Because the goal is not to take Trieste or even to kill Austria, the goal is to win the game, and when you collapse Austria quickly, you encourage the immediate formation of an R/T, while all you get out of it is Trieste. A 5-center Italy loses that war almost every time.

But going to tyrolia would encourage that same reaction. Unless your goal is to ultimately take munich and turn around and team up with austria against the R/T, you are just delaying you getting the slice of austria that you would need to defend against the R/T

Maybe here's a better way to describe the problem. As Italy, everything you build is far from the front, so you really need to plan in advance, and mobilization is often the most important decision you make. I'll lay out some disorganized notes off the top of my head - sorry, but it's the best I can do at the moment.

Imagine that Austria dies and is partitioned. Austria naturally influences five centers early: 3 home, Greece, Serbia. What's the likely result of this attack? Let's play it forward.

- Italy will get Trieste in 1901. plus Tunis.
- Turkey will slide to Greece, might or might not get it in 1901, but with no resistance to sending a fleet to the Aegean, is likely to get it eventually.
- Turkey will build a fleet to sent to the Aegean, either because it already has Greece and wants to protect it or because it will let Turkey force Greece.
- Russia will be in Rum/Gal/War with armies.
- Russia will *not* build F Sev, but rather armies to jump on Austria.

From here, what next? If you ordered Ven S Tri, then your new army is built in Rome, so where does it go? Your ability to keep Tri is blocking your ability to get anything else. If you ordered Ven - Tyr, you might have lost Tri.

So, Russia is likely to get Bud, Turkey is likely to get Gre, and Russia will want Vie while Turkey will want Ser. If both those things happen, then the end result of collapsing Austria has been that your neighbors got 2 builds and were given a strong incentive not to fight each other, while you got 1 build and two strong neighbors.

So, if you're going to attack Austria, you *must* have a plan to get either Vie or Ser, or else it's a bad decision. [In the long run, what you'll tend to find is that the power who ends up with Budapest a year or two after Austrian collapse is the ultimate winner from it.] Let's look at what's involved in both cases:

To get Vie: You need to outfight Russia. Russia will easily be in Bud/Gal, so you need 3 units (Tri, Tyr, Boh). That leaves a max of 2 other units. If it's two fleets, then you can't protect Trieste while you shift. If it's fleet/army, you're a wide open target for a Turkey who has noplace else to expand. Heck, if it's 2 fleets, a 3-fleet Turkey takes the Ionian anyway, so you're racing Turkey to see if you can take Vie before it takes ION. Try that race and you'll see you usually lose, though it's not certain.

To get Ser: The best you can do is Alb/Tri, while Turkey may well be in Gre/Bul after 1901. If Turkey is in both, it takes Serbia and you never get it back. If not, you'll either need help to get it or you'll have to cut Gre, so you're basically fighting a war with Turkey over Serbia and asking Russia to pick a side.

Oh, right. And if Austria ends up dying, and has a choice of which of his neighbors to screw over on the way out, guess who he picks.

In other words, your best-case scenario is that you end up in the 2nd best position of the three people partitioning Austria, and being 3rd best of the three and the next course on the menu is most likely. And we haven't even started to talk about France...

Italy is the toughest country to play in gunboat in my opinion; Austria has worse results, but when Austria goes bad in gunboat, there's rarely anything you could have done about it, so it's not that tough to play in such a case.

With that said, I think there are two key principles here:

1) As an Austrian neighbor, if you can get 3 centers, kill it; if you can get 2 centers, decide based upon your read of the board, but if you're likely to get only 1, Austria is your close friend and ally.

2) The most profitable way to kill Austria (or any neighbor) is usually to be the second power into the war, not the first.

Wow, thanks CSteinhardt, that was a great analysis. I see how most of these points are valid, but your assumtion that Tri halts your expansion is false.
Assuming that italy does take tri in 1901, italy does not need to support hold Tri, and can move Ven-Tyr, because if austria decides to attack you in Tri, and succesfully dislodges you, then you must be able to retreat into 1 of the centers of bud, vie, and ser, which will be left open for the retreat, and will also solve your problem of taking budapest/vienna/ser. So in the end, if your move suceeds, your worst possible start after the builds phase is 3 armies, ven, tyr, and tri, with 2 fleets, which is enough to hold back turkey for long enough for sufficient expansion.

But i agree with the france argument. if i was france and I saw italy start off with that, i would try very hard to pit england and germany against each other and then sail off into the med.
But still, i might do the same thing for the move into tyrolia. So i guess Im not arguing if this is the best gunboat opening, but rather that it is a much better opening than the move to tyrolia, which seems to be the favorite.

I can't agree with CS more. Italy hamstringing Austria in year one usually benefits Russia and Turkey more than Italy herself. Action, reaction. I feel it is more important, much more important to decide If I SHOULD, rather than if I CAN. Just because you can do a move doesn't mean you should and I think Italy interfering with either Austria or Germany in 1901 never ultimately helps Italy. If you hurt Germany at Munich, generally France and England roll over Germany while Italy probably won't even keep Munich in the end.

@ Trooth; I feel as if you are just arguing my point. You are showing the numerous flaws of the italian move to tyrolia; By moving to tri, italy does incur those risks the same way he would if he attacked tyrolia, but this time with a guaranteed higher payoff.
And your point about weakening Germany is also solved with the trieste attack, because now germany can make his fall move without worrying about the backdoor from italy in tyrolia.

Yaks, your interpretation of Trooths response bares very little correlation with what he wrote.

France and Austria fighting each other tends to be the end of both of them so, in gunboat, I sometimes order Ven SH Tri and ignore the inevitable Tri-Ven. I do that twice while taking Tun and build F(NAP) then (if Turkey isn't heading my way) head for France. This frees up Austrian forces to head north-east and the dynamics of the game change. It doesn't always work, but then, what does?

France and Austria fighting each other is usually bad for Italy (and, one possible result of this opening, if Turkey and Russia don't decide to swallow Austria right off!)

Yaks, I don't like moving to either Tyrolia or Trieste in 1901. The threat is bad enough to both Munich and Trieste to cause hesitation in those two powers and embolden their neighbors. As either country (Germany or Austria) I always decide to deny Italy, therefore, others gain, not her.

On the topic of Italy, I have also noticed that there are very few openings VEN->PIE, ROM->VEN, NAP->ION ... That seems to me to have some benefits in terms of options, though it does get France thinking south earlier than he might.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

Italy opening VEN-TRI is about as dumb as Austria opening TRI-VEN.

ooooh vitrual bob i like that opening much more than just convoying to tunis, and it doesnt weaken austria as the move to tri might. If you open like that, you can outguess france so he doesnt get a build for spain and then head over with your second fleet

I like VEN>>PIE, ROM>>APU, NAP>>ION. Allows for two builds and gives you a 50%-100% (depending on his opening) chance of keeping France from building a fleet in Marseilles. That said, it does keep France friendly with England, encouraging the both of them to tag team Germany, and eventually one of them will sneak into Tyrolia if you don't take France out of the equation quickly. A good France can hamper those prospects if England understands what's going on and doesn't get scared by the fleet build in Brest.

My favorite opening as Italy is a straight lepanto-style opening because it gives you the option of going after Turkey (recommended) or France if he clearly intends to move southward. If he doesn't, there's no reason to fight him. Austria will ideally have a fleet in Greece that can support you into the Aegean if the Eastern Med isn't working, at which point a following fleet in the Ionian can force the Aegean to the Eastern Med (taking your convoy to Syria away, but allowing Austria to move into the Eastern Med and apply pressure on Bulgaria).

If Turkey opens by allowing Russia the Black Sea (I sometimes do though generally not in live games because people make rash decisions at times) and moving a fleet to Constantinople, he is taking a risk - as described - by allowing Russia room to make a move but is also making a good defensive move against a lepanto, at which point you may decide, as an act of friendliness toward Turkey, against a lepanto to Tunis and potentially move westward in hopes that France is opened up. That move definitely gives you a tough task, and unless Russia attacks Turkey, you should not be attacking Austria.

The only time I've had success against Austria was with the crusher opening but that generally takes some luck to accomplish and I don't recommend it in typical circumstances.

@OP haven't read the rest. I see that move fairly often. I think that works against noobs but is not effective very effective against good players. A good T will let Austria teach you a lesson and get fleets in place to take ionian. And any self-respecting Austrian player will suicide into you.

If you're dead set on attacking Austria as Italy, immediately taking Trieste is possibly the worst way to go about that attack. Assuming you also more Rom-Ven, you have no opportunity to build a useful third army that could double support your hold in Trieste, so your gain in Trieste is tenuous at best.

I agree with bo sox on italy vacating venice for apulia and piedmont as the best openning. A strong Austria is your best friend, boxing in turkey and stalling russia. You can keep france from getting too comfortable and stillleave open an eastern strategy.

"France and Austria fighting each other tends to be the end of both of them so..."
*Italy* and Austria dammit! *Italy* and Austria!

France & Austria fighting each other is usually the end of Italy too.