It's over? Really? Just like that? Hmm... This feels weird. Icky sort of. The game definitely hadn't come to a conclusion yet, tho here we are.

Why did I vote for the draw... Well, we were making great progress against Russia... that was fun, and I really wanted to liberate Berlin... but, I was so at risk of being stabbed and brutally impaled by Spain at any moment. Therefore I figured the risk was pretty high, that if it'll pass, I should milk my chickens now and not risk juggling eggs... er.. something like that.

As to the stop-the-leader... Yes Clark, if you had pulled back, like you started this turn, I would likely have taken my home centers back, and then stopped. I dont think I would have pursued further toward you. At least not with Spain so close to a win.

Brief recap:

The game started out quite fun. China (Dan), Ottoman (Darryl), and myself all recognized that we were the little guys in Eurasia, and we had to ban together. So we formed COPING... the Charter of Puny, Impoverished Nations for Greatness. This was a plan to deal with the fact that Russia was bigger, between all of us, and sure to try to devour the surrounding little powers one by one. And what did Russia do? Well he devoured the surrounding little powers one by one! COPING failed to materialize effectively as each of the small powers did not want to get into a war with Russia, and tried to stay friendly. Then Russia started working with each against the others, and before you knew it, China was devastated, Ottoman was destroyed, and I was the last one on Clark's list.

So without allies willing to go at Russia early, I decided to go work with Spain against France. This worked great, as I got most of Europe, and Spain got most of the colonial holdings. Unfortunately tho, this started to build a monster, as there started 3 imperial powers... and with France dead, and England largely absent most of the game, Spain kinda ran off with the game.

And that led us to the first stop-the-leader, where everyone decided to pound on Spain. I think I was the last holdout, since all my plans were working great with Matt as an ally... we just had so many initiatives in common... my desire to get into Africa / Indian Ocean, his desire to overrun West/South Africa, my desire to get into the Mideast was seeing my guys move away from him, and Matt's constant wars with the US and others saw his guys moving away from me. It was really a great team, but with Spain so close to winning, I finally gave in and moved to force the draw, only to be hit a couple turns later from behind by Russia.

That was an annoying stab, for we had all agreed on this stop-the-leader plan, and then Russia goes and takes advantage of my army shift away from him. So at this point I had no choice... I had to turn all away from Spain, beg Matt for forgiveness (which he was willing to give to get a power off the enemy bandwagon) and I turned east and put up the stalemate in Europe, aided by Spain's backer armies.

Despite many attempts to get Russia back on side, he would not... and when we saw that Russia and Holland were a solid duo and demilitarizing all of Asia, they were soon to be the powers to beat. So we brought Trout over to our side, and little by little nipped at the edges. And that leaves us where we are now: Undefined.

Would be interesting to see where the game might have gone next, or what Matt was planning with regards to when (if) to stab me, or if he would have stuck with Trout and I for long enough to maybe get a 3-way out of it. No telling, since there were so many options yet. But I'll take the draw for now.

If the game is run again, I'll surely like to play. It's a great variant, and great job GM'ing by Jerry... I really like the Imperial Builds style, invented for this game... of being able to build in the colored dots but not the black dots. That made certain centers very strategic... like Holland and Egypt were crucial spots for me, for once I got Egypt, it opened up builds into the Indian ocean, and so on. My goal (before Russia stabbed me) was to get Egypt, and eventually down the African coast to Zan... but that plan was aborted due to pressing matters in Eastern Europe.

See you all next time in 1841,
-mike
Austria