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ZEBRA PLECO END-GAME STATEMENTS
GM:
Ally Bain [EGS]
Started: 28th August 2006
Finished: 9th June 2007
Result: England, Russia & Turkey three-way draw.
| Country | Player | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | Result | | Austria | Martyn Webster | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Survived | | England | Martin Styler | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | Draw | | France | Simon Berry | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Survived | | Germany | Oliver Searles | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | Survived | | Italy | Ron Snyder | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 6 | Survived | | Russia | Eduard van Dijk | 6 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 | Draw | | Turkey | Morgan Phillips | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | Draw |
AUSTRIA (Martyn Webster) OVERVIEW
Zebra Pleco stated off well for an Austria, with an alliance with Italy and Russia and Turkey facing up against each other until I took a gamble on stabbing Italy to get a fast start and long term alliance with Russia. I still don't know whether Italy was tipped off of my moves to Tyr/Tri, but his convoy back to Apu stopped any early progress. Relations between R/T seemed to shift but never with a result and seemed to eventually settle on an uneasy alliance. A R/E alliance formed after initial instability in the West and France changed directions a few times during the game. A/I relations were broken and patched up twice, but in the end, the R/E and R/T cooperation seemed unbreakable and a speculative EGP succeeded by default (perhaps by accident).
GAME LOG
1902 - Unsuccessful stab on Italy
The move was designed to take Ven in A02, but Italy either predicted the stab (a very good guess if true) or was tipped off. Since the only other player who knew of the plan was Russia, I presumed he had leaked it in some way, either directly or via Turkey. In any case, A/I relations were messed up for no gain. On the bright side, R and T seemed to be very untrusting of one another, so a R/T alliance was unlikely.
1903-1904 - Alliance with Italy
Patched up relations with Italy after R/T seemed to be working together. The R/T vs A/I line was pretty much locked up at this stage, but Russia was still talking about turning on Turkey, so we targeted Turkey to make him a more attractive target for Russia. At the same time, France turned on Italy and any progress was halted.
1905 - Stabbed by Italy!
Apparently, Russia had made a deal with Italy to work towards an end-game but had made other deals that were revealed after the turn, so Italy realised that Russia had set him up to mess up A/I relations (for a second time). We patched this up again, but left Tri in Italian hands since changing back would have been too disruptive to our position.
1906-End - Just hanging on
After Germany was demolished by R/F he managed to sneak a unit out and rob Russia of 2 SCs for a long time. This slowed up a strengthening R/E alliance somewhat, but the stab on France and progress against France was inevitable. Several attempts were made to turn England and/or Turkey against Russia but nothing was agreed upon and it was become pretty obvious that if R/E/T stayed solid, they would slowly eliminate France, Austria and Italy and then a move might happen. With no option other than a long slow death, I proposed the E/R/T draw in the hope of at least getting a survival result. I didn't expect it to succeed but just wanted to force Russia to vote against it to show E and T that they were not going to be allowed to share a win. As it turned out, perhaps I was wrong and Russia was prepared to share. That the EGP was accepted was a huge surprise to me, but I think reflects where the game would have been in another 6-8 turns.
COMMENTS TO PLAYERS
Russia (Eduard):
I have to hand it to Eduard - he managed to keep his enemies quarrelling everyone and his allies cooperating. The plan to cede StP to England in order to allow England to build at home and defend against France saved England and secured control of the Northern seas for R/E. All in all, I think he deserves to win as diplomatic skills meant that he developed a dominant position without actually having a great number of SCs.
Turkey (Morgan):
Morgan seemed to be a bit unpredictable and emotional at the start of the game, which made me settle on Italy as a preferred ally. We never saw eye-to-eye on any plan so it on the end I gave up trying to work anything out. I still don't know what his relations with Russia were at any stage of the game, but I have no doubt that Eduard was behind keeping us both guessing.
England (Martin):
I know that you owed Russia a debt for saving you against France. Your unwillingness to even talk about alternative options gave me the strong impression that you were committed to working with Russia to the end game. Can't blame you for that. I think you did well to have gain Eduard's trust and support when nobody else could.
Italy (Ron):
Well, we had a few scuffles, but overall I think we were the second best alliance in the game (next to R/E). I think we showed observers that you can patch things up after a stab (successful or otherwise) and work together afterwards. It's just a pity that the disruption we caused to one another lead to domination of the game by Russia, who was involved in both stabs.
France (Simon):
Like others, you seemed to change sides at times that suited Russia and that undermined any position that A/I might have had against R/T. Still, Italy came back at you after agreeing to cooperate and ceding of StP to England was a great tactic that stopped your advance on England at the critical time.
Germany (Oliver):
Great effort to keep submitting turns and fighting on after getting surrounded by R/E/F.
GM (Ally):
Thanks to Ally for GMing another game with your usual efficiency, and for providing 24-hour deadline reminder emails. Not all GMs send reminders, and I must say that they saved my turn more than once. The difficult diplomatic situation made it very difficult to get around to submitting a turn since I was never sure which way to go, and often was waiting for a reply when the turn fell due.
CONCLUSION
All-in-all Zebra Pleco was a frustrating game of shifting alliances for Austria, and a bad diplomatic start lead to a slow and defensive game. It has to be said that since the game finished before Germany was eliminated, the game finished on S09 with a 3-way draw and ALL SEVEN players still in the game. That has to be pretty unusual and is indicative of the way the game was played. Any game where Austria survives with 4 SCs is better than average for Austria! Oh well, maybe next time...
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Regards,
Martyn WebsterReturn to Top
FRANCE (Simon Berry) Zebra Pleco was a game that could have been much more interesting than it was. It had many of the things that often come together to make a great game - shifting alliances, confusion (at least in Paris) as to what was going on and some interesting tactical play. Unfortunately, it was let down by rather limited diplomacy by some of the players (including myself). This should not detract from the well deserved draw which Martin (England), Eduard (Russia) and Morgan (Turkey) participated in.
From the French perspective, the game was marred by some poor strategic and tactical decision making in the early stages and limited diplomacy later in the game.
The following is largely from memory as the original record of the early game was lost when my PC died on me, so I will blame Dell if there are any inaccuracies.
1901: I established the usual DMZs with Italy. I had an agreement with Germany for an attack on England and one with England for an attack on Germany. I recall trying to promote conflict in Scandinavia between Germany, England and Russia but suspect that my efforts in this regard were largely irrelevant. I was hoping to get Bel and was expecting German support which did not eventuate with the resulting bounce. Even with the bounce, I decided to chose the German alliance over the English alliance and built F(Bre).
1902: the German builds had me slightly confused. However, the build of F(Kiel) had me convinced that Germany was committing to war against England with me. Evidently England thought so to as he moved to SKA. The 1902S adjudication was a rude surprise as Germany came marching across the border. The fact that I had moved to ENG effectively meant that I had created an F v GE situation and had no one to blame but myself. At this point I was apologising the England and vacated ENG as quickly as I could. The 1902A adjudication was amusing. I had tried to patch things up with England and attacked Germany. Germany had tried to patch things up with me. England had attacked me. This must have been a source of delight to the Eastern powers.
1903: this year saw me working with England against Germany. That was good. As Germany fell, I agreed with England that I would move to the Med and he would move against Russia. I moved to the Med while England moved against me. That was effectively the end of France as a power in the game.
1904 - end: Once again, I was faced with a war on two fronts (soon to become three). At this point in the game I ran into some personal problems which left we with very little time or energy to engage in much diplomacy (or several other things) and I was not really in a position to try and talk my way out of the mess I had got myself into. Many apologies to the other players for my limited correspondence from this point on. With England attacking from the north, Italy from the south and Russia marching through my briefly held German conquests, it was a tactical exercise in seeing how long it would take them to eliminate me. At the end, I was quite happy (but perhaps a little surprised) for the EGT draw to go through as it saved me from certain elimination.
Congratulations to Martin, Eduard and Morgan for their well deserved draw.
As always, many thanks to Ally for his reliable and friendly GM service without which the game would not have been possible.
Cheers
SimonReturn to Top
GERMANY (Oliver Searles) Firstly let me congraluate E/R/T for their 3 way win. Also thanks to Ally for GMing and doing a great job as usual. Also thanks to everyone for playing.
Well what can i say i never really got going in this game. Early on i tried to negotaie with England and Russia but they seemed intent to wipe me out and did so. I was left with Den and later Swe and then spent the rest of the game just holding those and hoping i could survive.
Thanks
Oliver SearlesReturn to Top
RUSSIA (Eduard van Dijk) Hi Ally,
here is my EGS, finally
I hope you can add it..
The game has ended and I am left with some mixed feelings about this game.
Maybe I could have made more out of it, but still I am happy to see it has ended.
First, due to me now being a father of a-now- 9 months old baby I was not able to put more time into the game than I would like. Second, there were a few players who I found not very entertaining to play with.
With AH I thought I started of well, but after he accused me of betraying him, he never talked to me again.
I found this quite irritating and also I think he has not accomplished anything with it.
Oh yeah, he had a very stable position....nothing happened at all the last few years in his position!
With Morgan I had a rocky start and if AH and I would have been able to work out our dissagreements, I think he would be dead in '03!
But I must say I don't regret I now needed to play along with hem. I liked negotiating with him and I think he deserves his share.
With Martin, I went along quite well from the beginning. I think it was a pity he meade a bit too much mistakes in the beginning or else there might have been a 2-way draw instead a 3-way!
About France; well, I NEVER got a reply from him so I suggest he keeps himself in playing Gunboat games.
About Oliver; sorry you were Germany. I believe Russia and Germany always have a hard time to get along well.
Still, you managed to survive, so congratz anyway!
Ron, maybe we could have done some business, and for a moment in the game I thought this would turn in your hands, but then you NMRed on a quite crucial moment; thanks for that! Further, I think you played very well and if Martin would be persuaded differently, you would have had a good game!.
It was all in all an interesting game. For myself I think I made quite some errors and so it was a good learning experience.
Hope to see you all soon again!
Eduard
ps. Ally; thank you for GMMing; you did an outstanding job!Return to Top
TURKEY (Morgan Phillips) Well, no spectacular growth …
4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6 centers in 1901 – 1908 respectively
but still part of the draw.
The first part of the game I spent trying to find someone to be a consistent and amenable ally. I found that Caesar Ron didn’t seem to think that Turkey could realistically be an ally of Italy, that Tsar Eduard was really paranoid that the entire world was out to crush him early and Kaiser Martyn just wanted to sit back for a few turns to see how the wind would blow.
After determining that Martyn thought the wind was going to blow from Italy into Turkey I then spent the next seems like forever turns trying to keep them out of Turkey while making life difficult for Martyn. It turned out that Eduard’s ability to make gains in the north against Germany (and then France) kept him from coming after me even though I held Sev for much of the game.
With the way things fell out by the end of the game, Martin (England), Eduard and I generally had found that we could best move forward by generally leaving each other alone (although there never seemed to be a significant level of comfort with the idea). I was glad that Martin seemed to annoy Eduard more than I was so he couldn’t bring units south to take back the vacant center in Sev (I thought he was headed there in 1909). Ally actually left the center purple on the map that year instead of yellow, which I kind of liked since it wasn’t a reminder to Eduard that I had one of his home centers.
This was actually one of the most contentions games I have been in with no one even pretending to work with me for more than one email. I basically had to start believing that everything being said to me was lie. Eduard ended up being my friend in the end because most of his emails had to do with how unhappy he was toward me but then when he moved he was generally supportive.
France
Simon, I didn’t really hear much from you this game – I assume you were having work/home issues to deal with that were keeping you away since in games where I have GM’d you seemed much more active. Your play seemed better in those. I hope all works out for you.
Germany
Oliver, thanks for the communication throughout the beginning of the game. Regrettably we were both kind of stuck in the middle of the feuding. You had the misfortune of not having a corner like I did to weather the storm. Nice job in staying alive throughout though.
England
Martin, well played. You did a good job of managing your position and working your fleets to earn part of the draw. Thanks for the communication from across the world, it was definitely helpful in keeping my paranoia level down with Eduard.
Italy
Ron, from the start of the game I saw you as an outstanding tactician that could have worked with me to control the board. Regrettably it appears that you had decided from the start that I couldn’t be your ally. Maybe we will be in better locations to work together in a future game.
Austria-Hungary
Martyn, sometimes people actually are being truthful when they communicate with you. It is also difficult to do a great deal with someone when you can’t rely on anything they say. Instead of “stabbing” almost every turn or being a permanent ally you might try being friends for a few turns and then when they leave you a huge opening to turn against them. Your constant pressure on me and your unwillingness to consider working with any suggestions I made kept my alliance with Eduard in good shape. I hope that we get a chance to play together again because I think toward the end we were really starting to be able to communicate (or was that just bluff too?)
Russia
Eduard, I am not sure that without the other issues involved in the game I would have made it though your early paranoia but in the end I am glad that I did and I am satisfied with the result that we got in this difficult game. I wish that I was able to do as well with the Bear as you seem to be able to do. I was Russia in a gunboat that just ended and Ally (as Turkey) ate my lunch. Thanks for your communication throughout the game and good luck in your future play.
Ally(GM)
Thanks for your work as GM in this game. You did a great job as usual. Somehow it always seems nicer having you be my GM than you being the player beating up on me! :-)Return to Top
GM (Ally Bain) Yeah, I did it, 18 SCs....oh, hold on….this is Zebra Pleco & I'm the GM not Hornblower where I played Turkey & did the solo. Sorry folks, reading Morgan EGS made me think I was writing that EGS.... :-)
Like in all EGS, one does say 'well done' to those who got a good result and thank all for playing. This is no different to that however; I do wish to add a bigger thanks to Oliver.
I ask all to do exactly what he did. No, I'm not saying to be hammered (well, no harm if I'm playing in the same game as you) but am saying that even though your country is doing badly, continue to play!
Players who continue to play, as Oliver did, do help to create good games. In 'Admiral' III, one game (Tegetthoff) I'm GMing has had three anarchies. That isn't fair to the other players in Tegetthoff & in this game; Oliver has shown the opposite & has shown fairness to the others by him continuing to play.
The game's Opening & Ending have been added to the stats I create & a link to the stats is below:
http://mysite.orange.co.uk/alb_gsb/diplomacy/stats/stats.htm
See you all on the boards.
AllyReturn to Top
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