I appreciate that President, but I went and looked over some online Diplomacy materials and I think the general usage of "natural neutral" is what you and that other guy were saying was the use of the word. There's really no such thing as right and wrong definitions, just conventional usage, but for the sake of clear communication it is usually best to use the most conventional meaning of a word. So it was probably a mistake for me to use "natural neutral" in the way I did because of the confused reaction I would get (and indeed, did get.)

Well, no worries. It seems we have a working definition. And, from the lack of response (to this point), a consensus...

I'm very interested in what you have to say, if you have more you want to volunteer, on the subject of the relative strengths of the powers.

I'll offer my general assessment for criticism and feedback:

I think France is strongest, among other reasons, because it has simple and easy access to the most important points on the map: (in no particular order) Munich, MidAtlantic, North Sea, and Ionian Sea. Those spots, at various points in the game, are critical choke points and/or are important to the stalemate lines. No other power is in a position to seriously control the fate of *all* of those locations.

A similar note is that France and Russia are the only powers with the ability to produce fleets in either the north or the med. I think this is one of the things that cripples Italy and Austria they need navies to secure SCs in the med, navies which then become almost worthless once that is done.

I'm also slowly forming the opinion that fleets are, on the whole, slightly stronger than armies in the sense that they are *faster*. Sea spaces cover more distance relative to coastal spaces both because they are larger and because they tend to be on the edge of the board. Now I know that armies have the advantage that they can go anywhere on the board, practically speaking, and can be "sped up" via a convoy, but I think the higher "speed" of navies is more important than the fact that they can't go further than a coast, and the convoy aspect presupposes the existence of at least one, and possibly more (for a chain, or to hold the fleet) fleets [IE the convoy aspect is as much a reason as why fleets are good as to why armies are, because you could articulate convoys as the ability of fleets to boost the "speed" of armies.] To me, this gives advantages to France, Turkey, England and Russia (and to a lesser extent Germany) because they can reliably build and use fleets. The usualy argument as to why F/E/T/R are strong is that they are corner powers, but I think to some extent it can be better articulated that they get to maintain a good number of navies. This offers a possible explanation as to why Austria is so weak - it's impractical to build a large navy, so on the whole the Austrian military is "slow."

Turkey is strong, I believe, for defensive reasons. As long as you're not dead, you can still win, and you always get to share in a draw. There is definitely something to be said for that. France and England share similar defensive properties.

For Russia, I feel that Russia is best thought of as two countries that happen to be played as one big power. The Northern or Southern half of Russia can still do well, even if the other half has been cut off. That's Russia's advantage. I think the disadvantage of Russia is the same thing - one half can't really come to the aid of the other. This gives Russia a distinct defensive disadvantage. Russia can effectively defend one side, but not both. Turkey and France, for instance, are constructed in such a way that you have a reasonable ability to hold off [at least for a little while] 2 enemy powers unless they attack you-all out or are able to call up a 3rd power to finish you off.
Russia also has a strength, I think, in that Russia doesn't necessarily *have* to cross the Naval chokepoints of Midatlantic, North Sea, and Ionian, to win. Russia is also within reasonable distance on Munich, which is *probably* the most important SC.

I think the biggest disadvantage of Italy is that all his neighboring powers are probably considering some, if not all, of the Italian centers in their count towards 18. I've seen games, for instance, where Germany hits 18 without ever taking a French home center / natural neutral. I've yet to see a game where Turkey or Austria hit 18 without taking at least 1 from Italy (the 3 plus tunis), usually ALL. France is often included too.
Also, to win, Italy probably has to take some landlocked SCs with his armies, and the country is constructed in such a way that it's fairly hard to do that.

Also, I think all 3 western powers are advantaged by the fact that western triple is a viable alliance while there is really no such thing as "eastern triple." The sphere (east or west) that wins the game tends to be the one that can move into the other sphere the fastest, and western triple offers a very fast way to do that, and usually one of the powers from the west is going to win if a triple forms, and it is very unlikely that all 3, or even 2 out of the 3, will be subsequently eliminated. Even if a western triple is uncommon...if it happens enough, that would be enough to tip the balance of statistics in favor of western powers and away from eastern ones. Could this be a contributory reason as to why Turkey has done the best, apparently, of the eastern countries, being the least likely to suffer from the triple and most likely to live to see the alliance break down? It's an idea, anyways.

I'm under the impression that back in the PBM days, Russia was considered the strongest, and had the best results. Anybody have a reason about what caused a change?

I'll share more thoughts later, don't have time tonight ;>_>