1v1 Megathread: Strategy, Metagame, Primers!

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President Eden
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1v1 Megathread: Strategy, Metagame, Primers!

#1 Post by President Eden » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:40 pm

Intro to 1v1 Diplomacy


What is 1v1 Diplomacy?

1v1 Diplomacy is a special variant of the Classic Diplomacy map. In this variant, a player receives control over the starting position of one of two countries. All other provinces besides the starting home supply centers of the countries being played, including the home supply centers of countries not being played, are rendered neutral: for example, in a 1v1 game where Russia is not being played, Warsaw acts the exact same as Sweden in a normal Classic Diplomacy game. The victory condition is the same, but the 1v1 format creates a wildly different dynamic and method of play.

What's the appeal of 1v1 Diplomacy?

Since you have one other player who is unequivocally your opponent, the games often play like gunboat; however, unlike classic gunboat, where the overlapping decisions of six other players can create a strategic landscape somewhat outside of the individual player's control, having one dedicated and unequivocal opponent places the entire responsibility for the outcome of a game in one's own hands. The "random" variable of a third power intervening does not exist here: 1v1 Diplomacy is comparable to Chess in this regard.

Are the 1v1 Diplomacy positions balanced?

This is an interesting concern that has been explored by the community in detail as we complete more games. While the format of competitive 1v1 tournaments is intrinsically corrective of balance concerns to some extent (in competitive 1v1 tournaments, typically players play multiple games, where each player plays both countries), it is still desirable to have balanced starting positions (so as to allow players to outplay one another). While the balance is imperfect, tournament results from the two most widely-played variants (see below) indicate that any balance issues are ultimately unsubstantial.

What are the different variants of 1v1 Diplomacy?

As of this writing (2018/1/3), webdiplomacy officially hosts two variants: France vs Austria ("FvA"), and Germany vs Italy ("GvI"). Both formats have been tested extensively by the community for balance (and found satisfactory), provide dynamic gameplay opportunities, and are simply damn fun aside from any other concerns. There are other variants floating around on our sister site, vdiplomacy, such as Britain* vs Turkey, "Frankland vs Juggernaut" (a unique format where one player controls France and Germany, and the other player controls Russia and Turkey), and even the option to create your own pairings, in the event a 1v1 aficionado is looking for greater variety.



Metagame


What is a 1v1 Diplomacy metagame?

For those unfamiliar with the term in this application, a metagame is NOT a site rules violation, but is in fact the term used to refer to trends in common, important decisions made by competitors in the 1v1 Diplomacy scene. This term is mainly applied to discussion of opening tactics and expansion strategies in 1v1 variants which are played frequently and thus generate enough data for actionable discussion. For example, one of the most popular openings for Austrian players in FvA is:

Code: Select all

Army Vienna -> Tyrolia
Army Budapest -> Galicia
Fleet Trieste -> Venice
This opening (called the "Anti-Alpine Opening" by captainmeme; see the resources section later for more) has also proven to be very successful in the 1v1 tournament scene. One might therefore say that the current 1v1 metagame is defined to a large extent by this opening.

Why is metagame information useful?

The most important turn of the game in 1v1 Diplomacy, without a doubt, is Spring 1901.

The reason for this is "tempo," a concept borrowed from Chess which is of utmost importance to 1v1. "Tempo," in very broad terms, refers to the time value of your options. A player's tactical options in Diplomacy are constrained by two major factors: the number of pieces at his or her disposal, and the one-move-per-turn restriction on each piece. "Tempo" refers to how effectively a player leverages the number of moves (s)he has in a particular turn toward the end goal of securing 18 centers. Because 1901 is generally (always, unless you royally screwed up) the year in which you have the fewest number of moves you're allowed to make, the relative importance of each move increases. A single bad order in Spring 1901 constitutes 33% of your orders for the turn being bad, which is more punishing than if you made one bad move out of 10 orders given in Spring 1905, for instance (at 10%).
Then, you must also factor in the potential for lost moves, as a result of poor moves early in the game translating into fewer centers, and thus fewer pieces, and thus fewer moves, later in the game.

You may have noticed an important problem: if Spring 1901 is so paramount to determining a player's fate, how is he to know how to make a good set of opening moves? With no information from her opponent, how can a player just starting the game expect to make smart decisions that maximize her chances to win?

This is where the concept of a metagame comes into play.
By understanding tempo, we can start to weed out bad openings, and narrow the field to a few truly viable options, assuming sound play from opponents. (The uninitiated who make unsound openings, regardless of their skill level, will usually disqualify themselves from victory right away in the face of any tournament-viable opening.)
These options tend, in a vacuum, to be more or less "equally viable" -- and often dependent upon correctly guessing what your opponent is going to do, in order to make the best call.
Of course, in the abstract, it's impossible to "correctly guess" with no prior information... but that's where the metagame comes in!

Take our Anti-Alpine Opening earlier. Let us say that this opening is chosen by 70% of Austrian players, due to its robust win rate in tournament play. (This number is made-up, but from my distant playing experience months ago is probably not that far off.) Let us further say that you are France, and you are choosing between two openings: one of which has the highest win rate against Austrian openings which are not the Anti-Alpine Opening, but has a 45% win rate against the AAO; and one of which has a lower win rate than the first option against non-AAOs, but has a 60% win rate against the AAO. Even though the first opening is better against "the field," if you knew 70% of Austrians played the AAO, you could make a sound guess your opponent would play the AAO, choose the second opening, and possibly come out ahead.

What is the current 1v1 Diplomacy metagame for widely-played variants?

This will be a subject of discussion within the thread. In the interest of keeping all information in this post relevant at all times, this post will stay away from making specific factual claims about a metagame that is constantly in flux.



Strategy Resources, Primers, etc.


This section is currently under construction. As the 1v1 community advises, this section will be updated with gameIDs from high-class tournament play, articles and high-quality posts from seasoned 1v1 veterans, and informative strategy discussions as they become available.


Opening Strategy References
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President Eden
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Re: 1v1 Megathread: Strategy, Metagame, Primers!

#2 Post by President Eden » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:27 pm

Bump for 1v1 tournies starting soon. Would love to get some writeups from people participating ;)

EDIT: How tragic, can't actually edit the OP...

Attached is captainmeme's follow-up analysis of GvI openings.
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Re: 1v1 Megathread: Strategy, Metagame, Primers!

#3 Post by Foxcastle » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:55 pm

I've been playing a lot of FvA (and a little GvI to at least not embarrass myself in the tourney), but is there a write-up of overall strategy for FvA?

I feel more confident with Austria, personally. In addition to the East half of the board, Austria only needs 2 of Tunis, Munich, Berlin, or StP to reach 18. So I feel better about picking my battles, or at least feel better about having options to pick my battles. So I could charge the center, or charge north, or charge south.

My problem with France is that I started out with that same line of thinking: that France needs the West half of the board, and all of Tun, Mun, Ber, StP. I'm pretty sure that's wrong. It's hard for France to get all four of those, so France needs to break through somewhere.

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Re: 1v1 Megathread: Strategy, Metagame, Primers!

#4 Post by Ezio » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:06 pm

You're actually pretty correct in that France needs all of the stalemate centers to win. Usually you accomplish this by breaking through the line somewhere and forcing Austria to react to the break, so they can't defend the stalemate centers.

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Re: 1v1 Megathread: Strategy, Metagame, Primers!

#5 Post by captainmeme » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:40 pm

There's currently no writeup of overall FvA strategy but I'm planning to write about it sometime in future.

In brief - it's very close to what you said (@Fox) but it's slightly different in that while France requires all four of Tun/Mun/Ber/StP to win, oftentimes it's enough to take Tun/Mun/Ber, because in the long term StP is indefensible from the south. If you manage to stalemate the game as France with Tun/Mun/Ber under your control, then you just have to collect the rest of the centers behind you and you'll eventually have enough units to force StP.

I think with all the rush strats that have been developed, though, Austria is definitely the stronger of the two powers.

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Re: 1v1 Megathread: Strategy, Metagame, Primers!

#6 Post by Foxcastle » Tue Jan 16, 2018 9:45 pm

That would be awesome, CaptainMeme. The openings guides for both versions are awesome. Thanks for doing that!

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Re: 1v1 Megathread: Strategy, Metagame, Primers!

#7 Post by President Eden » Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:55 pm

New captainmeme content: What is an Austrian rush? Check it out.

Follow-up thought that isn't specifically tied to this article. France has a long-term advantage in Scandinavia and St. Petersburg due to its unique capacity to control the seas around those provinces. France can fight Austria to parity in Germany, and Austria's awkward fleet deployment capabilities (with one port jammed far up the Adriatic Sea) can make Tunisia hard to fight over.
I think these are enough to say that France has an advantage in "longer" games -- games where France has time to leverage its geographic advantages in these theaters, because it has managed to capture enough centers to press all of these fronts effectively.

The tradeoff is that Austria has a better starting position, being able to reach Scandinavia more efficiently than France can (i.e. either by investing less time or fewer units), having equally fast access to Berlin without using Munich and having an easier time putting armies around Munich; and Austria has more supply centers incidentally en route to these theaters.

I think FvA specifically has an "aggressive" player (Austria) and a "controlling" player (France). Austria has a tempo advantage early for reasons listed previously, but has a long-term geographic disadvantage, which means the Austrian player has to convert that early tempo advantage into a relatively quick 18 centers, before France can "catch up" to the key battleground areas and press its geographic advantage to grind out Tunisia, St. Petersburg, and everything in-between.

This would imply to me that Austria's best strategies should involve rushing, and that France's best strategies are effective counters to those strategies.

I wonder if there's such a thing as a "French Rush" where France tries to play Austria's game, messes things up so no one gets to 18 quickly, and then flips the script and leans on the geographic advantage to attain a victory.

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