I'm so busy and so far behind, I think I'm going to take a stab at a "shortie" and see how it flies. I have played many of the large variants, especially those designed by David Cohen.  The two things I've learned are:
 1) Gotta play like a shark, if you don't keep moving, you die.  If you stagnate in center growth you fall behind and become a target. 2) You gotta have at least ONE really true blue ally who you try to hide from others.
 For me that was Chris and the Elves.  How many of you realized how PERFECTLY correlated we were all up to the time where we weren't?  And that was when only Joe, Mike, Brian and me were the other ones left....
 And more than that, I let Chris drive the bus on almost all of our back and forth that we did.  If you're going to work in complete concert, you must avoid conflict at all costs.  I did.  I think that was successful, I made it to the endgame surprisingly easily, I thought.  Various people like the Leprechauns who ended up faring poorly I hardly talked to, I only followed Chris' lead on when to support them, when to ignore them, and when to attack them.  Chris really has the clearer view of how all that went.  This especially included interaction with Joe and the Hobbits and Mike and the Rogues.  I really only picked up direct negotiations with Mike and Joe after Chris (in my view) went off the deep end at the end.  I suspect Chris and I have diametrically opposed views of the end, I think Chris stabbed me and Chris thinks I stabbed him.  Interesting, I wonder if Brian manipulated that??  He might have.
 Anyway, BUT, I did take the lead in the negotiations with Brian and the Knights.  My view was "keep everyone but one player out of the Underworld" and try to work with just one person who I permitted down there.  The early agreements with Brian on that score were highly successful for both of us.  Brian helped me keep the Underground clear of anyone else, which I could not have accomplished on my own, and it gave me play to seek to control the three southern exits from the Underground.

This worked fine up TO the point where Brian and I had to come to blows, this was also where it seemed Chris was toadying to Brian (throwing him the win, but badly and intermittently).  The first thing that happened is that Brian had people popping up in the underground in weird ways, and TO BE HONEST I wasn't paying attention.  I didn't see ANY of the wraparound boxes.  This went on for about three game years where I didn't see the tactics right, so I was outmaneuvered.  I'm not sure when Brian figured out that I didn't understand it.  And Mike Sims NEEDS to make these little boxes that just aren't big enough on the screen bigger in the next map version.  But I didn't get it.  I need to emphasize, MY FAULT.  But when I finally figured it out, I decided I had one main goal, survive and put the hit back on Brian.  Stop him from winning, and ultimately I wanted to beat him all the way back.  First Chris got in the way of that, we took him out.  Then Mike stabbed me just as we were about to succeed and make that progress, so I tried to hit Mike back even though I knew my cause was lost.  Brian would win.
 Mike will tell you that he thought Joe and I would give up and vote a two way for Brian and Mike.  If he had probed me about that in any way whatsoever he would have found two things: 
1) I like two ways, I have more two way DRAWS than solos, but every one of them is an ON THE BOARD two way, because 2) You NEVER vote a two way DRAW, you don't call them TWO WAY WINS (ever!!!!), and you make them play out on the board, and that is FUN, exciting, and makes for great endgame nailbiting Diplomacy.
 I thought we might end up there IF the attack on Brian failed, but I first wanted to take Mt Nimro back and Mike needed to be WAY closer than Brian.  In my view, Mike's stab was way too soon for that to happen.  I actually might have cooperated in trying to be eliminated in a timely way to achieve that.  But not until I achieved my goal, I would have asked to have Mt. Nimro be the last center taken, I think that would have been fitting.  But instead, Brian played brilliantly and deserved his solo.  Mike Sims was great, he should take my map comments as constructive criticism, I do LIKE the map and the way it works, even more so now that I understand how the Underground works.  And we all need GIANT screens to play it, mine on my four computers, none of them are large enough!!!!
 BUT, I will be interested in Mike's justification of when he did the stab, I think there was way too much "real life intrusion" into how all that played out.  I had two giant grant proposals due (that thankfully are now out), Joe was moving house, and Mike was taking a long vacation.  These things should not have influenced the game outcome, but I think they did.

Cheers, I really enjoyed playing with you all and apologies for not having time for the longer version of this...Jim

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Michael Norton <mjn82(at)yahoo.com> wrote:

I thought it would be fun to ally with Lockheardt and thought Elves and Ogres would be a good start.   Alas,  Chris had other plans.  I also expected the Dwarves to be tied up protecting his homeland as the last time I played so many wanted a piece of the underworld.  Wrong on both counts and wrong on not cultivating the one friend who was loyal,  the Leprechauns.  Hence the early exit.  Well 2 tries at Haven,  and one draw.  not bad.  we will see again soon.  hope to see some of you in the next Haven
 
Currently occupied filming Shrek IVMike


From: Michael Penner <mvpenner(at)yahoo.com>
To: Christopher Lockheardt <clockheardt(at)yahoo.com>;
Jim Burgess <jfburgess(at)gmail.com>; "mrh(at)panix.com" <mrh(at)panix.com>

Cc: Michael Sims <mike(at)fuzzylogicllc.com>; "diplomacy(at)diffell.net" <diplomacy(at)diffell.net>; "baz.dip(at)gmail.com" <baz.dip(at)gmail.com>; "dipcorp.player(at)gmail.com" <dipcorp.player(at)gmail.com>; "chaosonejoe(at)yahoo.com" <chaosonejoe(at)yahoo.com>; "welsh_stroud(at)msn.com" <welsh_stroud(at)msn.com>; Garry Bledsoe <kielmarch(at)hotmail.com>; "dan.i.sinensky(at)gmail.com" <dan.i.sinensky(at)gmail.com>; Jerome Payne <jerome777(at)ymail.com>; "wealllovekatamari(at)yahoo.com" <wealllovekatamari(at)yahoo.com>; "mjn82(at)yahoo.com" <mjn82(at)yahoo.com>; "sandiegosmith(at)hotmail.com" <sandiegosmith(at)hotmail.com>; "Spinozas(at)gmx.net" <Spinozas(at)gmx.net>; "kingkovas(at)gmail.com" <kingkovas(at)gmail.com>; "tiga124(at)aol.com" <tiga124(at)aol.com>; "tomahaha(at)frontiernet.net"
<tomahaha(at)frontiernet.net>; dc394 <dc394(at)diplomaticcorp.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 11:40 PM

Subject: Re: Haven victory (A Faerie's Take)


I have not been paying any attention to this game since being eliminated, but I'll say I'm not surprised at the result.  Let's see what I remember...


Right off the hop, I attempted to work with Hoffman because I've always been frustrated as his enemy and have rarely had the option of being his friend, so I thought since we were nearly neighbours, this would be a good chance for that.  As such, I started off in the direction of the Archers.  Shortly after beating him down, a call came from the Barbarians that the Knights were treacherous and needed to be stopped.  I looked at the situation and agreed.  I appealed to the Nomad, the Dwarf, and the Rogue to join me in knocking him down.  As it turned out, it was only the Barbarian and I who took up the
fight.  I remember being frustrated that
the Nomad and the Rogue couldn't patch their differences to help in this matter.

So, the Knight slowly did away with me, pushing me out into the central sea.  As he expanded, and came in contact with more people, I kept entreating people to avoid allying with him as he seemed to have a history of turning on allies, but one by one, they joined him instead of opposing him.  The only semblance of help I got was from the Dwarf, who helped me survive much longer than I should have, until I ran into an expanding Hobbit who couldn't see the use of keeping me around.


So I chose my retreat and sacrificed myself at the feet of a dragon, trying desperately to convince the world that the Knights were to be feared.  So that's why I say I'm not surprised.  Well played, sir!


mvp