Might as well send in the eog, its a bit long, but I enjoy long explanations for things as I am sure some of you can attest to

My Russian Strategy: I'll cut this into relationships with the different powers. Hopefully it will make sense to others.

I started right off with the intention of being involved in all aspects of the world, initially looking to go half in on a juggernaut while also maintaining a strong northern presence to ensure that when Austria was killed I could completely circle germany and end that war before it would begin. To do this I established information sharing agreements with Italy and France. We agreed to do what we could to pass information between us that was of any interest to the other party. These worked out very well and would later become fuller agreements that involved giving each other aid.

I also worked out a deal with England that involved him giving me Norway in fall of 01 in return for him having complete control of my fleet for the next 2 years. It was assumed that I would use the fleet to help him in attacking germany since he and france had made an agreement to do that. I never was able to attack germany with it and the agreement came out very poorly for England as france betrayed him stopping him from getting any 01 builds, and then the only instructions the fleet ever received from England were to not attack germany as had originally been intended. After a year of wasting the fleet's moves in orders that had no real purpose I pushed into clyde on france's suggestion to threaten England.

As part of the half juggernaut I talked initially with turkey about working together and he seemed very amenable to the idea. However, sadly he didn't respond to emails so I started working with Austria instead. The agreement with Austria worked very well until he stabbed me, luckily for me Italy was more strongly allied with me than him, and when Italy stabbed him it was only a matter of time before Italy and I took him out. By the time Austria finally succumbed to Italian advance Derek had taken over, and sadly for him neither Italy nor I had any intention of letting him live. It was only through my shift from solo to ending as quickly as possible that austria lasted as long as he did, for instead of continuing my active war there I shifted to germany and assisted Italy where I could in his takeover of austria.

Any discussion I had with the first germany were null when mike took over. He was kind enough to honor the deal that I thought I had with the first germany and gave me Sweden. In turn we demilitarized Prussia and Silesia which allowed both of us to center our efforts elsewhere. This relationship needed to become a lot closer when France was kind enough to nmr and leave me hanging the minute I showed myself to be working with him. The new france didn't make much of an effort to play, which was due to his hopeless situation (the previous france's nmr gave germany a major advantage). The failed relationships with france forced me to deal with germany much longer than I actually wanted to. By the time the next france had nmr'd a few times I had finally gotten sick of people's lack of playing screwing with my strategy so I switched from trying to solo to trying to draw. I knew I would need to work with Germany to do so, but Mike kept finding excuses to not propose the draw for longer and longer. This made me realize the only way to make him accept the draw as inevitable was to attack him and give my Italian friend all of austria instead of splitting it in half like we had planned on. I then attacked berlin in a complete destruction of any of our previous agreements hoping that capturing one of his home centers would be enough for him to accept the draw.

Austria's rejection of the first draw proposal came as a slight surprise to me, for from my perspective his only chance at not dying was accepting it, which proved to be true. When it came to my attention that Mike had encouraged the Austrian rejection of the draw proposal I realized that no draw's with Germany were possible. Instead I approached England again and proposed to him a draw with him getting more than a survival. The second GIR draw proposal was england's chance to make his choice, when he voted it down he demonstrated his interest in working with Italy and myself towards a speedy end of the game. I do not know if my interest in ending the game would have been more successful had I tried to solo, but this game did teach me the politics of a draw. England only listened to me because I was offering him a position in the winning side instead of the survival that Mike offered. Italy and I had been strongly working together all game, so much so that I suggested that he take one of my supply centers at one point and I never defended myself from him. I think of all the people in the game he was the most disappointed by my shift from playing for solo to draw. For all that, it likely disturbed mike a lot, Italy was the sleeper power, never overtly strong like germany or myself, but especially after his betrayal of austria a legitimate power that would have been difficult to attack and could have controlled the southern half of the world. I think it likely that had I not shifted all of my interests from solo to draw and taken some of the fun of solo out of Yuri's play he would have been the deciding factor in the inevitable German Russian war, and most likely he would have sided with himself, dealing both Mikes deathblows at the same time.

-mike
(added spaces that were supposed to be there)
On 5/19/08, Christine <dawench2(at)yahoo.com ([email]dawench2(at)yahoo.com[/email])> wrote:

The Draw proposal for an England/Italy/Russia Draw has passed, the game is over. thanks all for playing, I hope that you will all take the time to write and EOG, I really enjoying hearing about the game from the players' perspectives.

England - Arne F
Italy - Yuri Podpaly
Russia - mike greenstein

Surviving:

Germany: Michael Sims

Eliminated:

Austria: Derek eyler
France: harry liu
Turkey - Nick Buscaglia

Withdraw/ Abandon

Austria - Boontarp Fitzpatrick
France - Fred Whitesmith
Germany - Paul Rourke

Christine


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My mother taught me not to lie...... so I learned to tell the truth very "carefully".