Power

Name

Duration

GM:

Darryl Good

Spring 1901-end

Players:

Austria

Christopher Burke

Spring 1901-Fall 1902

England

Jim Green

Spring 1901-end

France

Stephan McDougal

Spring 1901-end

Germany

Former Trout

Spring 1901-Fall 1909

Italy

Darren Sharma
Deepak Mohoni

Spring 1901-Winter 1904
Sprign 1905-Fall 1908

Russia

Philip Ward

Spring 1901-end

Turkey

Stephen Worthy

Spring 1901-end

Phil’s EOG

Congratulations to Stephen for his "worthy" victory <Ha!.. Am I the first to use it!> and many thanks to Darryl for his excellent running of the game. It was incredibly fast paced and a pleasure to play.

From my point of view the game fell into two stages, the easy part and the hard part. To begin with I headed west into Austria and whether it was through luck or sound tactical play managed to get most of the centres, with Turkish and Italian help. It was at this time that Turkey and myself forged an understanding (if thats possible in a gunboat game) which was to last for a considerable time.

After Austria it was Germany and Scandinavia. I was on a roll and was leading the board, for at this time Stephen was playing very conservatively. There was a time, maybe in 1907/08 when I could have maybe stabbed him for one centre, but most of my forces were elsewhere and I had convinced myself that we had something going for the long term.

Now the hard part! Turkey stabbed me and was always on top in the south from there. Also England took advantage of my weakening in the north to become resurgent and by the end of the game I was on the back foot and being outplayed everywhere. Even my thoughts of a draw were not to be.

So, congratulations to Turkey for his win and many thanks to everyone else for such an enjoyable game. Perhaps we can have slightly longer deadlines next time Darryl <grin>

Darren’s EOG

Thanks for the game to you all, especially to Daryl. GM'd with great efficiency and style

I've got to apologise for the cock-up which led to Daryl having to replace me. I missed a couple of messages through negligence, and when I finally caught up, I had been replaced. I'm afraid that by the time Deepak (hi) stepped in, I had left him a dead duck of a position

It started off great for Italy. I thought it best to have a decisive opening, and went full-on for Austria-Hungary, ignoring Tunis even. The great thing was that Turkey and Russia had the same idea, and poor AH was soon out. I had made gains, but made the tactical mistake of building a fleet in Venice. That meant I had to over stretch my armies in the north, leaving Turkey no option (now I think about it) but to snap up Naples and work his way up.

Well done to the sultan Stephen, and once again apologies to you all.

Stephan’s EOG

OK that was just fun i have to say.  well i thought i had a good start but i never could get a hold on England, and god knows i tried :) i saw turkey coming and saw the stab.  I was impressed that Russia put up such a good defence.  I know i didn't deserve any back up from England in the late game but i did hope for some.  Even at full straight it would have been hard to hold back Turkey and once i started losing ground to England i decided to just let Turkey around the cape.  At that point is was pretty much over.

This was a great game.  My simpathies to Austria who really had bad luck, as far as i have read up on Dip stratagy Austria is the hardest country to play, it can go in lots of directions so it can be powerfull but at the same time it can be hit from lots of directions, and in this case it was brutal land stomp that was just unstoppable.  Then the Hammer, Russia and Turkey came west.  I doubt it could have been done much better in a standard game with coradination.  i did see the stab that coming... that Constantinople fleet build was like a neon sign or maybe that was just wish fulfillment on my side because it was about the same time russia and turkey got to me.  England played a great game and once i left him alone he seemed to really get going.  Germany was just about in the same boat as austria it just took longer.  with france and england both pokeing at his defences to the west and Russia hurtalling in from the east he really didnt have a way to put up a solid defance.

Well thats my take on the game, thanks to everyone who participated.  it was fun, and Darryl did do a great job of poking and prodding to get everything lined out.  Ill buy you lunch sometime if you want :)

Trout’s EOG

Well, congratulations to Stephen for his impressive win in this one.  Kudos to all other players for a great game, and hats off to Darryl, who ran this one like clockwork.  It was an incredible game.

Frustrating for me, though, I have to admit.  The complete annihilation of Austria went like clockwork, and the imminent Juggernaut was crystal clear from the Fall 1901 turn.  Witnessing the teamwork of the R/T, I immediately dropped all my plans (and all my defenses,) and went for Russia's jugular in the north.  My hopes were that the other western powers would join me in this - or at the very least leave me alone since I was doing all I could to stop the Jugg. 

Unfortunately, seeing me with my pants down, I got stabbed in succession by all three powers.  The Italian move into Munich in 02 I pretty much predicted judging from his aggressive play in Austria.  However, I had higher hopes for England and France that were somewhat dashed.

Seeing which way the winds were blowing, I abandoned my attempts to stop the Jugg.  There was nothing I could do about it single-handedly, and nobody seemed to have any interest in assisting until Deepak stepped in as Italy.  (And by then, both Italy and Germany were too reduced to do anything about it anyways.)  For the mid-game, I pulled out of Russia and did my best to simply cause as much trouble for everyone I could until the eventual and imminent elimination by England.

Since nobody else is talking about it, I might as well.  I was one of the ones absolutely convinced that there was communication going on between Italy and Turkey.  Now that I see it was Stephen at the helm of Turkey, I have to agree that there was no way that this was occurring, and I apologize for my doubts. 

What REALLY convinced me at the time, though, was the 1902 builds.  Italy attacked to gain Munich, and then didn't even use the build.  At this time, it was apparent that Russia and Turkey were working together, and the obvious result of that was that Italy would be the next target after Austria.  Turkish fleets should have been seen that year, and the only defence Italy would have had would have been a fleet in Naples.  But the Turkish fleets weren't built until 1903...  It all seemed very odd to me - but now that I look back I admit that I might have just been a little angry that one of my home centers had been taken, and the build not even used to defend against the obvious threat.

As for the western powers...  There was a reason I dropped everything and attacked Russia - letting you walk into Germany.  The R/T was obvious and needed to be stopped.  This held especially true since Italy didn't seem to recognize that danger he was in.  The game would have been entirely different had France stopped attacking England and sailed into the Med.

Anyways, I sincerely hope my bitter grapes aren't hiding the fact that the victory by Stephen was very well deserved.  I feel that for some of us, this was a reminder of the strategy of board dynamics, for some of us it was a good introduction to them, and for ALL of us it was a great game.  Thanks for having us all on your board, Darryl

From the bitter Kaiser Bun,

Trout

My EOG

I feel rather less triumphal than usual over this win, as I don’t think I played particularly well, and I made a series of comical misorders against Italy that went unpunished.  However, if anything it was a canny win, with enforced conservatism spiced with a couple of well-timed stabs.

Russia and Italy made short work of Austria by the end of 1902, but Italy was busy enough to lose out to me over Greece.  That gave my crucial 5th centre, but then I just had to wait to see what Russia and Italy did next.  Russia was under pressure from Germany by that stage, and I guessed that he’d look for quick gains, so I simply made myself as defensible as possible until he was forced to attack Italy.

This was the main reason I built an army in 1902, but the other reason was that to have built two fleets in succession would commit me to fighting Italy.  The Juggernaut may have looked a certainty to Trout, but in Winter 1902, I wasn’t convinced of Russia’s intentions.  It was only when Russia grabbed Vienna from Italy that I felt confident enough to launch myself at the Ionian.  While Trout was proved right about the dangers of the Juggernaut, England and France probably weren’t looking quite so far ahead.

One country that does need to anticipate the Juggernaut that early is Italy, but unfortunately for him, he gambled on the friendship of Russia.  He grabbed Munich to help out his ally, but attacking north from Italy is hard to sustain.  Italy would probably have been better off attacking me if he wanted to show the desire for a continuing alliance to Russia.  Trout is right that Italy’s builds and failure to defend against me gave me my opportunity to expand.

I broke out into the Ionian while Russia hammered at Trieste; I could easily have helped him out by cutting the support of Italy's F Alb, but Russia was much larger than me, and I preferred not to let him accelerate past me.  There was always the lingering danger of Russia turning on me, too, so I took my time disassembling Italy's home defences while Russia concentrated on Germany and waited at the gates of Trieste.

After I'd snapped up Tunis, Naples and Rome in turn, I started getting a bit distracted and managed a series of misorders that should have cost me the game, as it slowed me down while I failed to distinguish between Naples and Venice.  Schoolboy errors, but because Italy and Russia were in a stalemate and France was distracted elsewhere, I got away with it.  As Stephan rightly anticipated, my only next course of action was to attack France, so I decided to attack as early as possible to try and catch him on the hop.

As Phil said, we had a pretty good understanding by then, and didn't have to keep loads of units at home to defend against each other. France got his forces back to defend, but England took too much of his attention.  By the time they sorted things out, Russia was taking France's German centres.  In Spring 1909, France made a mistake and let me move into Spain; in Fall 1909, he made another mistake, not anticipating that I'd grab Portugal - he dislodged my F Wes right into his own centre.

The game was balanced at that point.  If France had gone fully defensive, he might have held me.  If he had gone fully kamikaze, he would have scuppered my solo chances.  But I managed to hold him off, and at the same time I started looking to the north.  Russia was romping through Germany and Scandinavia.  His 18 centres were much easier to attain than mine, and he could achieve them without even attacking me.  I needed to check him, even if it didn’t give me a breakthrough, so I stabbed and hoped for the best.

The turning point was England's ascendancy.  England pushed Russia back in Scandinavia, then started picking up French centres, undermining both defences against me.  Russia chose to transfer A Trl northwards and disband in the south, possibly believing we had found an uneasy peace when my first stab didn't lead to more attacks.  But the 18 centres were now clear, and Bre was just a bonus that I wouldn't expect to hold long beyond 1913.

Thanks all for the game, and Darryl for the good GM'ing job, keeping us all honest.  I don't think I played particularly well, but the tides of war swung it my way and I at least took the bold step of stabbing Russia at the right time.  It could easily have been a Russian win, and if Phil had concentrated on defending against me instead of England, England might have ended up as a contender as well.