I hope I didn't insult anyone too much with the way I argued about France and Russia, lol. I know some more experienced players also prefer France to Russia, and my Discord has been blowing up with comments about which powers are best. I think France has a lot less politics it needs to deal with, for what it's worth. Russia can be a burdensome power to play.
I think it also depends on the level of the players. I got the impression that the more experienced is the board, the more powerful Austria becomes, while Turkey's chances decrease.
I think you're probably right. In tournament games, I've noticed Austria tends to do just fine. Turkey doesn't benefit as much from its natural advantages either (although I still think it's better to be Turkey than Germany, for instance).
For sure, experienced players know to keep Turkey contained, because you know it's almost impossible to ever push back once it gets out of its corner. It's still a strong power though, because you only ever need that one chance to push out and expand as Turkey; and it's so defensible it can just patiently wait for that opening for years.
The best country is whoever had the most gullible neighbour. Also, Russia has the highest probability to have a gullible neighbour, since it has more neighbours.
I respect that perspective. There are excellent arguments for France. I think the statistics point one way, and the opinions of many experienced Dip players point the other. As for me, I have tended to struggle with England and Italy, and I have only recently been able to improve my games with those two countries (whereas my first ever game as Russia was my first solo). Between Russia and France, I would say it's pretty difficult for me to be eliminated as France, but it's easier for me to solo as Russia.
Personally England is my favorite country, but I do agree that it is hard for England to get off the ground, and therefore is easier to be stabbed. I just feel that since England is on an island in the corner of the map it makes it easier to play as England.
I think being in a corner position does make England more secure than any of the central countries, but it's not as defensible as Turkey or France, and it's much easier to eliminate than Russia. That said, as I've gotten better at playing England, it has certainly grown on me. The fact that it's in a corner does make it much harder to stab later on, especially once you have a large navy.
The problem with England is that, far more than any other country, it is easy to get pulled out of position. Your nearest neutral dots are all pretty far away, and that fifth of sixth dot is usually further still!
Good luck! I hope you pick a country that plays to your own strengths. I must admit, the "objective" list that I made is getting a lot of pushback on Discord, which I think comes from the fact that different countries play to different players' strengths differently.
Found this after playing a game yesterday with some friends, about half of us were new, played France just based off wanting to do funny accents while we played, ended up with the most territories at the end and stayed friends with England and Italy the whole game and went after Germany
France does almost undeniably have the funniest accents, but of almost equal importance is the question: did you find it as strong as I make it sound in this video? It sounds like your answer might be yes, but I don't want to assume. In any case, congratulations on your triumph!
@@floridamandiplomacy it seemed strong to me, I never really had anyone go after me, I think a big part of that though was the Germany player didn’t really do anything, she didn’t take Denmark or move any units on the first turn while me and England sent everything after her Even though I had never played this game I’ve played stuff like Scythe and Twilight Imperium as well lots of strategy games like StarCraft, so I know that in most strategy games you gotta make decisive early moves
@@BigMackWitSauce Did someone explain to Germany how the pieces move and what the objectives are? If she didn't move any units in the first turn, that's usually really bad for anyone.
@@floridamandiplomacy yeah we spent about 45 mins going over the rules for everyone, and we let everyone change their moves when they made mistakes in the first 4-5 turns, like moving multiple units to the same tiles or misreading small borders in some of the more condensed parts of the map
Great video! I always find it really interesting how these "which power is best" rankings reflect not only everyone's personal preference, but the metagame of whichever games said player has played the most. I'm always really surprised at how highly so many people rank Russia, but that is probably because in the (quite high level) face-to-face games where I learned the game, Russia very rarely performed well. I'm sure much of it had to do with our metagame (especially Juggernauts were feared to a ridiculous degree; as soon as Turkey and Russia appeared to be allied, everyone else ganged up on them, which automatically limits Russian options), but be that as it may, on my personal ranking Russia would be nowhere near top -- I'd personally rate it fourth, behind France, Turkey, and England.
Thanks! Yeah, it is interesting, how the rankings will differ from one source to another. I believe the statistics I derived these rankings from were from a mix of online and play-by-mail sources (where perhaps Russia is stronger than usual). Interestingly, though, they were not all from a particular website or community, and some of the rankings I used to make this list were over ten years old. So, my suspicion is that at least, the countries that I put in the top three all actually belong there in terms of their geographical advantages and disadvantages. And I'm very confident that my bottom two belong where they are, and in the precise order they're in... Italy and Austria are very unfortunate powers. One of these days, I'll make a video where I rank the countries based on which I think should be strongest without any meta... although I think that's difficult. At least, I'll make a video ranking how much I like playing each country.
@@floridamandiplomacy Oh yes, I don't think there can be very much debate at all as to what the two weakest powers are! Though I also think it's kind of interesting how they're weak in very different ways -- Austria very often just flat out dies early but can be very strong if it actually survives the early game, while Italy is usually quite hard to kill early, but really struggles in trying to expand, let alone actually winning the game.
@@wloffblizz Very much in agreement on Austria and Italy! It almost feels as if they should be combined into one power or something, or parts of them made into a single power... but history didn't see fit to do that, and the creator decided to be guided by history.
There is a reason we eat Turkey for Thanksgiving. It tastes good to prepare it to be eaten. The more countries that want to eat it the easier it is to prepare.
An excellent evaluation. The criteria for evaluation, the ability to solo is on point with the goal of the game. The influence of Russia across the stalemate line certainly makes it a top candidate and France's ability to gain Tunis an easy second choice. Your discussion of various sources was interesting, especially playing pool dynamics. Data quality is important. I did not investigate the data sources you cited. However, PlayDiplomacy has in the past had a lot of beginners playing the game. This, I feel, can unreasonably skew results. If the PlayDiplomacy data sets were limited to games with only experienced players, the ordering may be different. In a game with quality players, I find Turkey is frequently bottled up. While regularly surviving, they don't seem to get as many chances to solo as you might expect from their starting position on the board. Because most games do not end in a solo and many tournaments use a survivor-based point system, another best power list that evaluated survivability and size I think is reasonable as well.
I can tell you are a gentleman of great sense and judgment. I agree with you that the data quality is hard to assess. Part of the problem is that there are so many different metas of Diplomacy. The Diplomacy culture of the 1980s is not the culture of the 2010s, and the current status quo is surprisingly much different from the 2010s in turn. I feel good about the fact that I incorporated different data sets into my analysis, but I will note that I could expand it even further if I remade this video today. I will agree that PlayDiplomacy used to skew very beginner-ish as recently as eight years or so ago, and it was much easier to rack up solos back then than it is today. My ranking was in the top 10 at one point, and although I remain a top 50 player there, the quality of games is drastically different. I will say that from what I've heard, Turkey mainly gets bottled up now because of meta factors (i.e., people started to go after Turkey because of the formidable reputation that it has, and only now that it's common to do that does it look less scary; chicken and egg problem, though). I should consider making a different list (or lists), although I would hasten to distinguish between most survivable power and best power for tournament play and the very separate (in my mind) category of best power in general, which for me will always be the power that I think is best for soloing since that's the official objective.
@@floridamandiplomacy You mention the quality at PD is drastically different now. How would you characterize it? I liked that PD had misordering capabilities to make it closer to FtF than other online sites. I just started getting your videos into my feed. I assume FloridaMan is your nom de guerre there?
@@jasonodonnell5177 So, PlayDiplomacy had two specific problems that I could see: too many inexperienced players and too many players willing to abandon their games. It still has the second problem, but the players are a lot more experienced now, so you can have much more competitive games. I'm FloridaMan on PD and Backstabbr and RealFloridaMan on WebDiplomacy. You?
Depends on play style of the individual player. You’ve mentioned your preferred country as Austria which is great for someone with stronger talking skills, but someone with a preference toward Other play styles would be better at other countries.
That's true. France and Russia do better statistically than the other countries, but some people can't play those two powers to save their lives but might be good at playing Italy (statistically the worst power, if I recall correctly).
I have an idea for a small tweak to the game, which I don’t know if it would help balance anything (it probably wouldn’t) but I still think it is an interesting premise that I have yet to see suggested anywhere else (I might not be the first to think of this): As a potential variant, every neutral center has a standing army, so to take over a neutral you need to support yourself in, and you can also support these neutrals to hold (they don’t do anything besides hold and disband). I see this as slowing down what’s normally a pretty long game already. Russia being spread out is more so a disadvantage now, since Russia wouldn’t be able to take either Sweden or Rumania without help, which definitely slows early game progress. Italy is still obviously the weakest start, especially since Italy won’t be able to get Tunis now. But since Italy would be so crucial in helping Austria/Turkey get into Greece, and France can’t nab Iberia as quickly, I think Italy is still a little better off. All in all, I really wanna test it out for myself but have never gotten the chance (no coding skills & no one to test the idea with) Whaddayathink?
I have definitely heard this suggested somewhere else. I like the idea (and I don't mind playing an even more drawn out version of the game!), but I suspect this would really mess up some powers' games and have a strong disproportionate effect. It would probably leave France even stronger, while making Italy even weaker for instance. So, if we tried this, I think a map other than the Classic map would need to be tried (or an adjusted version of the Classic map).
Which countries have the most countries motivated to attack them? Which countries have the most countries motivated to help them? Nobody is motivated to help Turkey at the beginning. Nobody. They all have other options. Turkey is motivated to help everyone but must betray Austria or Italy because betraying Russia is suicide. Italy is motivated to help either France or Austria as France is very valuable as an ally and Austria is more likely to not have a better option than Italy. Austria is motivated to help Italy as a better choice in a lot of ways than Turkey. France is motivated to not really trust England so it may as well trust either Italy or Germany. France is not pulled in any specific direction, it has options, but because England has fewer options France has fewer reasons to trust England. Germany has every option in the world and nobody knows where it will go, and unlike Austria being next to Turkey, it isn't as obvious who might crunch Germany. It's completely within believability for Russia to elect to loan Germany a city using its spare to secure an important ally. Therefore a false betrayal is possible to stage between Germany and Russia. Germany has the most potential allies, the fewest absolutely guaranteed enemies. I believe if real statesmen played, they would prefer Germany due to the ability Germany has to play very differently game to game, meaning that any of its promises are more believable in any game, because nothing is noticeably forcing its real interest. Germany has the chance to play whimsically and do almost whatever it wants. If Germany notices France or Russia becoming a problem, it can switch sides as necessary farther in advance and more discretely.
A very interesting and well developed pattern of thought, Darth. I don't agree with all of it, but it's an interesting argument for Germany as the best country. I think just about everyone can try to take a bite out of Germany, though. Austria can't attack it early, true, but whether Austria or Russia or both come out on top in the East, the winner will almost always attack Germany after the fight is over, so Germany has to quickly resolve the western conflict and pray its ally there doesn't stab it when the East is settled. France has no real reason to pick England over Germany, true, but it also has no real reason to stay loyal to Germany once England is gone. Most games that see a Franco-German alliance also see a French invasion of Germany after England is gone rather than vice versa. Germany might notice France becoming a problem, but usually Italy is a pretty feeble option for an ally there, whereas France can work with a robust Russia or Austria against Germany with devastating results. I think France is pretty consistently better than Germany. It has fewer options, but they're better options. Germany has a lot of options, but it's almost as delicately positioned as Austria. And I think Russia has more options and potential than Germany, since it can team with any power early on, just like Germany, but unlike Germany, it has a center across the stalemate line, and it also has one fewer potential attacker (as Germany is neighbors with England, France, Russia, Austria, and Italy, while Russia is only neighbors with Turkey, Austria, Germany, and England) despite having just as many alliance options as Germany.
I appreciate the thoughtful listing, even if my ordering would be pretty different (mainly Russia). I think that you'll know you're really experienced once you start to feel pretty confident as Italy and Austria!
@@kunallobo4136 That's a very common issue. People joke that if you play Austria, you get on the phone and say, "Honey, never mind, it looks like it'll be an early night!"
@@floridamandiplomacy I'm playing my first game with Austria (in the middle), and I got crushed in the beginning but held on. Basically the early alliance was France/Germany/England/Austria vs Turkey/Russia/Italy. I was on the winning side, but I was the at the front of the war, which was tough for a while. Now, Russia and Italy are out, Germany and England have turned on France, and I'm stuck deciding whether to stay with my game-long ally Germany or make amends with Turkey or both.
@@kunallobo4136 Well, I don't want to give recommendations, but please do let us know how it goes! I often find other people's games interesting. Well done in getting rid of Russia and Italy. I hope you're able to stay alive and not get smushed between France, Germany, and Turkey.
I'm getting a lot of mixed signals man. You say France, Russia, and Turkey are in the top three, but it looks like in the Nexus finals France and England are always taken first, while Turkey is taken almost last. You say Italy is last but in Nexus Italy is quite popular. I'm only asking this because it's my first season playing Nexus and I'm in the finals. Likely I have the top seed. Should I drop down to fifth in the Paris Method and take Turkey since it's so underrated?
Well, there are a lot of different metas in the Diplomacy world. Countries are better in different ecosystems with different types of players. Common sense about Diplomacy is different in different Diplomacy communities. What works on one website, or in one city, or on one Discord server, will not work in another. That said, I think I'm pretty much spitting objective facts in this video. The reason Turkey isn't popular in Nexus, if I recall correctly, is that it's perceived as powerful, so people like to take it out early. Italy can last longer because it's perceived as underpowered, and sometimes that allows the Italian player to pull off an upset. If I were you, I'd probably take Turkey or Russia, unless you think the other players will try to take you out in 1903 or something because they perceive you as a very serious threat... which I think is totally possible. France is probably the easiest country to do well with, in my experience, though. If you have top seed, maybe pick France.
@@floridamandiplomacy I have the top seed but it's also the Paris method, so I can drop down and possibly get a different country with a better tiebreaker.
Being a corner power with the ability to poke your nose into other people's business. Russia truly gets the benefits of both central and corner powers!
I'm gonna be harsh, people doing good with Austria is less about them being good at the game and more about everyone else having less than 1 braincell people, rightly so, freak out about Turkey getting a hold of all the Balkans, but somehow they don't do that, even though the position is absolutely the same, and that is, a heedgehog that can attack and defend at the same time without worries it's stupid for an Italian or Russian player not getting Triest / Buda out of that alliance, but yet they don't and it is just so stupid "yeah sure I'm gonna let you go + 4 and with concentrated armies, I'm gonna +3 with stretched thin armies, I wonder how that will end up for me" it is just that stupid
I don't agree, but that probably won't surprise you. Skilled negotiators are good at obscuring people's sense of self-interest. I don't think Italy getting Trieste or Russia getting Budapest would make any sense for Austria, from the perspective of Austrian self-interest. It would just result in a stab by Austria as soon as feasible, and the Italian or especially Russian player would deserve it for being so unreasonable as to demand a home center for an alliance.
@@floridamandiplomacy I mean, both Italy and Russia can tell to Austria "do that or I will kill you", which is honestly very reasonable, because both in an IT or in a IR Austria will end up badly obscuring someone sense of self interest is not being a "skilled negotiatior" is that the other being a gullible moron neither is saying "well Austria will stab you" a good argument, both as Italy and Russia you want Austria dead. It's not a matter of "it won't make any sense for Austria to do so", it's more of a "do this or you die", which is a position Austria just cannot negotiate out of, and honestly it's about time players do realise that
A sensible Italian player usually does not want Austria dead in the early game, as that frequently leads to Russia and Turkey overrunning the rest of the map. I think you're looking at things in a one-sided way, and the map is more balanced than your framing suggests. A Russian who frames things as "do that or I will kill you" might very easily cement an Austria-Turkey alliance. I would bet on AT to defeat IR most of the time when those two alliances form. I should add that Italy decides to involve itself in the West a good chunk of the time too. So there are many reasons why this analysis won't hold consistently. All Austrian success does not come down to, "Wow, Italy and Russia sure were dumb" lol
@@floridamandiplomacy but they don't want Austria dead, they just negotiate how much is their alliance vital. Austria Turkey is also an alliance that doesn't make any sense for Turkey too for the same reason it doesn't make sense for Italy or Russia. Yes, it's absolutely about players being dumb because long term even if you are even with Austria in centres Austria will have them more concentrated and you will not, thus you'll be at a disadvantage Italy can absolutely threaten to split Austria, it's not like an Austrian balkan is going to end any better for Italy than a Turkey balkan, so why shouldn't they do that? On the other hand Russia doing that doesn't mean Austria will ally with Turkey, it just means that it will either be juggernaut vs AI or Austria to be split 3 ways every Turkish player does know that an alliance with Russia is far more valuable than one with Austria, and an AT means a very probable Austrian win, the Turkish player does know that and wants to avoid that
@@floridamandiplomacy when your vison doesn't go beyond pacific and have the audacity to talk diplomacy , delete your channel and save the world the embarrassment of your incompetence ...China is on top 3 in almost every thing , economy , military etc . What diplomacy is he talking abt...?
@@koushik5437 Trolls keep on trolling, trolling, trolling... into the future! Well played in coming back a full year later to continue the madness, but I'm afraid I'm still here. I won't let this go unanswered.
i mean i understand were u come from ...but facts are facts it cant be altered ....if facts arnt provided what's the point of this channel ...at least change the title to Western or European Diplomacy ...that makes sense ...@@floridamandiplomacy
