Diplomacy Dojo Episode 7: Soloing as Italy21 min read

Intro 00:00

The Diplomacy Dojo is a weekly discussion, led by Your Bored Brother, about Diplomacy tactics and strategies. Let’s listen in on what our players are discussing this week.

BrotherBored 0:15  

Okay, let’s go on to the next topic of how to solo as Italy. So I think this is a really interesting question; because at the outset, experienced Diplomacy players, like the really good players, often really liked to play Italy. And that’s true of me as well. I consider myself to be a good diplomacy player, and I also like Italy a lot. I think that at a high level of play, Italy solo wins a lot more often than most players are used to experiencing. So in your typical, or low-level, average game of Diplomacy, Italy has a pretty good chance of making it into a draw. Like, okay, you know, if you play your cards right, you should have a really good chance of making it into a draw. That’s because Italy straddles all kinds of really critical stalemate line positions. In many matches, the match will come down to who controls Portugal or Marseille, or Tunis, or Munich, or something like that; Italy has the ability to be there and influence that outcome in many matches. So Italy has a good shot at a draw, people understand that. 

Also, Italy is rarely attacked immediately. Austria very rarely attacks Italy in 1901. That’s extremely rare. It’s rare for France to come after Italy that early. So you get some time to let the game play out a little bit, and that increases your chances of making it into a draw, because few players just try to blow you away immediately. But it’s surprising to some people to hear that Italy is a pretty good power at getting solo wins in a high-level game of Diplomacy. And that strong diplomacy players enjoy playing Italy, or even prefer to play Italy. That’ll be strange to them, they think, “Italy stinks! You just get to four centers, and then you just do nothing for six years, and then either lose or draw,” they’ll say something like that. 

And so, referencing back to what I said just a moment ago about Russia and choosing a strategy that plays to the strengths of that power: To solo win consistently as Italy requires you to play the game in such a way that is conducive to an Italian solo win, and that means taking advantage of the fact that few powers are going to come after Italy early, and take advantage of the fact that Italy is positioned in this very, very central spot on the board. 

That means finding ways—in my opinion, as a Diplomacy player—to fling your units all over the map. You don’t have to concentrate them into a ball for defense, and you don’t have to concentrate them into a spear for offense. So like, when I’m playing Turkey, I often am trying to concentrate all my units in the Mediterranean or a bunch of armies up in the north, somehow I can concentrate them so that I can keep relentlessly marching forward and make progress; or when I’m playing defensively like I’m France, I’m on the defense, I want to form a little offensive unit at Burgundy, Mid-Atlantic Ocean or something. 

And Italy doesn’t need to do those things. Italy can, you can play Italy defensively, and you can go offensive all out in one direction. But players will typically find that that doesn’t very likely result in a win if you do that. So instead, you take advantage of the fact that most players don’t want to attack Italy early on, and are looking for other things to do. Don’t give them a reason to attack you. Send your armies and your fleets into interesting areas of the board and get yourself involved in the different conflicts. 

This will give you incredible diplomatic influence as the powers jockey to get that support: “Hey, here’s my fleet over here in the western Mediterranean sea! I could support hold France to defend Mid Atlantic Ocean or I could support England into Mid-Atlantic Ocean.” “Hey, here’s this army in Piedmont maybe I’m going to attack Marseille—Psych! I’m actually moving to Tyrolia.” “Hey Germany, maybe I’m gonna attack Munich, maybe I’m not. Oh, actually, well, I moved into Bohemia.” And you can then as the players, or one player, gets too powerful, you have units in position to balance out that power. If there’s a player who’s playing in a way that’s not to your liking, you’ll have units in a position to influence them.

It is possible to, by like 1903 or 1904, just have four or five centers, and be involved in every single aspect of the match. And by getting units, eventually, somewhere, somehow, someone’s going to want to support those units into centers and be like, “Oh, Germany, I mean, I’ll support you into Warsaw,” or “I’ll support you into Berlin,” or “I’ll support you into Spain,” “I’ll support you into Constantinople,” something like that. They’ll want you—it won’t be defensible. You won’t have a concentration of forces that’s capable of holding those centers under your own might, but that’ll give you a few more units, and you can sort of horse trade centers around. 

And what this will do is, in the long run, when you decide to really make an attack, to bring somebody down, you’ll have units very far away from your starting position. You could have an army over in Livonia, or an army that’s over in Burgundy, or a fleet that’s up in, like, Norwegian Sea. By having played this way, you have these units—a few units—that are flung to distant areas of the map. What you’ve used, is you’ve used the time you had at the beginning of the game where you weren’t in much danger, and you didn’t create any threat to anybody that they would come after you. You use that time to create units that will eventually become “Raiders.” 

Are you familiar with the term Raider? Yeah, a raider is a unit that’s behind the enemy defensive line that can break support holds or capture centers that aren’t defended. And this is what enables an Italian solo win, or even makes it inevitable, when Italy reaches let’s say, 12 or 13 centers. Because if you’re an Italy that’s got 12 centers, one of which is Denmark, or something like that, oh my gosh, it’s going to be almost impossible for the other players to do anything about it. You now can concentrate your forces and you’ve got one or even two Raiders that are preventing them from forming any defensive positions. And if you’re smart, and you know how to play Diplomacy, you’ll say, “Okay, if a stalemate line is impossible to form, then I should just eventually win if they can’t form a stalemate line once I have a sufficient number of units.” 

And so the way to play Italy is to focus on positions and getting—and if you reach that point where most of the powers are still alive, nobody else has consolidated power, and then a solo win becomes possible. And you can see the style of play that I just described is not very natural to most Diplomacy players. It’s very different from how you would play the other six powers. It doesn’t feel intuitive, it doesn’t feel right, like, “Oh, I’m just sending my units away. I’m not doing anything. I’m not making captures,” but you’re getting influence, and you’re building strategic power, that’s gonna matter later on. 

So for example, although I did not solo win, a solo win might have been possible for me if the game had played out slightly differently. In my second round, the semi-finals of the ODC 2019, I got Italy. And I had units that were menacing Turkey, units up in the center of the map up in no man’s land, and I had something to—I had dealings with all the other powers and everyone was trying to get me to attack everybody else. I ended the match with the Turkish home centers and the German home centers. I had armies in Munich, Berlin, and I believe I had Kiel. I think I had all three German home centers. And as it were, Austria, my main ally, had consolidated a lot of power and therefore, wasn’t really a viable backstab target without something bad happening. However, it could have been different. If I had initiated my solo win attempt by backstabbing Austria, with already control of the three German home centers, it would have been very difficult for the other powers to stop me; because even if they knocked me out of Kiel, I still had Munich and Berlin, that’s two centers on the northern side of the stalemate line. Even if they’d knocked me out of one of those, I still have one that I might be able to defend long enough.

And at that time, England and France were still at war and England was mostly intact, and they had not—there’s not much trust between them. It was possible; it was totally possible if the match had played out slightly differently. The Austrian player was very good, and also only, I think, missed making it to the final round with me by just a small number of points and came in eight instead of seven to make it to the final round. So it makes sense to me that a player of such calibre wouldn’t have given me an opportunity to backstab and get the solo win. But that’s an example. The last time I played Italy in a Press Diplomacy match that I can recall, I played that way, and it was very effective, and very fun.

You do want to make sure you’re maintaining your center counts somehow. You’re not gonna win if you only ever have four or five, but which centers they are in particular, is not so important. 

You can definitely use Gunboat Diplomacy strategies in Press Diplomacy, but there are many more options available in Press Diplomacy. So the main standard option that’s not available in Gunboat, but is a really intriguing prospect in Press Diplomacy, is the “Wintergreen” Alliance strategy, the alliance with Russia. Because you can have conversations with Russia from the very beginning, even though you don’t have much that you can coordinate, and develop a plan where you’re going to play Austria and Turkey one off the other, and then bring down both of them dow once they’re entangled, or really fighting, or kill them off one at a time. This is a very strong strategy because the other players will have a very hard time detecting it. Since Italy and Russia are natural allies and don’t—they have nothing really to fight over; they have nothing to fight over at the beginning of the game, and they might not be helping each other in a way that’s very clear.

The other thing is that Austria—I mean that Russia and Italy can agree to just take down Austria right away and in Press Diplomacy, you might be able to hose Austria, and both of you say, “Hey, let’s take out Turkey, yeah,” and then just attack. You know, make a DMZ and Galicia, Russia violates it. Italy promises not to attack, Italy moves immediately into Tyrolia, and then you start making supported attacks on Austria and bring Austria down fast. It’s risky for Italy to do that, because of course, if it turns out Juggernaut is going to happen (the alliance with Russia and Turkey), then you’ll regret having destroyed Austria so fast.

But that’s not something you can do in Gunboat, you can’t hatch a plot with Russia at all. It’s not possible. There’s not easy—there’s no secret signal you can send; even if you communicate to Russia with your moves, Austria and Turkey can still see this. Whereas, in Press Diplomacy, you can hatch a secret plot with Russia, and have some complicated plans, or backstab players at the same time. That’s something that I think, as an Italian player, to take very seriously in Press Diplomacy. If Russia seems like a decent ally to you, and they seem sincere about doing this, then that can be the way to go.

Another thing is that in Gunboat Diplomacy, I consider it to be insane, crazed to attack Germany early on as Italy. In Gunboat Diplomacy, Germany is a natural ally of Italy, in the sense that neither of them has much overlap in their solo win plans. Or it’s the least amount of overlap that Italy has with some other power. And although Russia is truly Italy’s more natural ally, in the strategic sense, Russia is destroyed so fast, often in Gunboat Diplomacy, or weakened beyond help, that Italy can’t really rely on, or count on, some help from Russia. So since Germany’s pretty strong in Gunboat Diplomacy, that’s a more realistic power to balance out the power dynamics when things get dangerous. If Germany does well, then Italy is likely to do well or at least get in a draw, if the game ends in a draw. Therefore, taking out Germany early is going to result in a couple of things in Gunboat; it’s going to result in you not keeping any of those gains that you got. You are going to be kicked out very quickly by England or France; all you did was just supercharge probably England; probably England just been supercharged by what you did and you’re not gonna have anything to show for it, and getting that far out of position often results in Austria or Turkey just attacking you, because in Gunboat players are a lot more aggressive. 

So in Press Diplomacy, I say, consider alliances with France or England, or even Russia, that involve attacking Germany early because you can use your press to secure your situation with Austria or Turkey. The players might not just immediately drive you back out of those centers, etc. But in Gunboat Diplomacy, I would say just never, ever do it, do not under any… It’s not wise; you’re not going to win. I recommend against attacking Austria immediately as Italy in Gunboat Diplomacy if you want to solo win. I recommend against attacking Germany as Italy if you want to survive. It’s a whole level worse than immediately attacking Austria. 

Players do it. I see it. They don’t do well, but I see them try. I think it’s because they get bored or desperate. They don’t understand what they’re supposed to do as Italy so they just do something maniacal and attack Germany immediately, or they miss-learned a lesson from Press Diplomacy. They saw that work out well. I spoke fondly of a game where I thought I did pretty good as Italy, a high level press game, that involved me invading Germany completely. Not in 1901, but pretty early on, I attacked Germany at Munich, and then went on, subsequently went on to attack all the German home centers, and it worked out for me,. But I wouldn’t try something like that in Gunboat Diplomacy, I wouldn’t dare.

I think it was possible that I could solo win from there because I would have had to, I would have had an opportunity to backstab Austria, who was my main ally, in order to get the win. And Austria played in such a way that made it very difficult because if I had backstabbed, it probably have would resulted in Austria just putting up a defense for such a super long time that I wouldn’t have been able to win, but if Austria had misplayed, or I had lured Austria into lowering their defenses, somehow, something along those lines. Which is typically how you’re going to win, in Press Diplomacy, anyway, is setting up for an incredible backstab against your main ally at the opportune moment. Then I would have started my solo win run with three centers and three armies on the other side of the stalemate. Many times in Diplomacy, when I’m trying to begin a solo win run, I have maybe a chance at capturing a center on the other side of the stalemate line, or I have exactly one that I feel like is pretty defensible, maybe I’ll go for it. 

So let’s say that you were, let’s just think for a moment, let’s say that you were Turkey, and you controlled Munich, Berlin, and Kiel. Wouldn’t you say, “Oh my God!” You’re about to win, if you control that stuff as Turkey, or you control that as Austria. And it’s a similar thing going on with Italy. To control so much on the other side of the stalemate line, the traditional north-south stalemate line, is very advantageous. And I was able to do that without terrorizing the board or causing Austria to change sides, because my total number of centers wasn’t that high.

In one of my recent articles on my blog, for solo win tips, “Get Big Without Getting Scary,” or get strong without getting scary, I forget exactly… the point is, how do you stop people from changing sides as you start capturing supply centers? And one of my most important pieces of advice is, I think one of the most important aspects of these tips: The supply centers are not all worth the same, some are worth much more than others. You could have nine or 10 supply centers but have an incredible level of power because you have the most important ones already. So other players don’t perceive just how good your position is. So to have a way to play Italy, in a way that will enable you to solo win, is to get these distance supply centers or centers that cross the stalemate line, or to get your Raiders in position, so you’re getting so much strategic power, without being at, let’s say, 15 or 16 supply centers so it’s really obvious that you’re going to solo win, or that you could solo win and players will line up to stop you. Italy has this really big opportunity to pull this off. 

If your first three centers as Italy or Portugal, Spain, and Marseille, you’ve got, let’s say, seven now. You’ve got seven centers, but you’re probably indestructible having achieved those positions. From there, you could easily move east while defending those positions; because as you well know from your experience, a France who has only has Portugal, Spain, and Marseille can last for years, and years, and years. So of course you could defend for a while as Italy if you control those centers and concentrate east. Or alternatively, you could throw more and more forces west and become a kind of a fake France, who’s capable of getting reinforcements out from inside the Mediterranean or something like that. That’s like a “once in a blue moon” strategy as Italy, to concentrate everything on west and roll up France. I’ve done it. If you can get that initial part to happen where you become fake France, you probably could win from there; because most players don’t understand how to form a stalemate line that’s capable of blocking you. And so, if you’re Italy and you have all your four or whatever, starting centers, and you’ve got four or five of the French starting centers, so to speak, so maybe you’ve got eight or nine. It doesn’t sound that intimidating, “Oh, nine supply centers, that person’s not even close winning!” Even though like actually, you’re super-duper strong, you might be able to win from that position. So that’s a reason why that’s advantageous.

Consistent with this advice that I’m talking about, to focus on making captures that have much more strategic value than the number of centers would imply. That’s why I advise so much against attacking Austria as the first target because the Balkan centers have minimal strategic value. There are seven of them, the three Austrian home centers and the four neutrals; there are seven centers in the Balkans. So your count of supply centers will balloon to a huge number as you capture all the Balkans, and basically, none of them have any strategic value to Italy. They’re relatively easy to capture. They don’t give you a position that helps you. They don’t help you invade Turkey, really, they don’t help you… You’ll get to 13, and then everyone will stop you. 

Although both groups of centers are defensible, the French centers are very difficult to capture during endgame because they are defended easily, whereas the Turkish centers don’t fall behind many defensive lines. So there are a lot of boards where Turkey has, let’s say—or not just Turkey, but the three Turkish home centers and Anatolia are not, they’re not terribly defensible during endgame, actually. During early game and mid-game, they’re very defensible, but during endgame, it’s quite difficult to form a defensive line that’s impenetrable. It is possible; to put it another way, if I’m Italy, and I need, “Okay, I need three centers for the win,” and if those three centers are the Turkish home centers, I’m feeling pretty good. If those three centers are Marseille, Portugal, and Spain, I’m thinking, “Okay, well, I’m not going to win.”

If you have the Wintergreen alliance with Russia, a lot of times Russia is going to want some, or even all, of the Turkish centers, and that’s a pretty… That’s what Russia is bargaining for. Russia wants those centers, too, most Russian players appreciate that the Turkish home centers are much more valuable than some Balkans centers. So that’ll often be where the negotiation in that Alliance really gets interesting. Okay, is Italy going to get Smyrna? What about Constantinople? If Russia wants two of the Turkish home centers, or three of them; and what’s Italy getting into compensation? And so on. There’s a lot of different ways that it could play out. 

You will probably have to wisely backstab Russia and start rolling up Russia’s gains before Russia can put them into a defensive position. So Italy is different from the other countries where I say that they’re, hey, you know… Like, France has an “A” plan. “A” plan: if I can pull it off, I’ll invade all of Great Britain, take those centers and then go for the win, you know that’s an “A” plan. Turkey’s got and “A” plan maybe, but Italy, I don’t see thinking like that as conducive to being successful as Italy and applying that kind of logic… Those players like, “I just got to invade Austria, that’s what you got to do.” No, I mean, you can, but if you start the match with that in mind before seeing what happens, before talking to the players, no, you’re not going to have a good game as Italy. It’s precisely the flexibility and opportunism and playing up to that, gives Italy the best opportunity to solo. Alright, maybe I’ll see you next week.

Outro 23:08  

If you enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe and review the podcast on iTunes. To learn more from Your Bored Brother and to participate in the Dojo, visit brotherbored.com. Thanks to loyalty freak music for the theme music, “It feels good to be alive too.”