The first thing that comes to mind is analysing where you start, some starts are less crowded then others which I imagine that affect your chances of getting destroyed on the first turn. So ranking the starts purely on that:
- S rank (No neighbours): London, Tunis
- A rank (One neighbour): Edinburgh, Liverpool, Brest, Paris, Belgium, Portugal, Marseilles, Naples, Symrna, Ankara, Warsaw
- B rank (Two neighbours): Holland, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Spain, Rome, Venice, Greece, Sevastopol, St. Petersburg, Sweden, Norway, Denmark
- C rank (Three neighbours): Constantinople, Moscow
- D rank (Four neighbours): Triest, Budapest, Rumania, Bulgeria
- F rank (Five neighbours): Serbia