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Post 19 Jul 2014, 2:23 am

...is coming soon. I promise.

but its gonna be a bad read if your British or American! ;-)
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Post 28 Jul 2014, 12:43 pm

Tease.
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Post 03 Aug 2014, 6:08 am

sorry for the delay! I always try and write an EoG but this one slipped away from me. Not sure if anyone is still following this so I'll keep it short :-)

thanks to the GM again, massive variant and must be a nightmare to run.

Starting off the game I was a little saddened to get Canada. I like options and flexibility when I play dip and Canada is very very short on these. You basically decide to be the US lapdog or try and get an invasion going. The new map layout I think improves the chances to invade the US but its still a tough old slog.

Early doors I thought my best bet was to ally with Russ and use the USA as the figurehead of an alliance. Problem was Russ was a bit greedy in early diplomacy and it didn't feel like the alliance would develop the way it should. Looking back I think I may have been wrong there, but I've never really played with Russ before and his early diplomacy was far too rigid for me to be able to commit. Russ - a little more flexibility in those early exchanges and we might have avoided a lot of heartache.

Plus Fred was in Mexico. This meant I knew there was someone else close by capable of pulling enough strings that we could seriously consider invading the US. It was a shame Cuba was a little blinded by the headlights but Rob in UK was making enough positive noises that I felt we could make it work.

It still took a hell of a lot of dip and some things going our way to make the stabs work. And then, just as the pieces were falling into place my game effectively ended with Robs nukes.

Did he do the right thing? Maybe. If he did though I think it was for the wrong reasons. UK really should have won this game. Rob played well but nuking Canada was a real waste of resources. I don't think he ever actually gained anything - an African vote had to be sacrificed to gain the Azores.

The rationale that Canada was invading USA too fast doesn't really hold up. I'd have been going +4 that season, but only because Rob pledged 2 nukes to hit Russ with - all he had to do was not build them and I'd have been +2 with plenty work still to do. It was a weak move IMHO with the decision taken out of fear rather than strength and it started the UK on the wrong path that ultimately led to defeat. I thought Robs best bet was to encourage conflict between myself and Mexico, with him being able to effectively choose the victor. Alternatively he may have ended up being overpowered by us but the UK held all the aces up there for my money.

After that my game was all about doing all I could to help Rob lose. I felt a few powers let a few good opportunities slip by in the next of couple years while the likes of Sweden, Argentina and the Pirates started to take control of their local spheres.

So, well played to the winners. My thoughts on map/rulesare below:

Nukes:
personally I think there should be some form of mechanism that makes nukes less attractive the more you use them. I'm not sure how it would work exactly, there are plenty of options, but there needs to be some form of disincentive to overuse them. I didn't like the Armageddon rule but some form of limits would make the game much better I think.

Pirates:
I liked the sound of these guys to be honest. But they're just too strong and warp the game mechanics too much. When I saw the rules all I wanted to be was a pirate. A free unit every year? My word.

Canada:
I don't know how you fix Canada. It was certainly better this game with the redraw in the atlantic and the pole rules. I don't value wing units as starting units too much so its a tough choice between the extra unit or just being lower rated. Canadas problem is access to votes and a real lack of options. I'd say leave it as it is for a few runs and see how it goes. My honest opinion is you will be lucky to see Canada invade the USA again, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the future.


Thanks to all and apologies for the tardiness :-)
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Post 03 Aug 2014, 2:06 pm

Canadas problem is access to votes and a real lack of options.


Yeah, I can see how this would be a major issue. Canada is a tricky nation to get the balance right for. Early growth prospects nare obviously much better if you work with the US, but ultimately you'll run up against the problem that the US grows much faster than you do and you'll be frozen out of most of the available votes. Invading the US like you did enables you to grow much stronger and become a major force (if it succeeds), but still doesn't gain you access to any votes. It's hard to see how how this can ever be sorted out really, given the nature of the game. Having the Azores as a voting centre is weird enough as is, but it would take one or two more centres like that to give Canada any decent options.

One thing I would maybe suggest is to change the wing unit at game start to a fleet. This would be much more useful to Canada, and it would enable a move for the Azores right from the outset.
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Post 03 Aug 2014, 2:20 pm

I think Canada-USA can be very powerful. But you need to get the balance right in the alliance. It can't be USA dictating to Canada.

I wonder if Canada shouldn't be two powers. Western Canada and Quebec. That might be interesting.
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Post 04 Aug 2014, 7:43 am

Lingfish wrote:Did he do the right thing? Maybe. If he did though I think it was for the wrong reasons. UK really should have won this game. Rob played well but nuking Canada was a real waste of resources. I don't think he ever actually gained anything - an African vote had to be sacrificed to gain the Azores.


I had a bit of discussion with Rob on this. I disagreed with it at the time (and still do, really). He was concerned about your ability to come through the north pole to attack you. I suppose that you could have, but I felt it was pretty unlikely to happen any time soon, and thus was a waste of resources in my opinion. This was actually a major changing point in my relationship with him as I really wanted him to hit Russia, but he never did. It was at this time that I realized/suspected that all the talk of us being allies was nothing more than talk, and eventually I hit him with France and Argentina.