Russian End of Game Statement
Thane Walkup Played Russia
Although this is only the third game I've played, it was by far the hardest for me, for a variety of reasons.
During this game...
I went through FOUR jobs. One lasted two days. One had four weeks of 12 hour days, and one weekend where I worked 38 hours on that weekend alone. I am now in a permanent position at South Seattle Community College.
My wife had her gall bladder removed.
I took a week's vacation in Washington D.C. and thought I had notified Nathan about it ahead of time, only to find out a day before I was to leave that he apparently didn't know about it. :P
Coming into this game from my prior two, I'd gotten in trouble by sticking by my allies too long. I decided this game I'd be completely ruthless, no loyalty to anybody. My initial (pre-anything) gameplan idea was something like this:
Of course, things didn't go that way. First thing that went wrong was Germany + England teamed up to go beat on France. This is not good for me, two strong neighbors in the north meant that I would have to watch two fronts much more closely.
In Winter '01, I built a fleet in Northern StP - this was supposed to be the start of my northern campaign. I wanted to crank a fleet every winter; you see what happened with that. :P Germany built a fleet in Berlin, which immediately set every alarm bell ringing in my head. I took some moves which ended up blocking his intended invasion, but I had to focus to the south, and couldn't do anything at that point.
The greatest dupe of the game was Turkey talking Italy into allying against me in Spring '03. I'm still impressed; he basically talked Italy into a near-fatal mistake for Italy. If Italy had not listened to me on the next turn and turned around immediately, Turkey might have won the game. Instead, he ended up as the second person out.
I felt that I couldn't trust Germany to stay to his word at all during the game, pretty much from the beginning. Unfortunately, after my big mistake, I spent the rest of the game reacting, and not in control. Germany, I would be interested to hear how sincere you were in your offers - up until the last one, I just didn't see it from you.
Thane