Tsar Regoarrarr of Russia

[regoarrarr]

It makes no sense to me for Austria to attack us. Who would he think would be next?

I don't really think we can trust G farther than we can throw them. Especially not if we can keep A on board and our alliance starts trading blows with theirs. E and G pretty much have to come after one or both of us.

Agreed on both counts

[Zed-F]

I has pretty much danced to EG's tune so far, what can we do if that continues? Other than keep trying to manufacture a stab that is.

[regoarrarr]

Email from Austria

Okay f*** I just got home. Its 5 am. Don't f*** me I'm sending to Boh and Bul. I hope thats waht I type, Karoke does stangre s*** to yur mind.

Censored for young audiences

[Zed-F]

Well that went about as we would have expected. I am guessing we are building in War, and that Austria's builds are going to be on his northern border ... well really where else can they go.

Italy needs to decide if they want to have a hope of winning the game or if they just want to play second fiddle to EG the whole time.

Looks like we have our work cut out for us though... as long as this EGI dynamic persists, we are fairly well outnumbered.

[regoarrarr]

Email to Austria

Well as you'll see, I once again moved as expected, so hopefully that solidifies our relationship. You really need to stop telling Germany that I'm telling you to move to Bohemia. Even if it's true (which in this case is only slightly so), what it appears to have done (at least according to uberfish) is caused him to move against me.

And while you might argue that better against me than against you, at this point, we sink or swim together.

You'll build A Bud and A Vie as they're your only options, and I'm forced to build A War. Next year we can eliminate Turkey and we can figure out in fall how it best makes sense to distribute the builds

I'll be traveling all day tomorrow so I probably won't be around much

Apparently according to uberfish (Germany), drunk Austria showed up a few hours before the deadline telling him (uberfish) that I told Austria to move to Bohemia. So that (maybe) changed his moves to order to Sil and/or Bot

[regoarrarr]

Email to Italy

So.... now what? As you can see I was not working with Turkey and she will be out of the game next year. You've been working with E/G but they haven't done anything for you. Hopefully they will follow through on their promises to get you a build this year, but what are you going to do with it?

Only you know if you've been a full partner with EG or if it's been more their thing, as far as how it might go later on.

You've done well at playing both (EG and AI) sides but you're getting pretty close to the time where you're going to have to decide for real....

I'll be traveling all day tomorrow but should be around off and on later on

[Cyneheard]

Let's see, how to ensure that Turkey gets knocked out next year:

I think we need all 4 units in the theater: Our Fleet and Army, and the Austrian Fleet and Army:
S 03: Gre-Aeg and Bul and Ank both S Bla-Con. If Gre-Aeg succeeds, then we'd have removed the Con fleet from the board, and then Austria can do whatever they want with their troops in the fall. If Gre-Aeg fails, then the Con fleet will be in Aeg in the Spring, and we'll need the Austrian fleet to cut Aeg's ability to support Smy in the fall.

[regoarrarr]

Email from Italy

ndeed now it is clear that you didn't work with Turkey.

So the Austrian/russian cooperation has been faster than the ENG/GER conquering France movement. Not at least aided by players decisions (Turkey building F SMY and England building 2 fleets instead of Army+Fleet ).

I have so far managed to survive but not to grow. It looks like I might survive longer than France and Turkey which is nice but I now have several strong Armies in the east to worry about. It is hard to make decisions if one doesn't know if Russia is setting up Austria for a stab or England does it with Germany or if both sides stay true and I'm the one getting killed by both.

So I wonder what your plans are for the futurre and how we can cooperate.

Greetiings from Rome

Not sure how to respond. My true feelings are that he has tried to play both sides too long and now he's in trouble. Just like in Civ, best move is often to pick a true friend early on rather than trying to play the field...

[Zed-F]

Yep, I agree that he hasn't done well with regard to making friends he can trust and who can trust him in return, insofar as anyone can trust anyone in Dip. I would tend to think the time has come to be blunt with Italy and lay out the facts.

• I would start from the assumption that E/G and A/R will stay true for at least the next couple years. Right now there are no compelling reasons for a stab, when each alliance has substantial allied opposition to worry about.
  
• Italy has split his attention too much to the east and west and consequently has made little progress on either front. Given its map position, Italy needs to make a fast friend on one of its borders and then go all-in in the other direction or they are too isolated to accomplish much. Since he didn't do that, he's in trouble.
  
• All his early aggression toward France has accomplished for him is to ensure the E/G alliance threatens to dominate the map. Russia/Austria will have to fully focus our attention on E/G to survive. If Italy comes east, effective global resistance to E/G map domination will be substantially harder; he will basically be throwing the game to one or the other of them.
  
• By now it's too late to move eastward to help against the Germans east of switzerland as that area has become too congested. (And he hasn't shown himself to be trustworthy enough not to stab Austria if we do let him in on our plans.)
  
• His best bet for gaining enough map centers to win is to withdraw from the east and go all-in against what's left of France, then move north from there while E/G are occupied dealing with R/A. Otherwise E will grab the majority of the spoils in spain and south france, and be left with nothing to do with those units other than turn on Italy.
  
• He needs his eastern fleets and armies to move west in order to stand a chance of gaining something from his war with France and defending himself against the inevitable stab by E. His options really are to trust that A/R will leave him alone because we're too busy dealing with E/G ourselves, and have a hope of accomplishing something, or don't trust us, continue to waste time, and eventually die by E's hand.

Does that sound right? I don't see any other way to play from Italy's position that will stand a chance of getting anywhere; unless all he wants to do is play kingmaker rather than actually compete for the crown, he's down to a death or glory move against France as his only viable option for staying in the game.

[regoarrarr]

Good points zed.

The only thing I can think of against that is if we want to stab Italy, we want him to move Ion-Aeg while Austria's F Gre slips into the Ionian, and then convoys an army to Naples in the fall.

If he moves Ion-Tys (west) then he can block that move