Hey Turkey--just a word of advice (which may already be obvious to you), but now would be a good time to try and snatch Sevastopol with your black sea fleet, supported by your Rum army. Because Russia can't defend all three of Vienna, Warsaw, and Sevastopol, so you have like a 1/3 chance of getting to take it Thank you.  i think I would be guaranteed to take it.  Speaking of taking ... are you going to take Italy in the rear?  you're certainly gearing up for it. Italy’s rear is none of your business 😉 well, it is when his front is all up in my  part of the med! Hopefully you won’t have to deal with that for much longer No, I don't think so either.  He'll make a go for Smyrna, I'm sure of it.  If anything, S01 showed that he's a dot grabbing whore. Aren’t we all, in the end? In the end?  Yes.  In '01 and '02?  That's a matter of style and preference. Well speaking of style and preference, I clearly misjudged yours! From where i’m sitting Russia looks like the real winner of whatever transaction gave you serbia. Think it might be F Sev? 🤔 He still has a disband, right? But you’re doing well against Italy. He seems to have a hard-on for Smyrna Looks to me like Russia held all their dots...am I missing something?
And yes I owe you my thanks for not blabbing to them...or for being ignored if you did 😉 (Second “them” refers to italy) I took Rumania. Oh honey no...dots that don’t already belong to you don’t change posession unless occupied going into winter/build phase! Did russia let you believe that?? Rude. F BLA - Rum  SUCCEEDS Lol i totally missed that!! Sorry i mistook you for a spring chicken I’m not a world class player or anything, but this ain’t my first rodeo Same here. But i learned my very first game you don’t necessarily need expertise to get far, so long as you have the right friends (Translation from french: i played like an idiot but had a very smart ally propping me up) Wow russia must really trust you Or is sevastopol some kind of gift? Not sure, didn't really discuss build with him. Have you and austria talked at all? Some things italy said makes me think they may be collaborating After he took Bulgaria off of me?  I'm sure he and Italy are trying to work together. Well just keep I/A out of the aegean and they’re no threat to the anatolian. Wanted to warn you, though, not to bank on I shifting units back west to defend the homeland, because i made a deal with I to back off in exchange for tunisia. are you going to actually back off? Doing so allows me to devote more resources to England/germany, who are more pressing threats to me right now, don’t you agree? No.  I think England and Germany are at each other's throats and if I were you, I would balance that power (make sure neither wins out) and consolidate gains against Italy.  It takes naval superiority (or a unit behind munich) to break through into Germany.  You can hold a stalemate line with 2 armies, which you have. also, with England having two armies on the island, there's no way you're taking a dot.  And with only two fleets, there's no way he's attacking you. Do you think given this situation that Italy won’t actually believe our deal is credible, and will actually send a unit or two back to defend? I would.  But, I also would have instead of just letting France into a position of power.  You have an advantage, press it. Truth be told, that was always my plan. I just didn’t want to say so to you in case you turned around and told italy not to trust me. But you’ve made me see that that ruse is already flimsy at best. Plus, i guess it’s in your interest to tell italy i plan to reneg whether i’ve actually said as much to you or not Not to be callous ... but we receive a larger split of the prize money the fewer players make it to the draw. Can you maybe not make us all have to band together and preserve the smaller powers just to stop your solo threat? Maybe work with Russia against Germany and let me make some gains against Italy and Austria while you finish off Italy and gut England? It’s not A LOT of money, but since there’s no prize for board top, we might as well maximize our gains. I’m not doing this for the money. I don’t play this game much, and in fact I’ve never won. So I’m gonna try to this time if it’s all the same to you Ok, so ... it's 1903.  The game ends in 1910.  Let's re-visit this at the end of 1905?  Can we agree on that?

Also, part of playing Diplomacy is playing to the scoring system - which in this case is all surviving players have an equal share of the draw.  So, if you're not going to win outright, winning is having the smallest draw possible.  So, in a way, I am offering you a chance to have the best possible win?  Maybe? I...never realized before...that it was possible to mansplain over text You said you don't play this game much, why should I assume you're familiar with scoring systems when you claim cupidity?  It's pretty disingenuous on your part to claim inexperience and then accuse me of speaking down to you (based on your gender) when I explain something. Good luck with your solo try.  I guess.  You've got a long way to go, though you've got a pretty good head start. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have snapped. When I said I didn’t play much, I hadn’t meant to imply that I didn’t know how the game worked. But I can see now how that’s a fair assumption. Well, you clearly know how to play the game.  Sometimes players are a little slower on the uptake when it comes to scoring systems - both lady and gentlemen players.  There are far too few lady players in the hobby and I would hate to have done or said anything to turn one off from playing.  I do sympathize, however - I've seen the bullshit that ladies have to put up with to play board games sometimes.  I usually call attention to it to ridicule the person doing it and was a little sensitive when I got accuse of doing it myself. Well, now I can at least say that apologizing works better in diplomacy 🙂 . 
And I’ll keep what you’re saying in mind come ‘05 All fleets, huh?  Where do you think you're going in the South? Better be careful, though ... you lose one dot down there and the whole thing can collapse like a house of cards.  Do I convoy?  Do I go for Tunis?  Do I try to slip into TYR?  Do I just let you dislodge me?  So many options! Is this taunting somehow strategic or just for fun? Taunting? I think you really need to grow a thicker skin. Thanks for the advice. You really need to grow a bigger fleet If four fleets aren’t enough, I’m doing something wrong. I’m not getting any of Italy. And that’s ok. 🤷‍♂️ So when are you planning to turn on your friend russia then? Probably not. We need to become a Germany before you take all his dots too. Look at us. We could run this map if we’d just put aside our differences and work together. C’mon, where’s your christmas spirit? I’m all about the spirit of giving, but I’m not gifting you a solo. Also, because you keep sending fleets south, I had to reallocate the stab F Black Sea to defense against you. Don’t you go pointing fingers when you were the one who just haaaad to have the ionian Alright, I don’t feel this is a productive dialogue. Speak for yourself this is the most entertained i’ve ever been in an airport terminal You clearly are not at the bar. Sultan, dear...I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but when i look at this map it’s just so clear to me that you and I are destined to rule it together!
We could probably take out our weaker allies before the clock runs out, and wouldn’t that be so much *easier* than just butting our heads against each other for god-knows-how-long? Let me have some of Italy. I’ll use those builds to go after Russia. And that’s a look you in the eye, hand on heart, mother’s grave promise. I am willing to do that but my only hesitation is that you clearly don’t *need* the extra builds to go after russia; they’ve left most of their dots wide open to you. Am I missing something? Or is this about balancing power with me? There is definitely a power balance element. But I'm only at 8.  I need 4 fleets defending against you, plus 2 armies to ensure that I hold Trieste.  I also have a unit on the front line with Germany.  That leaves literally one unit, A CON, that is available to do anything anti-Russian, and it literally can't reach a Russian center this year.  However, if I get 2 builds off of Italy, they become two armies and wham, bam, I'm in UKR and ARM and he's fucked. So, I need for Russia to be the only one on the line with Germany and that army that's in Bohemia to be in Venice .  Your call, but you can easily fall back and make a stalemate line in Tunis with your fleets that I can't crack.  MAR S PIE, GoL S TUS, WES S TYR, TUN S TYR, TUS H, TYR H.  

However, even with this, you're still a threat to solo.  I would need to get Munich or STP, otherwise you've got a path to a solo.   So yeah, we need to balance of power this.  Maybe you also vacate Tunis to take the solo off the table.  I know that you want to get a solo victory, so i understand if you decide that this isn't the path you want to take.  But, if you're genuine about you and me two-waying this thing - i've laid out the path. In principle i’m not against our balancing power, nor am I fixated on soloing, but hear me out on this: unless I go barrelling into tyrolia—which I won’t and you’d have at least two turns of warning if i did—you only need trieste to hold trieste. If you build an army in smyrna (on the pretense of convoying it somewhere) then you can walk into sevastopol next year. As an initial stab you will almost certainly be able to take Vienna with bohemia and trieste, followed by budapest with help from albania having moved to serbia. That’s russia down to two dots and you up to 11 with nary a cession from me. Meanwhile germany would be fending me off, so you’d not have to worry about german attacks on old-austria. 
I’m still pretty inexperienced at this game, so if there’s some obvious issue here i’m not seeing just tell me. But surely you can understand my hesitance to give up so much without first seeing any proof of loyalty from you. Thank you for the honest response.  So, I'm more experienced than you - didn't say better player - and I've seen a lot of games.  You're at 12 and the 6 you need for a solo you have relatively easily (if we don't work together on the other side of the board).  EDI, HOL, and - with the fleets you have available - DEN, SWE, NOR, and STP.   That's assuming no gains in mainland germany.  So, this means that Germany and Russia are going to need to work together in the north to stop you - which I'm willing to allow, unless you let me take the Italian dots.  

Also, I've already built A CON.  We're in Spring moves. Wow that was a short winter! But with all three italian dots plus bud, ven, sev, (all attainable by you in two years if i hand over italy) all *you’ll* need to solo is the remains of russia and one other dot. And italy isn’t exactly splittable, not with you and me so flush with fleets. 
...how about this: we illustrate our commitment this spring by each overtly stabbing our allies and making no moves against each other or into the ionian. Then in fall I’ll let you into venice and start moseying out of italy, and shift my focus northward. So you’d be pretty much guaranteed three dots this year and the remaining two italian dots next year, meanwhile I’ll be doing what I can to break even. Ok. Bear in mind, for us to totally eliminate our allies, we’d both be at 17. Deal still stands. It absolutely does not you armenian genociding snake From my perspective, it does. Give me Italy’s four and I’ll wipe out Russia. No! You could have walked in but now you have to fight for it just like everybody else And I’m not even gonna be rational about it. I’ll fight you extra hard out of spite Why? Why not try to get the best result possible? Why respond like a petulant child? Like I said, I don’t really play this game much. I don’t see a path to victory with you *and* germany against me so I might as well just act to make sure your dishonesty goes unrewarded What dishonesty? I was straight up with you about those dots being conditional for me to attack Russia. I made an offer in which you would get them, conditional on making a move against russia and not attacking me in spring. You said “ok” and then proceeded to not move against russia and to move against me instead. This gaslighting is actually vile I’m literally as close as I could get with A Con. You don’t one dot stab someone, which was my only option. Too little too late you hypocrite And what about vienna? We could have hashed this all out ahead of time. You wanted me deceived. I’m not going to argue with you, it feels like I’m talking to someone who’s very immature. You can either move past it and try to maximize your result or you can hoist yourself by your own petard. Well I already made my choice very clear. If you had apologized for lying instead of trying to act as if you hadn’t, I’d have respected you. Merry Christmas. *gut. I wasn’t going to one dot Russia. Now I am in position to take multiple dots off of Russia while you’re set to guy Germany. I didn’t lie to you. I said Ok. 🤷‍♂️ focus on making gains in the north, otherwise this conversation is totally moot. I’ll keep going for Italian dots but if I see you walking away, I’ll go after Russia. Which was my pitch a year ago. Best of luck in your northern campaigns. Would be nice to see you either work with Germany to counter Russia, thus opening him up for a stab, or swallow Germany and reduce the draw size. EDI and HOL are yours, probably. That’ll put you at 11 or 12, with more to gain. I really wish we had coordinated better regarding Italy, we could be racing towards a two-way right now. But a three way split, with no story powers, is quite the accomplishment in a timed round. You can be proud of it! *stray powers. Why don’t you focus on eliminating Germany? We’ve got three years left. I can’t get past Naples unless I get super lucky, and even then, I don’t think I can reach you. As a reminder, we're being compensated to participate in a game where our language is being evaluated for honesty/dishonesty.  It's pretty shitty that you've gone radio silent and pretty disrespectful to the organizer of the game. //

I'm going to easily take Naples and might be able to grab Tunis when it's all said and done.  But that's as far as I can go.  Why don't you just walk away, build a defensible line, and focus on grabbing those 3-4 supply centers in the north? which, as I recall, has been my pitch to you the past two weeks. It would bother me too much to just roll over and let someone who has lied to me and, when confronted, gaslit about it rather than apologize get what they want. 
I would have been happy to accommodate you if you had reciprocated my honesty. You have demonstrated remarkably thin skin this game.  Success in Diplomacy relies on adjusting to the conditions of the current game state, reading the board, making reasonable requests based on the game state, not reading into other people's responses what you want to see versus what they probably mean, etc.  I opened with pitching for a 3-way split from the get go.  Literally in 1902 or 1903, and we said let's revisit it in 1907.  You're the one who said that they wanted a solo, and then you get upset when I say "ok" when you ask me to do something that would give you the best chances of attaining it?  GTFOH!  

I guess you can call that gaslighting.  I call it applying years of experience and calling a spade a spade.

Moving on, which is all I've been trying to do, you need - at most - one more fleet in the south beyond your MAR, TYS, and TUN - which I assume will be your Fleet in LVP headed south.  That leaves your remaining seven units (didn't include the A PIE)  to hold Russia in check and take Scandinavia.  I'd be willing to NOT put any additional pressure on you in the South if that makes you feel more comfortable, but - in all honesty - your solo chance is done.  Let's play for the best possible result moving forward, and that's a three-way with no remaining Germany. You’re right that I should have read the board rather than reading what I wanted to into your response. That was a valuable lesson for me. Here’s one for you: you don’t always get what you want.
I don’t care about an extra five dollars, so it makes no difference to me whether a stray power is left on the board—that’s your obsession. But frankly the more I hear from you the more I get the sense that you’re accustomed to controlling things and that makes the idea of inconveniencing you all the more appealing. Another skill involved in this game is, well, diplomacy and perspective taking—you found a thin-skinned player who is less serious about the game than you are, and rather than adjust your communication tactics accordingly you’ve succeeded in repeatedly pissing her off. How about you play for your best result? Jeeze it’s like talking to a wall! I keep telling you, for me that means not rewarding asshole behavior. I haven't been an asshole.  You're the one accusing me of lying and then trying to gaslight you.  And acting as if my lying to you is somehow justifiable provocation for you to give both you and yourself an inferior result, when the point of this exercise is to see how people tell the truth or lie when trying to achieve an optimal result. You're treating this as if it's some face-to-face tourney game and I just called you a lying b**** or this is an online game on webDip and I just called you  something nasty in the forum.  I've been respectful to you, obviously our 2-dimensional back-and-forth has not resulted in a lot of  productive dialogue, but there aren't too many scenarios where Turkey and France work together long term.  You've continually taken things I've written as personal attacks and obsessed on "ok" as some sort of long-term alliance that I stabbed you over. Also, Germany threw his dots to Russia because he was pissed off at you.  Clearly things worked out swimmingly between you and England, and Italy I'm sure was your best friend there at the end of the game.  I, on the other hand, have had a game-long and productive partnership with my ally.  Maybe, in all of this, I'm not the asshole?  Maybe you take a long look in the mirror and, if being a good neighbor and telling the truth is how you judge assholeness in your book, consider what your neighbors had to say about you as they exited this game instead of the guy who said "we can two way if you give me Italy" and you said "no, attack Russia and we'll split the dots" and I replied with "ok." What it looks like to me is, you were planning on getting a solo in this game and things didn't work out the way you wanted them to.  Instead of accepting this and going for your optimal result, you decided to get emotional and are now lashing out at the one person who's actually trying to engage you in dialogue and work out mutually beneficial results.  And you're calling me names. Unless we’re speaking very different dialects of english, “ok” means “yes”. No more and no less. I acted in accordance with an agreement I thought we had made, when I otherwise would have done more to defend against you. For you to act as if that doesn’t constitute a betrayal is ludicrous to me.

I’m not saying i play this game like a patron saint. I lie and backstab just like anyone. The difference between you and me, besides our skill and experience level, is that when I betray someone i don’t turn around and act as if i haven’t. To me, that reeks of disrespect and makes me sick. Way more than getting called a name. I'm generally an honest guy and genuinely interested in working with people to achieve mutually beneficial results.  What I'm not good at, and clearly I need to improve on, is working with people who are thin-skinned.  After my first go-around at this, and I was put into a game of Redditors who stopped talking to each other after 1902, I was told that I was being put into a pool of experienced players.  I assumed, from the get-go, that you were actually an experienced player who was trying to make it sound like you weren't. //there might actually be a dialect issue.  "A filler word is an apparently meaningless word, phrase, or sound that marks a pause or hesitation in speech. Also known as a pause filler or hesitation form. Some of the common filler words in English are um, uh, er, ah, like, okay, right, and you know."  I type like I talk, and I often use 'ok' as a bridge or delaying word after someone has spoken and I then respond.// //so, that's actually good feedback.  I will refrain from using 'ok' when responding in this and other online forums.  I honestly didn't think I had agreed to your suggestion and got defensive when you accused me of lying.  I'm not suggesting that I pointedly said no or didn't let you think that I was considering it, but I didn't really consider myself as having agreed to it.  Language is funny.  And multiple uses of turns of phrases can take things in different directions ... and we've gone down a deep dark path that I don't think either of us are really enjoying.// Anyway, I'd really like to move forward and spend the next few weeks pursuing the optimal result for both of us.  And, after I take Naples, what would you like to see?  No fleets pushed up into Tuscany and Piedmont?  I can do that if it makes you feel more comfortable.  I think if you made a mistake or two or guessed wrong in 1910, I might be able to steal Tunis.  But, I find it incredibly unlikely.  So, I'll hold the line here if that's ok with you. I don’t really believe your spiel about the use of “ok”, but i do appreciate you actually acknowledging the issue instead of pretending it didn’t exist. Thank you. 

But frankly, what better thing do you have to do with your units right now than defend or mount an offensive against me? If you’re not going to turn on russia, you have quite successfully hemmed yourself in. 
I can’t really even divert more resources to the north, since as you acknowledge I need those fleets for a defensive line in the med. so it’s not as if detenting with you would allow me to divert more units toward eliminating germany. Why is this so important to you? The only consequence I can see is plus or minus three italian dots. Because, I’m still committed to obtaining our optimal results. So, I’m asking what it would take for you not to overcommit to the south? I don’t know if I’m dealing with a rational or emotionally irrational negotiation partner here and I’m trying to appease both sides without lying about taking Naples! It looks to me like between me and russia, germany’s northern holdings are pretty much toast even if I do at least try to take back my boot. Esp. If there’s any chance russia would collaborate with me up there. 
Does it matter how many dots each winning player personally has in a multiway draw? If it’s already established that you, me, and russia are the winners with no strays, what harm is there in you and me duking it out just to keep the game interesting? What I was/am trying to avoid is a scenario in which you (a) work with Germany and (b) send way more strength to the Med than you can actually use.  I was concerned, since I had continually offended you, that you were going to go full-on spite against me!  Since it would appear that you're not going to do that, ok.  As iron sharpens iron, I will fight you in the Med over the remaining dots!  Perhaps we'll both learn something!  And while I was genuinely willing to hold what I currently have, I will tell you the truth that I am going to continue the attack! You were never fooling anyone with that con fleet Bring it on Where do you think F CON is headed? Not my job to tell you how to play old man 😜 So, interesting little problem.  How many fleets can Turkey even bring to bear?  How many do I actually need?  Does F CON heading towards France actually make a difference or is it better off being held in reserve for potential gains against Russia? And in answer to your earlier question, in this scoring system - it's Draws Involve All Survivors (DIAS) and there's no difference in how many supply centers you have. I mean there’s absolutely no reason to turn on Russia now, and you could conceivably marshal your fleets to get past my line as it presently stands...but maybe you’d rather just relax a little these next three years? Enjoy your miles and miles of coastline? Why on earth didn’t you go to Burgundy? Was that a misorder? More of an oversight. I’m experiencing a certain amount of jetlag That’s understandable. I figured it was a bit of a mistake. And you mentioned that you’ve never solo’d before - having a lot of units doing a lot of things can get confusing. Where were you flying? Some place cool? Hey, are you in? Hey brother. Good job in Italy! Are you and Russia going to work together to eliminate Germany? Or, at least, not work against each other? Have you two figured out how to finish off Germany? Also, Germany needs to be at zero or he gets a part of the draw. It would almost be better to make sure you guarantee Sweden rather than ensure the perfect defense from Russia. Hi I'm so sorry to have been ignoring you--my phone stopped sending me discord notifications for absolutely no reason! I should have figured you would have been sending me messages, but I was busy with travel things. 

I'm moving into sweden in the fall and changing my settings to 3 way draw Good game.  I found you frustrating to work with and negotiate with, most likely because you're a good player who wouldn't bend to my will. 🙂  I look forward to seeing you on a game board again. Thanks, Turkey. Good game to you as well! I'll admit that I was probably more insufferable than was strictly strategic...I hope you'll think of it as a character-building experience 😉 Do you do face-to-face at all?  I find the best way to improve my communication is by playing in person. I’ve never done it, but I’d like to!