[SPOILERS] scooter's thread: England

[scooter]

Well my plan this game is to research Bronze Working first and go with the risky play of worker first who then immediately chops the second worker. Thankfully I start with a warrior, so that should minimize the risk somewhat if I carefully scout around the edge of my capital until I'm closer to being able to build a warrior.

So let's take a look at my start:



What is this garbage? Sareln are you kidding me? I don't see a single food resource anywhere.

/ragequit


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More seriously, let's play Diplomacy . The above picture is pretty much what the map looks like... I landed England, which was actually my top ranked choice. I wouldn't say England is necessarily the top country, but they are certainly top-tier, so I'm happy with how that turned out. I'm going to aim my thread mostly at those who are new to the game or have never played, as I think this game could get a lot of interest at RB if more people knew how to play... I'm going to start writing up the first "real" post now, but I'm headed out to dinner soon, so it may be a couple hours til I get it up. We'll see. This should be a very fun game, so hopefully it's equally fun to watch!

[Mardoc]

I'm going to aim my thread mostly at those who are new to the game or have never played, as I think this game could get a lot of interest at RB if more people knew how to play... I'm going to start writing up the first "real" post now, but I'm headed out to dinner soon, so it may be a couple hours til I get it up. We'll see. This should be a very fun game, so hopefully it's equally fun to watch!

Hooray!

Seriously, I've seen Diplomacy around, I even bought a copy and tried to read the manual, but I don't think one can really grasp it without seeing it played. And now you promise to explain it too! .

[scooter]

Alright, let's get rolling. I don't have a real solid plan for how I'm going to introduce my thread or the game, so I'm going to start with a simple analysis of each of the 7 countries in the game of Diplomacy. I'll explain pros and cons of each one, rate them for difficulty to play and ability to win, which are actually two different measurements if you can understand that. Then I'll give the rankings I sent to Sareln and explain them, and then finally I'll do some meta-gaming and try to figure out each player. I imagine I'll have some conversation with other players before the night is over, so I'll keep updates on that. First though, some things to keep in mind as I introduce all this:


1. Diplomacy is a much more cut-throat game than Civ is here at RB. The one fear I've always had with playing Dip at RB is that people would get offended in the same way as they do when agreements are broken in PB/PBEM games. Diplomacy is an entirely different beast. The game heavily features backstabs (the term "stab" is used frequently by Dip players), and you aren't considered a dirty player if you lie to someone all game long or you manipulate your "ally" and brutally stab them to win the game. That's how the game works. However, you DO need to still be wary of your reputation in-game. Generally speaking, it's considered silly to backstab for minor gains... So if I see Rowain backstab Lewwyn for the gain of just one city, I'm probably going to be not very trusting of him... But if I see Rowain backstab Lewwyn and take 3-4 cities in one turn, I'll probably comment in my thread that it was nicely played. You need to be wary of everyone, so just because you see one player who hasn't backstabbed anyone doesn't mean that person is "trustworthy" - it means that player is probably experienced/patient and biding his time for when it'll really count.

True alliances can certainly happen in Diplomacy and reputation does matter somewhat, but I'm trying to make the point that you have to consider that RBDiplo culture will likely be pretty different from RBPitboss culture if you follow that.

2. The emails/chats will be much, much more significant than a PB/PBEM. I know in a lot of games I tend to skim over the emails/chats, but you won't want to do that here! I'll let you know if you can skim something or I'll do my best to summarize, but in general you'll want to just suck it up and read the emails most of the time.

3. Diplomacy has NO DICE ROLLS. This is what makes Diplomacy truly unique - a strategy war game with no random chance dice rolls is very unusual. This means luck plays little to no role in this game, which is my favorite part.

4. Diplomacy board game culture is unique in that "if you cheat and get away with it, good for you" is the generally accepted rule. Some of this can be influenced by "house rules" and such, but if you are able to sneak a peak at someone else's orders or slip an extra unit on the board without anyone noticing, more power to you and shame on other players for not paying attention to detail. This doesn't apply directly in the online version we're about to play, but I'm saying this just to give you some context as to what makes Diplomacy unique.


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My Diplomacy experience is actually really limited. When I was in 9th and 10th grade in high school I had a group of friends who I played with (mostly older) probably a half dozen times, but when many of them moved on to college, I stopped and have never played since - mostly because it's rare to meet people who know the game. Now I'm a senior in college, so it's been quite awhile since I ever played, so I am pretty rusty on some things. For instance, despite being England in this game, I don't think I've even played England before! So while I'm not exactly a veteran player, I know the gist of the game and the basic strategies. My goal with this thread is to get more people interested in Diplomacy as well as chronicle the victory of England.

Post with country overviews is next on the to-do list.

[scooter]

Hooray!

Seriously, I've seen Diplomacy around, I even bought a copy and tried to read the manual, but I don't think one can really grasp it without seeing it played. And now you promise to explain it too! .

I'll do my best! It's a surprisingly easy game to learn.

[antisocialmunky]

Are you going to do the standard thing and take a boat to the Channel or something more exotic?

[scooter]

Are you going to do the standard thing and take a boat to the Channel or something more exotic?

Probably will try to take the channel, but it does partially depend on how things seem with France (Nakor) and Russia (Regoarrar). Will require a little bit of "feeling them out" so to speak.

[scooter]

I'm going to start with countries now, but for those who literally have no clue what's going on, I spent a few minutes doing a google search for a starting point for those who want some of the basics explained. Try here: http://www.playdiplomacy.com/help.php

That link has the basics written out, along with 4 YouTube videos (11 minutes total) explaining how things worked. I haven't actually watched them (yet), but it looks like it explains it quite nicely in text, so I imagine the videos are good too. That website is a big site in the online Diplomacy community from what I understand, so it'll be a good source. There's also links at the top for further reading if you get bored and would like to learn more . Okay, country analysis. First off, the map:



The 7 playable countries are England, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, and Turkey. If you can't figure out which one is which on the map, you need to learn more about geography! I'm going to give a summary of each country and hopefully that'll help!


England

England is a top-tier nation, and it is unique in that it starts with 2 fleets and 1 army, as opposed to (almost) everyone else who starts with 2 armies and 1 fleet (Russia being the other odd duck). Because it tends to dominate the waters, it's one of the more difficult countries to defeat. It also is in a unique position of having a much easier time choosing its allies. England/France/Germany tend to form an awkward triangle, where all 3 of them want to end up in a 2v1 situation. Generally speaking, France and Germany are more natural enemies, so often England can take their pick as to which to attack and which to ally with. This is not always true, but it's fairly common. With England, your goal is to control the waters and control the diplomatic situation of the west. The downside for England is that immediate expansion prospects can be difficult. Holland and Belgium can be hotly contested by France and Germany. Denmark is natural to Germany. Norway and Sweden can lead to Russian conflict. Norway is a pretty safe bet for England, but that's about it. All that said, England is generally considered one of the top 2-3 countries in the game.


(realizing that this will get a bit long, so I may write a bit less from here on out)

France

France is another great country to play. Their biggest concern is usually England, as England has the power to cause all sorts of trouble in their backlines. If France can leverage an alliance with England they can be a land powerhouse, and if they can quickly defeat England, they become the instant favorites to win. However if England is able to "choke" them by sea, it can be difficult. Italy tends to quarrel more with Austria-Hungary and Germany is surrounded by everyone, so France is generally in a good position.


Germany

Germany is a difficult country to play, but it certainly has a lot of power if played well. Germany is somewhat unique in that getting 3 city centers in the first year is definitely possible, though somewhat risky as well. If Germany gains the upper-hand on France and manages to keep from getting attacked by Russia and Austria-Hungary, they can be successful. Germany is generally considered difficult to win with.


Italy

Italy is somewhat of an oddball. Italy's position is generally pretty sheltered. France tends to be busy with Germany/England, Austria-Hungary is in a bad spot, Turkey is far enough away, Germany is blocked by Switzerland (impassable land that cannot be moved on)... So you'd think Italy would be a great choice. As a contrast, Italy also tends to be the most difficult to win with. Italy's only natural expansion point is Tunis. Spain and Portugal are more natural to France. Greece is possible, but that will be contested by Austria AND Turkey, so that's near impossible to hold early on. Italy is often forced into war with Austria as a result. Italy is a good choice if you're just interested in surviving for awhile and learning the ropes, but statistically, Italy is the most difficult to win with, as it tends to win the least often.


Austria-Hungary

There is probably one other country that could argue that they have it worse than Italy, and that's Austria-Hungary. On one hand, Austria-Hungary has decent expansion prospects, but Austria is completely surrounded. Italy is often naturally going to conflict with AH because of the geography. Turkey can easily conflict with AH. Russia can put pressure on both of AH's northern city centers from Warsaw. Germany could potentially attack too, although that's not all that common. Austria is probably slightly more winnable than Italy, but it probably is country that gets destroyed first most frequently. Tough one to play.

Turkey

Turkey is very solid country, that tends to be considered 2nd-4th depending on who you ask. Turkey and Russia have a natural conflict over the Black Sea, and if Turkey can control that, they can have their way with Russia. If Turkey can somehow strike an alliance with Russia, such an alliance can be deadly, however it's a tricky one to maintain because the Black Sea is so vital to control. Turkey is not the most exciting country to play, but it's still a solid one.


Russia

Finally, Russia... the most unique one. Russia is (arguably) the strongest country in the game, however it is also difficult to play. Statistically, Russia wins more games than any other country. It starts with 4 units (2 armies, 2 navies) and a bevy of political options, with England, Germany, Austria, and Turkey all feasible strong allies. Unfortunately, with lots of political options comes lots of potential enemies, and that is the downside of Russia. It's nornthernmost territory, St. Petersburg is quite unique, in that it has a north and south coast (as does Spain). That means ships in the SC (south coast) cannot move into the Barents Sea and vice versa. New units placed can go in either coast (I think), but at the start, the fleet always starts at the SC, which is a plus for me. For armies the coast does not matter, but it matters for fleets. So in short, Russia is a very strong country, although it can be challenging to play properly.


My personal ranking for strongest countries goes like this:

1. Russia
2. England
--slight gap--
3. France
4. Turkey
--slight gap--
5. Germany
--slight gap--
6. Austria-Hungary
7. Italy


However I thought it over, and here's what I sent to Sareln:

1. England
2. Turkey
3. Russia
4. France
5. Germany
6. Austria-Hungary
7. Italy


Mostly this is a preference thing - dropping Russia and France a bit. Either way it didn't matter, as I got England. Alright this got pretty long, so I'll hit post, and then I'll get into a bit of meta stuff with players involved.

[fire&ice]

The 7 playable countries are England, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey.

What you can't play italy?

[scooter]

What you can't play italy?

Hah! Fixed.

[fire&ice]

just figured I would follow you and try and force more updates out of you this time.