Are you writing only on classic?

One of my favorite parts of diplomacy is turning a position that seems losing into one that is strategically significant and thus no longer losing- collapsing in an unbalanced fashion, etc. Especially with countries like England, France, and even Italy I feel like there is so much focus on openings and not enough focus on how to get out of sticky situations.

If I can get a hold of webdip's various data in a way I can navigate (it's in a database in SQL, which I can't navigate...), I'll work with that; at the very least I'll be citing Tru Ninja's 2011 analysis which was built off of webdip data and has some useful stats in it.

Speaking of, email me at [email protected] and I'll get you a copy of that 2011 analysis. I forgot about it when I posted in the other thread earlier. Might scratch your stats itch all on its own! But if it doesn't, I'm still here to write :)

Super, thanks, will PM you. Don't think I have seen that piece of work.

That was @TheMinisterofWar.

@bo_sox48: Yeah, I don't have enough experience with the other variants. I've got a lot of games finished here and on vdip, but almost all of them are Classic or Classic1v1.

@uclabb: Agreed! Most country-specific articles have segments detailing other countries as possible threats; I figure it shouldn't be too difficult to expand that into "what to do if they've kicked your ass." And the general article will certainly address how to make the most of a bad situation!

Openings have been discussed at length and way too many times for you to really add anything new to that canon. I'd try to come up with a unique angle to approach these strategy articles, rather than just rehashing what's been discussed a million times in the forum.

This is a good idea PE, what are you writing it for?

For sure. I think my extent of discussing openings will be to weed out the crap (there's a lot of it...) and briefly address a few good openings. I think the significant majority of Diplomacy articles out there are opening strategy articles, and while that phase of the game definitely needs some degree of coverage in any complete treatment of the game, it doesn't need much.

@Thucy, there's a thread a little ways down from here that asked about articles written for a more modern Diplomacy setting (i.e. webdiplomacy/etc. not postal), and there's basically nothing anyone can find online for this. I figured I'd go ahead and try to fill the gap a bit

I think a good discussion point for the paper would be to examine the nature of trends in webdip games. Being such a (fairly) close community of players, moves tend to catch on and trend fairly regularly based on in-game success. A good opening will disseminate pretty quickly after early successes. In particular, I'm thinking of the English Northern opening combined with F NTH-SKAG, which was fairly popular a few months back. I've noticed on this site that the balance of power tends to reset and the pendulum swings back to equilibrium pretty fast. Staying ahead of the curve and innoventing (a word I just innovented) new and successful openings is good, but there is also a lot to be said for the collective intelligence of the community to expose any weaknesses quickly.

Or I could write that part if you're looking for collaborators. Its an interesting phenomenon that's unique to an online environment and would make for good reading.

I also think that "talk with everyone" is kind of a cliche that gets repeated over and over to little effect. The real thing is something closer to "have a relationship with everyone that furthers your goals" which sometimes means hardly talking to them at all.

I have an idea for a specific thing that I have the most trouble with: turning a good midgame into a possibly winning position. I frequently end up in strong draws because I still haven't mastered that.

@2WL: If you'd write that, I'd appreciate it. I follow the concept and I think it's spot-on, but I'm not actively playing enough these days to give good contemporary examples. The only one I remember is the Bohemian Crusher becoming trendy a while back (1.5-2 yrs ago I think), and I only remember it because I was the trailblazer ;)

@uclabb: Agreed, without disclosing more information I'm in a game now where I've ignored a sorta-neighbor because I knew I had very little plans for cooperation (I'm attacking that sorta-neighbor now, pretty early in), I knew it wouldn't seem overly fishy not to (not like Austria/Italy silence), and I didn't want to have to front with someone else and open myself up to an intelligence leak for no other reason than "remembering to talk to everyone." Though it's useful to talk early and often in building working relationships with all other powers, it can sometimes be a detriment and isn't required. Will definitely address this.

@ckroberts: Most of the endgame is knowledge of stalemate lines, tactics and bluffing; all information that's more individualized to the specific game. I'll address it as best I can, but I personally find writing for the endgame difficult. If there's someone out there interested in collaborating and who feels s/he can write a good endgame strategy article, I'd welcome the help!

I'll second ckroberts' idea. More specifically, I think it's too easy to play for a strong mid-game position that leaves little chance of a solo. I'd love to see strategy advice that (a) pointed out the common pitfalls which lead to strong midgame positions but no chance of a solo and (b) how to craft a strong midgame position where a solo is more likely, but isn't so volatile that your own position is tenuous for very long.

And one thing I have been thinking about more in my recent games is, how are alliances likely to end, given the other alliances on the board? And which alliances is it most to my advantage to influence other players to enter, given either the alliance I am forced to be in or the one(s) already in play?

@PresidentEden- That is exactly the kind of situation I am talking about. And an added bonus is that if you start talking a lot to that player, their response won't be "oh, look, more b.s. to sift through from PE" but instead will be "oh wow, he must want to work with me now"

PE, imo don't waste any time on openings. There's already a crapload on there. Just link people to one of those.

Spend time on how to diplome, when it's the right time to stab, how to anticipate a stab, how to cover your back, and the general differences between countries.

Most games I don't even bother with an opening.

I enjoy non-traditional openings, but I agree there are plenty of forums for that already.

If you have something to add on opening theory, i'd love to see an analysis of the northern triangle (russia, germany, england) - southern triangle (austria, italy, turkey) with france as the middle man (contrasting western vs eastern triangles, with italy as middleman) and what to do when the otherside is resolved before yours side (ie entering the midgame without defeating your neighbours)

Really the only opening stuff that I think is vaguely interesting and perhaps not sufficiently explored is Italian openings that include Venice to Piedmont. I think this is a tragically underused move, but for some reason I seem to recall that PE doesn't agree.

Here's my idea for an Italian strategy.

Spring 01: click the "Draw" button and hope everyone follows suit.