Diplomacy Dojo Episode 11: Increase Your Solo Win Chances by Taking Far Centers First28 min read

Intro 0:00  

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 0:16  

00:17 Hunter’s here with me on the diplomacy dojo. How’s it going, Hunter?

Hunter 00:21 

I’m doing well.

BrotherBored 00:22

Alright, do you have things on your mind today that you would like to go over?

Hunter 0:25  

Well, one thing I was interested is Germany, so personally, when I play as Germany, I find it’s difficult to take centers like, you know, Austria has or you know, in the Far East, like Sevastopol. So normally when I try to solo as Germany, I feel like I kind of need Iberia, but if that’s not an option because France is strong or something,

BrotherBored 0:46  

Okay, so it sounds like we could discuss how Germany might take Far Eastern supply centers, how would that be possible under, what scenarios, etc.?

Hunter 0:57  

There’s also something else I’m wondering, so a lot of people, so I’m wondering, a lot of people say that, you know, for Germany, it’s really important to get Italy and Austria to, you know, be peaceful with each other.

BrotherBored 01:11 

And you’d like to discuss whether we collectively think that is true.

Hunter 01:15 

Yeah, but the thing is, I noticed, I mean, in some cases, I suppose if Italy attacks Austria that could make Russia, to Turkey too strong, but it’s some other games, I’ve noticed that when Italy attacks last year early, later on in some of the games, I’ve seen this, this allowed Turkey to take centers like Vienna and Budapest with Italy’s help, but I suppose Italy could just go after Austria later, though.

BrotherBored 1:36  

So is the focal point of the question, or the topic, the impact of Italy, Austria Alliance on Germany.

Hunter 1:46  

I suppose they are two topics, so one is how can Germany take Far Eastern centers? And another one is, you know, is the common wisdom of getting Italy and Austria working together, actually good for Germany?

BrotherBored 1:59  

Got it, that makes sense. And what else do we have today?

Hunter 2:02  

Well, one thing, I mean, I guess we could talk about Turkey a little bit more. The thing is, I’ve soloed his turkey a few times, but I think when I did that, you know, the other players made really bad mistakes, though. Like, for example, in one of my games as Turkey, England just post into the public press, you know, Germany screwed me and is now blaming me for his impending loss, let the bloodbath begin, and then they just started fighting and you know, didn’t really do anything to stop me. I’m not really sure if that’s a clear topic, but, I’m just wondering how to solo as Turkey when people are actually competent.

BrotherBored 02:37 

Okay, that makes sense.

Hunter 02:39 

Because I’ve never I’ve like, the only times I’ve actually soloed as Turkey is when people made big mistakes, so I’m wondering if maybe I should discuss strategy in case that doesn’t happen.

BrotherBored 2:48  

Okay, so that’s three good topics. I say, let’s take them in the order presented. So the first is for Germany, how can I take Far Eastern supply centers? And this is an interesting question that you raise because for me, personally because it is one that I keep asking myself to contextualize my point of view. I have played many high level games as Germany, where I came really, really close to getting a solo win, but got stuck at 16 or 17. And I have been thinking about whether I might try strategizing differently, and try to get much further into the East earlier in the game, or else much further into the West. And I just recently finished publishing content related to the Media Awards game, which is a match that ended a little while ago. That’s a high-profile game. In that game, I tried to go as far west as possible, at one point even convoying an army to North Africa, to try to consolidate all power in the West and use Tunis as my 18 centre. I was not able to do so but it was pretty dang close. The alternative of going very far in the east is something that eludes me. I have seen other players do it plenty of times. I have seen German players who control lines like Vienna, Budapest, Romania, Sevastopol, I’ve seen stuff like that. Based on my experiences trying to play Germany I think that is, that is nuts. How did the players tolerate this?

Hunter 4:38  

Yeah; because I’ve seen some games where Germany just, they have Vienna, Budapest, and Sevastopol. They managed to take Brest and Paris, but they didn’t need any of Iberia to solo with.

BrotherBored 4:50  

I can’t speak with great authority on this topic because this is something that I aspire to do. I have not done it very often, and I am trying to think on how I could do better at it. So I can tell you some of my ideas for how to do this, but I don’t know if they hold water.

Hunter 05:11 

Well, I haven’t been able to do it either.

BrotherBored 05:15 

So one of these ideas is to try to take advantage of a Western Triple Alliance, which is one that I normally think of as very disadvantageous for Germany. I usually think that out of the Western triple, which is the England, France, Germany, Alliance, Germany is the most likely one to get cut out of the Alliance. That’s, that’s my experience. That’s my strategic intuition, but a Western Triple Alliance would give Germany an opportunity to move in force deep into the East early in the match. The other players probably wouldn’t expect it, probably wouldn’t be prepared for it, and Germany would have an excuse to do this, because it’s assuming that France and England are indeed Germany allies, they will give Germany the breathing room necessary to send enough armies that way.

Hunter 06:13 

Okay.

BrotherBored 06:14

Have you ever played Western Triple Alliance ever?

Hunter 06:18 

Only as England.

BrotherBored 06:20 

It’s a great Alliance for England.

Hunter 6:21  

Yeah, and I never proposed that somebody else did.

BrotherBored 6:26  

Another idea that I have is I think that Turkey and Italy are somewhat underrated allies of Germany, that usually with Turkey and Germany; the players just don’t interact and don’t have much of a reason to fight. And Italy in Germany, they often, maybe they work together to fight against France, but there’s often not much directly helping each other. And so if you can get in a situation where as Germany you think that Turkey or Italy, or I guess I’m saying this is a hypothetical.

I am imagining that if I found a game where I felt like I could really depend on Italy or Turkey as a very serious ally of me, Germany, maybe I could send a few units into the east to help fight against Austria, with an understanding that I expect to get some of these supply centers and their perspective as well, no, no, I get the supply centers that there, I get Vienna and Budapest, then Alright, well, then I’m not coming in there to help you just to help you take down Austria, that doesn’t really benefit me.

And so look for a situation where a player might want to do that is there are they out there? Is there an Italian player who will say, “Hey, yeah, I’ll support you into Vienna”. Maybe there is, or maybe a Turkish player would help me into Budapest, that’s another idea.

In matches that I’ve observed, where Germany makes a pretty deep penetration into the East, is usually because there’s an alliance with France, either started off as what seemed like a Western triple, or there was just a straight-up French Germany Alliance, but the Alliance was so strong that the players didn’t betray each other to try to get a solo win early on, or there was a very threatening power in the south that they ground down quite a bit. That can result in an end game state where Germany has a lot of Eastern centers; so let’s say for example, in a scoring system, where that cares about the number of supply centers players have in a draw, and you’re dealing with a France, Germany, Turkey, are the strongest powers, it seems, that was an incentive that I observed as to why those players tolerated Germany getting centers in the east as they were trying to roughly equalize their centers, they would all agree to the draw. It probably doesn’t get the result that you’re ultimately looking for, which is to win.

Hunter 09:08 

Yeah.

BrotherBored 09:09

Without taking those centers, so I don’t consider that informative of the situation. The other situation I have observed is Germany making a really strong, really powerful attack against Russia early that succeeds. I don’t know, let’s Russia’s horribly out of position, let’s say in 1902, or by the end of 1903, Germany has Warsaw, Sevastopol, and maybe Russia only has I mean, sorry, Warsaw in Moscow, and Russia only has, you know, an army in Romania, and a fleet in Sevastopol left or something like that. The way that Germany could consolidate power in the East without a Western triple is to destroy Russia early while France and England lock horns; that France and England, I have seen where they just fight each other inconclusively, meanwhile, Germany conquers all of Russia and feels good, I guess about England and France just continuing to fight and Germany doesn’t intervene very much and tries to make more conquests in the east. The reason why that seems, I also have observed that why that doesn’t feel like a very likely strategy is that in most well-played diplomacy games, I feel like in that situation, for instance, England would have started working together at that point. They would find a way to work together, while Germany has amassed so much power; and I don’t think I’ve seen that in high level games. I think I’ve only seen that in games with some players who are not very good. Do you have any ideas for how you might take Far Eastern centers?

Hunter 10:43  

Well, I do think I read a guide once about Germany. I mean, I myself, I agree with you, I thought it high level games, this probably wouldn’t work, but he did suggest, you know, just going east. Well, you know, for instance, in England and France get into a fight with each other. I mean, I’ve seen French players that who when England opens the channel, they just, you know, refuse to ever work with England ever again, no matter what.

BrotherBored 11:07  

No, I think that’s fair to say. I think taking Russia out early, if you think that England and France aren’t going to attack, it can be a wise early game strategy, at least impressed diplomacy. I’m kind of reluctant to do that in gunboat, but impressed diplomacy, I think that that can be worthwhile.

Okay, let’s go to the next topic about whether the Italy-Austria Alliance really does benefit Germany? I think the answer is yes. I think in Italy-Austria Alliance does benefit Germany, but I don’t think that, it’s not required. It’s not required for there to be an Italy, Austria lines for Germany to do well. I think just speaking in total, plain, geopolitical terms, not talking about the players themselves. If I want to know anything about the players, I would say, as Germany, what I would like to see is for Austria to go east and lock down Russia, and for Italy to intervene with France and help me out or at least menace France enough that France isn’t able to do very much, and then see kind of a late-game breakthrough by Turkey; so that the south, Italy, Austria, Turkey, Mediterranean area is in shambles when I’m trying to go for a solo when in the end of the game. Something like that, something like that, to me is the ideal scenario.

Building off of that ideal scenario, if Italy attacks Austria early on successfully, this often means that Russia gains a lot of strength. Because even if the gains from the Balkans centers go to Italy and Turkey, and Russia don’t get very many centers, the threat to Russia is smaller. From Italian and Turkish forces fighting over the Balkans then if Austria is still viable as a power, because Austria can build-in in the Austrian home centers and haul off to attack Russia pretty quickly. Russia’s threatened by Austria, more so than by Italy having Austrian centers or turkey having Austrian centers, especially if Italy and Turkey are both in the match. Does that make sense?

Hunter 13:35 

Yes.

BrotherBored 13:36

And on top of that, Russia may get some of those centers; Russia might get Vienna and or Budapest, in which case Russia could be significantly stronger. If Russia’s got a line from Vienna, Budapest, Romania to Sevastopol, that’s a very defensible position, and can free up a lot of Russian energy to come into the north where Russia competes with Germany for Scandinavia or just attacks Germany outright. And it’s not that hard for Russia to attack Germany outright from a position like that because an army in Vienna combined with an army movement from Warsaw, combined with a fleet movement into Baltic Sea, all of a sudden Germany is completely indefensible, if your forces are extended fighting France and England, which can happen. With those things in mind, it’s nice to see Austria, go east and fight Russia or at least be a menace to Russia so that Russia is not strong and has to leave some kind of defense; and Austria is going to do that early game if Austria believes Italy to be a friend.

And similarly, there’s something going on with Italy where France is pretty hard to break down early on. Germany needs help from at least one other neighbor. The help could come from England, but it also could come from Italy; and working together with Italy to fight France. You can break France; you could actually get in there and start taking centers. At the very least, Italy menacing France somehow will prevent France from making all-out attacks in the north, which are not good for Germany.

There are alternative ways to fight France; I don’t need to get into all that. What I’m trying to say is that Italy going west to harass or to attack France is consistent with an Italy Austria Alliance as well. So if the first thing that happens in the game, is that Italy is messing around with France, at least with a few units, and Austria is messing around with Russia, at least with a few units, then now, two of Germany’s major neighbors, technically Italy and Austria are neighbors to Germany, but they’re very rarely game threat. The bigger, the more threatening early game neighbors France and Russia, they’re really unlikely to attack Germany, definitely unlikely to attack Germany together and now Germany’s got a lot of options. Germany could work with or against Russia, could work with or against France, could attack England or ally England. That’s a really good strategic situation.

In the long run, if the Italy Austria Alliance is very strong, they trust each other a lot, they are not that backstabbing and they are successful, then that can impede Germany’s ability to solo win, because Austria can consolidate power and worse on Moscow center. Germany likely needs to win and an even menace Germany’s home centers at Munich and Berlin, and similarly, Italy can consolidate control of Marseilles and Iberia; and if Italy has that, it’s very hard for Germany to take that by force alone, and Germany likely need some of those centers to be able to solo win as well.

So in the very long run in Italy, Austria Alliance is going to prevent Germany from getting a solo win, which is why circle back to what I said earlier, that late-game breakthrough by Turkey is beneficial because if turkey starts getting a little bit stronger towards the end of the game, that can really interfere with Italy and Austria doing those, Italy and or Austria doing those defenses of those centers. I talked about the stretch goals that Germany needs to win, that’s going to be a lot more challenging, if there’s a threatening neighbor in their region.

If there’s a tight Italy, Austria Alliance, very tight, they don’t menace each other, they don’t betray, I think that ultimately favors England the most. I think England has really benefited quite a lot from that; because both England and Germany will have France and Russia crushed, most likely in the end, but Germany’s home centers are up for grabs, from a tight Italy, Austria Alliance and England’s generally are not. They may have had some experience in matches where the tight Italy Austria eventually results in Germany going down, but in the early game, I think it is beneficial to Germany.

And I’ll add one other thing, which is that Austria going down quickly because Italy attacked doesn’t necessarily mean Germany is going to have a bad game; because the players after Austria goes down could end up fighting in circles forever, like Italy, Turkey and Russia could keep changing sides and fighting whatever, and that’s all, it all works out. for Germany. I’m just saying that by and large, on average is usually better for Austria to be around for a while for Germany, that’s my opinion. What do you think about that?

Hunter 18:57  

I agree, also I am wondering something else, I think in one of your blog posts with your guide is Germany, I think this is a gunboat guide, but I think it also could have a lot of press. I think you mentioned in maybe 1902, you send army into Tyrolia, and then to Piedmont to try and go after Marseilles yourself. Considering that you have the army in Piedmont, I mean, do you think it might be better just go after France with England and just not have Italy involved and just take it for yourself?

BrotherBored 19:24  

Yes, if Italy is concentrating completely in the south, like maybe Italy’s doing a Lepanto, and is using one army and reserve to defend against a potential Austrian backstab. That’s the situation where you’re most likely to get away with Munich to Tyrolia, to Piedmont, so that you can support yourself into Marseilles or attack Marseilles that way. I think that is a little bit easier to get away with actually, impressed diplomacy because you can talk your way into the situation or trick the players into not covering the centers.

In gunboat diplomacy, some Italian players want to park an army at Piedmont, and they do so early, and if they do that, it can be kind of hard to get in there. So I’ve done this before, and I’ll explain how it can be done in a gunboat game.

In 1902, spring, you move your army in Munich into Tyrolia, with the idea being you’re going to move it to Piedmont;  if there’s an Italian Army in Venice, that army’s usually going to hold, and if there’s an Italian Army in Piedmont, what you’re trying to do here is, is juke them, that the Italian gumbo player goes, “What is this German doing? This is crazy, I better cover Venice just to stop the German from taking it in autumn”, and then they move out of Piedmont and you move into Piedmont.

Hunter 20:48 

I see.

BrotherBored 20:49

But  in a press diplomacy game, you can accomplish that a little more straightforwardly by explaining what you’re trying to do, or getting permission, or something like that, or even just doing the reverse psychology and saying you’re going to move to Venice to bluffed them into moving there .I think it’s a little easier to accomplish in press, but you can do it in gunboat diplomacy, and the Austrian will hate it, and the Italian will hate it, but in the end, getting your army into Marseilles can be a big deal, and being able to fight France, under more of your own power can be strategically advantageous.

One of the disadvantages, and I think this is what you’re alluding to, in fighting France with Italy, is that all you’re likely to see out of it, as Germany, Italy is working with you, is you’ll have some hold on Belgium, I guess, and Paris, and Italy will usually lay claim to Marseilles, Spain and Portugal.

Hunter 21:49 

Yeah.

BrotherBored 21:50

Those are actually the valuable centers. I talk about this a lot on in this dojo, and on my blog about the importance of understanding that the centers do not all have equal value, they have value that’s different. Depending on which power, you are the context of the game, and even just relative to each other. The Iberian centers, and Marseilles are probably, they’re among the most valuable centers in the whole game, because they are extremely defensible. And traversing that area, being able to cross through it one way or the other, is how many matches either result in a solo win because someone does do it, or stop a solo win because someone is prevented from doing it, so it’s a huge area of huge strategic value. So even if you walk away with it, well, I got three supply centers, I got Belgium, Paris, and press and breast, and Italy has got three supply centers, Marseilles, Spain and Portugal. That’s a bum deal.

Hunter 22:46 

Yeah.

BrotherBored 22:47

Italy probably got, gosh, twice, maybe even three times as much value as you did.

Hunter 22:55  

Yeah, and then if that happens, you’ve got to get some centers deep in the east.

 BrotherBored 23:00  

That’s right; it creates a strategic conundrum later because Italy might be able to defend those centers, even better than France did potentially. I think that, typically working with England to take down France makes it a little more likely that Germany will wind up with Marseilles, or Spain maybe. Okay, let’s look at the third topic, how to solo as turkey against competent players? ,

Hunter 23:30  

Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve asked about how to solo as Turkey before but you know, yeah, alright, let’s get into it.

BrotherBored 23:36  

I’ll first say that, of course, there are general techniques that help players solo win, that would apply no matter what power you are. And those will help you when you are Turkey, but I don’t think that’s germane to this conversation, since we want to know like, Well, how do you solo as Turkey? You know what is specifically advantageous for Turkey, or what should you keep in mind when you’re playing as Turkey as opposed to the other powers? And that’s what we want to talk about here.

So the first thing that I consider to be noteworthy is that Turkey, you’re familiar with the concept of a corner power, right?

Hunter 24:14

Yeah.

BrotherBored 24:15 

Okay, since Turkey is a corner power, Turkey has fewer neighbors and is harder to flank. Turkey is, in my opinion, the cornerniest of all of the corner powers. In that, I think Turkey  is the most difficult to flank of all the corner powers, and that is because the flanking area where you have to get around turkeys defenses, switches between the sea and land zones, whereas, the other powers, it’s either all land or all sea. And so, because Turkey has this incredible corner position that is highly defensible, I think Turkey is advantage strategically, by concentrating as much firepower in one direction as possible, and then using your new builds to create whatever defense you need if any. And this is a little different from how to play the other power where maybe you might spread out your forces into a lot of different positions.

So, another thing to keep in mind about Turkey being the corniest of all corner powers is that Turkey’s home centers, that Turkey’s home centers are the most number of moves from the traditional stalemate line position of any home Center. This means that Turkey cannot rely on units that are built in the end of the game to help fight for contestable, stalemate line centers. And let’s say that you just finished defeating Italy and now you’re gonna solo win, if what you have done is you just conquered Tunis and Naples for your 16th and 17th supply centers, you control all of Austria, and Warsaw, and Moscow, you are like, “Okay, now I finished controlling the south and I built my new units. I’m going to go for Marseilles, I’m going to go for Munich, fat chance, against competent players, you will not win. They will block you. It’s really easy to form stalemate lines on those places, and all those units that you built, they’re useless. They’ll never see any action to deal with this. This means that Turkey needs a break through on those centers, much earlier in turkeys solo win effort; and by that, I mean, conquering one or more of those centers well before you’ve reached 17. And what you do is use the new units that you build, like let’s say, I’ve just captured, this turn, I captured Venice and Marseilles and I’ve got two new builds, use those builds to capture centers like Romania, Sevastopol, Moscow, that are much closer.

Hunter 27:10  

I’m wondering, I’m in the games where I sole as Turkey, I got Marseilles, but I think in what you put on your blog, you said it was easier to take Munich rather than Marseilles.

BrotherBored 27:20 

Was this a gunboat game?

Hunter 27:21 

Well, yeah, I suppose, so I guess. Alright, so in gunboat, it’s easier to take Munich.

BrotherBored 27:27 

That is my opinion; but go ahead and tell me what you think.

Hunter 27:29 

Well, so basically, my strategy usually is you go through Austria, go through Italy, take Marseilles, and then you stab Russia. So if you want to take Munich, maybe you just go through Austria and Russia and then grab Munich and then go after Italy.

BrotherBored 27:40  

That’s right, if you have made gains in the central area of the map earlier, then you’re going to have a lot of armies without much to do other than invade Germany.

Hunter 27:55 

I see.

BrotherBored 27:57 

A reason that I think Munich is a, let me back up a minute. When I was first learning to play diplomacy, and I was reading a lot of the old literature that was out there, some of it from the postal days. That’s how I learned to play when I first started playing about 10 years ago. And over time, I have either affirmed, that’s right; I think that’s true for my experience, this advice, or I have deviated from it. There are some things that you know, the metagame of how people play diplomacy was very different back then, I don’t think that advice holds true, or there’s some tactical insights that I think maybe didn’t quite exist back then or who knows what. There are some things that just drift. And one of those ideas that I hold with is an old idea that the most important center on the map, if there’s one center, that’s the most important, it’s Munich. The reason why I think this is, is that Munich is the center in the north, that is most easily contestable by the south, by the southern players. And I think this is because fighting in the south is mostly done with armies, and Munich is relatively straightforward to contest with armies, and is often not locked behind a defensive perimeter by northern powers, and they need a bunch of armies in certain positions to do it, and they’re unlikely to be in those positions.

So when you’re getting stronger and stronger as Turkey, if you make a sudden attack on Munich, then you have a chance. You have a chance of getting an army to Munich and you’re likely to have sufficient concentration of armies on the map that you can surround Munich with armies in Tyrolia, Bohemia, Silesia to try to start support holding it; and even though Munich is not, cannot be stalemated by itself, Munich cannot be stalemated from the south by itself the way Marseilles or Berlin can. What it takes to roll back Munich, to grind it back down from the north, you can maybe have the 18 and solo and before they can stop you.

Hunter 30:23 

I see.

BrotherBored 30:25 

Whereas, the players can put up a defense of Marseilles pretty easily; from the south, Marseilles is only bordered by two spots, Piedmont and Gulf of Lyon. That’s it. And so they can defend Marseilles by simply having a unit in Marseilles and some unit behind it to defend it; and they’re very likely to have units in those positions. That’s a very interesting and contested part of the map, and where players sort of retreat to if they’re on the back foot as well. It’s more likely that Turkey will have the forces in position to go from Munich, and the players not in a position to defend against it, and then some other center, but Marseilles is very doable, especially if Russia was your ally early on.

Hunter 31:13 

I’m wondering, so I think if you want to grab Munich, though, you probably have to go through Russia as well, because most of the time, you know, Russia would probably take Munich in a juggernaut, right?

BrotherBored 31:22  

Yeah, that’s probably right. Taking Munich could be part of your backstab against Russia.

Hunter 31:29 

I see, so you take Munich and then stab them.

BrotherBored 31:32 

Simultaneously, perhaps, or take it together; helping your ally in any situation, cross the stalemate line, although that can be risky because it gives them solo win opportunities. It can also increase your solo win opportunities because mangling the stalemate line might make it harder for the players to defend early on, or for the defenders to stop you when you initiate your solo win attack.

I think that Turkey’s defensive position and Turkey’s corner position is really valuable; and it’s so good that you could mentally add plus two to whatever turkey score is to get a sense of how strong turkey really is. That is to say, when the match starts and hey, you know, Austria got Greece and Bulgaria and Italy got Tunis, Italy’s got four and Austria’s fine, yeah, and turkeys effectively got six because turkeys got the three home centers, plus Bulgaria plus that corner, which doesn’t count as a Supply Center, but it’s worth something. It’s worth something and I think it’s worth about two. And so if you appreciate the game as like, okay, well if turkey started off after 1901 got six units, Italy and Austria would have almost no choice, but to team up and try to take turkey down a peg or two. If turkey literally started the game with six units, they would they would probably feel that they had no choice, and to that, I’d say yes, that’s exactly what’s going on.

So the metagame where most, were many Italian in Austria gunboat players think that what they need to do is team up to either destroy or at least contain Turkey. I think that is a wise play. It’s very beneficial to Italy. It’s not beneficial to Turkey, but why should Italy Austria be choosing a strategy that’s beneficial to Turkey? Okay, I say that’s the end, thanks for coming Hunter. I really appreciate it.

Outro 33:30  

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