In your experience,which nation in the 31p map worked the best for you?

  • In my experience,Southern USA is one of the best nations for me. I only need to worry about one border; The one with Central USA. And although Southern USA has a lumber shortage,then can just invade Newfoundland's double lumber province,right next to Southern USA. Also,if Morocco and West Algeria go inactive/become your allies/are simply not just interested in French West Africa,you can go ahead and seize French West Africa for the oil and additional resources.


    Romania is also working out pretty well for me. I have joined a Tutorial game about 4 days ago (Now its Day 18) and Im in the 5th place,with my coalition members in the 1st and 2nd places. Romania simply has balanced resources,and although you have a shortage of coal to build railways with,you can always find a lot of coal in the Stock Market for cheap prices. There is also Bulgaria to the south,which can be invaded for resources (If you wish,you can wait until Greece dishes it out with Bulgaria and conquers Bulgaria,losing troops along the way,and then you can swoop in and take Bulgaria from Greece easily,and Greece itself too. This is assuming Greece is not your ally,or is not interested in Bulgaria,of course).

    Im a pretty Mediocre player :|

  • in general you can win that map without going to america, you cannot win that map without going to europe

    ergo-> better to start in europe as you have closer logistic lines


    keeping morale high on the other side of atlantic and supplying armies on the other side is very risky if you fight good opponent

  • in general you can win that map without going to america, you cannot win that map without going to europe

    ergo-> better to start in europe as you have closer logistic lines


    keeping morale high on the other side of atlantic and supplying armies on the other side is very risky if you fight good opponent

    I definitely agree with this.

    Im a pretty Mediocre player :|

  • I think,countries with a large number of provinces bordering other countries are not very good to choose,since they are more exposed,and thus more vulnerable to invasions. For example,Russia,Norway,Central USA,etc.


    Also,having reasonable access to coast is also very essential. That way,you can build Light Cruisers and Battleships,which are more powerful than normal Artillery,and Battleships are more mobile than Railguns.For example,Russia will not have as much use for Naval units as Britain or Norway might.

    Im a pretty Mediocre player :|

  • My picks for the three top tier countries and the only S-tier nations in the 31 player map are Arabia, West Libya and North Canada.


    I know WL is a controversial pick but let me explain. Quadruple grain is all I have to say. Neighbors? East Algeria doesn't want to mess with Libya. It's psychological. They just don't want to mess with it. Usually it's very easy to get an alliance with them. East Libya is a low B tier to high C tier nation. It just is a middle of the road country. They have one of the best provinces in Africa though - a nice little double iron by the name of Sarir Tarbisti. I'll take that, thank you very much.


    It is waaay easier to unite the Libya's militarily from West rather than East. It is mainly because of Egypt. The thing is, Egypt is one of the thirstiest nations in the 31 player. They hurt very badly for iron. They are by far the worst in Africa for materials. To remedy this, Bytro has provided the Egypt player with a tiny fish province belonging to the AI. And the AI of that country ALWAYS builds a fort on it as soon as they can. Great.


    So Egypt will disregard this province 99% of the time and opt to play conservatively or attack East Libya to solve the problem rapidly. More likely, they will quit. Either way, it is easy for West Libya to capitalize on this situation.


    If they quit, East Libya would find it easier to quell their grain shortage by taking that satisfying double grain province from Egypt. So you, as West Libya, just needs to run in there and take everything from the two of them. If Egypt attacks East Libya for the iron, you also run in and take everything.


    So in summation, West Libya - S tier, East Libya - C tier, Egypt - D tier or maybe E tier.



    Arabia is a no brainer really. The oil.... ohhhh the oil... and in a corner.... OOOOHHH


    This brings me to another reason why Egypt is terrible. It also gives Hejaz the advantage over British Egypt in the 100 player.


    Egypt's, perhaps, most valuable single resource province, the lumber province of Bur Said, can only be defended effectively against Arabia by sending troops through water.


    When I get Arabia, regardless of anything, I don't care if my own mother is playing as Egypt, I IMMEDIATELY nab Bur Said. It's simple: Arabia needs lumber badly, taking it will cripple Egypt badly, if they get mad and send troops to take it back, you fully commit to it's defense and eventually you will be killing their troops on the beaches during disembarking. If it goes that far, you will be able to take their whole country. A good Egypt player will just give up Bur Said or quit. If I get Egypt, I send around 40 troops to it immediately and play conservative, barring better options.


    And the distance from Bur Said to your capital is practically the size of an inchworm's you-know-what. So the morale will raise very rapidly once you conquer it.


    Disregard Syria, Acquire Bur Said.



    North Canada is another great corner country. Two words - (free) double iron. It is for this reason I might call North Canada the single best country in the game. Not only does it have a corner position, not only do you only need to build two forts to secure the border, not only do you have the best access to Corner Brook, a 10 province (high tax revenue to steal) AI's capital, not only do you have another gas province to take, not only do you get the double iron province from the AI making it one double fish, one double iron and one double gas (the resource balancing trifecta), not only is Labrador City (your capital) not accessible to a battleship while also being a double gas with harbor capability (the perfect capital) BUT IT TAKES FOOOOOREVER for someone to invade you.


    Invading North Canada is like watching paint dry. If a good player is taking advantage of this defensive capability, they are unconquerable.


    Disadvantage of NC - coal deficient mid game and bigness double edged sword... oooohhh noooooo whatever will I dooooo?





    In regards to your point about Rumania - I can't comment on personal experience because I have never played them. I have conquered them plenty of times. They have great food resources with the double fish and double grain. And I always notice during the early game that, regardless of how well I or anyone else is doing, if Rumania (or Greece) conquered the entire Balkan AI's, they stay at first place for a very, very long time. They could have 1/3rd less provinces than me, but yet somehow they are consistently in first place until I get to a snowballing situation with insane expansion. Then they just join the avalanche. But I would like to try that country sometime.