I have a good track record as Italy in gunboat games, especially high level games. E.g.,:
gameID=198975gameID=193232Based on Italy being my favorite power and my good track record, I STRONGLY urge against attacking Austria in 1901. I think it's a suicide mission unless you somehow outplay Austria - and you have no way of knowing if Austria is a strong player or not before anyone has made any damn moves.
Yoyo also referenced once of the games I just linked where I went with a plan you did not list in your 3 choices, so I am going to put this out there:
Plan D: SNEAK ATTACK on Austria.
With this plan, you make all your moves plausibly consistent with an alliance to Austria. However, you do not move Venice (just support austria needlessly). Once you have Austria's trust, attack with Trieste and convoy into Albania or Greece.
This gameplan is much stronger than options A and B:
1. Your moves are consistent with attacking Turkey at the beginning - which means, if the conditions look favorable to attack Turkey (or unfavorable for attacking Austria e.g, he left the fleet in Trieste), you can just decide to attack Turkey instead of Austria.
2. If Austria takes the bait, he will move all his units against Turkey and probably Russia. Thus, Russia and Turkey do not profit very much from your attack and the Austrian home centers are more likely to become yours.
3. Most Austrian players are praying to god that you don't attack them, and it is very easy for them to convince themselves that you are going to help them, because it is easier to believe good news than bad news.
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Russian hackers are so Russian.
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