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Rat Diplomacy 1: The Great Betrayal, “Et tu, sqeecoo?”

sqeecoo

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Dec 13, 2006
Messages
2,615
Matalarata said he'd figure out and join the game today, he was swamped yesterday :) Once he does, be sure to confirm your participation in the game within 24 (four) hours!


Look at you all, walking with vibrant voices and glittering eyes that dream of some distant wealth and plunder straight into the lion's maw. Turn back, brothers! For you do not realize that you are about to test your wits against a man so devious and dark, so vile and viperous, that he has at one point in his life actually become fluent in Immanuel Kant. Kant! Why, you ask, still marching forth toward certain doom, still full of hope and wonder, would a man perform such intellectual contortions in order to achieve that frightening feat? Why would he attempt to walk the twisting streets of the great philosopher's moral system until he had memorized it all? Why, to understand it, of course, to grasp it fully and then to excise the moral imperative from his very core and cast it aside as he shall do with your pitiful, broken nations!

You know, if you'd put this much effort into your messages in our Diplomacy games you wouldn't have gotten gangbanged by girls in your last game - I think I remember you playing England like the prestigious gentleman that you are and getting crushed by the gals playing France and Germany :)




Anyway, while we're waiting for Matalrata here's some descriptions for every country! These are of course my personal views - any game may go off in completely different direction and change things completely, and much better players than me may well see the nations completely differently. General concepts and terms are in bold :)

Turkey
Turkey is kinda a turtling nation. Excellent defensive position and a guaranteed early gain in Bulgaria, but hard to expand from there. May take it a bit slow early, but has a good chance of ruling the Mediterranean and pushing its armies into Europe through Austria or Russia. Turkey has an incredibly strong ally in Russia, and that alliance is called the "Juggernaut" in Diplomacy jargon. Basically, the two of them can easily run over Europe unless pretty much everyone else drops what they are doing and opposes them, so their alliance often uses fake clashes to disguise itself. On the other hand, Russia and Turkey have a difficult border that is bound to spark tension, especially around the Black Sea - one of those two powers getting a fleet into the Black Sea gives a huge advantage over the other.

Russian and Turkey will often have an arranged bounce there - i.e. both order their starting fleets to move there by agreement, bouncing and keeping it empty.

Of course, Turkey doesn't have to ally with Russia - early on it can probably bring down Russia on its own with a well-timed attack since Russia has multiple fronts to worry about. An alliance with Austria is unlikely to last the whole game but gives both nations a safe flank early, which is very valuable. Relations will always be strained with Italy unless Turkey agrees to limit its fleet builds, in which case that alliance can work very well too, with Italy having a safe flank in the sea and Turkey marching its armies onward with their naval support.

Russia
Russia is the only nation with 4 starting armies and centers - all others start with 4 instead. It shares the advantage of being able to build fleets both in the ocean to the north and the Med sea with France, albeit in sub-par positions. Remember, you can only build new units in the centers you start with. Anyway, RUSSIA STRONK! This can be a double-edged sword though, as players may become worried as you quickly climb to 5+ centers.
Also, the Russian position in the north is very tenuous unless you focus heavily on it and depends on whether the Western Triangle nations (England, France, Germany; there's also the Eastern Triangle - Russia, Turkey, Austria; Italy is kinda the swing(er) nation) are busy enough with each other to ignore Russia or use it as a minor ally, since both England or Germany could obliterate its north forces if they concentrate on it while Russia concentrates elsewhere. Russia will have to look to its south and find an ally there as well. Fortunately, Russia pairs well with both Turkey and Austria - the only problem being that Russia is large and flexible and usually benefits more from either alliance, which may mean your ally will stab you sooner rather than later.

That can be resolved by keeping parity in conquered centers between allies - the path to a fruitful, betrayalless alliance :)

Austria
Austria is the high-risk high-reward nation. It's by far the most likely to be eliminated early, being in a central position with at least three neighbors eyeing it, but if it survives it has a prime central position to expand with short supply lines in any direction it wants, in an area very rich with supply centers.
Surviving those first few years is tough, and you have to find a firm ally among your neighbors. It helps that if Russia and Turkey obviously team up against you you can scream "Juggernaut!!!" and some players may actually listen :)
Austria usually works closely with Germany, since they are neighbors but both have problems of their own to resolve in their respective Triangles. If you read some of the strategy guides for Germany, you may find advice like "tell Russia you wont let him into Sweden on turn 2 if he moves into Galicia on turn 1" and such to help keep Austria alive, from a German perspective, so there's a good chance that you can count on Germany to have your back as Austria. Or not, who knows!

Generally, Austria will use the army in Budapest to grab Serbia on turn one and the two other forces to defend, possibly with an arranged bounce in Galicia with Russia. If you trust Italy a LOT, you can go ahead and move your fleet from Trieste to Alb to contest Greece on turn 2.

Italy
From what I've read, there are two schools of though for Italy: about half of the players think you should ALWAYS attack Austria, and the rest say you should NEVER attack Austria :)
Attacking Austria early encourages Russia and Turkey to go ahead and grab their piece, making your piece small and leaving you next to two powerful nations without a buffer state. On the other hand, not attacking Austria early often has you just grab Tunis (often by convoying an army there via the Ionian sea - holding that sea is crucial for Italy) and then stagnate: it's hard to attack Turkey to the east with ships when France could pounce on you at any time, and going for France will let Turkey just waltz into your centers with his fleets. On the other hand, Austria makes an ideal ally in that situation - help him fight Turkey and then rush to meet France in the west! Of course, Austria will be in prime position to backstab you if you do that.

Italy is a nation with a potential for remaining a mediocre power due to stagnation and a nation of tough decisions - only a couple of turns lost moving your fleets east or west can mean your death. On the other hand, it's the prime naval power in the Med sea and has a central position, no real threats, and generally everyone is happy to request help or ally with Italy at the start.

France
France has a pretty decent position and some guides recommend it as a good nation for noobs. You get two pretty much guaranteed builds in the first year in Spain and Portugal using the fleet in Brest and the army in Mar (that is if Italy is not up to any crazy attacks against you), and can even contest Belgium with your Parisian army. However, unless you trust Germany a lot, it may be smarter to arrange a bounce in Burgundy just to make sure a German army does not sneak into your lines. If you grab those two centers in your first year you can hold out fairly well even if Germany and England decide to gang up on you. Not forever, but long enough for help to arrive form the east or Italy.

In general, having an enemy army move in behind your front line is a huge pain, since eliminating just a single army behind your lines takes a hugely disproportionate force, at least 3 of your own units usually. This is because while you can dislodge that enemy army and force it to retreat, it can still keep retreating and cutting support or taking centers from behind your line until you actually corner it and destroy it (a dislodged - attacked by a unit with more support - army is destroyed only when there is nowhere left to retreat).

In any case, France has the very nice advantage of being able to build fleets both in the Med and in the north - and in much better and more forward positions than Russia. Balancing when you will build armies vs. fleets and whether you want to concentrate north or south is tough however, and mistakes can cost you the game :)

Germany
Germany shares the advantage of a central position with Austria but without the horribly precarious earlygame position. Russia usually has the south to worry about and is keen on good relations with Germany to secure its northern holdings, and Austria is happy to see someone that's not thinking about killing them. That usually lets Germany focus on its west at the start of the game, unless you choose to go for a risky early attack on Russia. However, by midgame Germany will probably be surrounded by strong powers to its east and west, and in a slightly more exposed position than an Austria that survives the earlygame crucible.

Standard opening moves for Germany are moving the Kiel fleet to Denmark and then threatening Russia to bounce him in Sweden if he goes for Austria, and grabbing Hol with the other armies. You can contest Belgium if you like as well, but that may be pushing it.

By standard opening moves I mean those most commonly suggested based on the strategy articles and my experience - but this does not mean that other moves are not possible, or clearly better in some games. As Diplomacy players are fond of saying in strategy discussions: It's situational.

England

England, like Turkey, has a good defensive position but can easily get "stuck". As long as you can hold the North Sea province you are pretty safe - although arranging a DMZ (demilitarized zone) in the English Channel with France is smart. Of course, you could move there yourself right away, but that leaves it up to Germany to decide who to support - you have shown your hand are are committed. The same hold for France and the Eng channel as well. Grabbing it on turn 1 is a strong move, but leaves your fate in the hands of Germany and who it chooses to ally with.

In general, DMZs mean that either side entering that province means war. There's no wrong way to play, but the way we did it was not so much making deals that you promise not to break, but rather saying "either side not holding to this will constitute war". The situation changes too quickly in Diplomacy to make long-term deals easy, like the NAPs used in Dominions 4. Not impossible though, and whatever playstyle you think is best/suits you the most is the way to go :)

Anyway, England will normally grab Norway by moving fleets to the North Sea and Norwegian Sea (to have support available if Russia moves the Moscow army to St.P and can potentially block a lone English fleet from taking Norway) and then either convoy the army to Norway (usually seen as anti-Russian) or take it with a fleet, perhaps contesting Belgium with the army and other fleet.

After that it's easy as England to get stuck taking bits of the northern coasts here and there and not doing much else. To prosper, England will eventually have to both get armies to the mainland and breach the Med sea - not an easy task while keeping France and/or Germany happy. In fact, because England is likely to have naval dominance in the north and thus is likely able to backstab their German or French ally with impunity, France and Germany are sometimes reluctant to ally with England. This is balanced by the fact that even a joint attack by France and Germany on England is slow and painful if the English defend tenaciously, and the delay may leave France and Germany behind their eastern opponents in tempo.

Of course, a careful arrangement of relative fleet strengths makes alliance with Germany and/or France perfectly possible for England - just slightly more complicated than usual.

There you have it, I hope that helps or at least makes for a semi-interesting read :)
 
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Eadee

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/me brofists this (you can't stop me by disabling that feature on new accounts!)

Also, sqeecoo is rounding to the closest 4 as well. Is this mandatory in Diplomacy? I want to play it right :o
 

sqeecoo

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Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
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While we wait for Matalarata to click join, a truly staggering feat of courage and perseverance, I might as well go ahead and explain two more things, convoys and victory.

Fleets can convoy armies over sea - the fleet needs to be in a sea adjacent to the army. The army is ordered to MOVE where it needs to go, and the fleet should have the order to CONVOY the army from where it is to where it needs to go. So for instance, if Italy wants to convoy an army in Naples to Tunis via the Ionian sea, the army will be ordered to MOVE to Tunis, and the fleet will be ordered to CONVOY army Nap to Tun. You can also chain convoy armies via multiple fleets to distant areas - pretty useful. Unlike support, convoy orders are not cut by attacks, but if the fleet is dislodged and forced to retreat the convoy order will fail.

As to victory, you win if you hold 18 centers in a Fall turn. Sounds simple enough, but in fact winning a solo victory like that is very difficult in Diplomacy. If someone wins a solo victory in this game, he can truly be crowned the Rat Diplomat of the Codex, and fame and fortune deservedly awaits him.
This is because there is no fog of war - it will always be obvious who is about to win, and unless you can find someone to help you out and play kingmaker for you (perhaps because of a grudge against another player) it will be extremely hard to get those 18 centers if the rest of the board does the rational thing and unites against you. Just getting to 10+ centers first can be dangerous, as players will tend to ally against the early leader. This definitely cost me in the past.

Even if you are actually stronger than everyone, some areas of the map are hard or impossible to breach when properly defended - primarily the areas around Switzerland and the entrance/exit to the Mediterranean sea. These are called "stalemate lines", and it can be very useful to get even a single unit past them early, if you can - otherwise you might find yourself within reach of winning the game but simply stalemated in those areas. More info can be found in the strategy articles I linked, but I for one never bothered to learn all the details of the stalemate lines. It's enough to know that your last push to victory must be a blitz, since other players can usually organize a near-impentrable defence against your victory if given the chance.

Anyway, the game can also end in a draw: any player at any point can propose a draw between any number of surviving nations. If all surviving nations agree, the game ends in a draw according to the proposal (not all surviving nations have to be part of the draw proposal, but all have to agree). The game will usually end in a three-way draw. A two-way draw is theoretically possible, but will require irrational trust between the two winning allies. With just two players, someone can always backstab the other and go for the victory.
 

Eadee

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I was readinga bit about paradoxes that can arise with convoys and the troops being convoyed cutting support for something that indirectly supports the line they are convoyed by.
Does the site we play on solve these paradoxes? And if so, in which way?
 

Eadee

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Okay, so I better avoid provoking such paradoxes out of pure curiosity.
Oh the temptation :o
 
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I don't know what any of this means, but:

3. Paradox resolution
In the highly unlikely situation where a diplomacy paradox is hit, that is a situation that cannot be resolved according to the Avalon Hill 2000 rules, resolution uses what is sometimes called the Szykman rule. Any paradox has to involve convoys, and if a paradox is hit any convoy DIRECTLY involved in the core of the paradox is deemed to have failed. This then allows resolution.

http://www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=707&t=15122
 

Eadee

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/me brofists this (you can't stop me by disabling that feature on new accounts!)

Oh good, I'm not saying its the solution I'd have gone for, but it is a solution! And that is all that matters.
Now I can play in peace.

Wait, peace is not how Diplomacy works, right?
 

sqeecoo

Arcane
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
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Aaand we're all in the game!

Now we just have to all confirm participation within 24h and we're off! Actually, it looks like they changed it to 48 hours, which I like. Usually there was always someone that would miss the deadline to confirm participation :) Anyway, go ahead and click that button (you can find the game under Games->My Pending Games). Joined on the 4th of July, Dayyālu, Lizzurd.
 

Eadee

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5y4ch9vs.jpg
 

sqeecoo

Arcane
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Dec 13, 2006
Messages
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Well, here we have it! Turn 1!

view_image.png



Playing are:

Lizzurd as RUSSIA!

Kulja as TURKEY!

Dayyalu as ITALY!

Eadee as GERMANY!

Joined on the 4th of July as ENGLAND

Sqeecoo as AUSTRIA! (god help me)

and last but not least, Matalarata as FRANCE!

Good luck to everyone! Feel free to use whatever medium to communicate - there's a message system in the game, too. Feel free to contact me with technical questions if you have any.

And most of all - remember to have fun! I hope we have some hilariously convoluted plots and fakes and betrayals.



Now, time to read a couple of articles on Austria myself.

"When you play Austria, the first thing you have to do is pray."
:negative:
 

Eadee

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I really hope everyone has locked in SOME moves, It'd be a shame if the game resets due to NMR from someone.
 
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I like this distinction between giving orders and finalizing them.

Now I can just phone in something, and then come back later to refine them. If I do that in Dominions, I can be sure that everyone sends in their turns hours before deadline, and I end up with the dumb orders even though I would have had enough time to make the turn properly.

The joke is that my orders are dumb in any case.
 

sqeecoo

Arcane
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Dec 13, 2006
Messages
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And we have Turn 2! Let's see what happened.

image.png


England eats a biscuit and takes a sip of tea while opening with the most boringstandard moves. A few options from here though - contest or support someone to Bel, and decide whether to convoy the army to Norway or take it with a fleet.

The French army wonders to Gascony for no clear reason, but takes Burgundy which may be aggression against Germany or a fizzled arranged bounce. France now threatens Munich, which is a pain.

Germany is doing fine other than that, and can contest Bel (or defend Mun) and pressure Russia over Sweden.

Shockingly, Italy does not betray Austria and keeps to their side of the border. As you can see, as Austria I completely trusted Italy on turn one - you gotta take some risks, and it was understood that I'd fight back against Italy if attacked and prefer to give up my territory to Russia and Turkey, leaving Italy as their next target. Now I'm in good position to negotiate over Greece or just take it by force.

Russia takes two safe bounces in the Black sea and in Gal, and decides to move the Moscow army south. He has a good shot at two builds this turn (i.e. two conquered centers) in Swe and Rom, but he might not get any if things don't go well. As always, Russia is stronk but tricky.


The diplomatic chatting going on during all this is of course the meat of the game, but I'll leave that to your imagination. With just three units to move, it can still get surprisingly complex as you take into account what other people are saying (and what you think they actually mean).
 

sqeecoo

Arcane
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
2,615
And turn three!

(note the small technical note at the bottom of this post)

3_B.png


Interesting stuff happens!

Italy takes Greece? How? That requires insane amount of trust in the Austrian player, because if Italy gets betrayed and doesn't grab it he is pretty fucked with no builds. Taking Tunis is much safer, and Austria does not have a real reason to give Greece to Italy. I wonder what happened here :)

More importantly, Russia seems to have gotten two centers for a total of 6 (top spot, only Germany is close with 5) AND started a war with Turkey. Surprising, bold moves - or a cover for a Juggernaut?

Germany lets Russia into Sweden but then makes an aggressive move towards him. That would be a bit strange way to attack (stopping him from taking Swe would probably be more effective), so perhaps there's something else going on there. Or Germany was just covering the Baltic sea - a Russian fleet getting in there is extremely powerful and well worth forgoing Sweden if you are assured of Rumania.

France and England bounce in Bel and France doesn't take Por, leaving him with one build. Eh, no big deal, and the fleet in MAO (Mid Atlantic Ocean) is closer to England if he decides to retaliate.


You can find these sorts of maps with arrows pointing out movements under the Order History tab, btw.

Anyway, now we have the winter turn, where new armies are built. I've set this to 48 hours as well, since from my experience if it is set to less than the regular turn players might forget and assume they have two days, miss a build, and be pretty screwed. But there's usually no reason to spend two days on this - after the build there will be a normal 48h turn again.

So I suggest we all finalize retreat and build orders as soon as we do them, to speed things up. You can still change orders after finalizing.

However, if you are busy this is a nice way to have a little pause, and sometimes some players will need to do significant negotiation and thinking before deciding what to build. For instance, if France would build a fleet in Mar now he'd be practically declaring war on Italy (in absence of some deal). So builds can matter a lot and can signal the start of a war as often as moves, really. But in principle, let's try finalizing these build orders as soon as possible and having the turn move on without waiting the full 48h.
 

Eadee

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I finalised already and agree, building and retreating phases woukd be great to be sped up.
 

Dayyālu

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Shaper Crypt
To troll Italy or to troll England, this is the question...

Trust me, I exhausted all the whining strength on the OstFront. He would gain mostly a muffled cry at best.

The staggering amount of emoticons deployed in Diplo by Austria and Turkey are slowly gaining the upper hand on my will to live.


Should be an easy decision. Dayyālu's whine posts are way more hilarious than mine.

I'll remember this one, Briton subhuman! Englishmen, a race that, naked, hunted Marmots when we knifed a Julius Caesar!

22-12-ottobre-a.jpg


Your lands and armies will soon be ours![/QUOTE]
 
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