Windy City Weasels

First of all, what an amazing Saturday it was, spent at Eric Brown's place in Wayne! I couldn't think of a better way to have ended the year. Thanks to Eric for hosting and providing an unlimited supply of food and drink as we dragged our games along for hours on end.

End of Game Statement for Italy in Game 106:

As Italy, I decided to stick in the Eastern Sphere right from the start, and hopefully complete a lepanto. I'd driven down with Mike Morrison and since we'd established a rapport of sorts, agreed that as France and Italy, we'd go our separate ways. Another important partnership was forged with John, who as Austria, agreed to work towards eliminating Turkey with me. John did some great talking when he formed a separate alliance with Russia against Turkey as well. Unfortunately for Tony Prokes (Turkey), we all ganged up against him. In 1901, he built A ANK. This, combined with his only fleet stuck in BLA convinced me to push for the lepanto despite the open stab possibilities in Austria. In 1903 I still had only four dots, but a fleet in EAS, and an Austrian fleet in AEG. By 1905, Turkey had vanished, and Austia was up to eight with CON, RUM and BUL as well. Meanwhile, in the West, a Franco-Saxon alliance had all but eliminated Matt Sundstrom as England. He was stuck with a lone fleet in NTH, which ended up in BRE at the end of the year as France saw my fleet builds and decided he'd keep England alive and use the extra fleet against me. France and I stalemated soon in the Mediterranean and so I stabbed Austria, who stabbed Russia, who was attacking Germany, who was attacking Austria, while being snuck up on by France. For about five years everyone traded dots with everyone else and mass confusion reigned until Austria decisively took out SEV and WAR, almost eliminating Russia from the game. A stray Austrian army had made it to England (BOH-MUN-KIE-DEN-EDI via convoy by German F NTH as some sort of compromise). Then the plan was to take out France and do a 11-11-12 3 way draw. Austria would get all his existing centers plus England. Germany and I would split France. We roughly did this, but along the way got sidetracked by tensions between Austria and I in GRE/BUL (which I owned), and an army I'd left behind in Turkey which I moved to ARM a few times. Germany also took the English dots away from Austria at some point which I remember to have been a major point of contention. At the end of it all, I think there could've been a 2-way draw as we were all getting along fine and any two of us could've taken out the third. But it was midnight so we decided that once I'd gotten Iberia and Tunis (which the Franchman had vehemently protected, disbanding everything behind it, right until the end), that we'd draw.

I'd like to interject here to make a correction to Greg's statement. I did not in fact knock over a pitchfork. While trying to avoid a suspicious looking cluster of brown pellets, I stepped into the slush, awoke the alligator sleeping there, who proceeded to snarl, releasing a foul smell that sent the birds into the heavens. This caused the sky to darken forebodingly and the wind to pick up, creating the impression that lightning would strike next and the earth would shudder. A few seconds later, a pitchfork fell from the sky and almost killed Nate, who was scratching an odd place in an irritated fashion. I suspect it was Eric that threw the pitchfork in cunning jest, but who knows, it might have been Thor, who, since his forced retirement due to the advent of Christianity, has taken to gardening.