The Anti-France Meta

[Chaqa]

Hi all, I think one of the most interesting things that has happened lately is the anti-France meta. It hasn't become ubiquitous to the entire site, but the Gunboat community and the live game community have both been seeing it a lot, as have press games.

What is the Anti-France Meta?
Basically, it is highlighted by England opening to the Channel, with very common occurrences of Germany being hostile toward France (whether by moving to Burgundy or assisting England) and Italy moving to Piedmont and/or Tunis to move west.

Why is it Happening?
I think there's a number of reasons. France is traditionally the strongest power on the board (though some dispute this), and if left without major opposition, by 1903 even France can be an unstoppable powerhouse. Additionally, Swordsman posted in his blog about the E/G alliance being effective, and this has been taken lately as dogma by Gunboat players, leading to an almost guaranteed anti-French opening.

Why Should We Care?
Playing France nowadays stinks. You often get attacked by three nations in 1901. France has joined Russia and Austria for me in the "oh, great, this country" group in many games. Others feel similarly.


I'd like to open the discussion to how we can best react to this meta, what France players can do differently to combat it, and how it impacts other countries (say - what does this mean for an Austrian or Russian player?).

[dmittlem]

Why is it Happening?
I think there's a number of reasons. France is traditionally the strongest power on the board (though some dispute this), and if left without major opposition, by 1903 even France can be an unstoppable powerhouse. Additionally, Swordsman posted in his blog about the E/G alliance being effective, and this has been taken lately as dogma by Gunboat players, leading to an almost guaranteed anti-French opening.

Adding to this. The community on this site seems to have been influenced by another one of swordsman's claims, that Italy risks long term gains by weakening Austria in the opening two years. Even if this wasn't an effect of swordsman's articles, the agreed upon standard gunboat opening for Austria (at least on this site) is Vie->Gal, Bud->Ser, Tri->Alb. Any player who draws Italy, follows these threads and keeps track of the meta knows, then, that there's minimal risk in moving out of Venice in S01. As long as those moves are the expected Austrian set, I would expect Italy to often move Piedmont in S01, just to put pressure on France (the power that Italy would like to see collapse first in the North).

[Carl Tuckerson]

I hosted two gunboat round robin sets of games among thirteen top-100 GR players (one duplicate). The first seven sets completed recently. Claesar was kind enough to compile some relevant data in a Google spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

France had a dismal outing. Eliminated in four games, survived with one center in a fifth, and only one game where its performance was truly great, a 17-center draw piloted by New England Fire Squad.

Interestingly, England's performance was reasonable, but modest; eliminated in four games as well, but with three draws, including a 13-center draw. Better than France's, but not by much.

It's Germany's numbers that have been absolutely astronomical. Germany took the set's only solo and made the draw in three other games, two in which it held the center lead and a third in which it was second, never with fewer than 10 centers. Germany is a bit of a boom-bust country so that's not too surprising, but it certainly performed a step above everyone else.

Unfortunately, I haven't sat down to do a more thorough dive into the games to determine if these apparently related numbers are actually caused by one another. But I've been concerned for a little while before this set of results that, across the metagame, England has overcompensated for its past issues with France and is now unduly empowering Germany rather than bringing its odds against the two countries to parity. Seven games isn't an inspiring data set but I think there's something to take from them nonetheless.

I think opening to the Channel is still optimal, but perhaps England should be looking for less committal ways to play the earlygame despite this. For example, I think in most games you should still be moving the Liverpool army to the North Sea coast instead of moving to Wales, and convoying to Norway instead of trying to land in France. Maybe the issue is that a lot of English players take very committal lines against France, following sound advice that France should be disrupted before anything else, and are unable to extricate themselves in the wake of more significant dangers, like an unchecked Germany.

~

I've focused a lot on England and Germany and not very much on France itself here, because I think France's tactics are still largely constrained by its dependence on the Iberian neutral centers as the main source of its early development. You need to capture Portugal and Spain early, and that need is only the more apparent for the fact that you're frequently under attack by multiple powers. We've discussed English Channel openings for France on Discord, but I don't think those really accomplish anything, since you need to take Portugal, and the fleet is the only sound way to do it; moving to the Channel reduces the threat to you in 1901, but it mostly just defers that threat until later, when you inevitably must backtrack to Portugal while under more pressure as the other powers got more units quicker than you did.
Failing a move to the English Channel, the "best" moveset places an army adjacent to Brest, to threaten to cover the English Channel, and makes sure the other army can take Spain. I think most French openings these days are already accomplishing these criteria, and I don't know how much more iteration can be done. There's only so much work that sound tactics can do for you when E/G actively want you dead from the jump in a strikingly high number of games.

~

Italy might also have a role to play here. I typically favor putting an army in Piedmont early, to signal to Germany that I'm game to attack France if he's open to the idea. But it's somewhat difficult for Italy to justify ignoring Austria and Turkey in the first place to attack France, and if England is routinely competing with you for Iberia, is it even worth credibly threatening France and potentially drawing his units south? At the very least, if the meta is heavily E/G-favored, I think Italy can afford to back off additional disruption of France and let France lose to them slowly, while Italy takes his fortunes east.

~

I am especially curious to get swordsman's take on this development. He rightly identified that England's results in gunboat were very weak, that France was intrinsically very powerful and a natural predator of England, and that flexing England's options in the English Channel would be a key component of fixing England's problems, and I honestly think a lot of this reaction is in response to his theorizing more than anything else (I know my perspective on England/France changed by reading his writings). I wonder if there is a recommendation for France?

[foodcoats]

It's Germany's numbers that have been absolutely astronomical. Germany took the set's only solo and made the draw in three other games, two in which it held the center lead and a third in which it was second, never with fewer than 10 centers. Germany is a bit of a boom-bust country so that's not too surprising, but it certainly performed a step above everyone else.

I decided I wanted to git gud at gunboat so I'm playing in a bunch of games at the moment, and I surely hope I'm not breaking the rulez by tangentially referring to ongoing games, but what I am seeing almost without exception is England attacks France and empowers Germany so grossly that Germany then attacks England and France simultaneously and thoroughly dominates them through a guaranteed 7 SC opening and sheer position (it seems England cannot simultaneously defend NTH and attack la forteresse.. gee whoduthunkit).

I think next time I roll France I'll open Bre -> EC, Par -> Bur, Mar S Par -> Bur, and open full north if I roll England (Edi NWG NTH). We must stop Jerry.

[mdrltc]

Has anybody noticed that the default gunboat opening for R/T appears to be the juggernaut? I, for one, am getting a little sick of that! But if Turkey isn't teaming up with Russia, then invariably he's showing love for Austria and what's up with that? As Russia, I think that sucks. And if Russia isn't teaming up with Turkey, then he's probably aligned with Austria, which forces Turkey to try to hold on to Bulgaria while awaiting the inevitable visit from Italy.

Sorry, I digress, back to France. Hmmmm.....Open with Brest to EC and hope England read this post and understands it isn't personal. Allow, or even better, support Germany into Belgium so Germany will understand you are a tremendous admirer of all things German. England will understand because he's read the anti France meta post.

[Chaqa]

I've talked before on Discord that I have always thought Germany was my best country, and one of the more underrated ones. I would agree that I think Germany is the big winner of the anti-France meta. As for how to solve it, I'm not sure. In a live game the other day, I did pretty well when England didn't move to the Channel. I've started experimenting occasionally as France and I've had a few interesting things I like.

One trick I've used a few times is to just not defend Brest. If France takes Portugal + Spain and covers Marseills with say Gascony or Burgundy, then you build in Paris. In Spring 1902, England will 9/10 times use Brest to try to bounce MAO with Portugal, but if you *hold* Portugal and move Paris->Brest, Spain->Gascony, you can kinda hold it and stall England in some cases.

It isn't ideal, but it's one tactic to disrupt England and supercharge Germany by letting germany into Belgium, forcing England to back off, if possible.

[dmittlem]

One trick I've used a few times is to just not defend Brest.

http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resour ... bresto.htm

^France allows England to plant a fleet in Brest in order to keep the alliance semi-balanced

[Carl Tuckerson]

I'm loathe to even say it because I fear the potential of future exploitation, but I virtually never cover Brest. I don't think most English players have the balls to go for Brest if a unit is around to defend it. The safer play is to move to MAO if you want to advance against France, since outside of galaxy brain moves like MAO convoying an army to Portugal, MAO is going to get vacated.
Of course, now that I've said this, I suspect there will be an uptick in games where I lose Brest in A01. It's the sacrifice I make for love and science and human advancement.

~

I do think generally that it's in France's interests in this metagame to abandon Belgium to Germany. Belgium is a trap in most defensive arrangements--you need three armies to defend the border without it and four with it, so you aren't actually netting any "free" units this way. It does deprive Germany of a fourth army so you don't have to worry about Mun -> Tyl -> Pie -> Mar shenanigans, but it also deprives Germany of the chance to build a third fleet and attack England, which in most cases is your only realistic out.

~

@mdrltc: I think if Russia and Turkey are playing correctly around Black Sea, then in the vast majority of cases they must default to allying against Austria, because the commitment of a second fleet to the Black Sea by either party risks Austria steamrolling them both, with or without Italian assistance.

[Matticus13]

I suggest opening to Gascony. Brest->Gascony, Paris->Gascony, Marseilles-> Gascony.

[swordsman3003]

I have a private (family/friends) gunboat league and we've played 53 matches together since February 2017. I keep track of all the results on my own, and all sorts of statistics about the results (what self-respecting nerd would pass up the chance?)

Among the players who have played more than 10 matches, here are the tabulations for each player's respective "MVC" (most-valuable country):
England: 1
France: 6
Germany: 1
Russia: 1
Italy: 0
Austria: 1
Turkey: 0
(6/10 players performed best, on average, as France)

Among the 6 players who have France as their MVC are the two best-performing competitors (myself and my older, board-game obsessed cousin) and the two worst-performing competitors (a sibling and a cousin who have played board games with me all their lives and are good at other games). So in this league, whether the player is good or bad at Diplomacy does not predict whether France is their MVC. France is the MVC for more than half the consistent players, regardless of their overall performance as players. (Just FYI we play draw-sized scoring, so France's tactical ability to get into draws is definitely relevant to these results).

I've also kept track of the Elo rating for each country (as though the country itself were the player), with starting values of 1000:
1. France, 1082
2. England 1051
3. Italy 1048
4. Germany 1027
5. Austria 991
6. Turkey 940
7. Russia 861
(Since this is an Elo system, the more-recent games factor in more heavily. France has a lead, but it is not insurmountable. Isn't it interseting that England and Italy are not far behind?)

And here are the all-time results, not weighted, just pure points. The values are arbitrary, but the starting amount per country is zero and they are traded according to the draw-sized scoring results (so they are zero sum).
1. France 237.67
2. England 71.50
3. Italy 54.33
4. Germany -12.33
5. Russia -25.50
6. Turkey -100.83
7. Austria -172.00
(Note that the last 4 are negative values, so only France, England, and Italy have an overall positive record. By this metric, the gap between France and the other powers is staggering -- comparing that fact with the Elo data makes me think that France was extremely strong at the start of the league and has declined over time while remaining #1.)

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Fun fact: except for sweetwatersam (who has become a personal acquaintance after we played on this site together for many years), I trained these 10 players to play gunboat Diplomacy (the rest are either myself, my apprentice, or family that never played Diplomacy until I trained them).

I'll accept the idea that I'm the cause of the anti-France gunboat meta on webDiplomacy. How could I not? I directly advocated that many times in this forum and on my blog (and I put some effort into promoting my blog, brotherbored.com/Diplomacy)

Chew on this, though:

Given that this league is a product of my own mind, and that 90% of the mentioned players have been trained to play by me, wouldn't you expect France to have terrible results?

How is it that the results of a gunboat Diplomacy league composed almost entirely of players trained by the progenitor of the anti-French metagame show France as the indisputable #1 strongest power in that league?

You'll have to take my word for it on this, but I am just as un-subtle about my anti-French views to all the new players I train for Diplomacy privately as I am publicly on my blog. If you spoke to any of the players who I taught to play for this league, they would -- to a person -- parrot my views about France's inherent strength and the need for anti-French opening play by England, Germany and Italy (and please take note that by two of these three metrics provided by me, England, Germany and Italy are the best-performing powers in my league aside from France).

Could it be that France is just that @#$%ing strong?

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I play high-level gunboat games, and my experiences in those games are how I developed this view about France's power and have only hardened that view with time. Even when several of France's neighbors attack France at the same time, there are all sorts of defensive tactics France can use to bide time. France can recover from these defensive situations to explosive offensive power. And if France is not contained early on, France has the strongest ability to solo win of any power in gunboat. I won't repeat ideas from my tier list post.

I have never experienced anything, and I don't think I ever will, to change my view on France's raw power in gunboat Diplomacy.

Despite creating an anti-France metagame, I still think France is the best power for me to draw. I think my chances of getting into a draw are high, and my chances of solo winning are the highest.

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Something really stands out to me about the data from my gunboat league: England is basically in second place. I bet if we play 50 more matches across the next 2 years, our anti-French metagame will allow England to creep over France in some of these metrics. I believe that (in my league) the C-Tier power England has arrived at second place due to the league's anti-French metagame. I stand by my assessment that England is a C-Tier power; I think England is inherently weak in gunboat. I think that an anti-French metagame balances the power of England and France, and does not, by itself, elevate England above France's power.

Speaking strategically, I think England's chances of making it into a draw or solo winning are highest if England contains (and especially if England destroys) France. It doesn't matter to me that Germany is also beneficiary of this policy. As England, I would rather have a mid-game showdown vs. Germany than a showdown vs. France. Not "usually" (I sometimes hedge my words this way) -- I mean that's what I prefer.

France is a naval power and England's natural rival.
France's is physically closer to England (count the spaces between Brest and London vs. London and Kiel).
France does not necessarily have to get into a conflict with Italy, and Italy almost always has to face danger from Austria and/or Turkey.

Germany is a land power and therefore doesn't necessarily antagonize England.
Germany is not as close to England as France is.
Germany often gets antagonized by southern powers, particularly Russia and Austria.

I am simply un-moved by the idea that Germany can become a threat to me as England if France is down and Germany takes advantage. Sure. Of course. But that danger is far, far, FAR less concerning to me that the idea of fighting France in midgame at a similar level of power.

In my opinion, the ideal English solo win plan in Gunboat is to destroy France in alliance with Germany, break into the med, and betray Germany around that time. Alliance with France is a great idea in Press diplomacy, but in gunboat you're just going to get attacked by France as soon as France can possibly get away with it.

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So it seems that many players on this site are taking my advice as England, Germany, and Italy to do various anti-French openings and alliances.

But maybe what separates all y'all from the people I have personally trained is not my anti-French metagame views, but rather that...

...I tutored my friends, family, and apprentice on how to kick ass when they draw France, and I haven't published any guide or journal for how to play as France in gunboat Diplomacy.

(BTW, the player with the MVC of Germany is sweetwatersam, the one player I never tutored)

[ziran]

As France, I'm partial to the zig/zag opening. Bre-MAO; Par-Bur/Gas; Mar-Gas/Bur. It guards Bur, and being able to self-bounce in Bre is nice. The threat of a self-bounce is a deterrent in itself. I once snagged got a three build start with England in the channel. England and Germany supported the other into Bel, while I snuck in.

Later, in 04, I managed to get into Lvp. Unfortunately, this was in the spring, but I had a 50/50 shot at holding it and actually getting a build, with England, Germany and Italy all at my throat. I think Germany might have cut their losses and flipped if I had succeeded.

https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?game ... #gamePanel

[swordsman3003]

I re-worked my forum post into a blog post. Just FYI.

https://brotherbored.com/the-anti-france-metagame/