TopGunBoat Journal: End of Game13 min read

TopGunBoat Journal—Table of Contents
Introduction | Spring 1901 | Fall 1901
Winter 1902 | Spring 1902 | Fall 1902
Winter 1903 | Spring 1903 | Fall 1903
Winter 1904 | Spring 1904 | Fall 1904
Winter 1905 | Spring 1905 | Fall 1905
Winter 1906 | Spring 1906 | Fall 1906
Winter 1907 | Spring 1907 | Fall 1907
Winter 1908 | Spring 1908 | Fall 1908
Winter/Spring 1909 | Fall 1909
Winter/Spring 1910 | Fall 1910
Winter/Spring 1911 | Fall 1911
1912 | Conclusion | End of Game

A game of highly ranked players from one website ended in a 4-way draw. Along the way, there were twists, turns, and a certain GM learned a thing or two 🙂

Below are the EOG statements from the players and myself (in the order posted):

Player EOGs

GM EOG

Like all of you, I made notes on what I saw in the game (without reading your notes, until the end when I glimpsed at them to get an idea of when the game would end). I won’t recap all of them, but I noticed several things in this game that I want to point out:

– I’m proud of myself for correctly identifying Reid after Spring 1901. I wrote I wonder if Turkey is Reid because I told Reid the other day about how BrotherBored favors this opening for it’s flexibility. I’ve never seen it on BOUNCED, so either other people read BrotherBored on this website or Turkey is Reid.

– It seemed to me that Germany should have let Russia into Sweden in Spring 1902. Once the Winter 1902 builds made it clear that EF wanted to cater to each other, Germany was alone against them and had an opportunity to make up with Russia. Instead, Germany bounced Russia in Sweden in Spring 1902 and got pushed out of Denmark in Fall 1902 while England took the rest of Scandinavia in 1903. I think this decision marked the end of the game for Germany.

– Like Reid, I also thought that Austria should have stabbed Italy and gone for the solo. While E/F were fighting each other, Austria could have attacked Italy, built a couple fleets, left Turkey for a bit and attacked France, only to come back later and finish off Turkey (or something like that). I’m curious to read Splash’s notes to see why he didn’t attack Italy when he had a clear opportunity to do so (specifically in Spring 1906 when Austria’s EOG states that an attack on Italy was ordered but then changed).

– I haven’t read Frank’s notes yet either, but the Russian EOG answered one of the biggest questions: the disband of RUM instead of RUM-SEV was a careless mistake. Russia flipping back and forth between north and south enabled Austrian growth which lead to the demise of both Russia and Turkey. I assumed at the time that Russia trusted Austria not to attack after GAL-VIE in Fall 1901. If so, Austria clearly took advantage of Russia’s trust and grew well from it. GAL-VIE in Fall 1901 is still a bit baffling to me, so I look forward to reading Splash’s notes to find out about that as well.

– I felt for a time that England had a strong opportunity for a solo attempt. Stephen, did you consider stabbing France after you both turned south? I felt that if you had built armies in Winter 1909 & 1910 that you could have made a push for a solo since you had TUN along with a fleet in MAO (and could take STP at any time, which you did in 1910). Of course, France could have turned on you and allowed AI to overrun German and French territories, so that would have been a risk.

– England and France: Reid’s EOG noted that he thought you two could run through the rest of the board after you defeated Germany. Did either of you consider that? I remember thinking the same thing.

– I was surprised that France trusted Italy when Italy had the opportunity to attack France and didn’t do it. I also was surprised that Italy didn’t attack France. Italy seemed like an alliance player and (in this game) that worked out for him.

Having said all that, I do have a question for all of you. Knowing that this game was only for players above 200 in rating, did that affect your approach to the game? On a related note, did knowing that this game would be published with your thoughts in it affect your approach? Finally, did recording your thoughts each phase affect your approach?

Closing Thoughts

After my EOG, there was some other discussion that didn’t really address my questions, so I decided to leave it out of this journal. I suppose these gunboat players had enough of talking! 🙂 Besides that, several of my questions were answered by reading through their journals.

Overall, it is interesting to me that the least experienced player probably had the best opportunity for a solo^[2]Not too different from the other game journal I kept: Splash came closest to a solo in that one too!. Personally, I relate to Splash/Austria in that I am relatively inexperienced and feel like I’m playing a bit out of my league frequently (in gunboat). It is also interesting to me that very good and very experienced players made simple mistakes (which, honestly, makes me feel better about myself!). What if Frank/Russia had realized he was retreating off the board with his southern fleet and didn’t do that? What if Aeolus/France had realized he was thinking he had an army in MAR when he actually had one in PIE in Spring 1909? Would he have made an attempt on TYR (which would have succeeded)?

Besides these things, there is one major item that greatly affected the game that no one has realized: in Spring 1902, Russia ordered RUM h and was hoping to remain neutral with AT while keeping a foothold in the north. Both of Italy and Austria misread the map and thought Russia supported Turkey in Bulgaria, which solidified in Austria’s mind that RT wanted to get the Juggernaut going (this impression lasted even into the EOGs!). Would Splash/Austria have allied so strongly with Italy if he didn’t think this? He had originally wanted to be neutral with Russia yet first attacked Russia in Fall 1902 after this misread of the board. How different the game would have been if Austria allied with Russia!

Another thing that stands out to me is how differently players can read events on the map. Both England and France had different viewpoints of fleet builds/movements in 1905-1906. Had that not happened, would it have been possible that they would have continued their alliance and shook up the A/I alliance before Turkey/Russia were eliminated? Certainly, every player (and I) had their own (and my own) assumptions about the intentions of the other players and that affected the way they read the board. How difficult it is to look at anything in life without our own assumptions affecting the way we see things!

Finally, I feel regret for creating this game without the syntax checker. In particular, this put Aeolus/France at a disadvantage (I believe he is the only player in this game whose first language is not English, but I could be wrong). There are a few times that he mis-ordered due to using characters that are not English characters and I’m sure he would have seen that in the syntax checker. Besides this, mistakes made by other players would have stood out to them with the syntax checker, which they all habitually utilize in other games. I believe it had an impact on the game that resulted in some suboptimal orders several times. I didn’t consider the potential language barrier in choosing that setting, so I won’t be utilizing it again^[3]Yes, players choose which games they join but that is something that is easy to overlook when looking at games to join; I believe most players expect it to be there.

I am glad I took on this project. I feel like I learned a lot about how people view the same events from completely different lenses. It also normalized good players a bit for me, so I feel a bit more confident taking them on. Besides that, I have a bit more grace on myself for messing up in gunboat as I have seen them make mistakes too!