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LOMBARDO END-GAME STATEMENTS
GM:
Andrea Pellegrino [EGS]
Started: 7 April, 2005
Finished: 17 March, 2006 (Spring 1908)
Result: Three Way Draw England/Italy/Turkey
| Country | Player | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | Result | | Austria | Ethan Preston | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | eliminated (A06) | | England | Nick Wells | 4 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 11 | 11 | Draw | | France | John Lofton | 5 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Survived | | Germany | Igor Stavchansky | 5 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Anarchy (A03) | | Italy | Tony Niccoli | 4 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 12 | 12 | Draw | | Russia | Stef Meihuizen | 6 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | eliminated (A06) | | Turkey | Bob Cassells | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Draw |
ENGLAND (Nick Wells) Firstly, many thanks to Andrea for GMing the game so well. Secondly, many thanks to the players - especially John (France), Tony (Italy) and Bob (Turkey) who made the game interesting........and scary at times!
I enjoy playing England but, when there's a competent France life can become very difficult. In my first communications with France I realised that here was a very tough cookie indeed - especially when he had a clear alliance with Italy and had encouraged Russia to constantly attack Norway. Unfortunately my tactics of bluff and double bluff weren't working and France was beginning to look pretty menacing. However so was Germany, and, seizing the easier option
of combining against someone who wasn't really diploming (and, of course, aided by his NMRs) we managed to take him apart fairly quickly. Russia was now under big Turkish pressure, and France looked (and was) in the best position. Uh Oh. Things really hadn't worked out!
In steps Italy. Italy had been quietly munching at Austria and, with an improbable allance with Turkey had to go somewhere. That 'where' was France, and, at last, I could give a huge sigh of relief!!! However, this is where the guilt kicks in. I didn't foresee that Italy would make such quick inroads into French territory and so, after a turn of Italian dominance I had to backstab France in order to gain the builds to help me defend against Italy. I know it sounds pretty pathetic, and I truly was prepared to support France against Italy, but I hate fighting on a losing side - so I apologise unreservedly to John. I'm just glad he survived to the end.
Then there were three.
And we were all pretty even. Time for lots of manoeuvring, a massive cock-up, a breakthrough and a dodgy alliance or two......you'd think!
Surprisingly, though, after a couple of turns a 3-way draw was proposed. Well, I thought, that's fair enough - the game could go on for a very long time. But looking at the board Italy was in a little bit of trouble; Turkey was bottled up and had nowhere to go but through Italy whose defences were non-existent in the crucial areas. Nevertheless, I voted for the draw (actually I NMRed - what a muppet!!!!). But Italy voted against it, saying that he would rather have a 2-player draw with Turkey (I hope I haven't done something bad to you in a previous game/life, Tony!!) - though I suspect he might have been going for the outright win. A little bit of diploming with Bob sorted that out, though, and Turkey (rightly) backstabbed Italy to make the point, and finally we arrived at the three-way draw.
A good game, though marred by a few NMRs (including one of my own!). I hope that I play in a game with John, Tony and Bob again. They were scary opponents!!Return to Top
ITALY (Tony Niccoli) Well, what can I say? First off I am delighted with the result and many thanks to the GM and the magnificent job that he did.
I think that I got off to a good start, lots of talking with Russia (Stef) and Turkey (Bob) and managing to get into Greece gave me plenty of options for 1902. The only problem that I had at the beginning was a rather reluctant Austria (Ethan), we had a decent amount of email action but most of it seemed to be very indecisive and was just asking me to attack France (John). In all honesty positionally I favoured an attack on turkey but was just not convinced that Austria’s heart was in it. As it turned out Austria did go for it and it would have worked perfectly on hindsight and so given me better potential for the rest of the game. Instead I went for a joint attack with Turkey on Austria, mainly because Bob seemed to be a lot more interested in the idea of attacking. The attack went well and by the start of 1903 Austria had only 2 units. We also managed to keep Russia out and so took the spoils all to ourselves.
By the end of 1903 Germany seemed to have gone AWOL and left France and England (Nick)in an annoyingly good position. This was not at all surprising as I hadn’t heard from him the whole game. It was here that I thought it best to send a fleet out to the Med in order to waste some French time and possibly offer England some temptation.
Over the next couple of years me and Bob made good progress finishing off Austria and starting on Russia, we had a very good alliance with plenty of chat on strategy and movements, I felt confident that there wouldn’t be a stab and so was able to attack France, this was crucial as he was getting a little too big for comfort and was the person who I thought was tactically strongest.
The crucial point here came in autumn 1904 where I managed to get into Munich and Mar, sadly I think that France lost a little interest in the game at this point. England then became very keen to have a go as well. With Turkey doing well against Russia it was fast becoming a 3 horse race. I was a little worried about a Turkish stab but felt that a certain amount of ‘honour’ had been built up so I let the feeling past…
By the end 0f 1906 the Italian/Turkish alliance was looking very strong, I had slightly more units but was doing slightly more of the fighting, I also had no real options for stabbing turkey which is why I think Bob was happy to let me keep fighting my way thorough Europe while he had a little bit of an easy time in the rest of Russia.
1907 was a little frustrating for me. Turkey attacked my back and virtually fixed the game as a 3 way draw.
There was a little confusion with draw proposals which lost a little of the Turkish trust and removed any possibility of a two way draw.
I honestly feel that me and Bob could have gone for the 2 way draw with relative ease, but I can completely see why Bob was against it, It would have given me better options for the solo and I think that he was perhaps lacking a little bit of confidence in is strategical abilities. I am never the less completely happy with a 3 way draw, it is definitely a fair result as England stuck in it the whole game and played well to take advantage of the French situation.
I hope to see you guys in another game soon..Return to Top
TURKEY (Bob Cassells) This was my first experience of playing Diplomacy by e-mail and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Playing as Turkey I was keen to find an ally early on who would allow me to get out of my corner and make some impression on the centre of the board. My first instinct was to ally with Austria, as I felt that the Austro-Hungarians were beset on all sides by enemies and would be open to a friendly hand. I was also keen to avoid Austria and Russia getting together to push Turkey out of the game early on – control of the Black Sea was crucial, with Russia potentially looking at Turkey as a road to the Mediterranean and the wider world beyond.
Opening diplomacy with Austria and Russia was encouraging – Austria seemed up for an alliance as was Russia. Despite my instinct telling me to go with Austria, I was having some difficulty in establishing what I felt was a good working relationship with Ethan. He seemed suspicious of everything I suggested and I quickly lost confidence in his willingness to provide me with support. Stef, on the other hand, seemed initially like a guy I could do business with. His suggestions were reasonable and he backed them up with action. I genuinely felt at first that we could form an alliance that would be to our mutual benefit.
Unfortunately the alliance with Russia didn’t really get off the ground as Stef only replied to my e-mails infrequently! Eventually I felt that I couldn’t depend on him being there for me as he wasn’t too keen on keeping in contact. Things weren’t helped by a personal crisis for Stef when he lost access to his computer for a while during a domestic upheaval: I’ll confess that things had reached the point where I wondered whether the ‘domestic crisis’ was a front for him plotting behind my back!
Support arrived, however, in the shape of Italy. Tony had been in touch since the beginning of the game and his frequent e-mails and friendly manner made me feel that this was someone I could enjoy working with – and depend on. There had been overtures from Tony to Ethan, and vice versa, and it looked to me for a while like an Italy/Austria alliance was on the cards. However, Tony indicated a similar lack of confidence in Ethan to my own (or was it that the Austrian supply centres were just closer to hand?!) and we decided that the map of Europe would look better without that nasty Austro-Hungarian Empire in the middle – something in the colours of Italy and Turkey would be much more attractive, we thought.
From that point onwards, the Italian Turkish alliance was pretty much unstoppable. We made short shrift of Austria, helped by Russia basically falling out of the game. Russia’s ‘absence’ assisted me with my expansion northwards also. Elsewhere, it looked for a long while that France would be the major threat in the northern half of the board. I’d tried to keep in touch with all of the other players from the outset and John had struck me as someone who had a clear idea of what he wanted to do. (Maybe that eventually lead to his downfall – he came across as too much of threat to all of the other players for his own good!) England seemed to play some bizarre orders at the beginning of the game and I confidently e-mailed to Tony that I didn’t expect Albion to last long. So much for my judgement! Nick shares in the draw because basically he kept on going. I felt quite strongly towards the end of the game that those players who had continued to contribute to the game should get the reward of sharing in the draw. (Although I wasn’t prepared to extend that to John with his single army – sorry, John!) I know Tony felt the same way, although I think he wobbled on that judgement when he realised that the possibility existed of him going for the outright win. Nick and I agreed that the only way to ensure that Tony realise that there was little chance of this happening would be if we gave him a bloody nose and the Turkish army in Munich was our way of doing this. I hope Tony didn’t find it too painful!
My only complaint about Lombardo was the number of players who didn’t seem to want to communicate. I’ve noted the problems I experienced with Russia, although some of that was probably beyond Stef’s control. France and England were in touch only seldom, although that had more to do with our respective positions on the board. I don’t think I ever received an e-mail from Germany.
All in all, I really enjoyed my first experience of e-mail Diplomacy. My thanks to all of the guys who took part and an especial big thank you to Andrea for running the game – even when the demands of fatherhood were, I’m sure, calling him away to more prosaic matters!Return to Top
GM (Andrea Pellegrino) Thank’s to you all who played to the end or until eliminated! I believe that Lombardo was a good game. I know from your comment to me that at the beginning in some case a lack of diplomatic messages was suffered. Well….this unfortunately happen sometime and the only thing you can do is to write even harder and always play it at your best. As GM I tried to do my best in order to issue adjudication timely, Unfortunately I had no time to properly follow the game and be more enjoyable in my comments (as Bob noted my “demands of fatherhood” did called me to more prosaic matter!). Luckily enough Lombardo was easy to GM and flowed without problem to the end. As for your information no one did proxy its unit during this game. The one between you that are not flagged as regular player and did not NMR during the game can ask to me if they desire to be upgraded and get access to regular game!
This is all I believe!
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