Rogue EOG (DC394 Haven)
=======================[I am writing this over a period of days, and am NOT reading other EOGs as they come in]
As soon as the players were announced, I looked through my Dip history (thanks Google for ALL the space!) to review past Haven games and judge experience. A lot of newbies to Haven here, with some very good experienced players as well. After the crushing turn of events in the last Haven game -- I arranged an "experience v.s rookie" alliance, only to have it fall apart halfway through by one player spilling the beans -- I decided to play this game straight and true. I'd talk to everyone, bring no prejudices forward, and just work the system.

I reached out to everyone and began judging my first path based on communication and strategy-sharing:
if you responded positively to an alliance, great
if you were wishy-washy, fence
if you ignored me, target

if you discussed strategy, great
if you told me about everything other people were saying, fence

No real targets were apparant to me, and as Rogues, I am surrounded by close neighbors, so "tread carefully" was my motto. That being said, Knights and I began discussing an alliance from Day 1, and before the first Spring moves were finished, we'd come to an agreement on sharing info at least.

On the other hand, Penner/Faeries were designated for elimination -- I know how good a player he is, and I wanted someone weaker than me as my close neighbor. When I heard that Penner was calling me "tricky", his fate was sealed. Rogue/Fairy alliances are fantastic when they work, but they require ultimate trust and that's hard when we start out calling each other "tricky".

Centaurs, the unlucky ones, offered alliances to both Knights and myself, which we accepted immediately with private messages describing how we'd carve him up. But first, we get him running point against the Barbs and causing unrest anywhere he could reach. As Centaurs pressed forward, Brian would take out his backside.

Magicians were targetted first for being on the peninsula. Trolls/Mags, coin flip, but Mags weren't as talkative as Trolls, so he goes first. Also, first to admit inexperience with the board, and no one to use him against, so his use to we was position and centers.

Trolls were designated for elimination also, based on sharing the peninsula, and sealed when he talked about keeping an eye on Nomads and their interesting position. Nomads are notoriously first out of Haven, unless they find several friendly benefactors. Greg had shown his inexperience with Haven, so I'd use him to hold off surprise attacks from the Gnome while I take out the Magicians.

Pirates have usually shown themselves to be strong if given the chance to expand, so I tried to organize people against him. Just passing info along to Gnomes, Archers, anyone who would listen.
Ogres, I so looked forward to joining with them at some point, but alas, they were wiped out before that could take place. 

Undead, Matthias and I have played against each other several times, but with enough space between us, I thought we'd make a good team here.
The Nomads, as weak as they are, still held a problem for me, being in TGR. So I decided to make them an ally against non-existent enemies: Trolls and Gnomes. If I kept Nomads focused and busy over there, then I'd be able to neutralize the threat over here. Maybe even get them all fighting, and clean up the remains. 


And that was my strategy for most of the game: make one strong alliance, and keep every other neighbor in different alliances against one another. That strategy worked right up until the end, when I became a bit too distracted/tired and gave in to Brian's request to reform the KR alliance.

But even the one alliance (Knights) was pressured by others from my hand -- starting with Faeries in 02, when I broke the news to Penner that Knights were arranging with Archers to take him out. I just couldn't let Brian grow that much faster than me.  Hobbits fell into that same maneuver later on. Pirates too, until they went AWOL on me.

There were several times early on when I felt on the brink of elimination, even through 02 & 03 while the Mags and Cents fell.  The turning point for me was 05 & 06, the attacks on Faeries and Trolls. I was in talks with Gnomes and Knights, but also stirring the pot between Trolls and Gnomes. Finally got to the point where they both seemingly trusted me and might join forces, so I pushed Trolls towards Undead to split his force and attacked. To Greg's credit, he fought valiantly! 
A bit of a Grand Alliance began with Knights, Hobbits, Pirates, and Rogues. But from the K/R side, we were only pulling info. Then Pirates got greedy, which allowed me to work with Gnomes, while planning with Knights to take him out. 
07 saw the disintegration of the Grand Alliance, and the Gnomes cracked. Knights were expanding, so I began stirring up "Knight Solo" talk, just in case. It was funny that I had several players convinced that "26 or 30" was the magic number to Solo. But then "The Telethon to Hand the Game to Knights" started, and Brian and I solidified our alliance. 
Things went smoothly from then until 12.  We orchestrated a lot of strife between Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves to keep them from growing. In the meantime, we moved south together and kept our center counts close to even. Hobbits and Dwarves expressed concern about Chris' movements, so we slated him for demolition next. 
There was a point, in 10 after getting 5 builds to his none, that I considered stabbing Brian. I drew up a map and everything. At the same time, I polled the group and discovered that everyone would vote YES to a KR draw, providing certain other players were eliminated. Brian and I could have forced a DIAS probably, but we decided to have some fun and clean the board. For whatever reason, I chickened out of the stab -- possibly the stress in my life played a part, possibly the lack of any other true allies. Whatever it was, THAT was probably my biggest mistake.
Because then the Pirates disappeared and 3 turns later, Brian grabbed the centers and stabbed me!And the rest of the game was a matter of gathering up everyone else to head off the Knight Solo, while also trying to keep an opening for MY run to either Solo or force Brian back into the 2-way.  We eliminated Elves easily enough. Hobbits were large enough to be standing up to some ideas, so Dwarves and I worked to destabilize or eliminate him... at least knock him down a peg or two -- and we succeeded without even giving up much ground to Brian.

I don't know why Brian approached me about the reforming the 2-way, but I took the bait. I tried hard to maneuver a turn-over of centers to keep the board in balance, but I did make the mistake of grabbing Dwarf centers before taking more of the Knight's. Hobbits pulled straight back from Brian, and Jim moved right into my centers, causing a great disparity between the center counts again. So Brian broke ranks and ran for the crown. 
Truth be told, I was simply waiting for my chance and would have done the same.
Fantastic game everyone! Jim, you are correct -- I jumped the gun with my stab. After playing so cautiously and pessimistically all game, I got antsy and wanted to bring it to a quick end. I should have bided my time, 2 more years or so, and then I might have had a nice run for glory.

 

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"Sit Long, Talk Much, Laugh Often" -- anon

"Shared Pain is lessened, Shared Joy is increased" --- Spider Robinson