In a game featuring four players who had joined the club in the past two years, it was cagey old vet Christian Kline who emerged with the board top in Game No. 103, played July 17 at Peter Yeargin’s home in Lakeview.
Kline, who joined the club in Game No. 3 back in January 2006, turned in a vintage performance. Drawing Russia, a country that has rebounded this season, he built only once in 1901, but followed that up with two in 1902, three in 1905 and four in 1907 to finish with 13 centers. It was Russia’s sixth outright board top of the season.
The final center count for the game, which ended in Spring 1909, were:
Click here to check out the supply center chart. Hopefully the players will post their comments below.
I showed up for the end of the game, and afterward we played a four-year game of Wilsonian Diplomacy, which was fun. Matt’s Turkey had 10 centers when we stopped playing to my nine-center France. Josh had six centers as England; John, four as Germany; Peter, three as Austria; and Aash and Christian, one each as Italy and Russia, respectively.
After the Wilsonian game, five of us met Meghan and some of her friends out for drinks. It was a good night.
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End of game statement from France:
For me, this was a great game and an excellent Saturday on the whole. It was my first face-to-face game and I learned a lot about quick real time thinking in Diplomacy, but also what not to do next time, with the helpful inputs of the other players after the game. There were a few close calls but nobody lost an eye or anything.
We drew cards for seating order and draw separate cards for assigning countries, which was done by ‘screwing your neighbor’ method. The highest drawer starts, assigns his neighbor a country, and the same thing continues clockwise. I wound up sitting next Peter Yeargin, who had just won Huskycon, and he gave me France. We went around the table and I wound up as Germany. I am a bit of an aggressive player myself and the fact that I wound up next to Peter on the board made me amp that by about 50 times and I decided I was not taking any chances. Matt Sundstrom (Italy) and I went off to the side and discussed possibilities of us going in our separate directions and not interfering in each other’s business. Germany and I promise England Belgium and Germany asks me not to move to BUR which I agree to. But Germany has also been aggressively talking to England, Italy and Russia so I am shitscared at this point and decide to move to Burgundy anyway.
Opening moves: I open A PAR-BUR, with support from MAR, and F BRE-MAO. Germany opens DEN, KIE, RUH, England opens NWG, NTH, and misorders LVP so it stays there! Italy opens standard Lepanto moves and Austria opens Balkan gambit Galicia variation. R/T appear to be in an alliance as Turkey has allowed F SEV-BLA and has moved F ANK-CON and A SMY-ANK.
Autumn 1901: Peter is pissed about Burgundy, so I tell him it was defensive and that I’ll bounce England in BEL. I bounce England in BEL and take SPA/POR, Russia and Germany bounce in Sweden, Matt misorders the convoy to Tunis, Austria gets SER and GRE, Turkey gets BUL and Russia gets RUM and moves to GAL. I build F BRE and A PAR and notice F LON has appeared as well. Germany builds an A MUN and F KIE, Russia builds A STP. Austria gets 2 armies and Turkey a fleet.
S1902: I allow Pete to take BEL, but I find him in BUR as well now and an English fleet in the channel. I have moved SPA-GAS and POR-MAO. Matt convoys APU-ALB which is blocked by May Ling (Austria) as John (Turkey) gave her the info. I think Christian occupied CON, and the rest of the board froze for a moment and decided to turn around and hit R/T if that fleet moved out into the Mediterranean.
A1902: Pete offers Josh (England) to support his convoy to PIC from BEL. I one up the offer by saying that PIC will support LON-BEL and my fleets BRE and MAO will bounce in GAS and GAS-MAR will cover my other open SC. Josh decided to go with my offer since Peter had supported the Russian fleet into SWE the previous turn and Peter has to disband. Matt finally convoys APU-TUN for a build and Russia and Austria work some sort of stab move on Turkey were Turkey ends up in Greece but loses BUL to Austria. Ultimately Russia has more dots than he started with and is growing big. England is up to 5, Germany and I are even at 5.
Spring 1903: Now Pete and I talk and he agrees to move out of BUR and make another attempt at BEL. He is also wary of Russia. We work out a plan where I move MAO-NAO, BRE-MAO and one of my armies to BRE to convoy to LVP which is open since England built F EDI against Germany. I agree, but then I made the mistake of moving A PIC-BRE, allowing the English Belgium army to retreat to PIC. I leave BUR open as a sign of faith to Peter. I can’t convoy to LVP anymore thanks to England’s retreat which gives him 2 units on BRE so I must protect it. Italy has moved into Lepanto position against Turkey and Russia is apparently setting A/T against each other and picking up SCs one by one.
Autumn 1903: F NAO-LVP, F MAO-IRI, A PAR S A BRE, A MAR-GAS to leave it open for a build. Germany gets Belgium, and Russia gets Norway. England has to disband 3. Italy gets Greece with Austrian support. Peter builds F KIE and I build F MAR as it is the only open space. Austria is still at 5 (TRI, VEN, BUD, SER, BUL), not a very tenable position. I think Russia is at 8 at this point.
Spring 1904: Matt and I talk about F MAR but I move it to Spain since the English F ENG can escape into MAO and threaten Iberia. I also move LVP-CLY since EDI is open (England has fleets in LON, ENG), but turns out Peter wants that particular dot. Peter takes NTH but gets bounced in DEN by Russia I think. Russia moves an army to BOH to make an attack on VIE but Austria cuts off the followup army coming into GAL so now Russia has an outlier that can play a role in MUN since I have moved MAR-BUR with support from GAS (which again annoys Peter, but I decided I was taking no chances as he still had 2 armies against BUR. Big mess in Balkans. Italy and Russia are clearly working together and getting stronger. Matt manages to get a unit in Albania.
A04: We come back from lunch and orders are read. I stab Peter again, going to MUN with Russian support and bouncing him in EDI. Russia bounces Germany in DEN. He now has to disband as well. I can’t take ENG has it is locked down with a support. I build F BRE. Turkey pushes Italy out of Eastern MED finally and starts focusing on protecting his cage. Russia and Italy displace Austrian A BUL which retreats to CON causing more problems for Sultan John Gramila.
S05: I now have no more friends in the West since I am currently occupying one English and one German dot each. Italy is not attacking me as he is tied up in the East and Russia is not going to let Germany get strong soon. At this point Peter threatens to throw the game to Christian, but we talk and agree to trade EDI for MUN and that I will walk my MUN army forward in the fall into SIL which is open. I find myself in EDI and Channel ready to convoy into England, but England has moved to LON and YOR. Germany is still in NTH and still bouncing Russia in DEN.
A05: Now Peter stabs me this time – Germany and England chuck me out of EDI, but it’s all fair as I walk into an open BEL, and Germany displaces me from MUN but I forget to enter retreat orders for that army so it disbands. Germany gets no builds. Russia is up to 10 units including VIE and CON I think. Italy has TRI and SER. I build A PAR.
1906: Now Peter and I agree that Christian is going for the solo and we had better drop our fight and go after him. So I abandon my attack on EDI temporarily, move to NWG to block the incoming F STP(nc)-BAR and take an unsupported London. Germany has a fleet in BAL which he uses to displace SWE which retreats to SKA. I have a line of armies in BEL, BUR, PIC doing nothing. Italy’s new fleets sail East which is good for me. In Autumn, I support myself into NTH and the displaced German fleet I think disbands. Russia walks into DEN and Germany gets another disband. Italy takes SMY. Austria goes home.
1906: Russia wants me to move out of NWG if we want to talk. Sure, I say. I move to NAO and figure I’ll just move LON-YOR to take EDI with support from NTH in the fall, but I misorder WAL-LVP instead for some stupid reason and so no builds for France this year. Russia is dislodged from DEN but retreats to HEL. He takes back DEN in the fall and I go into an empty HOL under the pretext of bouncing Russian F HEL there to stab Germany for the 5th or 6th time in as many years. He is thoroughly pissed but stoically disbands a bunch of units. There are 2 Turkish units, which Matt is now using against Christian very discreetly, while himself helping Russia with the green units. Awesome stuff I learned from watching these guys talk.
1907: Russia takes KIE and BER. I finally get in position to take EDI. Turkey, Germany and England are down to one unit each and someone calls a 5WD which I veto off the bat. Italy (9 units) Russia (13) and I (9) agree to 3WD but Matt warns that Christian will try to solo. Fine, you take Turkey out and I’ll take E/G out, I say. I get my units into HEL, RUH, BUR etc., Take out EDI, and R/T support each other into ANK to make the Turkish army move to SYR and onward into its oriental journey towards the cardboard box when it is disbanded in the fall. Peter is the only toughie sitting tight in Munich. Christian has been supporting hold his lone unit at MUN the past two turns wants me to take it on my own. F HOL is in a position to threaten both KIE so Russia is being cautious with DEN. I think here I was perhaps most unfair to Peter, because I promised him I’d support him into Kiel and then took Munich instead since the Russian support hold orders failed on the moving MUN army. We drew the game immediately after.
In summary, I think I was benefited by Matt’s misordered convoy in F01, and believe that things might’ve been much more different for Christian if Josh had been able to convoy into NWY in F01 as well. I also don’t suppose I’ll do the multiple stabs thing again for a long, long time. Especially against Peter.
The Italian EOG is pretty straightforward, but first a word about power selection. The screw your neighbor method was kind of amusing. We drew cards first to see where we would sit and who would go first. Christian ended up one higher than me and put me in Italy with an evil grin. Italy is not one of my favorite countries to play. Peter ended up getting Germany, one of his least favorites but one of my preferences. We’d have been happier switching, so the screw your neighbor label fits for us.
In any event, I was happy with Christian’s choice since he was in Russia. Any fighting between us would take a while. I’m also darn lucky to have ended up in Italy because I indeed ordered F: Naples convoy Apulia-Tunis in fall ’01. I don’t know if anyone can get away with that kind of mistake in any other country. I’ve seen definitely seen England and Russia get crushed with that kind of misorder. Recalling another WCW game, I’m glad I took the approach of being ignored as Italy in 1901.
I had a chance to survive becuase France said he’d focus west and did. Austria wanted to work with me and did. Turkey was a bit of an issue as RT skipped the bounce in Bla. Russia went there, Turkey went to Con. There was some concern of a juggernaut, but Christian took the close-in opportunities to alternately attack Austria and Turkey over several years. I finally got back on balance and was able to eventually join Russia in that effort. I was hoping to continue working with Austria to keep Christian from getting too big, but the position made that difficult. IR ended up splitting the southeast and Balkans.
Russia also was able to take advantage of an ongoing FG feud. So he picked up several northern dots to get to the board top. The fighting in the west was good by me because France was never really close to being able to attack Italy. I wasn’t thrilled about a build of F Mar in 1903, but it couldn’t do much. Aash said it would go west and it did moved to Spa(sc) and then MAO. NAf, WMed, GoL, Pie and Tus never saw a unit all game.
Thanks to Peter for hosting and John and Christian for subbing on short notice.
Matt
[quote]and John and Christian for subbing on short notice.[/quote]
Josh also was a replacement player. Thanks to all three of them for ensuring that this game happened.
Love the write up Aash. We should make you Weasel Scribe.