Is Austria OP?

[spleenman]

Does anyone else think that Austria is overpowered when playing a France V Austria game?

[Trigfea63]

Austria has a slight advantage in FvA, yes. I have heard 55/45. It's probably a bit more than that when the players are evenly matched.

[JECE]

These bots are so weird.

[Doom427]

While auto-text generated diplomacy advice is typically understood to be worthless, simply scraping decades of zine content without knowing any of the context behind it and using a thesaurus to butcher any attempt to understand what technical words mean, it does have many unique advantages, so who can say?

[Jamiet99uk]

While auto-text generated diplomacy advice is typically understood to be worthless, simply scraping decades of zine content without knowing any of the context behind it and using a thesaurus to butcher any attempt to understand what technical words mean, it does have many unique advantages, so who can say?

Skilled and diplomatic players can find ways to succeed with any country, including Austria or France. It's essential to remember that Diplomacy is a negotiation-heavy game where alliances and betrayal play a significant role, and outcomes can vary widely based on player decisions and interactions.
https://www.zombo.com

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Here is an interesting wrap-up of WebDip data on the very subject:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?cid ... 5D9F%21176

Most players know that certain countries have inherent advantages and adjust their playstyle accordingly, but that definitely does not result in an even playing field.

Data drawn from this site suggest that it's just bad luck to get Austria or Italy. From the author's sample of actual games, Austria has a very low win rate (about 7%) and a low survival rate (about 40%). Italy likewise gets punished most games (win rate of only 5% and gets eliminated in about half the time).

Meanwhile, more balanced nations like France win 11% of games and survive 76% of the time.

There are also high-risk high-reward countries. Russia wins a whopping 14% of games, despite being eliminated half the time.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Here is an interesting wrap-up of WebDip data on the very subject:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?cid ... 5D9F%21176

Most players know that certain countries have inherent advantages and adjust their playstyle accordingly, but that definitely does not result in an even playing field.

Data drawn from this site suggest that it's just bad luck to get Austria or Italy. From the author's sample of actual games, Austria has a very low win rate (about 7%) and a low survival rate (about 40%). Italy likewise gets punished most games (win rate of only 5% and gets eliminated in about half the time).

Meanwhile, more balanced nations like France win 11% of games and survive 76% of the time.

There are also high-risk high-reward countries. Russia wins a whopping 14% of games, despite being eliminated half the time.

Just realized OP was talking about a 2-player non-press game, nevermind all this...

[JECE]

Thanks for linking to that paper, though! I've made the same mistake on the forum before, ha ha.

[Yonni]

Nice blast from the past. I'm sure True Ninja would be thrilled that it's still being circulated.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Nice blast from the past. I'm sure True Ninja would be thrilled that it's still being circulated.

This is off-topic to the post now, but does anyone know of other online Dip analyses like the one I linked to above? I found it super informative and I wonder if some of these numbers have changed in the 12 years since this was published.

[Yonni]

Maybe you'll find some of what you're looking for here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37

edit: also this:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3173

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Maybe you'll find some of what you're looking for here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37

edit: also this:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3173

Many thanks!

[cdngooner]

Really? In FvA I find France's ability to build fleets on two different coasts is a very powerful resource.

[Trigfea63]

Really? In FvA I find France's ability to build fleets on two different coasts is a very powerful resource.

True, but Austria has other advantages. It sits next to the Balkans/Turkey and has access to a free stockpile of 7 SCs. Austria often wins by grabbing 18 centers before France can deploy its fleets properly. Austria can neutralize French fleets in Scandinavia with armies through StP, at least for a few game-years.

[gimix]

I'm in a F vs A tournament elsewhere, with the added quirk that the non playing powers have their standard units on the board - they always hold, and disband when dislodged, but this means that you need supported attacks to take those SCs.

This of course makes an Austrian rush more difficult and so favors France; nonetheless French supremacy is blatant.
In the qualifying round we had 48 matches of 2 games each (with inverted countries), so 96 games: 51 victories for France, 30 for Austria, 15 draws.
However it must be noted that in 23 matches the difference in strength between the players was such that the same player won with both countries. If we discard these unbalanced matches then we have an impressive 28 wins for F versus only 7 for A: 4 times more!

[Trigfea63]

Interesting format. I've never played it that way, with the other powers' units on the board and holding. I imagine that would make it a very different game. For example, could France support-hold the German army in Munich, and then Austria would need 3 to dislodge it?

[captainmeme]

Austria is favoured in standard FvA. Meta AI created a very strong bot for the variant, and as Austria it could beat top humans (and itself) upwards of 80% of the time. My general impression is that Austria is heavily favoured at low level of play, France is slightly favoured at intermediate, and Austria is favoured again at the highest level of play.

I've played the neutral units variant of FvA over on Olympus... My opinion is that it's so heavily France-sided that Austria should never win unless they get very, very lucky or the France player doesn't really get the variant.

[captainmeme]

Maybe you'll find some of what you're looking for here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37

edit: also this:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3173

RJ also made one of these specifically for FvA, it's incredibly useful:

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ ... ublish=yes