Make peace with France and Germany and then head north, where your naval superiority will come in handy.

He is right. The most common situation is to go to Nrt and Norwegian. France almost never wants to go to the channel and will usually only do it if he thinks England will. The best option for England is to take Norway with a fleet and get an army in Bel. To do so you need early diplomacy with Russia that basically makes sure he doesn't move Moscow-St. Pete, as well as convincing both France and Germany that the other wants Bel and get them to bounce in Burgundy, or better yet, get France to support himself in. If they draw early blood, then they will both want you to have Bel. Don't forget to offer Belgium later in exchange for Hol if you are allied with France or in exchange for support into French centers or Sweden if you are allied with Germany. 2 build England makes life a lot easier. You don't have to worry about building a army that won't be able to move due to hostility and you don't have to worry about a worthless fleet. If your first army gets to Bel you are already in prime position to move to Barents and Norwegian to attack St. Pete or to support into Hol or to move to Pic and take English channel with your new fleet.
Just remember if you can't get Bel or don't think you will, it is usually smarter to convoy to Norway. It keeps your fleet in a good position as opposed to it being stuck in Norway and it also makes use of the army which will just sit in York or Edi.
As for the army in the Spring, Edi is usually prefered since you can convoy over North or Norwegian but if you think France might move to the channel, then you go to York so you can cover London with the army and still use the fleets.
Hope this helps. I really enjoy England so I'm glad to shed some knowledge. I can talk to you more about strategy later if you want me to, but basically the start is very important for every country, and due to England's difficutly in getting armies on land, even more so for England. But yeah, that is the start strategy I can help you with. Post here if you want more.

England has the blessing (or curse) of starting with two fleets and one army. Using them wisely equals victory.

Just cause you won your only game with England doesn't make you an England expert :P.!!!
I felt like I had to say it, but it was only in humor.

Yea, If you're certain that France won't send F-Brest->ENG. Then a fairly standard opening is F-EDI->Norweigien Sea, F-LON->North Sea, and A-LVP-> Yorkshire.

I've tried many openings and I've done terribly every time. That's just me and England...

However the least bad is probably moving the standard both fleets north and army to Yorkshire, then convoying to Norway and moving to Barents Sea. Don't bother going for Belgium with a convoy, I find the army tends to be a bit isolated. If you want Belgium, I'd move the army to Edinburgh in the first place and try to take Belgium with the North Sea fleet, whilst using the other to convoy to Norway.

You basically suggest an all out attack on Russia, when Russia can be a very strong ally for England. No reason to be aggresive early.

There is only one opening for an england that doesn't want to be useless for the whole game - A lvp-wal, F lon-eng, F edi-nth then convoy yourself into belgium with support, next year build f edi, take norway and you are well on your way

by then Russia will generally have Norway already and that can be a pain to take

Playing England is simple. 90% of the time move to Norwegian,North and Yorkshire. Ally with either France or Germany to fight the other one, this can usually be done with some negotiation over Belgium. After you have decimated one of your neighbours you either stab the other or force him to do your bidding. Conflict with Russia is almost alway inevitable, don't count on centres south of St Petes though. It is almost impossible to win without attacking both France and Germany.

another way is to ally with both france and germany, and get your army into norway, then st petes. if u can do that, russia is dead, and you can choose who to keep your allience with, france, or germany.

Generally I think that is a bad idea. If an England doesn't commit to me early on I'm going to pursue an alliance with the other Western Power. Fighting Russia doesn't really get England very much.

Personally, I like England-Germany as an alliance. Both can handle each-other's enemies equally well, and with germany as your ally, you only have two potential enemies to deal with.
From there, look to see where germany is struggling, and help him out a bit. Add an alliance with Turkey to the mix, and you'll end in a three-way draw fairly easily, unless you're confident enough to stab your long-term allies.

You could always try the 'Yorkshire Pudding' to add some fun to the game: F EDI-YOR, A LVP-YOR, F LON-YOR. Enjoy!


To be more serious, I like England because of the naval power which is both E's greatest strenght and weakness - if something fails there, you're screwed. But when you control the seas and your homeland is virtually untouchable, you can spend turns just conquering new centers, building armies and transporting (convoying) then to the front.

An example of one of my England games:

http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=8033

Here I took over a CD England, which was threatened by a French invasion. I quickly joined forces with Germany and obliterated a non too active France. In the mean time I figured Germany was getting big enough so I stabbed him.

Another game that has already ended:

http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=7034

Here you can see some of the more complex moves when fighting Russia: sometimes it's just about getting better postions and trying to predict the adversary's moves and outsmart them.

My advise is to always watch the Mid. France has the trend of taking the Irish Sea then Lvp. Lvp and Irs are England's weak point. Personally I can't see a winning English Empire w/out controlling the Med. So in my opinion England should always look to takin the Mao.

I agree with airborne.

You should probably build fleets early on, but try to get a solid beachhead, at say, Denmark, so that you can build armies and convoy them easily to the mainland. If you're pulling a Western Juggernaut with France you can set up an effective convoy chain from England to Denmark to the Prussia/Livonia area in two stages.

Most people seemed to recommend the Sealion if you know that France won't go to the Channel. Why not take advantage of that and open to the Channel and the North Sea with A-Lvp going to Yor or even Wal. Belgium is typically yours, and you might be able to sneak into Brest if you can assuage France that you only want Belgium. It's a strong opening, and very much anti-France because it causes a lot of psychological grief for him and may cause him to give up his early Iberian builds to defend his home centers whether or not you attack them.

For some reason, if you open up really anti-France (or anti-anyone) and then tell them that you mean no harm, and they waste their time defending their centres and reducing their builds and you really don't harm them, they don't even mind the wasted time! They might even apologize for not believing you! It's an easy way to limit someone's growth while remaining a seemingly stalwart ally.

I never understood why France usually sent F MAO to Irish Sea rather than to NAO. NAO is, in my opinion, the stronger move when you're guaranteed that either one will succeed. NAO also threatens NWG while IRS will only give away that France is looking to take Liverpool.

Support into Wales is usually the reason. It is hard to break the English Isle with only 2 fleets in Irish/NAO and Channel. That is usually the spring move while an army convoy - Wales with support is usually the fall move.
More importantly, when you build F. Brest, England usually moves Nrt-Channel to bounce you. Irish can support Brest-Channel if it fails in the Spring. In the long run, Irish is the better move.

cteno4, it's typically for control of the English Channel.

It's funny how there are about ten different strategies offered here, each with their true believers. I imagine people are seriously biased by what has happened to work out well for them in a game or three. Given different opponents and circumstances the results would have been different... of course. As Ursa points out, "sometimes it's just about getting better positions and trying to predict the adversary's moves and outsmart them." Sounds obvious don't it? Never the less, people all have their pet plays that they want to pull out of their playbook - myself included. Every game is unique. That said - I'm definitely on the steep end of the learning curve in playing England... I'm much better at beating the crap out of England than playing it. Odd, that.

It should go without saying that it really comes comes down to playing your opponents in the end - though I'll admit England provide limited opportunites for a creative new opening in Spring 1901 than most.

Going into it with a predefined strategy is fine, provided that you're willing to change it depending on how the diplomatic climate evolves.

For more reading on how to play England or any other country you should look at this site, (fantastic resource that you should all take a look it if you want to improve your game):

http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/strategy/england.htm