.

Is OK with me for Italy to be in draw"

So while you might not have seen the value in the move, our intentions were clear, and they had nothing to do with thinning you out.

Sorry all, didn't know the EOG thread was up. For the most part, philcore has accurately captured my thoughts regarding the game play. I do not see any value to a long post of my own.