, it's been a long time since the round 2 games of the tournament, people dropping from the tournaments, protests of tactics used (in my round 2 game nontheless 
) the apparent frustration taking it's toll on the organisers...but i started in this thing so i wanted to get it finished and had been actively pursuing to get other players to commit to their games, my own problem therefore was trying to get Countersmurf contacted and into our game but he's a different timezone (by a big difference) to myself and Homeowner and his technical difficulties with his hardware forced me to give up being patient and request that a replacement step forward...request accepted and stepped forward was Zjoere...this is what happened
Setting up.
No problems, i opened the server dead on 19:00GMT and almost as soon as i had Homeowner and Zjoere simutaneously appeared
great start i thought, lol. Homeowner confessing that he'd forgotten about the game and sheer luck that he perhaps got in 
Schubduse (sp?) and Xocrates spectating.
Defcon 5/4
OH CRAP!!!
I got SA, Homeowner got USSR and Zjoere got EU...how the hell am i going to win this i was thinking? 
it had served me right i guess, a day or two ago i played Homeowner and Dr.Strangelove in a 1v1v1 which i said was practice (and i won) and the conversation post match was of 'how do you win in a 1v1v1 if you're stranded with a far away territory and the other players are neighbours? ' (particularly bloody EU/USSR ) i was the only one that seemed to be positive about that set up and now had to make good on my word with Homeowner taunting me about it *gulp*.
I set up my silos...grouped for impact accuracy...and radar...airbases etc...basically i knew i was going to have to stretch everything i had to pull this off. I placed single battleships against my rear in the best (long range) positions for sub nuking for fear of USSR subs making the trouble to hit me later on...i sent a group of 4 carriers around africa to the indian for hitting USSRs eastern cities and 8 carriers under the hilt of Africa for horizontol bomber runs/scouting on EU when the time came. Sent all my subs up next to EU coast off Portugal, thinking their navies would be very busy i'd have the atlantic to myself for a while and scattered other battleships for bomber defence from EU on my coast and other strategic places for subs.
Defcon 3
I had nothing to do
ate some cereal...read my magazine...set all my units to appropriate modes and waited...wondering what it looked like over continental Europe...hopefully messy 
*ahem*.
Defcon 2
Still...nothing...i was getting nervous to this point that i wouldnt get the points before they were gone but i had a sure plan if it worked...i waited and ate more cereal. 5:00 minutes left til Defcon 1 i launched all base/carrier bombers horizontally over Africa to strike both EU and Russia dead on Defcon 1 in wave attacks whilst they kept each other busy...i'd steal the points from right under their noses i thought
Defcon 1
Almost all of my carrier bomber nukes made contact on EU cities...my subs were not attacked until after releasing their nukes, I took London/Manchester/Paris with overpowering ease
confident with my second wave of bombers inbound and fighter support...all the time i still had no idea what was going on between them two I only know i met little resistance as almost every bomber survived to rearm at my carriers and begin firing at will...no time for precision attacks now, those points were out in the open and i wanted them 
My 4 carriers had made it around to the Indian and i started hitting the eastern USSR cities for 10-20 points.
My coast met no resistance and i opened up all of my silos on Russia, EU was dealt with accordingly i thought.
The last minutes of the game were very very tense, reminding me of my Round 1 game when i was scrounging for points against India whilst Radiant was trying to knock me out of the tournament, for fun of all things
(i survived 3rd place by 2-4 points that day cheeky indeed) but not realising it was Homeowners green fleet approaching at full force towards my coast i'd considered it harmless until he started making bomber runs on Mexico and undefended cities there! i was scrounging every nuke from my 4 Indian ocean carriers to hit USSR again and again and micro managing all my empty bombers in the air and battleships in the vicinity towards his fleet (quite alot of bombers so i was quite confident)...in the end i still believe i should have done better but that is Defcon...you learn for another day just look at the score for how close it was.
I made 2 major mistakes in this game -
1) I thought all the time (until i just looked at my screenshot
) that Homeowner was USSR which if i had realised i would have pressed all of my battleships into EU/USSR waters...(not meaning to be offensive to Zjoere but i had considered Homeowner the bigger of the two threats ) perhaps i was lucky not to know this as my nerves would have been worse, lol.
2) I forgot to open my silos!!!
i should have opened on Defcon 1 starting, knowing full well they both couldn't and even if they did i'd have taken them with my bombers. This unfortunate mistake was the reason for such the close scores...allowing Homeowner time to open his silos and hit my major populated cities and get the points he needed. Thinking Zjoere was EU the entire game i'd imagined Homeowner wouldn't dare open his silos on me over EU's silos...bad intel on my part it seems led to Homeowner being free to reign his silo nukes freely onto my cities...luckily my silos reverted in time *goes off to shoot his intel officer*.
I can't speak for Homeowner and Zjoere but i thoroughly enjoyed this game
id appreciate any comments they had on the game as well as from the specs
Now i'm going to go and see if i can get some finalists to play against and post some other debriefs
