I've been asked to make an end of game statement as I am the only person involved from the start of the game. This may be a bit impersonal as I have long since deleted a lot of the earlier emails concerning this game so I can't remember a lot of the previous players names. By the same remit I am doing most of this from memory, so if I get any details wrong please feel free to let me know!

The game started when a player appealed for a patient GM to run a newbie game. I agreed and we eventually got six other newbies to take part. At least one player was late submitting orders (despite deadline reminders) every turn for the first four turns, and it was usually three or four players.

The game had split along the lines of a very obvious Juggernaut from the east, the usual mess in the west with France and Germany deciding to gang up on Britain in the end, and Italy and Austria still at each other's throats despite cries of "it's behind you!" from the rest of the players as they tried to warn them about the Russo-Turkish threat.

This is when players started to drop out - there were those with legitimate reasons and there were those who lost interest because they weren't winning, which is unfortunately prone to happen in a newbie game from my experience - particularly as we seemed to have a very young set of players. Jason joined us during this point of turmoil and by the time this was resolved the only countries not replaced were Italy, Russia and Turkey!

The game progressed in the end however and Austria was swallowed by the Juggernaut quite quickly. Britain [Germany] was finished off shortly after that by the French with some German [English] help. Whilst the French and Germans [English] tried to decide whether they wanted to knock each other on the head, or to concentrate on stopping their eastern foes, Turkey reduced Italy to a single unit and then kept her as a pet country. Turkey then followed her successful campaign in the Mediterranean by getting three fleets through the Straights of Gibraltar (much to my amazement) and pushed them northwards to interfere with French and German [English] intentions - including the capture of Belgium and Edinburgh! [N.B. This actually happened after Laurence joined]

However - disaster struck for the Juggernaut along this point as the Turkish player had decided to sod off on a three week holiday without letting anyone know (which I thought a little rude) and so I allowed the players to vote on whether to wait or to look for a replacement. A replacement was voted for and I believe this is when we acquired Lawrence. After stabbing Russia (very successfully I might add) the previous northern partner of the Juggernaut threw his toys out of his pram and resigned leading to Charles joining us. It was also around this time that Stephen took over the Italian mantle and I think we all thought at that time that this was a mercy position!

The rest of the game is known to you all from this point although I was quite surprised that France and Russia didn't try to come to some sort of arrangement when faced with such strong Turko-Italian cooperation. Additionally, once Italy turned on Turkey I would have thought that Russia and Turkey might have made more of an effort to bury the hatchet a bit quicker than they did.

This is the most open endgame I've seen in my rather short career. Since joining this game in Fall 1907, I've played this game mostly on instinct. I've had to gamble on my assessments of people much more than I'd like. To summarise my performance, I rode my luck to a greater extent than I controlled my destiny. Thankfully, I had plenty of luck!

In Fall 1907, Russia had 11 centres, Turkey 8, France 8, England 4 and Italy 3. Survival for more than even two years was out of my hands. When I joined, a juggernaut was in full swing, with the previous Italy acting pretty much as Turkey's minion. Despite Russia being the overwhelming favourite for the solo, with England at his mercy, Turkey was unshakeable in his loyalty to his senior partner.

Italy's situation reminded me of an article about Janissaries in The Diplomacy Pouch. A Janissary is a smaller nation whose own chance of success is gone, used by Turkey to act as its vanguard in return for a guarantee of survival till the endgame. I don't like surviving at the whim of another, and I wasn't very impressed that Italy had got himself into this situation. Whatever the deal beforehand, my treasonous attempts to get Turkey to turn on his ally marked me for death, and the Sultan took an isolated Naples in my first season.

Two things kept me alive. Firstly, Jason handed Marseilles to me, letting me remain at 3 centres. Secondly the obstinate Turkey proved his arrogance by going on holiday for 2 weeks without telling the GM, forcing his removal. Laurence joined in his place and proved much more open to persuasion. He attacked Russia and the heat was off me.

The first misjudgement I made was how poor a player the former Russia was. As the hot favourite to win, I expected him to be pretty sharp, but clearly he came upon the lead by accident, because he never spotted the stab. This was despite Laurence disbanding a crucial unit in the fight against France instead of retreating, then building units in Constantinople and Ankara. I had counted on Russia pulling back his forces to counter the implicit declaration of war and stopping Turkey doing too well out of the situation. He completely missed the signs, though, and Turkey suddenly had 4 gains. The shock was too much for the rather amateur Russia - he resigned in a fit of pique and Charles joined us.

To avoid a Turkish whitewash, I had to reverse my allegiance after only one season, co-operating with Charles to contain Turkey's attack. Fortunately, I had persuaded Laurence to operate a blitzkrieg approach - going for territory over centres and driving straight through the likes of Vienna. This left him open to a sneak attack from me, which he didn't spot for an extra season, since we had agreed I would take Trieste and Vienna anyway. Charles' immediate retreat to protect his home centres was well performed but he let slip his tactical priorities in doing so, which may have helped me later in the game.

Laurence's defences were nightmarish to predict. I don't think Charles and I managed it once, despite heavy co-operation to that end. His manoeuvres were mecurial, but occasionally counter-productive. I remember one year he managed to lure a Russian army into Rumania and destroy it, very cleverly opening up a route into Ukraine. However, this gave Charles the fleet build he needed to stop a maverick Turkish fleet taking Norway, and eventually gave Russia dominance in the North Sea area. Still, he caused no end of troubles. I managed to flank him and make slow gains only through weight of numbers in the southeast.

The other major player was France. I assessed Jason as an ambitious, but flexible diplomat. He was clever enough to sacrifice a home centre to keep me going, but also to accept advice from me in my first season when I stumbled upon an invulnerable defence of Spain. However, I sensed that if he made no progress in Germany, he would look for opponents elsewhere. Half of his units were stalemated against Russia, who could have done with using them against Turkey, so the seeds of a truce were already sown. After the demise of England, it was fairly obvious that, sooner or later, he would get bored of an unwinnable war and come after me.

Again, good fortune came to my aid. Laurence had sent his fleets northwards from the Mediterranean to attack Russia from two sides. Instead of pulling them back, crushing me and securing his defences, he preferred attack as the best form of defence. He caused havoc in the northern seas: I assume his plan was to gain centres quickly in order to build units for his defence. Fortunately, he never managed this, and in his attempts to sustain his centre count, he attacked France. This meant that France was distracted long enough from attacking me for me to build my strength and plan my own attack. I had expected a Franco-Turkish alliance, which would have crushed me eventually, but it never emerged.

At this point, the game was very even. We all had between 7 and 11 units, with centres changing hands regularly. This ended the first phase of the endgame - the failure of the juggernaut - and the second phase could have seen anyone victorious.

Turkey and Russia were deadlocked in the east; France and Russia were deadlocked in the west. I was the only one with complete freedom. With the builds from my gains against Turkey, I responded to Jason's retaking of Marseilles with a counter-attack that proved very successful. Now, however, I was spread very thinly, and for a while my strategy was a little unsure. Charles became miffed with me for choosing to take Tunis with overwhelming force rather than send a fleet into a forward position. From that point I believe he began to lose faith in my commitment to the anti-Turkey alliance.

I noticed a movement of Russian forces from the Turkish front to Central Europe. At the same time, Charles' communications dried up suddenly. This made me very paranoid. If Turkey and Russia made peace, I'd face all three countries at once. I immediately (a little too quickly, maybe) offered a truce to Turkey in return for helping him break through against Russia. It was a huge gamble, because it involved him looking like he was moving away from Russia to attack me. At the same time, France appeared in Tyrolia (by accident or design? I couldn't tell) and I was on the edge of ruin should a Franco-Turkish alliance materialise. I banked on Laurence's cavalier spirit, arguing that to take Charles' home centres would be a greater victory than simply grabbing my neutral centres.

Again I was lucky. Although I came very close to losing a centre to France (a last minute change of orders one season managed to block a French attack in the nick of time), Turkey duly broke through against Russia; I drove France back and moved on Russia for the first time, taking the pivotal Munich.

My dash for the solo arose when Charles suddenly upped his diplomacy again. I'd never really wanted to attack Russia, and only did so because of pressure from Laurence, so I accepted the chance to make peace. Now, though, I was in the much more beneficial position of owning Munich. For the second time, I set about attacking Turkey in alliance with Russia. At this stage I wasn't sure whether to go for the solo, but two things made up my mind. Firstly, Laurence was still concentrating on attacking Russia more than defending. Secondly, Charles appeared to be distracted by real life concerns.

Apart from the reduced conversation - a good sign of distraction from a diplomat as polished as Charles - what gave me this idea was his rather peculiar move of F BAL - Lvn. Perhaps he wanted to keep his armies back to retake Munich, but an army in Livonia might have given him the chance to retake his home centres, which was why I urged a convoy. I decided that Charles was the only one who had the diplomatic enthusiasm to organise a stop-the-leader alliance, and that I should take my opportunity before he noticed the danger.

In Spring 1915 I made moves that I hoped were sufficiently unthreatening to Russia. Laurence appears to have a predisposition to attack the enemy unit rather than defend the spaces. Taking advantage of this gave me 16 centres, with Charles grabbing Munich back without warning. I expected no less, and spent hours devising a plan to take me to 18 centres by the end of 1916.

The best plan I could come up with relied heavily on no player having the time or inclination to look that far ahead, plus a certain amount of dispute in the stop-the-leader alliance. It also pivoted round overstressing to Charles the value of Munich, which I had already decided would not be a target SC unless all else failed. I hoped this would get me Belgium and stop him blocking off lines of retreat to Holland and Kiel.

As it happened, the stop-the-leader alliance appeared to be gratifyingly fractious. They needed to co-ordinate by Spring 1915 to stop me, by Fall 1915 to slow me down. But the other three nations continued to protect their own interests, I suspect through lack of energy, and I dealt with them separately. Charles took vital time out to destroy the Turkish Fleet in Barents Sea and I was able to overwhelm the Russian and French forces by applying pressure at more points than they could cover. Russia could only cover a couple of Holland, Munich, London and Edinburgh, so I went for them all. I couldn't hope to overcome Turkey's forces in South Eastern Europe, but his need to keep units protecting his Russian centres hindered his defences. This allowed me to balance my losses in Austria and the Balkans with gains in Turkey itself. Fall 1916 took a long time to adjudicate, but I already knew I had won.

I suppose overall I failed in this game. I was the 2nd biggest country when I joined, but I only briefly looked like winning. But as Steve said at the time, Russia had the game in the bag if I'd carried on against France.

For a moment, it was looking pretty good for me until Italy changed sides on me. Thinking about it, I probably should have made peace with France. I could have taken out Italy and then attacked Russia. Then it would have been all against Russia.

But Steve was the only one who seemed open to long-term teamwork and I didn't know which way Jason would go. I guess that was my problem in the game. I always reacted to others instead of taking control. I had a lot going on though, so I never got round to starting talks. No one else did either, though, except Stephen, who wouldn't shut up!

Only kidding, Steve! Actually it probably did the trick, because I found myself following his lead half the time. I've got to say, only talking when you want something doesn't seem to work. When Jason was in Tyrolia and told me a plan to take out Italy, I hadn't heard from him for a while, plus he wouldn't tell me his part of the plan for ages, so I didn't trust him. As it turned out, he'd been telling the truth about his moves!

Charles was okay, except he was my enemy so long, I never really talked to him much. He seemed pretty reasonable, but perhaps a little too smooth. When he wanted a 'stop the leader' alliance I didn't know whether I could trust him, so I covered my back. He kept insisting on retaking Russian home centres. But this would have got rid of Turkish units near Italy. It didn't seem logical to me. Plus he went quiet after a couple of e-mails, so we never got organised. I guess his attack on my Barents Sea fleet showed he never had serious plans to ally with Jason and me.

I enjoyed the fighting parts of the game. My pirate fleets were good fun. It's a shame they didn't do as much damage as I hoped. Still, I achieved my dream of attacking St. Petersburg from Barents Sea, so I'm happy! Plus taking 3 of Charles' home centres felt like a mini-victory to me.

I think against Stephen I gave as good as I got most times. He usually only made gains when he switched sides suddenly. I can see now that he got so big because he kept Charles and me at war. We were always fighting, and because every now and again we'd have Italy on our side giving us the edge, it never got to the stalemate moment when we were so sick of it we made peace. It's a dangerous game to play though. If Charles and I had looked back as we're doing now, maybe we would have spotted it.

Upon joining this game, I saw a severely overstretched Russia. The southern parts of the Russian Empire (or more accurately Republic) were irredeemably lost. On the high seas French, English and above all Turkish pirates were threatening to pillage my northern possessions.

I wanted to: Sue for peace with France and Italy. I tried to cut my losses in talking to Turkey, but I was realistic enough to see that little would become of that. Talks with France seemed to go well, but, alas, Jason stabbed me and the contest for Central Europe/Germany begun. I wanted to avoid that. I believed this would result in a futile war between France and Russia, as I was in a position to counter a French stab and so did. I believe that peace between France and Russia would have been far better for both.

Things with Italy went smoothly. We were natural allies and Stephen is a most accomplished and co-operative player. His feat from recovering from a mercy position to become the victor is a hallmark achievement.

As for England, this was something I look back with very positive reminiscences. England made THE difference in fending off the Franco-Turkish naval onslaught. I tried to keep her alive as long as possible once we had become friends. Her fleet(s) were vastly useful. I declined to take London (I think I gave it back to her) and was quite stuck round Wales with one fleet (stupid mistakes had made me sail there, leaving my defences undermanned). Well, finally I could not hold off England's fall, but it truly resulted in me winning the Sea War. And I can tell you: Those odds were first severely against me. So much to protect with inadequate forces.

Well, the whole problem with Russia was that she was overextended when I joined and I failed to make up with France (grrr! ;) ). I couldn't be strong against a) Turkey in the South b) France round Germany c) France and Turkey in the western seas. I was constantly reallocating forces between the Turkish Front and Germany. Honestly, I don't think that was such a mistake in itself. I recall first having to rush to plug the holes in Germany and stabilise the front against France. That done Italy and I ventured on a campaign on the Balkans, me first in a supporting role, as the time for taking back Sev etc had not yet come. We had to gain leverage on Sev and in order to do so, Rumania had to fall first IIRC. Sadly, round the time Sevastopol was nearly reachable, I got stabbed by a then strong Italy. Italy had grown considerably under Stephen's able guidance and he had a canny hand at diverting military pressure, so that he didn't face much. Turkey did rather little against Italy. Hmm.

Now, with that Italian stab, I wrote Turkey suing for peace, accepting his hold on Sev. There was some discussion. Consensus was that we were better off fighting the Western threats (Italy etc) than continuing a pointless war. "Let us demilitarise and send stuff west" I said (well not like that, but you get the meaning). WE had some discussion. I had to move west, allocating troops back to Germany as I was under severe pressure there. I thought Laurence was with me. Alas, he stabbed and I made such a mess of my defences and lost much of Russia. My biggest and fatal mistake. It's funny that Laurence can't recall the episode.

Now, Italy was growing, growing, growing, and Turkey and Russia were pointlessly facing off in Russia, preventing me from building etc. Turkey was losing once more in the Balkans, France badly needing aid. I suggested a counter-alliance, at least to make things interesting for our solo contender. Alas, things didn't work out. Laurence, I fear you really didn't get the point about Russia: I couldn't simply leave things as they were, and you were investing a good deal of troops without positive outcome. I needed Moscow in order to be able to free up War and Stp for builds. I was thus paralysed. In the same time you had not enough troops to do anything about Italy's advance in the Balkans and finally in Asia Minor. You really didn't put up much of a fight. You could have had you shifted some of the materiel in Russia to the Balkans. We both would have been in a better position to fight Italy then. I was very disappointed that these arguments weren't acceptable to you. It seemed you were happier to lose Asia Minor than Moscow! I admit that I got frustrated and then dismissed correspondence. Clearly, both of us could have done a better job with Russo-Turkish relations. I can tell you: I DID spot the problem of us being embroiled. I suppose my way of putting it made you suspicious and prevented us from coming to a meaningful solution. And then, reading your EOG, I seem to have an image problem. ;) I sound like an insurance salesman.

Well, I guess there's a lot more one could talk about. Man, I sometimes spent aeons figuring out how I could possibly hold things together. But then, I have been absolutely sloppy with my moves, at times. I must admit that I lost a good deal of interest (periodically) and when we didn't manage to put a real counter-alliance together, I went into resignation mode. Sorry. I am not fond of end games.

As for negotiating, I did my share with England and Italy, far less so with France and only very occasionally did Laurence and I exchange messages. I got really sloppy further towards the end (I dislike end games anyway) and the failure to put a grand counter-alliance together let me fall into resignation (Laurence, I thought you were not interested and you failed to see the merit of getting to some kind of agreement over Moscow), I fear, gunboating from then on. Sorry. Also, at the time I started playing this game I still had domestic internet access, but I failed to work out how things work in my new Polish domicile (where I live about half of the time).

I have enjoyed playing with the lot of you. I would like to cross swords again in other games with you. Alas, I believe I will no longer play Standard for the foreseeable future as I have a decided preference for the variants 1900 and Ambition & Empire. Indeed, I consider 1900 "Standard Improved".

Last but not least, thanks to our GM. Ian, I marvel at the patience at my sloppiness and apologise for making your job harder than it should be.