Hidden Attack S5 Grand Final - Diplomacy Tournament Commentary 

Yep great game Grayson

We'll figure it out eventually I'm sure! Just a bit difficult adapting to it given the timezones :D

I'm kinda honoured that people still enjoy our content when they've never played the game - thank you for watching!

Hi Turkey player here, the simple answer is a lot of communication. That's the tldr but if you want something more in depth here seems like the best place to provide it. There were a lot of small information advantages that I gained throughout the game just by keeping good relationships, whether that's just being friendly or being very open and bold about my strategy. I would essentially go to people from the beginning and say that I'm interested in mutually beneficial deals and didn't care for alliances which was true at the time (this game was right after a game I had were I played a strong alliance game but when it came time to stab my ally just threw the game, I was bitter and over correcting but hey it worked). But I also did have a true alliance with Russia but I'll get into that soon. This worked especially with France which wasn't really addressed as it would be impossible to know. Hence the questionable move to Clyde, I originally wanted to rapidly break Mao to essentially secure a solo attempt but I was spread too thin. I think I messaged France every single day about how he had zero chance to win and Germany would stab late and his only path was to take Tun and stay with me. He was a smart player but I introduced just enough chaos to break the FG but I can tell you I did not feel like I was the favourite in the midgame, it was definitely Germany's game to lose for a while. Onto Austria because I'm sure people will find it fun, firstly it wasn't my plan for him to move out of Serbia in fall 02, it was the RATs plan, which I don't recall being the one who came up with it, with the reasoning being spot on in the video. He was giving me Greece on purpose while I was supposed to tap Apu meaning Italy was practically dead but I was privy to the information that FG was turning on England so I didn't need to stick with the RAT and made that move in the last 30 minutes of negotiation. Small hint, talking a lot is generally a good idea! People will just tell you things that don't seem important but can have a huge impact. Other stuff with Austria, fall 04 is when I got back on board with him and we never actually split up. He wanted me out of Alb at all costs and pitched the idea of supporting me into Ven. If I remember correctly I basically said that he should put the support for me to move to Venice but I never told him I would do it so that he wouldn't just go for Serbia under the assumption it is likely defended. I took the massive risk because I knew I was about to burn Russia hard and I needed someone that I had a half decent relationship with. Spring 05 looks like he's attacking me but I told him my orders explaining it was impossible to take Serbia and that I was happy with his moves, leading to fall 05 where he takes my side and grabs Rum. Now this is still a bad move on his part so I'm just explaining context at this point, I definitely shouldn't have been getting his help but this is why communication is so important. Spring 06 was just funny to look back on as France leaked the entire German/Italian moves to me so I could coordinate a way to take Rome (this also happened in spring 05 when I figured out Italy was self bouncing based off F and G giving me a little bit too much information). At this point I'd realised that Austria was wanting to play all sides while trying to survive and possibly grow for as long as possible, I sort of played into that by offering a swap of Ser and Rum in a way that looks like he attacked me again and he was all for it. Again in fall 06 regarding Greece etc I'm confident in my negotiation not because I was extremely arrogant in my own plans but because we had this relationship and had been actively working together for multiple years which wasn't obvious to anyone commentators because it was designed to look that way. There was never any flip flopping between me and Austria from fall 04 to spring 07 when he stabbed me haha. But I got lucky and Germany stabbed Austria that very turn, at that point Austria was mad enough at Germany to vassal for me until his last turn (sort of at least, I've not looked over any press and this is all off the top of my head from 6 months ago when it was played). Last thing is that Fall 08 is when I won the game, Germany stabbed France too early in my opinion and kind of blundered the game to me. I was pressuring France a lot about Germany's three fleets and that increased paranoia probably added to Germany wanting to make a move but I was extremely lucky it worked. At that point it was all just simple tactics and ensuring France stayed with me, I was not having a game thrown against me in back to back games which is rightly pointed out in the commentary I waited a lot time to retake Tunisia and sail down the med. That's all I can think of, I know your comment definitely didn't ask for all of this but sometimes you write essays when you can't sleep at 4am. Sorry for the long read Markus 😂

I forgot to mention anything about Russia oops. Well that would take longer than watching the media wars video twice to explain and write so I should probably leave it haha.

@@bradleygrace7783 thank you for the in-depht explanations. I will have to rewatch the video in order to pick up everything that you mentioned but overrall it seemed that you maintained a really good balance of openness and agressivity in your negotiations. Well played for that!

Appreciate the breakdown man. It was very informative to someone trying to get better at the game. Thanks again.