[SPOILERS] Diplo2 Lurker Thread - players KEEP OUT

[scooter]

This is for discussion of the second Diplomacy game - with all new players. Enjoy, and if you are a player... Get lost!

[scooter]

Ok, this post from Twinkletoes is exactly why, in a nutshell, Austria is such a boom-or-bust country:

As a reward - enjoy my initial Grand Plan which is already garnering pretty strong support from those I need.

Operation Austrian Crush

I have floated the idea of a speedy Austrian rush with Russia & Turkey and it seems both feasible and mutually attractive.

Basically I move my armies to TYR & VEN respectively along with my fleet into ION.

Russia moves its WAR army to GAL

Suddenly all 3 of Austria's home centres are under threat while one of his units is out trying to take one of the free Balkans SCs.

With Turkey inevitably moving its armies to BUL & CON, Austria is also under threat for its recently claimed SC (either SER or RUM)

Austria therefore likely loses 2 SCs in the Winter including one of its home SCs and ends up crippled before the West can react too much.

It resolves our 'triangle' quickly and gives me some much needed extra SCs. It would then put pressure on the western powers to war to prevent falling behind us.

I'm optimistic!

If you're Austria and everyone decides to off you like that, well there's not much you can do about it.

[Maniac Marshall]

Re: Scooter's post above: Exactly, and that happens really often in my experience. TBH, I was shocked to see that, at least according to Sulla's post elsewhere, that Austria wins 20% of the time and is only first out 20% of the time. That has NOT been my experience. I know at the con I played Diplomacy at in Chicago in April, out of 16 games played by everyone in the tournament, Austria survived in exactly ONE.

The person who won Best Austria player had... three supply centers (To be fair, Austria was doing really well in a couple of games for a while, especially one game working with me as Russia, until he backstabbed me and Turkey at the same time and at the same time as he was backstabbed by Italy... quickly leading to him having no friends --Germany being dead already-- England ran away with that particular game eventually.)

OK, yes, I know, 16 games is a small sample size, and thats more extreme misfortune than what I've seen overall through the years, but, at least at CodCon/GenCon/Origins (generally the only places I play) that's more representitave than the 20%/20% figure for wins/losses.

[Maniac Marshall]

Gaspar unfortunately knows the importance of the Black Sea. He's saying he wants it to be a no military zone, but I'm pretty sure he's going to move that fleet right there no matter what. I could have lied to him and agreed on the DMZ, and then went in there. But I think I would have been bounced off by him. So I told him the truth that I won't take that risk and I let him know that I could have lied to him. That's to build trust with him. Imo it's better that we have an agreement on that than to both distrust eachother when we both try to stab eachother lol.

Looks like Jowy gets "it" already. That's one of a few almost almost automatic bounce moves on turn one (the other sea one being the English Chanel) and, imo, a wise move on his part all round.

[uberfish]

Italy organizing a 3v1 on Austria from the start tends to be a bad plan - Russia and especially Turkey usually end up in a good position to continue west against Italy afterwards. I suspect that poorly thought out Italian attacks on Austria are responsible for both Italy's low win percentage and Austria's high early elimination rate. This is not to say Italy can't attack Austria early - just that it needs to make sure it gets most of the spoils and Russia won't ally with Turkey afterwards.

[scooter]

Re: Scooter's post above: Exactly, and that happens really often in my experience. TBH, I was shocked to see that, at least according to Sulla's post elsewhere, that Austria wins 20% of the time and is only first out 20% of the time. That has NOT been my experience. I know at the con I played Diplomacy at in Chicago in April, out of 16 games played by everyone in the tournament, Austria survived in exactly ONE.

Actually yeah, I mean it depends on where you get your statistics from, but I've seen much lower numbers than 20%... But I guess it's impossible to know really. Austria probably has more sheer power than Italy or even Turkey, but it's definitely the most likely to get KO'd early.

[Maniac Marshall]

Italy organizing a 3v1 on Austria from the start tends to be a bad plan - Russia and especially Turkey usually end up in a good position to continue west against Italy afterwards. I suspect that poorly thought out Italian attacks on Austria are responsible for both Italy's low win percentage and Austria's high early elimination rate. This is not to say Italy can't attack Austria early - just that it needs to make sure it gets most of the spoils and Russia won't ally with Turkey afterwards.

Can't disagree with that. For it to work in Italy's favor, they need at minimum 3 Austria/Balkan SC's, preferably 4, but most importantly they need to be relatively sure they can then swing a Turkey/Italy/(England) v Russia arrangement, or at least a Russia/Italy V Turkey arrangement...

If anyone wonders why, it's actually pretty simple geography. With Austria gone, Turkey's only got 2 choices of where to go next, and if it isn't vs Russia, it'll be vs them. Turkey/Italy is actually a good alliance, but one that is rarely seen in games I've played.

[Lewwyn]

All this crush Austria talk is very amusing to me. I wonder how much of this is predicated on my survival in the first game?

Two things I learned about Austria when I was reading up about it:

The phone rings.

‘Hallo?... Who?... Oh, Margot, hallo.... Well, I’d love to come round and look at your beer-mat collection, but I’m just going to start a game of Diplomacy.... Well, not for six or seven hours, probably, unless - hang on will you?... Hallo, you still there?... It’s all right, I’ve drawn Austria. I’ll be with you in twenty minutes....’

Exaggerated? Well, perhaps. But there is no doubt that drawing the red army out of the hat very often means the early bath. If Austria survives the early years, it is a better country than most; but it’s a big if.

Also in reference to Sulla's 20% thing:

Before considering individual openings, let’s get one thing clear: anything that doesn’t put a high premium on defence is useless. Austria’s record is entirely horrific. In 232 postal games, there are seventeen cases of a country being eliminated in 1902 — Austria sixteen times, Germany once. There are thirty-two Austrian eliminations in 1903 (next worst, surprisingly, Turkey with eight) and sixteen in 1904. Overall, then, one Austria in five is eliminated before spring 1904; and barely two in five survive to the end of the game. Yet in terms of victories, Austria’s record is respectable — fractionally under average, with thirty-three wins in the 230 games that have produced a winner, and lying third in the table, just behind Germany. The message is obvious: bother about survival first and foremost, then the winning chances will come.

I took that mindset of survival into my game. It was pretty hairy.

[Amelia]

Exactly, Austria does not survive most of the time, but when it does it's in a huge position to win. Maybe 20% of the time only does Austria survive and yet not win, because most powers need austria's supply centres to win (the exceptions seems to be England, maybe Germany?)

[Wyatan]

Reminds me of my third and last diplo game.
I was Turkey, we struck an RTI alliance. Austria was a total newbie and gullible : he got sold to an RAI alliance vs Germany from the start, and actually agreed to let Italian and Russian armies walk through his territory.
Quick and painless.
Then it was agreed that Italy would turn vs France, Russia tackle England in the North, while I'd squeeze between them to tickle Germany.
Obviously, when that fat Russian underbelly was totally exposed to me, I took a hearty stab at it. ("Squeeze through", really, how could you buy that ).
Unfortunately, that ended the game since the Russian player couldn't take it and left the table.

Had a look at the games on playdiplomacy.com and that seems to be the unfortunate norm with online diplomacy : as soon as a player gets stabbed, he quits. Couldn't find a single game without "civil unrest" turns. That's pretty sad, as it really alters the game dynamics imo.