(aside - would anyone like to take this discussion and write a blog article titled 'Playing Italy', more content coming soon.)

I would be very interested in seeing solo percentages and draw percentages based only on games where all of the players had played - for example - 100 games.

I have no stats to back this up, but my gut tells me the most of the discrepancy in the strength of each country would disappear in these games.

I can actually run those numbers Dys Claimer, but I'll write the code tomorrow, I'm knackered now. 100 games is a bit much though, there are no games at all where all players have played 100. But I can go progressively lower and see what happens to the stats.

@Putin: I never said it was easy, but it happens. You stated that the only way to conquer Greece was by moving into the Aegean, which is completely wrong.

@Vaftrudner - No rush at all, and thanks for the offer. It's something I've wondered about for a long time. I suspect Italy would still kind of suck in gunboat, but I in full press I'll bet you see a flattening of the curve as the skill level of the players improves.

@dys - skill level may be more easily judged by ghost rating than number of games played, here is a graph i made of # of games played vs GR a few months ago 
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?gco_chartArea=%7B%22top%22%3A%2230%22%7 &containerId=gviz_canvas&rmax=4000&q=select+col2%2C+col1+from+816576+&qrs=where+col2+%3E%3 +&qre=+and+col2+%3C%3 +&qe=&viz=GVIZ&t=SCATTER&width=800&height=800

Damn, let me fix that link

orathaic - Valid, but it can't just come down to upsetting the build paradigm. The way Italy does so has to be at least as important as doing it itself.

For example, like I've argued in here, knocking Germany down a build by taking Munich is horrible for Italy, because it renders Germany useless as an ally to England or France. That usually leads to an E-F joint attack on Germany, which empowers France - very bad, as France is another one of the 2-build powers Italy should be looking to take down a peg, not to mention that France is statistically the best country - while placing Italy squarely in France's path next. Further, Germany very rarely attacks Italy, and often acts as a check on more powerful rivals to Italy's victory (France comes to mind immediately, but a strong German can keep England out of the Mediterranean and Russia from running away with the southeast, both major advantages). So Germany itself is a poor target, and the only way Italy can do it sets Italy up for disaster on the horizon.

France is probably the way to go if you're going to check a 2-build power, or Austria. Russia's too useful in the southeast (not that you can really affect him anyway).

"You stated that the only way to conquer Greece was by moving into the Aegean, which is completely wrong."

That's not what I said. For a smarmy know-it-all, you certainly lack reading comprehension skills.

My main contention was that Greece was a neutral that Italy almost never acquired by Spring '02, which you ridiculed for claiming. Now you backpedal and tell me it is "not easy", well that was the whole point Sherlock.

I said you needed the Aegean to take Greece by sea. You're not going to take Greece with zero support, unless Austria is a dupe. And it's not as if Austria is going to let you waltz into Albania either.

Just admit that Greece is nearly impossible to take early on by Italy, and go away.

http://tinyurl.com/6uzllk2
GR vs # of games played (out of date)

Greece as a condition for working with austria would be a decent deal if it meant italy supporting aus to bul... Or indeed italy stopping turkey from taking greece while austria focuses on serbia+rumania - that could be a good deal for both.

Meanwhile, over in germany, the move to munich is pretty terrible unless germany has agreed it (and i've done it as russia, tried it as italy can't remember any game where germany agreed) you may weaken germany a bit but he's still a powerful force against france (especially if italy move from munich to bur and takes piedmont) Or potentially against england, at least necessary to halt englIsh growth.

In any case, italy has many options.

Well, now, Germany agreeing to let Munich fall is another matter. The talk to this point had been all about slowing down German growth, and usually if that's your aim you're not doing it with German permission. If it's done as a means to set up the 1902 blitz into France, then sure, I can buy that. I still can't see any purpose to Germany allowing Russia to take Munich, though...

http://tinyurl.com/6uzllk2
GR vs # of games played (out of date)

Maybe, if you would enlarge the part between gr 0 and 200, you could see something usefull, but now it is only a little difference.

Do you want access to the data? It's a fusion table so easy to share...

And yeah, PE, sorry, going to tyrolia is a nice way to weaken or make paranoid germany, and it reduces the likelyhood of two centers, piedmont has a similar effect on france - which i assume is your prefered opening (of the two)

Though there are those above who predict this as a foolish move considering italy is at a disadvantage versus france, and stands to gain little - however i would contend piedmont greatly increases the chance that france can't build fleet mars and that itself is a solid tactical gain.

Meanwhile, whether this is a good idea depends on whether england/germany are willing to back up this earpy anti-french aggression.

as for Russia, well germany has to be willing to try something crazy to let russia into munich, and trust that russia is just trying to build an exclave in the far west.... which is why i've only seen it once (and in league play where all the players knew each other well enough to see when one guys is crazy... )

No-one suspects the Spainish Inquisition! (except that they give 30 days notice, thank you QI)

Yeah, I actually think that unless you're attacking Austria from the start that there's little reason not to move to Piedmont in S01. I contend the reverse of what's been stated to this point in the thread: France is actually not often going to change policy to your detriment just because of Piedmont. If France does attack Italy early it's either because Italy attacked all-out first or France allied with England and planned to send the fleets after Tunisia. France is likely to have at least one enemy in England or Germany early in the game. If it's England, then France has to send the fleets north, and provided that you're only harassing him with a lone army, then he just has to defend with one army. So while it's an irritant that will slow him down, it's not a big enough threat to warrant throwing more than just a response army your way. And if that enemy is Germany, then he's either allied with England or diplomatically isolated. If he's allied with England, he's coming your way anyway, and you would do well to bother him in 1901 and thwart that imminent attack as best you can. And if he's isolated, then he's got bigger worries than your army in Piedmont.

So really, no matter how you slice it, moving to Piedmont is wise - there's hardly ever a situation where France both (a) lacks greater priorities than smacking little ole Italy around and (b) wasn't already planning on smacking little ole Italy around, and it's only in that circumstance that unnecessarily antagonizing France would be bad.

You said that without Aegean, Greece could not be taken by sea. This is completely untrue. You used terms that left no wiggle room, which was my point. Also, I never said that Greece was easy to take, I said it was hard, but it is possible to do early on.

i feel a series of articles coming... anyone want to do the pro-/con- side of an opening while i present the opposite?

Sure, orathaic. We could collaborate on some of the Italian openings pretty easily since we already disagree on some of them (Munich, for instance). And I'm always down for some Diplomacy discussion!

The discussion has been fascinating to follow for us newbies. Is there a usual place where these proposed articles would be posted (and where, consequently, there might already be a stack of past articles)?

Without having read, will offer my advice:

Ally with Austria, stab him at the right time from the right direction (from Greece/Bulgaria).

Just open Alpine Chicken and go after France if Germany gets into Burgundy. The Lepanto is a sucker bet.

Or open to Tyrolia if Austria is a chode.

i've been putting articles here: https://sites.google.com/site/webdiplomacylinks/

but previous communities have a huge numbers or archived articles and discussions, probably better than my little blog stuff; see: http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/home.htm

Frankly, I think our community is incomparably better than the one that produced those strategy articles, and that if we worked on it we could probably produce a better set. Not that they're bad by any means, but how many of them clocked 300 games for their career? Several players here have done that in a matter of a couple of years. Play-by-Internet is just so much faster than PBM, we have so many more games from which we can pull for data and experimentation... I'll bet we can make a really respectable strategy compilation.

i wasn't comparing communities, just articles produced...

i'm mostly trying to find a way to publicize diplomacy, and a blog seems like a little effort.

I'd like to get youtube videos of 'featured' games, or some other way to make dip a spectator sport... but i'm still not sure the best method.

And that said, i suspect some PbeM communities had much better press and more detailed conversations than are allowed by a 24 hour/phase game (which was standard on phpdiplomacy when i joined) i have some experience of playing with the stabbeurfou community, and a lot of the players there came from play by email groups. Very different culture. I don't know how to compare the two...

Open Alpine Chicken, for vegetarians try the Austrian Cheese Souffle or the French Onion Soup

Dys Claimer, the numbers I talked about yesterday:

http://draugnar.com/VaftStats/test.html

I haven't run gunboats yet, I'll do that and some more error-checking before I add it to the stats site. I'd like people's feedback on how the numbers are presented and calculated before I do anything else though. But it shows that Italy still doesn't perform that well when the player experience increases.