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I have become fascinated with the alliances of each power and how they turn out but in my research I could not find a Turkey/Italy/England alliance even though I already played a game of it and ended up in a 2 way draw between England and I. Have any of you done this before? Did it work out for you? I would appreciate some enlightenment on it being the nub I am

It's definitely not a natural alliance because all three nations are traditionally naval powers. You would definitely have some conflict between England/Italy over controlling the MAO, and Italy would have to control the Ionian, forcing Turkey to go land-based. It is possible but not idea for Turkey to do this, and Russia has a pretty easily-established stalemate line that can force Turkish armies into a narrow corridor between Trieste and Galicia. And Italy's going to be nervous about Turkish armies in Tyrolia. Not only that, but Italy's probably going to want a couple of Balkan centers and that's going to constrict Turkish expansion even further.

Any alliance can work, really, but this one doesn't have a lot of natural advantages.

If all build armies - it can work!
The trick is an early stab on Austria by Italy (fake lepanto) and an extremely weak Russia (turkey needs army in Sevast early.
That can be achieved with england embroiling Russia in the north, and turkey somehow convincing Austria to work with him to get Sevast advanced. That's possible if Italy is ultra aggressive.
A weak or indecisive German is the key - if he forms close alliance with France it's not going to work. So France arguining with Germany early is needed. A heap of manipulation needed in Comms early on!
I've done it as England. It's hard and we didn't have turkey onboard at the start but he joined when it made sense...

Machiara wrote:It's definitely not a natural alliance because all three nations are traditionally naval powers. You would definitely have some conflict between England/Italy over controlling the MAO, and Italy would have to control the Ionian, forcing Turkey to go land-based. It is possible but not idea for Turkey to do this, and Russia has a pretty easily-established stalemate line that can force Turkish armies into a narrow corridor between Trieste and Galicia. And Italy's going to be nervous about Turkish armies in Tyrolia. Not only that, but Italy's probably going to want a couple of Balkan centers and that's going to constrict Turkish expansion even further.

Any alliance can work, really, but this one doesn't have a lot of natural advantages.

Turkey is not nearly as naval as you think. Turkey basically has two strategies:

1. Take Bulgaria, build an army, and try to take Sevastopol.
2. Take Bulgaria, build a fleet, and try to take Greece.

Arguably, the first method is better because armies are slightly more useful than fleets.

Zosimus,

Are armies "slightly more useful" than navies for Turkey, or more generally. I don't know who the keeper of the statistics is, but it would seem that this is an interesting empirical question. Holding constant for country, what is the correlation between building armies during the early or mid-game and the ultimate outcome.

Obviously, this will differ by country, but if there was a broader pattern across countries, that would be quite interesting.

Best,
Eric (Friday)

Well, whether armies or fleets are more useful has been discussed before, for example at viewtopic.php?f=16&t=24103#p339804

Generally speaking, the focus has been either on the typical winning ratio of armies/fleets for each country or on the number of spaces that are more useful when occupied by fleets than by armies. Now some of the strongest arguments for fleets (control of North Sea, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, English Channel) are too far removed from Turkey's typical sphere of influence to merit consideration. As for typical winning ratios, Austria is the land king hands down with typical ratios around 70-75% armies whereas England, the sea king, usually runs 50-55 percent. Turkey needs at most 7 fleets to solo—6 to conquer the Med and 1 to ferry troops across the Black Sea. So a solo-imminent Turkey will have at most a 9-7 army-fleet ratio.

For an early Turkey, he must either choose between 75% armies or 50% armies. Neither falls into his "ideal" band.

I have no figures on how often a Turkey who solos builds an army or a fleet first. I imagine that many successful Turkeys get two builds the first year perhaps by opening to the Black Sea & Ankara, by getting support into Rumania against a napping Russia, or by beating Austria into Greece/Serbia when Austria has either opened the Southern Hedgehog or is facing the Obriani Attack.

Any alliance is possible, as has been said, but I think it'll be hard to find players willing to take this alliance seriously as a defining characteristic of a game. That starts with the E/T relationship. I've drawn my share of these countries and I always try to establish a relationship with the board's other pole, but I can't recall it ever mattering very much. Neither power can base strategy on what the other one does. There are too many contingencies.

A game can evolve organically so that I/E are working over France and Germany together on one side, E/T clobber Russia, and I/T take out Austria. But even if this triple is agreed in S01, chances are good that it'll cease to exist once any of its contingencies fails: Italy fails to take Trieste, Germany and France form an effective partnership, etc.

Once Italy has some space it can be pretty effective building lots of armies. Once it's running, which is hard to do, I think I/T isn't so different from E/F, really.

You can't take Munich with a fleet . Fleets have their uses. If you're France and want to invade England it is generally a good idea to have a fleet, for example, but building lots is only good for stalemate lines. A single fleet can often achieve results that lots of fleets can't.

As far as an EIT goes, why not? If the players are suitable it seems easy enough.

Well, from Turkey's point of view, just look at the centers around you and ask yourself whether you want to occupy them with a fleet or an army.

Bulgaria? I'm thinking army.
Rumania? I'm thinking army.
Greece? I'm thinking army.
Serbia? Has to be army.

Zosimus wrote:Well, from Turkey's point of view, just look at the centers around you and ask yourself whether you want to occupy them with a fleet or an army.

Bulgaria? I'm thinking army.
Rumania? I'm thinking army.
Greece? I'm thinking army.
Serbia? Has to be army.

This makes Italy comfortable to not see a bunch of Turkish fleets head his way.

Like any other combination, it is about the players more than the powers themselves. It is workable.

However, Italy should negotiate hard to be the leader for center imbalances. Should also cover key stalemate to threaten kingmaking.