I have been busy with work so have not had much time for the forum although I have traded a couple emails with Major Ball.
BB you are simply too new to understand the political system I had Poland at 200 back in june and could of brought them in and Yugoslavia takes about 2 months. Turkey i had to influence every week, and as i said in the game i was lucky i got them the first try after i got them to 200 influence. As Major Ball said in a game it is easy to get beat out of turkey by UK since The Axis chance is about 11 percent per attempt at 200 and the allied chance is 7 percent. If the allies get them first i find the middlle east almost untenable with strong allied play. Frankly i anticipated strong allied play and an attempt on their part to ally Turkey
With the Present Rules system i was bringing in over 60 surplus a day in cash this is enough to fund 4 continuous influence presses with trading for cast
on the negotiation table 5000 energy for 600 cash or so you can do many more. I know you are inexperienced so this probably was not known to you.
without slider changes.
Anyway many of us are not taught to give people the benefit of the doubt and not accuse people of wrong doing, I think we all have done it, I like to think traditional wargamers would try to live up to better standards but we often do not.
anyway here is an email i posted to Major Ball last week
I will post in the forum this email to save time. I am glad you had no problem with my play I think it was reasonable also... but the only thing that would change their mind is you taking a stand saying that i asked carefully and in detail about allying countries. I was very carefull on this point before the game started, And you encoraged me to ally anyone i could in your email response. What i say will have little effect since there is nothing more immune to influence then a closed mind.
as to the polish move being gamey...
As a point of fact Italian and Russian hostility with germany would of strongly influenced a germany that was activly conducting alliance talks with poland. The Turkish move was dicey but if hitler could of got turkey or spain in he would of.... he tried with both. But the polish situation is not gamey at all.... It is very likely that an alliance would of been reached. If you read the literature on the talks in 35-38 an alliance was very close at times and the German Generals actively supported a Polish alliance as an anti-comintern strategy... In the face of open hostillity this could of easilly tiped the scales in its favor. Both the diplomatic corp and the military were for a polish alliance and Poland was in favor of it also with only some disgreement of terms... only Hitler was against it since poland would not agree to the outright annexation of Danzig. The Russian hostility may have convinced him to have given in on the Danzig point. Perhaps i am more reasonable then Hitler it convinced me..
As a note I had poland at 200 for some time and was not allying because i had a pact with ussr i could of done it as early as June. I gave very generous terms to USSR and was happy to stick with them. inlcuding a free hand to annex Finland and no war before 1941. Poland is very easy to ally in the game. I would not of allied poland if BB had not cancelled the pact and all our trade deals and began to move toward an early war.
You seem an intelligent person, this is not gamey it is faithfull roleplaying as the game was designed... What effect would an openly hostile Ussr and a hostile Italy have on and exisiting axis alliance ... I think any intelligent person would have seen the historically close polish alliance talks as being very heavilly affected. I as Hitler choose to give up danzig to gain an ally in the face of a dangerous situation... Kinda seen like a no brainer when you think about it.
Well honestly i like your all the Group. People get emotional and although accusing people of cheating is in bad form... It think all of us fall into bad form at time i hope people are charitable when i do things like that also. Otherwise it is a good group of folks. The biggest error probably came in you not saying ahead of time that i asked carefully about allying people and you said not only go ahead but encoraged it. Posibly you did not think through the fact that the polish allliance was so easy to form. This made it unexpected to you. That probably should of been discussed with the whole group before the game started I was lazy and assumed that with you as moderator this point was already covered, and frankly did not want to tip my hand to the allies to soon.
I did tell munster as the game started that i was planning to ally yugo and Turkey he rasied plenty of objections on the basis of him wanting it but none on game mechanics. He was free to bring this subject up with the group at any time. As i said poland would not of come up if BB had stuck with a generous Molitov-Ribentrob pact.. all players would agree a free hand in Finland and a 1941 war date is more then reasonable.
Well i still think you are all a bunch of nice folks that were caught offguard by a stategy you did not think of... Frankly i think with a sound ussr player i would of been doomed germany simply cannot win with a 1941 barbarossa it must hit in 1940... as a side note Poland is a good defensive move but has very severe limitations on offense. it has many drawbacks if trying to conquer ussr due to territory and supply issues. It does howere make Germany immune to USSR attack prior to 1941 or even 1942. If the USSR attacks germany the defense modifier will cause them to fall, if Germany dowars the patriotic war and supply/ ese issues and the fact that all conquests go to poland make for a very problematic conquest.
Well sorry the game fell apart like it did. I know my poor diplomacy was probably the biggest problem.
We can all see we were set up for problems without an agreed on rule set. Since i asked clearly about allying Turkey, Poland and Yugoslavia before the game, and was encouraged to do so only a full understanding of what the ramifications of the rule set meant would of sufficed.
I purposely did not ally agentina venezuala or portugal but was retaining options on them if Uk started to militarize South America, those are Gamey in my opinion since they would of never allied in the real war.
Thanks again all for an interesting experience,
Konev aka Old Horse
