[Spoilers]Don't Shoot the Archduke! Diplomacy Lurker Thread

[Selrahc]

We already have a lurkers thread!

Was the title not obvious enough?

[fire&ice]

I take any bet Lewwyn is out first :neenernee
Not sure anyone wants to form an alliance with a 1901 gangsta

OKay any bet you say. Well then I bet -5 stellar dollars Lewwyn won't get taken out first.

Honestly if Lewwyn survives he will be the luckiest person I know.

[Sullla]

I have never played Diplomacy myself; just no real desire, and those of you who remember the Pitboss Civ games know that I never had much interest in long diplo chats with other teams. However, I'm very familiar with the rules of this game, and I've read dozens and dozens of games online, both standard Diplomacy and some of the many variants (different maps, gunboat, etc.) With a group of mostly new players, we should see some very unorthodox moves, which I expect to be very entertaining to watch.

Austria is one of the most interesting powers in Diplomacy. Austria has the highest percent chance to win a solo victory... and Austria also has the highest percent chance to be the first one eliminated from the game. (If I remember, it's about a 20% chance of each.) So Austria is never a dull empire to play. You have enemies on all sides, but also the most supply centers to go after. It's the opposite of the two witches (England and Turkey), who have extremely defensive starts counterbalanced by few supply centers to go after. England/Turkey get to 4 SC pretty easily, and then they really have to negotiate/ally/stab to get more. God help you if they ever get rolling though... I think the most terrifying sight in Diplomacy is when the Turkish navy breaks out of the Mediterranean and enters MAO. Only seen that happen once or twice, and everyone on the board was crapping their pants.

Anyway, good luck to all the players, should be fun.

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah, the sick man of Europe is a force to be reckoned with.

[spellman]

We already have a lurkers thread!

Was the title not obvious enough?

No, I just fail at reading early in the morns.

TY for the mods fixing things.

Also, curious about the whole France Bre-Mao idea, that's quite unconventional for Sp 1901. An English fleet in the channel is basically omnomnom.

[Gustaran]

If anyone is still trying to learn the game, there is a PC game version from 2006 by Paradox. Of course the AI can't compare to real players, but it has a nice interactive tutorial:

[Jkaen]

Interesting that England is convinced Frnace plans to betray them, while they seem to have no such thoughts at all

[Mardoc]

Interesting that England is convinced Frnace plans to betray them, while they seem to have no such thoughts at all

Yeah, but this is definitely the only game where I feel I need to append 'unless he's lying to the lurkers' to my comments. I mean, I think scooter's being straight with us, since he's posted in such detail, not something that I can imagine faking on the off-chance of a leak. Nakor might be, he's posted generalities that could be easy to fake. Or, well, he could just be wrong to trust England and be doomed.

[Mardoc]

Well Rowain just alerted Nakor that he will be moving into Piedmont, and he also told me and Uberfish the same. Nakor is not happy. Get out your popcorn!

If I'm reading the map right, it looks like the main reason to move here would be to put pressure on France? Maybe it could set up for taking Tyrolia, but that doesn't have a lot of value on its own.

If that's true, then yeah, I can imagine Nakor would be quite unhappy about an Italian move here when he's trying to focus on the EFG triangle.

And who knows? Maybe we'll turn out to be wrong about Lewwyn leaving first if Nakor's looking at a 3 v 1 situation.

[Sareln]

If I'm reading the map right, it looks like the main reason to move here would be to put pressure on France? Maybe it could set up for taking Tyrolia, but that doesn't have a lot of value on its own.

It could be used to present a two unit front on Tyrolia, but yes, the move is exceedingly anti-French, especially from the French perspective.