Good Evening!
Ordinarily I'm quite an advocate for EOGs, but my memory is honestly quite flagging. So, yes I'll do an EOG, but it will be rather short and lacking a thorough chronological journal.
Thank you Douglas for hosting this variant -- I am a little sad that my "custom" empire happened to be Austria-shuffle-south, but it was still entertaining and being able to call myself "Yugoslavia", for all the good it pragmatically did, served to keep my attention quite well. I one day hope to run a game as smooth[ly] as yours.
I was flattered with how many players wanted to work with me, and genuinely seemed to follow through on the goal -- the exception naturally being post-Turkey Russia, but I DID open into Rumania, and things went pretty south after that... Honestly, I was planning on wiping Turkey out as soon as possible with Russian help -- his opening to Greece was, while quite a natural opening, rather threatening to my Balkan Empire. Russia, forgive my betrayal -- you held out til' the end, and forgive any unnecessary treachery on my part -- for me, half the fun is the con, not the end.
Now, I have been a small nation before a large one in past games and I understand, though many players say it "poor showmanship" or whatever, that the first and most satisfying reaction is to act however you damn well please, survival or not, just to prove that you DO have an effect on the game. To me, this is a fundamental concept necessary for "soft" conquering -- as long as a player feels that they have choices and input, and most importantly that you've GIVEN them this, they will likely follow you to the grave or until you REVOKE such freedom. Unfortunately for me, it was this second point that I did not tread upon quite hard enough and towards the end my Turkish "vassal" became a liability that I honestly could do nothing about. 
I trusted him explicitly [barring that one scare], so it never came of much, although I do believe some of my later orders would've given him cause for concern -- perhaps rightly so, I can't honestly recall what my strategy was there. For what it's worth, thanks for sticking by me even though I could've been an easy stab at several points.
Italy, though I had initially quite determined that I would eliminate you with French assistance, a curious movement by Russia made my natural paranoia look for allies -- I kept telling France "one more season!", waving those perfect chances to bounce you for home centres, and eventually we fell into a perfect demilitarized peace -- I daresay we never had any misunderstanding [except maybe my arrogantly declared ship, I don't know]. Towards the end France and Germany had convinced me that an alliance with them was useful, and sadly that meant to had to go -- luckily, I never had to realize your end. Thanks for sticking with me for better or worse, and in essence serving as my navy.
France, I honestly began with the idea of an AF alliance taking the board. I found myself the weakest player at the start, and kept equivocating because I didn't want unnecessary risks -- and I'm sure you gave up on my wishy-washy self after a while. All the same, I quite enjoyed our communications -- I recall in our earlier exchanges I took liberties and expressed my ideas in prose too flowery for what was to be exterminating our neighbour. Fun, all the same -- thanks.
Germany, it was [ironically] your equivocation as you said that led to your stunted growth. I asked for assistance and you would always just sit it out, and eventually I determined [while being very wishy-washy myself] that I'd run my way through the alps.
England, we didn't interact much until the end, although we were entirely misaligned for my hypothetical solo, so I was a little loathe to trust you -- all the same, you helped me break the stalemate and, in theory, we could have ground our way through Franco-Germany. But, by that time the game had lost it's flare, and I thought I'd give stabbing you a half-hearted go. Sorry, for what it's worth.
I am first an foremost a player for the melodramatic -- I'm sure more than half of you realize that. Second, I play for the fun of conning, alliances, and, in general, communications: This ties in with the first. Thirdly, I play to win. And in this game, though I thought for a moment I was well on my way to a solo, I had lost the interesting exchanges, and my lazy attempts at stabbing didn't garner anything new. In my books, I had "won" my conditions when I had literally every [surviving] player on the board suggesting an alliance with me, the largest nation. Granted, a few of these offers were only to break a stalemate, but all the same I had a roaring good time for quite a while there. Thank you everyone for an entertaining game!
Any questions or comments, and I'll try my best to answer.
Hope to see you all on the battlefield again some time!-K.T.Yugoslavia

From: lindav123(at)hotmail.com
To: dirk(at)knemeyer.com; douglasefresh(at)googlemail.com
CC: livinglifeforothers(at)gmail.com; mike_hyman(at)hotmail.com; michaelfaraday(at)live.com; mistro914(at)gmail.com; dc301(at)diplomaticcorp.com; rob.a.goodwin(at)googlemail.com
Subject: RE: DC301 - TTP - Fall 1905: End of Game
Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 18:23:48 +0100




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> P.S. - David, at least from my side, all of our antipathy was in good
> fun, frustrated though I really was!!!


ha ha...well, from my side....MOST of it was in good fun

 

seriously your "own lack of strategic planning" drove me absolutely insane this game....when someones diplomacy is sending you one message but their moves on the board something TOTALLY OPPOSITE, it doesnt leave you many options!!!

 

But no worries, at least we somehow managed to salvage a draw out of it. Despite all the bad blood Id still look forward to another game with both you and Michael. It was never personal for me.

 

Congrats to Austria though....clearly head and shoulders deserved the board top this game.

 

Cheers Doug, nice variant, I'd certainly play it again.

 


 
> CC: lindav123(at)hotmail.com; livinglifeforothers(at)gmail.com; mike_hyman(at)hotmail.com; michaelfaraday(at)live.com; mistro914(at)gmail.com; dc301(at)diplomaticcorp.com; rob.a.goodwin(at)googlemail.com
> From: dirk(at)knemeyer.com
> To: douglasefresh(at)googlemail.com
> Subject: Re: DC301 - TTP - Fall 1905: End of Game