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**Defiant** · June 6, 2002, 08:41

I would have liked to fight it out but under the circumstances I will accept the solo, so my vote is yes. Not very often you get to go almost strickly head to head against RUFFHAUS.

Thank you Orange_1 for GM'ing this game, it was complicated at times and you did an excellent job.

BTW, have you lost your warring initiative after marriage, I hear sometimes a women can calm your personality.

**the_orange1** · June 6, 2002, 09:35

Vote carried then!! Congratulations to Defiant on the solo - steady, yet inevitable progress combined with a well-timed stab. Well done also to the other 2 survivors - MDR and Ruffhaus - the advantage looked yours for much of the game, while the defence at the end was admirable. Thankyou to all the rest who played - I enjoyed GMing this game and might do another Sengoku variant in the future if people are interested.

I would love to hear some EOGs if you have time from the 2 main protagonists...

**Defiant** · June 6, 2002, 10:53

Hojo EOG,
First, thanks to Orange_1 for running this game, as usual with his games, it was ran in the best.

You are going to probably hear two very different stories on this game between myself and RUFFHAUS. The correct version will be this one for the truth always lays embedded with the winner, in any war.

I almost didn't join this game because is looked so cluttered and I was in enough games, however, there were some really good players in this game, RUFFHAUS, MDR, SNOWFIRE, HIS DIVINE WIDOW, HOGGY and some guys I didn't know. Also the game was ran by Orange_1 and I knew it wouldn't get stalled. When I got in I had few choices of powers, the most attractive one, RUFFHAUS had, it was defended at the back and you could choose your enemies, not the other way around. Hoggy had a nice spot in the north and I choose Hojo figuring I at least could defend the ocean side, but I did have to worry about two possible enemies, Hoggy and a guy I can't remember.

I believe what was most important about this game were the victory conditions from the beginning. You have to win 67% of the SC's vs. the traditional 51% but the catcher was, there can be only ONE winner. I kept that back in my mind for it was extremely important later in the game.

There were not very many "easy" SC's to grab right away and ever for some nations there were none, nothing like a bloodlust at the beginning of the game. My goal was kind of simple in the beginning for an alliance with either Hoggy or the other guy, dammit I can't remember his name, sorry, and split the country in half vertically. Well "the other guy" came to me first and wanted to rid the north of Hoggy and I agreed, needed a partner, why not him, he showed initiative. We started to work on Hoggy and we were taking him apart when the unknown guy did something foolish in my mind, he took an SC to the south of me and closed my route south and sort of violated our agreement of staying on our own sides. I started scrambling and dipping my ass off to Hoggy which was ripe for hearing how to save his skin in this game and he agreed to work with me to stab the unknown player and we did it.

Now Hoggy and I are literally just ripping through the country side, at the same time so was Ruffhaus, and MDR to a lesser extent was also succeeding. Our goal was that Hoggy and I were going to beat Ruffhaus back into submission and then around that time take a stab at each other becasue there can be only one winner.

CRUCIAL POINT:
Then it happened, even though I had an alliance with Hoggy I always kept an eye on him because I knew he had the personal capability of stabbing so I left units in critical SC's just for a defensive measure but can be used for offensive if the situation is right. We had just finished off HIS DIVINE WIDOW when Hoggy did something precarious, he was given two builds and he only used one. From that occurance I knew I had to stab now, I could take four SC's with an automatic 2 the following year. I wasn't the only who saw it, Ruffhaus did also. As soon as Hoggy waived his second build Ruffhaus was in my ear, "Look at that, wow you could take Hoggy to the cleaners". Of coarse he had his own agenda for me stabbing Hoggy, the ole divide and conqueor tactic. Of coarse I down played it to Ruffhaus, saying I am committed to my alliance with Hoggy, what else could I say. I didn't want him running to Hoggy saying Defiant is going to stab you. The concern here wasn't the stab, it could be done and once I did it, there was no way that Hoggy could get back into it, the four SC's I would take were going to be deep in his territory and I destroyed two of his units which made him incapable of launching a retalitory attack in the fall turn. Not only that when I took the four deeper SC's I left two more closer to me for easy pickings in the following year. The concern was, once I stabbed, RUFFHAUS would stop his grinn'n and drop his linnen, the race would now be on to gain the stategic points on that side of the map and he knew it. He also knew he had a slight advantage because the remaining forces for Hoggy would be sacraficing territories to Ruffhaus. When anybody does a devastating stab, that's not really the glory the glory is making sure when you stab it is successful long term. Snowfire once said to me, he doesn't mind stabs, they are a part of the game, what he couldn't stand were baseless stabs, out of spite and such, and he is right. Even though Ruffhaus might have had a slight advantage because Hoggy would sacrafice to get me, I had the advantage that I was building units right on site of the conflict and Ruffhaus would have to bring his from futher away because all build territories were occupied for him. That is the primary reason for the stab, it crushed Hoggy with virtually no immediate retaliation and I believed I could beat Ruffhaus to the critical spots. It worked.
Now this is where Ruffhaus will differ with me, during this conflict Hoggy did NMR a few times which made my attack easier but in my view it only would have delayed the inevitable a little longer, I just had too many forces in the region for RUFFHAUS to deal with.
I was building right there.

Now I am facing Ruffhaus and MDR for the finale. I cleaned out the remaining forces in the northern territories that Ruffhaus tried to get there and the harder task was about to begin, breaking the defense of Ruffhaus and MDR. When I stabbed Hoggy, I knew I would achieve the majority of SC's over Ruffhaus and MDR. Even though I may not get the 67% required for a solo, the other rule, was there could only be one and now I had the majority with no real possibility of losing them. But, I wanted to win this by taking 67% of the SC's so I continued moves hoping for a break. The break did come but not in the fashion I wanted, MDR NMR'd which never crossed my mind as a possibility but it happened and once that did, there was no chance not getting to 67% in my mind. It was just a matter of time and that is what eventually happened.
If MDR didn't NMR, chances are real slim I would have gotton to 67% of the SC's needed but I still would have been SHOGUN.

Again thanks Orange_1 for GM'ing and thanks to all the players for playing, especially MDR and RUFFHAUS for making it really challenging.

**the_orange1** · June 13, 2002, 10:08

So any chance of an EOG, Ruff? I'd like to hear your side of the story...

**Dr. Nick** · June 13, 2002, 11:07

Damn you Sean Cisewski!

**RUFFHAUS 8** · June 13, 2002, 12:15

Not much to say. Thanks for a well GM'd game. Sorry if my lack of enthusiasm now is offensive. This game was poisoned by NMRs. Hojo had the good fortune to be adjacent to the powers with absent leaders. He also fooled Uesugi into believing that I was the threat, to the point where Uesugi wouldn't defend himself. This was good work on his part (I guess), but without the NMRs I think the game takes a different path. After Uesugi was stabbed by Hojo, Larry quit playing for all purposes. It's too bad that we didn't have 8 committed players to try on this map. Usually when a player is rushing for a solo, the other players attempt to do something about it. Since I wasn't adjacent to Hojo until the end, it was a foregone conclusion that Hojo would win. There was nothing that I could do to stop him. If only Larry would have played out the position with an ounce of interest.... I guess that was a pretty brutal stab. I hope at least some lessons were learned here.

I suppose that I could have stabbed Chosokabe earlier in the game, and probably should have. In a normal game that would have brought about a grand alliance against me and likely defeat, but in this game stabbing too early won the day. Frustrating result.

Can't fault Defiant for taking what was there on the table all along.

**Defiant** · June 13, 2002, 15:39

That would be SHOGUN DEFIANT to you, Larry.

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