Well the game did not start quite as I had hoped. Disagreement with
Turkey over the Black Sea was to be expected, but his army moving to
Armenia was an unwanted distraction. After coming to an agreement
with Austria I was concerned when he immediately broke it, moving to
Galicia and then supporting himself into Rumania with Turkish help.
The silver lining was that Germany didn't keep me out of Sweden,
allowing me to build and put up a fight in the south.



Austro-Hungary, Turkey, and The Balkans:

At this point I was furiously urging Italy to help me against a
perceived A-T alliance, and urging Austria and Turkey to attack each
other. With Turkey not fully committed to the northern attack, Jon
proceeded to turn on Turkey, which allowed me to take Rumania at the
expense of ceding the Black Sea to Turkey. Unfortunately for Jon I
wasn't willing to forgive his transgressions and proceeded to
organise a tripartite attack on Austria, keeping the bulk of the
gains for myself. Once it was clear the Austrian threat was ended I
was able to focus on methodically dealing with Turkey. Since Italy
had given Jon a lifeline in 1904, I began to dominate the alliance
between Italy and myself, and keeping all of Turkey's centres for
myself only increased the gap between us. I helped Italy regain his
centres and then urged him westwards while I dealt with Turkey. I
was intentionally slow to kill Turkey for fear that the other powers
would see my strong position and attack me before I had consolidated
my gains and redeployed my units. Ultimately I came out of the wars
here with a very strong position, and there wasn't really any point
at which Italy could have turned on me and won.



Scandinavia:

Due to a bit of miscommunication I had managed in spring 1902 to
slip into Norway, but expecting to be bounced in the North Sea
slipped right back out in fall. At this point Germany was under
quite heavy attack from both England and France and I knew that with
the problems I was facing with A-T I had to stall their advance.
Catie, however was understandably paranoid, especially since it
looked as though I had forgone a build by vacating Norway. A timely
build in StP gave me an army in Scandinavia and I took Norway,
ceding Sweden to Germany so as not to lose it to England. From this
position Catie and I took control of the North Sea, convoyed a
German army to England, and put the Anglo-French war machine into
retreat. The situation would likely have stayed stalemated had
Italy's fleets at this point not moved west forcing France to vacate
the NAO and abandon his beleaguered English ally.



Germany:

Despite a mistake allowing France to occupy Kiel, Catie had a solid
position as Germany with 6 centres and more to be found in England.
At this point I re-occupied Sweden without informing Catie, but I
think she was mollified by my aiding her into Liverpool. Ultimately,
however, I was looking for where my 18 centres would come from for a
solo victory: I had 4 in the Balkans, would have 3 fom Turkey, 2
from Scandinavia and 4 from Russia, so needed 5 more. Either Germany
or Italy could have provided these centres and I maintained a
presence ready to strike at Italy should he stop heading west, but
Shawn was a solid ally all game whereas I did not believe Catie
would sit back if I went for a solo. I had to offer her the chance
though, so...



EOG Proposal:

I submitted an EOG Proposal along with my orders for Fall 1907. I
had only 13 centres at this point, but given my position I figured
that my solo victory was inevitable. I knew Turkey, Italy and
England would support the proposal, France was looking at an Italian
invasion against his undefended south so might as well. Once it
failed the future hinged on Italy's decision: whether to help me
achieve my solo, or work with F-G against me. Had he turned on me I
expected I could take his three eastern centres and from there add
one Turkish and one German, but Shawn stuck with me and continued
his attack on France so I sought my centres from Germany.
Unfortunately for her I had already manoeuvred myself into position
and by the end of 1908 had control of the seas and her eastern
border. I don't know what prompted her retreat westwards, but her
defeat was inevitable. And with a few gains I hit the magic number.



Summary:

It was definitely a strange game for me: initially threatened by
both AH and Turkey, it took a lot of patience to build my position
in the south, and on the other side of the map I was again initially
on the defending side helping Germany against E-F. What may have
looked like two separate fights was for me one large fight, with
unit gains from one front often going to reinforce the other front.
I'd like to extend my thanks once again to Matt for taking over
Turkey, he did little wrong and I tried to provide him with a
survival but from his starting position he couldn't have done
anything to prevent his fate. I think the end-of-game position will
be a little unfair to Catie who deserves lots of credit for
defending so successfully against E-F, and thanks to Shawn for
sticking with me and helping me to my first solo on Diplomaticcorp
(hopefully not the last). I hope everyone enjoyed the game as much
as I did: as Adam said, the end became a bit stale but that
shouldn't take anything away from the excitement of the beginning.
Finally, a big thank-you to Adam for all his efforts.