Skip to main content

The Powers - Part 2: Vive la France!

Image
By
In this series, I'm going to take a brief look at the seven powers in the game of Diplomacy.  This will be not much more than a brief introduction to each power, looking at their position on the board, their neighbours and the pros and cons of playing them.  More detailed strategy will follow in future posts.



France is often called a corner power, although it isn't really in the corner of the map.  I prefer to call it an edge power but I'm not going to argue semantics.


If you draw France, then you ought to be hoping to do well.  She can quickly get into two SCs, and may grab three at the start of the game (if she's lucky... or unlucky depending on your viewpoint).  She has only three other powers that she needs to communicate with in depth, although there really isn't any power that she can afford to short change when talking.

France has two potential weak spots that need a lot of negotiation over, however: Burgundy and the English Channel.  Burgundy adjoins Munich, a German SC; the Channel adjoins London, and English SC.

France can ensure she occupies Burgundy by combining move and support orders from her two armies in Marseilles and Paris.  But this might be costly: if she orders A Mar S Par-Bur she can use A Mar-Spa in F01.  However, if she needs a fleet in the south, France will want to get her fleet into Spain's south coast so army Marseilles can't occupy France.

France doesn't want to let Germany into Burgundy, however.  She will need to ensure that either Paris or Marseilles is ordered to Burgundy in S01 if she thinks Germany will order A Mun-Bur.

Similarly, France doesn't want England's S01 order F Lon-ENG to succeed, and only F Bre-ENG can counter it.  But that stops the French fleet heading to Iberia (Spain and Portugal).

What this means is that France will need to make sure that she can negotiate DMZs (De-Militarised Zones) in these two key spaces.  If she can do this, and is prepared to trust this, she has a great chance to start the game.

Spain and Portugal are France's bankers.  Nobody else can get close to these two SCs at this stage of the game.  The big question is whether France wants to take them straight away.

Many players expect France to be on 5 SCs at the end of 1901 and anything less shows some kind of weakness.  This isn't always the case, of course.  France needs to look at what she needs to do.  Does she need to defend against an aggressive England or Germany?  If so, taking Spain and Portugal isn't necessarily the right choice.

If France has an alliance with England, then she may be able to take both Iberian SCs and work with her ally.  This alliance - the Entente - works well for France if she can trust England.  They work against Germany and France often supports England into Belgium. 

It is a good alliance because France can often find a way to jump on England later in the game.  While England's focused east, France launches fleets to England's west and this often results in an effective stab.

The Franco-German alliance - the Rhineland - may be a little more troublesome to maintain.  At some point in the game Germany is going to have the chance to stab France while she's pushing against England.

Really France needs to extend this alliance to include Russia.  This triple alliance - the German Ocean Triple - is clearly anti-English and will keep Germany in check.

The Franconaut alliance sees France and Russia working together.  For me it's an under-used alliance.  Yes, they're opposite sides of the board and can't immediately help each other out.  But utilised as the alliance behind a false GOT or Triple Entente (the E/R/F alliance) it can be used to sandwich Germany or England.

Probably the most popular triple alliance France will find herself in is the Western Triple - E/F/G.  This isn't a terrible alliance for France but she may find herself struggling with it early on.  This is because, while England and Germany focus on Russia, France needs to look towards Italy... or stab one of her allies earlier than is ideal. 

I've not mentioned Italy a great deal so far.  This is because Italy and France often go down the easy route of agreeing to a DMZ in Piedmont and getting on with things away from each other.

But the Franco-Italian alliance can work well for France.  I've called this the Gaulish alliance for no other reason than, at the time of the Roman Empire France was known as Gaul.  You can thank Asterix for that.  Anyway, if France works with Italy to take on Germany, France is able to protect herself from possible Italian aggression and has a possible strike at Munich.

In fairness, in the early game, France and Italy are better in a triple alliance with England - the Spaghetti Western - aimed at Germany.  And it isn't a great alliance for Italy.

France has a lot more options than England and that should give her something of an advantage.  Indeed, France often out-performs England at Diplomacy.  But she also has more threats to face than England and this can cause some players to be too defensive.

THE POWERS series:

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

What do you think?

Popular posts from this blog

Tournament Scoring - Part 5: Other Scoring Systems

By
There are, perhaps, three other types of scoring system: Placement or Rank scoring, hybrid systems that seek to combine DSS and SCS, and Tier scoring systems.  I want to have a look at each system. Placement or Rank systems Essentially, these are Supply Centre Scoring systems with the addition of bonus points.  I'm going to have a look at some more regularly used systems.  Again, here is the map I will use as an example: England  - 12 SCs Russia  - 9 SCs Turkey  - 8 SCs Italy  - 5 SCs France ,  Germany   and  Austria-Hungary   were eliminated, with 0 SCs each. C-Diplo In a drawn game points are awarded for: Participating in the game: 1 (for an online tournament, I'd only award this for participating and not surrendering). Each SC held at the end of the game: 1 . The player that 'tops the board' (has the most SCs): 38 pts. The second placed player (second highest number of SCs): 14 pts. The third p...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Embassy Journal

By
You know, I have realised that I probably bang on too much.  What can I say?  I like the sound of my own writing (my voice, until laryngitis kicks in when I begin to sound like Barry White, is slightly too high pitched and squeaky). This led me to realise that I should probably be looking at different ways to put out what I want to put that's longer-winded than the long-winded stuff I publish here. And so The Embassy Journal was born. This is my zine, written to accompany the blog, but with articles and a smattering of other stuff.  You can get it from the link above, which will lead you to the first issue (March 2020).  Let me know what you think. All issues will be published on The Embassy Journal page on this blog, where you can also find subscription and contribution info.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ethics of Diplomacy - Part 8: Gamesmanship

By
This is a sticky one, frankly.  If you want to win a game of Diplomacy what isn't allowed?  Some of the stuff that isn't allowed should be obvious and I've discussed much of it in previous posts in this series.  That leaves things that you can do to win that are questionable and, in the final analysis, come down to personal choice. How far are you prepared to go to win at Diplomacy ?  That is probably what defines whether you think something is "gamesmanship" or not, and whether you think it is acceptable. Slow Play Some players in the online game are what I call Pussycats .  They want to play as quickly as possible and they want to move the game on.  Some will hassle through Public Press.  "Has everyone finalised yet?" "Who hasn't finalised?" "Come on - FINALISE!!!" Now this, itself, is something that becomes annoying.  If you join a game with certain deadlines, you need to expect to play to those deadlines.  If you...
Post a Comment
Read more