1454	1455	1456	1457	1458	1459	1460
Austria	3	3	5	3	3	3	2
Florence	3	2	3	2	2	1	0
France	3	4	3	6	9	11	12
Milan	3	1	0	0	0	0	0
Naples	4	6	7	8	10	13	18
Papacy	4	4	5	6	5	5	5
Turks	3	4	2	2	0	0	0
Venice	4	6	8	10	10	8	4

The Players

Austria	Bob Robles	5th Place
Florence	Ward Narhi (out, Fall 1459)	6th Place
France	Jerry Roalstad	2nd Place
Milan	Lee McConnell (dropped, Summer 1454), Dale Horsely (dropped, Summer 1455), Cary Nichols (out, Fall 1455)	8th Place
Naples	Pasquale Giovine	1st Place
Papacy	Dave Anderson	3rd Place
Turks	Dave Partridge (out, Fall 1457)	7th Place
Venice	Mike Scott	4th Place

Statements

Pasquale Giovine (Naples): Final comments of the King of Italy, "'o re" Maradona the Second (that is better of Pele') .

Again I wish to thank Chris for the GMing.

Great fun of course, and raving change of fronts, alliances and so on, probably due to the rule of Standard Victory that obliges to run to win.

About the game, the early disappearance of Milan gave a good chance to France to expand in an abnormal way, any way congratulations to him.

My initial task to have the immediate dominion of the western seas was obtained in a easy manner, probably due to the feud that involved Papacy and Florence and just so for the disappearance of Milan that distracted France and Venice for the big number of free provinces left by him. Thus Turkey was left alone and I had good game to eliminate him with the northern indifference.

After I had the intuition to attack the biggest one, Venice, instead of weaker neighbouring, and all were happy for this: but Venice had two fronts and I only one against him.

Therefore, slowly but constantly, I gained cities from him and free one in middle Italy and arrived at the end. Too late France perceived the danger: he lost many time to contrast Austria (his ally against Venice?) in Milan, leaving Saluzzo and Lucca without owner and Marseilles always free for me. But Milan is only one city, while the other are three........

About my last moves against the loyal Pope, they were done only to obtain the last city to win before the counterattack of Venice and France itself. Sorry.

Any way, thank you very much to all players for the fun.

Mike Scott (Venice): Don't know why I took Venice, it's not my favorite position, and I sure misplayed it this time.

I tried to take out Austria, only to have France step up and help him. Sure surprised me that it happened as it did in a Gunboat game.

I also tried to help the Turk, who I realized was in real trouble versus Naples... didn't work out, and Naples turned my way, naturally.

I would have like to see others move against Naples, but they had their own agenda's, and that let Naples get further along, and then he won easily.

Good Game THANKS for GMing Chris!

Jerry Roalstad (France): From the beginning I had two objectives, to ally myself to Austria, and to eliminate Milan as quickly as possible. In the beginning it went well except to get Austria to take Milan, even when I offered my support for him to take it, but then Venice decided to join the land grab, and so we had three powers each holding one of Milan's home provinces. Then Venice offered a deal to let him take out Austria and for me Milan & to consolidate the rest of the provinces. Had I done that, Venice would have surly been in a better position to go against both Naples and I. I had to keep Austria in the game no matter what and that in itself became a frustrating venture. I had to spend ducats to disband Venice's armies to keep Austria in the game, I pushed Venice out of Milan, and when I thought we were now in position for Austria & I to push against Venice, what happened next pushed me to the brink of giving up on the Austria - France alliance. Austria kicked my Army out of Milan, effectively dividing my Armies to offer any help against Venice. I had a choice, keep helping an Ally who was unpredictable, uncooperative, and to cautious or Ally myself to the biggest power in the game? If the Turks had held out against Venice and had I not trashed talked Venice so much, I might have helped Venice to take Austria out. Why oh why Austria were you so obsessed with Milan? We could have pushed Venice to the sea, and yes I could have had a chance to win the race against Naples. I couldn't go against Naples because I didn't have enough Fleets and I was in the middle of a war with Venice. So it was a race to 15 Cities with Naples. I give you credit Venice for offering stiff resistance against the France-Austria Alliance, and if it wasn't for Naples pushing from the south, we would be still at a stalemate. It was Venice's stiff resistance and Austria's uncooperative moves which cost me the race with Naples. Although like all wars these factors are always keys in winning battles and the war. I want to say to all...thank you for the good game, and please don't take any of my posts serious! I like to mix role playing with my board games and all my trash talking to you Venice and Papacy was just that. Good race Naples, although I think I had to fight the majority of Venice's Armies, which aloud you free access to his soft underbelly, but Venice was in hard spot, and you got the better break. The Papacy, good job to your minor victory against Florence. Finally, to my Austria Ally, if we could have had e-mail access to plan with you, I think we would have done a lot better, this was my first game to post my messages for everyone to read to plan our moves, and so it was hard to make detail plans with you. I had fun, yes at times frustrating turns, but I wouldn't have done anything different. It was a good game we had against Milan & Venice! Cheers All!!!

Dave Anderson (Papacy): DARN!!! Just as I planning my revenge on Naples. The game is over. I was surprised that Venice just collapsed. I was expecting it to be a fight between France and Naples after Venice opened the door by eliminating Milan. Papacy has 2 choices. Florence or Naples. Ducats is more plentiful in Florence than Naples and with the garrisoned cities between Florence and Rome. The ducats is too tempting to resist. Thus begins another game of battling between Florence and the Papacy. The surprising thing was I did not make the first offensive move to fight Florence. Florence moved against me.

Bob Robles (Austria): Congratulations to Naples with a pln to win. I'm just happy to have survived. Thanks to France for trying to support me despite boneheaded moves.