One thing I feel worked out well at first was the "blind" nature of the game. It seemed like fun trying to figure out who was who, although some of you gave yourselves away much too early and/or made no attempt to try to mislead people. Others played it up perfectly.
I hope this isn't our last game of dip. I would still love to play a face to face game in Vegas. Perhaps we can do it over the course of a couple of days.
Here are the identities of the players for anyone still wondering...
France - Peter Russo
Germany - Robert GreenYOUCANTGOOGLEMEberg
Austria - Jay Pil
Turkey - Dave Tortorella
Italy - Eric Yu
Russia - Adam Webb
England - Wayne Loeb
Here are the few EOG statements I got. No surprise that the new players and Jay opted not to write one. Too bad. I wish Dave's was longer, too. I deserved a short and sarcastic one from Rob since I called him out in my email, oh well. Thanks to those of you who wrote them. And sorry again for not doing a better job.
Until Vegas,
Dave
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Being France, I had a distinct advantage as a major power to make
alliances and actually have some major influence on the game. Not
knowing which player controlled which power added a new level of
complexity to the game. I knew that Wayne, Rob, Dave T., and Jay were
probably playing which left two players as wild cards. This worried
me a little, but, as the final outcome of the game shows, I should
have worried more about how little the new players knew about the game
and how little they actually cared to play it.
As France, my natural allies would either be England or Germany. Both
allies seemed open to making alliances though I was getting weird
emails from England about what shows I liked, including a show called
"Aqua Teen Hunger Force". I feigned ignorance but probably gave too
much away as I claimed too much ignorance. Wayne, the master of
low-limit hold 'em, probably smelled a rat when he was linked to the
wikipedia page to ATHF together with a polite response in the reply
e-mail. A Dave T. or Rob or Jay would have just said they don't watch
"dumb cartoons." I honestly did not worry about the rest of the
board, focusing on England and Germany as I thought a game of blind
opponents would actually force the game to be more traditional in
scope with powers aligning quickly and alliances holding steady for
the greater part of the game. That turned out to be a big mistake.
Given the demanding and whining e-mails I was getting from Germany, I
had a hunch that Rob was Germany. Allying with Rob is, in my
experience, simply horrific. He is never happy with standard
strategies, always demanding more sc's than his position would permit,
and always trying to move his allies into positions of obvious
personal disadvantage. In a sentence, Rob is impossible to work with.
Rather than cloak his style and play differently, he basically went
balls out with his ( in his mind ) tried and trued method of annoying
all the other plays to death. A couple confirmation e-mails from the
other continental powers confirmed that Rob was Germany and a general
plan to eliminate him was established.
While continuing to hammer on Rob, I had a distinct worry about who
England was. If it was somebody generally trustworthy, I thought the
alliance would go all the way. As luck would have it, Rob came to NYC
for a visit ( staying with me for free but, in Rob-esque fashion, he
wanted everyone to know that my dwellings were not up to the high
Greenberg standards for free accommodations ). During a meal with a
whole group of NYC'ers including Jay, Rob, Jay, and I agreed to yell
out our countries. Rob said Germany, but both Jay and I said
"England" with much gusto. Of course, I thought Jay meant it, but he
never did anything to confirm or disconfirm it. Later on, while I
went clothes shopping with Rob ( a chore I thought reserved for
girlfriends ), I called Jay and confessed I was France and he
confirmed AGAIN he was England. In retrospect, either he just liked
messing with me or he had an alliance with Wayne for whatever reason (
I guess I will have to read his EOG statement ). What were you
thinking Jay?
After a few years of a good teamwork with England, Germany was pretty
much eliminated. With Rob gone, I thought I had a surefire allied
victory with England. Italy was pretty much crippled. Austria,
Russia, and Turkey looked to be in the middle of fierce infighting.
In effect, the current progress of the game had conformed to my
expectations and gave me little cause for concern. In typical
Diplomacy fashion, my lack of concern should have been the very cause
of real concern on my part. However, like in most military quagmires,
you never hear the one with your name on it. Little did I know, Wayne
(England) had secretly gained control of Russia.
So, in the Spring of 1905, I learned the cold taste of steel from a
dagger in my back from England. As in typical Wayne fashion, ( he
always wants to sweet talk after he stabs you ),right after the moves
were posted, I get the first phone call from Wayne since the last
diplomacy game ( Josh wishes he could count himself this lucky )
occurring after this move. I was still confused as I was expecting
Wayne to offer his services as an ally against Jay, who I still
thought was England. Rather, he had come to perform his usual "I did
what I thought I had to, maybe we can still work together, etc, etc."
spiel, the usual Wayne post-stab sob story speech which I knew was
just for appearances. After about 1 minute of this, I zoned out (
which I think puts me on the high end for Wayne conversations where I
suspect most other people zone out between 15-30 seconds ). Another
mistake on my part as I probably could have lifted information from
the conversation if I had participated more. Maybe this was a
deliberate move on Wayne's part, a very clever stratagem indeed.
Indeed, I totally missed the ace up his sleeve that made all such
conversations now obsolete.
With the Russian ace up Wayne's sleeve being a total mystery to me, I
really had no idea how bad of a situation I was in. In retrospect, I
have no idea why Wayne even bothered talking to me. The game was his
from that point on. The game was over, I just didn't know it yet.
But, you can only act on the knowledge you have......
Losing to Wayne is enough to get anybody fired up, so I immediately
tried to strategize a counter-attack with the rest of the board.
Getting rather lack-luster responses from Turkey, Austria, and Russia,
I pushed and pushed to try to form cohesion so as to wrest the game
from England's control. With Russia on my e-mail list for the
counter-attack plans, I was feeding Wayne any and all information I
was able to muster. I am sure Wayne found this very amusing and each
time he got an e-mail from me on the Russia dip gmail account, I am
sure he took off his glasses, folded them neatly into his lap,
squinted his eyes, and threw his head forward, mashing his face into
computer screen, the temperature of the screen being approximately
human body temperature.
Game over..........
For the postmortem:
If I had to say where my fatal flaw lied, I guess it would have to be
the most common flaw in Diplomacy, trusting your allies or supposed
allies too much. I trusted Jay to be England, and I trusted England,
whoever England really was, to remain my ally. England is a minor
party and a single victory by England is notoriously rare. Little did
I suspect that "the Lurch" was England, and he already started playing
Diplomacy likes he plays every other game via the "lurching"
mechanism. However, the machinations of "Lurching", mostly empty talk
and idle threats, were not directed toward myself but rather toward
Russia. Thus, I did not consider the entire range of possibilities
and got "Lurched" from behind, one could say.
So, I say congratulations to Wayne for his much-deserved single
victory in game where the only rule is there are no rules. Perhaps a
more magnanimous man might have rewarded his allies with an allied
victory even if a single victory was possible ( Dave H., as the GM,
hopefully does not have his own EOG after reading mine), but we all
know how "the Lurch" operates. Now, if you excuse me, I have to get
back to this rather unflattering Photoshop picture of a certain
acquaintance complete with cell phone and credit cards numbers.
Sometimes, even when you win, you lose!
Seeing how this Wayne's moment, something just for him:
"For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars
enjoyed the honor of a triumph,
a tumultuous parade.
In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals
from the conquered territories together with carts laden with
treasure and captured armaments.
The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot the dazed prisoners
walking in chains before him.
Sometimes, his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot,
or rode the trace horses.
A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and
whispering in his ear
a warning that all glory is fleeting."
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A FATAL FLAW
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Monsieur President
Date: Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 7:00 AM
Subject: a fatal flaw
To: The Czar
Well, that could have gone better.
Russia did exactly the opposite of what i wanted and Turkey has gone
rogue........
Austria is in good position to rebuild armies if turkey can get out of
his business.
Don't you guys get it? Why fight each other when you can have my sc's
and take out England at the same time?
England is about to single in this game, but he has committed a fatal
flaw. He has split his ground units on the continent and has allowed
mun to be able to be re-taken.
It is a very simple plan. Take england sc's on the mainland, england
will disband some fleets, then we can contest him in the water (
russia in the north, turkey in the south ) while austria and russia
invade him on the mainland.
this WILL work ONLY if we ALL work TOGETHER. I leave the choice to you all.
So, here are the moves ( I am at work, so they need to be checked with
jDip , but here is the draft, I will send out a final list later )
Russia:
A Sil->Mun
A Mos->War
Turkey:
A Bud->Gal
A Rum->Ukr
A Gre->Rom
F Aeg Hold
F Con Hold
F Eas Hold
Austria:
F Adr Hold
A Vie S A Bud->Gal
A Tri Hold
A Ser Hold
France:
A Boh S A Sil->Mun
A Tyr S A Sil->Mun
F Ion C A Gre->Rom
F Tys C A Gre->Rom
A Tus->Pie
A Par->Gas
F Lyo S F Wes->Spa/sc
F Wes->Spa/sc
F Tun->Naf
Notes:
Turkey gets to keep sev ( for now ) but he has to get out of bud. He
gets Rom instead.
Austria gets Tri back and will get a build in Bud ( extremely necessary )
Russia gets mun and will get back war with Turkey's help.
I will give my sc's to Austria and turkey ( and russia ) as the game progresses.
My goal is to give them to you guys instead of england.
Goals this turn: prevent england builds. If we all follow through, he
loses mun and is denied from spa. He will build two armies for sure.
Thus, we have one year to come back and start taking other sc's from
him.
This is our last chance. If England gets 3 armies next turn, the game is over.
************************************************************************************
I started of thinking that an alliance with France, Germany or both would be in my best interest to guarantee a few early builds and perhaps gang up on the other of these three. After discussion with France, we agreed to pursue a Western Triple (France England Germany) Alliance. I was also in communication with Russia planning a future alliance.
Germany(Rob) was being extremely difficult and demanding. Within the first year he was asking me to forgo a build to prove my loyalty and look like I wasn't threatening. This not only outed him as Rob but also made up my mind that he needed to be stabbed and that our alliance wasn't going anywhere. Peter/France on the other hand was very reasonable and was able to look at the big picture. Through my experience with Rob in previous games, I have learned that he is difficult, shortsighted, demanding and overall impossible to work with. He would rather see an ally screwed out of build than work towards building a long-term alliance.
At this point I solidified my alliance with both France and Russia. With Germany caught between the three of us, he couldn't stand a chance. Over the course of the next few years I took a systematic and low risk path to wiping him out with the assistance of France and Russia. France did not participate in the England/Russia alliance. Overall, I was finding Russia to be reasonable and friendly, but his inexperience was showing right away. He would issue the correct orders that I gave him which were relevant to me directly but some of his moves in the South were questionable.
By Fall 1902 I had become tied with Austria as the most powerful country on the board, but for some reason this was beneath the Gamemasters Radar. By Fall 1903 Mar 10th I started to persue an Alliance with Turkey. I tried to play peacemaker between Turkey and Russia so that they would focus on Austria and got Russia to lend his support to Turkey. My short term goal was to weaken Austria and longer term I wanted to have Turkeys help to weaken Russia if I decided to attack. I told Russia not to trust Turkey and and asked him to support his hold on Sev. He did not and Turkey stabbed him on the first move of the alliance. Russia was no longer viable and I attacked him as well while getting Turkey to agree not to move further into Russia.
In Spring 1903(March 10th) I successfully identified all of the players that I knew(I don't know Russia or Italy) and told Dave H. in a documented chat:
me: I agreed to have a fleet to bouce germany if he tried anything
anyway,
I've figured out who everyone is except russia and italy
10:52 AM Dave: yeah?
what do you got
me: It's clear to me that russia is new
France -Pope
Germany -Rob
Austria -Jay
Turkey RBDT
After the Rush'n Attack I offered Russia asylum in Canada which he accepted and I took over his forces. I shared this info only with Turkey so that he would understand my Russian moves as we worked together.
My plan at this point had been to continue my alliance with Peter/France to the end and show everyone how a good alliance can take over the world. Because no other counties were working together at all we felt that we could just sweep West and end the game with a dual. Now with Russia in my pocket I was faced with a choice of two options.
1) give the Russian SC's to myself and continue my alliance with Peter.
2) Stab Peter and go for the Single
The first option wasn't that appealing as I didn't have a strong presence in the Russian areas. I risked losing those SC's to Turkey or Austria
The Latter option had a few things going for it.
1) I was open to get stabbed by France
2) Single!
3) I could use Russia for deception, i.e. Peter's "Fatal Flaw" plan
4) I was sure that Peter would try to unify all other countries against me but I noticed that complete lack of teamwork other than me and Peter's. This was a board of leaders who just could not get along.
So Peter got stabbed. After the initial stab, I called Peter and game him a line about how Jay/ Austria had convinced me that France was going to stab me on this turn. I revealed my identity and begged his forgiveness which he granted since I hadn't actually taken any SC's from him.
Peter was facing a difficult choice. He was so out of position against me that if I continued my attack, he could not prevail. If however my apology was honest he still had a shot at a dual victory. He took his best choice and hoped I would follow through. Instead I attacked and he moved even further out of position. That spelled the end of the French Empire. I knew that Peter would try to organize a team alliance of everyone else to punish me so I was already working with Turkey to thwart it. I leveled with Turkey and told him That I was trying for a single but France may be able to organize a stalemate; and in this event I would be happy to share a dual victory with him. Ironically, Turkeys greed for the chance of a shared victory ensures that I would single. At this point Peter was sending Russia his exact plans which of course I used against him. In the Fall of 1906 Peter thought that I had left an opening in Mun and crafted his "Fatal Flaw" email which of course I received (as Russia) and read. He didn't yet know that it was a trick and I would us Russia for defence.
At this point Turkey had weakened Austria to to point of non-viability and my victory was almost assured. I played it conservatively and strived for position rather that a quick victory.
I attribute my victory to several points
1) Peters teamwork early in the game
2) Talking to all relevant players. At one point I had:
I) An alliance with France against Germany
II) An Alliance with Russia against Germany
III) An Alliance with Turkey to stab Russia in the future
IV) An Alliance with both Russia and Turkey to attack Austria in the short term
3) Peter's forgiveness
4) Knowledge of the other players identities and their personalities
5) Russia's Capitulation (Without this Peter and I would probably have shared victory)
6) Patience, especially by keeping Russia's armies around
7) Other players complete lack ability to work together.
The Queen,
Wayne
*************************************************************************************
"I knew that with those D-pockets on all sides I would die.
what happened: every pricked me, and I was killed ... "
I feel bad for Rob, but I understand. After all, if I were surrounded by D-pockets, and had been pricked by each and every one of those aforementioned D-Pockets, I would have given up on the game as well.
Damn you, D-Pockets! Damn you for pricking Rob.
Rob, I speak a little German, and I think this is what you meant to say:
Erzähler: In A.D. 2101, der Krieg begann.
Captain: Was passiert?
Mechanic: Somebody eingerichtet uns die Bombe.
Operator: Wir bekommen Signal.
Captain: What!
Operator: Hauptbildschirm einschalten.
Captain: It's You!
CATS: Wie geht es dir Herren!
CATS: Alle Ihre Basis sind gehören zu uns.
CATS: Sie sind auf dem Weg zur Zerstörung.
Captain: Was Sie sagen!
CATS: Sie haben keine Chance zu überleben machen Sie sich Zeit.
Katzen: Ha ha ha ha ....
Operator: Captain! *
Kapitän: Nehmen Sie jeden 'ZIG'!
Captain: Sie wissen, was Sie tun.
Captain: Move 'ZIG'.
Kapitän: Für große Gerechtigkeit.
*************************************************************************************
Ode zu einem Anderen Takt-Verlust als Deutschland
ich denke, dass ich Deutschland wie vor einem Jahr war.
ich wusste, dass Wayne England sehr bald war.
ich wusste, dass Jay Österreich war.
ich wusste, dass Peter Frankreich war.
und ich wusste, dass mit jenen D-Taschen auf allen Seiten ich sterben würde.
was geschah: jeder stach mich, und ich wurde getötet...
wie erwartet.
dadurch Heinrich von Glischerrstadt
*************************************************************************************
Turkey - Dave Tortorella
This was a very interesting game, for a whole lot of reasons. First off, it was a nice twist to make the game "blind." Blinding thegame forced us to communicate through narrower channels. That decreased the amount of talking to other nations, since you were trying to communicate through anonymous channels, and couldn't do anything via voice. I think that the game still had a good amount of communication and diplomacy. Of course, the neatest thing about blinding the game was that you didn't know the personality/skill level/quirks of your enemy. That was pretty neat, and I really liked trying to figure out who was what. ONe think that i notices is that i really tried to pick the person behind each nation. instead of playing a pure game of diplomacy, i still wanted to bring all those old dimploacy grudges to bear from prior games.
So on to the game itself. I was reprising the role as the Prince of Poultry, and i had a good idea of how i wanted the game to flow. I think of Turkey as the ultimate defensive/passive nation, and survivability was my big goal for the game. I lasted a long time in my first game, simply because Turkey's home SCs are just too damned far away from most adversaries.
I decided to befriend austria and russia,telling each nation that I would destroy the other. I know that my first 2-3 sets of orders arepretty well set in stone no matter what my alliances, so i just talked out both corners of my mouth, and figured I'd jump on whatever bandwagon looked more promising in 1902. Iquickly got the vibe that Russia wasbeing piloted by a N00B, so i thought i would be heading north to fuck the USSR and eventually england..... of course, things turned out a bit different.
I always try to contact all the players on the board,and was surprised to have a lively conversation with england starting soon after the start of the game. i like this since its very easy to be diplomatic when there is no conceivable way to fuck the other nation(at least in the beginning) I give wayne credit for sticking with our little agreement for a long time, since it was a real nice way to have a long-term strategy for the game.
once england and i were allied, my plans became pretty straightforward. Russia was a nonissue when it had a player, and it remained a nonissue when i found out that Wayne was Russia's Shadow Dictator. So i found myself nestled in a corner with a neutral power at my back, and just tried to tear into austria and italy.
I think i met my goal of maximizing survivability in this game. I attempted to make friends with everyone,and ended up befrineding the winning power,which is a pretty good way to stay alive and shoot for second place. Of course, my goal was a dual win, or (possibly) a sly sneak attack for my own solo win. That obviously wasn't in the cards.
It was a fun game, and i look forward to our next game, and hopefully a live action game in Vegas.
-Dave
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