My finished games: aeefttgittffgattfeaittererrtfiaaftriggrggeg

Turkey: 10 wins
Germany: 7
France: 6
England: 6
Austria: 5
Italy: 4
Russia: 5

My wins: egttgatetertfaigggg

Germany: 6 times
Turkey: 5
England: 3
Austria: 2
Italy: 1
Russia: 1
France: 1

My god, there may be something in the theory that Turkey is the deadliest country in this particular online form of the game!

I've always thought of Turkey as the most dangerous country here. It's very difficult to get others to conspire against Turkey, and their corner position makes it near impossible to destroy them within the first few years.

My games:

Total: 55

Germany: 11
Turkey: 9
England: 9
Italy: 8
Russia: 8
Austria: 4
France: 3
Draw: 3

total - 22
germany - 5
france - 4
austria - 4
italy - 4
russia - 3
turkey - 1
england - 1

Actually, the reason Turkey wins so often on this site is because of either crap play or civil disorder. Turkey needs: Smyrna, Constantinople, Ankara, Bulgaria, Sevastopol, Moscow, Warsaw, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Vienna, Budapest, Trieste, Rome, Naples, Venice, Tunis, and 1 more. However, its borders on now on major stalemate lines like the coast of Spain and France or the border between Austria and Germany. Note that I didn't include St. Petersburg. This SC can only be attacked by AT MOST two Turkish units (armies at Livonia and Moscow). A fleet in the Barents Sea can just as easily support hold St. Petersburg to prevent it from ever falling.

However, then someone goes into, or is already in, CIVIL DISORDER and Turkey takes its last SC and wins.

Ha! Ha! Such foolishness! In the two games where I'm Turkey right now, I pose no great threat! Right fellow players? Right?

Turkey wins almost naturally on a scattered, semi-CD-ed board. Great defensive corner position with excellent growth potential. I have never started with Turkey, but took two CD-ed Turkeys. I won both.

Interesting analysis.... the amount of civil disorders is indeed a massive pain and skews the game a lot. I look forward to gaining enough points to play in some proper games!!

I wonder whether it is worth suggesting that any country that goes into CD is available to take over by anyone on the site *for free*. At the moment, I trawl through the CD games looking for interesting games to drop into, but the countries in CD are almost always those that are about to die, and you have to spend credits to take them over. If you die, of course, you then lose the credits.

If it were free, I suspect people would be more willing to take over CD countries for the opportunity of trying to survive and gain some points. I know that occasionally countries with several units go into CD, but that would be a reward for visiting the site regularly!

No cg! In my most valuable game (2nd biggest on the site so far i believe), admiral nelliot took over a nation in CD, my ally, and stabbed me winning the game. From those few turns he won around 750 points, plus regaining his payment. If he had not had to pay, he would have won around 1000 points for virtually no work!

Id suggest a bidding process for countries in CD....have an auction which closes the next Autumn...whoever bids the most takes the country...probably complex to code (I really have no idea) but would add a great dimension to the game!

actually, i thought france had the most wins on this site?

Hmm - maybe it needs a rethink. The trouble with bidding is that new players would be outbid by established players. Anyone else think of ways to replace CDs?

Well, i don't think there are problems with it at the moment. Although turkey might it seems do slightly better, it still doesn't do better than _not_ being turkey. Perhaps Kestas could send us the full results for every game?

so what if you can be outbid? The position has a theoretical "equity value - if a player with too much money wants to bid more than its worth then good for them. Anyhow - there should be some advantage to having more "points"

a bidding will only lengthen the time of the country being in cd mode, if it's not worth it, probably few will bid & the difference is small from not bidding, if it's really worth it, by the time the bidding ends, the cd country is gone...

I do agree turkey is easy to play but being in a corner also limits the expansion speed in the beginning, especially when surrounded by so many. yet once able to break through one around, it's easy. In my finished games (17 too, not representative) countries' winning are around the same but ITALY NEVER WON. in my opinion italy is the hardest to play because at first, it's surrounded by threatening countries, & yet later in the game, if still alive, it's in the middle of stalemate lines - spain coast & german-austrian borders. then the long marathon will tear the weak italy apart...

I support the idea to ask Kestas for a complete statistics of the winnings & draws.

Well, now that this thread has made Turkey's invincibility a popular notion, what are the odds of a spate of Turkey-bashing over the next few weeks, with everyone in every game ganging up on Turkey... just in case!

Torches and Pitchforks all the way!

I've always secretly been trying to get people to realize the danger of Turkey once they break out of the Balkans. But somehow... people sometimes let them get a two build 1901, and the rest of the game is just a fast march towards an Islamic Europe.

Typically both England and Turkey demonstrate this exponential growth effect, since most of the SC's they need to win are in one general direction and on one side of the stalemate line. But England's potential is damaged by the absence of convoy supports.

Personally, I think it's hardest to win as Austria, because it seems the general trend for the southern triangle to gang up on Austria right off the bat. Italy is a little easier, because there's not much fear of France attacking, so it doesn't have to watch it's back as much in the early game.

In my games, almost invariantly, Turkey was ganged very early. But I have played almost all my games as Italy or Austria. Once Russia. Once England. Then Turkey came second.

Here is how the wins have broken down in my 16 completed games:

Turkey: 4
Russia: 4
Austria: 3
England: 2
France: 2 (this was hard for me to believe, I assumed France would be near the top)
Italy: 0
Germany: 0
Draw: 1 (In my one draw Turkey had 17 SC's)

In the land of phpDiplomacy with its points distribution system I also find the number of eliminations for a country to be compelling information.

Eliminations:

Germany: 11 (Its safe to say they've had the worst time in games I've played. What would Richard Sharp say?)

Austria: 10 (Second most wins, second most eliminations, a good argument for the most exciting country to play in games I have been a part of.)

Russia: 8 (Tied for first in wins so similiar arugment as Austria, but with a better success rate)

Turkey: 7 (Winning a quarter of my games and eliminated from less than half, the Turk is sitting pretty)

England/France: 6 (Tied in wins and eliminations. I'm not sure what to make of that.)

Italy: 5 (No wins, only 5 eliminations. I guess its a safe bet to pick up a few points, but seems to indicate a less interesting experience.)

As a side note I have only completed one game in which only one country was eliminated. Suprisingly it wasn't Germany.

I'd be interested to hear what others' elimination percentages are.

Sorry for the doublepost but I just noticed another strange trend in my games.

The winner of every game I've been eliminated from has been Rait. (although I am currently eliminated in a game where Rait has 12 SC's and MarekP has 10 so he might not win, but he looks pretty darn strong in it)

What the heck is that about Rait? Why you always gotta stab me?

Eliminations from my games:
Austria: 13
Italy: 11
Germany: 9
Russia: 9
France: 6
England: 4
Turkey: 2 (!)

I also noticed that I have only been eliminated (so far, heh) when playing as Austria.

Since we're going crazy with statistics here, I thought another interesting one might be average units at the end of the game. Also for fun I've calculated the average percentage of your initial investment you'd get back, assuming no CDs and all territories claimed and all available builds used (which is 34/7 = 4.86, if you're interested). The formula I used: Avg. Troops / 4.86 * 100.

Turkey: 11.18 (230.04%)
England: 5 (102.88%)
France: 4.35 (89.51%)
Germany: 4.12 (84.77%)
Italy: 3 (61.73%)
Austria: 2.76 (56.79%)
Russia: 2.71 (55.76%)

Er...changed that up a bit, so now it's not clear what I meant. 4.86 is the number of units you'd need to regain your initial investment.

To be fair, Rait belongs to a world where the standard laws of "you shalt not win more than 50% of your diplomacy games" doesn't seem to run true!
The Mahatma is making his way up into this world as well...

Yes, Rait always insist a lot in not letting someone win once he doesn't like that person, even if he himself is already dying.

In my experience, playing as Austria isn't that bad once you get used to it. (of course if not used to it you will be the first colonial country) Yet for Italy, if it keeps Austria alive, it's has not much to do or to gain. If it decides to ally with someone to kill Austria once the game starts, then it loses its shelter & faces 3 strong countries. If France decides to hold a feast, the green man is gone...

In my records,

Italy - eliminated 11/17 winning 0/17 (never came second)
Austria - eliminated 9/17 winnings 2/17 (came second 3 times)

Maybe Austria can't win a lot, but if played safely, getting credits is not hard.

Total: 14
Country: Wins . Played . Won . Eliminated
England: 1 ..... 1 ..... 1 ..... 2
France : 3 ..... 3 ..... 2 ..... 5
Germany: 2 ..... 3 ..... 2 ..... 7
Austria: 4 ..... 2 ..... 2 ..... 9
Italy : 1 ..... 1 ..... 1 ..... 8
Russia : 0 ..... 1 ..... 0 ..... 10
Turkey : 3 ..... 3 ..... 1 ..... 2

Russia has done very poorly in the games I've played .. and I have 4 active games as Russia and I'm pretty well toast in 3 of them.

Of the 41 games I have finished

England has won 4
France has won10
Italy has won 3
Germany has won 3
Austria has won 6
Turkey has won 12
Russia has won 3

So Turkey looks dominate.


My Personal Statistics

As England I have….
Played 6 times
Won 1 time
Survived with starting number or higher 4 times
Second place 3 times
Eliminated 1 time
Survived with less than start 0 times
Gained points 83% of the time


As France I have….
Played 10 times
Won 3 times
Survived with starting number or higher 3 times
Second place 1 time
Eliminated 2 times
Survived with less than start 2 times
Gained points 60% of the time


As Italy I have….
Played 4 times
Won 1 time
Survived with starting number or higher 1 time
Second place 1 time
Eliminated 1 time
Survived with less than start 1 time
Gained points 50% of the time


As Germany I have….
Played 5 times
Won 1 time
Survived with starting number or higher 2 times
Second place 2 times
Eliminated 1 time
Survived with less than start 1 time
Gained points 60% of the time


As Austria I have.
Played 8 times
Won 1 time
Survived with starting number or higher 3 times
Second place 2 times
Eliminated 4 times
Survived with less than start 0 times
Gained points 50% of the time

As Turkey I have….
Played 7 times
Won 5 times
Survived with starting number or higher 2 times
Second place 2 times
Eliminated 0 times
Survived with less than start 0 times
Gained points 100% of the time

As Russia I have….
Played 1 time
Won 0 times
Survived with starting number or higher 1 time
Second place 1 time
Eliminated 0 times
Survived with less than start 0 times
Gained points 100% of the time

Turkey seems to be very dominate here too. I've never started a game as turkey and not at least come in second place.

Looking at thewonderllama's post I must say that I am pretty much right on average with the numbers he has as far as strength of play-ability with the exception of Russia.

Russia 100%
Turkey 100%
England 83%
France 60%
Germany 60%
Italy 50%
Austria 50%


I've only been Russia once so my stats are very different form what most people come up with but I'm in a couple current game as Russia and doing well so who knows.

It would be interesting to see these stats more readily available... including county of the month or something... clearly a nice to have. But what you might then find is that the odds start to even out as people hang up on Turkey from the start... or are more keen to ally with Italy as they are considered less of a threat.

LucusVonLucus, You can't be serious - if I checked my history, we have played only 2 games together & it's true that You have been stabbed by me in both of the games, but still, what's this 'every game I've been eliminated' is about? We have played so few games together :) I'm really sorry if You feel bad about those stabs - I'm sure You didn't deserve them!

And yeunghauyip, with You I have played only one single game, where we had a long (public) discussion about metagaming & the real-life relations between You & Your friend wing09 (with whom You actually won the game at the end). So I don't think You are being very objective in judging how I 'insist a lot in not letting someone win once he doesn't like that person'. This has been the only case on this site where I have actually raised the question of metagaming & being very upset of how the game was played. But I really don't want to start this discussion once again (at least I will not participate in it).

I appologize Rait, I didn't mean to start a Rait-hate fest. Actually I was trying to 'brag' that the only person who has eliminated me is the best player on the site. I just happen to survive most of my games.

Come Rait-hate fest, thats pretty funny right?

Rait even wins at diplomacy in the forum.