England Game end statement
I am surprised that the draw proposal has gone through. I thought Lucas would push on for a bit longer to see if he could force a mistake from the coalition, or at least eliminate Alfred. I'm pleased with the outcome though as I feel everyone deserves to get something from the game. We have all played well and I've enjoyed every part of the game. Thanks for a good one, Jake, Lucas, Mike and Alfred.
It was an odd one in the early stages. Jake and I formed an alliance right from the beginning and I felt very comfortable working with him. this was a relief as I hate playing England and the slow growth and constant bickering with the neighbours unsettles me. We hit the Low Countries early but Germany fought back hard and it took us a long time to gain the upper hand, and it was really only the intervention of Archer as Russia that brought him down. Archer... Archer... I made lots of mistakes with Archer- he took a pounding early on and really should have fallen first, but I was persuaded by Italy that we needed Russia to survive in order to hold up the Turk. Accordingly, I held off attacking Russia and he rewarded me with a stab and a nuisance war in Scandinavia. We then went through several rounds of forming new E-R pacts, which we both ended up breaking at various points. I think on balance it was 2 stabs each. I could never understand why R didn't hit back at Turkey and why Turkey didn't ever go for the kill against Russia. I guess for a while it suited Lucas to use Archer as a buffer against the northern powers.
Italy looked like a front runner early on and everyone rallied around to peg him back.  For a while I thought this gave me a chance of a win for myself, but I felt that Turkey always had better prospects so I decided to play for a draw from about 1905 onwards. The balance of power was shaping up to be E-I-F against the R-T alliance but then Jake hit Italy against all advice. That was then I felt I had to go for it and attack France- this was partly to explore whether I could engineer something for myself, but mainly to prevent Jake getting strong enough that he could partner with Russia to take me down. The downside was that I lost a good friend and Italy rather petulantly declared that because of MY actions (not French actions against him...) he would help Turkey win the game. I didn't understand this at all as in effect I was coming to his aid.
Attacking France and having my ongoing wars with Archer in Scandinavia made me very vulnerable. I was very afraid of a F-R alliance which could have destroyed me. Fortunately this was when Archer lost interest so this doom scenario never arose. When Mike joined the game the agenda was clear- Turkey would win if E-F-R couldn't work together. I think Jake took some persuading,but he bravely trusted me to behave myself and we were able to rapidly throw up a stalemate position. Thanks to Mike for stepping in and being the voice of reason.
Everyone played well, but I thought Lucas played especially well. The use of the Russian shield was excellent and his repeated attempts to goad me into attacking Russia at the end were well thought out. It's a shame we never got the chance for our units to stand toe to toe and fight it out. Maybe in another game we can battle it out. 
Thanks to Warren for GMing. It is a tricky task at the best of times, but when RP blows up on you it gets really difficult.
Simon