Name

Nation

Duration

GM:

Shane Armstrong

Spring 1929-end 

Players:

Doug Bourgoyne

Russia/Czechoslovakia

Spring 1929-end

Jorge Cisneros

Italy/Spain

Spring 1929-end

Andrew Rae

Turkey/Rumania

Spring 1929-end

Jim Cheaney

Britain/Egypt

Spring 1929-end

Randolf Ruff

Germany/Sweden

Spring 1929-end

Stephen Worthy

France/Yugoslavia  

Spring 1929-end

Vincent Carry

Poland/Greece

Spring 1929-end

Shane’s EOG

Anyway, I've got to say, it's very appropriate that the Soviet Union ran away with the game, because, after all, the Soviet Union's goalkeeper is the greatest the world has known, Lev Yashin.

Representing the Black Cat was Doug Burgoyne. His minor power was Czechoslovakia, and I guess he took the solo because he kept his minor silent. Congratulations Doug, very well played.

Coming in as good as second was Jorge Cisneros as Italy/Spain. You never really got a break Jorge, but I feel you could have pushed harder at times, but the confusing nature of partnerships made it difficult. I like the turn you killed off three minors. :-)

Then came Andrew Rae as Turkey/Rumania. Losing his minor early made things difficult, and the Soviet stab was absolutely brutal. I can tell Andrew was holding out for one more turn to try and break the Italian front, but the stab came!

Jim Cheaney played Britain/Egypt. A very tough pairing, and it made things difficult. Very tenacious play, thank you very much for your wonderful dedication as usual, Jim!

Randolph Ruff was the German, much to his delight, but he showed his pairing early and it may have cost somewhat. Thanks for playing again Randolph, your luck in my gunboats is atrocious, but I'm sure things will come good eventually. ;-)

France/Yugoslavia was Stephen Worthy, again, struggling to make a break. Losing his minor on an all-out assault on the Italians cost, but he held out and made it to the end.

Finally, our only elimination, Vincent Carry as Poland/Greece. Starting strongly, he played the best Polish Corridor move ever moving an Army from Athens into Galicia! Unfortunately, the Soviets were more than up to the task, succeeding in the north, holding the Poles in the South, and then having their wonderful Czechoslovakian pals get stuck in. It was a methodological destruction, and poor Vincent got hammered when every unit was put onto him. Thanks for playing again, Vincent!

Anyway, that's it from me, thanks for playing, I leave you with two quotes from our goalkeepers...

"All that I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football" - Albert Camus

and, from the Black Cat...

"The joy of seeing Yuri Gagarin flying in space is only superseded by the joy of a good penalty save" - Lev Yashin

Excellent game Doug, composed, strong and confident. Lev would be proud.

Thus ends Famous Goakeepers. Defenders and Strikers are Approaching an end, so I guess I've now got to find a Variant for midfielders. :-)

This was my first game of Versailles, but as I first got into Diplomacy by being first into Axis & Allies, I decided to give this World War II variant a try. I started with a standard move into my sea spaces, NTH and ENG, hoping that somebody would try something offensive against me. Nobody did, and so I was left with three choices: go for BEL, where both France and Germany seemed to be aiming, which would anger both; go for DEN, which would anger Germany; or go for BRE, which would anger France. I decided that both would be focused on BEL and so I went for both BRE and DEN. Whichever I got would be wounded and easy game for an alliance with the other. Neither worked, and so I ended up going for BEL in the second year, which I did get.

After the second year, I attempted through many years of supporting German units to get a EG alliance going. I figured that with Spanish help, it would be easy for the three of us to take out France. Instead Germany went all out against me throughout the entire game, even to the point of ignoring a rapidly growing Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union. It turned out to be Italy that kept France down to a point where it wouldn't be threatening me, allowing me to focus on Germany, but by then it was too late. I ended up playing defense the rest of the game against Germany and Norway, and always pulling for the Soviet Union to get through Poland to hit Germany from behind. I got my wish, but by then the game was over.

It was an enjoyable game and seemed to progress in a way that seemed pretty straight forward, with everybody seeming to ignore the Soviet Union until he had grown so large as to gain the victory. I had Germany's utmost attention and so found it difficult to expand beyond Ireland, and yet I survived to the end and even tied Germany's SC count at the end, so I'm satisfied with Britain's performance.

Thanks to Shane for GMing the game. He did an excellent job as always, and I'm very happy and honored to be working with him on two of my own variants. Also good game to everybody playing in this game, and I look forward to meeting you all in future games.

King James III, House of Cheaney

My involvement in the power struggle for this game was pretty minimal. As Yugoslavia, I lost my supply centre quite early by misjudging a move I would have got right if I had thought it through. As France, I simply never got started, having planned to use Yugoslavia to provide the leverage needed to break down Italy. I then spent most of the rest of the game keeping Spain at bay and patrolling France.

General thoughts on the variant: I like the idea, but I don't approve of random assignments, because of the possible loss of balance. I'll leave the commentary on the victory itself to others more involved, but thanks everyone for the game and thanks to Shane for GMing so efficiently (and hustling me along when my orders were late!)

My special thanks to Shane Armstrong, who got my vote for Cat23 GM of the year once again, for hosting another well run Dip game. Even though my record in your gunboat games is deplorable Shane, your work makes them enjoyable. As for the rest of you donkeys...

Russia - Well played. You sure had me fooled. I thought that Italy was playing the Czechs. Your use of Czechoslovakia clearly was the difference. Very impressive. Congratulations.

France - Bravo sir. We didn't accomplish much, but you stayed loyal and never stabbed. I did my best to return the favor throughout.

Poland - Early on I thought that we had a decent thing going. But then after several attempts to get the word to you via my orders I gave up trying to help you against Russia. Seeing your position between the Russian/Czech powers, it's understandable why you eventually got hammered. I still don't know what I did to earn your wrath and attacks in your dying actions. It sure helped Russia pave the way. I found that action rather deplorable since I was loyal to you all game too.

England - With Sweden as my secondary power my initial plan was to try to sack England and create a powerful corner bloc to challenge for victory. At one point I thought that I was going do it, but then Poland collpased and I had to split resources between you and Russia. I was looking for a way out so that I might turn all efforts on Russia, but since you never made any overtures and ignored mine, I just continued attacking, hoping to kill you off before Russia got too far west.

Italy - I was quite frustrated with Italy, mainly because I thought that the Czechs were your power. You sure helped them out enough. What the hell was that all about? I guess hindsight is 20-20, but this was just devastating to allow a minor power to become so powerful. I'm sure the Poles are crossing you off their Christmas list, and our gifts may get lost in the mail. You played Italy well for Italy in my view, but kinda lost track of the events on the rest of the board.

Turkey - Didn't you see it coming? Ouch.

As for me, I thought that I did okay early with Germany, and outdueled England for the North Sea and the Low Countries. I was on track to take over the islands, but Russia got too big too fast. If only I had another turn or two. I played Sweden very poorly. I misjudged several early events and went without a second unit for too long. By the time I got the second unit I couldn't capitalize with it.

Anyway, just some random obsevations for Oliver Kahn's net.

Well, that was a wild game, but a highly frustrating one. I felt like a punching bag in this one! Thanks to Shane for running this game.

As Italy, I tried to take Austria and work with France against Germany or at least try to keep the peace. Unfortunately, that didn't go well, as he continously picked on me as I was busy with the minor powers. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia charged after me, the latter even getting eliminated for it.

While all of those things were happening up north, I figured I should try to consolidate the southeast and get a non-agression pact with Turkey. So I helped eliminate Greece and Egypt and planned on heading west afterwards. Unfortunately, Turkey wanted no part of that alliance and headed west directly towards me.

As Spain, I tried to get a non-agression pact with France and go after Ireland for a sure build before launching a sealion on Britian. I thought that we could work together for awhile before my two powers squeezed him in between us. But no such luck as he turned around and attacked my minor power, as well! Seeing that as the final insult, I decided to shield myself from Turkey and send a two-front battle against France. It worked, to an extent, as I reduced him down to two. Problem was that Czechoslovakia and Russia were sweeping the board, the latter hitting Turkey pretty hard. When we finally agreed to work together, it was too late. I made one last ditch effort to try to get some fuel from the remaining French centers, but no such luck, so I gave up and headed east. Not too much of a difference, though.

Good game, everyone!

For 1076 i don't remember well but i didn't really like the variant.

I think that russia and poland must go in war (i didn't really find another good way to russia to win) and in a war 1VS1 Russia will win.

I tried to go in war against russia. Nobody help me and russia win the war and the game.

Well done to the Soviet, Czech alliance, it was a beautiful thing. I didn't really pick up on it before it was too late, so the value of the hidden powers was utilised to it's full. Very few others must have aswell because the continued to fued and nobody ran to save the solo, a shame really, but I wonder if it would have been enough.

Commisserations to my Italian colleague that tried so many times to turn me round but it was not until the stab was felt that I did turn. Honestly I thought R would have to compete with the Czechs and the germans and would not stab. Spain was perhaps my biggest dissapointment, they grew in year one and never chose to trust anyone, they were a loose part that had the potential to effect the med or the north. Dissapointing.

In summary I opened trying to secure the med and saw quickly that russia was occupied so I decided to focus south. My minor was rumania which I played badley tryign to dstract russia and gain an alliance. IN hindsight I was better just letting it hold off until I could get soem army action in bulgaria. But I didn't. The plethra of minor powers that was sitting on my doorsteps gives turkey a significant disadvantage here I believe, especially egypt whose sole purpose seems to be to give turkey a headache. It is only solved with two units and you hope like heck you don't get any northern difficulties.

After securing the eastern med I went on the offesneive against Italy feeling comfortabel I was safe form Russia. I was happy with my progress and felt I mad esome good tactical decisions. Again regrets to my Italian Colleague who had little to do but defend me.

After the stab I pulled everything out, as he too did. Perhaps I could have helped with one more of my armies in the middle but gunboat makes coordination so diffiult. R-C really just pulled a shifty of perfrection and no credit can be taken away.

A nice game and excellent execution, bad luck to Italy, thanks all for the game and keeping it moving, great fun.

First off, I had this figured out by the end of 1931, game years. some of it was obvious, others not so obvious.

GM can confirm the dates that I finally got this 100% figured out.

Russia = Czech Germany = Sweden Italy = Spain Poland = Greece Turkey = Rumania France = Croatia/Serbia whatever England = Egypt

Okay, EOG: I think the critical decision that I made that helped me in this game was to play Czech for Czech alone for a long time before moving on Poland. The temptation was very large to us Czech to "Charge in", but I resisted. Instead, I played Czech like a chaos power, gradually trying to gain strength. The reason I did this was because I reasoned that if I made the suicide charge with Czech, the positive effect would be small, but the negative effect would have likely been the loss of Prague to Italy or Germany, so long term, it was vastly better to preserve the Czech republic as an independent entity. It also had the indirect effect of hiding, for a long time the link between Czech and Russia, at least I believe so. There were many moves that I held back from going to help a besieged Russia, and I strongly believe that many other players scratched their heads for a long time trying to figure out who owned Czech.

Ultimately, the Czech army was the decisive force in the game, becoming more powerful as a minor than most of the majors.

No one else used their minor powers effectively. They used their minor powers as instant pawns of their major empires, which generally resulted in the destruction forever of the minor power. The first player to do this was Turkey who sent Rumania directly after Sevastopol, doing little to no damage on Russia, but lost his minor power to Poland almost instantly. France did the same thing with Yugoslavia. Poland did it later with Greece. Italy used Spain better. England and Egypt combination was horribly bad. Germany used Sweden a little better, but I still don't understand for the life of me why he had Germany take over Sweden, forcing them to play short for two years, when they could have had more units.

The game progressed with Poland rightly attacking ferociously Russia, for it was obvious that a large Russia meant the end of Poland. Several turns of guess and counter guess had Poland with the offensive, but Russia fighting a fierce defensive battle.

But Poland needed help, any help, even a little, and he didn't get it. Germany was helping him a little around Finland, but not enough, and then came the BIG swing move, where I thought it was all over for me. Germany made a VERY clever move to shift armies north to put massive pressure on my north land, Finland was dead, and then Russia would have collapsed, it forced my hand to move on Germany with Czech much earlier than I wanted to, but then that move came out, and Germany went left after England instead of right after me, HUGE error on his part!! I believe that at this point in the game, Germany didn't know that Czech was Russia, and that one move sealed the game, because Czech was now strong enough to maneuver as a full nation in it's own right at that point, and Poland collapsed quickly, which meant Germany was now in huge peril. Germany should have helped Poland, that was clear enough, and so clear that later on, Poland was so angry at Germany for not giving him the aid that he needed so badly at that critical moment, that Poland used his last few moves as pure spite against Germany.

With Poland nearly dead, I moved on Turkey, this was defensive in nature, believe it or not, all I expected to do was tie him up. I could not let him destroy Italy and get a lot of builds that could be used to come north. All I wanted to do was pin his home SC from building again. But Turkey made some bad guesses, and I made some lucky guesses, and this had a steam roller effect North, South and Center, with Czech pounding Germany in the center, Turkey reeling from assault in the south, and Scan crumbling to the northern Russian navy. All was lost for Europe at that point.

I also don't fully understand why Germany didn't abandon his attacks on England sooner and convoy back some armies, and why Italy continued his attack on France for as long as he did. Germany and Italy by continuing their attacks on England and France forced England and France to do nothing else but fight for survival, which made them my defacto allies. Italy could have sent his Spanish navy around the far left flank to reinforce the far north, and his armies could have hit Czech more aggressively, and that would have freed France to fight me as well. Had Germany given England back the emerald isles sooner, England would have rebuilt his navy and fought me instead, leaving Germany alone to fight Czech on land.

But towards the end, being gunboat, it became simple impossible to counter the massive coordination of force with so many separate smaller nations.

Anyway, Thanks Shane for GMing a very fun game, course it is also fun to solo... ya know?