Name

Nation

Duration

GM:

Phil Ward

Spring 1901-end

Players:

Alex Amann

England

Spring 1901-Fall 1918

Stephen Worthy

Germany

Spring 1901-end

Steve Ray

France

Spring 1901-end

N/K
Mark (bigdoubleya)

Austria

Spring 1901-Fall 1904
Winter 1904-end

N/K
N/K

Italy

Spring 1901-Fall 1906
Winter 1906-Fall 1907

Greg Alexopoulos

Russia

Spring 1901-Fall 1914

Jack Brawner

Turkey

Spring 1901-end

Year

03

06

09

12

15

18

21

24

27

Austria

6

5

8

9

11

10

9

8

9

England

5

3

3

2

1

0

0

0

0

France

5

5

7

10

11

12

13

14

18

Germany

7

9

7

8

8

8

8

6

4

Italy

4

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Russia

2

2

2

2

0

0

0

0

0

Turkey

5

6

7

3

3

4

4

6

5

Phil’s EOG

I'd like to thank you all for playing. This is certainly the longest game I've gm'd and has had its good and bad points. The major highlights for me have been:

Russia struggling on for ages with one/two units before finally going under.

England sitting in the corner for much of the game not doing much

Austria trying desperately for many a year trying to build a fleet

Germany doing the suicidal stab on Austria which cost him his position

Turkey usually submitting orders for the next season within 10 minutes of the adjudication (though he did get later towards the end)

France grinding methodically forward to his solo

The only downside for me was for a period around 1920 when nothing at all happened in the game and to be honest, was a little boring. However, the German stab cured that!

I'd like to thank you all for your committment to the game which overall has made it a pleasure for me to run. Many Thanks.

Sometime during this game, my computer crashed (losing all my Email files), and my game results from earlier in the game were lost. Therefore some of this is from memory -- always a scary thing.

In the early game, when Austria seemed to be a pigpile victim, I made a conscious decision to avoid the obvious and attack Russia instead. This worked well, and Austria and I were on an early roll. He was building armies, I was building fleets, and I thought we were going to be the dominant alliance.

((getting on soapbox))

However, Austria stabbed me. I felt (and still feel) that this was a poor stab, as he was fleet-poor, and gained very little by it. His total gain (not counting the offset of potential gams elsewhere) was two to four centers that he had to sit units in to protect. And since he could never eliminate me, I was always going to be sitting in his backside, restricting his options. In my opinion, this was the decision/move that eventually handed France the game.

((Having a unit sitting in a center is poor offensive Diplomacy. Occasionally it is good defensive Diplomacy, but not very often. And having three or four units garrisoning three or four centers is a TREMENDOUS waste.))

Since I feel confident that my moves were non-threatening, I can only assume that the Austrian player belongs to that class of player that assumes that "Austro-Turkish alliances cannot work." Sadly enough, this seems to be the vast majority, as I experienced it all the way up to and including the Worldmasters 2000 final game. Damn shame, really, as the Austro-Turkish alliance is one of the game's most powerful.

((getting off soapbox))

*************

The midgame was easy from my point of view. I sat there and did nothing for about a real-time year.

*************

As the endgame approached, it became more and more obvious that France was going to be a threat to win the game, I kept hoping that Austria would work with me. Eventually, he did, taking an excellent cue from a "message move" that I submitted and allowing me to take Bulgaria and build a much-needed fleet. At this point, Austria could and should have sent his armies to the front to stop France, but he wasted many of them sitting in his centers. I was glad we were working together, but I wish he would have shown some more trust.

I eventually TOOK another center to build another fleet, hoping it would not be too late, but it was. Although Munich fell to the Austrians, Venice proved, essentially, to be the 18th French center, as he had won the race to (and kept) Italy.

France: You played extremely well. It was obvious (to me) during the game that you are an elite player (as indeed you proved to be). Whenever I built a fleet, you would send one more fleet down into the Med, arriving at the same time as my fleet, keeping the Italian boot in French hands. It was just beautiful (though I hated it.) I figured my job was to tie up units in Italy, though, and hope that the Germans & Austrians would stop you up north. Eventually, I even sent an army to Silesia myself to try and help. Too little, too late.

Germany: You fought a long, drawn-out battle against tough odds and a great player, and I wish you would have had more help. I salute you.

Austria: What can I say? I wish we could have either stayed together OR gotten back together in time to avoid this ending. You did a good job in the beginning when you were attacked, but I feel that in the mid- and end- game you were too concerned about "your" centers and not enough about the board position. NO halfway competent Turk would have stabbed you when France was threatening to win -- I think you needed to bank on that and move differently. Doubtless you have a different outlook on things, and perhaps it was my refusal to leave Armenia that cost us. But I was the stabbee once...

I look very forward to reading your endgame statement.

But, even then, we did have some chances to coordinate better. Stalemate lines are just darned tough to form in Standard, and in Gunboat you almost never see them. Funny, though -- a couple of good guesses at the end among all three of us (A/G/T) and we STILL stood a chance.

I cannot help but wonder if this game holds any of the following (Cat23) records:

Longest game.

Longest Gunboat game.

Longest Game/Gunboat game ending in a victory (sob!)

Longest Game/Gunboat game with no replacement players used.

For even being in the running for any of those distinctions, I think ALL of the players involved deserve medals.

Finally, I was tremendously impressed by the starting lineup in this game. If this lineup had been posted in the Worldmasters' Tournament, they would have been talking about this board being the "board of death."

I can't believe it's over.

I was wondering what happened to this game - the last record I have is Fall 1919 (I was still keeping track after I was eliminated).

Here’s my EOG, or what I remember of the game:

I opened to the North Sea and English Channel, because I had no idea whether France would do so or not. I was surprised to make it there, but because I did, France probably would not trust me for a while. Once this happened, I was forced to head towards France, so I convoyed my army to Belgium, expecting to move southward more. Yet I still went for Norway the next year, and hit my highest supply center count in 1902 at 5 supply centers. By 1905, Germany had moved against me and forced me back to 3. From there, until my death in 1918, I basically fought off France and Germany on the island. I was surprised that I was able to last for that long. Congrats to France on the win - he was able to conquer all of England despite Germany.

Hi all,

A long game, the end of which I would never have predicted during the first half! A good example of the kind of ebb and flow you can get in a gunboat game.

Also, imagine my surprise when I saw the competition! A game loaded with excellent players (although I'm very curious to know who Italy was). No wonder it took 27 years....

I started the game in my usual way as France, moving to grab Portugal and Spain and then see what happens. I didn't have to wait long: England moved to the Channel in Spring 1901. I had an army in Gascony to cover Brest, so I gambled and moved to Paris instead. England went for Belgium (not sure why; Norway was open, and England taking Belgium always seems to put him in the middle of a huge fight).

That let me build two fleets, which seemed necessary: F Brest to deal with England, and F Marseilles because Italy had taken Trieste and had two builds. But I didn't really expect trouble from that quarter; he had a war to fight with Austria, after all. So I ordered F Mar-Spa(sc) to help hold off the expected English attack.

Predictably, England began signaling his desire for a joint E/G attack on France. But Germany wasn't immediately interested; he attacked Bel and Nth and moved to attack Sweden as well. That was good, because Italy apparently wanted a piece of EVERYBODY, moving to Pie and WMS while also attacking and capturing Vienna -- giving up Trieste to do so.

So thus began a long and strange period for France. Germany quickly signaled his desire to work with England, but they never really got clicking, so it wasn't too hard to hold them off. This was good, because Italy remained a pain in my side for a long time. I never tried to attack him, merely fending him off and trying to encourage him to go bother somebody else. But he kept taking whacks at me even as his "attack everyone" strategy saw Turkey and Austria first throw him out of the Balkans, then move into his home centers.

But though I was stuck at 5 SCs for something like five years, in the end it left me in excellent position. By the time Italy died, I had taken Tunis, Austria was at 10 SCs and held Venice, and Turkey was in Naples and Rome. Meanwhile, the two of them were going at it quite seriously. That let me take away Turkey's Italian holdings without drawing a serious counterattack from either of them.

In the north, Germany had grown large enough that he felt he no longer needed England, so he stabbed him, figuring to beat both of us at once. That let me up off the mat in the north, and I began to grow rapidly, starting when England helped me take Belgium.

I quickly overran Italy, taking Venice, and was able to hold it with a skeleton force because Austria didn't have fleets and, between Austria and me, Turkey was forced back into the Eastern Med and couldn't go anywhere. In the north I helped England throw Germany off of his island, snagging Liverpool and Edinburgh for myself in the process. At that point England must have felt that he was next, because instead of continuing to work with me, he switched sides and began ordering Lon-Eng repeatedly. Well, clearly, he had to go. Took me a little while, but eventually I eliminated him.

Now the board seemed to take the prospect of a French solo seriously. Austria and Turkey stopped fighting, and they also left Germany alone to fight me in the northern Atlantic. That was pretty touch and go for awhile, as I tried to merely hang on in the Med while maneuvering to push Germany away from the English shores.

I finally did that in the early 1920s when, apparently in search of centers, Germany suddenly turned on Austria. He took St. Pete and Moscow, but doing so let me take Belgium and finally push my way into North Sea. Everyone sort of turned on Germany at that point, and he was made to pay for his mistake. He and Austria quickly made up, but the damage was done.

Even at that point, the board threatened to stalemate (because I kept taking whacks at Holland, and Germany kept defending it). So I pushed a fleet into Skaggerak. That cracked the German defenses, and at that point it was just a matter of how much time it would take to roll him up.

It now became an interesting race. I was slowly taking centers from Germany (Holland, Denmark), but all my builds had to go to the south. Austria was ceding centers to Turkey, who was building fleets as fast as he could. I had to keep ahead of Turkey in order to avoid losing my Italian centers.

At the start of the race, I had four units in the Med. Eventually, if A/I cooperated properly, I'd be forced to retreat to a stalemate line. The only such line that let me keep all of Italy required 7 units, and some tricky maneuvering to get them into the proper places: For instance, I wanted to use my Adriatic fleet to hold Venice, but I couldn't afford to move out of Adriatic until I had the stalemate line mostly set up, and I couldn't afford to have the fleet forced to disband. So timing was crucial: I had to build three units and get them into position before Turkey broke my sea defenses.

All the while, I was unable to reinforce my northern units, so my attack on Germany remained dangerously weak.

But that attack proceeded just fast enough, and I managed to stay ahead of Turkey in the Med. My final worry was that Austria or Turkey would realize I was setting up a stalemate line and move to stop it. But they didn't, or couldn't, and I locked up the Mediterranean. At that point, Turkey and all his fleets became irrelevant.

After that the solo was just a matter of time. Germany didn't have the troops or position to draw a stalemate line, and every center he lost cost him a unit he needed. And Austria/Turkey couldn't come to his aid without taking at least some of his centers, for the same result.

All in all, a nice game. Thanks to everyone for a good challenge, especially Austria and Turkey, who came very close to breaking me in the Med. Had I given in to temptation at one point and built a northern fleet, you would have done it. And thanks to Phil for GMing what turned into a very long game.

And congrats to both England and Russia for surviving far longer than I expected. Russia, especially, never caught a break, but he kept scrapping and nearly came back a couple of times.

First of all, I'd like to say sorry to Mark. I gifted Steve the solo when I turned on Austria even though he'd been so helpful. In my defence, though, I was bored out of my tiny little mind.

Wow, 1927. As someone who has played far more FTF games than PBEM, I'm used to games ending in about 1908 when everyone has to go home, so I suppose I should be excited by the longevity of this game (By the way, great GM-ing, Phil, I'd have fallen asleep at the wheel long ago if I'd been you!). However, I lost interest in around 1922 when the four-way draw was turned down. The game had been drifting for years and I decided that, if someone still didn't think it was a drawn position, they never would. It could have been France, hoping for the solo, but I thought it might have been Austria. Sooner or later he was going to notice that he had tons of spare armies that could nothing else except attack me, and when that happened, I'd be toast. So I tried the stab. Now I never stab unless I can guarantee three or more centres in double-quick time, and this stab had only one, maybe two as a possibility, but I didn't care any more and I had no way to defend two borders at the same time.

Of course it didn't work. During this game France has always shown good skills, but the one who's impressed me the most has been Mark. The level of communication and co-ordination I was able to pick up in allying with him has been astounding, and it came as little surprise that he foiled my attack. I had also been hoping that France would ease up on me on the principle that 'the enemy of my enemy is my enemy', but of course he didn't. I'd simply been engaging in wishful thinking.

Since I took the plunge I've been wondering whether I could have got the draw if I'd hung on. My final analysis is not without GM intervention. Austria would eventually have taken me out of the picture with his spare armies, and I would have been faced with trying to position myself to be too vital for the solo for either side to finish me off. However, it was only a couple of years later that I realised how close we came to the "three years without a centre changing hands" point. Phil never answered whether he would have stopped the game as some GM's do if it had come to that, but we were a year away at two points, I believe.

Anyway, harking back to the early parts of the game, it was a fairly standard situation for me given that I was pretty much a newbie to PBEM. I suffered my traditional early leader syndrome and peaked in about 1908/9. Which is great play for a evening's FTF game, but not for PBEM, so at least this game got me out of that bad habit. I believe this was also my first gunboat game, so I enjoyed the interplay of void orders and unusual convoys. To sum up my performance, I chose gunboat because I didn't have much time for diplomacy, and it showed a little in my strategy. I could have spent more time on orders and I do feel I let Austria down towards the end. Disbanding units was hugely critical, and I don't know if I made the right choices.

Still, good clean fun and on to the next one. Cheers Phil and thanks everyone else for the game. Perhaps an appeal to the mailing lists or a check to see if someone's claimed DK points for 928 might uncover the identity of the forgotten player?

Spring 1920, what a season, that's when it all went wrong with Germany stabbing me. Thanks all for the game especially Turkey whom I finally managed to make friends with.

'Grats to France for a hard won solo.