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BLUEONBLUE END-GAME STATEMENTS
GM:
Brian Frew
Started: January 2004
Finished: February 2005
Result: 3 way draw Russia / England / France
| Country | Player | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | Result | | Austria | Mathew Schweizer | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Anarchy 1903 | | England | Charles Robinson | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | Drew 1911 | | France | Lloyd Mitchell | 5 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Drew 1911 | | Germany | Jon Wyman | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Anarchy 1904 | | Italy | Carl Smith | 5 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Anarchy 1904 | | Russia | Peter Scholey | 6 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 11 | 10 | 11 | Drew 1911 | | Turkey | Bryce Northen | 4 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | Anarchy 1907 |
ENGLAND (Charles Robinson) Thanks Brian for GMing. At times his job must have seemed like
watching paint dry, but hopefully there were some sparks of life. Thanks to
Lloyd and Pete for seeing it out, and for giving me chances at key moments.
I'm quite pleased to have made the draw, and in fact would have been
happy at times for simple survival. The anarchies of Italy, Austria and
Turkey didn't benefit me at all, and while the German anarchy saved me, it
didn't really compensate.
In the first move, I had pretty much decided on E+F v G. I made a
serious oversight: F didn't agree to it, and opened to ENG. At first, the
position seemed retrievable, as G agreed to fight against F. So E/G ranged up
against F, only for G to stab me in one of the most senseless stabs
I've suffered. G earnt no long term benefit, no friendship from F, and my
enmity. R didn't like E in the early game, and his opinion wasn't improved
by my NMR (my first and only). Then the game began to fall apart, with
NMRs all over the shop.
Now R began to make serious ground, and in my opinion he (Pete) played
the best game. Lloyd (F) had annoyed me in the early game by refusing to
communicate, but as he was intent on my annihilation, perhaps this was
justified - but now, at last, he realised that we had to stand against
R to prevent the solo. The plan was E/F/T v R, but T didn't trust F,
perhaps with good reason, and also T was unhappy to play F's poodle, so T
proved a halfhearted ally and then NMRd, whaich was a surprise. I wanted only 2
things - the elimination of G who had played badly and to survive - so
I was a happy poodle. With F fleets all over my civil liberties I had little choice.
So E/F made ground against R. For some reason F decided to attack me,
a mistake I think. If E/F had stuck together - and with 1 home SC I was
in no position to threaten F - then E/F would have the draw, excluding R.
By attacking me, F forced me to change sides, and the game pretty much
ground to a halt.Return to Top
FRANCE (Lloyd Mitchell) It's hard to say much about a game which ended up with four anarchies,
although the game did had its interest, and was worth continuing with
until the point where any 'victory' would have become meaningless, and
a draw between those who had had the decency to struggle through to the
end was the only fair result.
For what it's worth, my initial strategy was to get a Franco-German
alliance going, as I always think this can be very effective. After
early onslaughts against England, my 'ally' started acting unreliably,
and I was thinking of changing partners, whereupon Germany vanished
from the game. It was also about the same time I think (I'm doing this from
memory) that all the central Powers dropped out more or less in the
same season. And this in a Regulars' game!
Perhaps it would have been better to have ended things at that point,
as suggested, but with four 'corner' Powers in the game, there seemed
enough interest to continue. By now, it was noticed that Russia was
moving towards a bit of a stealth victory. The entanglements in the
west and east, and the usual advantage given to Russia by German and
Austrian anarchies, had meant that Russia had built up a healthy centre
count. This led to a anti-Russian Anglo-French alliance, although
Turkey said that he was too vulnerable to Russian attacks at that stage
to be too open in his support, but would help when he could. My hope
was that, being second on centre count, I could creep past Russia with
the help of my allies. With forces already on the right side of the
Lowlands and Italian stalemate lines, I thought I might manage an
unstoppable position.
Unfortunately, Turkey soon disappeared, and we really should have given
up at that point but, mostly through force of habit, the game went
through the motions for a few more years, although it was pointless by
now. I'm afraid I was the last to agree to that!
A bit of personal wobbling in the last year, and I thank the others for
forgiving this, and we all agreed to the only fair result.
Thanks to Charles and Pete for also sticking with it, and giving this
game the only interest it really had, and to Brian, as always, that
most reliable of GMs. I hope that there are good reasons for the
disappearance of the others, but it was irresponsible in a game that
had a very light diplomatic load at the best of times.Return to Top
RUSSIA (Peter Scholey) First let me thank Brian for an excellent effort at GMing this game
whichhad more dropouts than the marines on recruitment day.
It was a funny game and one that ended in the only fair result between
thethree stallwarts who saw it through to the end.
The fact that Italy and Austria gave up the ghost in the early stages
of thegame and then Germany and Turkey meant that as Russia I had a fairly
easytime of it and expanded quickly. But as seems typical in games of dip,
wellfrom my experience, nobody likes the big boy and there is a ganging up
culture that seems to make everybody else ally to bring them down.And
by thetime this game settled down into a three way slog between myself, Lloyd
and Charles it was England and France allied to reduce The Russian meance.
And slowly and surely I was pushed back to a point where Lloyd looked like
getting the solo as Charles seemed content in being second fiddle to
hisexpansion plans.
Of course I tried and eventually succeeded in pursuading Charles to
break his alliance with Lloyd to give the two of us a chance of sharing a 3
way draw instead of a 123 for Lloyd, me and charles respectively.
I think it was the "turning" of Charles that made us all realise that
ultimately a draw was the only result allowable between us. We had seen
thegame through and whilst there was little and limited diplomacy
throughout, it was only fair that in a game where interest was poor to say the
least, then the spoils should be shared.
I would like to thank both Charles and Lloyd for their contributions
and indeed their correspondence. I am sure that we will meet in the future
and hopefully will build on our rapport.
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