Russia in Modern Diplomacy II

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

Does anyone else think that Russia is too easily beaten on the Modern Diplomacy II Variant? There are a few things that I would like to discuss.

1. Russia has zero guaranteed centers. Bielo is contested by Ukraine and Poland, Norway by England, Sweden by Germany (in some cases), and Georgia by Turkey. You can even count Lithuania being contested by Poland. While yes, Russia starts out with 5 units, this is negated by point 2.

2. Russia has a terrible starting position. The Ukrainians can extremely easily attack Russia, but the same cannot be said for Russia attack Ukraine. Not only does Russia have four neighbors, which unlike France, Ukraine, and Germany is countered by guaranteed centers, but they also have extremely indefensible borders.

3. Russia must rely on press, which I know is how Diplomacy is supposed to be played, but they also have to pray that someone allows them to take a center. In my opinion, Russia is the worst nation to play by far.

How does everyone feel about this? I kinda just wanted to rant about Russia for a bit, I think at least some people agree with me. What are your thoughts?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Does anyone else think that Russia is too easily beaten on the Modern Diplomacy II Variant? There are a few things that I would like to discuss.

1. Russia has zero guaranteed centers. Bielo is contested by Ukraine and Poland, Norway by England, Sweden by Germany (in some cases), and Georgia by Turkey. You can even count Lithuania being contested by Poland. While yes, Russia starts out with 5 units, this is negated by point 2.

2. Russia has a terrible starting position. The Ukrainians can extremely easily attack Russia, but the same cannot be said for Russia attack Ukraine. Not only does Russia have four neighbors, which unlike France, Ukraine, and Germany is countered by guaranteed centers, but they also have extremely indefensible borders.

3. Russia must rely on press, which I know is how Diplomacy is supposed to be played, but they also have to pray that someone allows them to take a center. In my opinion, Russia is the worst nation to play by far.

How does everyone feel about this? I kinda just wanted to rant about Russia for a bit, I think at least some people agree with me. What are your thoughts?

I've always thought of Diplomacy as a game that is inherently unbalanced. Every map favours some nations over others. Experienced players should know this and play accordingly (e.g., by being more fearful of nations with on-average advantages).

In general, I think this behaviour-based rebalancing actually works a lot of the time in Diplomacy, especially for the Classic map and among experienced players. That said, I think it kind of breaks down among the variants and/or with new players, since the advantages/disadvantages are less well known.

Vdip has some useful stats in this regard, including for Modern Dip II (see: https://www.vdiplomacy.com/stats.php?variantID=19). Quoting these stats is one way to bolster press strategies like "I'm too weak to be a threat" or "they're too strong, let's all fight them". Of course, this can always backfire (e.g., "they're weak anyhow, let's get rid of them").

Interestingly, Russia actually does pretty well in the VDip stats for Modern Dip II. Like in the Classic map, Russia is a high-risk high-reward nation: it's most likely to solo (tied with Poland) and most likely to be eliminated (near-tie with France). If there is an outlier of terrible performance on this variant, it's France.

[Aristocrat]

I have posted about this before but a portion of this is because the fleet in Murmansk is supposed to be an army. Apparently there was a coding error when the map was originally ported over to this site (or to vdip, not sure which one came first, but the error copied itself). See here for ~1995 article when the variant was first being developed showing it should be army Murmansk and not fleet: http://www.diplomatic-pouch.org/Zine/W1995A/Mous/Modern.html

Army Murmansk would simultaneously boost Russia while weakening Germany (Sweden no longer nearly guaranteed), Poland, and Ukraine (Russia tends to be seriously outnumbered an an extra army would massively help vs Poland/Ukraine as fleet Murmansk is next to worthless). That has some knock on effects: if Germany is less of a powerhouse, Poland or Britain may target it more; if Russia is harder to take over, Poland may be more inclined to go against Ukraine or Germany rather than take the almost-guaranteed Russian centers as in the current setup.

[VonEconomo]

I agree that Russia is incredibly weak in Modern, but I think the same issue goes for France in the gunboat version as well. Almost all of their neighbors are difficult to attack without one front deciding you're not worth it, and it feels like that's hard to achieve in gunboat.

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

I agree that Russia is incredibly weak in Modern, but I think the same issue goes for France in the gunboat version as well. Almost all of their neighbors are difficult to attack without one front deciding you're not worth it, and it feels like that's hard to achieve in gunboat.

I see your point, but France has five, maybe six SC’s by winter 2000. Russia has no such luck

[Aristocrat]

I agree that Russia is incredibly weak in Modern, but I think the same issue goes for France in the gunboat version as well. Almost all of their neighbors are difficult to attack without one front deciding you're not worth it, and it feels like that's hard to achieve in gunboat.

I see your point, but France has five, maybe six SC’s by winter 2000. Russia has no such luck

(The below is for gunboat)

France at least has a shot at getting to a draw or soloing if they do the smart thing (attack Spain, not Italy or Germany or, god forbid, Britain). France should beat Spain 1v1 most times. If France gets ganged up on, it's toast, but the same can be said of any country. I think a lot of its perceived weakness comes from poor decision-making by those playing France and as well as poor decisions made by its neighbors (France should be fairly far down on the target list for Italy and Britain in particular).

Russia literally has no shot at advancing in the game unless another country greatly screws up or Russia gets a very generous assist from Poland or Ukraine. It cannot win any battle 1v1, it usually isn't even close. And more often than not, they see themselves on the receiving end of a 2v1 (Ukraine and Poland both going after Russia). In a better meta environment you would probably see Ukraine+Russia as a default alliance, but the level of play in Modern is pretty mediocre overall which tends to lead to Polish dominance over everyone. The error that denies Russia its 3rd army and instead gives it a worthless Murmansk fleet doesn't help, because it essentially forecloses any ability of Russia to attack a competent Poland without help. Instead Russia has to try to attack Ukraine, stretching its defensive lines and opening the door wide open for the inevitable Polish invasion.

(Spain is in a somewhat similar situation to Russia in that it can't hope to beat its main rival (France) 1v1, but at least Spain benefits from the fact that other countries often distract France enough to give Spain an opening. Russia has no such luck).

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

I would rather play as France than Russia.

Italy: Italy almost never attacks France unless there is a strong Germany Italy alliance, which even then usually focuses East. Italy has an Egypt-Turkey alliance to worry about, and even if Egypt attacks Turkey (which Turkey loses basically all the time) Italy will also focus on gaining lost Turkish centers.

Germany: Germany benefits much better from contesting the Scandinavian peninsula, mainly Sweden (again Russia fails here) Also, an anti French opening is usually not helped because of Poland’s proximity to Germany’s centers, nullifying the safety Germany usually has attacking France in modern diplomacy.

Spain: Spain loses in a 1 v 1 against France. This encourages cooperations, which usually leads to Spain playing an anti Egypt or anti Italy opening (again, this lessens the threat Italy poses to France).

England: stupid England sucks. England loses if they dont attack northern Russia immediately. Surprise surprise, this typically favors Britain.