Thoughts on the game
In the opening, I had hoped that England and France would fight each other more, in particular after the Eng opening, but England continued to press North even after France had moved several units towards him.
This lead to France being a monster after the opening and probably also to his stab. I don't know if a more conservative move eastwards would have prevented the stab, but I have the feeling France wanted to press his luck. Crucial to the eventual defense were two things: a) that I order A Ruh hold, which gave time to retreat my units and b) the successful negotiation to get StP to build the fleet to press against France. I always feared France would move more creatively (F Nth - Ska), but ultimately I could repel and even turn the tide against France.
Then came the next turning point, where I tried to ask Austria, whether he would allow me a full blown attack against France, but after he didn't reply for a few days, I guessed correctly that he would stab me. Due to the DMZ between us and the build in Berlin that he overlooked(?), I could defend here as well. What helped was that I always kept contact with France, so that a peace was treaty was easy. I still don't see the point in the attack. If Austria wants to win, it needs to attack Turkey in this situation and for a 3-way tie, you can use Germany as easy as France.
The next stab was the logical one from Turkey against Austria. I managed to grab some centers in Russia, which put me in the position were I could potentially reach a solo. It was still a long shot and I had to move forward aggressively, so that I would gain centers fast enough to fill the back of my line before Turkey would tear down Austria completely. Unfortunately, in the turn after the stab I screwed up. The annoying thing is that I would have submitted the same moves then France did in his position, but decided against the proper answer. After that I tried beating his line a bit, but without success so that I had to settle for the tie.
Random comments:
-My plan had France not stabbed me after the opening was to attack Austria and leave Turkey in peace, France would have eventually stabbed Italy and then I would need a partner to prevent a French solo
-I'm puzzled the A/T alliance worked that well, because the position on the board would have allowed for an easy 2-3 center grab immediately with the stab.