PDL 2. Round 3, game 3. AAR

[NJLonghorn]

ENGLAND. Don Juan of Austria
FRANCE. IvarGizteb (3way DRAW)
ITALY. Astrup
GERMANY. quarryman (3way DRAW)
AUSTRIA. champinoman
TURKEY. NJLonghorn (3way DRAW)
RUSSIA. Frenchie07001


More later when I’m at my desktop, but here’s a quick summary from my perspective.

Austria and I (playing as Turkey) had a firm alliance for about 4 years, but we ran into an FG that we had no chance to break. I turned on Austria and the TGF was an easy finish. There was momentary drama as Austria tried to help France get rid of me, ostensibly in support of a two-way FG, but Germany was concerned about a French solo attempt and helped me shut it down.

My favorite part of the game was early, when Austria and I toyed with Russia. We coordinated pretty well against him — I can’t wait to hear his response to my more detailed AAR when I get around to writing it.

[Frenchie07001]

I’ll wait but your “toying” allowed Germany and France to get so ahead that Austria never had a shot in being end game. And Germany but the nail in my coffin my position was salvageable until he changed his mind on not taking st Pete’s.

[Frenchie07001]

Ill just do mine now since I have the time.

So I pulled Russia in this game. I am always hesitant about how I want to handle Russia when I get her. Do I want to go aggressive and draw more attention than Russia already gets being a 4 supply point power or do I want to go easy and hope people ignore me a bit. I think this is where I made my first mistake. I was offered an alliance by Italy and Austria, but paranoia sunk in and decided to move to Galicia despite a dmz. I think that put Austria and I in a bad place that I could never fully recover from.

I continued on my way and in 1901 was able to capture only Rumania following an unfortunate decision by the German to block my move into Sweden. The German would be my down fall on several occasions in this game.

1902 comes about... Realizing I have no friends, (Turkey said he was a friend but tbh despite his thought that he toyed with me, I never really trusted Turkey), I attempt to salvage the AIR alliance that had been offered. Spring 1902 everything looks good. Fall 1902, not so much LOL. Here I was thinking we had solved the relationship and that because it was a three person alliance it was less likely Austria would stab. He decided to double up and stab both Italy and I. This was the beginning of the end for Italy.It definitely hurt me. I think long run, this is the starting point of where Austria's doom began as well. He had taken the Balkans making it very difficult for Turkey to grow anywhere but through him, pissed off myself and Italy, and alerted everyone to his rapid growth. I am a bit bias but I think Austria and I may have made it to end game if we had stuck with the AIR alliance (I take blame for its failure as much as I lay it on Austria).

In Spring 1903, my position is still salvageable due to the benevolence of Germany. By Fall 1903, his benevolence dries up. Germany delivers a crushing blow under the guise of friendship. He says it was a last minute decision change..not sure if its true or not but I harbor no ill will.

Germany decides to take me on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, and again in Fall 1904 reaches out his hand like an angel from on high. Says he likes the idea of an EFR over other options...I said hell yes. Germany moves down to crush Austria and allows me to hold my territories a little longer.

Spring 1905, I push back the Austrian as Germany puts the squeeze on him. By Fall 1905, Germany decides to put another knife in my back...at this point it feels like he is just using the same stab holes as he has run out of room for his knives. He takes St Petes and breaks any chance I have of surviving. Again, he says this was a last minute decision that came about due to the moves of others on the map.

From there it was just clean up by France, Germany, and Turkey.


My thoughts on individuals:
England: The Don and I have played together many a time. We didnt talk much this game. He was just unlucky that France and Germany went after him.
France: Good guy, did not have too many dealings with. Well played.
Germany: Its too hard to talk about. You were my rollercoaster. You brought me joy and sorrow. Well played though
Italy: You tried to get what could of been a quality alliance going, but you werent able to grow so nothing really came of your tenure on the map.
Austria: I think we ended up killing each others chances of end game. If you truly were toying with me the whole time, I think you made a poor decision and it cost both of us. If you had intended on being true to me until I made the move to Galicia, then its on both of us.
Turkey: You played Turkey very well. You let Austria get the attention of Germany. You convinced him to stab both Italy and I in one swoop leaving him with only you as a friend. And then you waited until Austria started getting squeezed by Germany. It was a good stab. All that being said...I just want to be clear, you never had my trust, so I think "toyed with Russia" was strong language.

Good game and congrats to the winners.

[champinoman]

I’ll wait but your “toying” allowed Germany and France to get so ahead that Austria never had a shot in being end game.

I'm not sure that's completely true though. The 'toying' was done in 1902 and ended with the board state below. Hardly a rolling F/G at this point. I'll discuss my thought process below.


I see this game as having 3 phases for me:

1: Opening Moves

My goal in the opening year was to get myself to 5 builds if possible, but primarily to keep everybody else out of my personal space. Simple right? After a day of communication I was on good terms with all my neighbours and had DMZ's setup with Germany & Russia, and an agreement to vacate Ven & Tri with Italy (along with DMZ Tyr). So all was looking good. I even had Germany's backing regarding Gal with the assurance that they would bounce Swe if Russia decided to do anything silly. Russia was fully aware of all of this.

And then... Russia did something silly. It wasn't ideal having that Russian army in Gal so soon, especially considering I had told Italy that I would support them into Gre if they vacated Ven. I was looking like being a 3 unit Austria in 1902, and that seemed undesirable. And we're not even mentioning that Italy stayed in Ven and Turkey opted not to bounce in BLA.

I put a lot of faith into Italy this season and managed to arrange with them that I should take Gre whilst they took Tun and backed away from Ven/Tri. I then decided to try and convince Russia that I was supporting myself into Rum in order to force them to use all 3 of their units to take Rum, or if they decided to attack my homelands then they would still only get the 1 build. I have no idea if they bought this or not (in my head I like to think they did ) but it allowed me to know that if they planned to continue their attack on me that it would be towards Vie.

Seeing the results of the Fall '01 phase made me smile. Sometimes it all just works.



2: Alliance with Turkey

I had been drawn as Austria in the round 2 game as well and it was ending at around this stage of the game in a draw including a A/T alliance. The final of the PDET had also just finished in a A/T draw as well which was an interesting talking point. But I really didn't want to do it again. I don't like the position Austria is in for most of the game. Always on the edge of everybody else teaming up and putting them back in their place (No spoilers but... TOLD YOU!). But I wasn't really left with much of a choice. The willingness of Turkey to accept a Jugg was hinted at early in '01 so I needed to ensure that I had one of them on my side, and with Russia deciding to lie and attack me in both Spring and Fall of 1901 I felt I had little choice.

Turkey had been proposing an idea of how to destroy an army of his to be the fleet based member of our alliance. So I decided to see how it would go through the spring moves because I still had opportunity in the Fall to dedicate myself to the A/I/R that was being talked about. But when Fall came it looked like the better deal was to side with Turkey.

Italy and I had been working well to this point, but if an alliance between Austria and Turkey was formed then where was Italy to expand to? I made the decision that I should take the opportunity to slide into Ven at the same time I revealed I was working with Turkey. All went well and Turkey and I started to grow.

The problem was that I grew too quickly too early. I did my best to assist Turkey to grow as well, but I knew Germany was watching and looking for opportunity to unite others against me. I decided to offer Germany assistance into War in the hope that they'd funnel North and take StP. But once they were in War they never really looked like doing anything other than moving towards me.

Turkey and I discussed holding the line, but even as I was trying to be as convincing as possible I knew that it was a hard sell.

3: Survive? No chance.

Turkey ended up making the move against me. It was the right thing to do if the end goal was a 3-way. I tried to convince F & G that they still had solo chances and that allowing me to fight against Turkey would give them the space they needed. I thought I had convinced them but when the turns rolled over Germany didn't do as they said they would... twice.

I then tried to salvage some tiebreaker points by getting the game ended early. But one of the victors decided that the tiebreaker points were better in their hands than mine, which is fair enough in the end.


Overall it was a fun game in the early stages but I never really felt in control of anything after the first few years. Now I'm just hoping the RNG has better things in store for me in round 4.

[champinoman]

Didn't see your post whilst I was writing mine.

Austria: I think we ended up killing each others chances of end game. If you truly were toying with me the whole time, I think you made a poor decision and it cost both of us. If you had intended on being true to me until I made the move to Galicia, then its on both of us.

I had just finished a game as Austria in a A/T alliance and I really didn't have any intention of doing it again so soon. I was all in for our quick destruction of Turkey and the move to Gal really derailed that. But the move to Gal wasn't a deal breaker for the remainder of the game. I came to you in Fall '01 and told you that I still wanted to work with you and we came to the agreement that Gal would be supported into Rum and all would proceed on as normal. There's only 2 seasons in 1901 and you managed to lie to me and stab me in both of them. That's going to take some time to repair so when Turkey came to me with an option that seemed to work I certainly listened.

I continued on my way and in 1901 was able to capture only Rumania following an unfortunate decision by the German to block my move into Sweden. The German would be my down fall on several occasions in this game.

Well, we did tell you that was the deal

[Frenchie07001]

Germany made it sounds like he wasn’t going to bounce me so I went for it

[champinoman]

Germany made it sounds like he wasn’t going to bounce me so I went for it

Ahhh, that's interesting. So Germany was playing us both and then decided which way would suit him better before the end of '01?

[IvarGizteb]

Will post the French perspective tomorrow evening.The very brief overview is:
1) I initially wanted to work with England
2) I did not hear from England in fall 01 til the very end of the phase and freaked out, switching to Germany because he was becoming way more talkative
3) Worked with germany for a while, took out England
4) Waa absolutely shocked Germany did not stab me (can’t remember the season exactly... fall 04 maybe)
5) Turkey came to FG looking to knock out A, I said sure
6) Cleaned up with Turkey
7) Foolishly did not support Trieste to hold one phase, could’ve ended up maybe convoying to Smyrna
8) Agreed to FGT.

More details to come.

[Don Juan of Austria]

Maybe more later. We'll see... Overall I played a rotten game. Super busy at the beginning in RL, and seemingly lost, if any to begin with, France's favor.
I don't really think I ever had Germany's favor...so when F/G banded together; it was curtains for me.

[mhsmith0]

RIP smith's first place position