Austria is the hardest to survive the first few years with due to so many necessary alliances and the nearly required Italian cooperation. Italy is in my opinion can survive the first few years, but has a much harder time getting a dominant position due it's restrictive borders.

I'd say Italy. Beyond Tunis it's never clear where you should expand to at all. Even most common 1901 moves for Italy are pretty restrictive and don't really lend themselves to any long term strategy. Austria really isn't bad. The hard part is surviving till 1902 or in some games 1903; once you've done that, you'll usually do fine. Italy on the other hand is constantly in danger of stagnation. Turkey can also be a little hard to break out as.

Whichever one I am.

Austria/Germany. I like Italy.

Russia is by far the hardest for me.

I'd say Austria

england or germany. it's easy to survive as england, but hard to actually win

I would say black peaces are in disadvantage over white....ups...wrong game :)
.....Turkey is hardest...because Austria and Italy perform lepanto almost always.

I quite like playing as Italy. I find Austria hardest, but if you can get past the first while, it can be a good position after all. Russia is tricky too; there's a lot to deal with. I disagree that France is easiest, because it's so open to stabbing at pretty much any point.

I like Italy and don't mind Austria. I hate playing as Russia though.

em, isn't that a defence against lepanto?

*there, even. The defence against lepanto usually involves having russia not invade, but that's diplomacy...

For some reason I find it hard to play as Turkey. Hopefully my Turkish skills will change a bit but I agree with Dejan. Turkey is really hard if you face a Lepanto. Juggernauts are heavily pro-Russian and if you're facing a Lepanto then you have to either make the hard choice to side with Russia and hope you come out somewhere positive or try to convince either Austria or Italy to not attack you. Couple that with the fact that Turkey gets bottle-necked pretty easy, it's hard to impossible to gain ground early on.

Every other country I seem to do really well at. I do really well as Russia and France, and have reasonably moderate success with England, Germany, Italy and Austria.

As for the Lepanto, there are plenty of ways to successfully run it. I usually (but not always) prefer to ally with Austria and Russia and fight Turkey. After Turkey is down, its a pretty easy thing to ally with Russia against Austria or keep Austria as an ally, let him take on Russia while you move west. As long as you keep your diplomatic relations up, you should do pretty good.

Turkey in general and Russia in WTA.

France is my hardest. I wonder if it's a personality thing...

at the begining i tougth england was hard but i learned to work with it
italy is the hardest
russia is the best ever in the first year you can get everywhere

Italy and Turkey I can play well for a decent draw, but never push for the killing win, though I'm fine with draws. Love Russia and Austria though.

I would say in general, italy is the hardest, but among experienced players, Turkey can be really difficult

Russia. No matter how well things go, you alway have the risk of over-extending. Each time you have builds, it's a crucial choice between fleets (north or south) or armies.

You need to build northern fleets sometime if you want to prevent England/Germany sailing into Stp, but when you build the fleet, there's no going back, and you open yourself up to a stab by Aus/Tur.

You have 4 neighbours. Austria will not like along-term alliance, because it's too good for you. Turkey cannot be allied with, because then the entire board will attack you. England is most likely planning to take St Petersburg from the start. Germany is a possible ally, but then he becomes very strong.

Russia can ally with Italy against Austria and/or Turk.
if 3v1 against Austria, RT allience can't be revealed.

there are other ways to hide RT allience. Google them :D

Whichever country I am playing at the moment.

I think it is pretty well balanced, honestly. France and russia gain an early advantage, but have split borders. England and italy have limited borders, but usually require fleets to overcome them. Germany and austria have the world surrounding them. Turkey is a fortress of defense, but very difficult to break out.

It all depends on who you are playing, the level of diplomatic skill you and your opponents have. Of course, everyone has their preferences. I prefer france and suck at turkey. I also don't mind italy.

Are there any statistics on Webdip like these?
http://www.dipbounced.com/center/ranks
That would be interesting to look at.

@manganese: did you see TruNinja's recent diplomacy statistics report?

As for the original question...
There is no such thing as "hardest/worst" power nor "easiest/best" power.

There may be statistical biases in the win/draw/survive rates when looking at a large set of games played amongst good players. However, in any specific game, the effect of those biases are overwhelmed by personalities and styles of play.

If you ask a large and diverse enough group of good players, you will find many players that either love or hate each individual power.

Yebellz, no I haven't. A link please?

Also: good point.

Yeah but what about for gunboat?

Austria is usually toast in gunboat, its almost a joke.

Honestly, Russia has a lot of choices and is most influenced by itself relative to the others. However, Italy is the hardest as far as actually winning goes. Germany and Austria can go Anchluss, but hardly affects Italy. So hardest to play is Russia, hardest to win is Italy, and least fav is England cuz you are usually shaped by other ppl and are often just waiting to be stabbed. That and I suck at England. France is tough to penetrate, Germany you get a stab from France, and Russia reaps little reward. Granted players do not overlook England, it is a slap in the face. The only thing is if you are allowed Brest, but how rare is that cuz France actually wants to stab you?

By Russia, I mean that you normally have important choices and some spell distaster. For example, you normally choose Austria or turkey.

Italy's easy to replace in as (I mean that both in that it's easy to play and easy to find a game to replace into). I find that it gives a huge diplomatic advantage to come in later and apologize for whatever failed opening gambit your predecessor tried, then play the board as it stands.

The most important space for the Italian is Tunis. Even if you've got French or Turkish fleets running through the Med, you can Janissary yourself pretty easily to either one (drastically increasing your chances of survival) if you've got Tunis. It's not a big deal in the opening stages, but once one of those two powers is ready to cross to the other side, it becomes a serious bargaining chip.

I usually negotiate Venice away. If you can't mount an attack from it, it's not worth defending.