Each nation has 6 mortal enemies. The only difference between them is one of timing.

Pretty much what Octavious said.
Austria and Italy are mortal enemies. They can't win without killing each other.
Russia and Turkey will have trouble winning without killing each other.
Russia doesn't have Austria as an enemy, he has everyone as an enemy, though it takes a while for that to apply to France.
E/F/G do indeed despise each other.
France has two friends, R and T, and that only lasts until mid-game.
Italy hates everyone, everyone has better things to worry about than Italy.

I'm not so sure about that phil

THe Lepanto and Juggernaut alliances are very strong. TO solo with one does require a stab at some point, but not necessarily killing off your ally depending on how late in the game the stab comes.

@ Jeff
I'm not sure about Russian/Austrian enmity either. A peppermint can be a solid alliance.

That being said I agree in principle with everything said so long as we are looking at probablilities. For instance an Austro-Turkish alliance can do quite well with the right players and is generally doomed with anyone else.

Diplomacy has a lot in common with poker in that you don't play the hand so much as the other players.

Good hands are damned useful though. It is damned tricky to lure someone between the mighty iron jaws of your trap if you don't happen to have a set of mighty iron jaws.

Part of my intent by posting this article is hoping that new players will read it and see there are other possibilities. It's pithy to say each nation has six mortal enemies, but in practice, many alliances are better than others.

And by "mortal enemies" I mean that those nations don't necessarily want to eliminate each other immediately when the game starts. There are many nuances to the game, especially in gunboat.

I've been in too many games where Russia immediately allies with Austria against Turkey and gets destroyed after the Sultan is gone. Or games where England gets suicidal against Russia and France cleans up. If you have a "mortal enemy" you probably need to make that nation a priority in your strategy. I've heard a lot of conventional wisdom that is contradicted by the statistics. I hope that players can separate that "wisdom" (some of which is outright lying in game) from actual trends.

Lol is this why you wanted me dead in that live game jeff. I was going to stab italy at some point as he began to draw his troop out but the rest of the powera were so hung up trying to draw that I couldn't break through MSL.

I made 2 mistakes. One was not taking out turkey sooner and the second was raising suspicion for a solo from the other powers too soon.

Anyways, it was an interesting read. Ive learned to play diplomacy by myself without reading on it and its interesting to see the correlation between my success and my allies and how it compares to the charts.

@yoyo: Well, going by the article, Turkey and Austria are the two nations with the highest mutual antagonism, so heck yeah I wanted you eliminated. ;)

There are no ideal allies and no certain enemies. Trends emerge from time to time, but all trends are lies to catch out the unwary. The only thing the various collections of stats ever seem to agee on is that the strategy you have chosen to try and solo with almost certainly won't work. Tell the stats to sod off, find out which players you could enjoy working with and which you could enjoy giving a kicking, and go forth and kick.

The trends are most definitely not lies. The unwary will be caught one way or another irrespective of trends.

The topography of Diplomacy board inherently forces some nations into contact with each other by proximity and makes some strategies stronger than others in particular with long term effects of building fleets or armies. Stalemate lines do exist and have a major effect on the end game.

"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."
- Dwight David Eisenhower

I have noticed recently that a lot of people make a run for a stalemate line and then defend it, as opposed to making a run for the opposite side of a stalemate line, and then worrying about their side of it. That leads to Draws a lot. I think play should be a lot more aggressive, with a real idea of "everyone is my enemy, eventually" being present. It'll make everyone better at spotting incoming stabs, and at stabbing. It'll also prevent stuff like 3 vs. 2 Draws and 2 vs. 2 Draws, both of which are situations that can almost certainly be reduced, perhaps even thrown into a Solo.

Let me repeat: The Player must want to win, otherwise there's no point in playing. No other player wants you to win, because that means they can't win themselves. Therefore, each player on the board is your enemy. There is no "friends", and alliances should be temporary by definition. Only if it is proven that there is no way a win can happen, should talk of a Draw be initiated.