Ok, ok I’ll post an EOG.
It started off great, I got the country Ray wanted, and that made for a fun start.

I’m not sure what you said to Jon, Ray, but he was intent on attacking you right off the bat. I mean I know you’re not the most likable but you got hammered here from the start, and were completely picked off by one player – in a matter of a few years reduced to that one safe center. That really scared me, cuz Jon got on the fast track to a lot of centers, a lot of armies, and nowhere for them to go but across that barren wasteland in the middle toward me. So I took that push north by Jon, and agreed to push north myself, and we had a great alliance from the start. I really thought he was going to win tho, with Ray just collapsing, and Trout putting up a fight.

About then when I was writing Jon about how I thought he was going to outpace me and what we could do about it, Trout started this kick about trying to break us up, and offering to throw the solo one way or the other. I figured this was all just banter that he planned to pass back and forth, to get Jon and I to war somehow, but it turned out to be just an offer to throw a win! Trout fell back turn by turn, throwing all east with awesome futility as I moved into center after center. This quickly turned the tides, and whereas Jon had the early lead in growth, Trout made sure that turned around my way.

At this point, I think Jon had to approach me and discuss the recent events, and push for a balanced distribution of the Turkish spoils… but around this crucial time, Jon took a trip to Europe, was out of action a few years, for doing anything much more than continuing our pushes north. This let the game go on like this for a good couple years with little to no need for me to even address my outpacing of Jon, cuz he wasn’t around to ask for it. Then it got to a point of snowballing, and we started to talk about it toward the end, a bit too late as I was around that north shore of the Black Sea, a place I figured I had to be in if I was to win it.

I guess I started to think about getting more than a draw about the time that Trout disbanded a unit in Turkey that let me have uncontested entrance to the Black Sea… his last choke point opened up, I figured this was the beginning of a lot of options. It was also my gateway to Geo and Kra, two potential centers I could maybe use as the 14th.

I agree this map has tons of potential, and I’d love to see it developed a bit further. In particular those bits from Trout about adding the Arabian Peninsula seem great – those are such regionally valuable areas, it seems appropriate to include them in this game. Also Cyprus has to be fixed. I gave up Lebanon to get that center cuz I knew it guaranteed me a survival. There shouldn’t be a single-access space on any map. Another map problem is the Iran-Iraq wars… they start nice and close, something I like… but one of Iran’s units are trapped in the Caspian Sea, unable to play, while all 3 Iraqi units can hit Iran. This gives Iraq a 3-2 edge over Iran, and there isn’t much Israel can even do to affect it – I was clearly better off playing on the Lebanon / Cyprus front with Trout. Throw an active Russia in the mix, and things might be even worse for Iran. Of course one can argue that disadvantage simply requires more action from the other players to prevent Iraq crushing Iran, and that’s valid in any unbalanced Diplomacy game.

As for overall balance – this game has been played 5 times, with 4 solo victories by Iran, Iraq, Russia, and Israel and a 4-way draw. Therefore one cannot conclude that Israel has some unreasonable edge, as both Iran and Iraq have managed wins, plus Russia. Only power not to win yet is the “lame duck”. Also Iran may not be inherently disadvantaged, as Iran has the highest performance score, tied with Israel. Iraq, with all their advantage over Iran, has been eliminated twice in 5 games. Therefore something is working as the game is producing nicely varied results: http://www.diplomaticcorp.com/country_stats.php?map=Jihad

-mike



From: Former Trout [mailto:former.trout(at)gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 8:10 AM
To: DC125 Forums
Cc: JAFA; Michael Sims; Bruce Ray; Jonathan Kudlick
Subject: DC125 - Turkish EOG - One Lucky Duck


Heya guys,

Figured I'd dive into the water here first with an EOG. My congratulations to Mike for the solo win... Although for me at least the writing was on the walls from the end of the first game year. As for myself, somehow I eked out a survival in this one which I humbly consider a small victory all in itself.

I think my first thoughts when I saw that I was Turkey and fully looked at the map was something along the lines of 'Damn am I screwed'. Sandwiched between Israel and Russia as it is, Turkey is very much the lame duck of this board. In fact, I can say with confidence that the only reason I managed to hang around till the endgame was because Russia went into CD and I had no northern front to contend with.

Before I get into map notes - strategy. This game was all about Israeli containment for me - and the result speaks all for itself. Until the last couple of turns, I threw everything I had at Mike and he just kept coming. Without assistance from Iraq to assist my efforts, Mike overpowered me at every turn. I managed to beat him to Lebanon early on, but knew that I wouldn't be able to hold it. After that, it was just a matter of the long retreat...

It was fairly clear from early on that Mike and Jon had formed an alliance - both agreeing to move north and not disturb the efforts of each other. Both Ray and I tried all we could to disrupt that - even in the end, out of desperation, telling them that I was going to throw the game to one or the other. At the very end, Jon suggested that he would hold my last unit in place to prevent Sims from taking it - but it was too little too late at that point and I had already agreed to help Mike win.

As frustrating as the game was though sometimes, I have to say that it was an interesting time. The variant has quite a bit of potential - if the map is tweaked in the right places I would love to be involved in the next playtest. Thanks to Tony for GMing, Jon and Mike for providing such brilliant adversaries, and Ray for being the guy on the other end of the line that I wrote to and said 'Well what the hell do we do now?'...

Cheers guys,

Trout