On July 24, the club gathered once again at the Red Lion in Lincoln Square over the familiar map of Europe, this time to bid farewell to our Bull Weasel. And after the shellacking he administered in Game No. 391, you wouldn’t blame anyone for a fleeting thought of “Good riddance.”
However, while the Weasel waters may be a bit safer now, we all need to be thinking, “How in the world will we replace Ali Adib?”
Like Peter Lokken before him and James Collins before that, Ali was the kind of player who loved both the game and introducing it to new players. When you show up to play Diplomacy at one of our events, it’s easy to take for granted that six other folks will be there. The reason they’re there, though, is usually because of people like Ali.
He’s off to LA now. It’s up to the rest of us to keep our games filled.
Game No. 391 ended by draw limit after the Fall 1905 turn in the following center counts:
Austria (Chris Kelly): 6; 13.953 points.
England (Ali Adib): 12; 55.814 points.
France (Ravi Betzig): 7; 18.992 points.
Germany (Brian MacWilliams): 0; 0.000 points.
Italy (Christian Kline): 3; 3.488 points.
Russia (Dan Perlman): 2; 1.550 points.
Turkey (Cori Neslund): 4; 6.202 points.
The supply center chart is here. The updated league standings are here. And the Brawl standings are here.
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As Cori aptly noted afterwards, this game was predominantly shaped by Dan’s opening move as Russia, which had a definitive impact on both the Western and Eastern theatres. Apparently feeling like he had no threats in the south — as Austria, I offered a mutual DMZ in Galicia, and I would guess that Cori, as Turkey, informed him that she would not be going to Armenia — he moved aggressively against Germany, with armies in Prussia and Warsaw.
The threat from the east left Brian (as Germany) unable to defend himself against an ENG/FRA alliance in the west, and Dan himself was unable to grow in 1901 as GER understandably bounced him in Sweden, and his lone southern unit could only choose sides as Cori & I both tried for an unexpectedly available Rumania. Dan opted to support Cori in, solidifying an alliance between ITA (Christian Kline) and AUS (me) to cripple the Turkish threat before it got out of hand. Thus the first year ended with ENG/FRA facing a severely weakened GER/RUS, while AUS/ITA had a potentially narrow advantage against a 5-unit TUR (with limited help from RUS).
The quick collapse of Germany, though, meant that France (Ravi) sailed into the Mediterranean well before a Lepanto assault on Turkey could even start to develop. So Italy turned back to face the threat from the west, leaving a navally-challenged Austria unable to go further than Bulgaria against Turkey. Meanwhile, England (Ali) swept through Scandinavia and northern Russia — and, after getting as far as he could reasonably go there, dropped the hammer on his erstwhile French ally to reach his final tally of 12 centers.
Ali’s position was so dominant that he could easily have added to his score, but he graciously proposed(!) a draw so that we could spend more time engaging in the post-game hangout/bull session that is the real appeal of bar games. Skillfully played in all facets of the game, in other words.
As Cori aptly noted afterwards, this game was predominantly shaped by Dan’s opening move as Russia, which had a definitive impact on both the Western and Eastern theatres. Apparently feeling like he had no threats in the south — as Austria, I offered a mutual DMZ in Galicia, and I would guess that Cori, as Turkey, informed him that she would not be going to Armenia — he moved aggressively against Germany, with armies in Prussia and Warsaw.
The threat from the east left Brian (as Germany) unable to defend himself against an ENG/FRA alliance in the west, and Dan himself was unable to grow in 1901 as GER understandably bounced him in Sweden, and his lone southern unit could only choose sides as Cori & I both tried for an unexpectedly available Rumania. Dan opted to support Cori in, solidifying an alliance between ITA (Christian Kline) and AUS (me) to cripple the Turkish threat before it got out of hand. Thus the first year ended with ENG/FRA facing a severely weakened GER/RUS, while AUS/ITA had a potentially narrow advantage against a 5-unit TUR (with limited help from RUS).
The quick collapse of Germany, though, meant that France (Ravi) sailed into the Mediterranean well before a Lepanto assault on Turkey could even start to develop. So Italy turned back to face the threat from the west, leaving a navally-challenged Austria unable to go further than Bulgaria against Turkey. Meanwhile, England (Ali) swept through Scandinavia and northern Russia — and, after getting as far as he could reasonably go there, dropped the hammer on his erstwhile French ally to reach his final tally of 12 centers.
Ali’s position was so dominant that he could easily have added to his score, but he graciously proposed(!) a draw so that we could spend more time engaging in the post-game hangout/bull session that is the real appeal of bar games. Skillfully played in all facets of the game, in other words.
Thank you Brandon for organising the farewell game. And thank you Jim for the nice words and a very apt post. There are several things I am to blame for during my 4ish(?) years tenure at WCW club. One is not being engaged enough in writing these post game recaps and comments. Not to mention my previous history of one-side-heavy deals! Although now I think I understand the game better and feel more confident about my strategy.
These past years have been very fun, to say the least. It was only at this last Moot that I was sitting back on the sofa looking at our crowd after meditating (that’s right, I meditated at a Diplo tournament!) and thinking oh dear I feel a part of this whole thing and am going to have to give it up and miss it; what am I doing?!
But good things come at a cost. I also plan to be around as much as I can and stay engaged with the group to the best of my ability.
RE THE GAME- Altogether, I think I played well but I also got lucky with how the powers were allocated. In the past, Ravi (France) and I have had either a v good alliance that certainly benefited him or an alliance that he broke and cost him a lot. So it was not the hardest job to convince him to work with me. Yet Russia’s opening made it all possible for me to offer France all German dots over the course of the game and ask him to target Italy next, while I situated myself in Scandinavia and Siberia uncontestedly. The crippled Lepanto surely helped us extra. So did Germany’s inability to offer its neighbours anything better than we had going on. Not to mention that the experienced players (Christian and Chris) were both in the other court and far from my playground.
I kept Russia alive long enough to hold against the South and waited until almost exactly 10pm to show any aggression whatsoever against my exposed ally, France. The year before the betrayal we were both at 9 centers and he was en route to take all Italian dots. Throughout the game I made sure I don’t grow much faster than my main ally. This sounds like a deal you’d wish to have, except France had no mechanism in place to hold against my killer stab.
I hope this one comment would make up for my online absence from many post game analyses. I apologise for the lack thereof!
Last but not least, I just went over the league standings and realised Cori, Dan, Brian and Ted have had a total of 23 game appearances! This makes me confident that the club need not relying on my recruiting and we now have a new cohort of good players on their way to become a defining part of it.