The start of Winter End Game statements for DC508!  Deadline Sunday!

End Game Statements from: GM, Indonesia, partial statements from Australia, and Japan. Instead of eliminating all my Oceania Yahoo game folder in one go I did the more labor intensive checking of emails for press before deleting. I discovered the following in random order: White press: 19, 11, 11, 11, 17, 19, 15 = 103 Black Press: 0, 2, 2, 15, 2, 0, 0 = 21 that is only 20% Black!  Only one serious black presser in the group!
H Polley GM:Why does this GM like Oceania?First I like the Island Hopping rule, this is a unique but workable rule for my Adjudicator. The game does have a few playability problems because it is based on Pacific aspects of WW2. As such it can not have a well balanced map as that would require a wrap around map where powers like Japan could strike at New Zealand, Indonesia at France etc.  This means that the exposed powers like Marshall_Islands need direct diplomacy to have any real chance at survival.Perhaps an off board box which allows secret movement to any sea space on edge of map might be possible solution. Think of Japan's attack on Peril as rational for same.One fun aspect of game is solid stalemate lines are very hard to establish increasing the odds of a sole winner.
Japan M Smith: Your map changes has made Japan much too weak and Indonesia too strong.  New should have an SC not eci.  H Polley: Interesting idea but I am thinking if you wish to strengthen MI and weaken Indo perhaps have EMS touch eci and give the eci supply center to emi!  Follow this with putting Wak in middle of WIS instead of on border?  I am happy with Dav change but perhaps CES could be changed to meet Dav and SCS. 
Any one else wish to chime in on map changes?
The kernel of my adjudicator has passed all adjudication movement tests its main weakness is text input and output.  I will work on this between now and spring.
Possible Storm box rule: Every sea on edge of board has a storm box which leads to every other sea space at edge of board.  Entry is one way, only fleet occupying the Sea space can enter its storm box.  A fleet in a storm box can make the convoy order but this will require at least three fleets to execute. A fleet in the storm box in the winter turn is auto removed from the board, yes you may make a build to replace the lost unit. I will program this into my adjudicator over winter.Storm boxes have label (?? SEA).storm. Would you favor such a rule?
In DC508 I thought all players did a great job in playing the game given the limitations each had to work under.  I was thinking Australia had the decided advantage but did not calculate in the effect of Japan's defeat on the games balance of power. I think Lucus wisely built a strong fleet based military and that helped put him over the top. Of note; this is first game not won by Japan with exception of two DIAS games where Japan was dominant power and the report of a game played in Germany and won by Australia.
I am not the first GM to screw up a gunboat email, nor will I be the last.I wish to thank all players for helping us get through this difficulty avoiding revealing who all the players were in-order to continue the game.
I think this is first time I have had an NMR free game. So you are all welcome to play in any future game I GM even those who were not 100% happy with the way I GM games. 
End Game statements and Part End Game statements:Australia Erik Swiatek: All but Indonesia loose. But it started when I when I went from 1O to 9 and Indo grew to 11 and France with friends still hammered at me and looked upon me as the main enemy even when Indo could expand unhindered.To GM: Thanks for a good Organized game! GM's like actors live for a bit of praise, thank you!
Indonesia (Winner): Lucas Mayer End of game statement! I played a lot of variants but never before Oceania. I get Indonesia. I knew that Japan won the most of the Oceania games played before (I know one game in Germany Australia won). So I thought this could be a tough game. For the start my plan was to make a DMZ with Australia and try my best against Japan. Australia agreed to the DMZ. In the first fall I had a bit luck. There was a 50-50-chance that either me or Japan gets a build from Dav or Sor. I decided right so I had the better position against Japan. Japan defended really good but I made progress after all. The DMZ with Australia was still intact. If Australia had stabbed me here I don`t know if I would have been successful against Japan. In this time somebody started to talk about a 2-way-draw between Indonesia and me. Australia was 2 SCs bigger than I was. But I analyzed the moves and had the feeling that Australia was the weaker player. He had grown fast in the beginning but after that there was a lot of stagnation. The reasons were for me a lot of wrong decisions (helping NZ; wasting units for the safety of his homeland, building armies when fleets were necessary...). So I decided to vote against the draw. I expected that I would grow fast after the resistance of Japan is broken. I was right with that. France recaptured Tog after an Australian mistake and I won SCs from Japan. I coordinated Marshalls, USA and France with my first black press (as France) and everybody did what I suggested. So Australia walked 1 down and I`m 2 up. So the situation was Australia 9 SCs and Indonesia 11 SCs. The lead changed to me. Now the mistake of Hugh followed. He forwarded a mail from me to France and so we saw our names. That was really bad for me. I expected a solo because I thought my position was good enough for that and now there were a lot of discussion against me. It was no advantage for me it was a disadvantage to learn France know. I had to fear that Australia would turn on me to early but nothing happened. The DMZ was still intact. I pushed my units further east and didn`t attack Australia. The reason was that I wanted to go for the easy SCs around the Marshalls before I step into the big war against Australia. The situation helped me. Japan escaped from my units while taking the US centers with the help from the Marshalls (Why, Marshalls? The USA was the better partner), Nothing really important happened in the area around NZ, Australia and France. So I pushed forward to the Marshalls and took a lot of easy SCs. Finally I made the last step and attacked Australia to win the last 2 SCs for the solo victory. And that is the history how I won that game. My thoughts to the variants:I enjoyed playing this variant. The hopping function of the armies is pretty interesting. You have to find that right balance between armies and fleets because both can move on in nearly the same speed. For my impression there were too less fleets. Especially Australia missed the building of new fleets in the right moment. So I had the most time more armies than fleets and captured the SCs by sea.The change of Dav to a hopping island is a good thing and makes the map more balanced. There was this 50-50-chance in the first fall. If Japan had decided otherwise our war would have gone the other way round. But this changes not the impression that the map is very imbalanced. There are too much SCs in the west. That makes the winner of Australia, Indonesia and Japan to the favorite in the game. Marshalls as a middle power has not enough units. I think a fourth starting SCs would be a good idea. USA is too weak, too. The home SCs are too far away from each other too connecting the forces right. NZ and France have to struggle for their second first-year-build. So that makes Australia's position even better. Choosing the gunboat option makes this imbalance higher because you can`t equalize that with good negotiations. But with all this imbalance it was still a lot of fun (maybe because I won). I have to say that the result was clear: The German wins the German designed variant. Special thanks to Hugh for GMing. You did a great job (except for this little mistake ) GM's like actors live for a bit of praise, thank you!