Dip 1129 Maharajah’s Diplomacy
I took over as Dehli Sultinate in Spring 1504 and Mike Morris won as
Vijayanagar in Fall 1512 on a vote.
Click on the hyperlinked names for the EOG
Players
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Name |
Nation |
Duration |
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GM: |
Shane Armstrong |
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Spring 1501-end |
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Players: |
Mike Morris |
Vijayanagar |
Spring 1501-end |
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Rajaputana |
Spring 1501-end |
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Darren Sharma |
Gondwana |
Spring 1501-Fall 1509 |
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Luke Scandrett |
Delhi Sultinate |
Spring 1501-Spring 1504 |
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Stephen Wright |
Bahamid Sultinate |
Spring 1501-Spring 1504 |
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Dave Landreth |
Safavid Empire |
Spring 1501-end |
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Thomas Mark |
Mughal Empire |
Spring 1501-end |
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Congratulations to Mike on his win. This was my first game of Maharajah’s Diplomacy, which seems to be a sound, enjoyable variant. Not having delved into the changes effected to make version 2, I didn’t spot any improvements that should have been made, although I do have to say I never once considered building a fleet, despite the river rules. There didn’t seem to be any stalemate lines, which I appreciated. As for the game itself, I joined at the same time as Dave Roe (I’ll call him “Dave” and David Cohen “David” to avoid confusion!) before Fall 1504. It was clear that the game was rather stagnant and neither position held much hope. I wouldn’t have taken it except that I’ve appreciated Shane’s GM’ing in the past and no one else was responding to his requests for replacements. I chose Delhi over the vacant Bahamid position because Bahamid seemed to have no options, so well done Dave for keeping it going till the end. It must have been hard work keeping Bahamid alive that long. The main feature of the game was that it was dominated by Rajaputana on one side and Vijayanagar on the other. None of the powers in the middle seemed to have the remotest chance of winning. I did my best to support Mughal, despite David lobbying hard for my support to take Tom out. It was a simple choice between setting up a 9 vs. 8 contest with Tom on my side or an 11 vs 6 contest if I’d helped take Tom out, so I tried to hold off Rajaputana. However, whether through errors or bad luck, Tom seemed to be shipping centres. He also seemed intent on following his own plan rather than co-ordinating efforts, so in the end I decided I’d better get in on the action before Rajaputana grabbed all the spoils. To my amazement, David was still open to sharing Mughal’s centres. He probably should have rolled Mughal over and then continued on through me before I gained any centres, but he let me take three Mughal centres. I felt bad about that, because Tom seemed like a good guy with some interesting ideas, but it had to be done. To help myself reach a size that Rajaputana couldn’t easily swallow, I snagged Warangal from Gondwana. Darren was also moribund, so while it was clearly a selfish act, I just accelerated his demise. I was up to 8 centres versus the big boys’ 11, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking I was in a solo position. Rajaputana’s armies were all over my border and Bahamid was the staunchest of allies to him. Despite being the two rivals for the solo, Rajaputana and Vijayanagar had no common borders. It was a race to 18 centres, rather than a war. That made Bahamid and myself inevitable cannon fodder, to be used and then cast aside eventually. In about 1510, Rajaputana had the stronger position. He was allied with Bahamid and at peace with myself. Meanwhile, Mike was stretched in Vijayanagar’s position. He could make no progress beyond finishing off Gondwana, and was liable to fall apart if I attacked him. David urged me for ages to move against Vijayanagar, seeing the opportunity as well as I. However, for such an experienced diplomat, David was surprisingly uninterested in using diplomacy to manipulate me. His dominant tactic was to try and bully me into doing his will. Granted, there are many newbies in the community who fall for this, and I’m sure David’s win record is very credible. But I don’t know what gave David the idea that he could bully an experienced diplomat into attacking an unthreatening player while exposing his flank to the dangerous one on his border. Between vehement arguments, he attempted a mollifying policy, but it never lasted more than a season. Even now, I don’t think he recognises that I would have been a fool to do anything but maintain full defences against him. His forces had nothing to do, since he was so tight with Bahamid that he never even brought up attacking Bahamid himself. That left his units arrayed along my border, waiting for me to move units away. The stab was as inevitable as it was self-defeating. He was too impatient to wait, too uncompromising to make any steps towards scaling down the military presence on my borders. I immediately countered by taking Malwa, letting Vijayanagar take Hyderabad. It was a necessary measure to keep my strength up and keep Mike on an equal footing with David. I made it clear to David that I would refuse to slow Mike’s advance until Rajaputana had pulled back from my territories. My only hope was to let one nation get to the brink of victory, forcing the other into a stop-the-leader alliance. Since I only didn’t have the numbers in the south to try the same thing on Mike, I had to rely on David giving way. That was when David revealed that he considered drawing to be equal to losing, or close enough to make little difference. This is as irrational a belief as I’ve come across in diplomacy (and I’ve come across a few). There are always a few draws where some players had no influence over that result, but mostly a draw is an victory of tactics, co-operation and reason over the welter of irrational quarrels that build up during a game of Diplomacy. The ability to set aside thoughts of revenge, suspicion and greed to hold back a rampant Napoleon at the very brink of his triumph is a far more telling mark of an intelligent player than some of the soloes I’ve seen (or achieved). Still, I made further attempts to persuade David to co-operate in the possibility of gaining a solo down the line. A subtler player would have gained my trust, bided his time and let me over-extend myself. But David immediately attacked me again, issuing an imperious demand for me to make further moves that would indirectly cede all my northern centres to him. In doing so, he made it impossible tactically for me to participate in a draw, so I called for the final vote for the Vijayanagar solo. Much of this statement has been about David’s performance, when it is Mike who won. So I should add praise for Mike’s performance, which was error-free and showed some great creative moments. His diplomacy was spot on and won him my vote in the end simply by comparison between the two possible soloists. Rajaputana would have won if he’d employed some of the subtlety that was evident in Mike’s game. For my own performance, tactically I could have been a little better, but delicate positions have never been my forte. I took the game against my better judgement, since I loathe losing and I dislike playing for the draw. However, I didn’t play for the draw until there was no possibility of a solo, and didn’t vote for the solo until there was no possibility of a draw. I am conscious that David has a habit of trying to dissect my arguments point by point, but I’m comfortable in my own strategies. My rows with David leave a slight bitter taste in my mouth, but I’m not one to hold grudges and I suspect he isn’t either. Many thanks to Shane for GM’ing – there were some gaps in adjudications, but I’m fully aware that some of those were my fault. Thanks for not NMR’ing me! |
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First, a thank you to Shane Armstrong for running this last playtest of the old version of Maharajah's Diplomacy. Though it did run at a rather slower pace than I thought it would, it got done. Next, congratulations to Mike Morris in Vijayanagar for a well deserved win. Well played, diplomatically, and you made the right tactical moves when you had to. Thanks as well to Darren Sharma, for sticking it out to the end, as well as to David Roe and Steven Worthy for taking over abandoned positions and playing some spirited Diplomacy. Unfortunately, a bunch of my old messages for this game got purged, so I will need to reconstruct some of this from memory. Hopefully, my late adversaries can correct me if my memory proves faulty. By the way, a lot of this discussion will be somewhat applicable to the final version of the variant, even though the map has changed. I started out in Rajputana, which had gotten pasted in the first 3 playtest games, but I felt the variant was more balanced than those result would lead someone to believe, so I set out to change that trend. I felt that the secret of success for Rajputana would be like Austria. Have lots of friends, and pick an enemy carefully. To that end, I tried to negotiate a Central Triple with Bahmana and Gondwana, an alliance with the Mughal, and friendly neutrality with Vijayanagar, Persia and Delhi. I had high hopes for the Central Triple, since with our backs secured, we would be able to use our interior lines and coordination to shred the edge Powers, especially if they were fighting each other, but I needed to keep my options open. It was a good thing that I did, because Bahmana and Persia were out to get me, and only Mughal switching over to an attack on Persia preserved one of my two builds, and deprived Persia of his. Bahmana got two builds, though, and became a big worry. I immediately went to switch structures, to bring Vijayanagar in instead of Bahmana. Darren in Gondwana seemed OK with it, especially since I think he was woried about Delhi, and it offered a way to make peace with Vijayanagar. This new arrangement proved successful, as, over the next few years, we three and the Mughal made gains against Delhi, Persia and Bahmana. My intemediate goal was to obtain a better defensive position by defeating Persia. After that, perhaps a switch around of alliance partners would be helpful. I looked to join with a reduced Delhi against Mughal, and make peace with Bahmana, so that he and Gondwana could contain Vijayanagar. Things went as planned, and Persia was eliminated. My next move, against Mughal, was successful, but Delhi did not join me, and it looked as though I was in for a fairly lengthy northern campaign. I continued to court Delhi, for years, but nothing I tried seemed to work. I had to move more slowly against Mughal than I wanted, simply to avaoid growing too quickly and appearing as too big a threat to Delhi. Vijayanagar, however, was under no such constraint. Looking back, I probably should have swamped the Mughal as quickly as I could, and built a bunch a fleets, but I thought it was going to be much easier to turn Delhi, and that way Vijayanagar would have been flanked. Unfortunately, there was never a credible naval threat to Vijayanagar in the east for the entire course of the game, which allowed him to successfully concentrate his naval forces in the west. After several years, I finally got Delhi to switch sides, and we finished off the Mughal. I was all set to start moving south with Stephen, giving him a greater share of the spoils, to bring him close to my size. The ultimate plan would be to go after him late in the game for the solo. Unfortunately, he evidently had some sort of passive alliance or DMZ agreement with Vijayanagar, which he refused to break, and Delhi basically became immobile. I needed to maintain a strong front against him, in case that alliance became active, and could only gradually send forces south, to help Gondwana and Bahmana, who had seen the light. My hope for a solo was gradually slipping away. After several turns with no success, and with Vijayanagar I decided that if I could not convice Stephen to move, I had to attack him, and hope to beat him while keeping Bahmana and Gonwana propped up long enough to stave off Vijayanagar, who had been gaining both materially and positionally. Not the best option, but I felt that I had no choice. As can be seen, and as I had feared, it did not work out. Mike in Vijayanagar made gains faster than me, and Delhi did not help by attacking Gondwana, rather than Vijayanagar. First the Gondwanan and then the Bahmanan positions became unsustainable. Mike's naval superiority was brought to bear, and the complete lack of a threat on his eastern flank allowed him to concentrate his armies, as well. I decided to lay it out for Delhi. He was looking for a draw, but I didn't want a part of a draw, and by disengaging from him when he was unwilling to attack Mike, even if I was able to stop Vijayanagar short of the victory, the positions would basically be frozen, with no realistic hope for victory. I was only interested in a win, but win or lose, the game would finish decisively. Stephen would have to accept my terms (turning to face Vijayanagar and attacking full force), and worry about his share of a draw later, or I would continue to attack him. I guess he didn't believe me, and thought that he could continue as he was. The differences in our game philosophies worked to Vijayanagar's advantage. In the end, Stephen felt he had to throw the game to Vijayanagar, I suppose to punish me. But for me, draw or loss was the same, so really he only ended up hurting himself. Congratulations again to Mike, and thanks to all the players who played through to the end. May we meet again, upon the field. |
