Rain. Heat. Gloom of night.
In his first five club games, Todd "The Mailman" Woodman saw it all as he took his lumps learning the game of Diplomacy. In those five games, he suffered three eliminations. In his two survivals, he accumulated a total of just five centers. But he learned his lessons well, showed an aptitude for the game, and last night at Dan Burgess’ home in Downers Grove, the Mailman finally delivered.
Game No. 121 ended by time limit after the Fall 1907 turn. The Mailman and fellow witch Peter Lokken shared the board top with nine centers apiece. The final center counts were:
Germany opened to the Baltic. The Western Triple rolled past the stalemate line. What happened after that? The supply center chart is here. Now let’s hear from the players.
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And if not for a couple of shockingly stupid tactical errors, including forgetting about the existence of Heligoland Bight, I might have had board top to myself. Doh!
I would like to comment that this game opened with my new Western Triple opening strategy, which Todd and Tony were brave enough to try out. The original openings in my plan were as follows:
France:
F BRE-MAO
A PAR-GAS
A MAR-PIE
Germany
F KIE-BAL
A BER-KIE
A MUN-RUH
England
A LVP-EDI
F EDI-NWG
F LON-NTH
The idea is that Germany takes the low countries with 2 armies, England convoys to NWY and takes DEN with F NTH (thereby DMZing the North Sea forever), and Germany bounces Russia in SWE from the Baltic. In this game, Tony and I agreed that since the others had heard some whispers about a triple, that he would open A MUN-BUR but go for BEL anyway.
The triple was aided by the fact that Russia misordered the opening move for F STP (sc) and Germany got Sweden by default. The triple was hindered by the fact that Italy opened to PIE and kept bouncing me there, preventing any fleet MAR builds.
The triple was actually chugging along very fast, until Todd, apparently bored, stabbed Tony for 2 dots, and then, forgetting about HEL, started to come after me. I am proud to report that I finished the game with all home centers plus Iberia. Things would have gone a little smoother in Italy had Turkey helped me clean up Don’s last dots and gone after Austria with the builds, but I guess Nate and Peter Lokken had some sort of close alliance going.
I probably can’t ever try this opening again in the club now that I’ve posted it, but it was a blast while it lasted. I am sure that Todd and Tony (who was the most committed of the three of us to the Western Triple) will agree that this alliance was quite fantastic in the first 4-5 years of the game.
[quote]I guess Nate and Peter Lokken had some sort of close alliance going. [/quote]
Amusing comment given the context of this post.
Hey, a Western Triple is perfect for Turkey to bust through Austria in the midgame.