Yahoo Tourney Results!

[RUFFHAUS 8]

Okay, so I'm gonna a engage in a bit of self glorification here, but there is more to the picture than me patting myself on the back here. My team 'The Stepsons of Vashanka' took the championship in the DipWorld 2001 tournament in wire to wire fashion.

I know there's a bit of mixed reaction to me playing for another team, but I should mention that it's not an anti-Apolyton statement, but rather a commitment to this team that I joined previously, and then reformed from last year's 'Dip Knights' roster that took the 2000 team title. We had four returning members from that side, and the three vacancies were filled with up and coming players that I and my teammates knew and recommended. I actually nominated, and later invited Berzerker to join us, but he insisted loyalty to Apolyton, which could only be respected. I almost wanted to go this route as well, but I had a prior commitment and was in something too good to get away from. I really enjoy playing with these guys and have learned a lot from them. I plan to stick with this team in future tournaments, again not as a slap at Apolyton, where I play about 50% of my games, but as a previous arrangement.

I was all for Apolyton entering a team, and I tried my best to help Defiant put one together, even offering him one of the players we had to turn away. He did a great job on short notice after being turned down by some of our club's better players. Apolyton took a beating early on, but Berzerker's late charge in T-11 propelled the 'Apolyton Dark Knights' to 7th place after languishing in 11th for most of the tourney. I feel particulary bad now for soloing over Gerwald (and robbing him of points, because that would have helped you all even more, but then again that was never *my* agenda

Anyway, I'm proud of you guys making a good showing and finishing over some established Dip teams and players. It's good for our club to have a positive showing like that, and maybe we'll pull in a player or two as a result. I know that VGR in our own tournament game came from the DipWorld ranks, but it remains to be seen if he will stick around for a club game or two.

[RUFFHAUS 8]

TEAM STANDINGS:
pts - Tm Team Name (sc)
477 - SV Stepsons of Vashanka (72)
436 - AC The Academicians (68)
375 - BH Black Hat Brigade (50)
280 - OG Order of the Garter (50)
207 - ET Et tu Brute? (43)
196 - RR Reinforcers of the Right (47)
154 - AD Apolyton Dark Knights (13)
139 - CW Clan of Whoopass (22)
133 - LJ World's Most Lethal Joke (12)
128 - WD World Dom. & Bot. Found. (10)
124 - DC Diplomatic Corp (20)
78 - AP The Apostles (1)

INDIVIDUAL STANDINGS:
pts - G-P tm YahooID (sc)
132 - T6-R SV Mczet (18)
132 - T4-E AC lsemmert (18)
132 - T9-A SV ruffhaus8 (18)
132 - T2-A BH darrenk_au (18)
132 - T1-T AC wodan11 (18)
82 - T3-I OG md_french (16)
81 - T5-R RR dallemand666 (15)
81 - T7-G AC joe_the_hero (15)
79 - T8-R ET lcifers (13)
79 - T12-T BH anotheranarchist (13)
77 - T10-E SV troyunruh (11)
76 - T11-R BH madpeters (10)
52 - T8-F DC felix388 (10)
52 - T10-T AD sothisrising (10)

[Defiant]

I had 7 at one time before the crushing.
Congrats Ruff and Berzerker, nicely done.

[MDR]

How quickly do these games go? I figure most of the Tourney players are far better than I am...

[RUFFHAUS 8]

These tournaments run about 25 weeks or so. Basically, the first round is played to the end of 1909 in turns lasting about one week, with some time in there for delays extensions, etc.

And while the level of play is high, it's by no means over your head. It just depends on who you draw in your game. You should try one out next time.

[Berzerker]

Thx Ruff and Defiant, l guess I'm Sothisrising in this tourney instead of Berzerker because the former name is my yahoo ID.

And don't worry about playing for a different team Ruff, we knew you were already an active dipper before coming to Apolyton and had prior/concurrent commitments and contacts. CyberShy/Gnu ? was in the same spot when he went with his Swedish team for the WM'ers...

[the_orange1]

Congratulations guys - job well done

[Berzerker]

I finished second in T-10 as Sothisrising. Here is a summary of the game:

F (France) and E (England) allied from the start until the very last turn when England, then with 10 centers, took one from France, also with 10 centers. Although E is Ruff's teammate and I tried to use Ruff to get E to stab F, E probably did this because he was worried France might tie or overtake him, not to help me. That's the impression I got from E's last (and rude) email to me before the last turn's deadline anyway. This is important because the E/F alliance had a big impact on what happened in the last year of the game in addition to diverting attention from me.

As Turkey, I tried to ally with Austria against Russia. A (Austria) had warned me that the Russian was a top player and that we should ally against him. Since I'm still a rookie, experimentation is high on my priority list. I guess the best idea is for Turkey to ally with Russia since Turkey's greatest threat is Italy (I) and even worse, an A/I alliance. What really pushed me into the alliance with Austria was Russia's unwillingness to DMZ the Black Sea and Armenia. I wanted to get my fleet in Ankara out into the Mediterranean asap and wanted to move it to Constantinople on the first turn and then to the Aegean, but Russia insisted on bouncing in the Black Sea.

Germany was stuck facing the E/F alliance alone for the first year and a half. Russia invaded Germany, but saw that the E/F alliance was strong and that the faster Germany fell, the sooner Russia would face a strong England in the north. So Russia ended up trying to help Germany instead of helping take him out.

So, after the first turn upon which Italy moved into Trieste, Austria screamed bloody murder to me in an email, but he was a bit too passionate about how he was stabbed. That is why I got suspicious and thought they were pulling a Key Lepanto on me. Sure enough, Italy moved Trieste to Serbia on the next turn. This was a key turn in my survival, I moved Bulgaria to Serbia bouncing Trieste so Italy ended up getting a second build which I could not stop, but it came at Austria's expense.

While I kind of saw the A/I coming, I wasted my fall 1901 turn trying to follow thru with the A/T attack on Russia just in case I was wrong. After the fall turn confirmed the Key Lepanto was a reality, I then begged Russia for an alliance. He agreed, but was unenthusiastic about attacking Austria until later when Austria was threatening his centers. He instead went into Germany with 2 armies leaving me to face A/I by myself with only a Russian fleet in Sevastapol or Rumania to help support me on occasion. I felt the Russian was hoping A/I would take me out so he could then ally with Italy against Austria, but he did support me with his southern fleet, so maybe my suspicion is baseless, I just could not figure out why he would ally with me without really committing to a war against Austria until England's advance in the north sealed Russia's fate. Maybe he was pre-occupied with helping Germany, but he did help me greatly by using his westernmost armies against Austria once Germany was a lost cause.

Germany was falling to the E/F alliance and Russia was seemingly unsure what to do. Austria got Warsaw from him as his armies were off in Germany trying to help the German. England was taking the north and France was now moving on Italy. Around 1906 the A/I alliance against me was now worried about France, and following 1 or 2 bungled moves by A/I, I got Greece and retook Smyrna boosting me to 5 centers. Austria was now caught between a resurgent Turkey and the western alliance taking Germany and pressuring Italy.

At this point, Russia informed me he was giving Austria his centers so the east would have someone to compete with the west. Yet Austria never got around to taking Sevastapol from Russia and I got it instead. France had taken Tunis and Italy's presence in the E Mediterranean was gone as he was now fighting for his homeland against France. France had courted me to help him take out Italy, but I knew if I did this, France would quickly boot me out of Naples once I supported him into Rome.

On the fall 1908 turn I got Serbia because Austria was off trying to help Germany and Italy. Germany took 2 Austrian centers that turn as he was pushed out of his own land. This left Austria with 3 centers, Italy had 3, Russia had 1, Germany had the 2 he took from Austria, I had 7, France had 9 and England had 9. That is when the E/F alliance had it's impact on the game. Austria and Italy, my mortal enemies became my allies! They and the Russian had enough of the game long E/F alliance and decided to help me knock one of them out of the top 2 spots!!!

In the spring of 1909, Austria moved Rumania to Galicia and had Budapest support me (Serbia) into Trieste (held by the German). I moved into Rumania and Trieste and convoyed an army to Apulia.
The next turn Austria (F Adr) and Trieste supported Apulia to Venice. The Italian (Owen) deserves credit for this plan, it worked beautifully! This last turn gave the following results:

England - 11 centers (advances)
Turkey - 10 centers (advances)
France - 9 centers
Austria - 2 centers
Italy - 2 centers
Germany - eliminated fall 1909
Russia - eliminated fall 1909

I was down to 3 centers and facing elimination at the hands of A/I and came back to take second with the help of those who had been trying to kill me off!

On a sidenote, both France and England sent me insulting emails prior to the last turn's deadline. France accused me of sitting on my ass for 7 years only to be handed centers and England said I did not deserve even a tie for second. These guys spent the entire game double teaming people 1 by 1 and I had to face an A/I alliance and the Key Lepanto with only a half-hearted commitment from Russia who was more committed to helping Germany.

[Defiant]

Berzerker,
I know the kindness part, Ruff's boy was playing France and towards the end I was being taken apart by Turkey(considered by the other players in the game to be the best at Yahoo) and Russia who eventually died. I was giving France my centers partly because I was stabbed by Austria and partly if I wasn't going to own them might as well help Ruff's team if I can.

Well I had given him 3 centers and somehow (I) screwed up on the last one and I might have, it was the time of my vacation and I moved the wrong way and his gratitude was that I suck, what an ***hole, he was starting to lose ground in Germany to Russia and England, and I suck by giving him centers, makes sense to me. Ruff said he can get a little pricky but I think he needs an attitude adjustment the old fashion style.

All in all it was fun, I haven't played that much outside of Apolyton and it is a learning experience going into games without knowing the players and their backgrounds but after Yahoo, 2 WM, and a Ruff sponsored game, it is becoming easier.

[MDR]

It'd be fun to see Tourney games run on global maps...

[RUFFHAUS 8]

Hmmmmmm now you're talking! Of course you couldn't really impose a 9 year time limit unless you modified that starting assignments.

[MDR]

Actually, HDS and I have been talking about a couple of new global variants. A redo of the 20th Century set in 1933, and another one starting c.1905 or 1906.

As for the existing ones, you could set up an SC goal for each country to reach. ie, Imperal: Britain needs 40 SCs, CSA needs 20 SCs. The first two to reach their goals goes to the next level.

[Berzerker]

Yeah Defiant, sounds like that guy is an ingrate

[His Divine Shadow]

This conversation came along with the "An Irish Clan War Dip map would be cool" conversation, so we may both be slightly mad.

MDR's idea of converting the global maps into tactical variants instead of full-on domination could conceivably work. We may want to consider them for future Tourney play.

Mmmm, 1905 variant global maps, with German fleets in the Pacific.

[MDR]

The pre-WWI map looks like it'll make an interesting game. I have a couple of maps from the time period for reference, but I can't seem to find anything on South America. I'm hoping the political borders aren't that much different from 1890's maps.

Tossing around stuff for it has brought up an interesting point. I have enough viable powers to create a 17 man game. The question is, is it playable, or does a 17 man variant require too much in the way of logistics?