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GOLDEN PENCILFISH END-GAME STATEMENTS
GM:
Ally Bain [EGS]
Started: 21st August 2005
Finished: 5th December 2005
Result: Germany won
| Country | Player | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | Result | | Austria | Jose Luis | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Eliminated | | England | Andrew Cochrane | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Survived | | France | Mark Chartier | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | Survived | | Germany | Chris Goddard | 5 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 18 | Won | | Italy | Chris Keenan | 5 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 4 | Survived | | Russia | John Wright | 5 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Eliminated | | Turkey | Luke Watson | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Survived |
ENGLAND (Andrew Cochrane) From the English government in exile:
Hi Ally
Thanks once again for GMing. Your hard work and enthusiasm is very much appreciated.
No GM = no game.
Congrtaulations to German player for a very swift and clean sweep of the game.
Thanks also to my other adversaries for the game.
I was hoping England and France may have joined up in the latter stages to try and stall Germany but it wasn't to be.
In the end I'm grateful to have hang on even if it was only one fleet in exile. At least there is pink on the board.
Thanks all once again and well done Germany.
Andy CReturn to Top
GERMANY (Chris Goddard) This was my first solo as Germany, and also my first in a gunboat game. I'd been in a couple gunboat games before and had moderate success, but I thought with Germany I'd be able to take that risk of doing very well or getting eliminated early. No matter what happened, I knew that in Germany I was playing the most entertaining country on the board. Even though the former ended up being what happened, I'd be remiss in not accounting most of my success with luck. There is obviously a lot of luck in gunboat mixed in with the strategy, but with this one I thought I had more than my fair share. I'll quickly go through the game:
At the beginning of the game, I wanted France on my side and England out. Obviously by the anonymous nature of the game, this was solely based on strategy. And how lucky I was to find out that England was in fact a far superior player, and in another set of circumstances may easily have beaten me. With Russia and Austria minding their own business and France gradually welcoming my repeated support, I was more than ready to build fleets to take on England.
But I did not do this directly. England's centres are too far away for it to be practical to attack them right off, so I headed East. Luck was on my side when France took the channel uncontested; I knew as long as it was there and I was continually supporting France, the western powers would cancel each other out and I could gobble up Russia.
As England and France got more and more entangled after the french convoy to Wales, I knew I could flex my muscle without either of them having the ability to do much about it. I got up to three fleets in 1903, and no doubt England could see that they were eventually heading his way. But I set up a tight defensive barrier against him and bided my time until the right time to strike. If France was going to stay loyal to me, I was going to have to take action against his main enemy.
More luck was on my side when Italy sailed west; this nicely countered any gains that France was making and gave him two fronts, while I only had the one. As long as France remained stable, he wouldn't ever attack me and there would be a balance of power among the other countries.
As France got more and more involved in northern and southern flanks, he completely abandoned his border with me, making a strike against him a guarunteed success. But again, I waited until the timing was right - after all, the longer I went without invading, the more trust he got in me.
With Russia crippling quickly, I turned the bulk of my units against England. I expected this battle to go much quicker, but the player turned out to be sneaky and full of surprises - this is, of course, the best way to play England in those circumstances.
The war against England was primarily a naval one, so I started building armies to send south. Two reasons for this: 1) Italy was the second largest power, and France would only feel better if I attacked him, and 2) I already saw a solo victory as a very plausible outcome, and I knew that in order to do so I'd need to swallow the dense southern centres as fast as possible.
So the battles against Italy and England dragged on for a few seasons; France doing most of the real fighting in each case and I was taking the easy centres. I was extremely lucky in the western-med region, where it seemed that each season the position of power was swapped between Italy and France.
By 1905, England was finally on his way out, and France was still totally unprotected. I probably could have won without attacking him, but heck, a 'survived' is a 'survived' - So what reason was there for waiting? The rest of that year was spent taking more easy centres and cruising to the win.
Some quick messages to the western players:
England: you were a victim of poor circumstances. Yes, there may have been more you could have done at the beginning to help your future, but I feel quite sure that if you were in my position, you could have had equal success.
France: I wouldn't say you played too badly, but you should have done something when I became the far more successful member of our alliance. In any alliance, the members involved must be at a relatively equal footing in order for it to be stable.
So once again, I'm very pleased to have won, but luck played a large factor; more so than in the average gunboat game. In fact, it got to a point where I knew almost exactly what was going to happen at each turn. But it was still lots of fun, and I enjoyed very much being a part of it.
Thanks to all the other players for sticking to it pretty much to the end, and of course, thanks so much to Ally and his hard work in GMing this game.
Regards,
-ChrisReturn to Top
GM (Ally Bain) To those that survived or eliminated, you probably will not like what I'm about to say. What I'm about to say is me being involved with many Gunboat games, of which 'Admiral' Gunboat Competition is one of them, & this game was won 'quick & easy'. 'Quick & easy' is pretty well summed up by the final season being A06. Well done Germany!
As you might have gathered, I do stats for many games & seeing I once said your openings are shown, so to is Gunboat Endings. See http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/alb_gsb/diplomacy/stats/gunboatendings.htm
See you on the boards
AllyReturn to Top
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