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PARMENION END-GAME STATEMENTS
GM:
Andy Scott [EGS]
Started: 30th September, 2003
Finished: 5th October 2004 (Autumn 1913)
Result: Three way Draw between England/France/Turkey
| Country | Player | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | Result | | Austria | Doug stewart | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Survived | | England | Stephen Custance-Baker | 3 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 0 | draw | | France | Ken Marten | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 0 | draw | | Germany | Martin Maier | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Eliminated | | Italy | Andrew Tooms | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Eliminated | | Russia | Damian Earle | 5 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Eliminated | | Turkey | Neil Brass | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 0 | draw |
AUSTRIA (Doug stewart) Parmenion - Austria - End Game Summary
Well done to Andy for a game well organised.
The start of this game seems all so long ago (2 years ago last week). In recent times I have seen Austria smashed by Italy so many times, I thought I should protect myself from that early on.
Thus I employed the little used 'Blue Water Opening', and was happy to see that Russia was not in Galecia. It appears my opening alliances with Russia and Turkey are working well How do alliances develop? Well for one thing it is based upon communication - and Turkey had it all.
My opening was able to keep Italy subdued and set me in a good defensive position. Italy was now keen to have me onside, because R/T seemed unopposed. So now it was time to change tack all around and get into Turkey. A pity really because he was such a good communicator, but it kept my options open. I had to make sure that Russia didn't collapse too quickly though, so a surprise support for Russia should keep them thinking.
Come 1903 and Russia and Turkey have resolved their differences. All I can do is hold on. When Russia finally made its way to Budapest, it was time for me to settle on a genuine ally - Turkey. Over the next couple of years I gave up Greece to regain Budapest and Also gain Rumania. We continued north and swallowed russia, and who is that in the north - Ah! the English are on the move. And England is looking strong having cleaned up germany already.
I was ready to move on Italy, but I need to block England and Turkey is keeping pressure on my centres. Noooooo .... now he takes Trieste in 1908.
With Italy's disappearance in 1909, I was trapped between an E/F and a rampant turkey. Now France is coordinating with Turkey against me. Alliances are changing on a seasons by season basis - and now my only salvation is working with England.
Basically from 1910 to the end of the game in 1913, I was battered from pillar to post, and given refuge in Warsaw by the English, lest a fight back was ever possible, I would be there.
As a quick wrap-up, Turkey was ruthless, and it probably cost him a victory in this game as others came to my rescue. England played well, and launched against France too late in the game for him to win.
A draw was a fair result, and I was happy to have a unit still floating on the board.
Emperor Doug of the double-eagle State (Austria-Hungary).
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ENGLAND (Stephen Custance-Baker) As I saw it this game had three phases :
Phase 1 : An incredible (and unique) opening by Germany including Mun-Ber and Ber-Kie. This was so subtle that neither I nor any of the other players could decipher his intentions. His later moves did not clarify things.
Phase 2 : My alliance with Ken (France), which was agreed from the start, had a series of set-backs when Ken had an inadvertent NMR in A01 and then allowed an Italian fleet through in A04. This fleet was a real thorn until we finally eliminated it in A08. I ignored pleas from Neil for cooperation in Russia because I felt that the E/F alliance was strong enough to achieve a safe 2-way draw. This all went wrong in S10. I mistook Ken's intentions and stabbed him because I though he was on the point of stabbing me. I am still not sure whether this was a justified decision, given the evidence. He had been co-operating with Neil for a while; he left a fleet in MAO where it threatened me, instead of moving it to WMS where it would threaten Neil; and he built an army in Par which could only be used against me instead of waiting until Mar was free to build a fleet. However, the result was clearly wrong as Ken's next moves showed. Not unnaturally, he was upset by my stab and I took offence at the way he phrased it. This marked the end of a near-perfect alliance.
Phase 3 : Ken and Neil formed an alliance against me and Doug was caught in the middle. I promised Doug I would help him survive if possible, while I tried for a solo. For a while I thought it would be possible but there were too many Turkish fleets and I suffered from England's usual problem, too few armies in the east. So I persuaded Doug to agree to the 3-way rather than suffer elimination.
An interesting game, which took a long time to sort itself into a coherent pattern after a start in which each country kept its own centres until A04.
Andy thanks for all your work in game that lasted a full year, we couldn't have done it without you. :-))
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TURKEY (Neil Brass) Overall thoughts are that this was a most enjoyable game, and not just because it's the first time I haven't been eliminated on Dip2K. There were several players that I enjoyed working with, and though I never worked with him, Stephen was a very strong competitor that made the game very challenging.
Here's my breakdown of thoughts year by year:
Pre-1901: Spent the season trying to decide with whom to ally, Russia or Austria. While Turkey and Russia make a better combo usually, to my regret I chose to go with Austria. Primarily, it was the quality of Doug's emails and the vagueness of Damien's that influenced my decisions.
1901: While I had hinted to Damien that I was interested in a Juggernaught, I used language worthy of Bill Clinton to not actually say I was agreeing to it, so launched a full-out assault on Russia. While this won me the Black Sea, it did little else for me. I was too stupid to notice the knife being poised to enter my back. (I should've never thought that Austria taking Greece was a good thing.)
1902: Austria could quite easily have taken Rumania with my support, and then had his way with me, but chose to simply help Russia and betray me. I assumed I would be dead very quickly at this point, so thus began to try and build a grand alliance.
1903: I was saved due to the move of Germany to the east--if Russia had not had that threat to deal with, I think he and Austria would've taken me apart. As it ended up, I was able to get Russia not to kill me, to hold back Austria, and begin to work out a deal to our mutual satisfaction. Meanwhile, I kept trying to get England, France, Russia, and myself to form an alliance to take down Austria/Germany/Italy.
1904: The grand alliance had succeeded in crippling Germany, but England then turned on Russia and jumped out to a sizeable lead. While maybe I should've turned on Russia at this point, my thinking was that I needed Russia to slow down England's advance, and Russia was still my best hope of breaking my streak of maintaining 4 SC's.
1905: This was by far the highlight of the game for me, and made it all worth while. Immediately after the adjudication, I got the following message from Austria: "Well you have seen the writing on the wall. England has put up an EGP involving France and/or Russia. You don't exist." Since it was I who had put up all 3 EGP's, that email gave me the biggest laughI've had at dip2000.
I then began intense diplomacy with Austria, giving Russia the heads up that I was negotiating with him leading Russia to believe that I was doing so to help the two of us (and actually that was my initial intent). However, as the negotiations continued, I come to worry about Russia getting too much out of our alliance, and where he would move after Austria was eliminated. Futhermore, do to England's gains, it appeared that the only way he could go was south. Thus, I stabbed Russia.
1906: I began a close relationship with Austria working to dismantle Russia. I keep hoping for more reassurance from Austria that he will betray Italy to work with me. There is never any proof, and given the lack of communication from Italy I start to worry that I'm being setup yet again.
1907: Decide that my best hope is to work with France. England is all but guaranteed a victory if he turned on France, since France did not have a friend in Italy. Thus, in Autumn 1907 I decide to stab the Italy/Austria alliance and form a permanent bond with France.
1908 through endgame: Am able to almost eliminate Austria, but "almost" only counts in horseshoes. France and I are able to remove Italy from the game relatively easily. Meanwhile, France was dealing with England's attack, so all of my efforts went to helping France in any way I could. Fortunately (or not) we were able to secure a strong defensive position--it didn't hurt that France was able to sneak the fleet up to the Irish Sea, even though it was a sacrificial move it gave us time we needed to seal off England from moving into the Med and being an even bigger problem.
At this point, each season Ken and I tried to figure out some way to break through Germany's lines, and incorrectly guessed on more than one occasion. I'm very happy that the draw was finally agreed to--goodness knows enough draws were proposed, to which I plead guilty.
Final thoughts:
Doug: I very much enjoyed working with you and am glad that we were able to work together for a while, and appreciated the view on politics from down under.
Stephen: Our communication was limited, but you provided an excellent challenge. Only question (that I hope your EGS will answer) is whether you would've used Ber to support Mun or Sil in Autumn 1913.
Ken: It was a pleasure working with you throughout the latter years of the game, and I hope that I run into you in a future game. Although I think it safer for me if we start on opposite ends of the Med.
Martin: I never trusted an email you wrote, but enjoyed all the ones I got.
Andrew: Perhaps you had reasons, but I think it would've been less likely for me to stab you if you had communicated better throughout the game.
Damien: I was truly sorry to stab you as you had been a good ally. I just did not see any hope of your recovery from England's attack and did not see much profit with how our attack on Austria was progressing.
Andy: Thank you very much for handling the GM role gracefully and answering all of my "stupid-user" questions.
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GM (Andy Scott) Parmenion was for me a constantly changeing confusion! Alliances sometimes lasted a single week and others lasted well beyond there use by date in my opinion!
However to be fair this was a game with some of the highest standards of Diplomacy I have seen in a game under my control and I think the draw was a fair result of which all three participants should be proud. A Special mention as well to Doug for surviving as long as he did.
I must apologise for the length of time it has taken me to get these EGS up on the website, I can only plead a house move and hectically busy life but even so I should have done better apologies for that!
However I must say I am disappointed that I didn't get an EGS from everyone as everyone did promise one! If you do want to put one up let me know and I will add it to the site.
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