Ok this is going to be long. I apologize in advance. Anyone who wasn't
involved until the end might find it boring. It???s been fantastic reading
everyone???s EOGs so far and I would like to respond to a couple of them when
I have some more time. I'm really excited about Mike Hoffman's EOG,
presumably coming soon!
Let me start by again thanking everyone in this game. It lasted forever,
but was by far the most entertaining dip game I???ve ever played ??? and I???m
only slightly biased because I won. This game had every level of intrigue
and strategic depth you could want. During this EOG I???m going to reference
players by their Haven identities. It isn???t that I didn???t get used to
calling everybody by name ??? I just think it???s confusing to people who never
met each other in the game to read about other players by first name. I???ll
slip into first names if I???m describing the person???s play style or other
personal discussions.
My EOG is about critical inflection points ??? key moments in the game that
changed its trajectory. I want to highlight six such points from the
Knights perspective:
Spring 01: Took Ice Reach
Spring 04: KO???d the Centaurs
Spring 08: Demise of the Gnomes
09-11: The Implosion of the Pirates
Fall 13: The Great Stab
Fall 19: The Great Rapprochement
1) Spring 01: Took Ice Reach
Haven is a big complicated board. You have to be able to discern about a
thousand tiny little names and figure out how everything connects. The
Barbarians could be forgiven for not recognizing immediately that Ice Reach
is literally the most important territory on the revised board. Look at
this space. It is a build center, has access to two sea zones and a river
that leads everywhere, possesses an impenetrable access point to the
Underground, and gives access to Dragons Teeth, which basically allows
whoever has Ice Reach to encircle the north continent before anyone even
knows what happened. Simply put: Ice Reach is the best center in the game
and the Barbarians gave it to me on turn 1 like the Indians gave up
Manhattan. By 03 I was literally alone in the Underground as the Dwarves
set off on other exploits. Capturing Diamond Mines from the Dwarves was
just a no-brainer. He had no way of wresting it from me and it provided
the perfect cover for protecting my gem in Ice Reach and my path to Dragons
Teeth where I knew all my action was going to be in the coming fight with
the Faeries. By 03 I was firmly entrenched in the Underground and knew it
would be almost impossible to get me out of there unless somebody came at
me from above. Thus began a very long dance with the Dwarves that
eventually yielded the entire Underground and the keys to the game.
At the same time I was locking in pick-and-choose alliances with everybody
around me. I???ll digress and say that the Rogues and I hit it off
immediately. Mike (Rogues) has a fantastic strategic mind. I really
enjoyed those early-game strategy sessions, where we hatched the KR. Mike
led those sessions and I owe him a lot for focusing me and helping provide
a strategic design for the next 13 or so game years. It was a fantastic
partnership. Mike put forward a lot of concepts and then we bantered about
specific plans. After one year the work product the Rogues and I were
producing together was clearly stronger than anything else I was
developing. The Centaurs were simultaneously organizing a pie-in-the-sky
KRCG, though the Gnomes were never very warm to it. There was also some
banter with the Nomads and Archers. But by 02 my sense is that both Mike
and I knew that the KR was going to rule the north.
2) Spring 04: KO???d the Centaurs
For awhile everyone in the north seemed to pretend like we could actually
play the game with nobody fighting anyone else north of the Faeries. But
everything in the north came to a head starting Spring 03. In one of my
few early game strategic designs where I excluded the Rogues, I engineered
a massive stab of the Centaurs along with the Gnomes, which created a fait
accompli for the Rogues to join. Rogues weren???t thrilled and it was awful
to watch the Centaurs desperately try and save their KRCG project. They
were gone in two years. I simultaneously made a move against the Dwarves
and then settled things with him for quite some time while I solved above
ground matters. I actually think I hit the Archers that same turn. I was
a little nervous everything would unwind for me, but Mike and I just kept
rolling. We turned our attention to the Faeries and I have to admit ???
there was one turn there where Rogues left themselves completely open to a
stab, which I told the Faeries I was planning to exploit and almost did.
But the strategic relationship was too important. The Faeries and I ended
up stabbing each other simultaneously that turn, and Rogues came in to help
me clean them up.
The KR plan we hatched in the first year had called for domination of the
central sea. We bulldozed the Faeries and had our fleets in the center by
06.
3) Spring 08: Demise of the Gnomes
The result of knocking out the Centaurs, otherwise known as the great
cheerleaders of the north, was a deeply uncomfortable situation where I was
playing peacemaker between the Gnomes and Rogues on either side of me. I
really liked working with the Gnomes. We had good dialogue, were always on
the same page, and he enabled me to force the Rogues??? hand in dealing with
the Centaurs. But the Gnomes were being attacked by the Trolls, to whom I
don???t think I spoke at all the entire game. And it was clear to everyone
that the Rogues were the Trolls??? benefactor. This was irritating because I
couldn???t care less about the Trolls. But as a result the Gnomes HATED the
Rogues. It was extremely ugly. I had to keep promising the Gnomes that I
was really going to turn on the Rogues eventually ??? I came up with every
excuse in the book to delay it while the KR drove through the Faeries. I
have to hand it to Charlie (Gnomes) ??? he played a great game and I have to
assume he basically knew exactly what was happening the entire time. I
know deep down he suspected that the KR was rock solid, but he had
absolutely nowhere to else to go for friends. Clowns to the left of him,
Jokers to the right, and here he was, stuck in the middle with me. I
really respect Charlie as a player and hope to see him again in another
game soon. When it came, I didn???t execute perfectly and the Gnomes put up
a good fight. I had the Pirates in on it, though, and there was just no
way the Gnomes were going to survive us both. The key to all of this was
making sure the Rogues moved against the Trolls first, so I protected
myself against the KR alliance coming undone at the wrong moment.
Ultimately it all came together nicely.
4) 09-11: The Implosion of the Pirates
I hadn???t spent a lot of time interacting with the Pirates or really most
of the other powers outside my immediate vicinity. My squabbles and
ultimate settlement with the Dwarves had brought me into contact with the
Elves, who were clearly (as Jim-Bob the Dwarf has said in his EOG) acting
as the Dwarves??? chief advisor. I engaged the Pirates in my plan against
the Gnomes and I think we worked well together for a time. Meanwhile, there
was a growing sense between the Rogues and me that the PH alliance was the
strongest on the board. Rogues were deeply concerned that my work with the
Pirates against the Gnomes was going to eliminate a buffer between us and
give the Pirate too much growth potential. He was probably right. The
Gnomes were the only power besides the Hobbits that the Pirates could
attack and I was providing him that window rather than making him choose
for himself.
The Rogues and I engaged the PH alliance in talk of a grand partnership.
I don???t know whether this was ever a serious discussion or not. We all
flirted on email a little, but I think this all happened over Christmas
when there was a serious game lull. On the other end of that lull, the PH
inexplicably blew up over circumstances I absolutely never figured out and
then the Pirates simply imploded. You all witnessed it so I won???t go into
details here, but it would be hard not to come to the conclusion that this
was a HUGE boon for me. I would be surprised if any of us see Tom in
another game. It???s a disappointment when anyone leaves the game, but this
left a big hole and even though I benefitted from it, it was a shame that
happened here.
5) Fall 13: The Great Stab
The KR could have cruised to victory. I mopped up the Gnomes and split
the Pirate centers with the Hobbits about 60-40, while Rogues finished up
with the Trolls and Leprechauns. Meanwhile I hit the Dwarves hard
Underground and eventually we stalemated down there. This is the moment
Jim mentioned regarding his lack of understanding of the map. I also don???t
quite know when I noticed it, but at some key moment I definitely noticed
none of his supports were crossing through the jump points, though I had
been focusing on his center where he was focusing his supports. I decided
to hit him really hard on the end points and I shattered him. I didn???t
realize he didn???t see the crossover arrows ??? I just thought he was getting
predictable so I changed patterns and ouila. But obviously he hadn???t seen
the defense options. Regardless, by this point everybody knew that the KR
could impose its will on the board.
But rolling the Dwarves meant that a stab of the Rogues was suddenly
possible. Rogues and I could have hit each other a lot of different times
over the years and we had slipped into a pretty good pattern of trust,
trading centers to keep things clean, and keeping our counts about even.
When I rolled up the Underground, that balance seemed to change. The
decision to hit the Rogues was the hardest Diplomacy move I???ve ever made.
We were really an unstoppable team, had great strategic chemistry, and I
think we balanced out one another???s weaknesses in a lot of ways. I sent in
a regular set of agreed-upon KR orders and on a whim, drafted the stab
orders at lunch on the day of the deadline, just as a spare time what-if
(this strategic inflection point owes itself to the fact that Congress was
in recess that week). When I pulled the trigger and sent the stab orders
to Sims, it actually made me queasy. Mike invested A LOT of time in our
strategy sessions and I knew this would hurt.
After he removed himself from the ceiling, Mike emailed me to say that if
I ever wanted to rebuild the KR, all I had to do was let him know and we
would go back to where we left off. He said this again multiple times as
the game ground on. This became relevant later.
The game result was total mayhem as Rogues moved to rally support around
stopping me. There were only five of us on the board at this point and I
knew I had to move quickly to take advantage of the weak Rogue position and
the total discombobulation of all his prospective partners. Much has been
said about the chaos in the south, but this situation brought out all of
its neuroses, which Mike evidently added to with his mildly spastic
leadership style. Winning outright was going to be hard, though I had a
path. My strategic goal was to create an air of inevitability around my
victory and simply demoralize everybody other than Mike into not caring
what happened in the game. It almost worked. I have to give Mike a lot of
credit for rallying everybody and playing a double game against the Elves,
which cost me a clean win around Year 14/15. The Elves had apparently
grown disenchanted with Rogue leadership and attempted the most ham-handed
game-throwing exercise I???ve ever seen. Meanwhile he was being played and
eaten alive by the other three coalition members. That hurt me because I
trusted the Elves for one turn too long and made some bad moves on his
advice. Rogues were by then steadying the ship and I made a couple of
overreach plays in an effort to grab too many Rogue home centers at once,
which allowed him to reinforce some. Then the Hobbits mysteriously grew
disenchanted with the Rogues as well and started making noises about
throwing the game. Once again, I crazily went along with this until Rogues
snapped him back into place and I was left totally out of position. The
result was a long stalemate.
6) Fall 19: The Great Rapprochement
The problem with the game at this point was it was really lonely. I would
sit down the night before every deadline with nobody to talk to and what
seemed like about 700 units to sift through. Spring 19 was the
coalition???s best turn. They beat me everywhere. I had settled in at about
45 centers after peaking at around 47 or 48. It just wasn???t happening.
I decided to play the card the Rogues had dealt me when we first parted
ways. I reached out to Rogues in an absolutely sincere effort to
reestablish the KR. My belief was that when they saw what was happening,
the Hobbits and Dwarves would immediately fold and vote for a draw. Why
wouldn???t they? Defeating them outright would take years and it would be
awful to play through. So I went into the KR Rapprochement fully intending
on a KR draw. I was very comfortable with it. It would have been a fitting
end.
But I think the Rogues were sort of responsible for what happened next.
Rather than responding to me cautiously and making me make the first moves
away from him, he infuriated the coalition members by going full bore on
them overnight (in fairness, this was partially in response to my
prediction that they would fold quickly). It may not have mattered, but a
lighter hand may have changed the human response to this. Jim-Bob is made
of stern stuff and convinced the Hobbits that under no circumstances would
either of them vote for a draw. So that meant that the Rogues and I would
have to capture exactly 51 centers each in order to secure the KR. I was
actually still willing to play this out until I ???what-if???d??? a set of
game-winning moves the night before the F20 deadline. Rogues were
insisting I give him some centers to keep things even ??? perfectly logical.
But when I wrote out some sample orders, it was obvious I could win it all
at once. So I did, and stabbed the Rogues again. All alone with nobody to
talk to.