Diplomacy Comments

ITALY
Italy is fun to play. Inevitably you must attack Turkey. You could cooperate with Austria
or, with early cooperation from Turkey, or perhaps Russia, and certainly in cooperation with the Germans, take over Austria. Italy must maintain a complete alliance with France: enjoy the benefits of a large undefended mutual border - focus all of your troops elsewhere.

FRANCE
This nation also must maintain complete alliance with Italy and hope that the Turkeys do not suceed in taking control of the Mediterranean and threatening France's south. France can reliably partner with Russia, Austria is little more than a source of information but its existence keeps the other easterners in check.

France's indifference or perhaps even active participation, can encourage or discourage a juggernaut, which is not necessarily bad. It can scare the other players. An unsuccessful juggernaut offers great chances to ravage all of France's neighbors - Germany, Austria, but also Italy and England. France is going to fight either England or Germany of course, and ideally not both.

Likely it is to be conflict with England as feigning alliance with England and then stealing into the Channel sends a signal both to Germany of its willingness to engage England, and also sends a sign to England that their aggressive moves, hopefully against Russia or Germany, could falter by being dragged into conflict with France. Taking the Channel makes England brittle, and even a bounce commits English forces to Channel turn after turn. Germany should be fought after English SCs are taken.

Do be wary of an unreliable Italian player who may think gains should come through France, rather than in the east.

ENGLAND
An alliance with Germany can successfully engage both France and Russia and using North Sea, Channel, Baltic, etc., to repeatedly pound at France and Russia at the same time - at sea and on shore. But, the German-English alliance requires precision in moves and good leveraging of the punch the combined forces can use, on defense and on offense. Getting Belgium is thus key, for its position with both North and Channel.

Germany's France or Russia policies really do not matter to the success of the alliance as long as one of the partners is fighting one, and both allies are aiding neither Russia nor France.

If you can kill your army in northern France, you can have four fleets. With one fleet in Belgium, backed up by two German land forces, France's armies get bottled up. Meanwhile, fleets in Baltic and two northern English fleets can really screw with Russia's Scandinavian posture. Or that second fleet can menace the western French coast. Congratulations, you & Germany are flexing your muscles!

Permanent alliance with Germany disrupts a common game dynamic wherein Germany kind of implodes to the benefit of France, Russia or another power - Germany goes east, and England goes south. It is just as simple as that.

TURKEY
This country should work with Russia, but also hope for Russia's demise. Still, focusing on Austria being carved, and Italy falling next, is the only way for Turkey. Just try to get through it, you could always win.

AUSTRIA
Ahe Anschluss is essential. Alliance with Italy is essential. Keeping Russia away, or even better, at war with England or Turkey, is essential. Turkey should be encouraged to attack Russia or Italy as well. France must provide information and try to counterbalance negative developments in Austria's position. Go for greece right away, again, having secured the essential alliances with Germany and Italy. And good luck with Italy.

RUSSIA
Russia is two little triangles. Go for all of Scandinavia, and Rumania, and then you have two little groups of three forces, and then another unit either around Warsaw, or bumping up one of the little trios to a quartet.

Russia cannot rest for a moment - continual expansion to provide new forces is the only way to avoid being overwhelmed in either the northern or southern trio of forces. Keep peace with Germany, get England to fight with France, coordinate with Italy against either Turkey, Austria or both, but always keep a line open to Austria.

Even and perhaps especially a rump Austria can usefully coordinate with Russian forces. Russia should hope for Germany's demise, but try not to pick a fight with Germany, which exposes the weak Warsaw corridor that leads straight to Moscow. Bully your neighbors into submission and expand as quickly as possible while avoiding conflict with Germany and you can really start to dominate the board.

GERMANY
Certainly the best country to play. Yes, sometimes Germany just falls apart. But Germany can thrive in so many ways.

First and foremost, Anschluss is not a reality, but it is active care and support of Austria's position which is enormously helpful to the both of you. A strong Anschluss alone, say a few turns into the game, where each has 5-7 supply centers, can dominate the board - though of course, be careful to keep each other nation isolated and narrowly focused on its own non-German speaking neighbors.

The powers cannot all unite against Austria & Germany or it's probably lights out! Some useful alliances to encourage are with France and Italy, as this protects Austria, and probably results in Italy working with Austria against Turkey, and allows France to focus on England.

Still, you can fight France, with England, especially if Italy is focused on Turkey. But certainly don't fight France right away. Indeed, offering both England and France your alliance, effective right away, allows France and England to destabilize their own relationships through unexpected expansion opportunities Germany might usually take in the west - in other words, feel free to let France and England fight over Belgium, or even Holland.

Relatively infrequent as it may be, the immediate attack of Germany on Russia is the most sensible use of the German position. Send the hordes east - rush those armies to Warsaw after lying through your teeth to get the Russians to focus north, south or both. Take warsaw and go for Sweden as well. If you don't get sweden on the first turn, build a Baltic fleet in the second. Convoy an army to Livonia, if you fancy, because a quick and effective strike really allows you to take down Russia and build some new forces as a result.

Or just take Warsaw and Denmark and then go for Benelux, picking an ally in the Anglo-French war and rolling with it.

Why attack Russia? Again, Austria's prospects are essential and it has everything stacked against it, because Italy and Turkey can both play Russia and Austria off each other. Get Russia off of Austria's back, and then Turkey and Italy are more likely to fight each other than to fight Russia because they can't use the threat of Russia to scare the Austrians, and they will be less confident in their prospects vis-a-vis your Anschluss partner.

As for the Anglo-Germany alliance - it is very good indeed from the German side as well. Even if you suffer a setback or two, English naval power allows your combined forces to fight France, Russia, or even both at the same time, quite effectively. But at core, you are attacking Russia straight away before you start to work with either France or England very much. At heart, Austria and Germany are land powers. And Russia has land.