Full 1 - AARs

[Waterice man]

These are compulsory, just so that I know what went well and what needs to be changed. It doesn't have to be very long or complicated. Please include:

-What you were planning to do
-Who you were allied with
-What went well
-What didn't
-What you expected to happen in the future
-What could be improved on the map (generally ie. Make it easier for China to attack South Korea)

Once this is done, I will look at the main problems and consider improvements.

[drakarst]

Why thank you China, I accept your offer to surrender! =P

I stepped in early on for South Korea. I found my homeland about to be overrun by the Chinese, so I allied with Japan. Each turn, it was basically a 50-50 chance of China breaking through. I could only fully defend either DMZ OR Seoul. First turn, I picked DMZ, and so did China. Second turn, I switched to Seo, and China attacked Seo. Third turn, China tried going around through WAKW, but I had been protecting WAKW as well. So that went well.

Given that at any particular moment my homeland could collapse, I didn't really have much of a chance to expand. I didn't want to stab Japan, since Daegu and Busan were only safe because of Japan's friendliness. So I imagine eventually, China would've broken through. If faced with an uncooperative China, I'm not sure Korea can do anything at all, except try to hold on. Even from the start, Korea is dwarfed by China, which starts off with a massive number of centers. So I'm not sure if Korea should be made easier to attack.

Was fun. Sorry I couldn't really accept your terms, China. Good game all.

[ak47]

I, as turkey, felt really cramped from the start. I was surrounded by many countries all much bigger than me so i was just looking around for somewhere to go and accept help from who ever offered. I had something of an alliance with russia from the start and by the end Africa and i were friendly. In the future i wouldve expect to be eliminated by africa and europe since i had nowhere to go. I was very surprised when i was able to take albania. The main problem with the current set up is i can basically get destroyed by africa to start and have nowhere to get any additional centers. I have to expand into people which makes me enemies with them automatically. What turkey needs is a guaranteed first year center or two that can help make them more able to attack someone and build from there.

[The Doctor]

I, as Australia, felt rather disconnected throughout this game. I never really got to communicating with many people, but really, Australia could probably play this game a la gunboat and still come out in the same position each time. A quick DMZ agreement with USA/EU, the ability to cover against the potential breakage, and distance from all other neighbours meant that I could easily secure 10 centers or so and then finally begin to impact something else on the board. The key I think will be establishing a strong naval defense against China/Japan or an alliance with one against the other.

I was planning to open talks with Japan, about perhaps a coordinated movement against the US and China, as well as opening similar talks with India. I probably was going to try to establish control on the Indian Ocean, and maybe stick my army into Africa somewhere.

I was allied with Firestorm to begin, but really I had no opportunity to coordinate an alliance with any other neighbors besides EU/USA.

Seems like Australia will be hard to kill off for the northern naval powers, as long as it can get at least one solid ally. Less of a winning nation, more set to balance things out.

I'd like to be able to see another year or two into the Southeast Asia situation. I have no idea where that would have gone to, but I have a feeling I could have held for a while.

I think the distance separating Australia is a necessity, allowing it to grow strong enough to be able to survive against a northern assault.

[unfunfunt]

I was japan. I'm going to do this as a list:

#1-What I was planning
I initially intended to form an alliance with korea to attempt to hold china back for as long as possible. Unfortunately, the koreans changed leaders mid way through and I don't think drak ever trusted me as much as nick seemed to. Also, china's potential for exponential growth put a damper on any hope of invading him after the first couple of years. I decided to grab as much of the pacific from australia and the states as I could before turning my attention back to the chinese problem. Near the end of the game, I was contemplating an invasion of the continental US, but we finished first.

#2-Who I was allied with
I was on friendly terms with korea through the whole game, as I knew china would gain more from a stab than I would. I maintained good relations with china, but I think his massing fleets meant that he had other ideas. I opted to stab both america and the russians quite early, which made it difficult to maintain an alliance other than that with korea.

#3-What went well
I liked that I had easy access to several theaters of war, so I could choose where to move. I also enjoyed that I was pretty safe early on, as no-one had nearly enough naval power to challenge me. I was also glad that I only started with one army, as another would have been quite useless.

#4- What didn't
I felt that regardless of what I did, the chinese would always be too strong to challenge. While I was in range of only a single neutral center in the first year, which was by no means guaranteed, china was able to grab a huge number of them, especially as no-one could contest the ones in southeast asia. I also felt like I was forced to antagonize two close powers in russia and the states just to gain some builds in the first year. This meant that any hope I had of building an anti-china consensus was dashed in the first year or two. I would have also have liked to be competitive in the Oceania region, so that I could ally with australia early instead of having to fight him over centers that were already in his possession by the time I got there.

#5- What I expected to happen in the future
Honestly, I felt that china would have overwhelmed everyone in the region. He had grabbed all the neutrals and was about to cream russia, giving him more builds that could only be turned against us. It also seemed very difficult to even threaten any of his centers, surrounded, as they were, by copious numbers of units. Even working with australia, I don't think we would have held out for very long.

#6 - What could be improved on the map
Make someone else able to contest the S.E. Asia neutrals, so that they aren't just another part of china. I would also have liked more than a single neutral available to me in 01, so I didn't have to antagonize to grow right from the beginning.

[The Doctor]

#6 - What could be improved on the map
Make someone else able to contest the S.E. Asia neutrals, so that they aren't just another part of china.

Seconded.

[kininvie]

The EU looks, and is, massively powerful at the start. I was interested to test how far that strength lasted by attempting to expand in all directions at once and to ally with no one. Although the EU is by 1911 beginning to lose the odd centre, it's still in a very dominating position. If the EU were to ally with either the US or Russia, then I think the smaller nations would be rapidly doomed. So I think the EU's starting position needs to be weakened, either by reducing the number of SCs or else by having fewer neutrals immediately available, or by altering the geography to make it harder to expand.

Some immediate conclusions: The North Atlantic is more or less stalemated in an EU/US naval confrontation. Although I managed to make landfall on the US, I was really going nowhere, and the geography suggests that even if I had chosen an all out assault in the north, the defence would have been relatively easy, and would have consumed too few US resources to seriously hamper him elsewhere.
By getting only two armies across to Africa, the EU was able to cause a lot of disruption and force a lot of units to stay at home.
The SC in Madagascar is fairly useless to the EU. If it were neutral, it might encourage Australia westwards.
Even fighting on two fronts against Russia and the US, the EU is not too seriously challenged.


A few suggestions:
1) Cut down the EU in the Caribbean, reduce the number of neutrals, give some of the centres to the S American nations - force the EU to seek allies in this area.
2) Make life harder for an EU wishing to go all out to attack Africa by splitting up N Africa rather more and putting a few more neutrals within reach of the local powers (especially perhaps Turkey)
3) Re-think the allocation of SCs in eastern Europe. There is a lot of dead ground there, which makes it relatively easy to channel a Russian offensive towards places where it will do no harm until someone (China) picks off the Russians from behind. In other words, the EU is able to trade space for time - which is usually a Russian strength, not a European one.
4) Take another look at the North Atlantic geography with an eye to making a stalemate less likely.

A fun map though, and much of it worked very nicely from an EU point of view !

Kininvie

[Waterice man]

Quick question to Kininvie - do you mean Reunion, rather than Madagascar?

[kininvie]

Sorry, yes. But ultimately the same point applies:

Kininvie

[Magmaniac]

-What you were planning to do
-Who you were allied with
-What went well
-What didn't
-What you expected to happen in the future
-What could be improved on the map (generally ie. Make it easier for China to attack South Korea)

I was the Arab League.

-What I was planning to do.
Because of my positioning, I felt like the centers in Africa (although sparse) all fell within my sphere of influence and should be mine sooner or later. I fully intended to scour Africa of all other nations once I could spare a couple units from the north. At the end of the game, I had planned on invading Turkey from the east, and perhaps pushing into Europe's territory since they were already fighting a three front war (USA, Russia, Turkey.) Perhaps if that went well and I already had africa secured, I would then have started a second front of my own, with russia as a likely option so I could push north and then swing west and hit europe from another side.

-Who I was allied to
I had no real alliances, Russia and Brazil were moderately friendly and I kept communications to the absolute minimum for this test. Nobody else put much of an effort forward to maintain friendly relations with me.

-What went well
The initial blitz I made against what I saw as a natural enemy in the americans in the middle east went well, as did the scramble for some initial african centers. EU and America were at war which was great, without the two of them being at war, everyone else would have been screwed I think. I liked my position very well, it was fairly easy to defend on the east.

-What didn't go well
Africa. It was too hard for me to gain and protect my centers in africa. Especially when armies from the EU landed, I could maintain a defense but it took a lot of effort that I should have been expending elsewhere. I felt like the med was EU territory, and it made it too easy for them to convoy armies into my lands at will.

-What I expected to happen in the future
I figured I would succeed in defending my homelands from the europeans, and push through turkey, but at that point I would be a real enemy of europe and they would turn some real forces against me instead of just two armies and I would fall like a house of cards. Especially if India had attacked my east side.

-What could be improved in the map.
I think it needs to be easier for Turkey to expand into europe, otherwise Turkey is just a natural enemy for me and just a nuisance in my way. That way I would have the option of helping turkey and moving into europe, or push east from the middle east. I felt like the only real good option I had was to grab african centers and make a major push through the middle east. Maybe if it were easier for me to invade europe as well as turkey, europe is just far too strong a power, and so is the US. They should either both have less centers overall, or have much more vulnerable centers. Even though India and I took USAs centers in the middle east, their armies there could squirrel around and cause random problems for everyone and they didnt have to worry about ramifications of that because they needed no friends in the area. I think also, its a problem for so many of the African centers to be coastal. If some of them were landlocked instead, it would be necessary for others to land armies in africa. Every center I had at the start was coastal except All and Bag in the middle east, yet I definitely do not see myself as a naval power and out of my nine initial units, only four were fleets.