Dip 1061 Escalation
A Solo victory for Grey
Click on the hyperlinked names for the EOG
Players
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Name |
Nation |
Duration |
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GM: |
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Spring 1901-end |
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Players: |
Grey |
Spring 1901-end |
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Rodolphe Boulanger |
Blue |
Spring 1901-end |
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Vincent Carry |
Pink |
Spring 1901-Fall 1910 |
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Purple |
Spring 1901-Fall 1911 |
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Green |
Spring 1901-end |
Supply Centres
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Year |
01 |
02 |
03 |
04 |
05 |
06 |
07 |
08 |
09 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
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Grey |
8 |
8 |
10 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
12 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
|
Purple |
3 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
Blue |
6 |
7 |
8 |
8 |
7 |
6 |
6 |
5 |
6 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
|
Pink |
6 |
5 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Green |
7 |
8 |
9 |
9 |
10 |
9 |
10 |
10 |
10 |
13 |
13 |
13 |
History
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Escalation |
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Congratulations to Jamie, this makes two victories out of two in my Escalation games. After running a 6-player and 5-player game and playing in an 8-player game, I believe my preference is for the larger amount of players - the fact that no player got eliminated until 1910 preserved the game in a strange sort of limbo from my perspective. I know Jamie wasn't keen on the early bloodshed in 1066 (the 8-player game), but I think it makes the Escalation phase all the more important and sorts the men from the boys. Finally, I think we should attempt to have a full press Escalation game at some stage, although I'm not sure whether we can allow talking during placements. I can't really remember what happened in this game, so I'll let the others speak about that. |
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Thanks stephen for GM'ing again and thanks everyone for playing. the placement phase gave me an advantage in 1061 since i had no natural opponent, control of england, france and iberia and the other 4 players were paired off against each other, but the outcome wasn't determined until late. i don't remember much of the tactics either, but some of the keys were 1) getting a defensible position in the w. med early and harassing green just enough to prevent a turkish takeout, 2) separating purple from his scandinavian home centers and leaving him behind the lines in liverpool where he was easy to contain with 1 chaser unit until i had the resources available to finish him (sorry for the prolonged kill) and 3) putting a forward unit into kiel from where i could not be dislodged without a retreat into another center. consistently the best tactics were in the german theater - blue was a pest with the units behind the lines in france but a little over ambitious early on - the war between blue and green is what put me in poisition to win. i was surpised in the end by the light resistance. blue + green had an opportunity to stalemate me and typically it's difficult to win by fighting a 3 front war. one advantage i had in fighting on 3 fronts was the placement of my homecenters in spain, brest and london which gave me a considerable amount of flexibility. beyond that you'd have to look to tactical and communication mishaps to explain why there was no fight for the 18th center. |
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First of all, congratulations to Jamie for a very well played game. And thanks a million to Stephen for once again piloting a smoothe sailing ship. I was hoping to get a top pick, because my plan was to place a unit in Bulgaria, control the Turkish area, and take it from there. Unfortunately, I got the last pick, but I thought I got lucky when Pink placed in Constantinople instead of Bulgaria. I think Bulgaria's the stronger first placement. This gave me the ability to start further East in Austria then I expected. It was clear from the start Pink and I were going to clash. I couldn't imagine any other possibility. My hope was only that Grey would be so concerned with matters North that he would leave me alone to fight Pink. He came down in Spring 02. F Spain - West Med. A critical move. I figured he could have Tunis and I would take it back later. Fall 02 saw F West Med to MAO, but F GoL to Tyrrenian. That surprised me a bit, because I wasn't putting any pressure on Grey. In hind sight, it was a great move for him. It kept me nervous, but he knew I was so involved with Pink that I wouldn't do anything about it. Spring 03 was a bigger setback. Blue moved A Sev to Rum. Oh, that killed me. I understood Blue's motive to support Pink, but I hoped he wouldn't do it. And in the same season, Grey moved MAO back to West Med. I felt hit on all sides. Add Grey's Marseilles - Piedmont and Blue's Warsaw - Galicia and Munich - Tyrolia, and I really thought that might be the end of my game. I mean, look at the board in Spring 03 and I was surrounded by advancing troops. But I was making progress on Pink, and that was vital. By 1904, I'm feeling scared. Blue continues to support Pink and takes Rumania in the Spring. Grey is still putting the pressure on. West Med to Tyrrenian. But the move of Piedmont to Tyrolia showed me he was trying to get around to Blue, and I just hoped Purple and Blue would keep Grey occupied. Frustration abounding in 05 and 06. You just can't get through Turkey when there's three fleets there. You just can't, unless you can go around the Black Sea into Armenia. Which I couldn't, because Blue was blocking the way. And then, amazingly, a break-through in a bizarre twist. Pink takes Bulgaria in Fall 06 and get a build. At first, I thought it was bad. And then I realized the advantage when Pink built an army. If I could regain Bulgaria from Pink, and Pink disbanded a fleet instead of the army, I was golden. Cause otherwise, I'd never get through. Amazingly, he dropped the fleet, and I was golden. By 1908 I'm feeling better. I'm at 10 and Grey is at 12. But hugely important, I'm not longer fighting Blue, who has given up the Sevastopol route allowing me to run around and I feel I have the chance to make some headway against Grey. But then, a critical error. Spring 09 I ordered Piedmont to support Vienna to Rome. That was a terrible blunder. I meant to write Piedmont supports Rome to Tuscany. I don't know how I screwed that up, but needless to say it might have been the blunder that ended any chance of a draw. I lost the Rome unit because of that and allowed Grey into my homeland, which changed several orders for Fall 09 and ruined potential orders for year 10. It was just God awful. I was able to recover and retake the boot, but by then the damage was done. Grey was quickly moving to gain center after center, and I didn't have the availabe units to stop him in the Med. In the end, there wasn't enough firepower to stop Grey. I've only once before played a gunboat game with no press. The one gunboat I played had just community press only. I found it very difficult to play without talking to the other players, and in many ways hurt my enjoyment of the game. I doubt I'll ever play another gunboat game. But it was worth the experience. My favorite things that Jamie did to win this game was 1) keeping a constant pressure in the Med against me, establishing his territory and giving me just enough problems to make taking out Pink a lot harder, 2) allowing Purple to wander around England for awhile, knowing he could take the centers later, but instead using his fleets for more needed purposes. Patience is a virtue you don't see enough of in Diplomacy, and I thought that was really well played, and 3) earlier in the game, distancing Purple and Blue from eachother in critical areas, so they couldn't help eachother as much. Jamie seemed to attack all the right areas so he never had a single year go by where he had fewer centers than the year before. Congrats to everyone on an excellent fun game. |
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Congrats to Jamie on the win. I have played a few games of Escalation before, and had seen that Scandinavia seemed like a strong place to start. Therefore, I decided to start there. Unfortunately, both Gray and Blue started right next to me, and I was surrounded immediately. I think my planned placements were to be Denmark, Sweden, Kiel, London, and Holland. Unfortunately, I was only able to get Denmark and Sweden before the others were taken. I opted to take Belgium instead of Holland, thinking that conflict with Blue would be inevitable, and it would be better to have a unit moving towards him instead of away. However, it became obvious very quickly that I would have to fight Gray as well. I decided that the only way would be to make peace with Blue and go after Gray. It was difficult to signal this, however, as I needed most of my units to move themselves, so I just hoped that Blue would realize what I had. It turned out he did, but unfortunately, because of the gunboat nature, we could not organize ourselves well enough, and Gray eventually split us in half and took Scandinavia soon after, and I was reduced to the rogue unit in Liverpool. Thanks for the game Stephen! |
