| dc442 Haven s05 results! - FuzzyLogic (Mar 27, 2013, 1:15 pm) |
Of course this was s05 results... forgot to update the subject.
Players not submitting orders suffer fewer dislodges than those who do. Is it strategy? Insight? Skill? Magicians mesmorize Gnomes with their cantrips... While Hobbits support them against their vertically-challenged brothers... Leprechauns go underground -- never heard from again. Five different powers in the tunnels. Dwarves hosting a party?
RETREATS! Due Thurs... 12 noon Central...
Gnome F Newa River can retreat to Cave of Ordeals or Elephant Graveyard.
Pirate F Travers Town can retreat to PIRATE SHOALS.
Pirate F Slightly Gulch can retreat to Camelittle.
Wizard F Kara-Tur can retreat to RAZORS EDGE.
Archer F RIFT CANYON can retreat to RAZORS EDGE or Cliffs of Insanity.
Archers:
F Llyr - RUGGED COAST
F Loxley - Llyr
F Paras Derval - Kingdom of Hearts
F Ella - CHOCOLATE RIVER
A The Neverwood - Travers Town
A Duloc Supports A Cliffs of Insanity - Endor
A Spiral Castle - Strawberry Fields
A Gurgi Hold
A Dragons Teeth Mtns - Khaz Modan
F RIFT CANYON Supports A The Neverwood - Travers Town (*Dislodged*)
Centaurs:
A Dancing Lawn, no move received
A Calormen, no move received
Dwarves:
F Mount Nimro - CHURNING REACH
A Devils Canyon Supports A Snow Witch - Twisted Tunnels
F Dimmsdale - NORTH MIRIANIC OCEAN
F Myth Drannor Supports F Mount Nimro - CHURNING REACH
F The Julianthes Supports F Mount Nimro - CHURNING REACH (*Cut*)
A Spirit Pond Supports A Snow Witch - Twisted Tunnels
A Cliffs of Insanity - Endor
A Ancient Necropolis Supports A Snow Witch - Twisted Tunnels
A Snow Witch - Twisted Tunnels
F WEST MIRIANIC OCEAN Supports F The Julianthes
Elves:
F Garthim - ROARING RAPIDS
A Gelfling - Ilthmar
A Auryn Supports A Valley of Lost Honor - Anhondon Plain
A Horborixen Supports A Lankhmar - Ogrun
A Lankhmar - Ogrun
F City of Splendors Hold
A Valley of Lost Honor - Anhondon Plain (*Bounce*)
A Zhentil Keep - Great Glacier
F CHURNING REACH - EAST MIRIANIC OCEAN
F RIVER OF THE DAWN Supports A Zhentil Keep - Great Glacier
F THREE RIVER LAKE Convoys A Gelfling - Ilthmar
Faeries:
A Land of Sweets - Acme Acres
A Daisy Meadows - Oz
Gnomes:
A Grissel Supports F SABLES SWAMP - Tumnus
A Hundred Acre Wood - Daniloth
F Khemri - SABLES SWAMP
F Newa River Supports F Groves of Academe (*Dislodged*)
F Neverpeak Mtn - Slightly Gulch
A Starkadh - Hundred Acre Wood
F Owlwood Supports A Grissel
A Critter Country Supports F Neverpeak Mtn - Slightly Gulch
F Groves of Academe Supports F Neverpeak Mtn - Slightly Gulch
F SABLES SWAMP - Tumnus
Hobbits:
F Mordor - GULF OF LUHN
A Traal Supports A France - Anhondon Plain
F Baldurs Gate Supports F RIVER OF THE DAWN - RAZORS EDGE (*Void*)
A Waterdeep Supports A Candlekeep - Kara-Tur
A Candlekeep - Kara-Tur
A France - Anhondon Plain (*Bounce*)
A Nowwhat Supports A Twisted Tunnels - Snow Witch (*Void*)
A Venatori Umbrarum Supports A Camelittle - Neverpeak Mtn
F THON THALAS Supports A Skellington - Newa River
F WAY THE HECK Supports F SEA OF FALLEN STARS
F RESTLESS WATERS Supports F Endor - RIFT CANYON
F SEA OF FALLEN STARS Supports F WAY THE HECK
Knights:
F GuTanoth - River Saeren
A Grimpen Ward - Aslan
F Archenland Supports A Grimpen Ward - Aslan
F Telmar Supports F Archenland
A Ice Reach - Tymwyvenne
F Aslan - Anvard
F CRYSTAL LAKE Supports F Aslan - Anvard
Leprechauns:
A Lubrick - Hoarluk
F Skullcap - Timberlands
F Ansalon Hold
F Fafhrd(ec), no move received
A Whoville - Uuno
A Twisted Tunnels, no move received (*Disbanded*)
F THUNDERHEAD - Terabithia
F SAVAGE SEA - ALL SAINTS BAY
F ZEBOIMS DEEP - The Julianthes (*Fails*)
A Anc-Sno (*Invalid*)
Magicians:
F Tarsis Supports F HIGH SEAS
F Krynn Supports F HIGH SEAS
A To-Gai-Ru Supports A Corona - Walk of Clouds
A Skellington - Newa River
F Dargaard Keep - Palmaris
A Corona - Walk of Clouds
F GRIEF REEF Convoys A Skellington - Newa River
F HIGH SEAS Convoys A Skellington - Newa River
F WEST SEA OF SHADOWS Convoys A Skellington - Newa River
Nomads:
A Forbidden City, no move received
A Anhondon Plain, no move received
Pirates:
A Pans Labyrinth - The Neverwood
F Travers Town Supports F Endor - RIFT CANYON (*Dislodged*)
F Slightly Gulch Supports F GRIEF REEF (*Dislodged*)
A Camelittle - Neverpeak Mtn
F Endor - RIFT CANYON
A Hidden Grotto Supports A Camelittle - Neverpeak Mtn
Shades:
A Nehwon Hold
Trolls:
A The Silver city - Ashan
F Ashan - BEAVERSDAM
F Sorrows End - TROG BOG
A Niflheim - Abby Normal
F Kahvi Hold
A Orboros Supports A Calormen - Grissel (*Void*)
A Pygmy - The Silver city
Wizards:
F Fantastica Supports A The Neverwood - Travers Town
F Kara-Tur - Baldurs Gate (*Dislodged*)
[Reply] |
| dc442 Haven w04 builds! - FuzzyLogic (Mar 27, 2013, 1:14 pm) |
Players not submitting orders suffer fewer dislodges than those who do. Is it strategy? Insight? Skill? Magicians mesmorize Gnomes with their cantrips... While Hobbits support them against their vertically-challenged brothers... Leprechauns go underground -- never heard from again. Five different powers in the tunnels. Dwarves hosting a party?
RETREATS! Due Thurs... 12 noon Central...
Gnome F Newa River can retreat to Cave of Ordeals or Elephant Graveyard.
Pirate F Travers Town can retreat to PIRATE SHOALS.
Pirate F Slightly Gulch can retreat to Camelittle.
Wizard F Kara-Tur can retreat to RAZORS EDGE.
Archer F RIFT CANYON can retreat to RAZORS EDGE or Cliffs of Insanity.
Archers:
F Llyr - RUGGED COAST
F Loxley - Llyr
F Paras Derval - Kingdom of Hearts
F Ella - CHOCOLATE RIVER
A The Neverwood - Travers Town
A Duloc Supports A Cliffs of Insanity - Endor
A Spiral Castle - Strawberry Fields
A Gurgi Hold
A Dragons Teeth Mtns - Khaz Modan
F RIFT CANYON Supports A The Neverwood - Travers Town (*Dislodged*)
Centaurs:
A Dancing Lawn, no move received
A Calormen, no move received
Dwarves:
F Mount Nimro - CHURNING REACH
A Devils Canyon Supports A Snow Witch - Twisted Tunnels
F Dimmsdale - NORTH MIRIANIC OCEAN
F Myth Drannor Supports F Mount Nimro - CHURNING REACH
F The Julianthes Supports F Mount Nimro - CHURNING REACH (*Cut*)
A Spirit Pond Supports A Snow Witch - Twisted Tunnels
A Cliffs of Insanity - Endor
A Ancient Necropolis Supports A Snow Witch - Twisted Tunnels
A Snow Witch - Twisted Tunnels
F WEST MIRIANIC OCEAN Supports F The Julianthes
Elves:
F Garthim - ROARING RAPIDS
A Gelfling - Ilthmar
A Auryn Supports A Valley of Lost Honor - Anhondon Plain
A Horborixen Supports A Lankhmar - Ogrun
A Lankhmar - Ogrun
F City of Splendors Hold
A Valley of Lost Honor - Anhondon Plain (*Bounce*)
A Zhentil Keep - Great Glacier
F CHURNING REACH - EAST MIRIANIC OCEAN
F RIVER OF THE DAWN Supports A Zhentil Keep - Great Glacier
F THREE RIVER LAKE Convoys A Gelfling - Ilthmar
Faeries:
A Land of Sweets - Acme Acres
A Daisy Meadows - Oz
Gnomes:
A Grissel Supports F SABLES SWAMP - Tumnus
A Hundred Acre Wood - Daniloth
F Khemri - SABLES SWAMP
F Newa River Supports F Groves of Academe (*Dislodged*)
F Neverpeak Mtn - Slightly Gulch
A Starkadh - Hundred Acre Wood
F Owlwood Supports A Grissel
A Critter Country Supports F Neverpeak Mtn - Slightly Gulch
F Groves of Academe Supports F Neverpeak Mtn - Slightly Gulch
F SABLES SWAMP - Tumnus
Hobbits:
F Mordor - GULF OF LUHN
A Traal Supports A France - Anhondon Plain
F Baldurs Gate Supports F RIVER OF THE DAWN - RAZORS EDGE (*Void*)
A Waterdeep Supports A Candlekeep - Kara-Tur
A Candlekeep - Kara-Tur
A France - Anhondon Plain (*Bounce*)
A Nowwhat Supports A Twisted Tunnels - Snow Witch (*Void*)
A Venatori Umbrarum Supports A Camelittle - Neverpeak Mtn
F THON THALAS Supports A Skellington - Newa River
F WAY THE HECK Supports F SEA OF FALLEN STARS
F RESTLESS WATERS Supports F Endor - RIFT CANYON
F SEA OF FALLEN STARS Supports F WAY THE HECK
Knights:
F GuTanoth - River Saeren
A Grimpen Ward - Aslan
F Archenland Supports A Grimpen Ward - Aslan
F Telmar Supports F Archenland
A Ice Reach - Tymwyvenne
F Aslan - Anvard
F CRYSTAL LAKE Supports F Aslan - Anvard
Leprechauns:
A Lubrick - Hoarluk
F Skullcap - Timberlands
F Ansalon Hold
F Fafhrd(ec), no move received
A Whoville - Uuno
A Twisted Tunnels, no move received (*Disbanded*)
F THUNDERHEAD - Terabithia
F SAVAGE SEA - ALL SAINTS BAY
F ZEBOIMS DEEP - The Julianthes (*Fails*)
A Anc-Sno (*Invalid*)
Magicians:
F Tarsis Supports F HIGH SEAS
F Krynn Supports F HIGH SEAS
A To-Gai-Ru Supports A Corona - Walk of Clouds
A Skellington - Newa River
F Dargaard Keep - Palmaris
A Corona - Walk of Clouds
F GRIEF REEF Convoys A Skellington - Newa River
F HIGH SEAS Convoys A Skellington - Newa River
F WEST SEA OF SHADOWS Convoys A Skellington - Newa River
Nomads:
A Forbidden City, no move received
A Anhondon Plain, no move received
Pirates:
A Pans Labyrinth - The Neverwood
F Travers Town Supports F Endor - RIFT CANYON (*Dislodged*)
F Slightly Gulch Supports F GRIEF REEF (*Dislodged*)
A Camelittle - Neverpeak Mtn
F Endor - RIFT CANYON
A Hidden Grotto Supports A Camelittle - Neverpeak Mtn
Shades:
A Nehwon Hold
Trolls:
A The Silver city - Ashan
F Ashan - BEAVERSDAM
F Sorrows End - TROG BOG
A Niflheim - Abby Normal
F Kahvi Hold
A Orboros Supports A Calormen - Grissel (*Void*)
A Pygmy - The Silver city
Wizards:
F Fantastica Supports A The Neverwood - Travers Town
F Kara-Tur - Baldurs Gate (*Dislodged*)
[Reply] |
| dc444 Spring 11 adjudication - untitled36 (Mar 27, 2013, 10:29 am) |
Are there any EGP's currently on the table? If not, can I put in a last minute A/I proposal for Fall? If not, then for Spring?
John
From: danilobliekthebest(at)hotmail.com
To: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com; ericmarr(at)gmail.com; hapolley(at)yahoo.ca; johnston.scott(at)comcast.net; untitled36(at)hotmail.com; stuartandmaria(at)googlemail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com; mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com
Subject: RE: dc444 Spring 11 adjudication
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:25:15 +0100
I vote YES to any EGP that is not a solo (I will not vote for solos).
I also HOLD my army unless I send in another order. I am very sorry that I am NMRing but one could understand my incentive to keep sending in hold orders is limited. I wouldn't want to be replaced out because of these nmr's.
- the Prime Minister of the British Commonwealth,
sir danilot
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:02:05 +0000
Subject: dc444 Spring 11 adjudication
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: ericmarr(at)gmail.com; hapolley(at)yahoo.ca; Johnston.scott(at)comcast.net; untitled36(at)hotmail.com; danilobliekthebest(at)hotmail.com; stuartandmaria(at)googlemail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com; mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com
Hi everyone,
All three EGPs failed. Here's your moves:
Austria:
F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Bohemia Supports A Kiel - Munich (*Void*)
A Budapest - Rumania (*Fails*)
F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Irish Sea
A Sevastopol Supports A Budapest - Rumania
A Smyrna Supports F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Trieste - Budapest (*Fails*)
A Tyrolia Supports A Bohemia
A Vienna Supports A Bohemia
England:
F St Petersburg(nc), no move received
France:
F Brest Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Burgundy Supports A Gascony - Marseilles
F English Channel Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Gascony - Marseilles (*Fails*)
A Kiel Supports A Munich
A Portugal Supports A Marseilles - Spain (*Void*)
F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Germany:
F Baltic Sea - Berlin
F Livonia - Prussia
A Munich Supports A Galicia - Bohemia (*Void*)
F Norway - Norwegian Sea
A Ruhr Supports A Munich
Italy:
F Gulf of Lyon Supports A Marseilles
A Marseilles Hold
A Piedmont Supports A Marseilles
F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean
F Western Mediterranean - North Africa
Russia:
F Ankara - Armenia
F Black Sea Supports A Galicia - Rumania
A Galicia - Rumania
A Silesia - Warsaw
A Ukraine Supports A Galicia - Rumania
No retreats are needed, so your next deadline is Autumn 11, due Thursday 28 March 2100GMT.
Jerome[Reply] |
| dc444 Spring 11 adjudication - sirdanilot (Mar 27, 2013, 10:25 am) |
I vote YES to any EGP that is not a solo (I will not vote for solos).
I also HOLD my army unless I send in another order. I am very sorry that I am NMRing but one could understand my incentive to keep sending in hold orders is limited. I wouldn't want to be replaced out because of these nmr's.
- the Prime Minister of the British Commonwealth,
sir danilot
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:02:05 +0000
Subject: dc444 Spring 11 adjudication
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: ericmarr(at)gmail.com; hapolley(at)yahoo.ca; Johnston.scott(at)comcast.net; untitled36(at)hotmail.com; danilobliekthebest(at)hotmail.com; stuartandmaria(at)googlemail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com; mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com
Hi everyone,
All three EGPs failed. Here's your moves:
Austria:
F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Bohemia Supports A Kiel - Munich (*Void*)
A Budapest - Rumania (*Fails*)
F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Irish Sea
A Sevastopol Supports A Budapest - Rumania
A Smyrna Supports F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Trieste - Budapest (*Fails*)
A Tyrolia Supports A Bohemia
A Vienna Supports A Bohemia
England:
F St Petersburg(nc), no move received
France:
F Brest Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Burgundy Supports A Gascony - Marseilles
F English Channel Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Gascony - Marseilles (*Fails*)
A Kiel Supports A Munich
A Portugal Supports A Marseilles - Spain (*Void*)
F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Germany:
F Baltic Sea - Berlin
F Livonia - Prussia
A Munich Supports A Galicia - Bohemia (*Void*)
F Norway - Norwegian Sea
A Ruhr Supports A Munich
Italy:
F Gulf of Lyon Supports A Marseilles
A Marseilles Hold
A Piedmont Supports A Marseilles
F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean
F Western Mediterranean - North Africa
Russia:
F Ankara - Armenia
F Black Sea Supports A Galicia - Rumania
A Galicia - Rumania
A Silesia - Warsaw
A Ukraine Supports A Galicia - Rumania
No retreats are needed, so your next deadline is Autumn 11, due Thursday 28 March 2100GMT.
Jerome[Reply] |
| dc444 Spring 11 adjudication (Winter Blitz) untitled36 Mar 27, 10:29 am |
Are there any EGP's currently on the table? If not, can I put in a last minute A/I proposal for Fall? If not, then for Spring?
John
From: danilobliekthebest(at)hotmail.com
To: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com; ericmarr(at)gmail.com; hapolley(at)yahoo.ca; johnston.scott(at)comcast.net; untitled36(at)hotmail.com; stuartandmaria(at)googlemail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com; mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com
Subject: RE: dc444 Spring 11 adjudication
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:25:15 +0100
I vote YES to any EGP that is not a solo (I will not vote for solos).
I also HOLD my army unless I send in another order. I am very sorry that I am NMRing but one could understand my incentive to keep sending in hold orders is limited. I wouldn't want to be replaced out because of these nmr's.
- the Prime Minister of the British Commonwealth,
sir danilot
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:02:05 +0000
Subject: dc444 Spring 11 adjudication
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: ericmarr(at)gmail.com; hapolley(at)yahoo.ca; Johnston.scott(at)comcast.net; untitled36(at)hotmail.com; danilobliekthebest(at)hotmail.com; stuartandmaria(at)googlemail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com; mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com
Hi everyone,
All three EGPs failed. Here's your moves:
Austria:
F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Bohemia Supports A Kiel - Munich (*Void*)
A Budapest - Rumania (*Fails*)
F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Irish Sea
A Sevastopol Supports A Budapest - Rumania
A Smyrna Supports F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Trieste - Budapest (*Fails*)
A Tyrolia Supports A Bohemia
A Vienna Supports A Bohemia
England:
F St Petersburg(nc), no move received
France:
F Brest Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Burgundy Supports A Gascony - Marseilles
F English Channel Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Gascony - Marseilles (*Fails*)
A Kiel Supports A Munich
A Portugal Supports A Marseilles - Spain (*Void*)
F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Germany:
F Baltic Sea - Berlin
F Livonia - Prussia
A Munich Supports A Galicia - Bohemia (*Void*)
F Norway - Norwegian Sea
A Ruhr Supports A Munich
Italy:
F Gulf of Lyon Supports A Marseilles
A Marseilles Hold
A Piedmont Supports A Marseilles
F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean
F Western Mediterranean - North Africa
Russia:
F Ankara - Armenia
F Black Sea Supports A Galicia - Rumania
A Galicia - Rumania
A Silesia - Warsaw
A Ukraine Supports A Galicia - Rumania
No retreats are needed, so your next deadline is Autumn 11, due Thursday 28 March 2100GMT.
Jerome |
| dc444 Spring 11 adjudication (Winter Blitz) Koensig Mar 27, 04:06 pm |
p { margin: 0; }I vote yes to all EGPs.
-Scott
From: "Danilo Bliek" <danilobliekthebest(at)hotmail.com>
To: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com, "Eric Marr Italy dc444" <ericmarr(at)gmail.com>, "Hugh Polley Germany dc444" <hapolley(at)yahoo.ca>, "Scott Johnson Russia dc444" <johnston.scott(at)comcast.net>, "John Reside Austria dc444" <untitled36(at)hotmail.com>, "Stuart Winch France dc444" <stuartandmaria(at)googlemail.com>, blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com, mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com, "Jerome Payne GM dc444" <jerome777(at)ymail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 11:25:15 AM
Subject: RE: dc444 Spring 11 adjudication
I vote YES to any EGP that is not a solo (I will not vote for solos).
I also HOLD my army unless I send in another order. I am very sorry that I am NMRing but one could understand my incentive to keep sending in hold orders is limited. I wouldn't want to be replaced out because of these nmr's.
- the Prime Minister of the British Commonwealth,
sir danilot
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:02:05 +0000
Subject: dc444 Spring 11 adjudication
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: ericmarr(at)gmail.com; hapolley(at)yahoo.ca; Johnston.scott(at)comcast.net; untitled36(at)hotmail.com; danilobliekthebest(at)hotmail.com; stuartandmaria(at)googlemail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com; mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com
Hi everyone,
All three EGPs failed. Here's your moves:
Austria:
F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Bohemia Supports A Kiel - Munich (*Void*)
A Budapest - Rumania (*Fails*)
F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Irish Sea
A Sevastopol Supports A Budapest - Rumania
A Smyrna Supports F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Trieste - Budapest (*Fails*)
A Tyrolia Supports A Bohemia
A Vienna Supports A Bohemia
England:
F St Petersburg(nc), no move received
France:
F Brest Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Burgundy Supports A Gascony - Marseilles
F English Channel Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Gascony - Marseilles (*Fails*)
A Kiel Supports A Munich
A Portugal Supports A Marseilles - Spain (*Void*)
F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Germany:
F Baltic Sea - Berlin
F Livonia - Prussia
A Munich Supports A Galicia - Bohemia (*Void*)
F Norway - Norwegian Sea
A Ruhr Supports A Munich
Italy:
F Gulf of Lyon Supports A Marseilles
A Marseilles Hold
A Piedmont Supports A Marseilles
F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean
F Western Mediterranean - North Africa
Russia:
F Ankara - Armenia
F Black Sea Supports A Galicia - Rumania
A Galicia - Rumania
A Silesia - Warsaw
A Ukraine Supports A Galicia - Rumania
No retreats are needed, so your next deadline is Autumn 11, due Thursday 28 March 2100GMT.
Jerome |
| dc444 Spring 11 adjudication (Winter Blitz) jerome777 Mar 25, 04:02 pm |
Hi everyone,
All three EGPs failed. Here's your moves:
Austria:
F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Bohemia Supports A Kiel - Munich (*Void*)
A Budapest - Rumania (*Fails*)
F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Irish Sea
A Sevastopol Supports A Budapest - Rumania
A Smyrna Supports F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Trieste - Budapest (*Fails*)
A Tyrolia Supports A Bohemia
A Vienna Supports A Bohemia
England:
F St Petersburg(nc), no move received
France:
F Brest Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Burgundy Supports A Gascony - Marseilles
F English Channel Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Gascony - Marseilles (*Fails*)
A Kiel Supports A Munich
A Portugal Supports A Marseilles - Spain (*Void*)
F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Germany:
F Baltic Sea - Berlin
F Livonia - Prussia
A Munich Supports A Galicia - Bohemia (*Void*)
F Norway - Norwegian Sea
A Ruhr Supports A Munich
Italy:
F Gulf of Lyon Supports A Marseilles
A Marseilles Hold
A Piedmont Supports A Marseilles
F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean
F Western Mediterranean - North Africa
Russia:
F Ankara - Armenia
F Black Sea Supports A Galicia - Rumania
A Galicia - Rumania
A Silesia - Warsaw
A Ukraine Supports A Galicia - Rumania
No retreats are needed, so your next deadline is Autumn 11, due Thursday 28 March 2100GMT.
Jerome |
| Haven philosophy - FuzzyLogic (Mar 26, 2013, 1:20 pm) |
Some say that the answer to life, the universe, and everything... is...
prelims.
Use 'em!
Results tomorrow...
From: Michael Sims
Sent: Thu 3/21/2013 3:51 PM
To: Éamon Driscoll
Subject: dc442 Haven w04 builds!
NEXT: Spring 05 due... Wed! 3/27, 12 noon Central.
Enjoy,
-mike
Archers:
Build A Spiral Castle
Build F Loxley
Barbarians:
Remove A River Saeren
Centaurs:
Defaults, removing F Cathal
Defaults, removing F TROG BOG
Dwarves:
Build F Mount Nimro
Build A Spirit Pond
Elves:
Build F Garthim
Build A Gelfling
Faeries:
Remove F Oz
Gnomes:
Build A Hundred Acre Wood
Build F Khemri
Hobbits:
Build F Mordor
Knights:
Build A Grimpen Ward
Build A Ice Reach
Leprechauns:
Build A Lubrick
Build A Whoville
Magicians:
Build F Krynn
Nomads:
Remove A Timberlands
Remove F ALL SAINTS BAY
Remove F Dragon Coast
Pirates:
Remove F Riku
Rogues:
Remove F POOL OF RADIANCE
Shades:
Remove A Heresh
Trolls:
Build A Niflheim
Build waived
Undead:
Remove A Necronomicon
Wizards:
Remove F Great Glacier
[Reply] |
| Oh what a lovely (war)game it was! - pieandmash (Mar 26, 2013, 10:58 am) |
Phew!a close run thing...all players and GM I salute you.
Yes having only 5 players on this map makes it brutal, but id like to see more trials before passing judgement on improvements because you can build anywhere, and as Aragon I was expecting Burgundy fleets on the med at any point, that would have done me. But certainly England looks impregnable with the sea spaces as they are.
The 4 way should have come about, which is a problem for this game I think, it only didnt because, well i got bored! but i was very lucky to get the 3 way.
A great bunch of players with no replacements- fantastic.
cheers
Max[Reply] |
| dc452 - Game Start - Viper (Mar 26, 2013, 10:19 am) |
Hello, everyone. Welcome to your second game in the Winter Blitz of 2013. I will be your gm for this game, and look forward to guiding you through your attempts to secure victory. Below you will find your assignment and your sparring partners. I have tried my best to give everyone a different region to patrol from your first game, because there should be some variety in your tournament experience.
IDCountryNameEmail
bschonerRussiaBrian Schonerbschoner(at)gmail.com
gizmo8204EnglandMatthew ODonnellgizmo8204(at)yahoo.com
hapolleyTurkey
Hugh Polleyhapolley(at)yahoo.ca
metalwarlordGermanyStuart Winchstuartandmaria(at)googlemail.com
psychosis1973FranceMichael Thompsonpsychosis(at)sky.com
thecount1282Austria
Greg
ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
umbletheheepItalyRuss Dennisruss(at)russdennis.net
Next Deadline:
Your Spring 1901 orders will be due on Monday, April 1, at 4pm CDT (9pm GMT)[Reply] |
| Oh what a lovely (war)game it was! - pedros (Mar 26, 2013, 9:52 am) |
That's it then. Ground to a 3-way deadlock after 8 years.
Very enjoyable game despite the disappointing result. The map needs some attention, but the idea (5-player expansion of Hundred) is a good one. Thanks Matthew for the opportunity and for the GMing - faultless (apart from your attempt to resurrect a Castilian fleet to hold me up even further!)
France is the obvious target with the map as it is - surrounded by the other four and an easy victim. And so it went. Once France was weakened Castile and Aragon decided to split off and fight Burgundy and me (England) but they had little chance of making progress. A fairly attritional war until Aragon stabbed Castile in 1306 (I think it was.) I may have missed a trick there; I wasn't fast enough of the mark to offer friendship to Castile, which might have changed the game, and he quickly dropped out. Aragon proposed that he and I take on Burgundy, but it seemed clear to me that he would gain a lot more than I would out of that one.
The final problem was the map - the sea spaces are totally divided into three sections - those to the north of France, the Med, and the two/three spaces in the West. England is always going to control the northern waters with no challenge let alone difficulty; Only Aragon gets a look in with the Med; and there is little room for movement in the West. Fairly early Castile tried to persuade me that there was no way into that area for me; I'm still not convinced that was true, but it was always going to take a long time (in the event Aragon's stab undermined Castile's defence.)
Those are the problems which need to be fixed before this becomes the excellent small variant it could become (alongside such as Baltic.)
1. Find a way to give France a decent game - at the very least it needs a fleet on the Channel coast. A France-Burgundy alliance might be interesting, but I doubt whether Burgundy would see enough mileage in it to make it a realistic starter.
2. Free up the western waters - I'd suggest that a new space is needed west of the current Mid-Atlantic and possibly touching Gibraltar and the Atlantic space in the north-west.
3. Open up the Med to somebody other than Aragon. At present there is almost no hope of anybody coming from the north managing to build even a single fleet there even if they do manage to take Piedmont or Languedoc.
But don't get me wrong - I think this map has huge potential.[Reply] |
| Oh what a lovely (war)game it was! (dc440) pieandmash Mar 26, 10:58 am |
Phew!a close run thing...all players and GM I salute you.
Yes having only 5 players on this map makes it brutal, but id like to see more trials before passing judgement on improvements because you can build anywhere, and as Aragon I was expecting Burgundy fleets on the med at any point, that would have done me. But certainly England looks impregnable with the sea spaces as they are.
The 4 way should have come about, which is a problem for this game I think, it only didnt because, well i got bored! but i was very lucky to get the 3 way.
A great bunch of players with no replacements- fantastic.
cheers
Max |
| Fall Due! Oceania DC437\Oceania DC437\Spring_Summe... - hapolley (Mar 26, 2013, 4:03 am) |
[OCEANIA_DC437 Deadline: Fall 2007 is 26 Mar 2013 (at)2400 that's TONIGHT!]If you receive this email twice I have no orders on file for you! ======================================================================
TROOP MOBILZATION RETREATS SU/2007
Aust : Retreats F ssi - sis
Fran : AUTO RETREAT F LIS-pap
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Japan continues to control large tracks of the Pacific!New_Zealand, and
Japan are The Boards Super Powers!
Australia loses Coral Islands and retreats Southern Solomon
Islands to Solomon Islands Sea!
Marshall Islands holds on and New Zealand continues to grow!
Indonesia units continue to support Japan's units!
France's Fleet LIS is auto retreated to pap!
Japan campaign for command of Midway finally succeeds!
[Reply] |
| dc446 - Spring 1911 - Viper (Mar 25, 2013, 5:18 pm) |
Well, that's more like it. All five of the draw proposals fail by varying degrees, and suddenly the moves get more interesting. No retreats to resolve, so we move right into the fall.
Austria:
A Bohemia Supports Tyrolia - Munich
A Galicia - Warsaw (*fails*)
A Moscow Supports Warsaw - Livonia
A Silesia Supports Tyrolia - Munich
A Trieste Supports Venice - Tyrolia
A Tyrolia - Munich (*fails*)
A Ukraine Supports Galicia - Warsaw
A Warsaw - Livonia (*bounce*)
A Armenia Holds
England:F Liverpool - North Atlantic Ocean
F Belgium - English Channel (*bounce*)
F North Sea Supports Edinburgh - Norwegian Sea
F Edinburgh - Norwegian Sea
A Denmark - Sweden (*disbanded*)
France:
F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - English Channel (*bounce*)
A Spain - Marseilles (*fails*)
F Portugal - Spain (nc) (*fails*)
A Gascony Supports Portugal - Spain
Germany:
A Kiel - Denmark
A Berlin Supports Munich
A Burgundy Supports Munich
A Munich Supports Piedmont - Tyrolia
A Prussia - Livonia (*bounce*)
Italy:
A Apulia - Venice
F Black Sea Holds
A Piedmont - Marseilles
F Gulf of Lyon Supports Piedmont - Marseilles
F Western Mediterranean - Spain (*fails*)
F North Africa - Mid-Atlantic Ocean (*fails*)
F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean (*fails*)
A Venice - Piedmont
Russia:
F Baltic Sea Supports Kiel - Denmark
F Norway - Sweden (*bounce*)
A St. Petersburg Supports Prussia - Livonia
Next Deadline:
Fall 1911 moves are due on Thursday, March 28, at 4pm CDT (9pm GMT)[Reply] |
| dc444 Spring 11 adjudication - jerome777 (Mar 25, 2013, 4:02 pm) |
Hi everyone,
All three EGPs failed. Here's your moves:
Austria:
F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Bohemia Supports A Kiel - Munich (*Void*)
A Budapest - Rumania (*Fails*)
F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Irish Sea
A Sevastopol Supports A Budapest - Rumania
A Smyrna Supports F Aegean Sea - Constantinople
A Trieste - Budapest (*Fails*)
A Tyrolia Supports A Bohemia
A Vienna Supports A Bohemia
England:
F St Petersburg(nc), no move received
France:
F Brest Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Burgundy Supports A Gascony - Marseilles
F English Channel Supports F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
A Gascony - Marseilles (*Fails*)
A Kiel Supports A Munich
A Portugal Supports A Marseilles - Spain (*Void*)
F Spain(sc) - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Germany:
F Baltic Sea - Berlin
F Livonia - Prussia
A Munich Supports A Galicia - Bohemia (*Void*)
F Norway - Norwegian Sea
A Ruhr Supports A Munich
Italy:
F Gulf of Lyon Supports A Marseilles
A Marseilles Hold
A Piedmont Supports A Marseilles
F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean
F Western Mediterranean - North Africa
Russia:
F Ankara - Armenia
F Black Sea Supports A Galicia - Rumania
A Galicia - Rumania
A Silesia - Warsaw
A Ukraine Supports A Galicia - Rumania
No retreats are needed, so your next deadline is Autumn 11, due Thursday 28 March 2100GMT.
Jerome[Reply] |
| SV: dc446 - Winter 1910 - bunwarpgazoo (Mar 23, 2013, 10:02 am) |
| Hi there,I did something stupid on the website again. I don’t know what but now it says Withdrawn1 next to my name bunwarpgazoo. I don’t want to withdraw at all, I want to finish round 1 and play in round 2. How do I fix this? Clicking confirm doesn’t help at all.John [Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - diplomat1 (Mar 23, 2013, 9:46 am) |
Sorry Mike, I do remember that you were Germany!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 2:34 PM, david knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hello too from David,
A very big thank you to Hamish for moderating the game. A nice soft touch applied with just the right balance of formality and sociability to keep the game going well. A real lesson in practical diplomacy for us all in general, but particularly for Greg in the light of his new appointment - well done Greg.
My comments will be rather brief, as this was not one of my better games and going into too much detail will hurt. Before I start, however, well done to Jerome on a first class solo. I hope that it won't mark you out as a target for the next round. You don't deserve that as you are both an excellent strategist and very effective communicator.
On the game itself Jerome's stab of me was the best (?worst?) I have had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of. Thank you so much Greg for encouraging him to stick the knife in  . Despite the stab Jerome and I remained cordial in our communications throughout, even though we both knew that we were only going through the motions. Thank you Jerome you are, as we say on this side of the pond, a gent.
Nathan and I too remained cordial, but we couldn't get our act together properly once the Turkish solo seemed on. It was tough for Nathan being caught between France and England. This was not an easy place to be for most of the game. In retrospect I perhaps could have communicated more effectively to him.
The latter comment applies in particular to Andrew. We never really established an effective communication channel. A pity because, given the enmity to our west and the latter strength of Turkey, a workable relationship would likely have stood us both in good stead.
Charles, what can I say? Other than the fact that I fully deserve Austria in my next game. Again, I apologise.
Nathan and I tried to work things out and, for a few years, it worked well. From a purely selfish point of view I would have liked an earlier outright aggressive move towards England by him. This could have enabled me to better resist the Turkish advance, but I realise that he had very valid reasons to be cautious.
Finally to Greg, an excellent player. Initially, we were never going to agree up north and I think we both knew that. You went on to outplay me up there, well done. I did, however, find it a little difficult to understand why, once the Turkish solo seemed likely, we could not come to a workable accommodation. I almost got the impression that, rather than go for the draw, your attitude was ''if I can't win then Turkey will''. Please forgive me if I have this wrong and I am sure that we will go on to be great allies in a future game.
Thank you all again for an excellent game.
Best wishes
David
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
I was remiss for not mentioning it myself - thanks Hamish!
N
From: Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>
To:
Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>
Cc: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>; Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>; "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating
between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - diplomat1 (Mar 23, 2013, 9:34 am) |
Hello too from David,
A very big thank you to Hamish for moderating the game. A nice soft touch applied with just the right balance of formality and sociability to keep the game going well. A real lesson in practical diplomacy for us all in general, but particularly for Greg in the light of his new appointment - well done Greg.
My comments will be rather brief, as this was not one of my better games and going into too much detail will hurt. Before I start, however, well done to Jerome on a first class solo. I hope that it won't mark you out as a target for the next round. You don't deserve that as you are both an excellent strategist and very effective communicator.
On the game itself Jerome's stab of me was the best (?worst?) I have had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of. Thank you so much Greg for encouraging him to stick the knife in . Despite the stab Jerome and I remained cordial in our communications throughout, even though we both knew that we were only going through the motions. Thank you Jerome you are, as we say on this side of the pond, a gent.
Nathan and I too remained cordial, but we couldn't get our act together properly once the Turkish solo seemed on. It was tough for Nathan being caught between France and England. This was not an easy place to be for most of the game. In retrospect I perhaps could have communicated more effectively to him.
The latter comment applies in particular to Andrew. We never really established an effective communication channel. A pity because, given the enmity to our west and the latter strength of Turkey, a workable relationship would likely have stood us both in good stead.
Charles, what can I say? Other than the fact that I fully deserve Austria in my next game. Again, I apologise.
Nathan and I tried to work things out and, for a few years, it worked well. From a purely selfish point of view I would have liked an earlier outright aggressive move towards England by him. This could have enabled me to better resist the Turkish advance, but I realise that he had very valid reasons to be cautious.
Finally to Greg, an excellent player. Initially, we were never going to agree up north and I think we both knew that. You went on to outplay me up there, well done. I did, however, find it a little difficult to understand why, once the Turkish solo seemed likely, we could not come to a workable accommodation. I almost got the impression that, rather than go for the draw, your attitude was ''if I can't win then Turkey will''. Please forgive me if I have this wrong and I am sure that we will go on to be great allies in a future game.
Thank you all again for an excellent game.
Best wishes
David
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
I was remiss for not mentioning it myself - thanks Hamish!
N
From: Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>
To:
Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>
Cc: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>; Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>; "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating
between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - ndeily (Mar 23, 2013, 8:12 am) |
I was remiss for not mentioning it myself - thanks Hamish! N
From: Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>
To:
Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>
Cc: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>; Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>; "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating
between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358[Reply] |
| dc446 - Winter 1910 - Viper (Mar 23, 2013, 12:20 am) |
Here are the adjustments. With your Spring 1911 moves, please vote on the list of EGPs.
England:
Build F Edinburgh
Build F Liverpool
Germany:
Remove A Marseilles
Russia:
Remove A Livonia
End-Game Proposals:
1. 4-way draw between Italy, Austria, Germany, and England
2. 5-way draw between France, Germany, Austria, England, and Italy
3. 5-way draw between Italy, Austria, Germany, England, and Russia
4. 5-way draw between Italy, Austria, Germany, Russia, and France
5. 6-way draw including all survivors
Next Deadline:
Spring 1911 moves and EGP votes are due on Monday, March 25, at 4pm CDT (9pm GMT)[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - thecount1282 (Mar 22, 2013, 11:31 pm) |
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - thecount1282 (Mar 22, 2013, 11:31 pm) |
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - thecount1282 (Mar 22, 2013, 11:31 pm) |
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - thecount1282 (Mar 22, 2013, 11:31 pm) |
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - MikeFarrington (Mar 22, 2013, 6:48 pm) |
Congrats to the Sultan.
I also felt some frustration in this game on a bunch of levels. This was my first DIP game in probably 15 years, and I didn't make enough time to do it right. I intermittently had some travel and then some computer issues that just complicated my own poorness in staying on top of communications, so to those who I did a disservice to on staying in touch, my apologies.
My perspective on the play in my area of the boards was as follows......
The E/F/G situation really didn't get sorted out quickly enough to benefit any of us, and I guess that fault lies on all of our parts. When the R/T was evident it should have motivated us to figure out a different path perhaps. David did a great job with regular and open comms and out of all my neighbors, he was the one I was most open with in return, even though I was staring at the Steamroller. I was optimistic that maybe he'd go towards Jerome first, but he buried his units deep into German territory right around the time that Jerome knifed him in return.
David and Nathan made offers to me that I acknowledge I should have listened to more, but hanging around as a 1SC power just for survival didn't seem right. I stayed allied with Greg (who I love the description of mercurial for by the way), and held out some hope that I could get my home centers back and actually use armies to push against Turkey at some point. A lot of what Nathan perceived to be repeated intrusions by Greg were willingly agreed to by me to keep E/G at pace with France's attacks. For my approach to work, David probably needed to pull a Russian unit away from my area, though, and that never happened. In the end when Greg was still supporting Turkey I knew my decisions were not going to pan out.
Finally, thanks Hamish for volunteering to GM.
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:27:17 -0700
From: ndeily(at)yahoo.com
Subject: Re: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
CC: mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com
Folks, I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game. Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there. I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all. N From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome[Reply] |
| dc444 Winter 10 adjudication and EGPs - jerome777 (Mar 22, 2013, 4:29 pm) |
Hi everyone:
France retreats F MAO - Bre
Austria builds A Tri
There are three EGPs on the table for your consideration:
Austria solo
Austria-Italy two-way draw
DIAS
Please include your votes for these EGPs along with your moves for Spring 11, both of which are due Monday 25 March, 2100GMT.
best
Jerome[Reply] |
| dc446 - Fall 1910 - Viper (Mar 22, 2013, 11:38 am) |
Let me be clear: the voting on these EGPs will happen with the spring orders. There is no need to be voting on them for the winter.
mvp
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Michael Penner <mvpenner(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Well, both EOGs fail and the moves come with just a little more movement than we're used to seeing... and what moves they are! We enter into what promises to be an interesting stretch. No retreats, just adjustments.
Austria:
A Bohemia Supports Tyrolia - Munich
A Galicia Supports Warsaw
A Moscow Supports Warsaw
A Sevastopol - Armenia
A Silesia - Prussia (*fails*)
A Trieste - Tyrolia (*fails*)
A Tyrolia - Munich (*fails*)
A Ukraine Supports Moscow
A Warsaw Supports Silesia - Prussia
England:
A London - Denmark
F North Sea Convoys London - Denmark
F English Channel - Belgium
France:
F Mid-Atlantic Ocean Supports Spain (*cut*)
A Spain Supports Marseilles (*fails*)
A Gascony Supports Spain
F Portugal Supports Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Germany:
A Burgundy Supports Marseilles
A Marseilles Supports Spain (*cut*)
A Kiel Supports Munich
A Berlin Supports Munich
A Munich Supports Berlin (*cut*)
A Prussia Supports Livonia (*cut*)
Italy:
A Apulia Supports Venice
F Constantinople - Black Sea
A Piedmont - Marseilles (*fails*)
F Gulf of Lyon Supports Western Mediterranean - Spain
F Western Mediterranean - Spain (*fails*)
F North Africa - Mid-Atlantic Ocean (*fails*)
F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean (*fails*)
A Venice Supports Tyrolia
Russia:
F Norway Supports St. Petersburg
A St. Petersburg Supports Livonia
F Baltic Sea Supports Prussia
A Livonia Supports Prussia
End-Game Proposals:
4-way draw between Italy, Austria, Germany, and England
5-way draw between France, Germany, Austria, England, and Italy
5-way draw between Italy, Austria, Germany, England, and Russia
5-way draw between Italy, Austria, Germany, Russia, and France
6-way draw including all survivors
Statistics:
Austria has 9 sc's - 9 units = no adjustment necessary
England has 5 sc's - 3 units = 2 builds
France has 4 sc's - 4 units = no adjustment necessary
Germany has 5 sc's - 6 units = 1 disband
Italy has 8 sc's - 8 units = no adjustment necessary
Russia has 3 sc's - 4 units = 1 disband
Next Deadline:
Winter 1910 adjustments are due on Friday, March 22, at 4pm CDT (9pm GMT)[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - ndeily (Mar 22, 2013, 11:27 am) |
Folks, I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game. Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there. I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all. N From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement - ConradW (Mar 22, 2013, 12:26 am) |
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome[Reply] |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) ndeily Mar 22, 11:27 am |
Folks, I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game. Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there. I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all. N From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) MikeFarrington Mar 22, 06:48 pm |
Congrats to the Sultan.
I also felt some frustration in this game on a bunch of levels. This was my first DIP game in probably 15 years, and I didn't make enough time to do it right. I intermittently had some travel and then some computer issues that just complicated my own poorness in staying on top of communications, so to those who I did a disservice to on staying in touch, my apologies.
My perspective on the play in my area of the boards was as follows......
The E/F/G situation really didn't get sorted out quickly enough to benefit any of us, and I guess that fault lies on all of our parts. When the R/T was evident it should have motivated us to figure out a different path perhaps. David did a great job with regular and open comms and out of all my neighbors, he was the one I was most open with in return, even though I was staring at the Steamroller. I was optimistic that maybe he'd go towards Jerome first, but he buried his units deep into German territory right around the time that Jerome knifed him in return.
David and Nathan made offers to me that I acknowledge I should have listened to more, but hanging around as a 1SC power just for survival didn't seem right. I stayed allied with Greg (who I love the description of mercurial for by the way), and held out some hope that I could get my home centers back and actually use armies to push against Turkey at some point. A lot of what Nathan perceived to be repeated intrusions by Greg were willingly agreed to by me to keep E/G at pace with France's attacks. For my approach to work, David probably needed to pull a Russian unit away from my area, though, and that never happened. In the end when Greg was still supporting Turkey I knew my decisions were not going to pan out.
Finally, thanks Hamish for volunteering to GM.
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:27:17 -0700
From: ndeily(at)yahoo.com
Subject: Re: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
CC: mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com
Folks, I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game. Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there. I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all. N From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) thecount1282 Mar 22, 11:31 pm |
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358 |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) thecount1282 Mar 22, 11:31 pm |
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358 |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) thecount1282 Mar 22, 11:31 pm |
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358 |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) thecount1282 Mar 22, 11:31 pm |
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358 |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) ndeily Mar 23, 08:12 am |
I was remiss for not mentioning it myself - thanks Hamish! N
From: Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>
To:
Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>
Cc: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>; Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>; "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating
between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358 |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) diplomat1 Mar 23, 09:34 am |
Hello too from David,
A very big thank you to Hamish for moderating the game. A nice soft touch applied with just the right balance of formality and sociability to keep the game going well. A real lesson in practical diplomacy for us all in general, but particularly for Greg in the light of his new appointment - well done Greg.
My comments will be rather brief, as this was not one of my better games and going into too much detail will hurt. Before I start, however, well done to Jerome on a first class solo. I hope that it won't mark you out as a target for the next round. You don't deserve that as you are both an excellent strategist and very effective communicator.
On the game itself Jerome's stab of me was the best (?worst?) I have had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of. Thank you so much Greg for encouraging him to stick the knife in . Despite the stab Jerome and I remained cordial in our communications throughout, even though we both knew that we were only going through the motions. Thank you Jerome you are, as we say on this side of the pond, a gent.
Nathan and I too remained cordial, but we couldn't get our act together properly once the Turkish solo seemed on. It was tough for Nathan being caught between France and England. This was not an easy place to be for most of the game. In retrospect I perhaps could have communicated more effectively to him.
The latter comment applies in particular to Andrew. We never really established an effective communication channel. A pity because, given the enmity to our west and the latter strength of Turkey, a workable relationship would likely have stood us both in good stead.
Charles, what can I say? Other than the fact that I fully deserve Austria in my next game. Again, I apologise.
Nathan and I tried to work things out and, for a few years, it worked well. From a purely selfish point of view I would have liked an earlier outright aggressive move towards England by him. This could have enabled me to better resist the Turkish advance, but I realise that he had very valid reasons to be cautious.
Finally to Greg, an excellent player. Initially, we were never going to agree up north and I think we both knew that. You went on to outplay me up there, well done. I did, however, find it a little difficult to understand why, once the Turkish solo seemed likely, we could not come to a workable accommodation. I almost got the impression that, rather than go for the draw, your attitude was ''if I can't win then Turkey will''. Please forgive me if I have this wrong and I am sure that we will go on to be great allies in a future game.
Thank you all again for an excellent game.
Best wishes
David
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
I was remiss for not mentioning it myself - thanks Hamish!
N
From: Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>
To:
Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>
Cc: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>; Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>; "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating
between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358 |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) diplomat1 Mar 23, 09:46 am |
Sorry Mike, I do remember that you were Germany!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 2:34 PM, david knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hello too from David,
A very big thank you to Hamish for moderating the game. A nice soft touch applied with just the right balance of formality and sociability to keep the game going well. A real lesson in practical diplomacy for us all in general, but particularly for Greg in the light of his new appointment - well done Greg.
My comments will be rather brief, as this was not one of my better games and going into too much detail will hurt. Before I start, however, well done to Jerome on a first class solo. I hope that it won't mark you out as a target for the next round. You don't deserve that as you are both an excellent strategist and very effective communicator.
On the game itself Jerome's stab of me was the best (?worst?) I have had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of. Thank you so much Greg for encouraging him to stick the knife in . Despite the stab Jerome and I remained cordial in our communications throughout, even though we both knew that we were only going through the motions. Thank you Jerome you are, as we say on this side of the pond, a gent.
Nathan and I too remained cordial, but we couldn't get our act together properly once the Turkish solo seemed on. It was tough for Nathan being caught between France and England. This was not an easy place to be for most of the game. In retrospect I perhaps could have communicated more effectively to him.
The latter comment applies in particular to Andrew. We never really established an effective communication channel. A pity because, given the enmity to our west and the latter strength of Turkey, a workable relationship would likely have stood us both in good stead.
Charles, what can I say? Other than the fact that I fully deserve Austria in my next game. Again, I apologise.
Nathan and I tried to work things out and, for a few years, it worked well. From a purely selfish point of view I would have liked an earlier outright aggressive move towards England by him. This could have enabled me to better resist the Turkish advance, but I realise that he had very valid reasons to be cautious.
Finally to Greg, an excellent player. Initially, we were never going to agree up north and I think we both knew that. You went on to outplay me up there, well done. I did, however, find it a little difficult to understand why, once the Turkish solo seemed likely, we could not come to a workable accommodation. I almost got the impression that, rather than go for the draw, your attitude was ''if I can't win then Turkey will''. Please forgive me if I have this wrong and I am sure that we will go on to be great allies in a future game.
Thank you all again for an excellent game.
Best wishes
David
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
I was remiss for not mentioning it myself - thanks Hamish!
N
From: Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>
To:
Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>
Cc: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>; Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>; "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Oh and, most importantly, thanks a million to Hamish for a great job as GM!
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
First of all, let me thank everyone for an awesome game. There were some really great players here and my hat is off to Jerome for a beautifully orchestrated victory.
My perspective on this game is as follows:
1) One of the biggest mistakes I made in this game was basing my strategy on theory rather than on personalities. Theoretically, England and France are unlikely friends and, as such, it makes sense for England to ally with Germany against the French. In 1900 and 1901 I tested both opponents and when both proved to be trustworthy, I decided to throw my lot in with Mike. This proved to be a fatal error. Nathan was a very astute and clever player and would have been a good ally throughout the game. Unfortunately, he was also highly suspicious of me and our early battles eroded any semblance of trust between us. I tried to rebuild the relationship but, unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I were willing to make our builds in a way that would weaken us vis a vis the other. Ultimately, I really regretted making an alliance with Mike who was indecisive throughout the game - constantly oscillating
between Russia and England and often unable to make a strong move (more on that later). So, as I said, the lesson I learned is that one should base one's alliances on personality rather than on tactical theory and, furthermore, that it is always better to ally with experienced players rather than with novices.
2) David and I have played before and I have utmost respect for his skills. However, I saw that Russia and Turkey were close allies and that the only place for me to expand would be in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it became crystal clear that if I didn't do something quickly then the R/T juggernaut would dominate the game. I think that the first of four turning points (for me) in this game was in the Fall of 1903 when I managed to knock Russia out of Norway. This prevented David from getting a crucial build and allowed me to convince Jerome to stab David (although he was already leaning towards that without any convincing from me). From that point on I knew that I had to destroy Russia. However, it appears that I overestimate the closeness of the Russo-French relationship. According to Nathan my two enemies were never particularly tight, but I assumed that I was battling against a Russo-French Axis.
3) Nathan's ability to invade England with a transport of an army from Spain to Wales was beautiful and unexpected. That was the second turning point of the game and really hurt me.
4) Still, I think that the ultimate turning point happened when Mike failed to destroy Russia's fleet in Berlin after we had trapped the aforementioned fleet in Kiel. The destruction of that fleet would have allowed me to throw all my forces against France in the west and probably would have guaranteed at least a dual victory. As it happened, Mike refused to budge his army from Munich and the fleet survived forcing me to stick around the east for the rest of the game.
5) The fourth and final turning point of the game happened in the fall of 1909 when I decided to take Portugal instead of taking Brest. I had an inkling that Jerome might trap me, but I was confident that Nathan would move his army to Brest to counter my move there. Had I moved to Brest, I probably would have been able to fend Jerome off for a long time and most likely would not have agreed to a Solo victory by Turkey.
I apologize for being a little MIA over the last few turns. Actually, I was busy making final preparations for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment which I passed yesterday! Hopefully, real Diplomacy awaits!
Best of luck to everyone in round 2 and congrats to Jerome!
Sincerely,
Greg Shtraks
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
I'll keep it short and sweet: This was a very frustrating game. Hats off to Greg, who had an almost mystical ability to influence Germany and who was tactically astute enough to expand across a difficult frontier, and also to Jerome for a well-executed solo (which could and should have been given to him many turns ago, saving us all the trouble, I suppose he wanted as many points as possible?) I found I couldn't be an effective force on three fronts (though I did fine with two), and that was my undoing. I take some pride in being in two English centers at the end of the game.
Things went very slowly for me because of tensions with Greg, and by the time Russia was
fully engaged, Turkey had expanded too far and fast for us to really stop him. I'll admit that it seemed to me Greg was primarily interested in helping Jerome win the game as opposed to winning or sharing a win himself. It may be that I should have trusted Greg more, but his play was mercurial at best, and he was pretty demanding and (I thought) unreasonable in wanting me to leave myself completely open to him in order to counter Turkey - so I take my share of responsibility there.
I didn't understand Andrew's play at all, but I suppose that things could have worked better for him if R/T was not so solid. My style is to find an ally and commit, and I didn't have a willing partner in Germany (very aligned to England), England (at all, it seems) or Russia (until much later on - David and I did collaborate a bit, but Germany proved intractable despite several attempts - I don't know how after
losing as many centers as he did to England and as many offers as we made him, this persisted - maybe we weren't persuasive enough. Perhaps I'll see some of you in Round Two. Good luck all.
N
From: Charles Welsh <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>
To: Jerome Payne <jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com>; David Knight <davidknight1955(at)gmail.com>; me here <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; Andrew Cassese <landru428(at)aol.com>; Michael Farrington <michael_farrington(at)msn.com>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com>; Greg Shtraks <greg.shtraks(at)gmail.com>; Blitz Messageboard <blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Cc: "mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com" <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
Congrats Jerome, very impressive and I did pay a bit of attention to the later game despite my early exit.
Thank for the complement, I am not sure it is so much earned my tactical game is way ahead of my diplomatic game, so I suffer quite a bit in this winter tournament.
Still one has to expect this as Austria, sometimes you just get clobbered and if the russian is clever enough to order Gal S Ser - Bud (which I did consider, too briefly clearly) then the pain is over even faster, Didn't do Russia much good in the long run...
By the way Mike, Austria is looking very familiar to me in the winter tournament
And Hamish you did a great job GMing, even with the time diff across the pond.
On to round two.
Charlie
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:05:20 +0000
Subject: dc444 Turkey EOG statement
From: jeromerpayne(at)gmail.com
To: welsh_stroud(at)msn.com; davidknight1955(at)gmail.com; jerome777(at)ymail.com; landru428(at)aol.com; michael_farrington(at)msn.com; ndeily(at)yahoo.com; Greg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com; blitz(at)diplomaticcorp.com
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358
--
Greg ShtraksGreg.Shtraks(at)gmail.com
917-834-8358 |
| dc444 Turkey EOG statement (Winter Blitz) jerome777 Mar 21, 05:05 pm |
Hi everyone,
Wow! My first ever solo at the diplomaticcorp website, and my second ever solo in my Diplomacy playing career! It seems to have taken me a very long time to achieve, and I'm rather proud of achieving this solo against six very good players.
I would like to say, 'Thank you,' to all six of my opponents for playing in this game with me, and for making this game an enjoyably yet rather challenging one. Thank you also to Hamish for doing an excellent job in GMing the game, I am a GM myself and I know that the task of being GM is largely a thankless task. Without GMs there would be no game for us to play, and I want to pass on my thanks and respect for giving up your time to help us players.
So onto my view of the game. Diplomacy was very slow and far-between before the Spring 1901 moves, certainly compared to other games I've played. Maybe we all had New-Year hangovers, or possibly because I was engaged at that point with three other games, I didn't really have the time to chase other players to get back to me on the messages I'd sent them, so I concentrated on discussions with the one player that was in regular contact with me - David (Russia). David and I started off this game with a firm alliance, and plans to try to achieve a two-way RT draw. Andrew (Italy) also made a brief attempt to form an alliance with me, but his request that I not build any fleets had my alarm bells ringing as to exactly how committed he would ever be to peace with me, and so I chose to go along the Russian route.
The RT went well in the first few game years, and I'm particularly pleased and proud at the way we nailed Austria to the wall together very early on in the game. I know that Charlie (Austria) is a very strong player indeed, having suffered at his hands in previous games, and I also know that no Turkey ever does well in a game of Diplomacy if Austria is having an easy time of it. So, there was no alternative, Austria had to go, and we dispatched him together with aplomb.
Once Charlie was out of the way, I begun to make some headway against Italy, aided by an unfortunately timed NMR from Andrew allowing me to grab TYS in 1904. David threw all of his force onto his German front, and succeeded wonderfully in crippling Michael (Germany) whilst also throwing himself off-balance. This coupled with the seemingly insatiable rise of Nathan (France) convinced me that if there was ever going to be a time to break ranks with Russia and make a play for personal glory, this was it.
Matters were helped somewhat by the seemingly personal emnity between Nathan and Greg (England), meaning that I was pushing at an open door in convincing Greg to share ideas for attacking France and Russia with me. We agreed to pursue the best possible result open to the two of us whilst helping one another out. Greg wanted a two-way draw with me, and had my progress been slower in the Balkans, then that might well have been a possible outcome for us. Still, we play this game to win. Next time Greg, I'm sure I'll be the one asking you to consider a two-way with me...
The vital thing from my point of view was to keep France distracted in his vendetta against England and keep him from building or moving fleets to the Mediterranean so as to prop Italy up, or worse, so as to try to grab some of the Italian spoils for himself. What I needed to do was to get to GoL/WMS as soon as I possibly could, and although he had diligently blocked me well up to that point, in an unlucky (for him) 50-50 coin-flip move Italy failed to stop me taking Tun in Spring 05. The build was nice, the disband to be suffered by Italy even nicer - but the access to GoL that I gained from my retreat was the ultimate prize, and move to GoL I promptly did. That for me was the champagne moment in this game - I then knew that at the least, I would share in a draw from this game.
I'm still surprised that France agreed to bounce GoL - Mar with Spa - Mar with me in Autumn 05, and even more surprised that France did not see the value of the move I made in ordering GoL to hold, thus having him block Mar for his build. Nathan accused me there of making a pointless stab upon him for no value - I didn't think it wise at the time to point out exactly how valuable that stab actually was for me, so I let Nathan continue thinking that my stab was pointless. Nathan built a fleet in Bre, and at first I thought that the MAO fleet was going to enter the Med and challenge me, but a bit of cunning diplomacy aimed at Nathan and Greg helped in keeping France's eyes turned northwards, and the Med remained mine.
From here on in I needed a bit of good luck and a bit of fancy footwork, both of which I got, to slowly grind away a position in the Balkans, defending parts of the front whilst attacking others and also trying to whittle away at Italy's centres to fuel my bid for the solo. Greg's distracting of Russia to the north was immensely helpful, as was Nathan's reluctance to enter the Med. Despite all sorts of fanciful draws being proposed by others, I grew more and more confident of getting a positive result in this game, and so it ultimately proved.
The last set of orders ensured I finished the game with exactly 18 centres, whilst
leaving the other survivors with England as a clear second place, and
Italy with two centres. There's no point in soloing with more than 18
centres with the tournament scoring system as it is, since 18 is the
maximum number of 0.1 points you can get for your centre count (giving a
maximum of 21.8 points for the solo). I could have soloed with 20 or 21 centres if I had chosen to, but that would have involved damaging my ally Greg's chances of
coming second in this game, and in finishing as far up the ladder as
possible in the tournament after the second round. And back at the start
of 1909 Italy approached me offering to do my bidding if I would let him live. I promised Andrew a survival if he
ordered as I asked him to, which he then faithfully did for the next few
turns (hence his retreat to Mar last winter for example). I'm very pleased that David also managed to survive the game, his excellent play early on in the game deserves it.
Overall then a good game for me which (perhaps unsurprisingly) I enjoyed very much. I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in your second round games for the Blitz tournament, and also say that I look forwards to crossing swords with you all again sometime soon. I'm sure any of you would beat the pants off of me if we do...
Best,
Sultan Jerome |
