Thanks guys for the great game!
 
As my first online game of diplomacy I sure learned alot about how to and how not to play the game! The game took a heap of twists and turns with a couple of players dropping out and major alliances rising and crumbling throughout. I guess Italy, Germany and I just formed an alliance out of convenience of common enemies and because it stuck we were able to close out for a three-way draw.
 
From my perspective this is how the game went:
At the start everyone was pretty chatty and straight away I struck up an alliance with Germany 1 and Turkey whether or not these were secret or not I don't know. My main aims were to help Germany 1 take out England 1 and help Turkey take out Austria (I guess both of you were the least vocal and the England 1 NMR didn't help). If I learned anything here I guess, my long term plans weren't too solid, particularly as I had never really played passed 1905 before. So after Austria was cleaned up, we didn't really know what to do next.. Italy was getting in the way but Turkey and I could never really set up the next few moves properly.
 
Having two major fronts early in the game allowed me to make major gains and I got my SC count up to 9. This maybe alerted the rest of the field that I was expanding too quickly and coupled with the fact that both Turkey and I were offline for nearly a week and started to mistrust eachother lined me up for a couple of major stabs. Germany 1 and Turkey turned on me and after putting up a fight for a turn or so I decided to retreat and defend a much smaller territory of about 3-4 SC's. The relationship between Turkey and me never really got repaired over time..
 
I think my saving grace was when Germany 1 dropped out and the fact that he had started a war with myself, left him open to France advancing on the lowlands and possibly German soil. Germany 2 and I realised we had our own problems and I guess left eachother alone for a while to deal with our own issues. The move on England 1/2 eventually worked out except definitely not the way I wanted(!) - having Germany 2 in Scandanavia and me in England made things a little uncomfortable. By this stage of the game our common alliances with Germany allowed Italy and I to open communication channels and start to work together on Turkish SC's.
 
As I said, I learned alot about different strategies and ways to play the game and overall am pretty happy with the experience I had.
 
Notes to those still in the game at the end
- Germany 2: You coming into the game certainly changed things up.. taking a pretty different tact to Germany 1. As you said, the retreat to Gascony was a lucky break you took full advantage of and really helped turn the war between France and Germany. Thank you for not going for the glory and staying true to the alliance - I was aware and very worried that you could have taken the solo pretty much at any of the last two or three autumns. Well done and great strategising for a replacement player!
 
- Italy: We never really had a strong allliance until the last year or so. Not really close enough to help eachother, we still did well to stuff eachother up a couple of times! The Italy/Russia relationship is an interesting one in Diplomacy.. Anyway - great game and you certainly provided some entertainment along the way!
 
- Turkey: We had a powerful alliance at the start and after trying to repair it after your first stab only to be stabbed again was really the last I could trust you in the game. Looking back, I don't really know what went wrong - if we stayed strong we could have taken the game as a 2-way draw I think. We had good chats about the game and different strategies and you certainly put up a great fight. I look forward to playing against (or hopefully with) you again.
 
Thanks again guys!
 
Cheers,
Nick