1901

This was a pretty interesting game for me, right from the start. In the west, things were fairly simple. I was able to convince France to open to the English Channel. When he actually did it, I remember being surprised. I think he must have been pretty committed to fighting England right from the get go. We had a bit of a disagreement over Burgundy but ended up bouncing, I think I preferred a DMZ but he didn’t feel safe with that.

The real crazy part was what happened in the east. Now, I haven’t played Germany all that many times, but I’ve played a good amount of standard dip, and paid attention to lots of games on this site. I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a game where Italy opens to Tyrolia, Austria opens to Bohemia, and Russia opens to Silesia in spring 1901. Munich was surrounded, it felt like they were all working together, I honestly thought I was totally screwed.

Clearly, I had my work cut out for me, and began dipping like crazy to try to wiggle a way out of the situation. Italy totally saved my ass, 100%. He told me that the plan among all three of them was that they were both to support his army into Tyrolia, and he was interested in pulling the wool over both their eyes and stabbing Austria, which he did. I didn’t have to do that much dip work here, I think Richard might have been planning it from the beginning, which was quite a nice move. Looking at the map now though, Austria did bounce him out of Trieste with the fleet in Albania, so he must have had some sort of hunch.

Anyway, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I was still surrounded, but I had kept Munich, Austria and Russia were left jilted at the altar, and I had two builds in the first winter. Fred in England had convoyed his army to Denmark, which if I remember correctly, I had said he could do when he asked for it, but frankly it annoyed me having his army there, and I wasn’t sure yet that I could trust him. It proved a good diplomatic tool, I could complain to France and everyone else that I hadn’t expected his army to be there.

1902

In the spring of 1902, I decided to stab England. I had to make a decision between attacking Russia or England, basically. It was a very tough decision. I enjoyed my communications with England much more, and I often like to play the player rather than the country, but I felt the board in this case was really telling me to go anti-England. Russia seemed willing to get off my back, Austria was pretty screwed with no builds in 1901, and France was intent on attacking England..it all seemed to make sense. Also as I mentioned before, I didn’t really like Fred’s army in Denmark, even though the plan was for it to go through to StP. Needless to say, Fred was pissed. I felt bad, but figured oh well. I had snaked my way out of a crazy spring 01 quagmire.

In fall 02, Russia jumped on board with the piling on of Austria, and it paid off big for him. He ended up +4, and sat with 9 builds at the end of 1902. At this point, even though I had just stabbed England, and he was looking pretty weak with France all over him, I decided to make another switch. I think the worst result one can have in dip is to be a survivor on a board where another player solos. Russia was only at 9, but it was only 1902, and I just felt I couldn’t keep moving west with him right behind me. So I apologized to Fred, and reached out to Kal in Turkey, and turned around as we all got on the anti-Russia bandwagon.

1903

In one year, we were able to take 4 centers off of Russia, 5 when Austria’s final unit was able to retreat into Budapest. The big solo threat was pretty much extinguished. By this point, France was starting to get a little annoyed with me, because I wasn’t helping him attack England, as I had promised to from the start of the game. I tried to explain that I needed to fight the big bad Russia, but he didn’t seem to be really hearing it. 1903 also saw Italy make a move west with his fleets..so France wasn’t much of a threat to me. Things were still crazy, being a central power and having all the carnage all around the board, but I was feeling pretty good.

1904

In 1904, with my position feeling a bit more stable, and the Russian threat being gone, I was able to turn my attention to the west for basically the first time in the game. My rapport with Fred was very good by this point, and I had more armies than fleets, and I had an English player that was seeing red, frustrated with having had to fight off France since the very first turn. Also, we had Italy stealing a center from France in Spain. So the decision to attack France seemed like an obvious one here.

1905

Another issue was the rise of Turkey here. I didn’t have much communication with Kal throughout the early parts of the game, except for when we agreed to both attack Russia after his big 1902. He was now at 9 centers, the leader on the board, to start 1905. From my position, I viewed his early game as having benefited greatly from Italy’s anti-Austria opening, and it was easy to think he had achieved his current spot as board leader almost by default. This was probably unfair, when I look at it now. He bided his time carefully, and struck at the right places at the right times to be successful. Still, Fred and I were talking about Kal’s growth at this point, now that we had broken France and were looking with interest at the big picture of the game. At the end of 1905, Turkey had 11, I had 8 while England, my main ally, had 4. Turkey was the bigger threat in my mind, so I still felt I needed Fred as an ally. If Kal had been say, even with me at this point, I may have gone for it and made it a two-man race.

1906

In 1906, France fell further, Austria was finally eliminated, and the board was pretty much shaping up as the England+France+Italy trio working together to try and hold Turkey from getting any farther. It looked like we were headed for a stalemate line pretty soon, once France was fully wrapped up.

In the fall, I was able to surround Warsaw, in preparation for taking it the next year. Moscow would soon follow.

1907

Not much of note happened in 1907..I took Warsaw as expected, France pushed closer to the brink.

1908

In spring 1908, France got his last unit into Tuscany, to live out his final days as a thorn in the Italian’s side. By this point, I think, Fred was talking about taking Italy out of the equation. He was getting a bit frustrated with Richard’s overly conservative tactics, and I was as well. Richard was in a tough spot, to be sure, but I do think there were a few places he could have done more.

I was reluctant to go along with this, because I still had a little bit of the anxiety of the central powers, that Fred might try to stab me and go for a solo. I was hearing it from Richard and Kal, naturally, and I didn’t really think he would do it, I wanted to trust him..but I was taking a very close look at the position of his units each season to make sure he was not able to pull a fast one on me.

In the fall, I was able to get into Galicia, which I think was important for me being able to take and hold Moscow.

1909

Fred built two new fleets, and we agreed to bounce them both in the north. We didn’t really think we’d fool anybody, but we ended up doing these bounces for the rest of the game. Fred began to really move in on Richard at this point. Kal was helping to prop up Richard, which made sense. I was basically trying to stall as long as I could. I figured that eventually I’d have to help Fred since he had been my main ally most of the game and I didn’t want to leave him in the lurch, but I also wanted to leave him as little time as possible, knowing the game would end in 1912 no matter what, to dis-incentivize him from trying to stab me and go for the win.

Also, it was sometime around this point, I think maybe after the conclusion of 1908 (??) that the first DIAS was proposed. Richard wanted it because he saw the writing on the wall. Kal realized he wasn’t likely to gain much more, he was willing to accept the draw. I was, too, although I didn’t admit it to Fred..he was really gung-ho that we keep going. I did think he was right that we had a bit more to gain, but I also was unsure how it would all shake out, whether Fred would end up with an opening to stab me, or if maybe Kal would get a jump on Richard while he was surrounded and go for it himself..neither of these seemed that likely but I just felt overall my position was a bit tenuous in the middle. That’s why I voted yes to the draw..though I guess it’s a moot point because I knew all along Fred would vote it down. So on we went.

1910

I couldn’t put it off any longer, there would be no more stalling, so I went for it and stabbed Italy. I felt bad about it, really bad, because he had saved my butt in the very first turn. But I didn’t see much other alternative. Turning around to try and stymie England and force him to draw didn’t strike me as very interesting..it would have likely benefitted Kal more than me, and plus, we were in 1910 and I was realizing that Fred didn’t have any time to make a stab of me count, so I was sort of playing with house money.

Then before fall 1910, Kal wrote to me and said that he realized there was no stopping Richard’s demise, and that he was willing to join in. We coordinated a bit, just enough to stay out of one another’s way.

1911

At this point, it was mostly academic, and the talk was of how the game would end. Kal didn’t mind finishing second or third, and Fred wanted to finish ahead of Kal. He said he would be ok finishing second to me, and I guess it would have been nice to have a board top. But I knew he also would like a tie for first, something we had discussed a bit even several years back. I feel that Fred played a good game and deserved the tie. I let him have a few centers in the final year, yes, but I stabbed him early on, and even though I don’t think it was a bad move at the time, I respect his willingness to trust me for the rest of the game even after that.

So I am happy with the finish. All games are different, this one was certainly interesting.

Thanks again to Dave for GMing, and thanks to the other players for playing. It was fun as always.