So I started out organising a CPA with Italy & Austria, and seeing which of England or France would be the better ally. England's press won me over in the first turn, and so I responded better to him then and put an alliance with France pretty low on my list of priorities. At the same time, I was friendly with Russia and gently prodded him to the Northern opening, meaning that England would have an unfriendly Russia to deal with, and thus want me as his ally much more than anything France could offer him. The lack of emphasis I put on working with France would come to hurt me later though. Italy's westward opening, while something I welcomed, was not actually my idea though. The first I heard of it was Italy suggesting it and saying he'd talked to England. I later got blamed for instigating that, but that was one of the few things I actually didn't instigate.
After the first turn ended, it became clear that France would reply much more quickly and usefully than England, which rather frustrated me. I changed my mind almost entirely. Having encouraged Russo-Turkish fighting from the start, particularly by offering Russia Sweden if he stayed out of Galicia, I was feeling pretty confident, and decided to play cautiously in Autumn while making England the priority in 1902.
At this point, Austria moved to Venice, which greatly upset the previously well-functioning CPA that I was basing on holding firm in the east. This greatly annoyed me, mostly because I'd told him not to do it as it wouldn't help any of us and he'd ignored me, and swung my sympathy firmly in favour of Italy for most of the rest of the game when grievances between those two came up. This also had an effect later.
Anyway, I built a fleet under the pretence that I would instead be helping England against Russia by taking Sweden, and that moving to Skaggerack was to keep Russia unprepared for my strike. Russia and Austria were hitting Turkey relatively hard, and I didn't want Turkey to die quickly, so I began pointing out the merits to both Austria and Italy of an alliance with Turkey with Turkey as the minor power.
At this point, my lack of initial enthusiasm with France came back to haunt me when he stabbed me and took Belgium, throwing a major spanner in my works after I'd just taken the North Sea and Russia had taken Norway, leaving England open to be crushed but me in no position to do it. Luckily, France's bizarre love of moving to the north coast of Spain instead of the south coast (seriously, what was that? It happened two or three times throughout the game) meant that Italy was able to take Marseilles. Although, my frustration at yet more pointless A-I fighting (Trieste, this time) continued. Turkey also appeared to be at the point of totally surrendering when he left Armenia, which I found downright alarming. With Italy once more focussed west, I pushed hard for an A-T alliance at this point to keep Russia in check and intended to take out England with Russian help and France with Italian.
Sadly, Austria decided to go ahead and fully invade Italy the next year, putting my help against France in a critical position while making an A-R even stronger. Having been unable to win Austria into working with Turkey, I intended turned to the dark side and persuaded Russia to stab Austria. While this would put Russia in a very commanding position, I was still confident that he could be contained.
At this point, I made the decision which pretty much turned the game around for me, and patched things up with France. He may have been down to just 3 SC's (Portugal, Brest, Paris) but I suspected war with Russia was coming and also knew that Italy had no further strength to finish France off. I held off of taking Burgundy that fall to win France's trust that I was being sincere, and decided to try and save Italy by stabbing Austria myself and hitting Tyrolia. The latter move failed, and from that point on I slowly abandoned Italy, despite my lingering respect for him as he had at least been straight with me all game. Which was more than anyone except Turkey and perhaps England could say. The first thing I hadn't accounted for was England's NMR in A1903, which suddenly put Russia into the Norwegian Sea a year earlier than I had anticipated, and added to my frustrations with England, so we discarded our temporary neutrality and went back to war the next year. The second thing I didn't fully account for was Austria's temperament. I expected the Russian stab, but I didn't expect Austria to work with him even while Russia was supporting Turkey against Austria. Austria got extremely bitter during this phase of the game, with his repeated threats to throw the game to Russia, which I know pissed off both myself and Turkey immensely. On the positive side, when Russia stabbed me, my decision to work with France had struck total gold. France allowed me to take Liverpool instead of him, so I didn't have to disband when Austria took Munich. Russia also did what I expected and overstretched, with his playing off of Turkey and Austria against each other finally failing at Bulgaria and Constantinople.
Ironically, Russia had told me when stabbing me that he had done it "because I was the only person he couldn't manipulate in this game". I'd known of his arrogance for a while, and suspected it could be used against him, so even while he attacked me, we kept our press up, and I continued to ask about his plans with Austria and Turkey which culminated in his failure. Seeing my friendliness and apparent willingness to go back to working with him, he backed out of the Baltic Sea in spring 1905, which I firmly believe was the critical mistake for him which made him go from the Alpha power to one in major trouble in the space of a single move. Austria had finally got over his anger, and I promised not to take Munich back, we apologised and made up. With England's failure at working with Russia over when I held Denmark the previous year, I was also able to convince him his chance at making the draw lay with working with me, not Russia. Russia now found himself under attack from me, England and Turkey simultaneously while no longer receiving Austrian support, and he attempted to stab Austria as well. With him under attack on all fronts, I decided that England's support was a luxury I no longer needed, and stabbed England. Sadly Russia, instead of moving to the North Sea to cut my (expected) support like I expected, bounced England in Norway and so my stab only succeeded in taking London, and not Edinburgh, due to the chain reaction of blocks.
I had previously promised France a share of England that he was now no longer going to get, so I offered him Belgium or London for free (whichever he wanted) to pay my debt to him. He'd once again made the bizarre move to Spain NC, which once more greatly frustrated me as he couldn't push straight into the Med. By taking a risk and convoying into Sweden the year before I was able to push right into Scandinavia by taking Finland and threatening St Petersburg, and I was feeling confident that a three way with myself, France, and Turkey would be the outcome, as Austria and Turkey were still having great trouble getting rid of Russia in the south. Russia was repeatedly pulling miracles out to survive down there. England's survival had led to him once more supporting Russia into the North Sea, giving Russia free access to Holland as I couldn't cover it, but by giving France Belgium, I was counting on his support to help me take it back.
At this point, the last major shift of the game happened when France stabbed me. It was a move I couldn't understand in the slightest, because I was at this point large enough that removing me would be so slow it would almost certainly give Turkey a straight up solo, and Russia was so dead in the north (I took Norway and St Petersburg in the same move as he focussed south) that France couldn't count on support from anyone, except perhaps the sole English fleet. Even now I can't process exactly why he chose to do that, and I think he realised what a catastrophic error he'd made pretty quickly. Russia, due to his losses elsewhere, had to disband the Holland fleet, and France sued for peace almost immediately. I saw this turn into a major opportunity for a solo, so I accepted the French proposal, and considered whether to go for the solo or not. I was worried about the Austro-Turkish response, with Russia now a minor player. Austria, however, began to try to persuade me to stab France, because he was worried about his own place in the draw. Turkey was against it, as he should rightly have been, but he was still rather distant to me. To try and buy Turkish support, I hit Moscow with StP to give him Sevastopol at the same time as I made my move on France. I was a little too cautious with my opening moves though, as I worried about France's moves and took Belgium from the Channel rather than Holland. Something I came to regret.
The game now entered the critical phase of whether or not I could get a solo. This phase lasted all of one year, when France correctly guessed all of my moves and Austria moved to the stalemate line to prevent me getting any further. Despite Russia supporting me in spring (he knew he was dead, and wanted me to solo instead of a draw of all his enemies), when he saw I'd failed in the west, he took Moscow back.
I used Russia taking Moscow as a bargaining chip, by support holding him and refusing to allow him to be killed until one of Austria or France was eliminated. Personally, Austria's temperament and general insecurity all game had annoyed me on multiple occasions, and I knew Turkey didn't like him, so I hoped Turkey would work with France while I sat back and let them kill Austria. Neither of them really went for it (which certainly cost France) though, so the easier route of removing France was chosen. Austria was initially resistant, but the bargaining chip had got Turkey to my side, and so Austria eventually assented and they stabbed France. From there, it was just the relatively slow process of cleaning up. I eventually supported Turkey into Moscow, which he thanked me with by helping Austria into Warsaw and breaking my line (very kind). Not sure why, as any chance I had of soloing was long gone, but hey. I made some half-hearted attempts at persuading for a 2 way at the end with the aim of trying to get an opening to solo, but Turkey was never interested and neither was I, realistically.
Now, back to what Bo said, about the standard of play... I definitely disagree. I feel I played very well, with only France's correct guesses really costing me all hope of a solo, and almost every interaction pair being heavily influenced by me. I had a part instigating the vast majority of fights, with only the Austria-Italian war being explicitly against my will in the early game. I also feel Turkey played very well, as he recovered from a pretty dire position to a strong finish in the draw. Austria was rather lucky to get in the draw, and I think had France not made his ill-fated second stab on me, Austria would have been eliminated due to Turkey's dislike of him and me being much more contained. Austria seemed to have two sides in that game, where he'd switch between being a reasonable player to a very temperamental one, which I really don't think helped his cause at all.
France played solidly, with his only real mistake being the stab on me at the end. If he explains that decision in detail here, I'd be very interested to read it. He also needs to get rid of that love of Spain NC, because it really limited his moves in the south, which may have pushed him to making that poor decision to attack me. On the other hand, his willingness to forgive and forget our earlier fight (something Austria never seemed able to do) allowed him to get back from the verge of defeat to, for a time, being one of the two best placed powers on the board (when Russia/Austria/Turkey were hammering each other and I hadn't yet overcome Russia). Russia played well early on, but he got too greedy and overconfident, overstretching his lines and leading to his susceptibility of my manipulation which led to his withdrawal from the Baltic Sea. From then on, his repeated deceptions had burnt his bridges with pretty much everyone, and he endured a long and painful death. Poor guy. Italy was relatively straight-talking, and I found him a reasonable ally, but he also got rather emotionally driven with his feud with Austria. Whether or not he could have turned it around when given the chance to at the end by working with Austria I don't know, but both France and Turkey came back from hopeless positions, and Austria was in a pretty poor one at times too. Italy wasn't ever prepared to back down on Austria, and it guaranteed his death. England frustrated me throughout the game, whether by his initial slow press that got me to turn on him, the NMR that broke the northern lines and brought Russia considerably more power, or his stubborn refusal to actually die. I think after that NMR he was extremely unlikely to ever make a draw, although both Russia and myself seem to have offered him one and persuaded him to our sides for a time. I think the two players who played weakest died first, as you should expect. Whether bo underperformed or not is something I'll let him decide, but I think the other four of us played roughly to our levels. France made a mistake, sure, but everyone does occasionally. And Austria got the result, in the end, even if luck favoured him a lot at times.
Duel of the Fogeys
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