I hate playing England for the simple reason that I always wind up wondering how I managed to make a mess of such a nice position. I never pick the right ally so I've been compensating by trying to ally with everyone. Then I find out I've got too many allies and no particular direction to go, and my units are out of position because I'm waffling so much. Finally, the other players realize I don't know what I'm doing and participate in a mercy killing to put everyone out of my misery. I have resolved to do better in the future and to try and give my game plan more direction and flexibility. I need flexibility and a more definite strategy because I consistently run up against French and German players who use me to further their purposes, so they keep me contained in my little corner. French allies love me because I let them hem me in until they are ready to stab me. Lots of English players end up with a French fleet in the Channel which they end up accepting as a fait accompli. It is irritating to say the least but there is not a great deal you can do when it happens because usually the French player has a good reason to be them or at least a good excuse. I also get blackmailed by Russians who threaten to intervene in the west to balance things out by attacking Norway. Obviously I need to find a countermeasure for this. One of the things I resent about all this is that it is generally accepted in the hobby that England is one of the easiest, if not THE easiest country to play. Do you know that novices are recommended to play England because it's so easily defended! Hah! Since I usually wind up defending as England, I can tell you it ain't necessarily so. On the other hand, if you put England in the hands of one of the top players in the game, inevitably there's an outcry to "kill the witch" because of the potential that England has in the hands of such a person when allied with any other player. Think about how many draws you see that are two ways with England as one of the partners. I've been in an ET, EI, EG, and EA myself and had some potential others result in wins for one of the allies. It's also notable that when England is a significant survivor in a possible three or four way draw, the power at the corners that England can bring to bear makes it the most likely game breaker. This tends to reinforce the early paranoia about England and build "kill the witch" hysteria. That hysteria early in the game is the first major problem I see with playing England. What makes it so difficult to combat is that no one really misses England once it has been eliminated. Russia, France and Germany just seem to flow into the vacuum created, and not much changes tactically or diplomatically. France still faces Germany and a northern naval power with Italy on the other flank. Germany is still caught between Russia and France but now has more poten¬tial for alliances with Italy and Turkey/Austria since these powers recognize that France/Russia will need to look else¬where for dots. So, it seems no matter how loud and long you yell when RGF ruthlessly wipes you out, all you get is tongue in cheek sympathy and a wish to hold out as long as possible to keep the three occupied. The board consensus that everyone is better off without you around is truly hard to deal with and very frustrating to say the least. You really must do something to force your presence on the game, so that even the more benign tactic of simply containing you until time allows your neighbors to deal with you is unsuccessful. We've all seen Turkey, reduced to three centers and left to rot in the corner because the RAI doesn't really want to waste time and units to wrinkle the Turk out of his corner. This "contain" policy works reasona¬bly well with England also but does not suffer from the tactical drawbacks and advantages surrounding the Turkish situation. While Turkey's home supply centers can all sup¬port each other, England suffers from unit hunger when reduced to three blocks (especially when they don't have the right type of unit to cover their remaining centers.) That brings me to the second major problem I find in playing England: getting the right balance of armies to fleets. England, more than any other power, can find itself without tactical options and out of position because of this problem. There's a lot of conventional wisdom about this situation which emphasizes the "power of the convoy" as a tactic, but no matter how you slice it you are tying up two units to bring influence to bear on just one province. There's no easy answer to this problem, but I'm beginning to feel that it is not as difficult as it might seem if we reexamine another bit of Hobby wisdom: that England must put an army on the continent in 1901 or 1902. Nine times out of ten this translates for most people into convoying A Liverpool to Belgium, Picardy or Norway in the conventional fashion from the standard English open¬ings. Anti-French means A Wales and F English Channel, while anti-Russian means A Edinburgh and F Norwegian. The safe option is then A Yorkshire and F North Sea for convoy to Belgium. Obviously, if you are worried about Russia you will want to be able to force Norway for your build, but that does not appeal to the new wave of aggressive players much. Besides, not a lot of Russians feel comfortable sending that Moscow army to St. Pete given the recent emphasis on fast starts for one's country, along with new em¬phasis on the AIT theatre. What I propose is to reverse a little of the traditional thinking here and open F Lon-Eng, F Edi-Nth, A Lvp-Yor. My intention is to put my fleet into Belgium and my army into Norway. My reasoning relies on two facts. First, only one center north of the Par/Mun/War line cannot be attacked by at least four fleet units and that is Berlin, while only Par/ Mun out of the centers west of Vie/War cannot be reached by a fleet unit. Put all that together, my friends, and you get a lot more than eighteen centers. So, while having armies is nice, the fact remains that England is primarily a naval power. The second fact is that the English unit in Belgium will exert influence over only six provinces. These are evenly split four and four for the army and fleet, but please notice that F Belgium can be used to support action in the North Sea and English Channel, both of which are key to English defense and offense options. Army Belgium runs its influ¬ence into the interior of the continent to reach Ruhr and Burgundy, but these areas require England join in a land struggle and have a cooperative ally in order to be effective. Furthermore, a retreat from Belgium often leaves the army in the box, which must be rebuilt and reconvoyed if England is committed to a continental conflict. A fleet may suffer a similar fate but then the offending ally/enemy can expect a faster retaliation from English naval power as the rebuilt unit simply fills the space left by a counterattacking fleet unit. Of course running the risk of offending France with this move is certainly a factor, but I feel that with the rise in "attacking" French strategies lately, this opening to the Channel also serves defensive purposes in case France was cooperating with Germany to take the North Sea or deny the Norway build. Using the army to pull in that Norway build while covering the Channel may make you a temporary persona non grata in Paris and Moscow, but nowadays players are tending to view such stabs as rude but acceptable. The Russian, who vows to avenge an army convoy to Nor¬way, won't find much sympathy from the other players when you point out that a single unit unsupported from the Barents or the Norwegian is not going to topple the Russian Empire. The reason I find the A Norway a good alternative is that the provinces it can influence include Finland as opposed to Skagerrat. I pretty much discount the Barents as a useful place for an English unit early in the game because of the limited options it presents. While I admit that the previous arguments about influencing sea provinces with fleets ap¬plies to the Norway/.Skagerrat situation as well, it is not nearly as paramount to England as the question of who owns the North Sea and Channel. The clincher for me, however, is the fact that an A Norway has more of a dampening effect on Russian ambitions in Scandinavia than a fleet would because Russia has to plan around the possibility of the English unit in Finland. Such an army can exert influence on all three potentially disputed centers with England rather than just a combination of Nwy/Stp or Nwy/Swe as with a fleet. This is in line with my theory that a good defense leads to a better offense. In fact, it is just possible that if the Russian opens A Mos-Stp you may convince him that your primary focus with this opening is in the West, so that it would be a good idea for him to convoy A Stp-Swe to set up a springboard attack on Germany in 1902. How about A. Nwy-Hol supported by F Bel, while the Russian goes A War-Sil, F Bot-Bal, and A Swe-Den? That turns what looked like bloody conflict along the Anglo-Russian border to a peaceful demilitarized zone that allows both powers to concentrate their forces on the main battle zones. Hey, you might even suggest such a daring scheme in Winter 1900 to a Russian player you think has the potential to be a dynamic partner. This discussion would not be complete without men-tioning the tempting option that F Eng-Mid might be to some of you more nasty types who feel a good mini-stab should be followed by an even better complete stab. The A Norway secures the build and F Lon-Eng has support from Mid and Nth in 1902. Plus, the German can be invited to bring all his ground strength to bear on the Burgundy/Belgium corridor. This would seem to me an effective counter to the "contain" policy which France might feel should • be applied to a dangerous English player such as yourself. I hope this tickles some of your more wicked thought processes the next time you start out a game as England!
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