Hello all,

First of all, a simple but truthful statement: I am
not like this.

In this game you've seen me NMR, lose interest and get
into a self-destructive pattern of ignoring
communications. I'm not like that. In fact, in 6 years
of PBEM, excluding this game, I've played more than 50
games in which I've NMRed once in total.

As for game at hand: I think Rajputana's position is
definetely the hardest one. There are 5 potential
enemies to deal with and the sea (which usually allows
for tactical flexibility) is not next to it. Still, I
thought if I could keep all my neighbors busy with
each other, I might be able to get something out of
this.

I was partiucalarly worried over Mike, as I had seen
him in action in the past and I consider him a *very*
effective player. My initial negotiations were towards
a very friendly relationship with both Persia and
Delhi, but Delhi was silent. Had to re-think the
strategy... So, what I wanted to see the game go to
was 3 wars and me at the role of the referee. That
would mean G vs V, P vs B and M vs D.

Needless to say, things didn't go according to plan. G
vs V took for ages to materialize, instead B was hit
on two sides and G started pushing my front. M did
attack D with my help, but immediately held the attack
off and turned on P, while D was more upset with my
offer of support than the actual attack. I needed
allies quickly, and the most potential was to be found
in the P-V axis, since (like I said) my thought was on
Mike from day one.

I clumsily joined the attach against B. Then P decided
to borrow one of my centers, and forgot to tell me
about it. This proved to be both a tactical burden
(loss of critical unit at the wrong time), as well as
a major stance in my relations with P-V. To Paul's
credit he did his best as the middle man, but I had
already lost ground to the Lynn as the new Delhi ruler
and the Mughals were growing out of proportion.

Around that time I entered the NMR phase of this game.
It's like a major vodka hangover, I can hardly
remember anything. I tried to patch things up with
Luis, but it was already too late for me. I stayed on,
but the position was doomed anyway.

Congratulations to Mike for winning. Well done for all
of you who reached the final, I thought Mike would
have wrapped this up earlier than he actually did.
Special thumbs up to Paul, who also had a very
difficult power to play but put a lot of effort in it
and was a very resourceful player (at least during the
years I was still in the game).

As for the EOGs Philippe asked why I didn't step down.
I seriously considered doing so at some point but
1)the game had already gone through a number of delays
and 2)finding replacements for variants is difficult
so I thought it would be better to stay on. I felt it
would cause less disturbance to the game and my fellow
players than having to look for a replacement.

This was certainly far from my best performance (talk
about euphimisms!) and I hope that next time we meet
over a board you'll have the pleasure of witnessing
how reliable an ally and how obedient a side-kick I
can be. <innocent smile>

Regards,
Gregory
Rajputana in M-I/Final





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