Great Powers Game Debrief

In the Great Powers game, I was Germany. We were one of the luckier countries at the beginning because we had a spending power of 3 . The countries with the most advantages were the ones with a spending power of 4 though. Another advantage for some countries were the allies the already had. For example, the U.S. had a lot of allies at the beginning along with the fact that it was a strong country so a lot of people wanted to make allies. Germany, on the other hand, didn't have many allies so before the game even started, we had countries that hated us. In the long run, it wasn't important to buy navies and soon everyone figured that out and didn't spend much money on that. I think it was important to buy industries and colonies first so that we had money to buy armies. In the beginning of the game, France declared war against us and took all we had except for one colony. After that, we were the one country behind everyone else and we had to build our way up from there. I think we did well in gaining our spending power again so we weren't the lowest country. Next time, I would spend more money on army. Even though it was important to buy industry, there's no point if we don't have any army to defend it.
In the long run, alliances didn't make much of a difference for us. We had most countries sign our paper, but in the end, half those countries declared war against us, or were on the opposing side. I learned that the way you spend money is very important, alliances often don't mean much, and sometimes you'll start with a disadvantage. That doesn't mean you can't work your way around it.