This was my fifth game of NWO, but will be my first ever EOG. As always, the recollection of events is from my perspective and may not accurately reflect everything.
So I drew Italy, and I knew early on that because of my position in the center of Europe I would be almost forced to build more units and less nukes than my competitors. I figured that if I avoided being a large nuclear threat, I could avoid any coalition forming against me as I grew. I figured I would have a few nukes myself to use as a scalpel, and have my allies with nukes do the heavy lifting of bombing our enemies(therefore allowing me to avoid the nuclear fray) Unfortunately, after the stab on Russia, I was reliant on two David Lings to protect me, so I got screwed. Really a shame because I wanted to see if my strategy in this game would actually work.
Before I get into the year-by-year, I would like to thank the replacement Canada. He didn't listen to my advice, to his detriment, but he clearly was putting in the effort to learn the variant and write everyone involved, which I appreciated. He got thrown into an incredibly difficult position and I would recommend he definitely be invited back if we do have another game.
Year 1: The search for allies! I usually favor taking my own neutrals first, but as Italy I felt I needed to pick up some contested neutrals year 1 to avoid being boxed in. I wrote Serbia first. I had one main goal - to make sure he didn't move to Croatia Spring 01. If I got an alliance out of it too, that would be great. Stephan's negotiating style immediately rubbed me the wrong way - anything I didn't outright say no to he took as a yes, and he was very greedy. I kept agreeing and agreeing of course, knowing Serbia is a small difficult power and I could easily stab him later. We had a whole plan to potentially stab the German for Austria, but Germany agreed to not take it, so we entered into a triple alliance at that point. I reached out to France, genuinely preaching alliance. He was quite wary of my intentions, but after a lot of discussions he agreed to support me into Switzerland. I also offered an alliance to Tunisia - it was an easy offer, I volunteered to move into the Ionian and give him an uncontested build year 1. Although after the Spring turn, I noticed he never asked for my UNTF support for his coaliion, so I knew he didn't quite trust me. I also spoke with Turkey at this point, also offering a possible alliance. I suggested I get Greece and he get Crete. Turkey seemed on board, but never explicitly agreed to give me Greece. So I decided to railroad him - I reached out to Egypt and we agreed we would both move to Greece & Crete respectively to split the risk of Turkey bouncing us, in the hopes of forcing him to pick up IZM with his fleet instead.
All of my planning and coordination worked out great year 1. I had preached Mediterranean solidarity and us all limiting our fleet builds - of course I knew I would have to build fleets myself, but figured I could get away with a lot before it came back to bite me.
Year 2:
I first spoke with Israel this turn, and he asked me about stabbing Egypt. I mentioned that if we pushed Egypt into Turkey he would potentially have his units out of position, but since Israel and Egypt had seemed to have a good alliance it would be Israel's call to stab him. I'm assuming this information was twisted by "Jon" because when me and Egypt discussed taking the Aegean, we had a quite hilarious back and forth - we both wanted to support the other into the Sea, I had told Turkey I would support IST - AEG and asked him to move IZM - EMD to bounce the Israeli fleet - so I had figured the move would succeed. I wanted my fleet to remain in Greece so I would be in position to stab Serbia with it. Me and Egypt couldn't come to an agreement so I moved to AEG on my own to try and bounce Turkey, which didn't work out as Turkey supported himself in.
I also urged Poland to move south on Serbia. Meanwile, in my "triple aliance" Serbia moved to Munich with the plan to move onwards to Wiemar. Germany was having trouble with the USA but Serbia still didn't want to stab him. That was fine with me - but I gave Serbia a chance to not get stabbed - I asked him for Croatia, as he had a mountain of un-taken neutrals under him - but he was so greedy he wouldn't even give me that. Poland moved south, at which point he asked me for support into Austria. I told him that Serbia was moving onto Wiemar and wouldn't be covering it, but he offered to seal an alliance between us if I supported him. I agreed and supported him in, instead of taking Milan and Croatia like I had planned.
When I saw the results for year 2, there was quite the twist I was not expecting - Poland had neglected to tell me Russia and the Ukraine had patched things up and would be moving on Serbia. So I thought I was screwed at this point lol.
Year 3: I began to push all of my efforts into making sure I was Poland's main ally and not Russia. Poland was reluctant to attack Russia - he mentioned as to the reason that they were working together was that he was terrified. I even offered Serbia a chance to be my Jannissary in exchange for survival - at which point he sent me one of the most condescending notes I've ever received in a game, telling me I was screwed without him and "no diplomat" So, I had no choice but to work things out with Russia. He offered me one of the Balkan votes ("one for each of us" was the way he put it, but since the Ukraine was his Jannissary I took it as two for him and one for me/Poland) - I had no problem with that split, but Russia offered me Budapest. I wanted Serbia itself, since it was coastal. When Russia agreed to my suggested split I figured he was genuinely trying to work with me for this season at least, and we started a group thread and orderly eliminated the Serbian unit in the east. I spoke with Germany at this point, who was unwilling to work with me against Serbia, so me and Poland started making plans to take him out as well. I also put a temporary hold on my attack on Turkey, since he was Russia's ally. By the end of the year, I was able to convince Russia to let me and my mediterranean allies take out Turkey, but he was't interested in joining in himself.
Years 4+ to come later :)
So I drew Italy, and I knew early on that because of my position in the center of Europe I would be almost forced to build more units and less nukes than my competitors. I figured that if I avoided being a large nuclear threat, I could avoid any coalition forming against me as I grew. I figured I would have a few nukes myself to use as a scalpel, and have my allies with nukes do the heavy lifting of bombing our enemies(therefore allowing me to avoid the nuclear fray) Unfortunately, after the stab on Russia, I was reliant on two David Lings to protect me, so I got screwed. Really a shame because I wanted to see if my strategy in this game would actually work.
Before I get into the year-by-year, I would like to thank the replacement Canada. He didn't listen to my advice, to his detriment, but he clearly was putting in the effort to learn the variant and write everyone involved, which I appreciated. He got thrown into an incredibly difficult position and I would recommend he definitely be invited back if we do have another game.
Year 1: The search for allies! I usually favor taking my own neutrals first, but as Italy I felt I needed to pick up some contested neutrals year 1 to avoid being boxed in. I wrote Serbia first. I had one main goal - to make sure he didn't move to Croatia Spring 01. If I got an alliance out of it too, that would be great. Stephan's negotiating style immediately rubbed me the wrong way - anything I didn't outright say no to he took as a yes, and he was very greedy. I kept agreeing and agreeing of course, knowing Serbia is a small difficult power and I could easily stab him later. We had a whole plan to potentially stab the German for Austria, but Germany agreed to not take it, so we entered into a triple alliance at that point. I reached out to France, genuinely preaching alliance. He was quite wary of my intentions, but after a lot of discussions he agreed to support me into Switzerland. I also offered an alliance to Tunisia - it was an easy offer, I volunteered to move into the Ionian and give him an uncontested build year 1. Although after the Spring turn, I noticed he never asked for my UNTF support for his coaliion, so I knew he didn't quite trust me. I also spoke with Turkey at this point, also offering a possible alliance. I suggested I get Greece and he get Crete. Turkey seemed on board, but never explicitly agreed to give me Greece. So I decided to railroad him - I reached out to Egypt and we agreed we would both move to Greece & Crete respectively to split the risk of Turkey bouncing us, in the hopes of forcing him to pick up IZM with his fleet instead.
All of my planning and coordination worked out great year 1. I had preached Mediterranean solidarity and us all limiting our fleet builds - of course I knew I would have to build fleets myself, but figured I could get away with a lot before it came back to bite me.
Year 2:
I first spoke with Israel this turn, and he asked me about stabbing Egypt. I mentioned that if we pushed Egypt into Turkey he would potentially have his units out of position, but since Israel and Egypt had seemed to have a good alliance it would be Israel's call to stab him. I'm assuming this information was twisted by "Jon" because when me and Egypt discussed taking the Aegean, we had a quite hilarious back and forth - we both wanted to support the other into the Sea, I had told Turkey I would support IST - AEG and asked him to move IZM - EMD to bounce the Israeli fleet - so I had figured the move would succeed. I wanted my fleet to remain in Greece so I would be in position to stab Serbia with it. Me and Egypt couldn't come to an agreement so I moved to AEG on my own to try and bounce Turkey, which didn't work out as Turkey supported himself in.
I also urged Poland to move south on Serbia. Meanwile, in my "triple aliance" Serbia moved to Munich with the plan to move onwards to Wiemar. Germany was having trouble with the USA but Serbia still didn't want to stab him. That was fine with me - but I gave Serbia a chance to not get stabbed - I asked him for Croatia, as he had a mountain of un-taken neutrals under him - but he was so greedy he wouldn't even give me that. Poland moved south, at which point he asked me for support into Austria. I told him that Serbia was moving onto Wiemar and wouldn't be covering it, but he offered to seal an alliance between us if I supported him. I agreed and supported him in, instead of taking Milan and Croatia like I had planned.
When I saw the results for year 2, there was quite the twist I was not expecting - Poland had neglected to tell me Russia and the Ukraine had patched things up and would be moving on Serbia. So I thought I was screwed at this point lol.
Year 3: I began to push all of my efforts into making sure I was Poland's main ally and not Russia. Poland was reluctant to attack Russia - he mentioned as to the reason that they were working together was that he was terrified. I even offered Serbia a chance to be my Jannissary in exchange for survival - at which point he sent me one of the most condescending notes I've ever received in a game, telling me I was screwed without him and "no diplomat" So, I had no choice but to work things out with Russia. He offered me one of the Balkan votes ("one for each of us" was the way he put it, but since the Ukraine was his Jannissary I took it as two for him and one for me/Poland) - I had no problem with that split, but Russia offered me Budapest. I wanted Serbia itself, since it was coastal. When Russia agreed to my suggested split I figured he was genuinely trying to work with me for this season at least, and we started a group thread and orderly eliminated the Serbian unit in the east. I spoke with Germany at this point, who was unwilling to work with me against Serbia, so me and Poland started making plans to take him out as well. I also put a temporary hold on my attack on Turkey, since he was Russia's ally. By the end of the year, I was able to convince Russia to let me and my mediterranean allies take out Turkey, but he was't interested in joining in himself.
Years 4+ to come later :)