Lincoln Square is known for its German heritage. Even at the Red Lion, a quaint British pub, we occasionally have to share the space with German cultural groups wearing customary garb, drinking dark beer, and chanting ritualistically.
There were no odd German clubs at the Lion on Wednesday. Nevertheless, the krauts and their close kin in Austria were goose-stepping all over the place.
Game No. 229 went to Austrian Brandon Fogel and German Brian Shelden, who split the top with 13 centers apiece. The game ended by time limit after the Fall 1906 turn in the following center counts:
Austria (Brandon Fogel): 13; 45.924 points.
England (Gus Spelman): 1; 0.272 points.
France (Carl Nyberg): 2; 1.087 points.
Germany (Brian Shelden): 13; 45.924 points.
Italy (David Spanos): 5; 6.793 points.
Russia (Nic Hamel): 0; 0.000 points.
Turkey (Ali Adib): 0; 0.000 points.
Gus, Carl and Nic were all playing their first game with the Weasels.
The supply center chart is here. Next up for the Weasels will be our 300th game at the Red Lion on May 11. Come on out and help us get started on the next hundred as well.
This Post Has 9 Comments
Alternate title: Teutonic Nights.
Thanks to Bryan Pravel for the photo!
Search Twitter for #wwgame299 to read my live tweets of the game.
On the topic of live tweets, this was my first attempt at doing anything like this. 140 characters is really hard to give an overview. Do people like reading more tweets focused on the more interesting events happening during the game (e.g. Brian Sheldon misorders and leaves Holland open or Gus Spelman loses his home centers but stays at 3 because he controls Moscow, StP, and Brest) or more bigger picture summaries like I did in this game? Also, my gut feeling is that people are more interested in how people are doing, not the powers they are playing so is “Brandon Fogel plays a patient game as Austria and is rewarded with explosive growth when he teams up with Nic Hamel’s Russia to attack Ali Adub’s Turkey” better than “Despite Russian losses to England in the north, Russia teams up with A/I to rapidly eliminate Turkey”?
Also, commentary or no? Is anyone interested in reading the opinions about what might be going on (“Is there a western triple? “Will anyone be able to stop Germany now that he has control of the North Sea”)?
Or maybe the more important question is whether or not anyone cares about the game itself while it is happening and the more interesting information are the scores and the after action reports?
Just trying to feel this out to see if it is something I might try to do in downtime at the WDC this year.
Also, it was great to meet Carl, Gus, and Nick. All three had a solid understanding of how to play, were friendly, and jumped right in. In particular Gus’ decision to split his English forces between Russia and France made it a very unusual and entertaining game to watch.
First of all, my day starts off with a -1 for my “clever” Teutonic Nights pun. What the heck?!?
Second, head-slapping misorders are always appropriate for Tweeting. If you’re Tweeting pix, then accompanying commentary is useful, I think. I also agree that it’s best to attach personalities to the countries.
Whoops. That was supposed to be a +1. Although that response pretty much makes the mistake worth it.
Sounds like a good time- would love to see some game recaps. Any of the rookies seem like they are coming back?
tldr: 299 mostly traveled in a straight line. R and T were unable to trust each other sufficiently to hold off a solid AI. The west was a little messier until E allowed his forces to get separated, after which F and G married by convenience. Italy and F then got bogged down in the western Med, allowing G to stab F while A cleaned up R. A then stabbed I on the final turn to secure the tie.
The east found me in Austria, Spanos in Italy, Ali in Turkey, and a new guy, Nic, in Russia. Nic said he had played a lot before, but not in about 10 years. He seemed a little overwhelmed but not lost. We agreed to a bounce in Gal, allowing us both to keep our options open. Ali refused to open to Arm, so an AT was going to be difficult. Ali is a canny player; even under the best of circumstances, I would need to keep a close eye on him. With a second army pointed at the Balkans, I would need to keep my whole face turned toward him.
Spanos was the question mark. He has an admirable ability to surprise, so I’ve learned to be wary about depending on him too heavily. But as we drove to and from CODCon together a few weeks ago, we both gained some insight into each other’s playing style. I thought this might make it easier for us to work together, so I took a chance and trusted him. He opened to Pie and Apu, I opened to Alb, and we were off.
Nic suffered a problem that I’m coming to understand is common for newbies: an inability to commit. He kept waffling between me and Ali, which prevented him from making progress against either of us. For example, he took Rum with the fleet in 1901, but built an army to appease Ali (side note: Sundstrom later tried to convince me that F Sev is never a good idea, but I fail to see how R can get anywhere against T without at least being able to threaten BLA). So when Spanos and I finally got leverage over Ali on his southern flank, Nic wasn’t in position to gain anything, which left me in position to move against him as soon as Turkey was eliminated.
The endgame was interesting insofar as it provided Spanos a creative mode of revenge. 1906 (I think) was coming to a close right around the 10:40 cutoff to start another year. Unsure that we would make it, I stabbed Spanos, grabbing two dots. My position was excellent; given another year, I think I would have gotten another 1-3 dots and had the board top alone. At 10:37, we started counting the centers. With 2 minutes for builds, it looked like we’d make it just under the wire. But then I noticed that Spanos had not yet retreated his F Con. I pointed this out, perhaps a mistake. Spanos asked how much time was available to write his retreat and was told 2 minutes. We started the timer. Spanos sat motionless in his seat, staring at me, a cruel smile curling up the edge of his lip.
I’ve since found out that club rules are 30 seconds for retreats.
Btw, Bryan, I second Jim’s comments on live-tweeting. Personal is great (only club diehards are going to read them, anyway). Also, you can send out multiple tweets per turn. Each one doesn’t need to be accompanied by a board pic.
[quote name=”Brandon Fogel”] Spanos sat motionless in his seat, staring at me, a cruel smile curling up the edge of his lip.
[/quote]
That is so awesome. Peak Spanos and peak bar game final year shenanigans right there.