I played Germany. The game started with Germany's worst nightmare: an English-French alliance. I tried to hold my own, but I was simply overpowered. Autumn 1904 was my darkest hour, with England in Denmark and France in Munich. Fortunately, that was the moment when Italy attacked France with all it had.

I gradually improved my position. Despite the menace of four English fleets, I decided to take a gamble in Spring 1907: I convoyed Kiel to Livonia. Then I outguessed Russia and moved to Moscow! Whether it was my surprising move or the English dominance in Scandinavia or something else, Russia CDed.

Since Italy reached the British Isles, forcing England to turn back, it became obvious that the Russian SCs would be taken either by Austria or me. Here, one move in Spring 1909 was crucial: I supported the Russian unit in Ukraine! Austria, who naturally expected I'd get greedy and take either StP or Sevastopol, was dumbfounded. In a deep state of shock, Austria chose a massive support hold, so I took Sevastopol unopposed. I was finally secure.

In Autumn 1911, I moved out of Norway, clearly signaling the unlikely alliance with England. It was the only thing that could stop the rampaging Italy, and it worked.

The situation until 1914 was more or less a stalemate, with England slowly gaining ground. I was waiting for the right moment to stab him, but I forgot to take off my draw vote, so the game ended, much to my dismay.

This is probably one of the most successful games I've had. I'm relatively new, and have only won one game. I was Italy and after deciding to focus on the French side I lucked out and had an Austria that was focused on Russia and Turkey. I was in a pretty constant lock down with France until I took the risk to make a move to the Mid-Atlantic, and my game immediately picked up.

I carefully and gradually took France apart piece by piece, making sure to shut down his abilities to get behind my line. When he was almost finished, I had to make the decision of moving in on England or Austria, both of whom hadn't been aggressive yet. I chose England, which might have been the worst choice in the end. A careless move by me let France last a bit longer when someone picked up the CD'ed country.

Still the biggest country and with Austria getting aggressive, I officially opened up my Southern front for battle. It went pretty well, and probably would have ended in my favor in the end, but the stalemate with the German border and the Anglo-Germanic alliance finally letting England take back his home SC's and getting into the Mid-Atl Ocean, I knew I was cooked. I hate drawing, but between my increasingly frustrated wife wondering when I would make dinner and the knowledge that an English fleet in the Mid-Atl meant this game would go on MUCH longer, I took the coward's way out and got us all a couple of points for the trouble.

On a happy note I was hoping that I could win and finally leave the "Political Puppet" in my profile behind (is it wins or simply amount of games played? Again, relatively new), and while we drew I'm officially a "Member". Woot.

I would have protected Austria and helped him into Budapest just to weaken you, so who knows how it would have ended, especially with that crazy Turkey NMRing all the time. Too bad we drew, games where the situation is still interesting in 1914 are very rare.

Congratulations on your promotion, lol. You're good, so it's only a matter of time until you become a Diplomat, if your wife lets you. (Yeah, it's a problem, my love life was suffering too.) See you around.