Christopher M. Davis removed himself from the Topless list with a 14-center performance as Russia yesterday in Game No. 92, played at Dan Burgess’ home in Downers Grove. Davis is no stranger to Russian success. He took Best Russia honors at CODCon last year.
The game ended after the Fall 1908 turn with the following center counts:
The game featured a first-time player in Todd "The Mail Man" Woodman, and a player who was returning to a Diplomacy table for the first time in about 15 years in Roland Hackler. We hope to see both players again. In addition, Dan’s neighbor Chris Albert followed the action closely and eventually took over France for Hackler. Hopefully he’ll join us for a future game, as well.
In the club standings (which you can access from the Links menu), Duenow’s score bettered his shared board top in the first game of this season, allowing him to leapfrog Peter Yeargin into fourth place. Davis, meanwhile, shot from the standings’ bowels all the way up to 14th.
Check out the supply center chart here.
Next up: March gets even madder with a two-board session at Thom Comstock’s home in Oak Park on Saturday. We still need players for the second board. Join the fun and sign up today!
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It was a good game, and everyone had a great time. The new kitchen and front room configuration helped matters too, and Josh Kanto stuck around to watch hockey until late in the evening.
Thanks again fellas!
Usually I have lots of time to think about what happened and what I did wrong during the game, so I have a longer EOG. This time, though, I don’t recall much because I was too busy trying not to screw things up too much.
I started out trying to work with Germany, and in fact, he did let me into Sweden. He suggested EGR, which was fine with me. Austria suggested we take advantage of the new guy. When I realized that he had not offered suggested anything concrete about GAL, I moved there and MOS-UKR along with SEV-RUM. This worked well to deal with Austrian moves towards me. In 02, Austria convinced Turkey to move BLA and support Austria into RUM. I showed Turkey that I could stop his advance and that Austria was selling him a bridge in Brooklyn. I must have guessed exactly what Austria had said, because a pale look came over Turkey. I helped Turkey into Rumania, and that was the start of a beautiful relationship until I killed him.
In 03, Germany came to help liberate Austria from Austria, and between Turkey, him, and me, we sent Austria home. (I seem to be Mike’s bad luck charm. Even when we are across the board, he seems to have miserable results when on a board with me. I just always have miserable results.)
By 04, Italy was out in front, which allowed Germany and I to rally the board around dropping him 3 centers.
In 05, Germany made a play for Warsaw, but without either Turkish or English support, I pushed him back and he repented for his sins. We then started working on a 17/17 split.
We were aided by France’s rabid distrust of England after some early English aggression. England thought Germany was calling for a joint attack on France, but the Germans never showed.
The time had come for me to pick a victim, and I took the easy way out by attacking Turkey. I convoyed into CON, and began the sacking of Turkey. If I had waited another year, I didn’t think I would be able to take Turkey without Italian fleets, and I didn’t think Italy would be around that much longer, if I did not take out Turkey.
Then came Germany’s misorders. He had also miscounted the number of centers I would be taking, so I went up to 12 while he held steady. With parity gone, the 17/17 split was not looking likely. I consulted the standings and realized I needed a solo just to tie for Best Russia. Germany threw in with the rest of the board to stop the solo, and slowed me down to picking up just one center. Faced with German armies bearing down on me, I conceded the draw. While there was no stalemate line, I felt I would have had a hard time not losing ground. I did not think the new France would stab Germany any time soon, so Germany was free to throw everything against me. My lines were stretched from England to the Balkans, and I simply did not have enough to cover everything.
Great group of guys to play with, and I think the veterans made as many or misorders as the newbies.
My first priority in this game as Germany was to not get crushed by France and Russia. I figured I may be able split up the new guys England and France. Josh/England was open to an EGR, and so was Chris/Russia.
To confuse the matter in the West, I pulled Roland/France and Josh aside and offered the Western Triple. One or both hadn’t heard of it, so I explained that basically they were to do my bidding while I got all the dots. Josh laughed. Roland did not. Heh.
After that, I pulled Josh aside, and he agreed to the EGR. He built plenty of fleets and the pressure was on France, but with an noncommittal Italy we never got very far. England ended up with Iberia, but that led only to a French Fleet in Liverpool, behind his lines causing havoc.
Sometime around this time I started chatting up Roland again, saying how we were getting nowhere in the F/G battle, and that we should make amends. He agreed wholeheartedly, and stated that to further this end, he would take HOL from England. I agreed, but as time drew near realized I could take it by cutting BUR, and claim to Josh that I only did to *preempt* France’s nefarious ways. For the second time Josh laughed at my deviousness. But this time the laugh was not from the belly…
As for the eastern front, as Mr. Davis said, we worked well together sometimes, but it was spotty for most of the game. The initial reason I wanted to work with Russia was to get the EGR going, but it was solidified with this scenario: Mike/Austria is sitting in UKR and Chris is sitting in WAR. I’m in GAL and I can either support Mike to WAR or Chris to UKR. I had already written the support order for Mike’s unit, but looked at the board and realized that Russia was sitting in Sweden and with Josh/England in North Sea, Chris could sway Josh to attack me in Den. I changed my order and thus began my commitment to the RG.
After some wrangling with Chris over the Austrian centers, Pete/Italy pointed out that the RT loomed large and that we should become buddies and knock back this foul beast. I joined Pete’s campaign for a year, moving to Prussia and taking Warsaw. But this was the same year Chris stabbed Turkey (1906), so he still built 2 units and I knew I’d be hard pressed to keep Warsaw. Also Pete was making little to no headway and it appeared to me that he was actually working with RT. I threw in the towel. I met with Chris and we had a serious discussion about how solos only come about when people throw the game because their feelings are hurt. We decided to a 17/17 split. We counted out all the centers and it appeared to be on the up and up to me, but as I found out, I would have to rely too much on the Russian units to free up Italy to make any headway.
Chris states that the turning point for him to forgo the 17/17 split was my mis-orders. But I made one mis-order, and that was a ENG S HOL – PIC screw up that had little to do with our theatre. The other 2 mis-orders I had were earlier in the game before our grand alliance was sealed, (at least in my mind). Chris on the other hand had at least 4 mis-orders the last two turns. I think he was getting excited that he could possibly solo, and became brazen. Hell knows I would’ve done the same.
p.s.
In Chris’ press he writes that I didn’t attack France. What he should say is that I didn’t attack him effectively. This game I wrote MUN – BUR 3 times, and only got BUR on my 4th attempt from RUH. I held it for 2 turns, writing a support attack for a non existent Italian move, held the next turn and then was dislodged. The only thing it may have accomplished was keeping Josh on my side. So in essence Chris is right. Is it an attack if the defender doesn’t feel it?
Anyway, I blame Pete!