Chris, you did an excellent job at GM'ing by any measure, not to mention this was your first go at it. Well done, and thank you.
Max, you played as good a France as I've seen in - in the early game, in particular. Your solo is well-deserved: congratulations.
This was a frustrating game to play in, to the point where I don't want to say too much about it. I was a first year replacement player as Austria. I actually loved the position, because I felt my predecessor made good, aggressive moves that positioned me well, yet I could disavow the aggression and simply start with good position and new diplomatic relations. Unfortunately, I was surrounded by players who were inconsistent and unpredictable. Keeping their word one season, breaking it the next; moving coordinated one season, acting paranoid the next. It completely bogged down the east. As such, all of us stayed at a low or medium number of centers until game end. Then, the inability to band together and force a draw with France - which was absolutely was in our reach - gave Max a solo that, while it could have been prevented, his play certainly deserved.
While not a particularly good game for me, I thought I did a nice job tactically, managing to grow even as RT moved against me together at the end of the game while I was essentially isolated. Also I liked Kon, the Italian replacement player. I regret we weren't in a position to do something more interesting together. Other than these things, I'm glad to see dc332 more into my rearview mirror.
Congrats again Max, and thanks again Chris!
On Nov 6, 2010, at 1:36 AM, Christopher Fisher wrote:
The EOG proposal for a French Solo has been accepted by all parties and orders have been sent in, so I'm going to speed adjudicate the Winter phase.
End of Game
-------------------
France was voted as having solo'd and ends 1908 (and the game) with 16 SCs. Turkey, Russia, Austria and Italy have all Survived. Thank you all for playing and making my first GM experience a most interesting game! I apologize for a few deadline slips by me throughout, I tried to keep everything running and think for the most part we were involved in a pretty fluid game.
I invite you all to write your Endgame comments and send them to the other players through responding to this email or starting another thread. If it's not too much trouble I'd love to also see your thoughts so please include me! As a GM it's easy to be a little out of the loop as I can only guess at the negotiations happening behind the scenes. I really enjoy reading After Action Reports and connecting the different events of the game, and hope you all enjoy writing them just as much.
Ownership:
Austria: Budapest, Bulgaria, Serbia, Trieste, Vienna.
France: Belgium, Brest, Denmark, Edinburgh, Holland, Kiel, Liverpool, London, Marseilles, Munich, Paris, Portugal, Rome, Spain, Sweden, Tunis.
Italy: Venice.
Russia: Berlin, Moscow, Norway, Rumania, Sevastopol, St Petersburg, Warsaw.
Turkey: Ankara, Constantinople, Greece, Naples, Smyrna.
SCs:
Austria: Supp 5
England: Supp 0
France: Supp 16
Germany: Supp 0
Italy: Supp 1
Russia: Supp 7
Turkey: Supp 5
Stats on the site will be updated as soon as I can put in the EOG report, sometime this weekend.
Thanks again everyone for an enjoyable game, I hope you all had a great time and look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Chris Fisher
