Anyone have a comparison for outside vdip?
Turkey at number 1 feels wrong some how. ..

The skill of those on VDip, plus their likely choice to play the variants rather than Classic?
The other "corner" England seems correct, as does Austria.
Perhaps the Solo, Draw, etc. formula should be addressed ...

I think the vdip stats are scewed somewhat from having alot of quite inexperienced people hanging around (comparing to diplomacy of old days when the same players stabbed each other for decades on time). Some countries are disadvantaged because of that; essentially the development have stronger gunboatish tendencies and favours safer and easier to plan nations. Austria is a stronger nation that the stats would indicate, and Russia and France tends to be the strongest ones with Turkey coming in slightly slightly
down. Italy always suck though.

Some PBEM stats below. I've seen other numbers for PBEM as well, but it's pretty much the same story and probably much the same games too).http://diplom.org/Zine/F2006M/Burton/DP_F2006M_best_powers.htm

The points per supply center (PPSC) format played as a default setting until about a year ago strongly tilts the advantages to the corner powers. The game already suffers from corner power complex with many inexperienced players as it is, but the PPSC scoring (and points in general) present an environment where it's safer to just kill the guys in the middle and call a draw. In PPSC games, the other corner powers do not have to worry about a solo, because they are less likely to be eliminated.

Thankfully the default game creation setting is rightly now winner take all (WTA), which returns the dynamic of a solo threat. When the winner takes all, players are more likely to play the game properly, and less likely to whore themselves for a few VDip points.

Yes but with more than half the games solo regular game dynamics should still come into play. The relative strenghts of a country, including corner positions, how much weight is given to draw over win in these figures?

I was thinking more the predominance of east vrs west alliances my influence these results.

Also the perecption that Russia is one of the strongest countries may be bring it down. After beat up austria casue it's easy the next most common cliché I hear in talk is Russia is getting to strong!

Russia being divided and having two fronts from the start makes that power much less than it appears. But if you want to rally the troops, especially as France, just point them at Russia. France is the better positioni n my view as it has naval and land based capabilities with some easily established DMZs and no enemies behind it.

I think there are numerous reasons at play here. One of them is a refusal by players to attempt to play outside the norms. It is hard to try different game plans when some only grab as many sc's as possible to become defensive enough to be part of the draw. I have played in many games where instead of attempting an alliance that may take some effort, a player stabs and falls back into the old standard play. Italy should be more of a player in games, but it's easier to pig pile him and work from the outside in.

If Italy can pull France to his side, he has a chance. If he can pull France and Germany to his side, the FGI alliance is a good one. If he can get Russia fighting Turkey, even better. Italy just requires negotiation skills which are sadly unavailable in Gunboat.

Stats don't indicate type of game played is that captured in results.
Could that be included as a new part of info.
Gun boat
Public press
Full press
Anon

The solo count shows a stronger Russia and a weaker France:
· Turkey 32
· Russia 28
· France 24
· England 23
· Germany 21
· Austria 12
· Italy 12

The "performance" score is pointless because it counts each draw as 1/3 of a victory (LOL) and survival as 1/15 of a victory instead of just counting both as zero, as they should. The score of France is inflated because it has record participation in draws. Instead Russia has the lowest drawing record and a poor survival record (3rd worst after Austria and Germany). France is just better at surviving (and hence drawing) than Russia is.

Anyhow it's clear that Austria is being ganged on way too much and that Turkey is not being kept under lock often enough. That's surely a perception bias of rookie players, who don't realize just how deadly an unleashed Turkey can be.

The average solo per power is 21.7, so Germany is the one closest to the average, followed by England and France. Austria and Italy are doing very bad, almost half of their share. It's true that they are the least loved powers for good reasons but I'd expect a bit higher score, at least for Austria.

I found an old article with two 1995 statistical analyses for comparison: http://diplom.org/Zine/F1999R/Windsor/dipmap.html

Neither gave Turkey such a good performance. Russia and France were the best performing powers instead, with England coming close and Turkey in a solid 4th position. Russia being a good winner but mediocre survivor seems to be confirmed. Austria ranked a bit better back then. Italy has always been the little guy.

Mmm so site is skewed and in favor of draw and ppsc. Lets make somegames and skew it right back.
Classic wta anon and take no prisoners.
Who's up for it!

Sounds good. Stab stab.