The prophesies were correct.

The South has risen again.


First off, I started off this game looking down the shotgun at Cuba. If I were to give a recommendation on this map, I would say you have to put some space between Havana and Miami. I know they are close in real life, but man, its just too close. There can be almost no chance for trust in that relationship unless they could put another sea zone in between them. I know that means that might mean compromising the geographic integrity of the map, but we do that all the time anyways.

One funny little note. As I started playing, I would often sign off as Jeb Bush who was the governor of Florida and President Bush's brother. I wasn't trying to trick anyone, I was just having fun. But apparently, Peru did not know of the second Bush in Florida. Instead, Peru thought that I was Texas, and proceeded to tell me his plans to entangle Cuba and Florida. I thought I would play along, see what he had to say. It revealed little other than that he was trying to get Texas on his side to go against everyone else. I think he eventually figured out that I was Florida and not Texas, and he cut off correspondence with me. Which was fine by me, since Mexico and Cuba were working on eliminating him. A question to the more experienced players: Do yall think that I should have done as I did and allowed him to believe I was Texas instead of Florida, or do yall think that I should have just corrected him when he first made the mistake (even though he had already revealed that he wanted to send Cuba to tangle with me)?

Instead of Cuba being my first engagement, I turned away from the Caribbean to the West. Cali pushed me towards Texas, and I eventually saw Tex as a better bet for an attack. I supposed Cuba was expecting a stab. Especially when Felix had to leave the game, I figured Jason would be pretty suspicious of my position. Putting Cuba off, I was able to expand into Texas rapidly with Ray's help. Bruce helped me out from Mexico into San Antonio and I felt pretty good. First mistake. Tex was pretty angry about my stab, and I apologize if I did anything dishonorable (in the context of the game). I was also surprised, as I think everyone was, by Tex not concerning himself with my continuing attack. Does anyone know what happened?

From there, I turned back towards Cuba. After routing Texas, I had struck up what I thought was a good relationship with Bruce down in ol' Mexico, and Ray, even if pushy, was still apparently my ally since we had fought Texas. As I mentioned, Peru had cut off correspondence with me, a foolish move since Cuba and Mexico made it their first priority to destroy him. It should have been clear to him that I wanted to wipe Cuba out of the picture. I'm still not sure why he didn't give up bs that we had started out the game with. Either way, it worked out for me that Cuba was throwing everything he had at Peru. And there was no reason for me to contact him. What could he offer me? That he would keep fighting for his life. He was going to do that anyways. Plus, had I contacted him before the stab, he could have warned Cuba and messed things up for me.

So I sprung on Cuba, and did pretty well. Things were going well, and I was still feeling good.

And that's when it happened. Cali started his march eastward, and Mex, who I thought would not betray me since he allowed me to enter into San Antonio without any promises, took California's request to come after me (understandably). In my builds, I turned towards defending my mainland SC, thinking Cali was the main danger to me, and I ignored the surviving Cuban unit. I'm not sure if this was a mistake. Cali was the most dangerous player for me, but Cuba almost made a come-back at my expense. Ray and I played tit for tat until he surged into my sphere. For the most part, I think there was little I could do to change this.

At this point, I would like to ask for some more advice. I believe that the reason that people turned on me at that point was because I had expanded too quickly, and Mex wanted to balance my growing power with an aggressive California. Is that correct? Bruce, I'd love to hear what your response?

For the next few turns, my strategy was pretty simple. I threw everything I had at Cuba in exile and did not worry much about Mexico. I knew that I could not make a deal with Cuba since I had stolen all his home SC's. He would attack me until he got them back. But for Bruce in Mexico, the situation was not so clear cut. Of course, he wanted to expand, but the main reason (as I understood it) Bruce had turned on me was pressure from Ray. If Bruce expanded rapidly, my best hope of not being quashed was getting Ray to turn on the growing Bruce.

With that logic I resisted as best I could for a couple of seasons, but there was little that I could do. Ray continued to promise me that he was done fighting me and that I could resume my war with Mexico, yet somehow I kept losing SC's to him. Then, in May, Ray was staking up SC's like Homer Simpson in a doughnut shop (we'll say Tim Hortons in honor of Canada's contributions to obesity in the Western Hemisphere), and he stabbed Bruce.

Simultaneously, we voted on a draw and he was the only one to not voice his choice publicly, making it appear like he was in full-blown solo mode. To be fair, I originally voted for the draw, and I was sincere. But, I changed my mind at the last minute (I voted for the war, before I voted against it?). I'm not really sure if Cali voted for the draw or not, but would love to know.

After that, Bruce came knocking, asking if I wanted to team up with him and Andrew, who I had not yet had any contact with. I signed up immediately, and we turned everything we had on Cali, after mostly finishing off Cuba.

It was great working with Andrew and Bruce in the end. For a while, I thought Andrew might go for the solo. Bruce and I had some bumps throughout the game, but we worked them out in the end. But I enjoyed playing with everybody, and would like to thank yall for making this a great game.

As for the game, I would repeat that Cuba and Florida need more space. Otherwise, I agree with Bruce: there are a lot of chances for fleets and convoys in the Caribbean, particularly for a peninsular power with an island power one space away. But over all I enjoyed this game. From Florida, I feel like a solo is possible, if you work on defending your mainland territory in those states south of the Mason-Dixon line, and focus on expansion to the south.

And I can't thank our GM enough for all those great fortune cookies.

Look forward to seeing yall in another game,
Lee
Moore

PS - Pardon the long letter, but it goes well with the long game.