Dip 1198 - White EOG (long)

As I mentioned in my first introduction message, I played in 
escalation before, Dip 1081, but that was an early gunboat version of 
the variant and had some problems, including GM abandonment.  I 
thought the game was fun, though, and would be even better with real 
negotiation, so I was happy to sign up for this one.

I was lucky enough to draw first placement, so I had my choice of 
starting locations, but the last round of placement was reversed, so 
I had to choose carefully to avoid getting locked out of a supporting 
position in my last placement.  With eight players, and only 34 
centers, my initial goal was to geographically control five - one 
more than my fair share.  I thought primarily about three locations: 
England/Scandinavia, France, or somewhere in the Balkans.  After very 
brief discussion with Darryl and Troy (who were to place second and 
third) I opted for the Balkans and placed a fleet in Con, hoping to 
wall off Turkey while keeping expansion options open.

After the first round was complete, though, it was apparent that the 
Balkans were a hot spot.  I quickly began negotiations with Joel, and 
he and I had quite a lengthy and vigorous exchange in which he agreed 
to play Russia to my Turkey.  We verbally split all of the Balkans. 
My continuing contact with Darryl and Troy assured me that we were 
working together, and thus I thought I was in good shape with nothing 
but friends.  With the acquiescence of Darryl and Troy, I placed my 
second unit - an army in Greece - and thereby made a tremendous 
mistake, although I didn't yet know it.

The remainder of the second round went as expected up until Joel's 
placement, whereupon he and I had a long discussion about the merits 
of him placing in Turkey.  Obviously, I was opposed, and he ended up 
placing in Russia.  I thought I was home free.  Then Troy placed in 
ANK.  I regarded this as a semi-stab, and it sent me into a 
negotiating frenzy with Darryl.  A frenzy which proved completely 
futile, as Darryl quite rationally and openly explained how he was 
going to betray my trust, place a unit in SMY, and go to war with me. 
This caused me to heavily recruit Joel, and I had Joel's firm 
agreement on a plan of attack against Troy.

Joel lied like a thief and outright stabbed me, instead. 
Fortunately, Darryl and Troy got their signals crossed (or Troy 
outright stabbed Darryl, I'm not entirely sure which), and they 
failed to take CON.  That left me in precarious position, but much 
better than it could have been.  On the other hand, Randy had said he 
was coming into the Med in force, and did nothing of the sort, so I 
felt I had been lied to four separate times by the end of Spring '01. 
Rough start.  It did mean I didn't feel particularly obligated to 
keep my own word when dealing with any of these guys.

I managed to thwart Joel's subsequent defense of his ill-gotten gains 
by supporting his own unit back to its starting point when he tried a 
bounce defense, but when Troy offered to help me against Darryl I 
didn't feel I could believe him and played very conservatively, 
effectively choosing to side with Darryl.  I'm still debating whether 
or not this was really a mistake on my part in Fall '01.  In any 
case, it left me with just three centers after '01 instead of the 
five I had wanted, and I was clearly one of the more disadvantaged 
powers on the board (Red was arguably in worse shape, but not clearly 
so).

I named the only three centers I owned as home centers, and thus 
Bulgrebia was born!

At this point I was semi-stabbed yet again, when, despite an explicit 
agreement to the contrary, Darryl named SMY as a home center and 
built an army there.  I felt really hemmed in, but at least Darryl 
was a good communicator, and it wasn't like I had a choice.  So I 
continued to work with him, although I did count it as another reason 
to be able to break my own word, if the need arose.  Meanwhile, I 
"signed" a non-aggression pact with Troy, which I upheld to the 
letter.  Of course, I did secretly arrange for some of Troy's moves 
in Turkey to fail despite my nominal support for them, but that 
wasn't technically in violation of our agreement.  >:-}  Of course, 
at the same time, Darryl broke his word a third time by moving to the 
Ionian without prior agreement.  I was beginning to regret my choice 
of ally, especially given his regional dominance.

So I cobbled together a coalition with Troy (who had remained 
cooperative since the placement phase) and Joel to try to slow down 
Darryl.  I stabbed Darryl then, but slowly.  First I moved to Ionian, 
and blew it off as a "hedge"; then on the next turn I took his center 
and prevented him from taking one.

And at exactly that moment, Joel stabbed me again.

Well, OK, technically, he stabbed Troy, but since the three of us had 
made detailed movement plans together, and his stab removed the 
purpose from the plan, I took it personally.  Joel sent an apology 
for the stab, of course, of which I believed not one word.  I threw 
down the gauntlet, and vowed to do him in.

Pretty much the rest of my game was focused on the dual goal of 
repairing my relationship with Darryl, and taking Joel out.  I also 
had the secondary goal of seeing Troy survive, since he had kept his 
word to me through every single movement phase.  There needs to be 
some reward for that, and I still wonder how the game would have 
played out if I'd opted to side with Troy instead of Darryl way back 
in the early going.  In any case, I think I succeeded pretty well in 
my limited, late-game goals, engineering a four-way stab of Joel in 
'05, getting Troy an extra build in 1907, and killing off Joel by 
1908.  After that the game boiled down to whether or not Randall 
would go for the win, and whether or not we could convince Keith that 
Randall would and get him to stab first.  I was sure Randall would go 
for it once he secured Tunis, but I worked to build up the stalemate 
lines just in case.  My efforts were "rewarded" when we ended up at 
an impasse.

Actually, given the early going in this game, I'm quite happy to take 
part in a draw.  This was one of the most challenging games I can 
remember.  One seldom sees so many quick shifts in alliance 
structure.  At times it was hard to even keep track of which side I 
was on, let alone anyone else.  Great fun, and thanks to all for a 
game well played.

Thanks, also, to Stephen who made quick rulings a couple of times 
during game play and generally kept things pleasant and moving along. 
This was a very smooth game, and I would happily play again in a game 
you GM.

-Adam, King of Bulgrebia

P.S. I look forward to reading Keith's EoG which showed up just a few 
minutes ago.  I've elected to finish this before reading what anyone 
else wrote.


 
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