For the record, the “strangeness” of my responses around that time was really more my rather frantic recognition that, oh god, oh god, the alliance structure with Russia is falling apart, I have nowhere left to go, who will I be able to call dearest and darling now, France is a sweetheart but it’s ~not the same~ not to mention that it would be impossible for him and I to actually work together in any meaningful fashion. So I was trying to… transition into the end of the alliance with you smoothly? I don’t even know. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, one of my key problems in this game was/is a reluctance to properly lie. So basically I didn’t want to say “yeaaaaaah stabbing you now sorry baby” but I wanted to have meaningful conversations about strategy because, really, you were much more pleasant to talk to than almost any other player in the game. England counteracted it with his actions, France was the chatspeaking one (not that I hold this against him! It has its uses in many contexts and I am perfectly prone to slip into it myself), Italy played angry birds and valued getting revenge against alliance-breakers more than supply centers, Turkey was eloquent and nice enough except for the inconvenience that he communicated solely through emails, and Austria never really talked to me except in rejection of the Anschluss.
The Grand Alliance gambit pretty much forced the hand of the RG. I think that you did the right thing in attacking me, given the ranking system. The convoy was in your self-interest and I don’t begrudge it too much, in retrospect. If you had succeeded I could see you as being the third party to the draw instead of me.
Small chat played an important part in the my relations with both you and Italy. It formed a bond strong enough that I chose to continue to support Italy for a while longer even after Hugh signaled strongly that he wanted to ally. This was an early handicap of Hugh’s in his communication with me early game, but the handicap lessened as I became more comfortable with the medium later in the game.
At the time of our conversation, though, the prospect of a Grand Alliance was quite frightening. I still have the draft of an angry e-mail to Hugh telling him that I wasn’t going to stop the Western Alliance and that he’d better stop talking to my enemies and act like a real ally! Fortunately, I saved the draft, slept on it, and woke up the next morning and realized how stupid it was.
For the record, the “strangeness” of my responses around that time was really more my rather frantic recognition that, oh god, oh god, the alliance structure with Russia is falling apart, I have nowhere left to go, who will I be able to call dearest and darling now, France is a sweetheart but it’s ~not the same~ not to mention that it would be impossible for him and I to actually work together in any meaningful fashion. So I was trying to… transition into the end of the alliance with you smoothly? I don’t even know. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, one of my key problems in this game was/is a reluctance to properly lie. So basically I didn’t want to say “yeaaaaaah stabbing you now sorry baby” but I wanted to have meaningful conversations about strategy because, really, you were much more pleasant to talk to than almost any other player in the game. England counteracted it with his actions, France was the chatspeaking one (not that I hold this against him! It has its uses in many contexts and I am perfectly prone to slip into it myself), Italy played angry birds and valued getting revenge against alliance-breakers more than supply centers, Turkey was eloquent and nice enough except for the inconvenience that he communicated solely through emails, and Austria never really talked to me except in rejection of the Anschluss.
The Grand Alliance gambit pretty much forced the hand of the RG. I think that you did the right thing in attacking me, given the ranking system. The convoy was in your self-interest and I don’t begrudge it too much, in retrospect. If you had succeeded I could see you as being the third party to the draw instead of me.
Small chat played an important part in the my relations with both you and Italy. It formed a bond strong enough that I chose to continue to support Italy for a while longer even after Hugh signaled strongly that he wanted to ally. This was an early handicap of Hugh’s in his communication with me early game, but the handicap lessened as I became more comfortable with the medium later in the game.
At the time of our conversation, though, the prospect of a Grand Alliance was quite frightening. I still have the draft of an angry e-mail to Hugh telling him that I wasn’t going to stop the Western Alliance and that he’d better stop talking to my enemies and act like a real ally! Fortunately, I saved the draft, slept on it, and woke up the next morning and realized how stupid it was.