The Anti-France Metagame

In recent months, I've heard from players on webDiplomacy (the website where I have played most of my matches, and that I understand to be the most popular for online Diplomacy) that the metagame for Gunboat Diplomacy matches has shifted to be heavily anti-France. I've heard that this metagame has even spilled over into Press Diplomacy.

After discussing this metagame development a few times with fellow players on Discord and website forums, I have decided that the topic is interesting enough for a post. Enjoy!

What is a "metagame?"

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a "metagame" describes how players of any game (board game, video game, etc.) choose their strategies in the context of a community of players whose gameplay habits are informed by that community.

For example, if you play an old school First-Person Shooter game where most of the players hurry to grab the shotgun, you might start the match by trying to acquire the anti-shotgun weapon (in anticipation of your opponent quickly nabbing the shotgun). And if enough players start grabbing the anti-shotgun weapon right away, players may become deterred from grabbing the shotgun in the first place. When that happens, quickly picking up the anti-shotgun weapon is no longer such a good move. But if players are neglecting the anti-shotgun, then the shotgun may seem desirable once again.

When thinking in terms of a "metagame," your assessment of your best move doesn't really arise from your understanding of the rules or tactics of the game. Rather, your assessment comes from your prediction of your opponent's actions based on your understanding of the collective psychology of the community. In game jargon, you might phrase your thinking at the start of a match like this: "The metagame right now is to ignore the shotgun, so I'll try to grab the shotgun right away."

For games with no clear dominant strategy (like my FPS example), the metagame can drift endlessly. For games with a clear dominant strategy, the metagame usually settles on players choosing between that dominant strategy and whatever is the best counter to that strategy.

Sometimes, a community settles on a belief that a certain strategy is the "best" and this belief persists for many years...despite being a false belief. So even though a game community may appear to have collectively settled that game's metagame conversation, a player with creative, bold ideas may be able to shake up a "settled" metagame (or even replace an old metagame with a completely new one). I have seen this happen with videogames that were not updated for many years (such as Warcraft 3, for a while) and board games of sufficient complexity (such as Magic: the Gathering, where players may not notice the utility of a combination of cards until months or years after the cards were added to the game).

The metagame for Diplomacy is quite complicated and I will not discuss all its aspects in this post. But in case you are wondering, I believe that some parts of the Diplomacy metagame are like my fictional FPS example (where the metagame can drift forever because certain situations involve strategic choices each with clear counters) and that some parts of the Diplomacy metagame have been falsely "settled" by the community.

Chaqa

Hi all, I think one of the most interesting things that has happened lately is the anti-France meta. It hasn't become ubiquitous to the entire site, but the Gunboat community and the live game community have both been seeing it a lot, as have press games.

What is the Anti-France Meta?
Basically, it is highlighted by England opening to the Channel, with very common occurrences of Germany being hostile toward France (whether by moving to Burgundy or assisting England) and Italy moving to Piedmont and/or Tunis to move west.

Why is it Happening?
I think there's a number of reasons. France is traditionally the strongest power on the board (though some dispute this), and if left without major opposition, by 1903 even France can be an unstoppable powerhouse. Additionally, [BrotherBored] posted in his blog about the E/G alliance being effective, and this has been taken lately as dogma by Gunboat players, leading to an almost guaranteed anti-French opening.

Why Should We Care?
Playing France nowadays stinks. You often get attacked by three nations in 1901. France has joined Russia and Austria for me in the "oh, great, this country" group in many games. Others feel similarly.

dmittlem

The community on this site seems to have been influenced by another one of [BrotherBored]'s claims, that Italy risks long term gains by weakening Austria in the opening two years. Even if this wasn't an effect of [BrotherBored]'s articles, the agreed upon standard gunboat opening for Austria (at least on this site) is Vie->Gal, Bud->Ser, Tri->Alb. Any player who draws Italy, follows these threads and keeps track of the meta knows, then, that there's minimal risk in moving out of Venice in S01. As long as those moves are the expected Austrian set, I would expect Italy to often move Piedmont in S01, just to put pressure on France (the power that Italy would like to see collapse first in the North).

Carl Tuckerson

[. . .] I've been concerned for a little while [. . .] that, across the metagame, England has overcompensated for its past issues with France and is now unduly empowering Germany rather than bringing its odds against the two countries to parity. [. . .]

I think opening to the Channel is still optimal, but perhaps England should be looking for less committal ways to play the earlygame despite this. For example, I think in most games you should still be moving the Liverpool army to the North Sea coast instead of moving to Wales, and convoying to Norway instead of trying to land in France. Maybe the issue is that a lot of English players take very committal lines against France, following sound advice that France should be disrupted before anything else, and are unable to extricate themselves in the wake of more significant dangers, like an unchecked Germany.

[. . .] I am especially curious to get [BrotherBored]'s take on this development. He rightly identified that England's results in gunboat were very weak, that France was intrinsically very powerful and a natural predator of England, and that flexing England's options in the English Channel would be a key component of fixing England's problems, and I honestly think a lot of this reaction is in response to his theorizing more than anything else (I know my perspective on England/France changed by reading his writings). I wonder if there is a recommendation for France?

It's Because You Read This Blog

I'll accept the idea that I, Your Bored Brother, am a cause of the anti-France Gunboat metagame on webDiplomacy. How could I not?

First, I advocated for certain anti-French play several times on my blog:

Second, in both my Gunboat Journal (where I played as Germany) and my Press Journal (where I played as England), I wrote a considerable amount about the danger of France and my desire to ally my neighbors against France.

And—SPOILER ALERT—in both matches I made sure France was ground to dust.

Third, this blog is getting popular. I have promoted this blog a little bit on webDiplomacy and a few other places, and I have also noticed that players are sharing this blog with each other. Google Analytics shows me that thousands of people from all over the world keep up with this blog.

While we're on this topic...

The Results of My Private Gunboat League

I have a private Gunboat Diplomacy league that consists almost entirely of my family and friends. We've played 53 matches together since February 2017. I keep records of all the results, and track all sorts of statistics about the results. What self-respecting nerd would pass up the chance?

(Be aware: we play with Draw-Size Scoring, so France's tactical ability to get into draws with just a few centers is relevant to these results.)

France is the MVC

One thing I track is each player's "MVC" (most-valuable country). The MVC stat is defined as the country with which that player has the best average results. In other words, I break down each player's results by country so that the players can see which countries are their best and worst. Among the ten players who have played more than 10 matches, here are the tabulations for each player's respective MVC:

England: 1
France: 6
Germany: 1
Russia: 1
Italy: 0
Austria: 1
Turkey: 0

France is the MVC for more than half of these consistent players. Also, take note that among the 6 players who have France as their MVC are the top two and bottom two competitors in the league. So in this league, whether a player has been successful or unsuccessful does not predict whether that player's MVC will be France.

France has top Elo Rating

I have also kept track of an Elo rating for each country (as though each country itself were a player), with starting values of 1000:

1. France, 1082
2. England, 1051
3. Italy, 1048
4. Germany, 1027
5. Austria, 991
6. Turkey, 940
7. Russia, 861
(Note that since this is an Elo system, the more-recent matches factor in more heavily.)

France has a lead, but it is not insurmountable. Isn't it interesting that England and Italy are not far behind?

France has the best historical performance

And here are the the all-time results with all matches weighted equally. These point values are arbitrary. The idea here is that the countries start off with 0 points, and they trade points to each other according to the draw-size scoring results (so this is a zero-sum system).

1. France, 237.67
2. England, 71.50
3. Italy, 54.33
4. Germany, -12.33
5. Russia, -25.50
6. Turkey, -100.83
7. Austria, -172.00
(The last 4 are negative values, so only France, England, and Italy have an overall positive record.)

By this metric, the gap between France and the other powers is staggering. It would probably take years' worth of bad results for France to be displaced from the top of this list.

Comparing this data with the Elo ratings makes me think that France was once extremely strong at the start of the league and has declined over time (yet remains #1).

What Do My League Results Show?

Chew on this: except for one player who became my friend through webDiplomacy years ago, I personally trained these players to play Gunboat Diplomacy. The other 9 players are myself, my Diplomacy apprentice, and my family and friends (who never played Diplomacy until I taught them).

Given that this league is a product of my own mind, and that 90% of the significant players have been trained to play by Your Bored Brother, wouldn't you expect France to have terrible results?

How is it that the results of a gunboat Diplomacy league composed almost entirely of players trained by the progenitor of the anti-French metagame show France as the indisputable #1 strongest power in that league?

You'll have to take my word for it, but I am even more un-subtle about my anti-French views with players I privately tutor as I have been on this blog (up until now—read on!). If you spoke to the players who I taught to play for this league, they would—to a person—parrot my views about France's inherent strength and the need for anti-French opening play by England, Germany and Italy.

Could it be that France is just that strong? That even in a closed universe of players with anti-French views, France is the strongest power in Gunboat Diplomacy?

Please take note that according to two of the three metrics I provided above, England, Germany and Italy are the best-performing powers in my league (aside from France). I take this to mean that my league has players who know how to play well as England, Germany, and Italy, and that we have a metagame with favorable conditions for those powers (i.e., an anti-French metagame).

Yes. France is Just. That. Strong.

I often play high-level Gunboat matches. My experiences competing in those matches contributed to my view about France's power. My view has hardened with time. Even when several of France's neighbors attack France at the same time, there are all sorts of defensive tactics France can use to bide time. France can recover from these defensive situations to explosive offensive power. And if France is not contained early on, France has the strongest ability to solo win of any power in gunboat. (Read more in my Tier List post.)

I have never experienced anything, and I don't think I ever will, to change my view on France's raw power in gunboat Diplomacy.

Despite creating an anti-France metagame, I still think France is the best power for me to draw. I think my chances of getting into a draw are high, and my chances of solo winning are the highest.

An Anti-French Metagame Balances England vs. France

Something really stands out to me about the data from my Gunboat league: England is basically in second place. I bet if we play 50 more matches across the next 2 years, our anti-French metagame will allow England to creep over France in some of these metrics. I believe that, in my league, the C-Tier power England has arrived at second place due to the league's anti-French metagame. I stand by my assessment that England is a C-Tier power; I think England is inherently weak in Gunboat. Thus, I think that an anti-French metagame balances the power of England and France, and does not, by itself, elevate England above France's power.

Speaking strategically, I think England's chances of making it into a draw or solo winning are highest if England contains (and especially if England destroys) France. It doesn't matter to me that Germany is also beneficiary of this policy. As England, I would rather have a mid-game showdown vs. Germany than a showdown vs. France. Notice the absence of one of my favorite words, "usually." I really do mean that I outright prefer to fight France first and Germany second:

France, like England, is a naval power and thus England's natural rival.
France's is physically closer to England (count the number of spaces between Brest and London and compare that to the number between Kiel and London).
France does not necessarily have to get into a conflict with Italy, and Italy almost always has to face danger from Austria and/or Turkey (at least in Gunboat).

Meanwhile:

Germany is a land power and therefore doesn't necessarily antagonize England.
Germany is not as close to England as France is.
Germany often gets antagonized by southern powers, particularly Russia and Austria.

I am un-moved by the idea that Germany can become a threat to me as England once France is down for the count. Sure. Of course. But that danger is far, far, far less concerning to me than the idea of fighting a France in mid-game who is at a similar level of power.

In my opinion, the ideal English solo win plan in Gunboat (and a decent strategy in Press Diplomacy) is to destroy France in alliance with Germany, break into the Mediterranean, and then betray Germany around that time. (You can read my explanation behind that strategy here, and then read the rest of the journal to watch me get very close to succeeding with it.)

Alliance with France can be a good strategy in Press Diplomacy, but in Gunboat you're just going to get attacked by France as soon as France can get away with it.

What About Poor France?

So it seems that many players on webDiplomacy are taking my advice as England, Germany, and Italy to do various anti-French openings and alliances. Good for them! I'm glad they think they have something to learn from me.

The thread on the webDiplomacy forum is also about how a French player might fight off the anti-French metagame. A noble effort. There's so much to say. And one day, when I find the time, I'll create a thorough guide for playing as France.

As far as game balance goes, I think an anti-French metagame does NOT tilt the balance of the game against France. Yes, anti-French play is bad for France. But I think that even fighting against anti-French headwinds in the metagame, France is still the #1 strongest power. I think France is just that strong in Gunboat Diplomacy.

If you feel like you're getting crushed over and over again as France...it's not just because there is an anti-French metagame. It is because you don't understand how to play well as France.

What distinguishes your matches (where France consistently gets smashed) from the ones played in my private league (where France is the #1 dominant power) is not the metagame; I taught my players the same anti-French ideas that I taught the rest of the Diplomacy community. What distinguishes the matches is that I tutored my friends, family, and apprentice on how to kick ass when they draw France, and I have never published these teachings for your benefit.

I urge you to reject the idea that the solution to your woes as France is to try to counter my alteration of the Gunboat metagame. Instead, embrace the idea that your solution is to learn how to play France better and take advantage of all that inherent power France has in Gunboat Diplomacy.

The Anti-France Metagame15 min read