The great and famous Edi Birsan is still quite a regular contributor to this publication. He used to be on here a bit too, but I don't think he has been since his political career took off.

Is it really so hard for Turkey and Austria to ally? I've done it in almost every game I played here as one or the other, and it seems to be working out pretty well for me (and my ally, as long as they're smart about it).

Any reasonable solo plans from a turkey requires him to take the austrian home centers; even in most tourney games with points per supply centre-esque rules the turk is likely to benefit from austria's death. The other way around is that austria needs to keep so many troops on his border to prevent a turkish stab (assuming only new turkish builds moving along their border into italy or russia) that austria is essentially ham-strung.

How and ever, if turkey can break into the atlantic with several fleets a proper solo could be had without any need to stab... I am guessing it is mid/late game where this becomes a problem.

To make it work long-term, Austria has to convince Turkey to build almost nothing but fleets. Here's an example where Turkey ended up with 11 centers and only 2 armies. gameID=122933. In this game, as Austria, I looked carefully every turn for opportunities to stab Turkey, and I'm pretty sure he did the same for me, but we'd set things up so that there was never an effective stab available.

Orathaic, I would agree. However, on the other hand, many players are content with draws. And, if that is acceptable, to both players, it can work well as an alliance. The key is for Turkey to only build fleets so as to not threaten Austria.

I've gotten solos as both Austria and Turkey by allying with the other. It takes a bit more of a skill differential to pull it off as Austria, but it's definitely possible. I don't think I've ever lost a game as Austria or Turkey where I've convinced the other to work with me against Russia in the opening, and I've won a few, so it seems to be working pretty well.

'The key is for Turkey to only build fleets so as to not threaten
Austria.' - to play devil's advocate, does this help turkey avoid the threat of an austrian stab?

It does, if you put the fleets in the right places. Gre, bul, con, bla, etc are easy to defend with fleets, but those fleets do not threaten Austria. Typically, I've been able to stab Turkey by convincing him to overextend his units, whether they be fleets or armies, such that his core centers in sev, bul, and con are vulnerable.

Em, ok, so turkey invests several fleets in places to defend, and austria just uses the geography to be safe while throwing his units north and west... Still seems a little biased.