I'm going back over the game to refresh my memory on more specifics. Off the top of my head I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking at every moment of the game.

Fun game. I was England.

1901: I had good communication with Germany from the get-go. Russia and France sounded friendly but I got the most communication by far with Germany, so the alliance was pretty easy. Although, there was a weird alleged anti-German thing going on, but I don't know how real it was. Russia told me that it was happening and I was a part of it, but I had never actually heard from anyone. What happened there? Was Austria just trying to get everyone to attack Germany? It also looked like we were going to have a WT but I could tell France wasn't as in it as strongly as Germany and I.

1902-03: It looked like Turkey was having fun in the east. Austria then Russia -- just nicely done. On my part, still plenty of good conversation with Germany, less so with Russia and France. I had little communication with France and I was afraid there was a stab coming, just a hint, both of which made the later stab easy. I was hesitant because Germany started talking about a two-way draw, which I always assumes means "I want to solo but you see you come in a strong second."

1904: The previously agreed stab on France comes through, almost entirely on my side because I sent France five straight messages with no reply. It is pretty clear to me at this point that Germany and Turkey are too big for me to try for a solo. Although there was some snipping in the global chat which made me hopeful, it was apparently not working for me in the Masters game so I wasn't optimistic.

1906: Germany wanted to stab Turkey so I went along. I pretended that I was not aware of it so that I could get information from Turkey but also have cover if it went too well or too poorly from Germany (sorry Turkey). I have to admit Germany, my heart wasn't in it. Once it became clear that I couldn't use it for a solo and that you would get the majority of the gains, I started trying to bring it to an end. Italy, I was sorry to see you go -- I thought you played well, but that's the game.

Overall, this was an enjoyable game. Of course things went really well for me in terms of good allies and good opportunities. I don't know about everyone else, but this for me one of those games that went about how I expected it. By about 1903 there was an emerging end group of me, Germany, and whoever came out on top of Italy-Turkey.

A side note: I don't like the new message archive that is multiple pages.

Germany's EoG:

'01 - Talk of a WT begins early, mostly with England. Things progress pretty friendly on all fronts...so friendly in fact that shortly after the discussion of the WT comes discussion of a CA. I agree to both alliances (why wouldn't I?), as well as setting up a DMZ on the Russian border, and I end up going with a pretty standard German opening. Though I'm friends with everyone, I'm leaning more towards the CA than the WT. Although I have told the Russian that I won't contest Swe, there's enough pressure to look like part of the gang with England that I end up bouncing him anyway. Needless to say, Russia's a little miffed...at least Turkey's on board with killing some Russians as well.
'02 - I've got war with the Russians' coming on, and it's inevitable. I figure with Austrian friends to the south, France fighting Italy, and an England that I'm giving Swe to, I should be all right. Austria's getting antsy to see me fight the English. I full-well plan on taking Swe and Bel in the fall, but Austria's not happy with that. He wants to coerce an alliance with me by moving to my border and "leaving if I attack the English." I don't roll that way...I'm no solidified in the English alliance. I think I talk Austria down from moving right up on me, but then all the sudden there are two full divisions of Austrians breathing down my neck. Luckily for me, though, the apparent truce between Austria, Russia, and Turkey is only really a truce between Russia and Turkey. Great that the Austrian pressure is gone, but the Juggernaut is a little less welcome. Austria decides to go all vassal and offer to do whatever will be the most helpful to me in damaging Russia.
'03 - Looks like a Paul Revere would've been helpful in StP this year...the Russians just don't have the force to repel the British and the Germans as StP and War fall to the WT this year. Austria is able to regain some of his footing while the Russians are on the decline, and the Franco-Italian war seems as stagnant as ever. Things are looking very nice for me this year. I'm becoming unhappy with the French third of the WT, though...the war with Italy is going nowhere, and it looks like a very easy point of expansion for both England and I, so with Russia well in hand we decide to invade.
'04 - Though I feel bad for the French, the invasion goes well, and by the end of the year the French forces are halved. The Russians have been eliminated, and it's now time to jockey for position with the Turks and Italians. England and I discuss how it will shake out--we both prefer to split two ways rather than three, but Turkey and Italy have both approached me for the draw. We decide to tell them both yes and then see how the ensuing fight turns out.
'05 - By the beginning of this year it's clear that Italy is on the way out, so the only decision to make is whether to split with England or to let Turkey in on the draw as well.
'06 - England and I agree to the two-way, so I jump the Turks. I have a good strategic position, but then Turkey reminds me of our original correspondence in '01 regarding mutual cooperation in eliminating the Russians. He says the Juggernaut was never really a Juggernaut, and that our original treaty still stood in his mind. Easy for him to say now, but England and I end up discussing the difficulty of polishing off Turkey (it could certainly be done, but it would take several years), and we decide that we'll finish up with Italy and then draw.
'07 - We finish up with Italy and then draw.

That should be "which would have made me hopeful" for my response to the global chat sniping.

I don't know about anyone else, but I thought Austria retreating into Venice was a really big game-changer.

murrayshero it looks like we both may have misread each other a bit!

I'm with you...turned out okay in the end. And I'd also add that I had a great time in this game and would love more opportunities to play with this group.

On that note, we've only had 5 of 7 join the follow-up game. The game and PW are both available in the global press of the game...if you're not interested, please send me a PM so I can find some replacements. Thanks again for the great game.

"I don't know about anyone else, but I thought Austria retreating into Venice was a really big game-changer."

Yep. That was the nail in my coffin. I had the option of holding the line against France, or moving to prevent Austria's retreat and allowing France to potentially gain ground on me. I had the thought that since Austria had been honorable and honest so far in our alliance that he would continue to be coupled with the fact that if France made gains on me that I would have a hard time getting the territory back. If Austria hadn't stabbed me on that retreat then I would have probably started to push France back, but we'll never really know at this point.

I've always been of the belief that if France and Italy go to all out war from the get go that all that happens is they both get attacked and wiped out by other neighbors. Which proved true again in this game. I pointed that out to France before the game, but he ignored that message and many follow up messages as well. Even the threat of the Juggernaut didn't prompt France to show any interest in working to stop it.

Interesting writing my EOG after reading the others. I was Turkey and I had things pretty well figured out anyway, though.

'01 - friendly with everyone blah blah blah, but without a good reason to change, i had already decided to move north. I really seemed to "click" with Germany, though, and his hints that he (and maybe England, though he did not say anything explicitly) were going to go after Russia confirmed my plan. I spent most of my time trying to get Germany to commit to the Sweden bounce and trying to manage Italy & Austria. My preferences were always with Italy, since an Italy moving west and a Turkey moving north can avoid unnecessary conflict early. When Austria promised me Greece and then bounced me anyway, that was the end of cooperation there. (And as an aside, Austria was pretty aggressive throughout in trying to manage the entire game; I'm not sure what I was going to do about his dreaded WT until I had a few more centers anyway.) I developed a good relationship with Italy, and was sorry to see it fall by the wayside later. France's opening probably helped in that regard, since Italy was pretty much forced into a western stance. I did hint to Austria that Italy looked vulnerable, but that was primarily misdirection.

In 1902 I got Russia on board with an Austrian invasion that pretty much put him on the ropes. So much so that England accused us publicly of a juggernaut, but that was never going to happen. As an aside, the one thing that worried me about Russia from the start was that his discussions of alliance always ignored his fleet and the Black Sea. I had to bring up the planned bounce in the spring, so when he proposed to take RUM with a fleet in the fall, I went ahead and moved there myself. Then when Austria was no longer a serious threat, I was able to shift forces north and take Rumania & Sevastopol.

As the game progressed, it looked more and more like Germany was the real threat. England was always a potential to stab him, but it looked like they were both way out of position to really hurt each other. And with regular German builds, he always seemed to have protection. I continued to dialogue with Austria about "stopping the triple" while methodically chewing up his centers. At this point my disappointment with Italy's progress started to weigh on me. On the one had, I really wanted to maintain an alliance and would have been happy to face England/Germany with him together. On the other hand, he repeatedly got outguessed or outmaneuvered by France and was never able to get the critical mass to be a full partner. So when it became obvious to me that England would be rounding the cape of Gibraltar eventually, I began to seriously pursue a three-way in talks with Germany & England. (Sorry Italy)

Then came the stab. I sometimes get a bit careless during "mop up" operations, and that is what happened then. I had actually considered taking BUD, but did not want to upset the "alliance" ... especially not while there was still a possibility that G/E could take me out. And although England proclaimed his innocence, it was immediately obvious that he had played a small but crucial role in the success of the stab. They were both very good and careful players, and they had coordinated their actions too well up to that point. I pulled out all the diplomatic stops to get back into the three-way, and it looked like it had worked. Germany did mis-order his move to "give me back Trieste", but I had anticipated that with my supported convoy, which allowed me to pretend it was an honest mistake and still give him Venice as agreed (thus salvaging the relationship, as it turned out). I was also getting assurances from England that he was on board for the three-way (fearing as he admitted the disguised solo attempt), so I felt safe leaving SEV open to retake Rumania as well.

After that it really was mop-up, even though England had put himself "accidentally" out of position to finish off Iberia quickly.

All in all, one of the best contested and enjoyable games I have had in some time. Thanks!

Well I was Russia and pretty much trounced. In conversations things seemed to go certains ways and then not. Maybe just Russia hate or maybe something else was going on. I definitely learnt never to leave your back open to a Turk. Definitely was too trusting.

I joined the new game but will see how it goes. If I get trounced again I think y'all are out my league.

... and thanks for the game. I did have a great time with it!

By the way, there is a rematch game [Ol' Unfaithful] with only 6 joins. If one of "us" wants to play, you should already have the PW; if anyone wandering by wants to apply to join, I suppose you should mention it here ... someone will PM you the PW if we deem you worthy. :)

Sorry about that, Lord N...I felt bad telling you one thing and then doing another twice in a row, but it was just the way the cookie crumbled for me. Moving on Austria, France, or England would have turned out as mistakes because of the way the alliances were shaping up. My moving on you wasn't personal or because of anything you did or didn't do...just the way it shook out.

That's okay... first rule of Diplomacy is that it's not personal. It was my first 'real' online game with dedicated committed players so was a bit of a shake out. I love this game though and look forward to another try.

Yep, this game is just business, never personal. Though sadly some people take it as a personal affront when you stab them. Never understood why.

Sometimes "taking it personal" is part of the business of turning things around. You never know. ANd as long as we are quoting from old movies, "Things not always as they seem".

Many times, the "personal affront" is just gamesmanship. When you get stabbed and are starting to drown, you need to pull out all the stops.

Oh, yeah, that's total gamesmanship. But I've seen people both in face to face games and online games carry over grudges to new games.

It's actually why I stopped played F2F games with some of my friends.

Yeah -- I know what you mean. A bunch of us at a company I used to work at organized a bunch of co-worker diplomacy games on this site, but had to stop because of so many hurt feelings. One guy stopped talking to me almost completely and only referred to me as "the stabber" for months until I left the company. The first 5 times he said it was funny, the next 20 times it was like "okay, enough buddy" and then after that it was just kind of pathetic. And it wasn't even that bad of a stab.

The whole game revolves around stabbing people. It's kind of the point. That's like complaining you got beat at Monopoly because you landed on Boardwalk when it had a hotel on it!

Well being the last one to present his point of view, it won't surprise anyone that I was France. In the first rounds of Spring and Autumn 1901 everything went quiet well. I got to an alliance with England and Germany and tried to concentrate on Italy. I even had a promise of Austria to help me but he let me down. So it all resulted into a static warfare in the Mediterranean Seaa. The point were our stalemate in the Mediterranean Sea finally broke up, it was too late for both of us and we got overwhelmed by our former allies.
All the time through the game I hadn't enough time to speak to everyone and I mostly just read the messages and wanted to reply later but got kept from that too, which led as I see now to my end.

Looks like FlemGem is the one still missing...he said he'd be gone until 6/11. That's six days from now, and the game doesn't start for another 7...I saw we wait to give out the final spot until it's evident that he won't be joining. I'm also quite interested to read his final report...I had a really difficult time getting a read on him in '01 and '02.

This game has ended at least one real life friendship for me. While I have referred a couple of people to this site, I refuse to tell them my screen name. Your average human being is really not cut out for Diplomacy.

I can't imagine playing Diplomacy for real around friends, unless you had the absolutely right mix of people. It would be more like when we play Settlers of Catan and ask each other where you want the robber to go.

@heroguy ... I am willing to wait for Phlegmgem, but I would not mind seeing Mapu or Al_S join up either ... at least one new variable in the group?

One caution ... I am still doing my imitation of Up in the Air, and I do not know how my internet connection will be in the Baltics next week.

I'm up for whatever anyone else would like to do. I don't mind pausing if we need to pause, either.

I'm okay with waiting, I'm also okay with starting now with either Mapu or AL_S.

Or, we could start a second game without Phlegmgem and VirtualBob since they're traveling and replace them with Mapu and Al_S?

If you want to do that, send me a password, I'll definitely join.

Ok, I'll create the game shortly.

game http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=120311
created.
PM me for the password

If you want me to play a game when I am not traveling, it better be a very short game.

We're all smart and intelligent people (at least, I am). I think we could probably handle playing more than one game.