|
VIALLI END-GAME STATEMENTS
GM:
Andrea Pellegrino [EGS]
Started: 6 July, 2004
Finished: 17 March, 2005 (Autumn 1906)
Result: Three Way Draw France/Russia/Turkey
| Country | Player | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | Result | | Austria | Dave Foster | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Anarchy (S03) | | England | Teren Robbins | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 1 | Anarchy (A05) | | France | Nick Brown | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | Draw | | Germany | Michael Murphy | 6 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 1 | Survived | | Italy | Peter King | 5 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 5 | Survived | | Russia | Garry Bledsoe | 7 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 12 | Draw | | Turkey | John Wright | 4 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 10 | Draw |
FRANCE (Nick Brown) What a wonderful site. This was my first game on the site and all I can say is it was great. I would like to thank Andrea for all the work put in being GM.
The game started on a bad note for me when in the first moves Germany broke an early alliance. This unfortunately put me on the back foot for most of the game. England did not want to trust me which again hampered any progress.
Fortunately for me both Germany and England ended up not continuing to play which helped my progress. Unfortunately this made the game a bit boring in the end.
My great luck was striking up a great alliance with Russia and Turkey. I would like to thank both these players for letting little old France into the 3 way tie as I was by no means in a strong position.
Thanks again for the game and hope to see you all in future games.
Return to Top
RUSSIA (Garry Bledsoe) Let me start by thanking Andrea for GMing all of us and making this a great experience for those of us that were new to Dip2K. I think I can speak for all of us that were new when I say that we enjoyed it and look forward to more games.
In general, I enjoyed Vialli. Being my first online game I was rather fortunate to draw Russia [which in my mind is a bit better to cut your teeth on than others in this online world and certainly better than the Austria I drew in this year's tournament]. I was also very blessed with neighbors who enjoyed communicating [Peter, Dave, and John]. That got Vialli off to a rousing start. In my mind, this game really had 3 phases: opening [defined primarily by Dave's elimination], alliance [defined by Italian and English treachery] and downhill spiral [marred by NMRs and ending in our merciful draw].
Opening: I was very fortunate to grab 3 centres and immediately surge to 7 units. Inconceivable but I think it had less to do with my diplomacy skills than it did to England and Germany being asleep at the helm. In the south, however, things were really interesting. Peter, Dave, John and I were all trying to feel each other out and tentative alliances were being formed. I absolutely enjoyed my interaction with Dave but I never could see my way clear to ally with him. Sorry about that Dave because I thought you were great to talk with and I did hate to see you leave the game. As the game became almost Gunboat later on your interaction would likely have been welcomed by all. By 1902 Dave's fate, though was sealed. I felt that I had an alliance with Peter and was still feeling out John. However, Peter did a masterful job of playing John and I against one another and managed to capture all of Austria for himself [although that had not been agreed upon]. By S03 I felt betrayed and concerned [not to mention a stab along the way]. I laid things on the table to John and pointed out that we were both so busy trying to one up each other that we had allowed Peter to gain the upper hand. We agreed to work together. I will note that at this point things didn't have to be over from a R/I perspective; however, when I asked Peter to explain why [or even to lie well to me], he never really even tried to justify his actions; he merely kept pressing for me to do what he wanted. That solidified my belief that John was the right person to ally with.
About this same time, things in the north actually heated up a bit. England rejoined the game and Germany and I were at odds over Scandinavia. Still I never could get either of them to really communicate and plan. I thought that I had a breakthrough with England but then he stabbed me. I was a bit surprised by this because it was seemingly over angst that he had over me being in NWG [but that he had never mentioned as an issue or concern]. To me this seemed a bit foolish but that furthered the ending of the opening phase of the game.
Alliance: By late 03 I was resolved. Ally with Turkey and forget the rest. I did have some on and off conversation with Nick throughout but, aside from good general conversation, we rarely had much to discuss. John and I set out in earnest turning on Italy and pushing him back from Austria. Simultaneously I worked to beat back Germany. A few well-timed [or ill-timed] NMRs allowed me to quickly gain the upper hand in the north. I really think that VIALLI would have been different and been a much longer game without those NMRs. I benefited greatly but it feels a bit hollow since it wasn't truly through diplomacy that I gained an upper hand. Throughout 04 the R/T alliance rolled. Without me to worry about, Turkey was able to begin pushing back Italy and grow quickly. This push on Germany, England and Italy did have some good impacts to Nick who was now a part of our ongoing conversations.
Downhill spiral: With the 04-05 NMRs, the game really did fall into our lap. At this point, there was little need for conversation and the 3 week deadlines seemed to take eternity. The outcome seemed a bit inevitable as Russian and Turkish armies continued the slow, determined drive forward. Things began to feel a bit hollow [at least from my perspective] because it seemed that the outcome was going to be more the result of NMRs than diplomacy. I had discussed with John previously that, as such, I had little desire to even consider a solo. I really enjoyed working with him and the thought of turning on him for solo glory just seemed cheap.
Since John, Nick and I were all keen to get into another game and this one seemed literally to be grinding on, I suggested the F/R/T EGP. Mercifully, all accepted. I felt a bit bad about leaving Peter out but I hoped that he felt the same as we all did about the game and felt it was better to just move on.
That all said, I look forward to playing against and working with Peter, John and Nick in future games.
John - thanks for being a terrific ally.
Andrea - thanks for putting up with all of us, especially us newbies.
Return to Top
TURKEY (John Wright) As this was my first ever game of Diplomacy, I didn’t start with high expectations. I would like to think that I missed most of the catastrophic newbie mistakes, but still managed to include a whole multitude of the lesser ones.
Having been landed with Turkey, which in retrospect was a prime piece of luck, I began by just trying to say yes to every idea that came my way. Turkey being a slow progressing country gave me time to get some idea of what Diplomacy is all about without losing too much time. That would have proved more dangerous if I had been given one of the faster developing countries.
Just as fortuitously, Dave (Austria) had expressed his desire to head south early and wasn’t interested in anything I had to offer. So I was either part of an I/R/T taking out Austria or the target of A/I/R, a situation that quickly resolved itself with my allies performing as agreed. Austria then went on to shoot himself in the head by not ordering retreats and so was eliminated as a threat by S02.
After England’s unexpected moves in A01 Russia had quickly taken Scandinavia, and in A02 I put my reneging on a deal with Russia down to the quantity of purple on the map !!! I helped Italy into Budapest, thus giving up the whole of Austria, a situation that can only be put down to a complete lack of foresight on my part.
1902 also saw my first efforts to ‘help’ the northern bun-fight along, but the E/F/G triangle had managed to bog itself down so firmly that I never felt that outside influence made any difference until Russia broke through the German north. A02 saw France lose his fleet, NRO, a loss that caused France to be strait-jacketed for the next 4 seasons.
My moves during 1903 obviously caused Italy a lot of angst as I largely stopped moving as agreed. Unfortunately, it was becoming obvious that I needed to look after myself a bit better. The previous couple of adjudications had highlighted a definite degree of naivete in certain of my decisions.
1903 also saw the re-alignment of the southern axis when the R/T was formed. Italy had been playing the pair of us off against each other very well, but I was finding the strategic situation, most especially in Austria unpalatable at best. Receipt of what can only be described as a ‘howler’ sealed the deal and the R/T alliance strode forth. With Russia being in a bit of a state in the south, I felt comfortable aligning myself with Russia to push Italy back. As it turned out, I needed the one unit Russia could initially t! hrow against Italy’s Austrian holdings to break through, and Russia needed security to the south so that he could sort out his holdings and push on in the north.
S04 saw England finally get in position to get a build with his taking of Belgium, and everything seemed to be proceeding quite nicely. E/F/G were still bogged down, England was about to put another fleet about in the north which could cause havoc. Russia was putting serious pressure to Germany’s north while trusting me with his southern border and Italy was split to both east and west.
A04 was one probably the most annoying adjudication for me as England NMR’d !! If I was to get enough time to expand far, I needed a strong England to help slow down Russia in the north. England’s departure meant that he had handed yet more dots, northern naval power and possibly the game to Russia. A04 also saw the somewhat bizarre situation of Italy handing his proxy to me for the next 3 turns ! Having aligned myself to head west into Austria/Ionian sea, this caused much angst; but in the end I resolved to play Italy a! s an “un-inspired best defence”. I was looking forward to actually having a tactical battle with possibly the most competent player available and he disappeared on holiday !! I would like to think that the proxy situation didn’t materially affect the board situation, but with England anarchied, Italy in abstentia and Germany quickly overcome, the communication slowed significantly, which probably helped to speed the EGP being accepted.
Gary, being the nice guy that he is, preferred to honour his agreements, but by the end of 1906 with Russia on 13 or 14, Turkey on 11 and France on 6 there was only one probable winner.
The Players :
Dave/Austria: Unfortunately your Turnip communiques were limited in number, but good fun while they lasted.
Teren/England: What was that all about ? Having worked so hard to make progress, dropping out when you did was very disappointing.
Nick/France: You managed to hold on in a very difficult position for a very long time, and for that you deserved your part in the result
Michael/Germany: Well, I tried 3 times and never got a response.
Peter/Italy: Regrettably, you were the only player on which I could do any research, and I ended up with a particular idea of what I could expect from you. All of my decisions were coloured by this view, but I was never completely happy with your ideas about how our alliance should proceed. A lot of that was geography, but I was always certain that I would get toasted somewhere down the line, hence my change of direction. Garry/Russia: Thank you. It has been a pleasure to spend the last 3/4 months as your ally. After my early mistake, we always seemed to work well together.
Finally, a huge thank you to everybody involved, most especially Andrea for what, from my position, seemed flawless execution as the GM; your time and effort on our behalf is truly appreciated.Return to Top
GM (Andrea Pellegrino) Vialli was quick. It started in a very promising way. We had player publishing good humorous press, I received lot of diplomatic messages in bcc and the battle seemed ready to rage forever. What a shame Austria NMR’d in 02 and went to Anarchy immediately after! This unbalanced the game off course....then the simultaneous NMR of both Germany and England (this last went to Anarchy too) ruined it definitively. I think the three way draw is very well deserved! Praise to John, Garry and Nick!
We had a proxy in this game: Peter King (Italy) proxied all its unit to John Wright (Turkey) between A04 and A05 (both season included), this I think also somewhat spoiled the game, due to the concurrence with NMR and Anarchy, and probably is the reason Italy is not sharing the draw as well. A proxy for a few week should not impact too much on the overall game (once I had too do the same and actually won the game afterward....) but in this case it did, mainly due to the NMR and Anarchy already ruining it. I personally think John Wright handled the proxy in a fair manner, he could have surely profited a lot more from it and even won the game but I suspect the draw in this case is more rewarding! Well done!
You all that played it to the end did a Great Job! The one between you which never NMR’d are immediately eligible to regular status (please free feel to ask me if interested). For those who did NMR’d a few time I suggest to play another standard game, but I will consider a status upgrade if asked. Please be aware that: a status upgrade will permit you to join regular games, to join more than one game at the same time, to join game which are quicker in deadline. All of this three very nice thing immediately reflect in increment the time you must dedicate to Diplomacy 2000. Before joining games always evaluate if you really can support the effort it require. Also remember that not all GM send a warning message in order to remember you of deadline. Finally you should know that a regular player which does goes to Anarchy is considered far worse than a normal one!
I’ll be happy to GM any of you which did not went to Anarchy again and I really hope you enjoyed the Dip2000 site and how it is handled and that you’ll continue playing with us! Finally please fell free to contact me for any information or suggestion or just to say good by!
Return to Top
|