Onion dip ends!

[CyberGnu]

After an abbreviated last year, onion dip finally ended in a two way draw between Turkey(Taurus) and France (Iain) with 17 centers each.

Kudos to both players, who played an excellent game. Also kudos to England who played a good defensive game.

Final map is here:

https://www.nd.edu/~joxgaard/Extra/Diplomacy/onion-f1910.gif

EGO's, please!!!

[Taurus]

Well, it's nice to see the map coloured only in 2 colours

Anyway, as for the game.
For some reason, this game went very easily for me.
Every one of my neighbours did exactly as I wanted him to.

At first I promised Austria that I will attack Russia with him, and that was what I did at first - stabbing Napoleon (who was Russia) by getting into the black sea and Armenia. In those positions I easily eliminated the Russian threat (the German opening that took Warsaw also helped).

Even before I finished of Russia, I already starting moving forces for an attack on Austria, with the help of Italy - who agreed to do it.

Easily Italy and I got Austria eliminated and I was already ready for my next target - Italy.

Again the war wasn't to hard (even though Italy got the help of France at some point).

Then I turned on to France (even before finishing of Italy) as quickly as I could to try and break the stalemate line before France manages to get to it. In this I didn't succeed. Iain is probably experienced enough to know that he needs to get to the stalemate line as quickly as possible, so he got there - and this is, of course, unbreakable.


It seemed as though I was always one on step ahead of all the other players (except for Iain's case).


But, anyhow - all the players played well.

Esspecially a good game by you, Iain.

I enjoyed playing it.

[*End Is Forever*]

I really enjoyed this game. Thanks to all the other players, and especially CyberGnu as GM.

I forged a strong opening alliance with England and after a couple of turns was fairly well set. Taurus as Turkey was well placed in the east, along with his initial ally Gibsie as Italy. Germany and Russia were quickly forced into retreat.

Germany's retreat (the city state of Warsaw survived almost until the end!) allowed me to work what I still regard as my best ever stab, and French forces entered Liverpool. Apologies to El Awrence who was an excellent ally and didn't deserve it - but hey, this is Diplomacy. After that, England's back was broken and although he managed to hang around until near the end, El Awrence was no longer a threat.

Meanwhile, Russia's capitulation had allowed Turkey to grow strong. Sadly, despite several warnings, Italy failed to spot the stab until it was too late, and Taurus and I ended up in similar positions - finishing off an ex-ally and then racing for 18 centres - and both with rather odd placements of units.

England, having been an superb ally, was now a stubborn opponent, but I still fancied my chances. However, despite some limited support Italy was flooded more quickly than I had expected, and I quickly saw that playing for a draw had become inevitable. The key move was retrieving my army in Scandinavia (it ended in Kiel) - without it, I wouldn't have been able to hold the stalemate line.

Once secure, I harboured brief ambitions of pushing for a win, but that relied on Taurus screwing up and not spotting the stalemate line. As expected, he did, and here we are with a hard-earned two-way draw. Good game, Taurus.

[Taurus]

Btw, Gibsie was Italy IIRC.

[*End Is Forever*]

Yup, typo on my part...