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These days, starting a PBEM Dip game usually involves walking the same razor's edge during the first 3 years of game play. I'm not talking about the simple acts of carving out your local sphere of influence, joining it with another and then working on expanding it (ok, sometimes it's not easy, much less achievable). No, everyone always seems to have their eye on the alliance of two countries in particular these days. Questions are whispered from London to Vienna: Is there a juggernaut forming? Nearly a decade ago, I poured through the articles at the Dip pouch before getting into a game, not wanting to walk into this community blind. What is consistently spoken of? The potency of the RT, one of the few alliances actually given a name. I hadn't played enough FtF to discover the natural ability these two countries have to sweep across the board when I played years back. So, naturally I wanted to check it out the first chance I got. I mean, after all, can all these people really be wrong? Yes, they can. A firm, airtight AI alliance can kick juggernaut butt any day even if RT collaborate from the first move. And once AI has displaced/destroyed RT they become an Uber-Juggernaut (so named for the Austrian flavor), with the ability to build units on the front lines of their next victim: the West. Now, before you say there's no such thing as airtight in this game, I urge you to think again. Most GOOD players know the key to success is finding an ally and running it to the endgame, when things open up. It's the surest way to position yourself for a solo and the best way to be involved in a DIAS draw - remember we're talking email judge play here. How does AI take the Turkish corner? Although I have disliked articles that take strategic situations for granted (such as "Go Fasta") we need to make certain, basic assumptions here. They are hardly outrageous and usually tend to play themselves out in a majority of games. First we'll assume the players have read the Juggernaut article or at least are intimidated by its possibility. Second, assume a more or less East/West divided board meaning that EFG are fighting amongst themselves and France doesn't target Italy in the early going. Let's also assume a sedate situation in the first year in Scandinavia - and let's even say that Germany doesn't bounce Russia in Sweden - probably the most unlikely of these "assumptions." Now, if an RT is being formed these days, opening with Bla-Rum & Ank-Con in Sp01 is certainly going to raise the alarms. So our final assumption is that RT conceal it in the first season: bounce in the Black Sea, maybe move to Armenia. Their thinking will be "We'll make up for it in the long run since we won't have the hard core reaction early on - we give up position that we make up later in exchange for early secrecy." Finally, Austria opens standard, and Italy open Lepanto like (although I cannot remember the last time I actually saw one work according to Edi Birsan's article but that's another story.) So what you've got is something like this in 1901 (both seasons):
After the builds, AI then forces the Aeg (F Smy covers Eas) and can thereafter keep it. Need a Lepanto? Not anymore. If RT masked their moves too well, then F Ank is stuck in the Black Sea if the army is stuck in Con. They begin to see the face of disaster. Ser s Tun-Ion-Aeg-Bul in the fall of 1902 anyone? Now, moves become guessing games and chances are that few other players will be alarmed at the prospect of a successful AI: they're busy in the west and see a morass of fighting in the east, just the way the west has always liked it (both in the game and the real World). This leaves room for diplomacy and the chance to crack apart RT and force them to implode on each other. This process always takes a few seasons, with Turkey lasting probably until 1904. There are too many details to get into, but the idea is that AI starts off assuming there will be a Juggernaut and work to stop it whether or not it actually exists. They eliminate Turkey by 1904/05 and have maybe even gotten as far as Moscow by then, .... Enter the MidGame:Cutthroat sensibilities and anarchic tendencies aside AI shouldn't dissolve into fighting each other at this point. If they don't then the west had better watch out. Consider what AI has after RT is gone:
Consider what AI doesn't have:
In Conclusion:There are obviously countless permutations in any game as this is a game of personalities, but the dried up version of it is simple: AI takes advantage of RT's early masking moves to get the upper hand militarily. This forces RT to defend themselves - and this part is important - whether or not there was actually an RT. If there wasn't there is one after 1901 simply as an act of self defense, which plays into the second level of the strategy: AI now has the diplomatic upper hand because they can now cry "Juggernaut" to the rest of the board thereby (usually) eliciting sympathies from the west. The line to EFG then becomes: "Don't stab AI, or the Juggernaut rolls." So, in getting what EFG wishes for - no Juggernaut, they risk giving birth to something much more insidious - The Uber Juggernaut. Beware the Uber Juggernaut.
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Brian Hennessy (bhennessy@earthlink.net)
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