Stats: norank
Variants: Classic
Winner: Chundar (SOLO) Russia 1918
Game start players:
England: riceeee (surrendeed Fall 1901, replaced by Linkinbrick)
France: springbreeze (surrenedered Spring 1903, replaced by Strudeldunsenman)
Italy: liro121 (surrendered Spring 1909)
Germany: Henry87 (surrendered Fall 1904, replaced by DaveSpermbank, surrendered in Fall 1908, replaced by notMyBack)
Austria:chelct3 (surrerndered Fall 1902, replaced by jjames39562)
Turkey: Hellflare (surrendered Fall 1905, replaced by Emperor229)
Russia: kaiznanji (surrenedered Spring 1904, replaced by Chundar)
Game End:
England: defeated by Russia solo in Fall 1918
France: defeated by Russia solo in Fall 1918
Italy: eliminated Fall 1909
Germany: eliminated Spring 1912
Austria: defeated by Russia solo in Fall 1918
Turkey: eliminated Fall 1912
Russia: SOLO WINNER Fall 1918
Taking over from a surrendered player is usually a gamble, especially when the game is not ranked and there is only one or two SCs left. It's not like the player left because they got hit by a heavy schedulle at work, or will be without Internet for several days. They just gave up on what seemed a lost position. So, I didn't expect much when I joined this game. Boy was I wrong.
he first thing I noticed when I joined this game was that Public Press seemed to have a lot of messages that indicated the players mostly knew each other. Reviewing the messages from my predecessor (I'm playing Austria and took over from chelct3) there were messages to the effect of "I can play a smilar game in politics class." and "Are you So-and-so's date to the formal?" Sp, I appear to have stumbled into a game that was set up between friends at school.
As the game wore on, there was a lot of surrenders and new players joining. The previous Turkey had been pretty rough on Austria, leaving them with only 2 SCs when Austria left. It was apparent that Austria had little experience with Diplomacy but I didn't take kindly to Turkey taking advantage of that. I mesaged Russia and Italy right away with entreaties to help push Turkey back. They both complied and we were able to stop Turkish expansion. Unfortunately, at one point, Italy attempted to make a move on Serbia, but did so with a fleet! Could have been a bad mouse-click, but I just got the feeling that Italy was trying to make a move on me.
Russia left and a new Russia joined in F '04. The new Russia messaged me and Italy right away with a detailed message. I like that. Communicate well with me and you'll find me much more likely to work with you. Russia was under pressure from England in the north, and Turkey from the south. At the end of '04, I still sat at two SCs (Vienna and Budapest), and Russia was down to three, having lost StP to England and Sev to Turkey. Technically, he still had Sweden, but he burned the army there to build in Sev to keep pressure on Turkey. Still, I liked how Russia thought and together we held a white-knuckled grips on our territories. The alliance we formed would last most of the game.
It was about this time that Germany surrendered and a player by the name of - get this - DaveSpermbank took over. I hope he was not sharing his keyboard with anyone. Spermy messaged me the following.
Subject: Austria
Message: You seem hopeless. Could you please move vienna-tyrolia?
Now, maybe I'm reading this wrong, but the gist of this message seems to be, "You're dead anyway. Why don't you jump on this knife for me?" I didn't care at all for that. I think I sent an equally snarky message back and moved Dave up to the top of my 'Players I do not want to play with' list. Sorry, Dave. Maybe we'll meet in a future game and you can change my mind.
Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice, er, I mean back in the south, I don't know if Turkey realized that Russia, Italy and myself were now putting up a fight or had other obligations outside the game, but we caught a lucky break when he NMR'd in F '04 and S '05. A new Turkey joined and messaged me with peace offerings. I quickly accepted because I wasn't too sure about Italy and would rather work with Turkey against Italy. I begged my Russian ally to lay off the attack on Turkey so Turkey and I could take out Italy. Russia graciously accepted, but he remained wary of Turkey on his southern border. But, I needed Turkey for the time being so I pleaded for patience.
Here's the breakdown of things in W '07:
Me (Austria): 4 units
Russia: 4 units
England: 2 units
Turkey: 7 units
Germany: 6 units
France: 5 units
Italy: 4 units
England was in possession of Scandinavia, having lost his home centers to Germany and France. France, although being at 5 units, was hurting due to a German unit sitting in Paris and having just eliminated an Italian unit that had been running around the Iberian peninsula scattering linguine, tortellini and almost any ini all over the place.
In time, Turkey and I managed to eliminate Italy. Perhaps what I did next was wrong, but neither Russia nor I felt comfortable with Turkey at our backs. For years Russia had been asking if I was ready to attack Turkey, but the timing just hadn't been right. With Italy gone, the timing finally was right. It was lousy repayment for all the help Turkey had given me with Italy, but it was nothing personal. That's just the business of Diplomacy.
Through all the chaos, France's situation had gone from bad to worse. England had reclaimed some of his home centers and France had lost some of his home territories to Germany. In S '10, France finally lost Munich to the Germans. I had made some decent gains against Turkey, so, being the nice guy that I am, offered Trieste to France so he could claim a build. France was very grateful and I think I made a friend. In the words of France:
Nope, very grateful for the help and as I say, you have my loyalty.
I daresay, that single act probably turned the entire course of history for all of Europe. At least, that's the way I see it, and I'm the one writing this AAR.

From this point on, things were on the up for France, and it started going downhill for Germany and England. Turkey had lost his home centers to Russia and I was doing a decent job of rooting Turkey out of Italy. By the end of 1912, France had recovered, Turkey's last unit had been eliminated, and Germany's Spermbank account had been depleted and closed.
Through all of this, Russia and I had been in constant communication. Not a season went by where we didn't discuss almost every move, or at least the ones that concerned mutual neighbors. Once Turkey was eliminated, though, the tone changed. The powers left were myself, Russia, France and England. Obviously my next target was France or Russia. I was not eager to attack either, but Russia had been a solid ally, so I chose France for my target. Russia suggested I keep my plans regarding France to myself so that there was no chance of leaking those plans. Good advice, but that meant less communication. France pledged us both loyalty, so he vowed he would not attack either of us unless attacked first. But, that didn't mean France wasn't going to urge us to each go for the solo.
England was being sneaky too, apparently fabricating messages and pretending they were from France. France swore they weren't his since there were multiple spelling mistakes. The writing styles didn't match either. No one was swayed by this and England was soon reduced to just his home territories
I was struggling to push my fleets through in the south and I didn't do enough to protect my borders with Russia. I guess I just figured that things were still good between myself and Russia and that we were going to end up sharing the victory in a two-way draw. I gotta give France credit, though. He saw it before I did.
=======From FRANCE Fall 1917 Orders =======
Russia could be on 17 centres by the end of this round. Have you got a backup plan?
I didn't have a backup. Russia moved on Rumania and England that fall. Vienna and Budapest had no armies on them and I had no way to protect Budapest. Our arranged bounce between Constantinople and Bulgaria collapsed when Russia moved Constantinople to the Aegean and Ankara to Constantinople. By the end of the following year, Russia had swept up the rest of England and I had lost Bulgaria and Budapest to him as well. That was 18, and the game was his.
All in all, it was a very exciting game. I started out in a very bad position and Russia's wasn't much better. It took several years before either of us made gains, during which time enemies surrendered to be replaced by new allies, which then became enemies again. A solid alliance through all of it, and even when that alliance ended in a masterful stab, I somehow felt proud to have been the victim of it. It was exactly the kind of game I started playing Diplomacy for.