Naples, I was very worried from the start due to Rome and I not being on the same terms due to some missed messages because of the 9 million posts to start the game.
We were able to get everything organized but I made an alliance with Venice and Tunis to start.
As the seasons past I went to the ionion and accomplished nothing. Tunis felt the same way and eventually made a move that threatend my home SC when he took Tyr rather than moving through Tunis as advised. Turns out he took Romes SC the same time I took Tunis, then with venice help we took tunis out.
Around this time greece and I started to work together against Cons. Cons was able to side with us to stop the warsaw power. I took this time to help my goats in the west.
Once i had my fleets set up we had a chance to move faster against France SC's but Rome took the safe but slower process of protecting his SC so to speed the game along I helps Spain get a SC while I got another. THis was a mistke since we drew two years later and Rome should have been part of that.
Ending
1) we did Draw with 9 I think. It was an interesting game but I like the concept of drawing with 7 due to the classic player number.
2) I was willing to keep playing It would have been 2 short years and the draw would have been with Norway/London and Greece/Venice/ and myself. But everyone in the game at the end had a helping hand in getting us there. Sev and Cons helped with Warsaw. Port and Spain helped battle Paris/berlin.

Portugal

I never got past 2SCs in this game, and I was only on 2 for one year before being stabbed and going back to one again. Even so, I think I was probably one of the most influential players in the game, before 1907 at least.

Pre-Game

I drew Portugal, which, although it has reasonable stats, disappointed me. It's a very protective position, yes, but the way I see it you need to conquer Spain in order to start expanding, and I wanted to form an alliance.
I had a choice; either accept a rather appealing offer from Marseilles of support to Spain then go it alone, or join an alliance. I decided to go for the latter, fearing that the former, on a PMO game, would make me a target for large alliances.
I joined and named the SWA, and saw four major other alliances forming; the NTA (leader seemed to be Norway), the AHE (Leader Budapest) and the GAA (Leader Con). The NTA was the closest but the GAA were in a brilliant position.

1901
I couldn't really do much but talk, so talk I did; in fact, I was probably the biggest spammer in the game. However, my talking did lead to something good; I unnerved Holland so that none of the NTA got into the North Sea in the Spring. However, things weren't looking good for us either. London bounced Brest in the Channel (very annoying) and Paris stopped moving after Spring '01. Meanwhile, the GAA were the only ones to get off to a good start, which was making me fear them even more.

Seeing Paris about to NMR in Autumn and the NTA about to get into the North Sea, I lost faith in the SWA and asked to join the NTA, reverting to my original plan of capturing Iberia. However, my move to Spain evidently didn't save, which turned out to be very lucky for me.

1902
Denmark stabbed Sweden! Brilliant! That was just the distraction the SWA needed to get one over on the NTA. However, the SWA still weren't looking good with an abandoned Parisian unit in Bur, so I decided to leave them anyway, realizing that, if we wanted to stop the GAA in the south, Spain and I would need some peace in the north. And so, the DISU was formed.
However, another factor came into play. Someone picked up Paris and refused to communicate.
I was still debating on whether to go for the whole Iberia plan or stay allied to Spain, but this gave me the opportunity to stab him and take it whilst playing it as a defensive measure. Unfortunately, I didn't think through it well and I forgot about Liverpool.

The Spring move went well for the GAA. Not so for me. My plan of grabbing Spain fell apart when Liverpool got into MAO. I had to get back to Port; if he got in there, I'd never get him out. But what if he went straight to Spain? Then he would gain the SC and I'd be stuck...
Amazingly, Liverpool gave me a way out of this. He offered to support Spain back to Spain, calling me a traitor to my alliance and hoping to get Spain to support him to Port next go. Spain accepted in words, but not in actions, keeping Rome alive, stalling Liv and letting me get back my honour in the alliance by moving back to Port.
Meanwhile, I also did what I think was the most influential thing in the game; I managed to convince the GAA that Con was about to backstab them, and through this, forced Con to backstab to keep himself alive. Goodbye, GAA.

1903

The Con backstab had the board in uproar, and I took advantage of it to offer the remaining GAA an alliance. This meant that Spain and I could concentrate on taking out Liv. Tunis and Rome joined in, and Liverpool was quickly driven to Marseilles, taking a centre off Paris in the process.
The GAA/DISU alliance brought about a huge force which stayed as the only major alliance for the rest of the game; the GOAT. This alliance was, in my opinion, doomed to fail - it was too big - but as leader of it, I didn't say anything to that effect. I tried to use it to keep Turkey out of the hands of one owner, keep everyone in the Med busy and, mainly, to make myself look very powerful. I had to create an illusion of power that would stop people stabbing each other and growing large, as they would grow much faster than I would. I did that by saying that if anyone stabbed they would be ganged up on, and it appeared to work.

Rest of the Game

Tunis became disillusioned, but due to Naple's stab he was very weak, so he was easy to kill off. Naples had actually grown very powerful through his stab, so I had to find a way to explain it away, which worked, probably because everyone had got so bored of reading my messages that they only skim-read it and missed the contradictions. I knew I had to be cautious of Naples from then on though.
Greece's stab of Bulgaria I also had to explain away, as he was too powerful to lose. He made that easier though, by giving reasons and expressing an interest to stay in the GOAT.
Sevastopol's 'Chaosnaught' alliance came as a shock to me, as I saw that the GOAT wouldn't be able to stand up to it. Luckily, Warsaw stopped that by stabbing Sev, but not before he had helped Con take out Ankara. We had a protective line around Turkey, so Con couldn't break free, but it demoralized the GOAT a lot to see such a leading figure go.
I handed over to a sitter, and when I came back I was surprised to find that I now had two SCs. I was worried that Naples, a stabber, had been let into MAO, but I reckoned that there were only a few turns until Berlin went and then the draw could be forced.
This turned out to be the end of the line for Rome, as Naples stabbed just two turns before Berlin went, and with me in the Channel I decided to try to use my original friendship with the DISU members to keep me alive. London agreed to let me migrate to his home, but he moved to Yorkshire, which seemed to me a sure sign he would bounce me. So I tried to appeal to Naples, and it worked; he supported me back to Brest.
Naple's final stab, as Berlin went, worried me immensely, as I knew it would be easy for London, Norway, Naples, Venice and Greece to take the small powers out, so I tried to turned Venice against Naples, unsuccessfully. With nothing else I could do, I waited for London to arrive and hoped he would put in a draw vote before anyone withdrew one.
And sure enough, he did.
If the game had continued, I would have been a goner, so thanks to everyone for drawing :D

I would like to hear what anybody else thought of my part in the game. I know pretty much everyone hated my long messages, but were they effective? Did I come across as an alliance leader?

Anyhow, GG, all!

@Naples, why did you attack Spain in the last year?
@Con, your messages were definitely effective, but your original alliance was so disorganized, it was rare that all went as planned

@ port I love reading your messages and I am not upset but I feel I need to defend my good name and not be known as a stabber. I feel I stabbed only one real stab this game. My moves on Tunis were in my mind justified when he moved to tyr after you yourself and I advised him to move through Tunis. I did stab Rome but that was due to our alliance taking forever to do nothing. I felt my alliance from the start was with Venice / Tunis and Greece shortly after. I did all I could to keep the members of my alliance growing.
@ Mongoose I attacked Spain in the last year incase we kept playing the game. My moves did not eliminate him it did not affect the draw but if the game continued then Venice and I were in great position to keep taking France SC's.

Ankara EoG-
I must say, even though I ended up eliminated, I played my craziest game ever. I lied more times than I can count.
1901- the GAA is formed, Bulgaria, Greece, Rumania, Con, Smyrna, and myself. after the builds though, Smyrna had built an army over a fleet, and I used that to justify his elimination(I had fully intended to take it myself in the fall and then take Con out the next year, but this changed things and still helped me)... so I supported Con to Smyrna to kick him out early.
1902- so my plan to stab Smyrna then Con didn't work, but in the spring I moved to Armenia with the plan to move to Smyrna in the fall(telling everyone I was going to Sev), but Port screwed that plan up by saying something about it! I went through with the move on the hopes that Con didn't figure out I had "changed" my plan... he did and attacked me in Ankara... So I still lived, with a position good enough that Con couldn't take me out... but I also had to have a lot of help to be able to take him out...
1903 and on: So I started supporting Bulgaria in... then Greece screwed my plan!!! You have no idea how pissed I got when I saw Bulgaria fell... then Greece decided to stop reading my messages and Sev came down and helped Con kill me... so that was the end for me...
I lied to you all the entire game and I still somehow ended up as a "leader" of the GOAT's...

Norway EoG-
as A guy that never had much luck in a case game, I was pretty happy when I drew Norway which usually does pretty well in most games. Originally I wanted to try and be the head of alliance bloc (something else I like to do in this variant) and quickly set about organizing the NTA. Unfortunately the SWA was fairly eager to counter us and with Holland and London fairly indecisive in the early stages we were going to have a rocky start.
The whole thing fell apart with the twin stabs of Berlin (who admitted to being an opportunist) and Denmark. I actually considered Sweden to be my closest ally and was actually quite upset when he was treacherously killed by the less than talkative Dane. At that point I threw my lot in with Portugal's SWA and the DISU was born.
At that point Edinburgh became my closest ally, but he too was killed by Denmark and I was finally able to get my revenge with the help of my third and final close ally, London.
In the meantime I focused on somewhat distancing London and myself from the GOATS to preven the Russian powers from attacking, although I launched my stab on Warsaw when the time was right and retook St. Petersburg. Helping to kill off Warsaw by helping Sev take Moscow.
At that point the endgame for me was helping London dismantle Berlin's German Reich and voting draw.