DC374 EOG TURKEY




Great game everybody!  Thanks Christine for your fine GMing, and thanks Mike Sims for jumping in on occasion.   Sorry I dragged it out for a little while, but there's an explanation below.   




So, I started out the game committed to engineering the elimination of Austria first off.  He soloed in the first round and I figured no one could draw with him and win the tournament.   Also, you don't want to let a quality player gain any kind of advantage (think Nigs who is still dangerous even if he has only one unit), so out of respect for his skills, I appealed to the eastern powers to help eliminate him.    They must have been thinking the same thing because everyone got on board pretty quickly, though there was a moment in 01 when I thought AT might be my best chance.




The situation was complicated by Italy being MIA despite sending out emails prior to Spring01 - not sure what happened to him, hope he's alright.    France took full advantage of the situation and moved on the dormant Italy quickly.    As Turkey I recognized this as the eventual threat it would develop into, though my prejudice may have caused me to miss a genuine opportunity to ally with him later in the game.   Also, France tried to prop up Austria as he was going down, but I convinced him to help me eliminate him, getting me into Tunis and Rome in the same turn.   




Now with Austria and Italy gone, I wanted to rally people against England who had finished rnd1 with a 2-way, the best result among the remaining players.  I figured this would be an easy sell and hoped to find myself eventually sharing a draw with Germany who finished round 1 with a 4-way draw.




I figured we could all draw with Germany and still come out ahead in the standings, but this was not to be.    For whatever political reasons (which I hope to read about in detail in other EOG statements), Germany had alienated EVERYONE.   They all found it easy to agree that he was next to be eliminated.   Even Russia joined in the melee.    With Germany gone I was at a loss to find allies I could draw with and have a chance to win the tournament (of course, I didn't know dkleiman would solo in rnd2, making it all academic anyway)




So at this point I was looking around for a long term ally and trying to encourage Russia and/or France to turn on England.    I decided to take an opportunity to move into Italy, which France had left in an indefensible position.    It was opportunistic and Warren (france) was understandably upset about it.   A little later he offered an attractive alliance where he would turn on England, but it turned out to be a blatant stab.   We worked out a very detailed plan for the coming season and he took full advantage of knowing what my moves would be.   Our relationship was irreparable from that point on.     




After that everyone was begging me to turn on Russia, where a stable situation in BLA had developed.    In retrospect, the Juggernaut would have been a much better outcome.   I suggested he allow his fleet to be destroyed so he could gain a critical extra army up north and he decided to do it.   My intentions were sincere, but after seeing the empty Black Sea I was afraid of having to hold my breath every winter, wondering if this would be the turn that he decided to build F SEV.    So with a 3 build phase I decided to move on SEV so I could stop worrying about it.   He was obviously not happy about it.    My intention was to park a fleet there and prevent him from building, but it is a Russia home center after all, and it damaged our relationship severely.    I wasn't too worried about it tactically since I had a good enough position to fight him off, which I was able to to despite some temporary setbacks. 




Congratulations to you if you are still reading this.




Around this time there was one turning point which I feel I missed a huge opportunity.    I had a fleet in MAO, and a friend of mine had a similar situation in another game (DC169)   In that game she got her Turkish fleet into NAO and caused an incredible amount a havoc for England.    Her fleet eventually ended up in NTH, which tied up about 8 or 9 of England's units in that game.    I wanted to replicate that in our game, but I felt the timing was bad.    England was the only power who wasn't opening fighting me and I didn't want to alienate my only friend and thought ET were natural allies anyway.   There was already talk of me being a solo threat and I didn't want to unite the board against me so soon, so I held off, kept the fleet involved in SPA and POR, and eventually I lost MAO and the ability to get in behind him.   




England and France developed into a solid alliance, mostly motivated by their fear of a Turkish solo.   I was able to get Russia back on good terms with the intention of standing off EF and waiting for a break.    Unfortunately this was the moment when Jeremiah (russia) had health problems and started going NMR.    I wanted desperately for him to help me with EF, but since I couldn't rely on him not to NMR randomly, I had to move to eliminate him.   That made me an actual solo threat and EF were right to hold the line, though I never thought I could actually pull it off.  




There was a critical turn where I had not heard from Russia and had the feeling an NMR was coming, so I ignored his units completely and moved around him toward MUN.   This  basically led to the final position of the game.     It only went on as long as it did because France finally bit at one of my proposals.  I offered to get him into MUN and he responded favorably.  Having sensed a possible chink in the armor, I delayed the draw for a turn or two, hoping he would go for it, but Warren (france) rightly realized that there was no way to turn on England without allowing me to solo.   I considered pulling back to 14 SCs, but felt like France would have tried for EF long before considering FT, leaving me with a survival instead of a draw. 




So that was the game from my perspective.   I would really love to hear other EOGs to illuminate what was going on from other people's perspectives.  I'm sure E-F-R's version of the events will be vastly different.     Why was Germany so unpopular?    Didn't anyone realize that with a 4-way in rnd 1 he was the least threatening power on the map?   I don't think anyone had the long term result in mind, I feel like they just got pissed at him for being mercurial and decided to take him out.     Personally I liked his style - he wrote funny emails and made proposals with a lot of flair.    Would France really have allied with me and turned on England at any time after I took Italy?    What would have happened if I had chosen to get my fleet into NAO (and before you think it's not that big of a deal, look at how my friend used it in DC169.  Very effective, even though she never actually took any SCs with it)




Anyway, Great Game, a lot of fun.  I love the Winter Blitz and the 1 week per year pace.    It's much better than 1 week per season, or 24 turns as you have just the right amount of time for negotiation.





On Jul 18, 2011, at 9:21 AM, GM Christine wrote:





Board:

Austria        Matthew ODonnell - eliminated '06
England        Alex Phillips
France         Warren Fleming
Germany         Hugh Polley - eliminated '08
Italy        Mark Weiskircher - eliminated '04
Russia          Jeremiah Lee - eliminated '14
Turkey          Andrew Cassese

Game Over.  The DIAS passed

Final Center Count:

Turkey:    Supp 17 
England:   Supp 12 
France:    Supp  5
Russia:    Supp  0
Germany:   Supp  0 
Austria:   Supp  0 
Italy:     Supp  0 

Thank you for playing, I hope you all will take the time to write EOGs.

Christine

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"An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination." -Voltaire

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