At the end of turn 3 I had about 50 points of hearts, 45 of spades, 40 of clubs, hardly any diamonds and three reserves. I decided to defend v Austria in Spades, v Russia in clubs and v France in hearts. The hearts and spades kept coming through the game (and I got 3 more reserves!) But the clubs dried up and I still got few diamonds. I ended up with a virtual two suit hand.

Around turn 6 Russia had broken my clubs defence, so I retreated to diamonds which bought a couple of turns relief. Austria attacked me but then appeared to decide to go for an Imperial Army win, as he started moving his 24 stack West. Meanwhile Bjorn had decided on the Swedish strategy of an immediate 16 troop attack to win Halberstadt and Magdeburg early. That gifted me the triangle defence and the recapture of the two Southern objectives in Hannover.

Knowing I might need my hearts v Russia, I was reluctant to commit them v France. I used Ferdinand to divert him and draw a few hearts from him, all the time retreating and gifting him Halberstadt. Eventually I bit the bullet and moved further away and let him take Magdeburg. I was relying on the triangle and playing a −1 game in the South with Cumberland. Also by then America had fallen and I knew there was an outside chance India might fall early, in which case fighting France would be an unnecessary use of my hearts.

I detached one of my two strong generals at Breslau to move NW and help defend Kuestrin (which I had recaptured whilst Russia beat me up in the North) in hearts v the Russians.

All the while I had two generals *floating* with a couple of troops and a supply train each: Winterfeldt was in the South, initially delaying and then threatening Hildi, with the option of moving E to threaten Austrian supply trains or W to help with defence v France. More importantly, Schwerin was in Poland threatening Russian supply trains and a return to E Prussia. And that is what he eventually achieved, recapturing Riesenburg after a vicious cross-sector battle (my hearts v Russian clubs) that destroyed the defending Russian general.

So, I felt I could hold out for several turns more v France and Russia.

However, an astute Andrew, seeing my general head NW from Breslau, had done an about turn and marched back to attack with 20+ v 8. He had also closed the main road route back with another general, so my march back was circuitous and cost me three reserves when Russia attacked me cross-sector diamonds v hearts. I would have joined up in Turn 13 but I think Andrew would have beaten me and won in 3-4 turns. But Lady Luck was having none of it and, following the exits of Sweden and France, Elisabeth dropped at the end of turn 12.