Richard’s EOG
Richard the third king of england here.
Well, it's true what they say - minor positions can have a great impact on the game. I came in stuck
between a rock and a hard place. I didn't expect France (Sam) to grow so quickly though.
Congratulations to Sam for stringing me along so nicely. I didn't pay as much attention as I should
have to the game and that allowed him a second shot at stabbing me.
Congratulations to the stop the leader alliance (especially those of you who survived). I told Sam
several times that I thought he'd stabbed too early and he promised me all would be revealed in his EOG, so I'm waiting for that.
Still, I learned something and, I hope, played my position honestly and to the best of my abilities.
Congrats to the four minor partners in the draw, comiserations to Sam who had his first chance
at a solo denied. It would have been nice to be around at the end but I think it's fitting that since my
mistakes contributed to Sam becoming such a threat, my suicidal gamble helped to stop him. |
My EOG
This was my fifth game since joining the Cat23 community and it was by far and away my worst performance. As far as I can remember, I didn’t make a single good move and was fairly soon at the mercy of stronger currents in the game.
My first mistake was to go ahead with an opening without being sure of my ally. I went for a Juggernaut alliance with Turkey, while having my doubts about him from the start. His ideas on concealing the alliance seemed unconvincing and I knew we ran the risk of discovery. My own ideas were fairly lame as well – it was the first time I had attempted to use a Juggernaut.
However, I couldn’t get anything useful out of Austria – looking back on my correspondance, I have a grand total of one fairly cursory message from R.J., very strange for an Austria in opening years. My own attempts to contact Austria seem equally feeble, so it may well have been my fault. Anyway, the opening was bizarre, with Turkey getting into Serbia and no one into Bulgaria. My own forces became a little scattered in the south and our progress was slow.
I made my second mistake in the north. This was simply not to decide whom I trusted out of England and Germany. I seemed to do much more talking with Dave, and this suggested to me that he wasn’t a reliable ally. By the time I had stopped dithering and chosen Rob (the original England) to ally with, it was too late. He had performed shockingly badly against France and now committed all his forces to attacking Germany.
At about this time, Deepak betrayed me, under pressure from Dave, who had quickly seen through our attempts to appear unco-ordinated. I didn’t have the manpower to sustain an attack on Germany in the north and I made my third mistake, which was to attempt to bluster against Dave. I tried to bluff him into thinking it was all over unless he concentrated on England and left me alone. However, England was so doomed against Sam that he didn’t buy it and things turned very nasty between Germany and Russia. I foolishly went on the attack and took Munich, leaving myself even more vulnerable to Deepak, who had made a profitable peace with Austria.
That decided the course of the game for me. Germany carried on attacking despite losing his homeland to England (now Richard, but no threat to either Germany or France). Turkey had no reason to stop attacking with me on the back foot. Austria and Italy’s continuing battles left Italy vulnerable when the messed up situation in Germany and England meant that France could branch out into a three-pronged attack.
I agree with Richard that France moved too early – the stop-the-leader was quickly organised (despite lingering worries about Italy) and only Turkey could have ruined it by thinking he had a chance for the solo too. I actually thought Deepak should have gone a little further and taken me out of the game when he had the chance, at least making the draw four-way, but I expect that his drive to succeed had gone by then.
My involvement with the endgame was fairly minimal, so I’ll let others talk about that. To summarise my own performance, I mainly blame myself, to a small extent Rob, too, but this was a learning experience at least. Well done to Sam for getting close; I’m mostly waiting to hear Deepak’s EOG to find out when he changed tack, but I’m not surprised – he made the right choice and did well also. Thanks also to Steve for taking over from the rather erratic Stephen as GM. |
Sam’s EOG
Well. Close, but no cigar. What's it worth saying about this game? It was only the second or third
'normal' game that I have started since beginning playing Dip on e-mail (I had played in a couple of
variants as well). So I am quite pleased with how things went.
The beginning of the game was very strange. I had very good communications with the German and reasonable ones with the English, which was kind-of dictating where I was going to go. The Englishman promptly tried to move to the Channel, which sent me on an anti-English campaign. At the end of the first year, however, I felt surrounded by hostile powers, and had managed to
second guess the Italians well enough to bounce in Marseilles. Things got a bit better after that. I
managed to talk the Italians into heading East, leaving me clear to focus on the North. Then,
bizarrely, perhaps because he had been misled by German hints, the Englishman threw himself into an anti-German campaign, and didn't defend himself against me. I didn't join in at first, because I had established a pretty good rapport with the German. However, at this point the GM decides to vanish and the game goes into limbo.
Now, I felt I was in a reasonably good position, so I started pushing for a resumption, which, after a
while, happened. And found that the English and German players had been replaced. At this point it became clear that the first English player had set up what I thought of as a 'whirlpool' in Scandinavia, that was sucking in units from England, Germany and Russia. I made it my objective to keep the whirlpool spinning while I positioned myself to take advantage.
The key strategic decision I faced early on was when to stab the Englishman. I say 'stab' because – as Richard knows - I was never actually allied with him (how could I be if I was occupying Edi and Liv?). Anyway, it eventually happened in 1905, in which I managed to gain the phenomenal number of five extra SCs. I had agreed to convoy an army to Norway from London, which would have given the English a build, and I simply didn't trust Richard not to build a fleet, and that was too much of a risk. Also, and this bit I haven't told Richard before, when the opportunity presented itself for very rapid growth, I thought I would throw everything into it to see how it would work out. Doubtless this legitimates the accusation of haste, but it was an enlightening experience, so I don't regret it. There are only two reasons for doing things really - to learn and to enjoy/get satisfaction. I've definitely fulfilled both of those in this game.
Anyhow, I then managed to surge forward to 12 units, and that pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the game. Clearly it was now a race between me and everyone else to get past the stalemate line. I learnt quite a few things along the way, not all of which I'll share ;-) I was greatly helped at one point by Daniele's assistance, which showed how essential it was to keep talking as much as possible. My most pleasing move was the convoyed army to Livonia, the move that I had most agonies over was what to do with that army once it was there. In retrospect I should have taken
Moscow, which would have forced Deepak to disband a unit, probably in the Med, and that might have made a difference. (Might have....)
The only time I became at all confident that I might get the solo was after I took Rome. At that point I thought that I would be able to cope with losing Munich (which I had been expecting for at least two game years – bit of a lack of discussion between England and the rest perhaps?). However, I underestimated how difficult it would be to hold Munich, especially after the one move which really took me by surprise, and which was probably the key to the allied campaign against me, which was
the German move crushing my army in Liv. I had expected the German to cover his SCs. I think by that time the allied campaign had sorted itself out - congrats to RJ, Deepak and the others for holding me off. Once the Turks had convoyed an Austrian army to Apulia the writing was on the wall, and I felt a DIAS was the fairest outcome.
I think getting to fourteen SCs by Fall 1906 is a feather in my cap though.... :-)
Thanks to everyone for an enjoyable game, and to Steve for being a very capable second GM. See you around. |
