I agree with youradhere. As France, I would never want to give one of my home SC's away to an ally. It seems a high price to pay. The French Army in Brest, however, keeps France from building fleets to move north.

In general, I think it's difficult for any two neighboring powers to cooperate long term. Even Juggernauts tend to break up around Trieste.

This is fair enough. As for an easy way to walk into France, well the fleet can't go anywhere as no French center is accessible to the fleet. The fleet also prevents French fleet build in Brest.
An army in Brest can move away in Autumn, allowing a fleet build. This, combined with a presence in MAO can be quite threatening.

I think the only alliance that works when one power gives a home SC to another is when Russia gives Turkey Sev with a fleet. Or they form an alliance after him taking it.

Sure, but if the army moves from Brest then England has a builds phase to see the stab coming and negotiate something with Germany. As for the fleet in Brest, it gives England a build with fleet London or LVP, with which he could crash MAO.

@youradhere
A fleet build in London will do no good as it can't access any French centers (now that Brest is taken). A build in Liverpool has quite a long ways to travel to actually strike France.

With the above in consideration, England has to go through about 2 years to even strike France (that is, assuming France is in control of Iberia. We aren't even talking striking home centers). France needs a single year to attack British home centers.

@The Situation: I read about this sort of exchange in a strategy articles somewhere. I just tried to dig it up again, but failed. I'd love to try it with you sometime...especially if I get to be England. ;-)
Seriously, though, I think the strength of the idea lies in the fact that you *know* what's going to happen in the channel. England gets 2 builds, and France does too, if Belgium can be arranged with Germany. The only sticking point I see is the MAO. Maybe if England takes it and then moves away? I don't know.
I've done the Black Sea exchange between R and T to get both fleets out into the Mediterranean a few times, and that works well. I think this one is probably worth a try.

Hey Bresto!:

http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/strategy/articles/hey_bresto.htm

That's the one, MadMarx. Thanks! (Have you ever tried it?)

I've gone Bresto more than once, let me grab a couple links for you... My favorite game ever used it, and the picture used when initially logging onto this site uses a season from our game, or at least it used to...

This may be my all-time favorite game: http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/strategy/articles/hey_bresto.htm

We started out trying Hey Bresto!, and I immediately feaked out and took Brest back. But, we later gave it another go. England and I were working great together, but England stabbed me in Autumn 1913, though I stabbed Italy that exact same season (unbeknownst to England), so the blow was not as devastating as England expected and I was able to turn things to my advantage in the end, thanks in large part to the game being PPSC and it being the largest pot game on the site at that time.

Marx, I think you copy-pasted the wrong link in that post.

MadMarx, that is exactly where I read about it. (or at least the site, I don't know if it was that specific article). But ya, I guess it takes a gutsy France for it, but I guess it's agreed that there's potential?

Here's another link: http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=5411#gamePanel

In this game it wasn't planned, though. As France, I was allied with England. England decided to stab me and had Brest guaranteed, so in response I told him that's okay, that we should do the Hey Bresto! to give him security. Nothing like offering something to someone that they already have and it gaining you an ally! ;-)

Kind of odd that England is always stabbing me as France, though I suppose this England was the same guy that I killed off as Italy in the first link, so perhaps the guy had a reason to not trust me too much...

Oops, here's a link to that first game: http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=4033#gamePanel

Thanks. The first link you posted looks like it worked pretty well.

I don't think I've ever played an EF alliance as France and NOT been stabbed.

Play EF like EG.

insist that France only build armies, and they take on the role of germany in the standanrd EG alliance.

that means likely giving up spain/por to england and giving the low countries to france...

swapping brest also works very well, i've bhad great allainces with france as england when i did so. It's not insane, it's only a problem when france lacks for imagination...

anyway, don't just listen to me. @Marx, the second link is the game i'm thinking of... naturally i don't think every france will be as cunning and decietful as madmarx... but giving up brest can work fairly well...

anyway, don't listen to me, listen to Richard Sharp! http://www.diplom.org/~diparch/resources/strategy/articles/hey_bresto.htm

(fyi: i suggest you read everything sharp has to say, accept that they are all 'acceptable' ideas, and then decide you can try something new... )

quoting from the chat archive: Marx said to me: "(To: You, from France) - Autumn, 1902: I've been looking things over a little more... Do you just want to do the Brest thing now and be done with it? I'd prefer to get your EC fleet shifted to the east, but if something goes wrong up north, it could really hurt. By taking Brest, you could guarantee a build in Edi. "

I wasn't stabbing him, i was in the middle of forming a big alliance thing, we both agree to me taking brest, (while he got bel and por) meanwhile i was worrying about the russia/germany situation and managed to hold norway which was awesome..

So yes, our alliance did spring out of Hey Bresto! and if you actually see the press between us (and there was a lot) you'll see we weren't always planning 'the brest thing' also our alliance only lasted until about '04 when marx stabbed me, but i convinced him to disband army wales and it was back on until... eh, 1913 when i stabbed him back... (@Marx: damn your 1913 builds, if you hadn't taken trieste AND vienna i'd have solo'd that game based on my stab, alas you got fleet brest and army paris to defend and my invasion failed miserably...)

the only occasion I pray for a E/F alliance is if I'm playing France.
Otherwise I always try to destroy the stupid frogs.