Diplomacy - Game ends in most English way possible, a draw. (Final map posted)

[Shannow]

Christmas comes slowly in England I guess. Must be the royal mail.

[Sir T]

Scrooge is buying up all the biggest Geese, you see.

[Shannow]

End of turn 4.

[IainC]

How the fuck did those German tanks expect to cross the North Sea?

[Teleku]

It doesn't look like a hell of a lot of diplomacy went on in this game.

[Amarr HM]

I feel like the rabbits in Watership Down.

[Viin]

How the fuck did those German tanks expect to cross the North Sea?

They are amphibious ..

[Shannow]

How the fuck did those German tanks expect to cross the North Sea?

They are amphibious ..

Evidence would suggest they aren't....

[Pagz]

Austria-Hungary, Autumn 1903

Dear Diary,
                The War to End All Wars has begun. I am sorry diary for my silence of late, however my commitments on the front have made sitting down and writing difficult. We opened fire on Turkey in Spring of last year, and on Russia in the Spring of this year. In doing so, we have the entirety of the Balkans under our control, with their citizens all helping in the war effort. However is it going well? It's hard to say. The movements of the other majors are hard to predict, with some moves seemingly having no purpose. I see this though as a failure on my part, and must strive to find out the motives of my enemies. Russia has invaded my neighbor Germany through Denmark, with multiple skirmishes from two fronts. War of this magnitude so close to my borders is a frightening thought, as desperate men often make desperate decisions. England, however, seems to have done an Italy and decided to take a vacation from the politics of Europe this Spring, perhaps if we all did this we could just get along...

If only life was so easy.

[Shannow]

We coulda been friends Austria...FRIENDS!

[Shannow]

Come back Viin! The fatherland needs you.

[Viin]

Sorry about that. Went on vacation to MX and totally forgot to check in! (Wish it would email me when a turn ended)

[Shannow]

Rendakor!

[Viin]

Since I don't know Diplomacy all that well, it's really hard for me to tell if I can actually move from Country A to Country B if I don't already have a unit there. Sometimes its obvious, but with the coasts it gets confusing.

I found this 'web' of possible moves, maybe it will help someone else too:
http://www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=321&t=21718

[Strazos]

Can't wait for game two, where I can pay better attention to my moves and rules.

[Shannow]

probably didnt help you were Italy. That's a hard one to play.

[Shannow]

1906 is upon us. Germany has returned from Octoberfest. The English march through France likes its 1366. Austria Hungary decides its time for a little vacation on the Italian penisula. Italy wishes the Austrian would just go home.

[IainC]

Albion Prevails

[Shannow]

Aint done yet ya limey barstard!

[Teleku]

Not a whole lot of Austria or Hungary left in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

[Trippy]

France

[Teleku]

Nobody expects the British tank invasion from the arctic circle!

[Amarr HM]

France

They surrendered.

[IainC]

Final result: Draw between England and a Russo-Turkish alliance. There was a deadlock in Northern Europe that was going to take a while to break so we called it. I had 16 centres, the Russians and Turks had 18 between them.

[Amarr HM]

The last move was quite the blow to England who were exactly one SC from winning outright, unsupported Tunis being taken by surprise by Turkish u-boats. I imagine England saw our most likely path to dominance in the Med was to take Western Med, this was definitely an idea we toyed with, but we thought better to strike direct to the heart of their operations before reinforcements arrived.

The rest of the game would have been heavily dependent on how Russo-Turkey relations panned out, if we had kept loyal we could have slowly pushed England off the map, but it likely would have meant Turkey getting a major foothold and tensions between Russia/Turkey would have heightened along the way.

The turning point in the game for Turkey was when Russia helped us take Venice, that really allowed us to open up Austria occupied Italy and become a force. In doing so Russia had to put up an amazing blockade on the Eastern front to prevent English victory, unfortunately this consequently halted any Russian expansion. This was later repaid by Turkey agreeing to a draw, though they really fancied having a pop at aul blighty.

[Shannow]

My diplomacy skills win out as I get the best possible result for Russia..:D

We could've kept playing but that would've been a little boring for everyone except for maybe the Turk. I think a draw was the best decision at this time. A draw is not infrequent in Diplo.

Game 2?

[IainC]

I saw the loss of Tunis as inevitable once Turkey could bring enough naval power to bear in the Med so I was more interested in setting up a blockade between Marseille and North Africa to defend Spain and then concentrate on the fight in the North of Europe. I was reasonably sure that I could roll up the Russians given time but it was going to be long and tedious where any mistake would set me back several turns.

Unless Turkey decided to hand me a win, it wasn't going to be a lot of fun.

[Amarr HM]

I would have been interested to see how it panned out across the Med, but I think as Shannow said it might have been a bit boring for everyone else as it would have been a long drawn out process. At least at that stage we had more active players to move the turns along reasonably.

Good game guys, sure, sign me up for another.

[Shannow]

It might've been interesting to sit down and game it out. The key Ian was to get an army into Berlin and be able to break up my wall of mutual support. Still taken a little luck, but maybe doable. Get an army into Prussia, overwhelm me in Munich etc. At the same time if I'm the Turk in West med, I force you out of Gulf of Lyons, (fleet goes back to Spain) by having fleets in Pied, Tyrenhian and Tuscany. There the question becomes, how do you hold Marseille or the Western Med? If you support Mar from Spain you risk losing Western Med, or from Burgundy and then lose the chance of taking Munich (cause by the time you have an army in Berlin he's pulled off his 3 fleets on Gulf of Lyon maneover). Turk did make his life a little harder by attacking Tunis from Tyr instead of Ionian but probably rectifiable.

[IainC]

I didn't originally intend to be running a full invasion of Germany/Baltic states so I mostly had fleets to lock up the seas between St Petersburg and Britain. That came back to bite me when it was clear that Germany was going to get popped, I moved in to grab some SCs and wall off France from Russia but I needed armies so that I could project support inland. Unfortunately the logistics of swapping fleets and armies while under pressure is tricky. I'd probably have had to concede a territory or two while I moved things around.

[Pagz]

It was a very fun ride! Thanks to Shannow for creating and everyone who participated, I think I went ok for my first time :P. A draw though, for shaaammmeeee!

[Strazos]

I wasn't last.

[Amarr HM]

I didn't originally intend to be running a full invasion of Germany/Baltic states so I mostly had fleets to lock up the seas between St Petersburg and Britain. That came back to bite me when it was clear that Germany was going to get popped, I moved in to grab some SCs and wall off France from Russia but I needed armies so that I could project support inland. Unfortunately the logistics of swapping fleets and armies while under pressure is tricky. I'd probably have had to concede a territory or two while I moved things around.

I would have had a similar problem in Piedmont where I would have had to swap in a fleet to take Gulf of Lyons and potentially losing it at the same time.