Barbu
Posts: 46
Joined: 10/14/2004
From: Montreal, Canada
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Regeurk
FR totally offensive if he wants to win the game, they have the best army.
GB very specific offensive actions against FR, if he wants to win the game and help the other players/nations against FR.
RU can play neutral or offensive, nobody on his back is a good advantage and a great army.
PR very defensive, it going to be in trouble for many times during a game, FR and RU like to beat him up...:(
AU defensive, normaly only gets into war with FR or TU, but RU can always surprise him, SP and GB is not very common.
TU very offensive to win land and points, but as the weakest can be in trouble with SP, GB, RU and AU....
SP defensive, waiting for his moment to attack, pobrably to TU and FR or GB, not much more to choose.
Any additions (or contradictions) to this? Looks like an excellent summary to me (and jives in most points with my own experience), but if there are any other views, I'm interested in hearing them . . .
As a general rule I'd not be overly agressive with any country except maybe France. The stronger a country is, and the more expansionist you are, the more likely you have enemies plotting a revenge and it's also likely that other powers that might not pay too much attention to you will think about launching a preemptive war.
France is the exception, not only because of the high need for political points, but also because you are most likely going to be the target of a coalition anyway in the short or most mid term, regardless of how low profile you want to be, so you might as well start gathering resources and territories right away in expectation of this war. Though (in my opinion) you should still resist excessive expansionist temptations, and avoid crushing Prussia and Austria completely. Crush their armies, sure, gain as many political points as you can but grant them relatively lenient peace conditions and leave them with enough territory to maintain the illusion of a strong Pr-As alliance. If you crush Prussia and Austria to oblivion the odds of having to face a much stronger coalition the next round are much higher, as other powers may flock to the coalition's banner to restore some semblance of balance of power.
This won't necessarily be the case though.. I remember a game where I had the misfortune of being Prussia with a rookie austrian partner (who lasted 2 game sessions), facing a secret GB-Fr alliance. They were officially at war using option 11.9.2, but never actually fought, and it took us a year to realize what was going on - by that time spain, Prussia, Austria had virtually ceased to exist as major powers, and Turkey was a british vassal. Since the Tu-Fr-GB alliance never broke in the next years, the game was basically over.
The next game we played with mostly the same players was more interesting and more "Standard" as well. France and GB waged an "honest" war and pretty much through the first half of the game french agressiveness and success was constantly matched by a coalition of corresponding strength inflicting 2 serious defeats to the french - who by the way as a general rule played much better than their opponents, but still couldn't win against the overwhelming numbers provided by the coalition his agressiveness and expansionism helped create.
Another example of how military success tend to create coalitions that tend to match the extent of these successes is a game I played as Austria. Prussia, GB and I started the game at war with France and had extensive early success. Russia joined the war on the french side when things started to look really bad for France, but french still surrendered to preserve it's last few minors (had their capitals occupied and they would have been conquered by the end of the turn). We then turned on Russia - who didn't want to surrender conditionally - but that convinced Turkey to enter the war against us. The 1806 campaign brought about the crushing defeat of Turkey and Russia being pushed back deep in it's territory, but with the prospect of another war with the french in early 1807 with the russian problem still unresolved. That game was a great example of how extensive military success tend to create coalition strong enough to negate all that was gained through these successes and more - and a good reason as to why I absolutely hate to play Austria or Prussia 
Anyway that was rather long, but what I was trying to point out is that winning EiA is about political points. If through military success or agressiveness you extend your power and assets to a point where you appear threatening to powers that normally shouldn't be hostile, then you're probably at the point where you're overextended, and these extra territories might very well mean a war that you can't win, with assorted political points losses for the war and the territories.
< Message edited by Barbu -- 12/6/2004 11:06:39 PM >
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Offense vs. Defense - 
so I thought I'd try my hand at starting a new one. 
. One problem that Prussia and Austria do have in that respect is that due to their central position and proximity to France, they are virtually forced into a war at the very start of the game. And from that point, circumstances will rarely evolv to their advantage, with a war in which they have at best 50% chance of winning without interference, and with 2 neighbors (Russia and Turkey) who will generally be more of a problem than help - note here I am not saying that's the correct move for either Russia or Turkey, but it's what I have commonly observed. That, or being defeated by France in the first place. No matter the country you play, you still have to be at least in the 8+ vp/turn to have a chance at winning. Hard for Austria and Prussia to maintain that pace with an hostile Rs/Tu, especially if you play with economic manipulation. 
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