05 Mar 2014, 11:57 am
A surprisingly strong score for me from what has to go down as a pretty mediocre performance.
I can't remember a great deal about the early part of the game, but from what I recall my decisions effectively made themselves because Germany only played fitfully and responded slowly to my emails and Russia never responded at all. That's right, I didn't exchange a single email with Russia in the entire game. I tried to contact him early doors and he never replied. Then after that I didn't see the point because it was clear from how things were shaping up that I'd be attacking him. So France was quite clearly my best partner choice.
Greg was a good, solid partner. Unfortunately comunication between us slowed down a bit after the first few turns and quite often we never properly got talking till monday, which left little time for proper planning. Greg's life is obviously a bit fuller than mine... What this meant was that I was coming up with most of the ideas and Greg was just going along with them, which suited me fine for several years. Ultimately I knew I had to stab him at some point, but I hesitated for way too long before taking the plunge. At first I was quite taken with the idea of somehow managing to force a breakthrough in the stalemate line through cunning and clever play and then stabbing him later when the solo was assured. Turkey and Austria were too smart to fall for that though and by this time a couple of years had slipped by. Then I was all set for a stab on Christmas Eve, which had the potential to be devastating, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. Seemed like a mean way to say Merry Christmas to a man who had been so loyal to me. I knew at the time that I was being pointlessly sentimental about what is ultimately just a game, but that's the decision I made and I paid for it. When I did eventually make the stab, which had been obvious from a long way out, I screwed up on my orders by writing Ber twice. This probably added at least 1 year to the game and cost me at least 1 centre in the final analysis.
I don't really care about that though. Austria and Turkey both played well and I'm quite sure they would have denied me a solo. For a while I was playing for the best country award but then when the DIAS was eventually proposed (which I was also seriously thinking about proposing myself) I figured that I'd rather just gamble on that and finish the game by allowing France to walk away with something. I feel that I made the right decision and I'm glad I was able to make that small gesture, however worthless it probably is.
I can't remember a great deal about the early part of the game, but from what I recall my decisions effectively made themselves because Germany only played fitfully and responded slowly to my emails and Russia never responded at all. That's right, I didn't exchange a single email with Russia in the entire game. I tried to contact him early doors and he never replied. Then after that I didn't see the point because it was clear from how things were shaping up that I'd be attacking him. So France was quite clearly my best partner choice.
Greg was a good, solid partner. Unfortunately comunication between us slowed down a bit after the first few turns and quite often we never properly got talking till monday, which left little time for proper planning. Greg's life is obviously a bit fuller than mine... What this meant was that I was coming up with most of the ideas and Greg was just going along with them, which suited me fine for several years. Ultimately I knew I had to stab him at some point, but I hesitated for way too long before taking the plunge. At first I was quite taken with the idea of somehow managing to force a breakthrough in the stalemate line through cunning and clever play and then stabbing him later when the solo was assured. Turkey and Austria were too smart to fall for that though and by this time a couple of years had slipped by. Then I was all set for a stab on Christmas Eve, which had the potential to be devastating, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. Seemed like a mean way to say Merry Christmas to a man who had been so loyal to me. I knew at the time that I was being pointlessly sentimental about what is ultimately just a game, but that's the decision I made and I paid for it. When I did eventually make the stab, which had been obvious from a long way out, I screwed up on my orders by writing Ber twice. This probably added at least 1 year to the game and cost me at least 1 centre in the final analysis.
I don't really care about that though. Austria and Turkey both played well and I'm quite sure they would have denied me a solo. For a while I was playing for the best country award but then when the DIAS was eventually proposed (which I was also seriously thinking about proposing myself) I figured that I'd rather just gamble on that and finish the game by allowing France to walk away with something. I feel that I made the right decision and I'm glad I was able to make that small gesture, however worthless it probably is.
