End of 5 Player Diplomacy

[Yhanthlei]

BigBert and Flight253 have messaged me agreeing to a draw between them, and so the five player diplomacy experiment draws to a close. Congratulations to each of the surviving players, and thanks to everyone who participated.

Comments and AARs would be appreciated from anyone who controlled a nation, and I plan on posting some thoughts on the map itself later. I'm happy with how it turned out, and I wish the best of luck to all in their future games.

[Flight253]

Good game to you all.

[stalin813]

People's Republic of Hong - AAR

I joined the game after year 1 in a serious hole. After looking back there was a misadjudication of Red's initial move. Some how his northern fleet ended up in Win instead of Res. If I had had that unit in the right place, even with the NMR, I might have had a salvageable situation. With that said, can't cry over spilled milk. I immediately messaged Blue and Green trying to come to some sort of peace because I had no builds and they saw me as fresh meat. They both agreed at some level to work with me against the other. I was cautiously optimistic, but that didn't last long as Green took a territory of mine as we swapped in the Fall of year 2 and with two straight years of no builds I was doomed. I continued to try and work something out, but their forces were too much and I was too ripe for the picking. I made it to year 4 so I was happy with that, but from the start my nation was doomed.


Comments on the Map.
I feel like the map was actually pretty balanced, there were lots of options. I don't know if this was a winter build, but I would allow that as it seems Fleets really did dominate this map.

All in all it was a foray into forum games, maybe next time this map gets played, I'll be one of the starting 5 to see how it goes.

Good Game

[BigBert]

=====AAR for the Black Hole Republic=====

Well, actually I don't really have that much of an AAR to contribute here, as I've only joined this game in spring 1905, and there wasn't too much to negotiate about. My position wasn't too good, with all three other players considerably bigger, and seemingly committed against me.

I tried to inquire with all my neighbours whether we could make a new alliance. The results has mixed success. Blue accepted the offer of peace, but then told me:

i am going to play yellow Kingmaker myself.

Not very hopeful . Green did not have much to offer, and seemed committed to continue his fight against me (I admit I had very little to offer him, so I'd probably have done the same thing). I didn't hear anything from Yellow until just after 1905, when he suggested a truce, and coordinated action against Blue. But then he disappeared...

So, not too much action during my BHR reign. Regarding the map, I think the map itself is pretty good. It has enough interesting places, and allows for good tactical combat. I wasn't in the game from the start, so I find it hard to judge whether it was balanced between the players. And indeed it is a mostly naval map, but that's not a bad thing I think.

Thanks Yhanthlei for running the game, and the others for playing.

[Yhanthlei]

My thoughts on the map:

I was surprised with how well the Red-Green-Blue balance worked out, and I think that had the Red nation not NMRed during the first year's fall there would have been a much closer contest between the southern powers. Having an army on the mainland did prove to be critically important to victory, but it was also something of a luxury, a unit players would produce when they already had a significant and stable army. It's an interesting difference from normal diplomacy, and in this version I think that it works to slow down conquests and draw out tactical maneuvering at sea. I still have concerns about how well balanced Yellow and Purple are. We saw noncommital moves by Yellow and Purple for much of the game towards the south, and a lot of stable defensive moves toward each other (eventually breaking down with the Yellow invasion on the northern purple landmass). If the two powers were to cooperate, I worry that they would be too effective, and that Blue wouldn't have enough resources and Red wouldn't have ideal access to hold them off. Of course, the position of the sea of comets is in place to encourage any such alliance to devolve into stabbing. Armies didn't seem very important to the northern powers, even in a defensive role (although BigBert may well disagree with me on that count), which is worth consideration.

All in all I'm happy with how the map turned out, and glad that it had a test run. The balance was better than I expected, but I would recommend that anyone looking to run it again take a look at the interactions in the north, to see if they can improve on the design.

[nautalus]

As the original BHR player, I would like to congratulate BigBert on his impressive comeback from a bad position. I thought for sure the BHR was doomed after backstabs from yellow and blue multiple times. I am somewhat disappointed in some of the other players, whose NMRs caused the game to have a semi-anticlimatic ending. Of course this was just from reading the commentary on the last turn's orders. Still, great game to all players.


Some thoughts on the map-
From my postion on the map, it seemed to me like soc was too much of a flashpoint, and yellow and purple are just about forced to fight. It also seems that it is more dangerous to purple than to yellow, but perhaps that is just because I was purple. As well, it seems like armies aren't really all that valuable in this game, as there are many separate islands. It seems to me like adding in some bridges of some sort between the islands would make armies more valuable.