Hey all,
 
Just back from a week in Disney World to a solo victory. 
Tho I figured I had it as of last turn, cuz I was watching that 25 and
trying to get there.  Overall I think that 25 may be low for victory
conditions, as it’s not close enough to half the dots on the board. 
A 2-way draw is near impossible, and a 3-way very unlikely…  With 70
sc, and if anyone gets 25 they win, something like 23-23-24 would be tough to
pull off.  Thus bumping it up a couple centers might be good.  Maybe
28 or 30?  Other than that, I love this map!  It is very nicely done,
and I’ve played it twice now and enjoyed it both times.  Last time I
was China and got slaughtered.  This time as a replacement Congo. 
The straits are a great addition, I like variants that add or change a few
simple aspects of the game like this does, and that don’t get too
complex.  This meets all those desires, on a beautifully drawn map. 
The balance between sea zones and land zones is great, and I never felt like I
could only attack ppl around me.  It was always an option to go overseas w
reasonable speed and success.
 
This game…
 
I was a replacement, and I took over for the first Congo who had
war w just about all his neighbors.  So my first goal was to curb all
those problems he created.  I offered everyone pretty much whatever they
wanted to try to avert some of the wars, and to my surprise, those negotiations
went pretty well.  I came out of the first year about as strong as anyone,
and cemented some early alliances.  Oceania was the main one.  Kyle
and I were working tightly most of the game.  Also formed peace deals with
Persia, Russia, Quebec, and Amazon.  Sahara was the least responsive of
all, so I figured that was the way to go.  Made a quick lunge into that
region, and then Sahara bailed.  In came Sean, which I must say had you
been at the helm of Sahara from the beginning, things would have been vastly
different.  Unfortunately you took over at a time when I had the leg up on
Sahara already, and so your options were limited to as we both knew, either
plotting and trying to rally ppl against me, or risking becoming a pawn to help
me.  You were right to make the stabs you did, and I really guessed lucky
on a couple 50/50’s that went my way, and that made all the difference.
 
My first notable move was after just a turn or two in the game,
stabbing Warren / Amazon.  I’m not sure if it was a mistake not
building an army at home, or what was going on there w the all-out naval push
north, but w nothing to try for LaPaz, I made the move.  I was able to
land an army on S.America before Amazon could build one, and that made it so
that he really couldn’t defend.  I ended up getting the lion’s
share of the centers, purely by having more units mobilized that way than Kyle,
and that set me up as a board leader with Russia who just finished off Europe.
 
So I knew avoiding war w Russia was critical.  If we
engaged across the Med, it would tie up a lot of our units while not being able
to advance very far.  Europe was first out, and this taught me the rule
about taking over your enemy’s home centers, which I didn’t know
about!  This was a big thing to learn, seeing as SA was just about out too,
followed shortly by Sahara.  Converting these forward build points was
really a key part of the game, and another aspect of it that I really like.
 
Eventually the game came down to a few big powers… myself,
Russia, Quebec and Oceania… and Persia balanced precariously between them
all.  I was hoping that ppl would not ally against me, so I kept my allies
close and tried to push on as long as possible, encouraging wars against Persia
and Russia (who I never really intended to attack).  Then I made what I
thought was the deciding move for me, stabbing Oceania.  Basically he was
growing pretty big, and tho not as big as me, he was bringing a lot of fleets
to bear on the Indian Ocean against Persia… and if we took Persia down,
those fleets would become orphaned there w nobody to attack.  They might
have eventually stabbed me, or might not, but for sure I’d not be able to
ever invade Oceania if he took down Persia.  So I worked to prop up Persia
just long enough to slip in a good Ocean stab, and that set me up with some
great position in the Pacific.  I needed a good 4-5 centers that I couldn’t
seem to find, and digging them out of Oceania worked well. 
 
The last couple of course came from dropping into some allied centers
that I couldn’t possibly hold if the game were to go on, like Miami and
Rome, but if I got the 25 it was over so that didn’t matter.  I got
enough, and so it’s done.  Yeah it was largely cuz ppl weren’t
watching the magic number cuz if they were I’m sure Joe and Jim would
have called off their war against each other in plenty of time to stop
me.  I even didn’t know the number, until the last couple years when
I decided I was getting pretty close to being a board topper, and I should go
see what it would take to win.  I was surprised when I saw I only needed
to pick up a handful to pull it off, and hoped nobody else was aware of this.
 
Great game all!
-mike