Should you ever *not* take Galicia in 1901S?

by **Puscherbilbo** » Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:37 pm

I would argue that an Austrian fleet in Greece is a good argument of allying Austria.
If Turkey gets Greece (and thus 5 builds) it is usually > Russia unless crazy stuff happens in the north. Esspecially since Serbia is immediately under pressure.
Austrias problem is that Turkey actually profits from Austrias demise too. Since Greece (and Serbia) are up for grasp.
Seen multiple games where Austria just surrendered both to fight vs either I or R. So Turkey is not too incentivized to ally Austria.

by **Carl Tuckerson** » Sat Oct 19, 2019 12:00 am

I strongly disfavor the Hedgehog because I think it hedges in a spot where hedging doesn't actually help you. Austria's problem is not that it is temporarily tactically impaired and just needs to buy time to get set up against Italy. If that were the case, then the Hedgehog would be a much better opening, since it ensures you get that time. Austria's problem is that it is dependent upon the goodwill of Italy or Russia to survive the early game. It can generally fight R/T to a tactical stalemate if Italy is at least neutral, although it will eventually lose to R/T without help (either England and/or Germany relieving pressure from Russia or Italy attacking Turkey), and sometimes it can fight Italy and Turkey to one as well, depending on the situation (this is harder but possible). But if both Italy and Russia want you dead, no amount of cheeky pokes at Venice or Galicia will save you.

by **mhsmith0** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:10 pm

Southern Hedgehog can sort of work as Austria if you're in alliance with Turkey, but it's still somewhat difficult to effectively work it through and Turkey will typically have the upper hand in the alliance for quite a while. Otherwise, yeah, better to have an alliance w/ Italy and/or Russia and move accordingly in spring 1901.

by **Claesar** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 11:12 am

DougJoe wrote: ↑
Fri Oct 18, 2019 11:05 am
Has the Southern Hedgehog fallen out of favor these days?

Yes, it has. Most people nowadays think taking Greece is necessary for Austrian survival. I am one of those. The Hedgehog is just a slow death.

Especially when you play online, shooting for the stars is usually more preferred. There's always next game, if you crash and burn.

If you just drove 3 hours to play F2F, then maybe. If you really can't intimidate Italy nor Russia, postpone your demise.

by **DougJoe** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 11:05 am

VillageIdiot wrote: ↑
Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:04 pm
I've not bounced Gal a few times playing as Russia if I have good relationships with both Italy and Turkey.

By agreeing to a Gal bounce you can be relatively confident in Austria's moves being to Gal, Serbia, and Albania which when tipped off to Italy allows him to walk right into Trieste with Rome to Venice.

Has the Southern Hedgehog fallen out of favor these days?

by **VillageIdiot** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:49 am

Claesar wrote: ↑
Thu Oct 17, 2019 6:40 am

VillageIdiot wrote: ↑
Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:04 pm
I've not bounced Gal a few times playing as Russia if I have good relationships with both Italy and Turkey.

By agreeing to a Gal bounce you can be relatively confident in Austria's moves being to Gal, Serbia, and Albania which when tipped off to Italy allows him to walk right into Trieste with Rome to Venice.
...
I've seen this used effectively at the WDC this year, but in Autumn. Italy opened to Tyrolia and Venice. Austria still proposed a bounce in Gal to Russia. Italy took both Vienna and Trieste.

Well played!

by **Claesar** » Thu Oct 17, 2019 6:40 am

VillageIdiot wrote: ↑
Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:04 pm
I've not bounced Gal a few times playing as Russia if I have good relationships with both Italy and Turkey.

By agreeing to a Gal bounce you can be relatively confident in Austria's moves being to Gal, Serbia, and Albania which when tipped off to Italy allows him to walk right into Trieste with Rome to Venice.
...

I've seen this used effectively at the WDC this year, but in Autumn. Italy opened to Tyrolia and Venice. Austria still proposed a bounce in Gal to Russia. Italy took both Vienna and Trieste.

by **VillageIdiot** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:04 pm

I've not bounced Gal a few times playing as Russia if I have good relationships with both Italy and Turkey.

By agreeing to a Gal bounce you can be relatively confident in Austria's moves being to Gal, Serbia, and Albania which when tipped off to Italy allows him to walk right into Trieste with Rome to Venice. Since Vienna is now in Gal it's impossible for him to push Italy out of Trieste. You'll need a good alibi as to why you "missed" the bounce so he doesn't hold you accountable for his misfortune and suicide himself into you, but if you can deflect well enough then likely Gal and Serbia will be focussed on covering his exposed Vienna and Budapest so you should be ok and Austria is on his way to an expedited elimination. Turkey will almost certainly try for Greece instead of Rum since Austria has a good chance to ignore it and since Austria no longer looks appealing for an alliance increasing your value considerably which means you likely will get that build.

You gamble strong early Turkey and Italy, which could potentially be used against you, but that's such an awkward alliance that odds are you'll have your choice of which one of them you prefer to work with while the odd person out doesn't really have many options for friends in light of Austria's early elimination.

This play does have some risk to it but if you feel good about your diplomatic relationships with those all around it's worth the consideration.

by **pyxxy** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 6:49 am

Carl Tuckerson wrote: ↑
Wed Jul 31, 2019 6:31 pm
for gunboat: probably not. Call me unimaginative (you wouldn't be wrong), but all the ways that things can go wrong for Russia due to Austria, or for Austria due to Russia, start with a capture of Galicia.

As a newer gunboat player I've definitely suffered from not taking GAL a few times. But I think taking GAL in S01 can lead to an over-investment in attacking whomever left it open, especially Russia who can then get run over from the north.

Example (not high level GB): https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=245814

I think it's what Puscherbilbo talked about...

Puscherbilbo wrote: ↑
Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:07 pm
But my more general point stands. An attack on Austria or vice versa only is useful if you have a high probability that you are the prime beneficiary.

...that taking GAL doesn't mean that you'll be the prime beneficiary of continuing an attack against whomever left it open. So someone could start justifying not opening to GAL if they believe that the other player with either leave it open or, having taken it, will not view themselves as likely to gain enough from continuing an attack.

So I feel like the followup question is, if someone leaves GAL open and you take it, what should you do? I'm inclined to say...go kill Turkey together.

This of course ignores Italy's and Turkey's openings. If you're Russia and after S01 you're in GAL and Italy's in TRI...jump on the pile.

Also I may be biased to try non-optimal things after reading that "Russia's Gunboat Woes" thread from a while back...https://webdiplomacy.net/contrib/phpBB3 ... lit=russia

by **mhsmith0** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 4:51 am

Restitution wrote: ↑
Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:46 am

Matticus13 wrote: ↑
Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:40 am
A/R can be an extremely effective alliance for both Austria and Russia. Why would you *always* want to throw that away?
Under what conditions would I in 1901S, value an alliance with Austria over one with Turkey?

As Russia? Probably a few things could be relevant off the cuff...

1) You pick up that E/F are allies; Turkey is the biggest natural beneficiary, and you want to organize an AIR assault on him before the E/F grows strong enough to really gain momentum (Austria *CAN* be a natural beneficiary as well, but a solid I/R alliance can put Austria to bed after Turkey dies a lot of the time if it's needed)

2) You'd rather work with Austria than Turkey due to personalities / communications. Russia can productively ally with essentially anyone, so there's plenty of room to tweak things there even if Turkey might be slightly more natural than Austria

3) Germany is very pro-Austria and is promising Sweden in exchange for you siding with Austria (this may or may not relate to point #1)

etc

by **A_Tin_Can** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 3:37 am

There’s a cost associated with a DMZ, too. Let’s say for some reason that you 100% trusted each other.

There’s a case to be made for moves like Vie-Tyl and War-Gal, as a less alarming version of an opening like Vie-Tyl and War-Sil (which should ally the board against A/R).

Similarly, War-Ukr and Vie-Gal could be a strong opening for an A/R.

“But why would you do something so crazy? They’re clearly going to take advantage of you once you’ve let them in”.

Diplomacy is about trust construction, not hoodwinking your opponent. Betraying an ally with a good long term plan in 1901 is not going to get you a good long term result, nor is it going to get either of you over the stalemate line.

by **Matticus13** » Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:59 am

Restitution wrote: ↑
Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:46 am

Matticus13 wrote: ↑
Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:40 am
A/R can be an extremely effective alliance for both Austria and Russia. Why would you *always* want to throw that away?
Under what conditions would I in 1901S, value an alliance with Austria over one with Turkey?

What makes you think arranging a DMZ in Galicia is committing to an alliance with Austria? There are many reasons.

What if you, as Russia, are concerned Turkey moves to Armenia? What if keeping the DMZ gets you Sweden in A01 (a somewhat common agreement with Germany)? What if you wish to open north with Moscow? What if you want to violate a DMZ in BLA and crush Turkey? To convince Austria to open towards Italy? The list goes on...

by **Puscherbilbo** » Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:57 am

I am not sure you can isolate a singular interaction here in the way you are trying to.

Basically my point is that bouncing costs both parties a little. while trusting each other should benefit both.

There will be an equlibrium entailing bounces. maybe even as highfreq strat.
But there also will be other strategies. But since there is no system to evaluate and the equilibrium is unknown i can only say that not bouncing is a non-zero strategy.

That being said GB and Press have probably the same Equilibrium. But since nobody knows it the gametypes differ. If we assume an equilibrium and common kowledge no press should be able to influence it. But that is another topic...

by **Restitution** » Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:46 am

Matticus13 wrote: ↑
Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:40 am
A/R can be an extremely effective alliance for both Austria and Russia. Why would you *always* want to throw that away?

Under what conditions would I in 1901S, value an alliance with Austria over one with Turkey?

by **Matticus13** » Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:40 am

A/R can be an extremely effective alliance for both Austria and Russia. Why would you *always* want to throw that away?

by **Restitution** » Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:29 am

The fact that the game is multiplayer makes the interaction between Russia and Austria non-zero-sum between the two of them.

Zero-sum games with multiple players have non-zero-sum interactions between those players.

by **Puscherbilbo** » Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:18 am

I believe that sentence to be utterly nonsensical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game

The limited amount of centers make it a zero-sum-game. There is no way to increase the amount of centers available to all players.
If you loose valueshare it gets distributed amongst remaining players.

Prisoner dilemma is to my knowledge 1v1 explicitly.

by **Restitution** » Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:16 pm

The multiplayer aspect is precisely what makes it non-zero-sum, and therefore a prisoner's dilemma.

by **Puscherbilbo** » Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:07 pm

you get a 50% shot at a center. which is tough to defend w/o I or T. Turkey gets into Bla or you dont get Rum. You are certainly not dead.
Although i suspect russia to have a little more incentive to leave Gal open.

But my more general point stands. An attack on Austria or vice versa only is useful if you have a high probability that you are the prime beneficiary.
And the multiplayer aspect and the continuation of the game just make the analogy to a prisoners dilemma inapt.

by **Restitution** » Fri Aug 02, 2019 10:41 pm

The amount of retaliation that Austria can do to you after you've gotten into Galicia in 1901S is pretty small.

Should you ever not take Galicia in 1901S?

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