Re: WM02SF02 French EOGS.

EOG:

Thanks to you all for a mostly enjoyable game and to Jan for running it.  This has been my first real exposure to e-mail play outside of the judges, and I have to say it has been different.

Anyway, I found myself with Russia, a country that I haven't played in quite some time.  As fits my game plan, I started seeking out potential alliances.  Eelco was cautiously friendly, Jake stated he wanted an alliance, and Stan seemed eager to cooperate as well.  From Steve, there were assurances that he wanted to maintain the peace.  From Len and Justin, there was very little though Len did indicate he preferred to work with me as well.  As negotiations fleshed out, it appeared I may have a choice between FIR, AGR, and RT, where the RT was the least fleshed out of the three.  As Russia, I prefer to prevent a strong AT attack early by pushing for the bounce in the Black Sea.  Len was agreeable, and so I managed a decent start.

With France and Italy seemingly moving on Germany, I continued to talk with all sides.  I offered to come to Germany's aid against the EF that was forming, and Steve allowed me into Sweden so as not to have another enemy at his rear.  Meanwhile, I was able to get both Eelco and Len willing to let me have Rumania, and I had my two builds.  Either AGR or FIR still seemed possible, but I was already ruling out RT.  Len was just too quiet early on, and while all our correspondence was friendly enough, there just wasn't enough of it, especially in comparison with Eelco and Jake.  These latter two looked to be ready to cooperate with me to take out Turkey, each with the idea of cutting out the other later.

Based upon the idea that a temporary AIR would allow me to fight on both fronts, I agreed to come to Germany's aid in Scandinavia.  England and France were working together, but Stan was more than happy for me to squelch English growth.  Steve seemed happy for the help, but in the fall, he betrayed me, helping England back into Norway, which I had taken in the fall.  I understand that Steve was worried about a potential FR, but while I had had conversations with Stan toward that possibility, there was no guarantee that would occur.  On the other hand, by attacking me, Steve left himself in an untenable position with no real friends around, and that was a major mistake.

\From my perspective, Germany's betrayal left me in a bad position.  Together, England and Germany could easily drive me out of Scandinavia.  And meanwhile, if I wanted any spoils out of Turkey, I needed to be able to divert more forces southward.  The only solution seemed to me to cut a deal with Justin, who was now more available than he had been early in the game.  Basically, I agreed to cede him Sweden and help him take out Germany in return for his aid against Germany and my keeping St. Petersburg.

The consequences of this deal were huge.  Basically, Stan had moved against England the previous fall, and my deal with England allowed Justin to move all his forces against him.  I calculated that Stan would be able to hold him off for some time, but he would be stalled himself as well.  Personally, such a stalemate served my interests well, and Stan's movements had left me worried that he was also considering working with Germany despite my efforts to get him to help finish Steve off.

Eelco understood about the need to keep Justin contained, and I was able to convince him to join me in the destruction of Germany, who I painted as England's stooge.  As a result, Eelco moved north against our former erstwhile ally to take Munich for himself.  I would get Berlin of course.  Meanwhile, the attack on Turkey was now in full force.  Unfortunately, Eelco changed a vital order that caused the initial attack to fail, causing a little bit of paranoia with Jake and me.  I briefly toyed with the idea of mending fences with Len at this point, but I couldn't find a way to make it work, especially when I needed Eelco's help in the north.

The attack on Germany went very well.  Steve disappeared with a couple years, facing attacks from all sides.  Even Stan was convinced to help in the knowledge that it was a fait accompli.  If I'm remembering correctly, Eelco and I agreed to turn Munich over to Stan to give him a little more help in facing down Justin, who was the clear game leader at this point.  Since my agreement with Justin had been basically against Steve, I felt free to remain "neutral" as far as to the rest of the conflict in Germany.

I was pushing hard through the Black Sea at Turkey now, and it appeared I would take Ankara.  Both Eelco and Jake were positioned to move on Turkey from the Med as well.  Unfortunately, Jake stabbed Eelco.  Whether this was a matter of Jake losing confidence in Eelco after the changed orders of the prior year or whether Jake just saw an opportunity and took it, the result was that the attack on Turkey was now fractured.  Needing the help of either or both to continue my attack on Turkey, I kept friendly with both Jake and Eelco and asked each to cut a vital Turkish unit in the spring.  Neither did, and while I took Ankara, I lost control of the Black Sea, which would have been alright except that with no one moving to Constantinople as I'd asked, I couldn't hold Ankara in the fall (at least not by myself).

Again, I sought cooperation from each of Jake and Eelco to help me take Ankara or Smyrna in the fall.  Neither would bail me out.  I lost Ankara and my fleet, and since Turkey had possession of the Black Sea, any chance of making ground in Turkey.

Meanwhile, I had given Eelco permission to retreat to Rumania, a move which allowed him to stay on an even footing with Jake.  I didn't want Jake making too much progress too quickly, especially when my own growth was stagnating.  I was actually losing ground.

Well, I approached Len and told him I wanted peace.  Both of my allies had sold me out, and I was looking to move elsewhere.  Len agreed as he also needed to clear out his home territories from Eelco and Jake.  (I think he was loosely working with Eelco at this time against Jake.)  So with that, I had technical peace on all borders.

The next year or so saw me pretend with Jake to fight against Eelco.  Of course, I reclaimed Rumania, and I offered various supports against Eelco that wouldn't succeed and failed to cover various retreat spots.  Jake's failure to support me against Turkey left me feeling fairly justified in denying his growth.  And Eelco was playing a masterful tactical game in denying Jake.

Then, events from up north changed the playing field.  Justin broke through against Stan, taking both Belgium and Munich in the same year.  Suddenly, Eelco, Jake, and I had common cause again.  I used my build from Rumania to build in Moscow and stab northward after Scandinavia.  With most of England's fleet arrayed against France, I had a chance of breaking through.  Meanwhile, I offered to support Jake into Munich to kick England back out.  This would only be possible if Jake and Eelco could bury the hatchet, and apparently they were able to do so temporarily, as the movements revealed an Austrian double cross against Len.  I had been more hoping for uneasy stalemate, not renewed cooperation between Italy and Austria, but I had to take what was there.

Justin, though disappointed, seemed to understand where the stab was coming from.  He pulled his fleets off of Stan and moved deftly to block my advance.  Basically, I guessed wrong on a 50/50 guess.  Stalemate thus developed in Scandinavia.  Justin was contained, and the board seemed to be stabilizing, all of which still favored Justin, who was still the game leader.

I think at this point Eelco was gone, and his replacement and I didn't have the same relationship.  Meanwhile, Jake began pushing for the two of us to stab Austria and divide him between us.  To some extent, this was tempting since I had nowhere else to grow, and I was worried about what Austria would do when Turkey was gone.  I played along with Jake's idea.  However, I recognized that such stab would aid Jake a great deal more than me and probably push him into the leader position of the game.  Thus, I set him up for me to take Munich from him while causing his stab on Austria to fail.  In retrospect, I should have informed Austria what was coming, but I was worried that he'd turn it around into a joint Italo-Austrian stab on me.  I expected support for Trieste that Austria didn't provide.  So the set up of Italy didn't work as intended, and Italy still grabbed Trieste.

Eelco came back, and I quickly moved to solidify cooperation between us against Jake.  At the same time, I was keeping the pressure on Justin in the north to keep him from moving on Stan.  What I hoped was for stalemate between Jake and Eelco while I could make a little progress against Justin, perhaps taking some of Turkey or Austria to win myself.  It was a longshot, but it seemed doable if Italy could be contained.

Well, Eelco pulled a rabbit out of his hat and blocked Jake all around.  With Jake also set to lose Munich, it seemed he'd be losing ground shortly.  But Jake also stabbed Stan for Spain.  Under the circumstances, it looks like a really, really bad move, but I can see that if Jake had gained from Eelco that season as I sure he expected to, Jake may well have been in position to swamp the southern half of the board.  Since he didn't gain from Eelco, and Stan took offense to the loss of Spain, this stab sealed his doom.

I approached Stan urging him to attack Jake and deny him the win, and he gave cryptic responses.  Eventually, he did move on Jake and chase him from Spain to Portugal, and he threatened Tunis.  This left the door open for Justin, and Justin moved cautiously to be in position to take advantage.  For myself, it appeared that I would have to make nice with Justin again in order to stop Jake.  It didn't matter too much since I wasn't making any progress, but it also ended any real chance for me to make progress.

But worse for me, in the effort to help Eelco against Jake, I had allowed him to retreat into Rumania again.  (I think partially I was protecting myself from the dying Turk.)  In my conversations with Eelco, I asked for it back and suggested that with his help, I could still take the top.  I asked him to help me.  Instead, when the next adjudication came out, Eelco was instead moving against me and blocking my entry into Rumania.  Although it wasn't completely evident yet, it appeared Jake had agreed to throw the game to Eelco.

Well, I wasn't happy as this made even the slight chance of gaining ground against England obsolete, and I was now extremely worried about losing ground to Eelco.  Eelco claimed he wouldn't take my centers, but I couldn't afford to take the chance.  I moved to block him, basically giving up control over my border with Justin.  All I could do is promise Justin my centers in the final year and hope he wouldn't grab them early.  In reality, I realized it was probably coming down to either Justin or Eelco, and I wanted to be in position to be kingmaker between the two.  I was certainly very disappointed that Eelco had turned on me rather than make his counter offer to top.

Well, when Stan apparently also joined in the conspiracy to have Eelco top, it was clear that there wasn't any reason for me to aid Eelco.  I gave what help I could to Justin in the last year in order to give the year some meaning with the understanding that it would probably fall short.  Jake had stolen my kingmaker role.  Darn you, Jake!

In the last season, with the board top assured, there was some discussion about the crossgaming going on on other boards, and so we mostly agreed to get Justin as large of a second as possible.  There was some talk about giving each Eelco and Justin another center, but apparently that fell through, which is just as well since I was unable to change my orders when my official extension request apparently didn't reach Jan.  

I have to say I don't like the way the game ended.  The combination of a short deadline and winner-takes-all nature made for a highly unsatisfying ending in my opinion.  Although I previously took out my frustrations on Eelco, it isn't so much his fault as the format of this tournament round.  I realize a change in format may have changed quite a bit over the course of the game, but it would have been interesting to see who would have come out on top in a normal game of Diplomacy.  You are all certainly worthy players though, and I enjoyed playing with you all.

Thanks again!

Paul of Russia



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