Here's the deal. You don't need to make an alliance with everyone. With Austria, you can just say "I'll agree to not move south if you agree not to move North". With France, you can say "Let's DMZ Burgundy". With England, you can talk about helping him to Belgium or vice versa. And with Russia, you can agree to not bounce Sweden. So you're not making alliances per se, you're just agreeing to little things at first that make both of your lives easier. As Germany, you want to try not to commit to anything too soon as you have four fronts to defend and if you move too far in one direction too fast, you can get hit from the other direction.

The other thing you can do is play Gunboat games for a while to get the strategy down before you add in the factor of people saying things they don't mean, etc.

+1 Mapu. I really stink at Gunboat, but I do learn a lot from it. I must be better at saying things I don't mean :-)

Mapu is right. I differ in my stance with Russia. I'll usually bounce him 1901, unless a sea lion is in progress, but support him in 1902. It's fair not wanting a 6-center Russia in 1902 and keep him down to 5.

But, sealion is probably the right way to go.

I look at how France and Egland are interacting before I decide what to do about Russia in Sweden. If no one moves on the English Channel in spring, I tend to allow Russia in to Sweden; I want Russia fighting England in Scandinavia rather than fighting me in Scandinavia if I'm going to have to concentrate on France. If one or (FSM willing) both move to EC in spring, I tend to be more willing to bounce Russia out of Sweden; a strong Russia in that case is less to my advantage.