Diplomacy Dreams

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Hi folks,

I'm home and all is good.  A bit groggy but I should be fine by tomorrow.  Since I don't have a retreat to make I would say carry on at this point.

Thanks,
GM

Glad to hear everything went well!

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Kind of amazing to me that St Petersburg stands. Almost hurts a little that the proud Russian capital is too minor and of little note to bother taking.

Think of it this way: you're good company and we don't want you out of the game just yet.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Fall 1905: Retreat

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

>mfw Austria is still alive past 1905
>mfw Austria has outlived Russia

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Do I need to say I'm disbanding the fleet?

Because I am, obviously.

Been a pleasure, gents.

Yeah, although we struck the fatal blow, I very much look forward to seeing you in future games. Thanks for being a good sport and also committing to the deadlines. Tip of my hat to you!

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I very much hate to do this but I would like to request a delay. My crappy laptop finally called it quits on me and I only have my cellphone to communicate until Monday. If everybody's okay with moving the deadline to Tuesday, it would be very much appreciated. Adequate technology is necessary for this game and right now I no longer have that.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I just hate texting in general and prefer to use a laptop whenever possible. That's nothing new to me. Perhaps I am indeed old at heart...

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I should also add that I think 72 hours as a rule is a bit too long. This is an emergency situation but once I get my replacement tomorrow this won't be an issue.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Yes, I'm all set for tomorrow. Thanks for the extension!

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

The build phase is still 24 hours as far as I can recall.

RIP Italy. Thank you for playing, Kuumo.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I don't know who else would be available to substitute. It's also pretty late in the game for people to be dropping out.

Most importantly, the game is not a revolving door and I can't help but feel frustrated every time someone drops out. I know Jesse's tired as well and it is evident that people aren't reading the rules or the first pages of this thread. Commitment and deadlines matter and they should be accounted for before somebody joins a game. It's already been explained why leaving the game while you have centers in play is extremely unfair to both the game moderator and the other players.

Gustaf, you haven't been here very long and you took over for another person who called it quits. The only choices are you staying in the game and sticking to deadlines or putting the game on hiatus (again) until Germany #3 signs up, whenever that might be.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I don't know who else would be available to substitute. It's also pretty late in the game for people to be dropping out.

Most importantly, the game is not a revolving door and I can't help but feel frustrated every time someone drops out. I know Jesse's tired as well and it is evident that people aren't reading the rules or the first pages of this thread. Commitment and deadlines matter and they should be accounted for before somebody joins a game. It's already been explained why leaving the game while you have centers in play is extremely unfair to both the game moderator and the other players.

Gustaf, you haven't been here very long and you took over for another person who called it quits. The only choices are you staying in the game and sticking to deadlines or putting the game on hiatus (again) until Germany #3 signs up, whenever that might be.

Well, maybe part of the reason people drop out is that you're an unpleasant person to play with.

I want to make clear that my complaint is not about the deadlines. I've played Diplomacy games before, including on here, and simply did not expect the atmosphere to be what it was. So I guess I didn't know what I signed up for in that sense.

I have entered orders for the next phase but it does sound like you're better off finding someone else willing to play this way. 

How have I been unpleasant? I've been cordial in all my correspondences with the players, and I'm simply reemphasizing a point that's been made before in this thread when these incidents occurred as well as speaking up for my personal friend who registered on the forum specifically to host this tournament, and put in considerable time needed to do so.

I'll take the heat for that, because the OP is not in any way at fault for the "atmosphere" (not entirely sure what this refers to) of the game.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

For what it's worth, on playdiplomacy games cannot be interrupted by powers resign either voluntarily or automatically. The game carries on with the supply centers as deadweight. This doesn't say a whole lot since this is maybe my fourth or fifth game, but I have never played a game that started and ended with the same powers. Powers were often left vacant and the game resumed with its neighbors going for what remained. Obviously that isn't fair because this does not affect every remaining power equally, but even the fact that a substitute has entered will influence how they are approached by their neighbors.

If we can't get a replacement soon, then I can't see a fair way to resolve this besides either all survivors winning automatically or all survivors except for England winning automatically. (I'd prefer the latter approach here; ending with less than what you started with is not a "win" in my opinion and only two powers have actually been eliminated at this stage.)

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

If Gustaf is definitely leaving, I think the first choice is to find a replacement Germany, either by advertising here (Jesse could change the thread title again) or seeing if one of the eliminated players would like to take over, or having IBNU switch to Germany.  If a replacement can't be found, then either Germany could go into civil disorder...or we could try the following amusing idea.  This is an initial framework, so feel free to suggest modifications.

What if we "partitioned" Germany between AFT, similar to the partitions of Poland?  It has 6
units, which neatly divides between 3 powers, and 7 centers; NOVA could have the extra center, since he's one behind A & T; this would give us 11 centers each.  The way this would work would be to somehow choose who gets which centers, perhaps with a draft, i.e. we each pick a center in turn until they're all taken.  The new power would get ownership of that German supply center and replace the German unit in it with one of their own of the same type.  The German fleet in NWG would go with Norway, the army in Ruhr with Denmark, and Sweden would have no unit assigned to it.  Then we continue with the game as normal.  This would be a bit chaotic at first but probably fun.  It would definitely be interesting.

A variation of this idea: since AF are adjacent to Germany and I'm not, my new centers and units would be disconnected from the rest of my territory.  So an alternative would be to split Germany between AF (give France 4 centers and Austria 3), while they each cede me one non-home supply center and unit to compensate for it.  Rome and Spain (with the fleet set to retreat from Wes) are obvious possibilities, but this could be negotiated.  This would again give all three of us 11 centers.

Very interesting ideas. I do agree that our first order of business should be seeing if we can get another German player, but if too much time passes, I'm on board with either of these partition plans.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Hey folks.

Yes, at this point I would say a draw is appropriate.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I want to thank everyone for a great game. Particularly, I want to thank GM for being such a great ally with his mentorship which really taught me how to look at the map from different perspectives and develop my skills as a newbie. And of course I want to thank my best friend Jesse for putting so much time and effort into setting this up for us, and for his patience in the various pitfalls we encountered.

It's been the cleanest best pleasure, gentlemen.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

With all the votes in, ladies and gentlemen, we have an end to the Great War of 1901-1909. By mutual assent the Republic of France, the German Reich, and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires have forged a new order in Europe. May peace forever be their lot and to their legacy go the accolades of triumph. Congratulations one and all and thank you for playing!

Just a minor edit on the final move, I made an error with one of Austria's moves. His intent was to have A Mos and A Stp attack Liv and bounce with one another. I mistakenly sent A Mos to Liv and A Stp to Mos. Scott brought this to my attention and it does not change his vote, it is being brought up merely to clarify the mistake.

I hope you will all come together to debrief one another on the minutiae of the game. I got bits and pieces of what was being discussed but very little to show the nuance of the moves.

I do want to congratulate you for volunteering to be GM and hopefully you might be willing to possibly host another.

I do apologize to the community for perhaps occasionally posting PMs which might have been considered a bit aggressive in nature while attempting to negotiate.

Quite frankly, I suspect these might have backfired on me at critical times in the game, where I might have been able to take advantage of a favorable political opportunity structure.

This was going to be a PM, but now that the game is over I see no harm in discussing how things went down publicly.

As to how your PMs factored into some decisions: yes, it is true that some of the messages you sent to myself and GM alienated us a bit. That ultimately did influence our decision to back away from Germany and work against you instead. Germany under Gustaf really had no choice, so he acquiesced to being part of a three-way alliance before he left. I can't comment on anything you may have said to him, but as you can see he called me "unpleasant" in this thread after I had - via PM - politely criticized some poor moves he made as well as missing an important build deadline. I try to choose my words delicately in this game and I still don't know what it is I said that upset Gustaf so much.

Perhaps I should have also agreed to the 72-hour deadline early on. The reason I did not is that these games can go on for quite a while. (Heck, this thread was created on February 20th.) I've never played a game that went past 1907 or 1908. And I've both hosted and co-hosted chess tournaments on the forum before; those somehow went on longer than even this game!

Both you and GM are very smart and formidable players. I would love to ally with either you or GM again (or both!) in future games. But of course, I'm also a believer that what happens in past games should have no effect on what happens in subsequent ones. A mark of good sportsmanship in Diplomacy is acknowledging that every new game marks a fresh start in relations between players.

With all that being said, I think we can all agree that Diplomacy is both a mentally and often emotionally taxing game. So a nice break should be in order. Maybe we can start a new game in the summer, if that aligns with people's schedules and desire to.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I should add that - and I told Jesse this on multiple occasions - GM is a very good coach; his messages to me were so detailed and thought out that, if he were to stab me, I wouldn't have been mad at all. As far as I was concerned, while a stab was always possible, it would have been a well-deserved one.

But indeed, stabbing me would only have made sense if Turkey had a path to solo. If Turkey had taken Budapest or used his resources in Italy to steal my centers and put me on the path to defeat, I would have retaliated by ceding as much of my territory to the Western powers as possible. Then Turkey would be without an ally and up against everybody else. A strong England would have been the necessary counter to this; in that scenario, there would be a path to a successful Crunch - arguably the most difficult alliance with the AT being just a peg below that.

But my sacrifice in my first game was instrumental in allowing Jesse to solo as Italy, when it became clear that the most Austria could do is be at the full disposal of my closest ally in order to deny Russia a win. And it worked out perfectly, with Russia going from being the most dominant power to nonviable; only England and Germany were competitive before it was decided that Italy would solo.