Pani's Diplomacy Diary: January 2013

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Closing Curtains Contents

Feeling pretty good about this win, no where near as anticlimactic as the last game. Although right at the end, where I had won, I had to wait an extra 2 days to get the official confirmation due to the retreat phase needing to be fully played out! That's the point where if we were playing a face to face game, we would've just called it but computers are more of a stickler for the rules.

Well played everyone, had a really good time. Really glad there were no NMRs the whole game.

Here's my final musings:

England: Sorry, you were first in my firing line and trusted me when you shouldn't have done. You left a huge gap for me to walk into.
Germany: I know we had a 5 for 5 agreement which I would've stuck with had you have helped yourself a little bit. You turtled and did nothing for too many turns whilst I was taking my 5. By the time I'd finished, I had really nice borders with you and you were my next logical target. Not only that, I also had more troops and could hit harder.
Russia: Sorry Mike, you were the next obvious choice. You had too many troubles on too many of your borders for the ability to grow at the rate I was growing, so when we became neighbors, I was able to whomp on you.
Italy: Thoroughly enjoyed your messages (they were all in character) and appreciated your alliance. You asked for the joint win towards the end of the game but you just weren't strong enough for me to warrant holding back to let you catch up. What was it you wanted me to say again? Oh that's right, you were "a brutal and brave tyrant".
Turkey & Austria: I didn't have much to do or say with you all game. You, with Russia and Italy, seemed to be jabbing at each other the whole time and as a result, no one ever became a leader and was able to challenge me.

Would love to hear everyone else s thoughts.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Closing Curtains Spring 1908

One step away from victory now:

I have 2 choices:

Step out of Italian controlled area and hope I can get my final SP from somewhere else. I also have the sodding Mid Atlantic (MAO) Turkish fleet that slipped past me and who knows where he's going this turn or next.
Stay in Italy and walk into Vienna to guarantee the victory but do what I didn't really want to do - take anything Italian.

I think it has to be option 2. I'm sure he'll understand. :)

Sorry Italy.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Closing Curtains Fall 1907

The end is so close, yet so far.

I took another 2 supply centers but lost one (and subsequently had a unit destroyed). That's OK, I'll get 3 builds in my home centers.

Russia is down to one unit now and I can take his final SP with no problems. I'll have to see how the spring works out before I decide which will be my final SP.

And after the dust settled (i.e. retreat and build phases), the map looked like this:

I got another message from Italy after my deliberate silence:

Well, my friend, it looks like you're just two centers away from a victory. Though I'm sure your majesty has more important matters to attend to, could you assist your old ally this next turn just to help him save a little face with the Austrian emperor? If you can spare it, please support Vienna to Trieste. Though it may be a small matter in the grand scheme of things, retaking Trieste may save me from being violently dismembered by my subjects in the streets of Rome.

I have no love for the Austrians - I've had almost no contact with them at all so I'll help out my old ally one more time providing it doesn't prevent my win. I sent him a message explaining as much but also noticed that Austria might just wander into Venice unless I did. I told Italy I had no plans of taking Italian soil but I'd rather me take it than Austria (Italy is unable to prevent the move).

Monday, January 7, 2013

Closing Curtains Spring 1907

The next turn after the great Russian attack of 1906.

After the first push, we had the retreat and build phases (not much to report) and so I set my moves for the Spring with the outcome as above.

I had a really nice line of troops on his border still but a couple of them were out of position. I like to use the spring to move the troops and attack in the fall (where it really counts as that's when you get the supply centers).

What's kind of funny is that this is the first outcome in any of my games where I've had a unit dislodged (i.e. a successful attack made on me). As I was moving my troops around to prepare for the fall, Russia attacked me in Norway, from Sweeden with support from St Petersburg.

To the casual observer, this might seem bad but actually it's beneficial. I am able to retreat to Finland which is further into his territory and will help my attack on St Petersburg next turn. I also have enough troops to take Norway back and keep everything I currently own. After the fall, I'll hopefully gain 2 more supply centers and this time next year, I should be able to win the game!

It might require a backstab on Italy to get a cheeky last one but I'm sure he wont mind! Speaking of which, I've still been completely ignoring Italy's message and he hasn't followed it up with anything.

I'm also really looking forward to posting this blog so that the people who've played with me can read it and I can get their feedback.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Closing Curtains Fall 1906

Mike (Russia), we've been friends for a long time, here's a gift to celebrate our friendship. It's a knife and it'd look great right between your shoulder blades.

Well that turned out nicely. As I'd hoped, he mostly just held in place without supporting his own holds. That meant I managed 3 supply centers of his; Norway (he'll have to retreat), Berlin (completely empty and Kiel (unit automatically destroyed because it had no place to retreat to). Not only that, as I expected, Turkey took back Ankara from the Russians which will drop him down yet another unit for the spring.

Here's my response from Russia after the stab:

lol

If you haven't noticed yet, I'll be at 14 supply centers by the time I build. I'm in a really awesome position again. If the other players haven't noticed yet then I'm on easy street and even if they have, they seem too wrapped up with their petty squabbles in the South East of the map to really do anything about it. I hope I'm not speaking too soon because I'm sure anything could happen.

In the spring, I'll take Denmark and I'll move into position into the Baring sea, ready to capture St Petersburg in the Fall. Other than that, I'll just take things cautiously to prevent moves against me and until I can grab the remaining ones.

I just received a message from Italy with the following paragraph:

You are now the greatest power in Europe and I, hopefully, am your weak but loyal ally. Hopefully I shall be stronger in a year or two, but there is no chance I will be able to equal you in strength or supply centers at any time unless I stabbed you and allied with someone else. I would therefore like to propose a two-way draw once all our adversaries have been disarmed and utterly defeated; in exchange I shall remain your loyal ally until the bitter end.

This is crazy talk. As mentioned before, I have 14 supply centers, Russia and Italy have 6 a piece, Austria and Turkey have 4 each. For me to let Italy get a joint win with me at the end of the game seems bonkers. If he had made significant strides and ended up with 10 11 12, I could understand, but 6?

He's desperate, clearly. And I think I'm just going to ignore him for a couple of turns to see what he does. We have almost 4 days now until our spring orders are finalized so I'll just pretend to be offline for a while. Sometimes, I think pretending to be offline is enough of a tactic. I could say "Yeah, absolutely pal" and just backstab him at the 11th hour but it might be obvious and he might see the lie coming.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Worst Case Ontario Contents

Closing Curtains Spring 1906

One more turn until I make my stab.

During the Spring, I very slightly messed up my German orders. I was hoping to have Ruhr out of the way before this point so I could throw every single unit behind the Russian push. If I'm going to backstab (or frontstab), I like it to be with some serious force. I'm sure he's got to see it coming but nevertheless, just in case, I sent him the following message:

Hey just a friendly reminder as I saw you make this mistake in Contantinople and Smyrna. You don't actually capture new supply centers in the Spring, you have to hold them in the fall to own them for the build.

I thought this was genius. Not only was it giving him some "inside" tips about how to play the game thereby confirming our friendly relationship, if he does exactly what I want him to (hold in St Petesburg), he wont think to support the hold in Norway. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get into Norway with a force of 2 to his puny 1.

I then told him some BS about how angry Italy was getting at me moving into Piedemont and asked Russia to message Italy to buy me time. Anything I can think of to keep my ruse up. I also gave him some specifics about what I was doing regarding moving south towards Italy which was really what I would've done, had I really been doing it.

As always, I'm playing the odds. If everything goes the way I want it to, I'll get 3 of his supply centers and not loose a single one. If I'm unlucky, I'll only get one. I'm betting on getting 2. Anyway this goes down, the ruse will be up. And of course, I could've messed up my orders and allowed a hole in my defenses.

Not only all of this, Russia might loose another one or two supply centers near the black sea if all goes well. Anything to dwindle his forces to allow me to go in for the killing blow.

Worst Case Ontario Fall 1905

They think it's all over...

It is now! I win!

But it was a bit anticlimactic. Russia had stopped playing and right before the end, he had auto surrendered. Not that it made much difference to my tactic - by that stage, I had already submitted my orders. I was able to finish off the English in the Mid Atlantic area and sneakily grab 2 Russian owned areas to get to 18 supply centers.

The game wasn't ranked which means there is no reprocussions for dropping out and you're going to get people who aren't as invested. One thing I've learnt is that if you want a good game, ALWAYS play ranked. People like achievements and will work for the win if there's more than just bragging rights (points).

Russia and I had a good thing going but I'm not sure I ever planned to share the victory with him. I was growing much quicker than he was and protecting my assets better (he had the the final German troop still carving a hole in his underbelly). With the way my units were placed, I was always in a very strong position, protecting my borders and preventing enemies from slipping by me (see Closing curtains where Italy and Russia are constantly being harassed by units that have slipped by their defenses).