PDL 2. Round 3, game 2. AAR

[boldblade]

PDL 2. Round 3, game 2. AAR

ENGLAND - AleBelly
FRANCE - Saturos
ITALY - The SHIV
GERMANY - JoeHoya06
AUSTRIA - hitsukima
TURKEY - boldblade (SOLO WIN)
RUSSIA - Riles

[Nanook]

Marking. This would’ve been my round 3 game had I not needed a sub, looks I missed an interesting one.

[boldblade]

I will kick things off since I have been impatiently waiting to see if I could pull this off. Not going to lie, after talking a lot of shit since the last round it feels pretty good to have managed this. My greatest disappointment is that I didn't get it soon enough to get to be the plug in that league 1 game. Anyways...

Fun game all. Thank you for the great competition and fun diplomacy throughout. Kind of a dick move by someone declining the pauses I asked for. But oh well. I was able to manage so no hard feelings.

ENGLAND - AleBelly - You were a pleasure talking with throughout. The way you survived the sealion early was one of the most impressive things I ever saw. I was glad to find a willing midgame partner to strive for more than the boring three-way we were headed too. Sorry for not keeping our arrangement but I couldn't pass on the opportunity. gg
FRANCE - Saturos - It was a pleasure talking with you. Didn't talk much throughout.
ITALY - The SHIV - Had some fun chats early. Was glad to host you in the summer palace through the end of the game.
GERMANY - JoeHoya06 - You were an incredible diplomat throughout. I enjoyed talking at the end and look forward to hearing what happened the last turn and where your head was at in those final years.
AUSTRIA - hitsukima - Sorry for the stab. It was brutal I know. But I can't pass up a brutal stab like that. You were a great ally. Very intelligent and a great tactician. There were a couple places where I almost made some blunders early on if it weren't for your guidance. The first time you went dark really through me off. To be completely honest it made the stab a little easier.
TURKEY - boldblade (SOLO WIN) - You sir are the best. Much love.
RUSSIA - Riles - There were many parts of the game I regretted my early decision to choose Austria as you seemed a quite agreable guy and would have made a good ally to work with. Sorry to see you out so early.

I will provide some more specific thoughts as quickly as I am able.

[boldblade]

When opening the game and finding I drew Turkey I was pretty excited. It is probably my favorite power to play, certainly the one with which I have had the most success. I immediately invited everyone to my summer palace to eat, drink and talk. Early comms from Russia were good. I felt we hit it off but I wasn't sure what to ultimately expect from him. He offered a DMZ in the Black Sea which I didn't like but figured I would entertain it for a while where I spoke with some other powers. Italy and I hit it off well. When he visited the palace it was a nonstop party; booze, leaf and women all night every night. It started to feel like an early exit of Austria was going to be a good play for me. Then Austria showed up, dignified, brilliant and engaging. I always loved the A/T alliance. After seeing it work in the PDET it was all to easy for us to convince ourselves that the two-way could done. We agreed that I would build only fleets and he would build only armies and we got to work. I had also begun to hear rumors of Russia making a northern opening. It sounded almost too good to be true so I took him up on his offer to DMZ Turkey only so I could swiftly break it.

Austria and I pretty quickly dealt with the southern Russian forces. Italy played us pretty tough and my fleet maneuvers in the Med were wanting. Unfortunately that is what really slowed down the ambitions of the A/T. I even had to rely on Austria's generosity early on for gains as he was growing quickly and I was struggling to advance my fleets and find room.

While all this was going on I thought England was done for with a clear early sealion forming. He made some really shifty moves to avoid some disastrous center losses. Ultimately Germany flipped on the sealion and made sure England survived. Unfortunately for him I had been working on a great relationship with England from early on in the game and was working to convince Austria to stab Germany and work with England towards a potential 3-way.

Somewhere in this time I requested a pause. I was going to be doing some traveling and knew my internet access would be intermittent. I tried convincing people that we could just finalize and still advance turns at a slightly slower rate during the pause but someone did not agree. The weird thing was that at about the middle of the time I had wanted to pause Austria went completely dark and stopped sending messages for nearly a week. I kept plugging away at our plan hoping for the best and he continued to deliver so all was well but it certainly made for a bizarre two weeks where the most powerful alliance on the board was hardly/not talking to each other. I will call that the close of the early game and come back in to talk about mid game in a separate post.

[boldblade]

1905ish was pretty much the beginning of the midgame portion as I would describe it. Two massive stabs that alter the course of the game in back to back years. 1904 ended looking like this:



Austria leveled the first big stab of the midgame. It had pretty much begun fall of 1904 but the blade truly went deep into Germany during 1905. Germany and Austria had been working well together all game. Austria was definitely resistant to stab him but he and I had been working really well together also and stabbing Germany just made the most sense to advance the game. I think, more or less, everyone was in a draw whittling mindset and wanted to see the game get down to 3. Personally I don't care to draw whittle but suspected if I continued towards that end I could see myself in position to make something more of the game.

England and I had started talking in 1904 about possible endgame scenarios and working towards a two-way draw. I had originally hoped to get there with Austria but England was no fool and had set up blockade on MAO so breaking out and kicking him from the draw was never really an option. At the time of our talks I knew Austria was about to stab and wanted England to jump on the stab as well so we didn't have to move into a 2v2 scenario where A/T was stalemated against E/G. I in turn promised him I was interested in the two-way draw and would be preparing to pounce at an opportunity to stab Austria as soon as it became clear.

As 1905 was coming to a close I thought I might have an opportunity to stab Austria then but felt I would probably not get as far as I wanted from a stab. I had told England I thought the time was right but ultimately sent him a late message to let him know I called it off for that turn. I had also asked Austria at this time about building an army to send into French territory but he didn't like the idea as it broke the arrangement we had made from the beginning.

1906 continued on about the same as 1905. Italy was eliminated and France was on the ropes. Germany began messaging me, Austria and England about ending the game once France was dead for the sake of his tie-breaker points. I told Germany and Austria that I thought that made sense. England and I privately discussed a potential stab and continuing to work towards the two-way. I told Austria that with the three-way draw in mind I would be building an army to defend myself in case he decided to try for a better result since he was already over the stalemate line. The end of 1906 looked like this:



I played the cards close to the chest during the spring orders phase. There was a great opportunity to deliver a brutal stab here and I was prepared to take it. I will just jump straight to what the end of 1907 looked like to complete the picture of the midgame:



One power eliminated and two major powers crippled the midgame was complete. England and I began talking division of centers for the 2-way. We were naturally separated by the best stalemate line in the game. I told him we should rush to these centers and he agreed. His road was tougher than mine. I was going to try for the solo if I could. But I had known that from the moment my 2-way talks began with England back in 1904...

[boldblade]

Fall 1908 I got a message from Germany. He told me the game was mine and asked how he could help unless I planned to gift England the draw. I wondered why he would want to help me win in such a way and he told me he didn't want the power he saved in the early game only to get stabbed by him to end up in the draw. H also kindly told me I had played a great game and deserved the win if I could get it.

I figured Mun was going to be my chance to win. I figured during the chaos of trying to get to the stalemate line that there would be weakness at Mun somewhere along the line and all I had to do was be in position to take it while England was taking territory behind it to take position so he could take it. Eventually that is probably how it might have worked out but I took Germany up on his offer to help me take it sooner. I got some units right up next to Mun quickly and here is how everything looked leading into the 1909:



At this time England messaged me that he was concerned I was in position to take the solo and asked that I support him into Mun in the fall as a gesture of goodwill. I assured I intended to honor the agreement and would gladly support him into Mun in the fall. I told Germany that he was planning to move to Burgandy if he wanted to bounce Burgandy with Bel. That part of the plan went perfectly and I took Mun and Burgandy was empty heading into the fall. However, I think I made a mistake there by taking Mun with Boh insteady of Tyrolia. Ultimately I lucked into a scenario where it worked out well but I was put in kind of a weird place for the fall and suspected I would not be able to win by the end of 1909 like I had hoped. Here my position leading into fall:



England was not pleased of course. I assume at this point he worked furiously to convince Germany and Austria to unite to stop me. I don't think he realized that Austria went dark again every since the stab. I suppose he could have been just ghosting me but since he had done it earlier in the game I was pretty sure he was just gunboating it. However, I do think he convince Germany that he could get a piece of a draw if he helped stop me.

I was in a bit of precarious position as I could only hold Mun with full German support. I asked for it but he balked a little. I thought that made sense as I figured if he was going to help me here he would at least want to keep his few centers for tie breaker points. Even if he had supported Mun I was still in place where if I wanted to get Moscow and Warsaw and hold Mun I would be risking Vienna. Then I had what I thought was a pretty brilliant idea. I noticed England could not force Burgandy and that if Germany supported me in I had a chance to get Mun into Burgandy. From there I could have guaranteed Mars and even been able to hold it through 1910 before England could get adequate forces in place to take it back which should have resulted in the win. In return I offered to help Germany take Mun for himself in 1910 to help hi tiebreaker points. In this case I could also take both Warsaw and Moscow while protecting Vienna.

Germany didn't object so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. When the turn processed I was initially very disappointed to see that Germany actually cooperated with England to take Burgandy. I thought I would be back in a place where I would have to fight a little harder through 1910 to win or settle for the draw. Then I wondered to myself why the phase hadn't advanced and my army just get disbanded. I laughed out loud when I saw Kiel. I double checked the order to make sure there wasn't a bounce there. There wasn't. I couldn't believe it. I got to retreat into my 18th center for the win. And here we are. Incredibly interested to hear what went on between England and Germany that fall and how Kiel ended up open.

[IvarGizteb]

Wow... that retreat to Kiel for 18. Holy shit. Great game.

[sinnybee]

TURKEY - boldblade (SOLO WIN) - You sir are the best. Much love.

I'm glad you love yourself
Have a thing for talking to yourself too?

Wow... that retreat to Kiel for 18. Holy shit. Great game.

That game-winning retreat was pretty kick ass.

[mjparrett]

Congrats Turkey!! Very well played

I’ll have an admin day soon and get the tables sorted. Apologies for my tardiness. This deserves an update though!

[Riles]

Russia here

My opening strategy for Russia had usually been to offer all three of the Western powers the possibility of an army move north. What I don't want to deal with is an E/G alliance so I wanted to offer support for either England or Germany to fight the other. From there the sealion was born. I was honest with England about a plan to fight Germany if France wanted to try it. However, France preferred the anti-England approach, so I followed suit. England threatened focusing on me if I continued support of the sealion and didn't recoil from that when I didn't lay off. Kudos England, you survived a sealion.

I probably got greedy and tried to organize two DMZ's of Black Sea and Galicia. Austria appreciated it to protect against a possible Italian stab so I thought I had an ally locked. Turkey obviously took advantage. My suspicions grew of Austria not being pro-Russia as Austria never went with any of my anti-Turkey plans (even though they usually involved getting Austria centers) and not providing any alternatives that would actually be anti-Turkey. Unfortunately I had painted myself into a corner...

Then when Germany sabotaged the sealion it became the last nail in my coffin. So I became a Russia with Austria and Turkey against me in the south and Germany and England against me in the north. Nothing else to do, so I tried to inconvenience Germany as much as I could for being the last one to go against me, offering England St Pet before A/T could get there for support into Den. Unfortunately England supported Germany to save Denmark. Thus ends the tale of my probably quickest elimination as Russia. Best laid plans...

Next time I play Russia you'll probably not see me moving an army north

Congrats boldblade, I look forward to next time! No hard feelings towards anyone, I got outplayed all around, good luck in your future games!