DC 435 Russian Game End Statement Well, needless to say I am thrilled at the outcome of this game. There was a point in the early stages where I felt sure that I would be the first to be eliminated, but thankfully I resisted the early attentions of Turkey along my southern border and won through. The initial plan for me was to join forces with England and France to take out Germany early on, whilst cultivating a relationship withItaly and Turkey to bring down Austria. This was a natural approach to take as the original Germany was a newbie and wasn't communicating at all prior to his withdrawal. This plan soon had to be abandoned as Patrick didn't seem very committed to the cause and Garry seemed to be too effective a potential ally to just throw to the wolves. More to the point Zach caught me cold in 1901 and massed his forces on my southern border. It was John who handed me a lifeline by not taking St Petersburg when it was open and free. That stopped me collapsing completely as defences were rather stretched for the first two or three years. My gratitude was bottomless, as shown by my stab of England at the first possible opportunity to make a cheap gain. To handle the difficult scenario in the south I worked hard to be friendly to Italy. Wesley was great and heroically put his own position at risk by sailing fleets east to distract the Turk for me. I don't think he ever really recovered from that early and ultimately fruitless foray east. As France ploughed into England and Germany started to grow slowly and ominously as a power, I remained in fear for my survival until suddenly Turkey had a change of heart and abandoned the potentially game-winning alliance with Austria and stabbed Craig. I used this to my advantage, seizing Budapest for myself and then stabbing Turkey immediately to ensure that I took Ankara. Suddenly things were looking rosy in the south. Now I had to make a difficult decision in the north and in a controversial move, which could ruin the family Christmas, grabbed Norway from England while he was away on his holidays. This gave impetus to Germany whothen did exactly as I had hoped and threw everything west in a massive attack on France. I kept this under control by not providing help to invade England as promised. Once Garry had strayed too far west I hit him in Berlin. This took me to 10 sc and I knew a win was possible if only I could prevent a coalition forming a stalemate line. France was critical here and I urged Patrick to fight back against the German aggression, thereby tying critical German units up-stopping a decent barrier going up against my advance. Whilst Italy and Austria made repeated errors in a last ditch but very accident-prone alliance (possibly somebody was disrupting their communications I suspect), Germany appeared to stop talking to everybody and hence an opportunity was lost to hold the line. England remarkably rejoined the Russian cause and victory was almost assured. The 4 sc gained in 1906 to take me to 16, resulting from a lot of risk taking in theAustria-Turkey theatre of war, effectively sealed the win. Huge thanks to all of my opponents for playing the game. Special thanks to Craig for his ever-cheerful presence as Austria and to Garry for stepping in at the beginning and proving to be such a good ally, at least for a short while. Apologies to, well, everyone apart from Patrick, for being stabbed by me with such good grace. Never have I played such a dirty, underhand, aggressive, deceitful, over-bearing game and it feels very good, but in a slightly soiled way. I think my next game will be a quieter, more measured affair. Craig (GM) did a magnificent job with this game- a virtually flawless run at a very difficult task. Thanks very much for all of the timetaken to keep the game running and to whip it along to a quick conclusion ahead of Christmas. Having said all that and reviewed my very positive experience in this game, I think I should just revisit the accusation of some sort of collusion or "meta-gaming" that unfortunately came up before the end. Naturally I refute that suggestion completely and to have it come from one of the moderators of DC was especially offensive. I am sad to say, it makes methink hard about where I may play my Diplomacy in future. It is a real shame that Garry had to equate his complete and utter failure to organise any effective defence against my forces with some sort of underhand arrangement on my part, with a relative. This really marred what had been a very enjoyable playing experience in DC435. If Garry is watching my games closely in future as promised, I hope he enjoys the show and learns some new moves... Merry Christmas everybody. A Russian Christmas is a special occasion- vodka will be sent to our subjects all over Europe. Best wishesTsar Slangers I