I'll begin by joining my fellow players in thanking Jerry for an excellent game. Although I have not tried my hand at GM-ing, I have a pretty good idea that the amount time and effort that went into managing this one was significant.

I'd also like to thank the others players. Good communication and lots of interactivity throughout. Some interesting alliance shifting and always good game play each turn that required equally thoughtful responses.

Overall, FANTASTIC game play attributes in this one. Right scale, right number of players/centers and lots of opportunity to engage in strategy and alliance building on a "global" basis.

Holland was also an interesting country to play. Its European and South American dots are not of much use as someone bigger nearby is wanting to take them away from you quickly (although playing "pirate" with Holland's fleets off the West coast of Europe is entertaining). So I quickly looked to "trade" some of these orphan centers, arranging to be dislodged so that a re-build could take place elsewhere.

Holland's early advantage is in the Eastern Pacific. This is because Holland can bring together a small, but early critical mass of fleets to take out neutrals as well as make it obvious to lone colonists from other countries that trying to hang around would not be worthwhile. So cleaning out the Eastern Pacific was my early strategy and it worked albeit more slowly than I would have liked.

China was next for Holland. Not as easy of a target as I initially thought it would be. Although I never felt the outcome was not certain, it seemed to take forever. Frankly, in the end I couldn't do it alone and had to seek a partnership with Russia to really complete things. I only ended up with about half of the total dots I would have liked to have gained from China.

Interestingly, I offered a very quiet deal to the new China at one point: I'll let you survive if you assist me in kicking the Russians out of Asia. Ok, maybe I told him he'd need to hand over Shanghai as payment...Regardless, China turned me down flat saying he "already had a deal with Russia." A bad deal obviously.

It wasn't until China was out, and my relationship was solidified with Russia, that I felt like Holland really was able to achieve some real growth. Although I had been in touch with both Britain and France early on, there was really nothing there. I didn't feel I was getting anything out of cooperating with what I considered to be a very conservative Brit commander and the French just were not positioned well enough vis-a-vis my positions and goals, so I determined relatively early they would not be long-term allies and both ended up being my final targets in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

After China, Russia was an easy partner to work with and I think we both did a good job of DMZing our mutual sectors to allow us to look elsewhere and not worry about a stab.

After securing India and a couple of the leftover dots in the Indian Ocean at the expense of the weakened France and England, I made a dash for the East African coast. The joint H/R plan was for Holland to take the coastal dots via convoyed armies (you'll note my stranded armies in Ceylon and Madagascar at the end of the game) and secure the mouth of the Red Sea. Russia would at the same time move to cut off the Arabian Peninsula to further Austrian troops. Then H/R would come together somewhere in the center of the Peninsula. On the other side, I tried to assist Trout by sending a number of fleets toward S. America. Great plan in theory. But a tad slow on the execution I'm afraid, as Spain was able to slip into a series of excellent defensive positions along both the African and S. American coasts, completely stalling my attack. He then kept pouring fleets into every available sea space and I just could not dislodge him anywhere.

Should the game have continued. Holland would have lost its African dots and been pretty much bottled up in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, nearly in a stalemate with Spain for the remainder of the game and very little opportunity for further growth, outside an attack on Russia.

If I were to play Holland again I think I would have gone after Russia earlier in the game, and before attacking the Chinese mainland, in order to secure her Pacific centers closer to the outset. There are only a few and early in the game its defense in the East/Pacific is minimal. Once I had taken those few keys centers, particularly the ports, I would sue for peace. Obviously arranging to have Russia engaged with someone else on her Western front would be very helpful to this limited strategy. Maybe I would also look to somehow develop an earlier, stronger presence along Africa's Eastern coast too. Maybe next game...

In summary, Holland is an ok starting country--not the strongest, nor the weakest--but expect relatively slow early growth. Good middle game country though with many possible strategic options. Of course, you also have to enjoy working with fleets...I would have thought America would be able to grow faster, but the almost immediate conflict with England in the North really hold sit up. This also gives Spain an almost free hand in South and Central America making it, I feel, the one to beat from the start.

Once again, thanks for a great game. I hope to participate in the next one as well.

Best regards!

Bruce


----- Original Message ----
From: Gerald Todd <sgttodd(at)mainecav.org>
To: beartla de Búrca <beartlab(at)yahoo.ie>; Bruce Quinn <coebq(at)yahoo.com>; Clark Landry <clarklandry(at)gmail.com>; Steve Caponigri <scaponig(at)yahoo.com>; Former Trout <former.trout(at)yahoo.ca>; Stephen Lytton <stevelytton(at)hotmail.com>; Matt Kremer <matthew.kremer(at)yale.edu>; Darryl Good <dipknight(at)gmail.com>; Michael Sims <mike(at)southwall.com>; DC130 <dc130(at)diplomaticcorp.com>; Eric Hildebrand <EHildeb103(at)aol.com>; GM <sgttodd(at)mainecav.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2008 12:10:53 AM
Subject: dc130 ~ Imperial1840

The DIAS vote has passed and thus ends the first and last ever play-test game of Imperial1840.

All the players showed great patience in working the bugs out of this variant and helping develop it into the playable and interesting world variant I hope it will be.

My thanks to you all.

The lessons learned from this play-test have been carried forward into what I hope will be it's final form: Imperial 1841.

That game I hope to begin in early July, 2008.

Jerry