A quick note on the video - at 3:44 I say that TyS is a throwaway move, which is just wrong. It's a great position to be in for flexibility, allowing you to quickly pivot against France if you want to. But it's not helpful if you're planning to continue playing in the east, which tends to be the more successful strategy at high level (plus, it's likely to bring French fleets down south). This video as a whole is also assuming throughout that you're not planning to launch an immediate invasion into France - if you are, F Tun is absolutely better than A Tun and F Ion. But then you have to be very, very careful about being jumped on by Turkey in the Med.
Was about to come down here and ask about some kind of France-ward pivot. My thinking as an absolute neophyte was just going for WES over TYS, but I assume France is generally going to be able to stop that if they're actually moving?
Thank you to Patton1944 for asking the question! We'll be back this weekend with a game commentary (not the Vale hurricane one, that'll be the video after). And thank you everyone for watching - seeing how many people watched and subscribed these last two weeks has been absolutely mind-blowing considering how niche of a channel we are. If anyone has any ideas for a 5K sub special I'm all ears, I've gotta scramble to make one now :D
Not sure if this is a 5k special idea or a general idea, but it'd be nice to see a commentary on a game that wasn't tournament play with a time limit and everyone fighting to eke out a board top; something with at least the possibility of ending in a solo or a two-way/three-way draw.
love these little opening analysis shorts. if i can suggest another one, why does austria tend to not go for rumania in 1901? i usually see austria go for serbia and greece, but rumania is right on its border and usually uncontested in spring because sevastopol has to bounce black sea.
It's exactly as Natanmelzar mentions - it puts your army in quite an adversarial position to Russia, while at the same time separating your units from your fleet, so your move into Greece can't be supported. There's quite a lot of reasoning to dig into around that - especially around why it's so bad not to get into Greece - which ties in quite nicely to other topics, like why the Hedgehog opening is not great. So I'll definitely make a video on this!
We've got some in the works! I emailed the owner of one of the Diplomacy websites asking if he could share data on openings and he sent me the entire database of every move from every game played there. Super cool and means I can incorporate those stats, but it also means I need to brush up on MySQL as I haven't used it since university... Once I've done that though we should have some videos going through a wide range of openings for each power.
One of the biggest takeaways for me, I'm actually surprised you can convoy with multiple fleets on the same unit in one turn! Is this limited? My friends and I (none of us know anything competitive, it was our first game) had a bonus win condition of fleeting a unit from Smyrna to St. Petersburg, I thought chain-convoys were a house rule 😅
You can chain as many fleets as you want in a convoy! The Smy-StP convoy is something you can absolutely do in a normal game - provided you can convince enough people to help you :D
There is actually a variant called Fleet Rome that changes that starting unit to a fleet! It's fairly popular, although I'm personally so-so on the idea. I think taking away Italy's ability to support hold Venice in 1901 is a bigger deal than most people think it is!
Honestly, I think this opening is VASTLY overplayed. If the Turkey player is good they will leave their army in Smyrna and not move it. Which will help them shuffle their units better in their main lands. Once they see that you are putting your army in Tunis this is a anti-Turkey move they can be able to shuffle their units and get a fleet in Constantinople and Smyrna threatening to be able to move into both Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean rendering your convoy useless. In this position it is just awful. I think a better strategy is convincing the Turkey player to attack Russia while you work with them to kill Austria. Make gains and then kill any Turkey fleets. And set up defenses against the enviable French fleets. The most threatening thing in this game for Italy is the two prong fleet war against Turkey and France. Much much better than convoying into Tunis. Turkey can see it and defend against you easily. The juggernaut that can happen if you attack Austria is real. But if you see Turkey go at Russia from the start it can be hard for them to get a relationship again. Also the juggernaut is worse off for Turkey so I think if the Turkey player is good they will try to keep pressing the attack against Russia. Turkey gets more out of attacking Russia than being in a long term juggernaut imo. Tell me what you guys think!
You're absolutely correct that high level Turkeys counter the Lepanto by keeping an army in Smy (or Syr), which makes it a lot less effective - but that doesn't make this opening useless. It can still be used in conjunction with the Austrian fleet to force Aeg in S02 - but more importantly, you're still in a fine position to pivot against Austria with this opening if you want to change course. Attacking Austria with both armies in 01 can be really good if you're confident in your alliances, and the Italy-Turkey alliance tends to be underrated imo, but the flexibility the Tunis convoy gives - not requiring you to commit to an attack before '02 - is huge in of itself.
A quick note on the video - at 3:44 I say that TyS is a throwaway move, which is just wrong. It's a great position to be in for flexibility, allowing you to quickly pivot against France if you want to. But it's not helpful if you're planning to continue playing in the east, which tends to be the more successful strategy at high level (plus, it's likely to bring French fleets down south).
This video as a whole is also assuming throughout that you're not planning to launch an immediate invasion into France - if you are, F Tun is absolutely better than A Tun and F Ion. But then you have to be very, very careful about being jumped on by Turkey in the Med.
Was about to come down here and ask about some kind of France-ward pivot. My thinking as an absolute neophyte was just going for WES over TYS, but I assume France is generally going to be able to stop that if they're actually moving?
A 9 minute video would be considered fairly long on many channels these days; for Diplostrats its absurdly short!
Thank you to Patton1944 for asking the question!
We'll be back this weekend with a game commentary (not the Vale hurricane one, that'll be the video after). And thank you everyone for watching - seeing how many people watched and subscribed these last two weeks has been absolutely mind-blowing considering how niche of a channel we are. If anyone has any ideas for a 5K sub special I'm all ears, I've gotta scramble to make one now :D
Maybe a community diplomacy tournament to celebrate? Free video material to be milked as-well
Not sure if this is a 5k special idea or a general idea, but it'd be nice to see a commentary on a game that wasn't tournament play with a time limit and everyone fighting to eke out a board top; something with at least the possibility of ending in a solo or a two-way/three-way draw.
What could be massively entertaining is a live play where you two are commenting live your diplomatic discussions.
Hyped to see this one, I think I know what it is 👀
I'd love to see another chaos variant commentary, or maybe some other wild variant
love these little opening analysis shorts. if i can suggest another one, why does austria tend to not go for rumania in 1901? i usually see austria go for serbia and greece, but rumania is right on its border and usually uncontested in spring because sevastopol has to bounce black sea.
I think its because if Bud is in Rum, Turkey can bounce you out of greece, and Russia will side against you.
It's exactly as Natanmelzar mentions - it puts your army in quite an adversarial position to Russia, while at the same time separating your units from your fleet, so your move into Greece can't be supported. There's quite a lot of reasoning to dig into around that - especially around why it's so bad not to get into Greece - which ties in quite nicely to other topics, like why the Hedgehog opening is not great. So I'll definitely make a video on this!
loved this more specific tactical exploration. any thought on maybe doing general opening videos on the other countries?
We've got some in the works! I emailed the owner of one of the Diplomacy websites asking if he could share data on openings and he sent me the entire database of every move from every game played there.
Super cool and means I can incorporate those stats, but it also means I need to brush up on MySQL as I haven't used it since university... Once I've done that though we should have some videos going through a wide range of openings for each power.
Ay, feels pretty cool to have inspired a video. Great stuff as always!
I just started a game of italy and was wondering what if i convoyed to tunis . And then this video appears . Thank for the strats mate, will try it
Very interesting ! Thanks a lot !
Nice video! Thanks DiploStrats!
Great explanation here.
One of the biggest takeaways for me, I'm actually surprised you can convoy with multiple fleets on the same unit in one turn! Is this limited?
My friends and I (none of us know anything competitive, it was our first game) had a bonus win condition of fleeting a unit from Smyrna to St. Petersburg, I thought chain-convoys were a house rule 😅
You can chain as many fleets as you want in a convoy! The Smy-StP convoy is something you can absolutely do in a normal game - provided you can convince enough people to help you :D
Tunis mentioned 🇹🇳🦅🇹🇳🦅🇹🇳🦅🇹🇳🦅
Real question is why they decided Italy should start with 2 armies and not 2 fleets lol
There is actually a variant called Fleet Rome that changes that starting unit to a fleet! It's fairly popular, although I'm personally so-so on the idea. I think taking away Italy's ability to support hold Venice in 1901 is a bigger deal than most people think it is!
Now you should cover the necessary tactics for England to convoy into Tunis in 1901 ... 😛
yes
Honestly, I think this opening is VASTLY overplayed. If the Turkey player is good they will leave their army in Smyrna and not move it. Which will help them shuffle their units better in their main lands. Once they see that you are putting your army in Tunis this is a anti-Turkey move they can be able to shuffle their units and get a fleet in Constantinople and Smyrna threatening to be able to move into both Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean rendering your convoy useless. In this position it is just awful. I think a better strategy is convincing the Turkey player to attack Russia while you work with them to kill Austria. Make gains and then kill any Turkey fleets. And set up defenses against the enviable French fleets. The most threatening thing in this game for Italy is the two prong fleet war against Turkey and France. Much much better than convoying into Tunis. Turkey can see it and defend against you easily. The juggernaut that can happen if you attack Austria is real. But if you see Turkey go at Russia from the start it can be hard for them to get a relationship again. Also the juggernaut is worse off for Turkey so I think if the Turkey player is good they will try to keep pressing the attack against Russia. Turkey gets more out of attacking Russia than being in a long term juggernaut imo. Tell me what you guys think!
You're absolutely correct that high level Turkeys counter the Lepanto by keeping an army in Smy (or Syr), which makes it a lot less effective - but that doesn't make this opening useless. It can still be used in conjunction with the Austrian fleet to force Aeg in S02 - but more importantly, you're still in a fine position to pivot against Austria with this opening if you want to change course. Attacking Austria with both armies in 01 can be really good if you're confident in your alliances, and the Italy-Turkey alliance tends to be underrated imo, but the flexibility the Tunis convoy gives - not requiring you to commit to an attack before '02 - is huge in of itself.