So, peace at last…
When I started this game I was hoping to play in a different style to my usual and from the outset I was looking to be aggressive. Turkey made a fatal mistake at the beginning which played into my objective. From the first season more or less, Patrick's fate was sealed and happily, although Dan had noticed my previous successes as Russia, Austria seemed happy to be my ally in the Balkans.
I struck up a good relationship with Andrew from the start and it soon became clear that an early stab on Austria would be likely to work well for me, so I sprang my nasty surprise before I had finished Turkey off properly. Thus, early in the game I was in a dominant position and the notion of running some sort of blitzkrieg assault came into my brain.
To the north, the ever suspicious Scott was working cautiously with me. It seemed that England and Germany had taken an instant dislike to each other and I played on that. Buck allowed me to move into Sweden in 1901 for which I was enormously grateful, but I then let him down immediately by assisting England into Denmark. This was a tactic to keep Scott sweet for long enough to be in position to attack Norway. Blitzkrieg tactics need no allies.
I managed to talk Scott and Andrew into adopting positions that favoured me. Andrew moved west and built fleets to attack France and Scott locked into war with Germany. I attacked both of them and did Italy serious damage in the process. The attack on England was botched though- I went too early and that cost me the win to some extent. I could never hurt Scott hard enough and didn't have the fleets to be able to break out of Scandinavia. It was a gamble that didn't work out. I could have left the attack on England for a year or two, but the worry was that my attack on Italy would trigger retribution from Scott after all.
I had hopes of winning this one, but in the end I couldn't see a way of getting beyond 15-16 centres. The last two or three required my southern fleets to break out and fight their way through the Med. That would have taken years. England, Germany, France and Italy formed a good alliance to prevent the solo and although I tried many times to break that alliance, they stuck together admirably. None of my weasel words could break the impassive French leadership. An attempt to eliminate Germany in the last year (which was an honest bid for a 4 way rather than 5 way draw- not an attempt to win) seemed to appeal to Scott, but Bret wouldn't go with it.
I know that Scott is about to tell me how I could have won the game. I refute any suggestion that I have blown it. With 3 Russian solos behind me, I think I know what I am doing. The centre was locked up and my fleets were tied up. One option was to abandon Norway and get more power onto the Baltic coast. I toyed with that, but there was no obvious means of getting into Berlin with so many units concentrated in the area.
Thanks to John for running a tight ship as GM. Running a game is never easy and this one went along smoothly with no major hiccups. Good job!
Thanks for the game everyone. I think it will be my last for a while- time for a little rest.
Best wishes
Simon and Vlad=