well then just dont do those things then :p

Have you tried the Turkish Hedgehog?
A Smy-Arm A Bul-Con F Ank-Con.

I wish I was always set as Turkey!
It's just coincidence though so keep going!

Turkey is supposed to be one of the more easier powers in the game because of the strategic position on the board.

Some tips that might help you:

* Going all out on Russia (A CON-BUL, F ANK-BLA, A SMY-ARM) is never a good idea. It won't get you SEV and really pisses Russia off, while Austria and Italy may be preparing a Lepanto.

* Russia will want Rumania and has a good shot at it, even if he moves MOS-STP (If Russia's only move in the south is F SEV-RUM. wipe him out a.s.a.p.). So the best thing to do is arrange a bounce in BLA, take BUL and talk to Russia about dividing Austria. You've got some time, but it's also good to convince Italy to move A VEN-TYR and A APU-VEN and eat Austria.

* When the three powers have consumed Austria choose to stab either one of them (or, if you feel very secure: use your fleets to attack France). But remember, at some point you'll have to stab either one (I think Russia is best, esspecially if England's army is rusting in StPete's).

* Be present in the Med. Two or more fleets will keep Italy very aware of your presence. Play it subtle, ofcourse. Never let Italy anywhere near Eastern Mediterrean or Aegean.

* Also, a permanent fleet in BLA will help in late game to transport your units to the front quickly. Same goes for the Med, if you have three to four fleets present, forces can easily put in Italy and Spain, even with support.

Each game I try to convince russia to do the ship of the desert opening, and I strike out each time. I just want to see it done.

Always ally with Austria unconditionally.

airborne - I think you meant to write the opening more like this:

A Smy-Arm
A Con-Bul (*)
F Ank-Con.

I would certainly find some amusement value out of the self-standoff ordered in Constantinople :P

Airborne, yes I've made that opening. And I like it actually.

Centurian, I had a feeling you liked to support the Austrians.

there are 279936 possible sequences of "last 6 games" like
FFRFTR
IFEFRTA
AAGAGE

so
now there are 36 sequences that fit "played Turkey exactly 5 time in the last 6 games" like:
TTATTT
GTTTTT
TTTTTI
TATTTT

279936/36 = 7776
=> so the odds of being Turkey in exactly 5 out the last 6 games is 1 in 7776

ah buts that's not all.
you've played 29 games which means you've had 24 different "last 6 games"
7776 / 24 = 324
=> so the odds of you having being Turkey in exactly 5 times out of your last 6 game at any point in your playing history here is 1 in 324

and we still haven't finished:
Does it really matter that it was Turkey? Wouldn't you have noticed it just as much had you been France exactly 5 times in the last 6 games.
=> the odds of you being the same country exactly 5 times out of your last 6 game at any point in your playing history here is 1 in 46.29

Here's some more odds
The odds of someones first 10 games here being the same power are roughly the same as winning the lottery.

Wow. Thanks for that. I suppose if I were to use lottery winning chances, I would be pissed I wasted the odds on Diplomacy.

And 1 in 46 doesn't seem too special. Maybe I should just shut up and take my beatings like a girly man.

And for me, if I ally with russia then its gridlock in balkans. Or I ally with austia and I am paranoid of a stab or to lose ally by 1903.

That isn't that rare no, especially considering the number of players on here. It's pretty safe to assume most of them *haven't* had your situation recently or they would have brought it up, thus the chance of *someone* getting that is actually very high

skeptic_ka, your calculation is a bit off where you multiply the probability by 24 since he's had 24 sets of "last 6 games". These games are not independent; getting 5 turkeys out of 6 games (say in games 10-15) is highly correlated with having another set of 5 turkeys in 6 games shortly thereafter (maybe in games 12-17, for instance.)

When the balancing algorithm is implemented, this kind of thing is going to get a lot less fun; these calculations won't even be possible, because the probability of your getting country X in a game depends on who the other players in the game are, and their previous game assignment histories.

These _events_ are not independent, I meant. Individual game assignments are, of course, independent for now.

Tip o' the ol betting hat to nitish:
You are of course correct. Say we have a very long sequence of games (1000+) then odds of any particular subsequence (eg. ATG or ATA) appearing say 50 times will be the same. But some subsequences will be clumped together (eg. ATATAT) making the spaces between these clumps bigger than sequences that don't clump together.

So the odds are actually somewhere between "1 in 46" and "1 in 276" (46*sequence length)
It will still be much closer to "1 in 46" but I won't prove that because finding a lower upper bound for the odds wouldn't be fun. :-p

For now we can assume that the these events are independent of a player's opponents in a game but after the next patch that will change.