Diplomacy Dojo Episode 12: Do You (Germany) Think You’re Better Off Alone?28 min read

Intro

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, we’re now recording Diplomacy Dojo. Hey, everybody thanks for coming. So, Simon, I think this is your first time coming here, is that right?

Simon 0:27  

Yeah, that’s right.

BrotherBored 0:28  

Okay, well, we’re happy to have you. What are some topics that are up for discussion today in the dojo?

Simon 0:35  

Something I’ve been thinking about, actually, I was trying to put together my thoughts on Germany. And I went did some reading, like older articles from my back when the hobby was a play by mail hobby, kind of like the first strategy articles. And there’s always this contention that Germany and Austria are like the best allies all game long, just like best buds, their fates are tied together. They should only play this one country, that type of thought.

I’ve never fully agreed with that because I kind of felt like Germany and Austria actually pretty potent mid-game rivals. So I was kind of interested, if you had any thoughts on, like, how Germany foster a relationship kind of evolved throughout the games. I know, it’s pretty good start, but as the game goes on, it can be a lot more touchy than I think a lot of the conventional wisdom would suggest.

BrotherBored 01:24 

Okay, so I think I’ll note that down as hostility between Germany and Austria, in the mid or late game, versus the Anschluss theory, playing the countries as one giant power. Okay, that’s a very interesting topic, one that I have thought about many times myself. What else should we consider up for discussion today?

Simon 1:51  

Well, I mean, it’s pretty similar to the situation. It’s mostly, I’ve been to the Dojo many times, so it’s mostly about a game I’m playing recently. It’s actually related to your question. So Austria made a really terrible opening, which is pretty much the worst opening I ever saw. He moved Vienna to Tyrolia, Trieste to Adriatic, and Budapest to Galicia to bounce with Russia. So he’s pretty much going to get destroyed by 1902. So I guess I’m just discussing this game because I’m trying to solo in this game. So I guess I managed to solo this game that kind of proves that, you know, maybe it’s okay if Austria gets destroyed quickly, but we’ll see what happens

BrotherBored 02:29 

In this game, are you Germany?

Simon 02:31

Yeah, I mean, it’s 1902, so it hasn’t finished yet.

BrotherBored 2:32  

Okay, so maybe we’ll call that, how Germany deals with Austria, getting eliminated fast?

Simon 02:44 

Yeah

Guest 2 2:44  

I actually I have a major kind of a more generalized version of the same thought; because I had a live game last night against the bots, and one other person. They got very tough against Italy because Austria made a very weak opening, and Turkey just destroyed him. And it kind of got me thinking, like, if you realize that somebody you’re depending on is just not up to snuff and is going to get eliminated quicker than you’re ready for, how do you kind of recognize that’s going to happen, and what can you do to pivot to kind of make yourself able to deal with that?

 BrotherBored 3:15  

Okay, so let me see, how to recognize that a friendly power is going down, and what do you do?

Guest 2 3:23  

Especially in gunboats, you can’t reach out to the guy who’s about to win and be like, “Hey, can we work something out here”. If they destroyed your friend, they’re probably going after you next, and so you’re kind of limited in what you can do, but it’s definitely important to figure out what you can do. There are ways that you can deal with the situations. It’s tough and it’s kind of interesting to hear your thoughts because I know you played a lot of gunboats and very good at, what you would do in the situations?

BrotherBored  3:47  

Alright, so that’s probably enough food for thought for this dojo. I think the way I wanted to want to tackle them is to first talk about the general idea of a friendly power going down, then the specific example of how Germany could deal with a friendly Austria going down, and then the relationship between Germany and Austria and how that might develop if they’re both doing well.

Guest 1 4:10  

Sounds good.

BrotherBored 4:10 

Okay, so the first topic of our discussion is how to recognize that a friendly power is going down, and what do you do?

So this is, I think, really interesting, especially in a gunboat game, as you mentioned, where you’re not going to be able to supply advice to a player who’s maybe not very good.

The four options are to do nothing because you think that there’s not going to be any, that ultimate harm to you. Once that power goes down your friend that your enemy gonna have something else to do. You can intervene and try to prop them up. You could change sides and attack yourself and try to get some supply centers, or you could mostly do nothing but maybe have a little defense up so that you don’t go down next. And deciding which of those approaches to go with, I think depends a lot on which powers you’re playing, and what the logical expansion paths for each country are.

Early on in this conversation, we talked about the example of Austria who’s gotten blown away by Turkey, and hey, what am I supposed to do about that as Italy? The answer is almost certainly not without exception, I guess. Most of the time, you’re going to need to do something about it, you’re going to need to either intervene to prop up Austria, you’re either going to need to take some of Austria centers, or you’re gonna need to put up some kind of defense, just ignoring Turkey, destroying Austria, that’s not going to work because Turkey pretty much cannot solo win without conquering all of Italy. It’s not really possible. So as Italy, you got to think really hard about the implications on Turkey’s strategy that Austria has gone down.

By comparison, if let’s say your Germany, and Austria is going down at the hands of Turkey, you know, if there’s a viable Russia or Italy, probably that’s going to occupy turkeys attention, you might be able to get away with just focusing on other priorities, and as a last resort, you can put up a defense around Munich or something if it seems like Turkey is going to go for a solo win.

So the difference in how you’re thinking about the situation, as Italy versus Germany matters quite a bit; because Italy is inextricably tied to the fate of the Balkans in a way that Germany is not, should factor into your thinking. And when we think about other examples of other countries, it similarly depends on what kind of country they are, for example, let’s do the same example, but with Russia, Turkey is destroying Austria, what do you want to do as Russia? Well as Russia, you know that Turkey doesn’t necessarily need to come around and take you out after Austria goes down. You could play a juggernaut. Turkey could continue west, attack Italy, and so on. You might be thinking, “Well, I was working with Austria, Austria was my friend, but Austria has really blown it. Austria messed up and now it’s going to go down”, maybe change sides. Maybe say, you know what, I want to play juggernaut now. Let me see if I can get in Budapest, out of Austria going down, try to get some of those centers for yourself, and say to yourself, “Tough breaks”.

I mean, if you want it to be my ally, Austria, you needed to defend yourself, that reaction or Russia can afford that reaction, because it’s at least possible that Turkey will do something other than immediately attack Russia, or attack Russia until the very end of the game. And so I think that Italy and Russia have a different reaction to seeing Austria go down at the hands of Turkey because of their geographical positions and the typical way that Turkish players will play out the game. I’m not saying you know, as Russia turkey might come after you next, that’s entirely possible, and you have to think about it., but you could defend yourself against Turkey by capturing many of Austria’s centers, and that might be a realistic way to set up a line running from say, Vienna, Budapest, Romania to Sebastopol, that Turkey would have a hard time breaking through. And so each changing sides and taking down Austria could be a way for you to set up a defense, but also have more centers.

As far as the preliminary idea goes of how to recognize that that player is going down. For me personally, I would rely on my intuition about how fights normally play out, and whether one power has gotten a position that critically undermines the other, for example, if I am France, ally to England, but England has an enemy as Russia, or Germany has successfully convoyed an army on to Great Britain, that’s a huge red flag that maybe England is about to go down in flames. Because if an enemy power successfully, convoys an army onto Great Britain, usually England is devastated or even eliminated; or similarly, let’s say that I am Germany, allied to England and I see that France has successfully convoyed an army under Great Britain. whoa, you know, that might be the end of England and I should start thinking about it.

And in other areas of the map, there are other positions that go similarly, if Germany has gotten back into Word-like Italy, Austria or Russia has invaded Munich or Berlin in the time when Germany wasn’t that strong, to begin with, as England or France maybe you know, shoot, I think my friend Germany is in hot water, having been attacked that way.

And in reading a fight over the Balkans, let’s say Italy and my allies Austria, but Russia and Turkey had gotten control of Serbia, that’s a big warning sign because if Austria can’t control Serbia, a completely landlocked center, that Austria gets for free at the beginning of the game, Austria is probably in big, big tactical trouble from that point on. That’s what I would look to as to whether my ally has given up some critical position that’s very difficult to recover from. They may, no matter how good they are at the game, it may be difficult to recover from that point. Now, I’ve talked at a long clip, what does everybody else thinks about what I’ve had to say on this topic in general?

Guest 2 10:27  

I think it makes a lot of sense. I’d even say if you’re watching Austria, as Italy, like I’m worried if Turkey gets Greece and like, Well, great…Now they got two armies in Serbia, this thing’s about to go belly up. Maybe like  to Galicia as well, on the Austrian Russian front. Yeah, definitely, it seems like you kind of have to use your intuition. Honestly, I was banking some level, like if your openings are basically like a non-orthodox opening that you know, is just not tactically strong, that could even be a warning sign from the beginning. Things might not go the way you were planning, you might want to adjust. Not to knock all unconventional openings, but like the one that Hunter was talking about earlier where Austria, goes through the Adriatic Sea, it’s like out Great, well, this isn’t gonna go well for anybody.

BrotherBored 11:10  

Yeah, I think that’s fair to say. There are some if you’re playing a gunboat game, and all you have to go on to assess the player’s skill is the moves that they choose, and then you have to read a big volume of information into their opening moves. And I’d say at the beginning of a gunboat game, even the slightest deviation from what is conventional for your group’s metagame, tells you a lot, and every turn after that tells you more. And so with the Austrian opening that we’ve discussed a few times in this dojo, it’s so out of whack for what is a normal or typical way to play Austria in most deployment, not just gunboat, but any diplomacy metagame. That’s a huge warning sign that that player is unfamiliar with how to play diplomacy, in which case, they might be destroyed.

The one thing to think about is that if a player is friendly to you, and they’re not very good, but they’re not going down in flames, that can be the best possible ally, an ally who’s not very good, but it’s just kind of lingering on in the game; because that’s an ally who you can be confident that you’ll successfully backstab and take all their centers later on. The situation that is so gut-wrenching about an ally who’s going down in flames is that you don’t get that benefit. The benefit of this player being not competent is going to somebody else, the player who’s taking them out early on. That’s what should make you reconsider having a weaker player as your ally or somehow responding to this situation.

Guest 2 12:48  

It makes a lot of sense.

BrotherBored 12:49  

Okay, let’s move on to how Germany in particular can deal with Austria getting eliminated fast. So there’s this long-standing theory that Germany does do well in a game where Austria gets eliminated early. Before we evaluate the truth or falsity of that belief, let me just try to describe where it comes from. There’s a lot of matches and diplomacy, in which Italy immediately attacks Austria, usually in conjunction with Russia, and when this happens, if Italy and Russia get away with this, especially if they get away with it as a surprise attack like in a coordinated attack in a press game, you could see Austria eliminated by 1902. I think that Austria is probably the easiest power to eliminate that early on in the match. From that point forward, Austria’s home centers no longer function as home centers, since Austria’s been eliminated. All the Balkans in addition to the four starting neutrals, the whole entire seven center area becomes a contested area of neutral centers that no one’s ever going to build from for the rest of the game. And this is actually a pretty interesting situation; because this can happen so fast, that England, and France, and Germany haven’t really resolved anything, and then diplomacy can kind of play out from that point as like a six-player game. Austria is destroyed and then the game just continues on with whatever shifting Alliance structures and stuff you would expect from that point. This is especially common I think when there’s a mix of beginners and high-level players in the match. I think that increases the risk of Austria facing this destiny.

Some players have experienced, as a result, is a little more common. They have more experience playing out a match in which Austria is blown away immediately than they do with one of the other seven powers being destroyed quickly; because it’s usually a lot harder, it takes many more years to knock them out. The belief there is that in the matches in which Austria is destroyed this way, subsequently Germany’s in trouble. That is the theoretical underpinning there is that Italy has concentrated eastward and won’t be hoping Germany against France, and now Russia is much, much stronger. With the elimination of Austria, whether Russia has gotten those centers or not, just the elimination of Austria frees up Russia in an enormous way to think about how Russia can play a northern game. At that point, once Austria’s, home centers are no longer home centers for anyone. The only home centers that are approximate to Russia in the south are turkeys, and even then, they’re not that close to Russia’s heartland of Warsaw in Moscow. Turkey can build units that can detect Sevastopol fairly quickly, but other than that, not so much.

And so from that point on, regardless of how the Balkan centers change hands, no Southern power is going to be able to make a huge overland surprise attack on Russia by building new units; certainly, Italy’s incapable of that. And so the thinking goes, that now Russia can think about taking risks by going across the no man’s land in the middle to attack make place for Munich and Berlin, and, therefore, from this situation being not so good, Germany should put some effort into protecting Austria early on, is how the advice goes.

Guest 2 16:26  

That sounds about like the summary se and like some of the older articles will talk a lot about this, it seems about right.

BrotherBored 16:34  

Okay and I think that in the older play by mail era metagame, Austria faced this swift destruction a lot more often than in the modern era of online diplomacy. The metagame has changed significantly since those articles were written, but regardless of how the metagame has changed over time, I think that it’s really not as big of a deal to Germany as this old way of thinking makes it out to be. When I’m playing as Germany, from my perspective, I am usually so concentrated on what is going to happen in resolving the situation with France and England, that whatever happens to Austria, whether Austria succeeds or doesn’t, or is destroyed, or just not accomplish very much, that has such a negligible effect on, what I’m more concerned about is, who’s going to get control of Belgium, what are these athletes going to do? That sort of stuff is more significant to me. To me, sending a unit or even multiple units down into the Balkans to try to prop up Austria seems like a significant opportunity cost for very little potential gain as Germany is unlikely to get supply centers out of that, or if you do, it will be because Austria went down in flames and you got Vienna out of it.

As Germany, I think that reacting to Austria getting attacked or it looks like Austria is on the path to elimination by sending armies into the Balkans, I think is not a wise course of action. I think as Germany, the better move is to just accept that this has happened, and you’re now in a six-player diplomacy match. And it’s going to kind of play out as a six-player one from that point onward; and to find reasons for the players in the South, Italy, Turkey, Russia, to have things to do other than attack you. Once Austria goes down, and I think that is relatively straightforward to pull off. I’ve played plenty of games as Germany, Austria went down fast, and it seemed like it had basically no effect on me or anything I was doing.

In my personal opinion or my personal experience, I think that England has more to lose from a swift Austrian death than Germany actually.

Simon 18:55  

Well, I agree because, I mean, for example, you know, Austria can keep Germany busy later. I mean, it just kind of means Germany can’t really completely focus on stabbing you later if there’s a strong Austria. Austria, not really Italy, but Austria also weakens Germany and Russia, more Russia, but still. Personally, I’ve noticed in some of my games, when there’s an Austria- Turkey alliance, it’s so uncommon. I’ve usually found it easier to solo win in those games, probably because both of those are England’s natural allies.

BrotherBored 19:25  

I agree with that. I think that England’s most natural allies are Austria and Turkey, and if they’re working together, that probably well for England.

Simon 19:32  

Yeah, I think I also saw on one of your posts on your blog in the diplomacy championship, I think in that game where you top the board is England; there was a turkey-Austria Alliance for a while.

BrotherBored 19:43  

That is correct.

Guest 2 19:45  

Yeah, and the way that it went, if I remember right, I read it last weekend, actually. It was kind of fair really favorable for your attempt the way it broke out; because we all know Austria and Turkey are perpetually paranoid about each other, even when they’re allied. And sure enough, right about the time, you were figuring out like, what’s my angle to win this game? What happens when Turkey and Austria start fighting? And that’s just kind of an interesting title that you’re talking about earlier; because I remember you trying to prop up Austria, because you felt Australia’s defense was not very good and was vulnerable to being punished. That’s exactly what happened.

BrotherBored 20:15 

That’s right, that that’s an interesting point that the broad topic we talked about earlier about our friendly power, maybe going down. I was nervous during that match about Austria, who was never my friend during that game, but I was trying to help anyway. Because I considered Austria to be my natural ally, that at one point, I was nervous about the Turkish player being able to solo win because I thought the Austrian player had taken such weak positions and was thinking about what I would have to do to prop up the rest of the board against a Turkish solo win attempt. It just so happened, that the way the players made the decisions and the way it played out at a later put me in a position to attempt to solo win, but I think that’s pretty common. I think that getting close to a solo win often requires you to get close to another player solo win as well.

Okay, let’s talk about the first topic; we spoke of the hostility between Germany and Austria, in the mid to late game versus the so-called Oslo strategy. And for the benefit of someone who might not know that is an anachronistic World War Two reference, diplomacy is a World War One themed game. And honestly, this refers to a political development prior to World War Two, in which Germany annexed the Republic of Austria, in 1938, and they continued from that point onward as one giant Empire, I guess. The thinking behind the strategy as we talked about, I alluded to earlier about the disadvantages that come to Germany when Austria meets swift destruction. I think this strategy really got put into players’ minds. I am not the best historian of diplomacy, but I think Richard sharps, the game of diplomacy book, really pushed strategic ideas that were very favorable to Germany. Today, where Germany is, in impressed diplomacy, I consider all the powers to be equally bound things very well balanced game, and none of them really stand out. But part of that is the players have thought so hard about how to play each of the countries that they found a way to make them balanced; and I think that the secrets to how to play Germany Well, were unlocked decades ago, whereas the secrets to how to play Italy in Austria well, we’re not really understood back then. That’s a factor in the thinking of these older materials.

Guest 2  22:43  

Yeah, I first heard of the Onslow idea from I think it was Richard sharps, either literally the book or a separate spin-off article, but  I’m pretty sure it was him. It’s definitely been around a while, whereas, a lot of the thinking now that alien Australia you’re saying is one more modern, much more recent.

BrotherBored 23:00  

So in my recent media Wars game, which came to a conclusion a while back now, but the publications related to it keep coming. That will be the game that I made a series of YouTube vlog entries in, and I almost won, but that’s putting a little too strongly. I was hoping to win, but it didn’t come to fruition. In that game, I actually had a pretty deep conversation with the Austrian player about the Onslow strategy. In the beginning, I told the player that I, as Germany, I was playing Germany, they came to expect no trouble for me. I was not going to do anything to harm them, and I would help them out if I could; and that was true; because I do think that giving a little bit of boost to Austrian, even Austria’s confidence or early on can make a can help Germany. As long as Austria and Russia aren’t allied, they’re somehow looking at each other with some hostility. That frees up Germany’s bargaining power a lot with Russia, and Germany can influence a lot of the events in the southern part of the board by manipulating the relationship with Austrian Russia.

Now, I did a very poor job of that beginning at the beginning of the game, Austrian Russia attacked me in a joint attack very early on, in like 1902, and I thought I was dead for sure. So I didn’t I didn’t do that right, or at least I didn’t pull off what I’d hoped to. But later in the game, when Austria and Russia started having a lot of tension, I started developing a very deep relationship with the Austrian player and talked a lot about my belief that Austria and Germany can play as allies until very late into the game, and even have a realistic shot at a two-way draw. And when I said those things, number one, I was trying to convince the Austrian player to work with me even though I was very strong, and a reasonable solo win threat that pretty much worked, but number two what I said, I was being truthful. Although it is likely in common that Germany and Austria will have some tension during the mid to late game because, well let’s go over there. There are some reasons why they’d have tension, number one, is that Germany and Austria are both competing for Warsaw and Moscow. Neither country has a realistic chance of solo winning without capturing those centers, in my opinion, or at least one of them. And Austria, in particular usually starts eyeing Munich and Berlin at some point if Austria is playing a good game; because Austria builds army after army. Austria is the most land centric power, having only one port and it’s a very bad port. It’s much more realistic for Austria to think about how to win by conquering centers over land than by making deep naval expansions. It’s way more likely for Austria to win by capturing Munich and or Berlin than by say, capturing Spain, so this can lead to these tensions.

However, despite what I just said, I think that there are three pairs of mirror matched countries that can reasonably play out a match to a two-way draw, because their home centers are positioned in a way that allows them to compete for the same sides of the map and not necessarily throw everything out of whack by getting built; and these mirrored pairs are England, Turkey, Germany, Austria, and France, Italy. It is possible for them to play on expansion paths that don’t overlap and lead them both to 17 supply centers.

And for the Germany, Austria, mirrored pair, this requires Germany to forego going for Warsaw in Moscow, to leave those open to Austria so that Austria can conquer the entire South, and that is in fact what I did that match. I never attempted to go for Warsaw and Moscow, not even slightly. Even when Austria was kind of encouraging me to do it, I did not because I wanted as long as possible for Austria to think that there was still more hope for expansion that didn’t require coming into conflict with me. Of course,  the Austrian player wasn’t a fool, the Austrian change sides when I made a play for Tunis. When I was able to make a play for Tunis and captured, that’s one of those 17 centers on the southern side of the map that Austria would get if we were to really play for a two way draw. Once I I made a play for that, the jig was up, and I had to rely on other ways to try to win. I thought at the time that there might have been a chance that Austria would tolerate that, maybe not perceive what I was doing. I thought it was worth gambling on.

In my experience, also, in all my time playing diplomacy for 10 years, I have gotten a two way draw exactly one time, and it was as Austria and the other player was Germany, and it was actually even in a gunboat. After the match was over, lo and behold, the German player, I didn’t know this, I found out only afterward was a player that I had tutored for some time in gunboat  diplomacy.

So from my experiences, although it is not sure deal that Germany and Austria are gonna stay friendly through the mid and end game, I do think it is possible.

Guest 2 28:17 

Makes sense? I think the main thing that I worry about from the German side is just, it’s kind of like what you were talking about with the fact that, when the bossier goes down, Austria centers are effectively neutral centers. Russia doesn’t have to worry about somebody coming from them and Germany kinda has a similar thing, at least from the east. You only have Warsaw, and you’ve got two centers there you can generally guard, but Austria has like Vienna and Trieste, so I can just build armies, boop slide up to the end and Tirolia, you’re already under duress. And I think that’s mostly what I have in mind, it’s not usually like Germany being a threat to Austria, but kind of the reverse, where Austria needs Munich and Berlin to win and as the means to very quickly assemble armies to go, bring that outcome about.

BrotherBored 29:00  

I agree. I think that for Germany, when I’m playing as Germany, I think that the ideal strategic situation, it would be very hard to pull this off, just by your own influence ,but I think the ideal situation is a late-game breakthrough by Turkey against Austria. If turkey expands fast as a corner power, Turkey will become a threat to solo wiwn faster than Germany can win, most likely. But if they lock horns for a while, and then late in the game, Turkey makes a breakthrough somewhere, to me, that’s ideal because that means there’s very little chance of an invasion coming across the center of the map.

Guest 2 29:42  

Yeah, definitely, I actually, I tend to think Turkey is for all three of the Western powers, I know people say a lot about England from Germany too, Turkey is kind of the one you really want to see win, even if you can’t work with them the same way you can work with like Austria early on. Because they’re just like a giant yellow magnet in the opposite board corner of the board from you, drawing armies away from Munich and Berlin, and kind of distracting people especially like you saying, if it’s waiting the game. They stab somebody, and then suddenly, we got to stop this guy that’s rolling from the southeast that has trouble competing for the centers that you need to win too; because they are not in too much trouble with Moscow and Warsaw, but you have a pretty good inside blend of those two. Yeah, they don’t compete with you the same way Austria does, and they tend to just draw attention away from you, so yeah, definitely. I think Turkeys probably the best compliment to Germany long term down there, but you can’t really do a lot to bring it about, like you’re saying, you’ve got to hope it happens.

BrotherBored 30:39  

And with that, I think we’ve used the time. Thanks for coming, guys, I really appreciate it.

Guest 1 30:45  

That’s awesome, thanks for having us.

Simon 30:47  

Yeah, I enjoyed the dojo.

BrotherBored 30:49  

Okay, maybe we’ll see you next week. Take care.

Outro 30:59  

This episode was made possible by the generous support of people like you. For more information, visit patreon.com slash brother bored. You can learn more from your bored brother at brother dot calm. If you enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe, and share, and review. Thanks to loyalty freak music for the theme music. It feels good to be alive too.