another wrote:When applying for the game I set England as my 1st preference, as I had never played with it and then Austria and Turkey with whom I had played once each (I think first Austria and then Turkey as I had also had Turkey in another game I joined to replace a surrendered player). I was given Austria, so still a relatively new experience!
Oh yeah, my picks were France, Russia and... Germany? I can't remember the order, but France and Russia are countries I'm not too familiar with. I've picked up surrendered Russias, but I don't think I've ever even touched France. I'm not too good at playing Germany, so I thought it should be my third pick. I've played a lot as Austria, and I had just played as Italy... besides, Turkey and England are boring.
Early Game
The only other time I had played Austria I opened hedgehog (Damn you Richard Sharp! And I mean that, "The Game of Diplomacy" was the first thing I read about this game, and it has unfortunately influenced my play quite a lot...), and that was one opening I definitely didn't want to make. I wanted to have a good relationship with Italy early on (so I could move Trieste to Albania to Greece). From the initial communication, Italy seemed positive enough. He said he'd be happy to work with me on something, but wasn't really taking any initiative and suggesting any moves, so I floated the idea of the Trieste gambit - where Austria agrees to allow Italian army from Venice to take Trieste in the fall in exchange asking the other Italian army not to follow in the footsteps and for Italy to build 2 fleets.
The thinking behind it is that once Italy has 3 fleets, he can easily attack one of France or Turkey (with the help of the Austria fleet) and his army in Trieste can join in with the Austrian armies to attack either Germany, Russia or Turkey. This also helps build a trust between the two countries.
The Southern Hedgehog is a great opening though?

Finally, after giving total silent treatment in the fall, Turkey threw a curve-ball and supported Ukraine to Rumania. Which I think helped Austria quite a lot. To my understanding, Italy was very quick to tell everyone about the obvious Juggernaut rolling over and how everyone needed to unite against it. Whether because of that or some other reason, Russia very reasonably suggested to take on Turkey.
Like I mentioned previously, I had to do something since otherwise my foreign relations would be ruined. If Turkey hadn't done that, I think we could've started a Juggernaut a bit later.
Meanwhile, Russia was proving himself to be both a pleasant communicator and a trustworthy ally. My own favourite phrase of this game was "I don't need to know", which I used on quite a few occasions (most notably - later when Russia couldn't decide whether to attack France or Germany in the Middle Game), and the first time I used it was after suggesting to Russia that he could convoy Rumania to Armenia in the Fall of 1902, which if successful would firmly nail the Turkey's coffin shut, but obviously would also carry a lot of risk for an Austrian stab. I don't know whether Russia was thinking about it himself or it was some form of inception, but thus came the 1902 Fall of Convoys
Thanks! I did enjoy communicating with you too. "I don't need to know" is great too, and a few times in this game I had hoped I hadn't heard something that I did.
I did consider the convoy myself too, and I almost didn't do it once you suggested it, but I ended up doing it thanks to your "I don't need to know" policy.
1903 saw France very deliberately, yet very inefficiently at first, move in on Germany. I'd love to hear more about the thinking behind the decision both to move on Germany rather than England / Russia / Italy and also - to do it building 2 armies. France, could you tell a bit more about it? Was this based on some promises / threats from other powers?
We were going to attack Germany in F02, and I think I immediately agreed when France asked me if I would like to do it. Apparently that wasn't enough though, and I should've sent a second confirmation that yes, I was indeed moving to attack Germany. I had planned with England to move the following way:
Swe - BAL
Nor - Swe
StP - Nor
while France moves to Ruhr while I move to Silesia. However, then France backed off at the last moment and I had to stab England, while Germany remained unscathed. Then France had to build armies in order to attack Germany, even though there was no need for that if France just had moved to Ruhr. I guess I could've attacked Germany alone, but... why?

What actually happened.
Russia was also keen to join in - as then he would get Con, which would have otherwise been Italy's to gain. And he could then himself decide whether to side with Germany or France, I didn't need to know. Germany, I know you said I should have warned you about Russia moving in, but as I wrote during the game, I honestly didn't know he will. His move, though, suited me quite well.
If Italy had been more trustworthy, I think there was a good chance I would've allied with Germany and attacked you instead. After the complete farce that was the previous turn, France was acting in a way that I really didn't appreciate, and was now threatened to throw the game to Germany unless I attacked him or whatever it was. Honestly that was less important than Italy's perceived unreliability though.
I did play around with the idea of RAG too, but you both wanted me to attack the other so that never went anywhere.
I didn't want to join in on any attacks on Germany myself, but with Russia and France working on Germany and Russia and me working on Italy, despite Scotland still floating somewhere on the periphery, it seemed like a very clear triple that would remain standing, and I would have been very happy for us to be the last three countries standing and then see how the game ends up. If we all 3 ended up working well together, helping each other and proving our trust, I'd be totally happy with a 3-way. But if it was clear that someone wasn't very trustworthy, or was making the inefficient moves, then there would be openings for 2-ways or solos.
A 3 way would've been really boring as nothing interesting had happened so far. I also disagree with the whittle players out of the game until someone solos mentality... Once there's only 3-4 players left in the game, the game becomes very rigid, and the opposing players are always able to stop you if you try to solo, unless there are some stupid emotional manipulation going on... and even that is easier when there are more players in the game.
At this point I guess I have to agree that the most foolproof way to solo is to agree to a 2 way with someone though, and act like a slimy bastard the whole game. In this game I probably should've allied with France in that case, since the stalemate line that France proposed worked only from my side... But I'm not sure if I could stab someone I have been allied for months in real time.
Spring 1904 brought the famous "Silesia SUPPORT Burgundy to Silesia -> Cannot support square Silesia", which Russia claimed was a mis-order, but I've never believed in mis-orders, nor did I at the time. For me, it wasn't a terrible move, as it was clear, I will not be quick in eating up Italy, so slowing France down a bit was not a terrible thing. Since then, I understand, Russia has already admitted that it wasn't a mis-order?
I don't think I made any mis-orders in THIS game (only bad moves), but I have made plenty of them in the past.
(I think late in the turn) Russia messaged me saying that he thinks France might want to keep Italy alive. I thought about it. What would France gain? I couldn't really think of anything. What I could foresee is Italy supporting France into Venice - as in, if he can't have it, at least I won't. But then Italy would anyway get rid of 1 unit, and France's fleet would have to travel from Marseilles. And still - why would France agree to that in the situation where my armies could start helping Germany? So I couldn't really think of any reason France would suddenly side with Italy. Plus, around this time was the first time when I was actually having a meaningful communication with France. So I decided to trust them.
In hindsight, I had the units to just support Venice to hold, get the build even if it is not another fleet, and then as Italy would destroy a unit, I would have eventually overcome them. But I was hasty, and I paid the price. At that point any dreams I had of solo-ing vanished. But so did any dreams France could have had.
This was one of the cases where I had hoped I hadn't heard anything, and I just pretended to the best of my ability that I didn't know. France asked me if I would be okay with them attacking Austria for Venice (gains would go to Italy)... WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME THAT!?

Russia stabbed France and helped Germany back to some of his home centres and I got into a position to finally take Venice.
Wow, that is some amount of writing, and there is still quite some action left in this game. I don't think this game really had an "End Game" phase, but whatever you call it, I will finish about it later.
I ended up stabbing France because I thought that you would be in a worse position than you actually were, and I had hoped I would make more gains in the north with my fleets than I actually did. Besides, the plan always was to fight everyone on the board so it didn't matter who I stabbed first, but I guess I'm not as good of a tactician than I thought I was.
