Gunboat Strategy: England
Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 6:46 am
I want to talk about gunboat strategy for specific countries. I've been reading swordsman3003's journal (pt 1, 2) and maps (1). They've inspired me to delve deeper into each country, and see if we the community can't create a useful resource/reference for gunboat strategy for each country.
I'll start with England, because it's the first country, and because I've seen a lot of English players struggling lately. This is the key question to me: What do you do about France?
I am coming around to swordsman's claim in his writings that France is hands-down the best country in gunboat and probably in Classic Diplomacy generally. I think France is very favored in a war between these two countries, without any interference from the outside.
I've seen a lot of people open to the Channel, and I generally hate those openings, because you outright leave your fate in Germany's (and to a lesser extent Russia's) hands right from the start.
At the same time, if England waits until France grabs the Iberian centers and builds a fleet in Brest, they are absolutely banking on Germany to pressure Burgundy and to keep France honest with an army build. In a lot of ways, your fate is already in Germany's hands: how much risk are you really taking by acknowledging that from the jump and making the most powerful positional play available in that framework?
Of course, it's possible that you could ally with France. I think France becomes much less of a menace, even if allowed to develop and grow, if England is capable of getting to the midgame with her own power base in Scandinavia and/or coastal Germany. France becomes a juggernaut in games where England's home centers turn blue, since Western powers are structurally advantaged in fights over Scandinavia (swordsman discusses this idea in detail in the maps article, if you'd like a read), but once England routinely has a few fleets on patrol near the homeland, France's window to attack England successfully disappears quickly.
That said, why would France do this? Sometimes it happens, of course, and perhaps a very aggressively anti-French start from Germany or Italy forces France into England's arms, but if France is left to his own devices and allowed to pick a fight, England is such an obvious first target for the exact reasons just stated.
Other thoughts:
- How do you deal with Germany and Russia? I've seen a trend of Germany and Russia allying in the earlygame, out of a mutual fear of England's potential to dominate Scandinavia if they don't work together. How does England go about breaking up this tendency if it shows up in a particular gunboat game?
- How many fleets does a successful England need? A lot of her targets are coastal, but taking Munich needs a dedicated effort to develop an army, which gets to be prohibitively difficult if England churns out too many fleets too early. I imagine you want around three to tackle Scandinavia (after that, your first army is probably more beneficial for support actions in Finland and projecting force into the German or Russian interior, and perhaps your second army too), and probably another three to deal with France and beyond (too many bottlenecks to make good use of many more fleets). You also essentially always need North Sea garrisoned, although that doesn't necessarily demand its own fleet apart from the six listed before.
I'll start with England, because it's the first country, and because I've seen a lot of English players struggling lately. This is the key question to me: What do you do about France?
I am coming around to swordsman's claim in his writings that France is hands-down the best country in gunboat and probably in Classic Diplomacy generally. I think France is very favored in a war between these two countries, without any interference from the outside.
I've seen a lot of people open to the Channel, and I generally hate those openings, because you outright leave your fate in Germany's (and to a lesser extent Russia's) hands right from the start.
At the same time, if England waits until France grabs the Iberian centers and builds a fleet in Brest, they are absolutely banking on Germany to pressure Burgundy and to keep France honest with an army build. In a lot of ways, your fate is already in Germany's hands: how much risk are you really taking by acknowledging that from the jump and making the most powerful positional play available in that framework?
Of course, it's possible that you could ally with France. I think France becomes much less of a menace, even if allowed to develop and grow, if England is capable of getting to the midgame with her own power base in Scandinavia and/or coastal Germany. France becomes a juggernaut in games where England's home centers turn blue, since Western powers are structurally advantaged in fights over Scandinavia (swordsman discusses this idea in detail in the maps article, if you'd like a read), but once England routinely has a few fleets on patrol near the homeland, France's window to attack England successfully disappears quickly.
That said, why would France do this? Sometimes it happens, of course, and perhaps a very aggressively anti-French start from Germany or Italy forces France into England's arms, but if France is left to his own devices and allowed to pick a fight, England is such an obvious first target for the exact reasons just stated.
Other thoughts:
- How do you deal with Germany and Russia? I've seen a trend of Germany and Russia allying in the earlygame, out of a mutual fear of England's potential to dominate Scandinavia if they don't work together. How does England go about breaking up this tendency if it shows up in a particular gunboat game?
- How many fleets does a successful England need? A lot of her targets are coastal, but taking Munich needs a dedicated effort to develop an army, which gets to be prohibitively difficult if England churns out too many fleets too early. I imagine you want around three to tackle Scandinavia (after that, your first army is probably more beneficial for support actions in Finland and projecting force into the German or Russian interior, and perhaps your second army too), and probably another three to deal with France and beyond (too many bottlenecks to make good use of many more fleets). You also essentially always need North Sea garrisoned, although that doesn't necessarily demand its own fleet apart from the six listed before.