Biggest Pot... Ever EOG(United Kingdom)
I played this game as the UK, and was excited about the fact. First year of
the game, made a EU alliance with Germany and Catholica. I intended for this
to last until I got strong enough to stab the German and go for an
alliance with just Catholica. then the critical time finally came, and I stabbed
the German. I did this prematurely though, only being in the second year of the
game... As soon as the moves went through, I knew I did so too soon. Germany
came to me asking why, and we worked it out, and I pulled units back that Autumn.
Perhaps the game would have been very different had I continued to stab him,
maybe I could have won, but I didn't take the chance. at this pointI was getting aggravated.
Germany and Turkey looked on the brink of a critical meltdown by Spring 2104, and
Catholica was making gains in Africa, while I was stuck. I made my first real breakthrough in the game though, I helped USA
finish off Quebec by taking Azores, which at the time seemed meaningless, but would
later become crucial to my expansion and defense. Meanwhile, Germany and I stabbed Manchuria
in the back, but he had set up units enough to hold us off. It was then that the
"war" I began assuming was the war for the win... If Germany, Turkey(who seemed to have
worked his things with Germany out by now from my view) and I could break the line,
one of us was going to be sitting great. but that line never moved except for the
rare occasion of either Germany or Manchuria NMR'd, where a spirit of fair play came
in and the other side willingly moved back the line(Germany, Turkey, Sichuan, Manchuria-
Quality play on yalls part!) While spending the days protecting that stalemate,
I began to aid my newest ally, USA, in a war against Amazon Empire. we then joined forces
with Argentina, and as soon as that happened, Amazon vanished from the game. Africa was finally coming under
Catholica/South African control, and it seemed the end game was near for me, for I would be stuck between allies on all sides
and a stalemate in South America. Then the LAST thing I wanted to see happened, and USA left. I should have
invaded right then to take it back, but I held out hope he would return. It wasn't until it was clear that
Argentina was going to Solo that I finally invaded the US mainland, which is where Azores finally came into
play. I started launching fleets and armies into US controlled lands to take what I could and fix the stalemate line me and USA had
been setting up. then, JUST as we were winding down for a draw, a new USA came in... my first reaction was
take him out anyways... but that would hand Argentina a solo, so we discussed the draw and ended it. It was
an interesting game to say the least, and I enjoyed it all, even with the CD's and NMR's that plauged it.
I really appreciated the good sports in Europe/Asia :P good game everybody.

Biggest Pot Ever EOG (Catholica)

I was hesitant to enter this game. I don't truly like the WWIV variant, and I was juggling more games than I felt comfortable with already. However, gopher PM'ed me to please pick up one of the first year NMR's and after some minor cajoling I came aboard as Catholica. Catholica looked like a power that could often get eliminated early no matter how well I played, so I thought it was the best way I could fulfill my agreement and yet not get stuck playing WWIV for a full game.

Whoops.

I immediately made an alliance with the UK and Germany in order to get Europe divided fairly, and I was constantly fearful one or the other would stab me, especially with the UK sitting in the Bay of Biscay all game. We picked up Turkey as an alliance member and I was even more fearful of him as he moved a little west in the Med a few times. However, in the end, all I had to fear was periods of semi-stalemates followed by the excitement of gobbling up Nigeria quickly. I think regardless of South Africa stabbing Nigeria I would have eventually broken through, but I was delighted when SA moved in.

A few times Germany tried to talk me into taking out Turkey, and every time I let Turkey know because, honestly, Turkey was doing more for me than Germany was. In the end Nigeria intentionally rolled over to me in order to prevent South Africa from picking up a lot from his stab, but by that time Argentina was large enough that the best I could hope for was making a stalemate with SA in the Atlantic. I did, and then for the last few years just did a bunch of support holds.

Good game, everyone!

Biggest Pot Ever EOG (Illinois)

At the start, things seemed shaky, I had kinda allied up with both Quebec and USA. Though, a little into the game, Quebec convinced me to attack the USA. It looked like a good option and so I did. I then noticed that Canada and Quebec both attacked me when I turned on USA. But after some quick talk between me and the USA, we allied up again and this time for the rest of the time he was active.

By this point Quebec is gone and the USA was moving around the South. Sadly I had a couple of unexpected leaves even for myself that it was unexpected. The missed orders didn't do much harm to me. Though it would have been much different if I didn't protect the USA when he missed his for California kept gunning at USA territories below me and it would have been the end of me if I let California in.

I was able to get some kind of agreement between me and California. (Though there wasn't really an official agreement) Manchuria tried about several times to convince me to push into California, but I didn't see a way when I was just trying to get a stalemate line. I became worried when a new USA showed up because I thought I would have lost sc's that I needed for a stalemate line. But luckily the EOG was only a turn or less away.

Germany here.

Interesting that only my allies have posted so far. :-)

For me, the bigger part of this game was pretty quiet. I got on well with Catholica and the UK from the start and the first targets was Russia and the Balkans. Turkey was a dark horse and I decided to keep an eye on him. Our relationship was pretty good, though, and he turned out to be a trusty ally to the end.

The UK seemed to renege on our agreement very early on but then turned back so I could focus on Russia. I had help from Central-Asia but he was quickly eliminated by Manchuria and Sichuan. I lent a fleet to the UK but after it had sailed around the British Isles it ended up in Hamburg to collect rust. That was all the excitement I saw in the west. I think Catholica and I were equally happy to see each other stay away from each others home SCs and we had little to say of each other.

After Russia fell I decided to push east with the UK's help rather than attack Turkey. I think the driver for that was the hope that Sichuan would attack Manchuria from the other side. That never happened and we established a stalemate line which lasted until the end of the game. I lost count of how many turns I only issued four hold orders.

Manchuria repeatedly asked me to attack Turkey and the opportunity was certainly there. I think that if I could have hit him for three SCs and not only two I would have done it but each time I thought about doing it I changed my mind as I felt he was more useful to me as a shield rather than a supply of SCs. In the end, I was glad that our alliance held as I am not sure I would have been able to hold out against whomever would have hit Turkey from the other side.

There was one turn where the UK and I might have been able to break through Manchuria's lines when I noticed he hadn't put in orders a few minutes before the deadline. Instead, I issued hold orders and never had a chance to go anywhere after that.

Thanks for the game.

Biggest Pot... Ever EOG (Sichuan Empire)

I chose Manchuria as an ally early on and quickly added Japan to that team within the first 2 years. Song Empire and Central Asia were my first targets (mostly because of how initial press worked out). India became an ally of necessity as I worked against Central Asia and down into southeast asia, though I felt India's comm was rather lacking.

Along the way Manchuria and I discussed several times about how best to overcome the likely stalemate line that would form in Europe as Russia died. We were hoping to get Germany and turkey fighting and use that to our advantage but they seemed to have seen the threat we posed. I quickly gave up any thought of pressing into europe or the mid east further than the stalemate lines around Persian Gulf and Tehran and used the fact that I was bottled in on all sides to convince India to allow me Tehran. India was far too trusting all game for being rather uncommunicative on the comm end, and after a couple mis-orders based on lack of comm on his part, I justified a massive stab (which coincided nicely with South America making a move against India). I got the bulk of the Indian SC's out of the deal.

I never really had a thought of making a play for a solo, just tried to keep my neighbors, especially my allies happy while biding my time. Events vis a vis USA disappearing and, prior to that, all resistance in south america folding like a wet blanket meant I was playing playing from behind against Argentina with no direct way to challenge him in the end game. Rather than attempt a play at a solo that would weaken Australia, Japan, or South Africa (none of which were good options as by end game I still needed 25 SC's and could only see gaining at best 17-19 from such assaults and from stabs on Japan and Manchuria, for which I was quite ill-positioned and had no desire to do) I spent most of my final turns (and even the turns leading up to an attack on India) pacing myself and building slowly so as not to appear threatening.

@Turkey, I apologize for the lack of comm, we never really had much we could have talked about and my bandwidth dropped off considerably around the middle of the game through the end. Nothing personal just not much to talk about nor much time to talk. You and Germany played a good game and I never considered it a real possibility to try to break through your lines nor did I see (till Argentina was a serious threat) an opportunity for us to work together against say South Africa for example. At that point any attack on South Africa would have been counter productive to stopping Argentina.

Biggest Pot... Ever EoG (Japan)

I chose Japan because it seemed like a fairly defensible position with plenty clear-cut sectors for advancement. Additionally, being a navally-oriented nation meant that the large sea spaces would mean I had a finger in just about every piece of action around me.

Early on, I approached the game much like I would play England in standard, but to the extreme. I proposed to all the Chinese factions that I wouldn't build armies if they didn't build fleets, making a stab from their end impossible and ineffective from mine. This left me free to focus on the tense Indonesia/Australia vs Philippines/Oceania situation down south.

I decided Philippines had to be the first to go, and I'd deal with the fallout as my second course of action. This turned out to be Oceania, and my foothold in MDW and HI were ideally poised to assist Australia in taking him down. This left Indonesia, whose communication seemed transparently coy throughout the entire game. This took up my attention for the rest of the game, aside from the short stint in coordinating Manchuria's jump into NAmerica.

I'd initially planned to stay neutral in that conflict so that I could stay focused on one thing at a time, but even after talk of drawing the game came around, California was still pushing me to help him attack Manchuria out of some twisted logic that it'd stop a Sichuan solo run. I eventually got fed up with it and began coordinating with Manchuria and Australia to push him back and get him to straighten out. I'd even sent messages to Canada (a 1 SC minor) to start sniping Californian SCs in an effort to turn his attention in more important directions.

Before it mattered, however, we decided to draw before eliminating Canada and Mexico who'd been barely hanging on over the past few years.

...that said had the game continued, Australia was next on my hit list, which he probably suspected seeing as I had no good way to mount an attack on the Chinese mainland. Taking cheap-shots at PAP and SAM as well as taking the upper hand in JAV and SOL would've gotten me a small handful of SCs, but things would've gotten tricky after that.

Biggest Pot... EoG (Argentina)

Hi guys,
Well good game everyone. This was an interesting game for me, I've never been able to defeat so many people with simply a blinking lurch! No seriously, I don't know why all my enemies cowered all of a sudden. I think it all goes back to my big stab on Columbia. Columbia, Amazon and I had made an agreement to keep S. America split 3-ways and move in other directions. The only problem was that I knew Columbia and Amazon were working together (very trusting of each other) right from the start, and I knew I was going to be the 3rd wheel for the duration of our alliance. keeping a long term alliance with them I knew any serious expansion would be difficult. I timed everything perfectly and when they moved strong to the north, I snuck into columbia's camp with a critically destabilizing move. I had to put pressure on Amazon at the same time because I knew he would help Colubia retalliate if he could, but his forces were already too occupied in the north, and there was no way they could stop me from getting the first momentum boost, even though they doubled my strength.

After that, best I can figure is that Columbia was really butt-hurt from the stab, and decided to quit. I don't really know why Amazon stopped playing though. I offered to keep working with him, and telling him that my aggression on him was only to limit is countering ability in collusion with Columbia. After Columbia left, I was honestly hoping to keep peace with Amazon so I could establish myself in other areas (either S.Africa or pacific or central America). However he never gave me the chance and decided to keep fighting me in the east. At that point, I'm not sure why he quit because he was holding me relatively successfully. I don't know if the game got boring for him or what, or if he saw impending doom coming from me/USA/UK, because then he just started nmr'ing and eventually cd'd. After I got ahold of South America, I guess USA just assumed the typical thing to do against Argentina is roll over and play dead like all the other players did.

I was really excited right from the start. I had several opportunities to position myself for some serious expansion. The stab on Columbia was the start of it. I figured if I could get the momentum in my favor, along with the fact that I had a secure border, I'd be able to pace it out and expand/constrict until I gained control of the surrounding sea zones. With North America in chaos and with solid alliances ruling the other continents, for a while there I thought I had a serious shot at a solo- all I had to do was establish a foreign base. This is why those cd's hurt me rather than helped me. If Amazon or USA would've stuck around and I was successful at capitulating their cooperation, then I might have been able to get into California, S. Africa or Australia and have a wide enough ranging F.O.L. that I could get a solo with a well-timed stab.

Like U.K., I was really bothered when U.S.A. left. I was planning on slowing my pace down to take away attention from me, and hopefully let Sichuan take the lead by stabbing India, and then I would slowly start feeding tons of armies into Mexico/Cali. That was my plan for the solo. When U.S.A. left, I knew that in good conscience I couldn't just sweep through and take a solo- it would have been really bad form. Still, I never was sure what was going to happen elsewhere in the world- It seemed possible, though not probable, that Sichuan could stab Manchuria and make a shot at a solo from conquering Asia. I kept advancing in the Caribbean only to retain control of the game, and by having the solo threat I could keep countries like Sichuan/U.K./Japan from making any drastic game-changing moves, without inadvertently allowing me to solo.

I'm not upset at how the game finished. I think all drawing players deserved a draw. I'm a little disappointed the game didn't have more active cooperation. A fully active game where you can enact long-term strategies is far better than one that changes quickly because players leave the game, even if you're the one who gets to gobble up the center.s This I guess is the only downside to a 34 player variant. I think it would be just totally awesome if we could have a game with 34 active and experienced players, however it just seems very unlikely.

Who knows, maybe in the future we'll find a way to keep games from being thrown off by cd's. I'm thinking of something like an 'interim' player sort of thing. Where a player can either take over a country in the regular form of buying in for value and having a stake in the game, or option 2) becoming an 'interim' general who doesn't buy-in, has no stake in the payout, engages in no diplomacy, but only inputs defensive military orders. It could be made worthwhile if Oli could award some points (on a turn-by-turn payout) for such a service. I don't know... just thinking aloud. If I come up with a practical idea, maybe I'll mention it in the forums.

Anyway, good game all. Thoroughly enjoyed, and (probably after the summer) I look forward to playing more in the autumn.

-Argentina (Raro)

Bump; I want to put an article on the Diplomacy Pouch about this game and vdiplomacy in general so any other EOG would be appericated