Across the Board

When thinking about the  Diplomacy  board you may think of dividing it into zones.  A traditional division is to split the board into two parts: the Northern (or Western) Triangle, featuring England, France and Germany, and the Southern (Eastern) Triangle of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Personally, though, I prefer to narrow down the areas of the board and consider the possibilities there. I therefore have a number of ' theatres ' that I consider, and the Black Sea Theatre is one of them. Black Sea Theatre For Austria-Hungary to get to the Black Sea, she has to take 5 turns, and that assumes there's no opposition in her way. Given that Turkey isn't going to let her enter Constantinople on turn 4, if at all, it is extremely unusual for Austria to get a fleet in the Black Sea. Even more unusual when you consider that Italy will also want to be involved in the east end of the Med, and that Austrian players regularly focus on armies rather than fleets, a...

When thinking about the  Diplomacy  board you may think of dividing it into zones.  A traditional division is to split the board into two parts: the Northern (or Western) Triangle, featuring England, France and Germany, and the Southern (Eastern) Triangle of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Personally, though, I prefer to narrow down the areas of the board and consider the possibilities there. I therefore have a number of ' theatres ' that I consider, and the Black Sea Theatre is one of them. Russia and the Black Sea Around the Black Sea theatre, Russia looks like this. Her southern fleet, in Sevastopol, is the one unit she has that can affect the Black Sea itself, but every other unit on this map (as well as the unseen Turkish army in Smyrna, south of both Constantinople and Ankara) affects the theatre for Russia to a greater or lesser extent. Russia's Fleet in Rumania Russia's southern fleet has four options: it can move to Rumania, the Black Sea or ...

When thinking about the  Diplomacy  board you may think of dividing it into zones.  A traditional division is to split the board into two parts: the Northern (or Western) Triangle, featuring England, France and Germany, and the Southern (Eastern) Triangle of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Personally, though, I prefer to narrow down the areas of the board and consider the possibilities there. I therefore have a number of ' theatres ' that I consider, and the Black Sea Theatre is one of them. Turkey in the Black Sea Zone Turkey starts with a fleet in Ankara. This is a frustrating position for the player: often, Turkey wants to get her fleet out into the Mediterranean but, to do that, she has to move F(Ank)-Con then F(Con)-AEG. It takes a whole year for Turkey to get where she would like her fleet to be. Now, if that's the case, fair enough. That's how long it takes so Turkey needs to deal with that. She has to ensure the Black Sea is neutral and the only...

There is a lot written about opening strategy in Diplomacy. This isn't, perhaps, surprising; the start of a game is when it can be lost, although not won. https://salesbenchmarkindex.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/StrategyTactic_Chart.png Never come across this? Where've you been? The Diplomacy Archive has a section devoted to opening strategy ; each power has it's own section on the Archive, featuring named openings . Richard Sharp's book, The Game of Diplomacy , discusses openings, again under each power's chapter. There are discussions about openings in Playdiplomacy's forum, in the Strategy section . And there's a Wordpress blog devoted to Diplomacy Openings . As you might expect, Wikipedia discusses Diplomacy. WikiBooks has Diplomacy , which has some sketchy ideas.  However, as good as some of these pieces and articles are, they tend to miss the most important aspect about a good opening strategy: the diplomacy. Know Your Enemy It ...