The early game was one of the more interesting I have been a part of. A really interesting relationship between Italy, Austria and myself (Russia). Austria and I had a great alliance but never got on the same page in Con. It was strange. And Italy was being a nuisance holding the Turkish fleet.

I waited a very long time to stab Austria and it worked well when I did. I was thinking the way that France had fleets in the Med and in the Northern seas it wouldn't be enough to stop me. Fortunately he kept attacking Austria instead.

Very good game everyone. It was a pleasure playing with you all.

A fun game in general, but Austria and France were simply too dim to see the bigger picture and stop Russia soloing, very frustrating.

Austria's stab on me was particularly poor, badly timed, and suicidal tactically.
France should have stopped attacking me, and then maybe we could have stopped Russia.

That said, russia played it very well and had a nice stab.

Sorry, i meant "would be enough to stop me" in my first message.

First of all congrats and well played to Lando. And I know Sacred was having technical difficulties. That said, I was a bit surprised by his not playing for a stalemate line.

I knew I was in trouble when Russia decided to attack me rather than austria. It would probably have very much helped my cause if I had disbanded venice rather than retreating to piedmont where I had a useless army that couldnt help with my defenses. I decided to try to die in favor of france rather than retreat to Marseilles, figuring that I could help him build and maybe earn a reward by serving as a vassal in later years/being kept alive as part of a stalemate line. I fought back as best I could, but seemed to lose the coinflips at every turn -- either outhinking myself or Lando soundly beating me, either way.

In the end game, I was just trying to do way too much. When I knew Sacred was having technical difficulties, I probably should have gone to the channel to get a survive, but I really wanted to be part of a stalemate line.

Austria, I was wondering why you didnt start support holding con to secure a stalemate line as well, since it seemed fairly clear to me that only Russia could solo out of the two of you, but maybe I was missing something?
The

Firstly, I hope those extra few SCs were worth it Digits :P I expected a stalemate line of sorts, not being attacked on both fronts.

The beginning of the game was very odd, with Turkey neutralized relatively immediately, but then I found I had not a whole lot of room to maneuver as Austria, having a solid alliance with Russia, and as the game progressed I did not want to stab Italy as he was keeping France at bay.

I realized that sooner or later Italy would not be able to hold France out, and at that point I had to make a choice to stab Italy or Russia. I regretted the choice to stab Italy the instant I did, I was actually in the process of changing orders when I ran out of time :(

I figured the stab from Russia was coming sooner or later, one of the reasons I would alternate supporting to constantinople and holding every few turns. I was surprised Lando never got lucky with those..

Late game I expected a stalemate line, not an all out assault from both sides.

Anywho, congrats Lando, and GG to the rest of you.

In my case, it's not so much dim, as a mix of technical problems and being generally unfamiliar with a) gunboats and b) stalemate lines. And dim.

I have to say that hitting Edinburgh was the biggest mistake that I could possibly make, so of course I made it. I saw that I needed to prop up Germany, and I have no idea why I thought that SC would have been better served in my hands than his.

Honestly, the only stalemate line I know is the big Spain to St Pete's one. I'm not a very experienced player.

Yeah lentz, I knew the stab was coming, just not clearly enough to realize I needed to switch gears at that instant.

Edinburgh would have been nice, but I cant really blame you for that. As for stalemate lines, you can generally see them just by figuring out where moves balance each other, but this is a very helpful resource. http://devel.diplom.org/Online/StalematesAtoY/

And yea, Egg, I cant really blame you for that at all either. I was just surprised you were ordering support there at all the moves I saw it. I figured a constant support hold would have done it.

Question for Dizzy--was it Russia's fake support for you that convinced you to stop support holding?

There are stalemate positions all over the board. There are too many to even know, as far as I'm concerned. Out of all the countries, Russia can care the least about them. Russia can reach so far from its home SCs that it often can just jump right by any stalemate line before the opposition can turn it into one.

But I mean even without stalemate you should still always try and stop a solo even just by trying to fight them back. Extremely hard in gunboats, granted.

I had a pretty solid idea I would win the moment I stabbed to get to 14. Not much can stop Russia from there. I was lucky from two things I think, more than anything, at the end.

1) I used Ank to support Italy to Con in a Spring, the next move he move his army instead of supporting Con.
2) he didn't poke Con the next year when I used that unit to support my stab.

Without those two things winning would have been a lot harder.

Also, my alliance with Austria was pretty good too. Probably wouldn't have won without that.

Yeah, you're welcome..... :P

If i remember correctly, I had a rogue Italian fleet threatening greece I was trying to defend against when I should have been keeping Russia out of Constantinople.

I also have some work to do on Defense :(

I actually tried to support Austria into portions of Former Germany a couple of times right after the stab, and he didn't take them. When he was driven out of Munich, I tried supporting him into Holland and into Munich, and when he wasn't going anywhere over there, I didn't see a way to stop Russia.

Maybe if I didn't have that NMR turn.

It was funny that Lentz and I were on the same wavelength a few times in the start, like me getting him into Venice, but then when it counted, we tripped on each other.

Ah, I see. I did those supports once, then meant to again, but that was the turn I NMR'ed. Yeah, that could have been a key phase.

Hope to see you in further gunboats SD.

Ah, I didnt even notice.

I thought had you saw the stab coming you would have been supporting beforehand. I figured I was on my own.

I'm also pretty sure the round before you NMRd you were cutting it pretty close to the bone for time also, because I didnt expect anything from you.

Indeed. This was also a good object lesson to me as germany (the country I have played the least) never to let russia own the scandanavian penninsula. There's nowhere to go but down.

he was for the two turns before, I remember unreadying my moves to prepare to stab, only to see him get in in the nick of time. But this was fun and well played all.

Only because I didn't have a fleet in Norway.

Yeah, there was about two years where I was literally fighting my computer to allow me to enter orders...and that gosh darn program STILL didn't install correctly.

I had fun. I'll play gunboats every so often moving forward. I've played maybe two or three in the past, this is the most fun one I've been in yet. Thanks everyone for a good game.

@mrlentz
No, i stopped support holding when i realized Russia had won, as Austria and France were still attacking me. I hoped to end it quickly, and possibly get a survive.
In the end he would have taken all of turkey anyway though