Thanks to the others for their thoughtful AARs, and I look forward to reading the others. First I’ll say that I’m writing this AAR without going back and extensively re-reading message traffic, so apologies for anything I misrepresent or forget - please feel free to correct me.
Before I walk through the game itself – some comments on the variant.
North of the isthmus, I think this is a heck of a game – interesting balance, different alliance opportunities, fun map. I had a great time. South America, I have to admit, I didn’t pay close attention to. I kept peace on land with Colombia (until I didn’t), kept peace at sea with Peru, and beyond that basically ignored the southern continent completely and focused on the northern half of the map. (In fact I ignored it so much I was a bit shocked and alarmed late in the game to suddenly realize Peru had the ability to sweep the entire continent). So I would love to get the views of some of the South American players.
From my very disengaged perspective – that would be where I’d be concerned about game balance. Because boy, it looks like a bloodbath down there! But I haven’t played enough to tell if any particular positions/nations are stronger or weaker than others, or if it’s just an evenly balanced but deeply competitive environment. Peru and Ven ended up as the strongest standing after the melee – was that because their positions were stronger, or they just played a heck of a game? If it’s an evenly balanced bloodbath – then that’s awesome. But if a few countries are just inherently weak, that could be a concern.
So overall – I love this map, but would be curious to hear more South American perspectives.
Now, to the game.
This was the very rare game in which my pre-S01 strategy/game plan played out basically exactly how I had wanted it to. There were hiccups, there were surprises, but my “how should I play Mexico” brainstorm back when this game started months and months and months ago is pretty much exactly how things unfolded. This never happens! And may never happen again! But I’m going to pretend it was good planning rather than good luck.
My view as Mexico – for early expansion, I could dive into the fight for the Caribbean, try to rush south, or rush north into the North American West. From the moment I looked at the board, the final option was my clear preference. The Caribbean seemed very crowded with two excellent players (Alman/Pedros) already clearly invested in the fight. Pushing south was also crowded and also slow going. But the American west! Ah, the west. SCs just sitting there for the taking! I feel like with this board, if one player (USA or Mexico) can get early undisputed control of the western half of North America, that player is all but guaranteed to become a dominant power in the game. I figured if I could avoid being attacked from the south or from the Caribbean long enough to grab the western US SCs, I would be a big enough power that worst case I’d be able to get a seat in the draw, and best case maybe I could take the rest of North America and work towards a solo. The latter ambitious plan never came to the fruition, but the former was the story of the game for me.
So having decided I wanted to rush into the American west, I wanted two things diplomatically to help ensure my success: 1. Absolute peace and trust with the dominant Caribbean power, which I suspected would be Pedros, and 2. Chaos and warfare in the eastern half of North America, so that everyone there would be too busy fighting to worry about competing with me for the western SCs. The short summary of my game is that both of those things came true.
Going into S01, I was quick to establish peace with Colombia on the isthmus – I had no interest in squabbling over exactly where the border between us stood, at least until after I had concluded my plan of expansion north and west. I immediately sought a solid and authentic peace with Spain, and tried to make clear that I would never seek a presence in the Caribbean – my interests were purely continental. Fortunately, I came to an understanding with Pedros that grew into what was my bedrock alliance of the game. With USA and Britain, I tried to establish friendly but frankly inauthentic relationships, mostly to keep them from working against me, and having backup friendly relations I could lean into should Spain’s friendship prove false. Over the early years at it became clear Pedros valued our arrangement as much as I did, I allowed my communications with Britain and USA to go stale. Spain’s desire to push hard into North America worked perfectly for me – it allowed me to completely control the western US.
Now, an aside. Nanook raises an interesting point…for whatever reason, I think every game we’ve played together, we’ve ended up enemies, or at least certainly not friends. We get along great outside of games, but in game, we’ve never, ever been on the same side over the course of the game. So your comment makes me think I need to be more open minded and trusting in my games with you, and evaluate what bias I bring to the battlefield. I’ve spent some time today thinking about it and I think that, in my head, I classify you as a player more likely to deceive frequently, rather than as the exception. In other words, you are a player I assume to be lying, rather than assume to be honest. I’m growing into more and more of a Carebear the longer I play, and so tend to pull away from players I don’t trust. But that is not at all a fair characterization! You have had strong relationships and allies in many of your games, and in fact as a veteran volunteer in a mentor game I ran, you explicitly warned beginners against exactly that – lying excessively. And besides that, I spend plenty of time every game lying to people. I’m certainly no saint. So it’s an interesting point. I think in this game I had decided that if friendship with Spain could be formed, I would write off the USA no matter what – I saw the US as the clearest competitor for SCs in the American west. But looking back on the game, I’d be lying if I said if I wasn’t more inclined to trust, say, Alman than you. But I promise that I’ll check my bias at the door next time we meet in a game.
Or that entire paragraph is an elaborate ruse to set you up next game, and I’ll stab you that much more effectively.
Anyway – back to the narrative.
Once North America west of the Rockies was completely and safely Mexican, I faced a bit of a quandary as to where to focus my growth in the mid-game. At this point, I decided to start moving south against Colombia. I thought I had a stronger position, and hoped he would collapse quickly. Additionally, I felt confident Spain was my ally, whereas Colombia and I hadn’t communicated much beyond the occasional message over shared territories. This first mid-game effort against him failed completely, as it coincided with a (thank god) short lived stab from Spain. I was able to repair relations with Spain quickly, but lost momentum completely against Colombia. The stab from Spain was also a useful wake-up call…the middle of this game coincided with the birth of my daughter in early June, and I was in emergency survival mode with any of my playdip commitments, going quasi-gunboat and just trying to avoid NMRs. But as a result, in Spain’s eyes, I had gone from being a communicative, proactive, thoughtful partner to a quiet, surly, mysterious and increasingly powerful question mark on his western border. And my silent building of anti-Colombian fleets looked an awful lot like me abandoning my commitment to stay out of the Caribbean – a suspicion reinforced by my lack of communication. In the end, the one year Spain attack helped me, as it forced me to re-engage with the game, and focus on patching things up with Pedros. While my communication continued to fluctuate over the rest of the game, I think that our relationship remained solid through to the end.
So – on to the end game. There was a point (maybe a month ago) where it became clear there were four dominant powers that would be left standing – Spain and I in the north, Peru and Ven in the south. At this point, I did not think I stood a valid chance at a solo. It would require winning a war against Spain, and we looked far too evenly matched for that to take place. And besides – the only reason I would attack Spain would be if I were going for a solo. The moment that was publicly clear, Peru could attack by sea and tear me open from the southwest. In fact, the most serious solo risk appeared to be Peru, who was on the road to sweep South America without Spain or me (or at least me!) even noticing. From our perspective in the north, it made sense to engage Peru to form an alliance, open communication, and eliminate Ven. By eliminating Ven quickly, we moved the game towards a resolution, but also prevented any chance of Peru running away with a solo. All credit to Pedros for organizing the three way alliance that coordinated the end game. Once that three-way message chain started rolling, the end of the game was all but assured. I did absolutely nothing to help smash Ven – instead just stocked up a bunch of Colombian SCs in case Peru broke for the solo and I needed to swing South to try and stop him. But that proved unnecessary in the end, and here we are.
Overall, this was a really, really fun game for me. Particularly as this was my first PbF experience, I had such a good time. I wanted to play Mexico, and was very happy that my general plan for Mexico played out. The anchor of my game was absolutely the alliance with Spain. While I made halfhearted attempts from time to time with other players to suggest I feared Spain’s growth and wanted to coordinate a move against him, I never really entertained betraying Pedros. A friendly power in the Caribbean is what allowed me to grow to the size I attained, and from then on out, turning against him never made sense at any particular point. I think that if I had maintained a higher level of communication in this game, I could have found a path to at least try for a solo. Maybe a close partnership with Ven to attack Spain, and then eventually a purely Mexican North America. My low level of communication in the middle months of this game ended, I think, any chance of the solo. But in the end, I had a lot of fun, it was a great game, and I made it to the winning draw, so I have no complaints.
Final comment – 10 player game, no surrenders. That’s awesome. Thanks gang.