BRAMBLE ENDGAME STATEMENTS
GM Brian Frew
STARTED: 4th February 2000
FINISHED: 17th November 2000
RESULT: English WIN !!

                          01  02  03  04   5  06  07  08  09  10
AUSTRIA [Matt Barnett]     3   5   7   9   2  15  13  10   9   6
ENGLAND [Tom Hilton]       3   5   6   7   9   9  11  13  15  18
FRANCE [Chris Iles]        3   5   5   6   8   7   7   9  10  10
GERMANY [Dominic Robinson] 3   5   6   6   4   3   3   2   0   0
ITALY [Jeff Thomas]        3   3   3   3   0*  0*  0*  0*  0*  0*
RUSSIA [Denis Donat]       4   5   3   1   0*  0*  0*  0*  0*  0*
TURKEY [Glen Lomas]        3   4   3   2   1*  0*  0*  0*  0*  0*

* Countries in Anarchy

Statements

Tom Hilton [England]:
[Insert standard 'marred by NMRs' language here.] That aside, I enjoyed this game immensely, thanks largely to the enjoyable and interesting communications with Chris, Dom, and Matt. This is the only PBEM game I've played in which I was pretty well aware of what was going on the whole time. (This is less a boast about this game than a confession about my ludicrous blundering in the other games I've played.)

This was my first-ever PBEM game, and my first Dip game since adolescence (longer ago than I care to admit). Like many newbies, I started out with the goal of not getting eliminated. The means to this end was to be a gamelong alliance with France--a sort of western Juggernaut ending in a 2-way draw. Chris was amenable to this, and seemed a solid ally. In the end, we did keep an alliance nearly the entire game (until circumstances offered me a chance to solo)...but the path ended up much more convoluted than I had envisioned, thanks largely to two other early game developments.

My carebear tendencies aside, I was at least savvy enough to write to everyone before the first turn. In the course of opening negotiations, I developed a mutually informative correspondence with Matt; by the time the German-Russian snake had been ferreted out and booted from the game, we had a full-fledged alliance that we took pains to conceal from our other partners. We worked together to dismantle Russia (while giving Germany to understand he was the intermediary between us) and exchanged information on our respective putative allies. We also did our best to steer France toward Italy, which would serve both our purposes. By the end of the first year, I considered Austria my best candidate for ally in the later game.

The other development was the replacement German player (Dom). Germany I struck me as flaky from the start (even before we learned he was cheating), and I think France was none too keen on him as well. Germany II (Dom, henceforth simply 'Germany'), however, was immediatly friendly, and opened his correspondence with a proposal for a three-way alliance with England and France...coupled with a side proposal to England to stab France further down the line. In the short term, the orderly disposition of the northern neutrals served us all well, so we worked out a 3-way non-aggression pact; meanwhile, I had an agreement with France to stab Germany eventually, and an agreement with Germany to stab France, and a little time to decide between them.

So I started the game with a goodly number of friends on the board, and no real enemies. Italy and Turkey were the least communicative; Russia was reasonably friendly, but I had to expand somewhere.

All went more or less to plan in the early years. Germany began agitating for a move against France sometime in 1902; my challenge here was to hold him off without making him suspicious, and to make my moves ambiguous enough that I could spin them as anti-French (even as they set up an attack on Germany). It seems to have worked, and we were able to pull off a nice 3-center stab. (Even so, he held on for another 4 years or so, thanks only partly to Austria's help. Nice going, Dom.)

At about the same time, the abandonment of Turkey and Russia gave Austria a whole bunch of centers, and raised the possibility of an Austrian solo. France suggested we fight Austria; I still had hopes of eventually working with Austria against France, so I was reluctant. I suggested that we continue to focus on Germany while pursuing a limited hands-off attack: France would offer to call off his attack on Italy on the condition that Italy grab Trieste. My hope was that this would limit Austria's growth, giving England time to catch up, and eliminate French pressure to move openly against Austria; England would meanwhile maintain plausible deniability as far as Austria was concerned, being two degrees removed from the aggression. Italy was amenable, and it looked like it would work.

Then Italy NMR'd.

At that point, it became clear that it would wind up with France and England setting up a stalemate line. I started moving armies into Russia, and France began to tangle with Austria in Italy.

Then, of course, that wasn't clear anymore.

Matt, one of the most reliable players in the game, went NMR. My attack on Mos, meant to tie up his armies, succeeded. A subsequent NMR left Austria in anarchy.

At this point, I offered France a two-way if he was tired of the game; otherwise, I was inclined to go for a solo. France made the very sensible suggestion that we run on one-week deadlines for the rest of the game.

The rest was fairly simple; as Brian said, given my position there wasn't much Chris could do. I had a defensible position in Germany and Benelux, 2 or 3 rogue armies in the wide-open east, and enough western units for a full-scale attack on France. France had some overburdened defenders in the west, and nothing but fleets in the east. Taking MAO--which was meant to be a defensive move, cutting support for any attack on ENG, until it unexpectedly succeeded--sped up the process, giving me Portugal as the extra center I needed to make 18 in 1909.

At first I felt a little sheepish at the prospect of winning thanks to somebody's abandonment. Now, to put it in perspective, it looks like the next Gringo president will owe his election to voter error, cronyism, and election fraud--and suddenly, I don't feel bad about winning at all. ;-)

Thanks, Chris, Matt, and Dom. Hope to play with all of you again sometime. Many thanks to Brian for a very well-run game.

Chris Iles [France]:
Firstly, a big thanks to Brian and Tom, for rising above the general apathy.

When matters settled down after the exposure of the incompetent German-Russian impostor, I was left dealing with an England so keen on alliance he had suggested it before I knew I was involved in the game, a rather less keen but still not unfriendly Germany, and reasonable relations with the other players. An E/F/G triple alliance developed, with E/G to move against Russia, and myself to move against Italy - a strategy which I was none too discreet about, as it wasn't my real intention at all...the plan was to pick up the Iberian centres and then strike north, MAO-IRI-Lpl, taking out England; going on personalities, Tom struck me as being my most dangerous and competent opponent, while I preferred an F/G alliance to F/E, as England strikes me as more likely to stab than Germany in the mid/late game. Anyhow, I was secretly delighted when Italy wrote informing me that 4 of the other 5 players had warned him I was about to attack. I never did find out who hadn't.

But...I ended up attacking Italy after all. Simply, he made some early blunders and I saw the opportunity for a quick kill. Unfortunately, Italy's erratic behaviour continued, and the one thing that remained consistent in it was that it frustrated my moves (inadvertently - even his NMR's were a nuisance). By the time I was about to attack, so was a four-fleet Austria.

Matters in the north progressed. England and Germany finished off Russia, and the wary circling between the three of us became more intense. Tom was writing to me suggesting stabbing Dom - whilst saying Dom was writing to him suggesting stabbing me. This had an unintentional effect which benefited Tom considerably, in that it made me very cautious in suggesting an attack on England to Dom, worried that anything too overt and explicit would get forwarded to Tom and provoke the E/G alliance I sought to avoid. It took me surprisinglyy long to realise that (a) Tom might be making it all up - though he's said since the end of the game he wasn't, and (b) that I could have turned the tables on Tom, forwarded his correspondence to Dom and made a joint attack on England.

As it was, Tom attacked Germany. I considered a counter-invasion of England, but didn't as I couldn't see how it could be done effectively at the time. Very reluctantly, I joined in against Germany. I didn't like the situation developing. Austria was dominant in Eastern Europe following the early collapses of Russia, Turkey and Italy. I didn't know that Tom and Matt were allied, but was well aware Tom had better relations with Matt than I did, so could foresee Matt and Tom attacking me from both sides and going for a joint victory. Fortunately, Matt wasn't too far off 18 centres. I had him stalemated in the Med, and resolved to threaten Tom with dismantling my stalemate line and giving Matt outright victory should he attack me.

It didn't come to that, as Matt NMR'd. I offered to co-ordinate with Dom to push Tom back, but Dom's response was to NMR as well; both soon went into anarchy. This left a 10-centre England, a 7-centre France, and the vodka and brake fluid-guzzling half of Europe filled with assorted anarchists discussing revolutionary principles and playing football with the severed heads of the former local potentates.

I could, and should, have settled for a draw, but an unexpected NMR by Tom changed my mind. I reckoned that an immediate attack coupled with any careless or overconfident errors by Tom would give me a shot at outright victory, but it didn't work out that way. I blundered by letting Tom into MAO when I was unable to analyse the position adequately in the time I had available, but it only shortened the game by a year or two.

Overall, the game lost most of its interest with the early dropouts, only the intricate E/F/G situation needing to be resolved. That was no fault of Tom's though; I regret not stabbing him on two occasions, but suspect he would have been part of any eventual draw given more competent opposition anyhow.

Brian Frew (GM). :
...and many thanks to Tom for a comprehensive review of the game. Sad that it was spoiled by so many NMRs but I think that Tom and Chris would have done very well anyway and I am sure they will go on to have useful careers on the site.