Whew, what a game! Thanks Trout for GMing through these long months, and thanks to all for making it a great game, my second start on DipCorp (and third finish).

Game began awfully poorly for me - I got no response from California and had to assume the worst - that he and Sims would be pushing to eliminate me from the very start. Fortunately for me, he wasn't communicating with anyone, including the GM - and Ray kindly came in to take the reins of the Golden State.

He and I struck up a good alliance from the start, I sending a fleet south to claim Hawaii and help him against Bruce's moves north, while I pushed the remainder of my forces north and east to handle what I predicted would be a fast assault by Quebec, though Mike did his best to keep me thinking he was headed any direction but west.

And so began the Great Canadian War, ending in the reunification of that great nation (plus a little to the south). Things would have gone ill for me even with Ray's benevolent refraining from hitting my southern borders, as Andy in Heartland was (as I found out later) part of a New York/Quebec/Heartland triple. But to my great surprise, Andy did not seem to trust his erstwhile allies enough to go gallavanting to the west, and he quickly ceded Man to me in return for a welcome peace, leaving me able to deal with Quebec on my own. And to my even greater fortune, Andy was happy to join with me in hitting Quebec from two sides - a move that allowed me to move in and eventually, after a lot of rather distrustful negotiations, seize Quebec's centers for myself.

The alliance with California to my south and the wondrous discord between the northeastern triple essentially carried me through the midgame. I rapidly began to feel that New York was in a position to dominate the board - with Florida leaving him alone and Andy and Mike extremely distrustful of one another, I made it my business to turn them both against Rob, who had attacked both of them at this point. They agreed to my suggestions, and with their (mostly Andy's, until Mike was down to only two units) help I was able to keep Rob from moving into Quebec's centers and establishing a front against me. Slowly everything began to move west, Ray and Bruce cooperating to stop Lee's rapid growth in the wake of conquering Cuba while I helped Mike and Andy survive in exchange for taking on Rob.

We all know the verbose fallout of the slow retreat of New York...so I'll move on to the next critical stage - my reluctant stab of Ray, which probably caught a few people by surprise given my strong alliance with him. Thing with Ray was, he attacked Andy and helped to eliminate him when I'd asked that Andy be left alone to help me defeat Rob. That made me keep a sharp eye on him, as I thought then he was trying for a solo run, but at the time I had no way of doing anything about it, being wholly engaged with Rob. But then, he stabbed Bruce. I admit that I had been saying I'd go along with a stab if Ray wanted to pull it off, but I was fearful that he would either hit me or Bruce, and I wanted to make sure that if he did move, it'd be south. However each time he said he didn't want to stab south, and held off. But he finally did so, just after promising me that he wouldn't, and I felt I had no choice - he'd get territory from Bruce faster than I could from Rob, and be taking Lee's centers to boot. Add to that the conveniently shifting terms of our center splits, and I launched a shoestring stab accompanied by a rare bluff on my part, which barely worked.

And from there, the game was history. With Lee and Bruce happy to work against Ray, I took the brunt of his fury while they broke his southern front, anticipating that I'd be able to clean up in the north once Ray was reduced in units. Which is what happened, until he began to throw centers to me in what I believe was an attempt to make Bruce and Lee fear I was bound for a solo myself, and then get them to attack me. Fortunately I was able to convince them otherwise, and so we've ended in a draw.

I know several of you are wondering why I didn't try for a solo, and here's my answers. 1.unlike many players, who view a solo as the object of the game, I view a draw at the end of a long term alliance to be my personal goal. I view this as a game of cooperation and negotiation, and play accordingly. Not that I don't stab when I feel its in my best interest - but I play intending to secure a draw where I'll be dominant enough to prevent being stabbed myself. Reason 2. North America's geography is such that a rough stalemate line can be drawn about halfway through the US, if there are one of two powers on either side who can meet one another at the right point. I calculated that even if I rushed south and had a superiority in units, I'd max out at 25-26 centers before stalemating with Lee and Bruce - if I didn't screw up and get myself beat first.

And so, with them being wholly committed to one another, a draw it is.

Sorry for the verbosity, but you asked for an EOG, so you got it Glad to play with you all, and I'll look forward to seeing you again in one of my many games!

Andrew, Grand Pirate Overlord of the Reunited Territories of Canada, plus a little on the side.

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Jason K <githraine(at)yahoo.com ([email]githraine(at)yahoo.com[/email])> wrote:

I must say that I feel a little vindicated that both my chief ally and biggest enemy were in the draw. Lee, you caught me at my most vulnerable and made a good clean stab.
Bruce, you, supposedly my friend, kicked me when I was down. You suck man!
Trout, as always, a great game.
And to the rest of you whiny verbose peeps, it was lost of fun, I'll see you all on the next board!

Jason "'Lil Castro in Exile"



----- Original Message ----
From: Former Trout <former.trout(at)gmail.com ([email]former.trout(at)gmail.com[/email])>
To: dc138 <DC138(at)diplomaticcorp.com ([email]DC138(at)diplomaticcorp.com[/email])>
Cc: Andrew Clarke <a_c_2bcool(at)hotmail.com ([email]a_c_2bcool(at)hotmail.com[/email])>; Andrew Tanner <damienthryn(at)gmail.com ([email]damienthryn(at)gmail.com[/email])>; Bruce Quinn <coebq(at)yahoo.com ([email]coebq(at)yahoo.com[/email])>; Bruce Ray <raybrucea(at)aol.com ([email]raybrucea(at)aol.com[/email])>; Jason K <Githraine(at)yahoo.com ([email]Githraine(at)yahoo.com[/email])>; Mike Sims <mike(at)southwall.com ([email]mike(at)southwall.com[/email])>; Nathan Deily <ndeily(at)yahoo.com ([email]ndeily(at)yahoo.com[/email])>; Rob Ackerley <rob_ackerley(at)yahoo.ca ([email]rob_ackerley(at)yahoo.ca[/email])>; Samuel Smith <agenbite.lee(at)gmail.com ([email]agenbite.lee(at)gmail.com[/email])>; Steve Lytton <stevelytton(at)hotmail.com ([email]stevelytton(at)hotmail.com[/email])>
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:24:57 AM
Subject: Dc138 - Winter Of Our Discontent - The End Of Discontented Snows

Well, well, well...

My thanks to everyone for their patience as your humble GM got his act together on this end and gathered in the last stray votes/orders... And with that completed, we find ourselves confronting a bad case of PEACE breaking out across the continent. An agreement is reached on a BC/Mexican/Flordian three-way draw, and with that the weapons get put to the side... for now... =)

My congratulations to Andrew, Bruce and Lee for their successful draw and a sincere pat on the back to our minor players out there for toughing it out and somehow, despite my absolute surety that each turn would be their last, managing to still be standing at the end of things. It was a hell of a competition, folks.

As the draw vote succeeded prior to the Fall turn, the last recorded season will be the Spring of 2012. Congratulations again to all players for their efforts in what was a very exciting game to watch. Thanks guys. =)

End-of-Game (EOG) statements are, of course, HIGHLY encouraged. Cheers!

Apocalyptic Trout

END-GAME!! BC/MEXICAN/FLORDIAN DRAW!!!