Name

Nation

Duration

GM:

Stephen Worthy

Spring 650-end

Players:

Andy Bandit

Anglia

Spring 650-end

Andrew Rae

Wales

Spring 650-end

Colin Campbell

Ireland

Spring 650-Winter 653

Mark Brandenburg
Kaelib Reece

Northumbria

Spring 650-Fall 652
Winter 652-end

Dave Roe

Mercia

Spring 650-Fall 653

Tim Redding

Cornubia

Spring 650-Fall 655

Vaughn McCurry

Scotland

Spring 650-end

Year

650

651

652

653

654

655

Anglia

5

6

7

7

8

9

Cornubia

6

5

4

3

3

0

Ireland

4

4

3

1

0

0

Mercia

4

5

1

0

0

0

Northumbria

5

5

5

4

3

2

Scotland

6

6

8

10

12

13

Wales

5

6

9

12

12

14

650
651
652
653
654
655

Andy’s EOG

With the way this began, I'm surprised as all hell that I got part of a draw. First of all, many thanks to Stephen. He ran a very tight game and it stayed on course the whole time and was very well run. I would definitely play in any future games Stephen runs. It was a nice smooth game. So thank you Stephen.

I simply had one basic goal in the first year of this game. Make sure Mercia and Cornubia did not gang up to attack me. That was it. My only goal. By Spring of the first year, I realized I had failed. Dave (Mercia) supported Tim (Cornubia) from Bristol to the Cotswolds. That's all I needed to see. That, coupled with Dave informing me he would move to Warwick no matter what, kind of sealed my fate. I kind of had no choice but to use my Oxford unit to bounce him there. I knew I was screwed, and tried desperately to plea with Tim to lay off, but he argued that the geography of the board dictated that Cornubia had to attack Anglia.

So that was my game in the first year. I now had an M-C alliance against me. I went to Andrew (Wales) for help, and he offered to help, but didn't actually provide any help. He had other things to deal with.

So I just dug in my heels and did the best job defending I could. I gave up any hope of taking Flanders, since it was a center that I would have difficulty holding, and would require me to move a unit away from the homeland to defend. Why bother to send the fleet three spaces away to Flanders and move three spaces to get back in order to gain one build when I could just keep the fleet home and use that unit to defend.

Help came in year two when Mercia and Northumbria clashed in the Spring. And then Wales joined Northumbria in the Fall. That was the relief I needed. I figured if I could hold out against Cornubia, Wales and Northumbria would take down Mercia and I'd try to gain Dave as an ally. Tim came full force at me, and I used everything I could to hold him back. At this point in time, I wasn't coordinating anything with anyone. Mark and Andrew certainly weren't hitting Dave to help me. It was just where they saw their expansion, so I sat back and watched it happen, and I don't really think I had much to write about to any other player.

Eventually I agreed to a pact with Dave, but we didn't have much to help eachother. I also tried to work out an agreement with Mark, by having him help me against Tim, but he was more interested in bouncing Tim in Flanders than protecting my home. Still, my only ally was Dave, who was fighting for survival and ultimately fell.

Then Andrew - either because he was coming to my aid, or just because Tim left his West side so wide open that Andrew seized on an opportunity - attacked Tim, and I gained a little more breathing room. That was balanced out though by Kaelib (the new Northumbria) coming into the game and taking one of my centers. We ultimately worked that out though, and Tim and I also were able to work things out, and suddenly I had two new allies. Of course, they were both losing centers, and so I was in the same position I was in with Dave previously.

I began building up a little, but nothing major enough to compete with Wales and Scotland, and thus my game was going to become which of the two super powers could I ally with to hold off the other without the ally getting two big. I knew my own chances of survival were nil. So Andrew and I worked things out, knowing that if we didn't side with each other, Scotland would take it. And that lasted all of one season until the draw just happened.

Congratulations to Vaughn. I barely talked to Vaughn this whole game, but he played a virtually flawless game and I thought he was gonna take this one. Had he attacked Wales instead of sending everything my way, this game would've gone very differently, and I don't know if we would've had a three-way draw. I kind of thought Vaughn might have won it.

Congratulation to Andrew. For Andrew, it was another well played game. I've played with Andrew before and in another game currently, and he's always a major factor in the game. Always making strong plays, and is a good ally, and a dangerous enemy.

Thanks to Tim, Kaelib and Dave for each backing off of me to fight other foes in their end games. If any of the three didn't do that, I wouldn't be part of this draw.

Hope to see you all in another game soon.

Early on I felt I needed Northumbria to go south. He seemed to need encouragement from someone other than myself and so I was able to get Wales to aid me on that. My focus could them be entirely on Ireland and so it went. Once I was able to end around Ireland and gain the homeland…I knew I had him. His fate was sealed when he turned on Nothumbria because I feared a dying alliance between the two to jump back on me and bring me down a notch. Instead N focused south and kept going.

As I finished Ireland I was able to do a rolling attack into Northumbria…his position prevented him to be able to recover the initial losses and I kept up the pressure while watching Anglia as he regained his early losses and finished off his enemy.

Wales and I agreed to a wary truce to the end of cornubia which I held to but made sure I would be in a position to stop a stab...or turn it into a protracted fight which would not benefit him.

So by this turn it looked as I was in a good posiiton.. but still a fight that could go either way.... I like Andy's move north because he did what I did ...created a barrier that had to be pushed back first before the sc was exposed.

Congrats to Andrew and Andy,,, I enjoyed the game though I really only talked to Andy maybe twice.. at that part of the game ...he seemed to want to wait to see where things were going and as in Diplomacy ..he didnt want my forces to be anywhere near him ;)

Afterwards I was in combat mode focused to keep steady pressure on the map and keep it inching my way. I am the type of ally that works on agreement and with an understood endstate will continue to that objective though without leaving myself totally open as I have learned the hard way in the past to a stab and watching for any threat.

Thanks again to all.

I’ve been meaning to get a game of Heptarchy running for a while, having played it extensively at University, where the designer had been developing it. I had four maps to choose from, plus two Bretwalda maps (a nine player variant developed from Heptarchy). In the end I decided that Heptarchy IV was the most balanced. The two weakest powers in my experience had been Anglia and Mercia, so I’m glad to see at least one of them in the endgame.

I enjoyed watching this game, especially getting the commentary that some players provided. Anglia seemed to play a very resilient game despite all sorts of setbacks, while Scotland seemed inexorable at times, so it was quite a surprise when Wales suddenly emerged as the frontrunner, despite his solid play. I had come to the same conclusion as Andy, that Scotland was the major menace, due to controlling one end of the map, but I think the game was too much in doubt at the end of the game. Everyone had too much to lose, hence the draw.

Thanks to Kaelib for taking over the Northumbrian position and everyone else for seeing their positions through to the end. The success of this game has persuaded me to consider running another full press game after only running gunboats for a while, so look out for the next advertisement! I’ll probably try running a variant I haven’t seen before, so as always suggestions are welcome.

Well I got the country I wanted because I wanted a challenge. Unfortunately I failed in my goal which was to stop anyone attacking me. Once Northumbria went for me I would have been fine had Wales held off but it was not to be.

Me and Andy belatedly formed a pact but life would have been much better had I decided to go with him at the start.

Then it was just a matter of time till I died but the game had been one where the communication was good if ultimately I failed dismally.

Congratulations to those in the draw with particular commendation for Andy for what was a well played "back to the wall" defense

Despite my late entrance - and my fumbling around the island - I do admit I enjoyed the challenge - despite my obvious shortcomings. Congratulations to the three triumphants – Andy, Vaughn and Andrew. Many thanks to Stephen for his patience over the years I battled to stay alive.

To be totally honest - the position I took over from Mark was quite salvagable and I probably went about it the wrong way from day one. It was obvious that Scotland had completely dominated the Irish - and that there was some uneasiness down south. My main goal was to gain the support of either Anglia or Wales - and secure a safe rearguard so I could turn against the Scottish.

My failure to strongly ally with one in particular meant that I slowly dwindled and my forces did not grow strong enough, fast enough to take on the daunting task of stopping the Scottish forces. Vaughn was obviously aware of his stronghold in the North - as to this day I did not receive one communication from him.

Apart from Andy and Andrew - it may well have just been a no-press game - and there was a definite lack of diplomacy going on between anyone at all. So when a draw was proposed - I was happy to vote YES - and get the whole game concluded.

Thanks to all - and once again to Stephen - I look forward to meeting with you all again in some other variation.

Yeah, thanks Stephen. Everything went very smoothly thanks to you.

As for me, after playing Bretwalda many times, it became clear that Cornubia's best tactics are to go straight for the power to the East. In Bretwalda this power is Wessex and the tactic is very sucessful. However in Heptarchy it doesn't really work. I went for Anglia straight from the off, with Mercia's promise of help. But thanks to Mercia's quick demise and Andy's expert defense progress was slow. I was forced to leave myself very open to Wales, hoping that I'd be able to consolidate that front quickly after taking Anglia centres. However my entire game changed on one turn. A rushed set of orders left me gaining nothing from Anglia, where 2 centres were possible (all credit to Andy though) and Wales walked into a home centre and positioned himself for another. After that I made peace with Andy and focussed on slowing down Andrew, but I was always going down. I tried to hold off Wales as long as possible but in the end was overwhelmed by units.

Congratulations to the winners, I think they all deserve it.

Pleasure playing with you all.

First up nice job Stephen, can't fault your work, the pace of the game was good and everything got done without a hassal. Thakyou for running an entertaining game with good dynamics and sorting out the replacements. Mananging the maps was extra work and I appreciated you doing this.

Heptarchy was a game i came across while skimming through the variants at the varaint bank and thought I would love to play this. I thought of running one a couple of times, but I couldn't find a realpolitik file so I thought not. I was very pleased to see this one advertised. I couldn't find any welsh solos so I thought Wales was a reasonable cahllenge in this one. Multiple parties to consider. Perhaps expereince shows that wales is stronger than I first thought it, so mayube my task was not as successful as I thought.

Opening diplomacy is all about feeling out the players for me, and my initial target was always going to be Mercia after this. I felt David would be the hardest to work with and I wanted some support for Ireland aswell as I was not 100% comfortable there. So in the end I tried to broker a Scotland - Northumbrian deal which allowed me support against both. As already said I moved to take out Mercia and then when the opportunity to take Cornubia came my speed to market was just a little better than C who had faced an able A and that ultimately gave me the boost I needed.

The key game point came with Kalib. I felt the chance for the solo was there, I was on top of C, it looked like S was goign to line up first against A and so I had a go. Kalibs response was to abandon his centres and go after my centres and hence ended the solo. I obviously didn't play Kalib well enough and with that went my best chance to make a run. Whether I would of converted of course is a totally different proposition :)

In the end I believed there was still a chance at the solo and realistically I should have had another go but I was ready to move on. By all accounts Scotland had the real position of power so perhaps I did make the correct decision. Still if I wasn't perhaps heading away soon this one could have gone on for quite some time and given us all some more pleasure.

In general all the plaudits have gone to Andy, so I will throw mine in there too. Defend, defend, defend, and something always changes to your advantage, can't beat that lesson. Vaughn played an excellent game, I felt that you may have been wiser to move against me in that last turn, and that your fleets could be better positioned, but you played a great game and were in a great win position too. Good well deserved result for both, nice job.

Dave and especially Tim were a little unlucky as you are now and again, but it's no reflection on their play. Colin and Mark were just not up to it on this day but I'm sure they will improve and come back stronger with the lessons learned in this one and do the damage in the future.