Diplomacy Again (Anonymous Edition) Postgame
Posted literally two seconds after the end of the game!
Country Assignment
Some people PMed me with preferences, so I kept randomising until I came up with a set of assignments that looked somewhat like the preferences, and tried to stop people from being countries they had been on Smogon before.
England: Accent -> Aura Guardian (Fall 1902)
France: Bass
Germany: billymills
Russia: imperfectluck -> tredge (Spring 1905)
Austria: LonelyNess
Italy: Outlaw
Turkey: askaninjask
Game Summary
The game opening basically involved Germany taking an immediately hostile stance against France, England playing in self-interest, France playing for an Anglo-French alliance, Russia playing anti-Austria (pro-Italy and pro-Turkey), Turkey playing for a Juggernaut, Italy playing pro-Russia, and Austria playing conservatively and without contacting anyone at all. Austria's opening moves weren't bad, but unfortunately his complete lack of negotiations meant that Austria was wiped out almost immediately by all of its neighbours.
imperfectluck was in an excellent position early on, but as he learnt from previous games, getting too big too quickly can sometimes become a hindrance rather than a blessing. He chose to betray neither of his allies (strictly speaking) and instead allowed them to fight it out, while being forced back by England and Germany. France expanded quickly and England remained very small early game, while Germany maintained solid growth. All three of Russia, Italy, and Turkey had achieved access to spoils in Austria, and therefore had an impressive size early on.
Spring 1903 left Russia in a terrible Northern position, both Germany and England being at his doorstep. Bass had made it onto the English home turf with an army, and begun to take it over while remaining in a solid position on its other borders. Italy was beginning to have trouble expanding further due to Russia's neutrality, and Russia's neutrality and failure in the North led to Russia losing some of its impressive initial growth. Russia had basically stopped sending or reading any messages, and had chosen to go with the Juggernaut with Turkey. Meanwhile, the English-German alliance allowed Germany to expand, and France continued to grow.
England continued to be used by Germany as a method of achieving greater expansion, while France continued to eat at England's back. The juggernaut alliance maintained Southern dominance as Italy begun to take heavy hits in its Austrian supply centers. The game looked like it would turn into Germany versus the Juggernaut if the fighting between Germany and France continued, and so France and Germany came to an agreement to stop their war in 1905, at the same time the new Russia tookover from imperfectluck (tredge).
Germany and France both took some advantage out of their alliance, and England continued to be used as a tool for their expansion. Bass played it smartly and obeyed billymills' requests early on, seeing that he had the ability to negotiate with Italy having not attacked him yet, and since he would essentially have the South to himself as long as their alliance outlasted the Juggernaut, given Germany's Northern concentration. France and Italy worked together to prevent Turkey's entry into the Ionian Sea, meaning that Turkey was slowed down for an extremely long time. Meanwhile, Russia was fighting a losing battle in the North and was beginning to cop losses near Warsaw.
France tookover Germany again supply center-wise, and the German-French-English alliance continued to flourish, with England eventually being removed once it was no longer needed. Outlaw suffered a similar, and expected, fate at the hands of Bass once he was in total control of the fight against Turkey. The juggernaut failed to achieve a planned Southern stalemate line, and then continued to be dominated by the French-German alliance until the end.
France, being a few centers ahead of Germany due to having an easier area to expand into, took the opportunity to stab Germany near the end. billymills couldn't hold off Bass long enough to stop him from overcoming his line of defense, allowing Bass to reach a total of twenty-one centers and win the game. Congratulations Bass (France)!
Individual Player Ratings
#7: LonelyNess - Austria
I've already said a bit about LonelyNess' play. He talked to nobody in Spring 1901 and his only message was 'I'm going to win', for which he received every neighbour short of Germany surrounding him and absolutely crushing him in Fall. By the time he tried to negotiate (read: threaten) his assailants, they had already made agreements in Spring 1901 to split him up piece by piece. It's probably worthy of note that imperfectluck succeeded in provoking him into a self-detrimental series of moves in Fall. LonelyNess did poorly in this game.
#6: Accent / Aura Guardian - England
England played almost solely with self-interest early on, while Accent was playing. He kept his options open but his indecisiveness led to a slow start, and it never picked up. He soon ran out of time for the game, and Aura Guardian subbed into a three center England, which never got any bigger. Aura Guardian did do quite a lot of negotiation and tried to pull all the smaller powers together against the bigger ones, which succeeded to an extent, but never resulted in self-growth. Instead, it resulted in growth for Germany and France, and England's eventual demise once his use had run out. Overall, England was not successful even though the play was half-decent.
#5: Outlaw - Italy
Outlaw had an impressive opening which resulted in a 5 center Italy at the conclusion of 1901, and he looked set for further expansion and an eventual attack on France. However, his efforts were to little avail since his ally Russia chose to turn on him in favour of assisting Turkey to a Juggernaut. I did accidentally reveal the identity of Outlaw to imperfectluck when imperfectluck said something like 'So has Outlaw something something' to me and I replied 'yeah Outlaw something something', so I'm sorry about that, though I don't think it changed anything. Bass came to Italy's aid, but Bass eventually extinguished the last of Outlaw's troops to continue his growth once Turkey was under control. Overall, I think Outlaw played well and did what he could, but it doesn't show in the result.
#4: askaninjask - Turkey
askaninjask also had an impressive opening, becoming a large Turkey early on. He decided to trust Russia and allowed him into the Black Sea, something he didn't ever regret. He managed to convince Italy not to perform a Lepanto opening, only to stab him later (though he had few expansion options). However, Turkey's expansion was stopped cold at the Ionian Sea, where he could not stop the French and Italian fleets from blocking his access to the Italian centers. This meant that other countries expanded while askaninjask didn't, and he was eventually forced back and forfeited. askaninjask perhaps should have encouraged Russia to attack Germany and Italy earlier to allow the invasion of Italy earlier, but overall, his play was not bad.
#3: imperfectluck / tredge - Russia
imperfectluck was yet another effective opener, and he quickly became an 8 center power early on, forming agreements with Italy and Turkey with regard to splitting up Austria, and taking Norway from England early on. He then chose to cease his expansion in favour of waiting until he had an ally to expand with, which I assume was to prevent everyone from ganging up on him in the case that he became too large too early. Unfortunately, he soon lost ground in the North after a very bad turn, and this led to him being crippled for the remainder of the game after he lost StP to Germany and England. He chose to go with Turkey against Italy, but Turkey was slow to expand, and with troubles in the North, Russia was not in control anymore. tredge took over in 1905 and tried to continue the Juggernaut alliance, but it got nowhere in the face of the German-French alliance, which, after a long period of stalling, led to Russia losing his last home centers before the conclusion of the game. An amazing early game turned to an unimpressive midgame, and an unimpressive lategame, unfortunately for Russia. Overall, I think with the successful opening that Russia could have been a dominating force, but this wasn't achieved by the players.
#2: billymills - Germany
billymills had one of the least convincing openings success-wise (the others being Austria and England), though he quickly recovered from his failed attempt to take out France and formed a solid base around which to expand. He did succeed in negotiating with Accent, and so Accent opened to the English Channel, however their agreements did not land them much success besides control over who got Belgium (which Germany managed to negotiate eventual access to, after a deal with France). Germany continued to take advantage of the weak England and used him to expand further into St. Petersburg, and launched surprise attacks using the Baltic Sea as a convoy route directly against Russia. Germany also executed a successful invasion into France (though later than he originally planned), but by this point, the Juggernaut alliance was beginning to look too strong for Germany to risk going for a solo. billymills and Bass manipulated each other into helping each other out and billymills managed to get the French army on the English mainland into Scandinavia and used it as insurance against France reaching 18 centers at any point in the future. He allowed Bass to take Paris back after some negotiations, and their alliance flourished against the Juggernaut, with Bass being more successful in expanding than billymills, partially due to him being slowed down for a long time trying to invade Warsaw and Moscow. The ineffective expansion was costly, and Bass took the opportunity to stab billymills to take the victory at the end after the Juggernaut had been eliminated.
#1: Bass - France
Bass didn't have the best ever early game, but it was solid and achieved what it needed to. He took the right risks and hung in there diplomacy-wise even while being invaded by Germany. Bass managed to negotiate his way to a six center France despite the openings of both England and Germany being somewhat anti-French through his negotiations involving Belgium, though he lost this to the English-German alliance that then formed. Luckily, the force on the other side of the board played to his favour, and he managed to alert billymills to the danger of attempting to solo, creating an alliance out of enemies. He then expanded out through Italy and finished off England with help from Germany. Bass' endgame was very effective, and Bass remained out in front with the supply center count, partially thanks to Germany getting stuck trying to take the Russian home centers. Bass saw he had an opportunity now that he had pulled a significant lead and that Turkey seemed to have given up the ghost, meaning there couldn't be an alliance to stop him from winning. Bass confirmed this with askaninjask and stabbed on the same turn that Turkey forfeited, and although the stab was partially anticipated by billymills, the precautions taken weren't enough to stop Bass from then making the required predictions to seal his victory. Well done, Bass! Congratulations!
Conclusion
Overall, I'd say this game had a higher quality of play than each of the previous games on Smogon so far. I was quite pleased with how the game progressed, though having to sub two people out wasn't so great. Thanks for playing, everyone! I hope you all had as much fun playing as I did hosting.
Anyone looking on at the Diplomacy games here wanting to try their hand should keep an eye out for yet another Diplomacy game here in Circus Maximus, coming soon!
