Italy here.
I have been somewhat disappointed in the amount of email correspondence and "diplomacy" among the players. With the exception of Austria, a very able and frequent correspondent, none of the players, probably not even me, have taken full advantage of the opportunity to influence the other players by sending emails. One of many reasons Austria and Italy are allies is the volume of correspondence between us that helps us work out out moves and gives us, or at least me, a feeling I know the guy I am allied with and can depend on him to do what he says he will do.
If you join a diplomacy game, and don't intend to write a lot of emails, why bother? You have to trust someone, and attack someone else to grow, and be in a position to potentially win. (Being eliminated is one of the best ways not to have a chance to win.) I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but mostly, they didn't write when they had a chance to make allies, or convert allies of others to be their ally. Now it helps if you know what to say, and have a real offer the other guy will believe. I never had much to say to the new France, as his bottom line was return of Marseilles, Spain, etc, and I didn't think there was much progress available doing that.
But I wrote like mad early in the game, to try to get Austria as an ally, and have either Turkey or Russia join against the other. I was happy the final target was Turkey, as Italy needs no competition for naval control of the Med. I think I understand what you need to offer to get an ally, and keep one. I don't feel at all bad that I used to control Greece and Constantinople and now my ally does. If the relationship gets too far our of balance, and we were at 10 to 8 for a while, there is always a temptation for an equalizing stab. And there may be a rough patch at the end, if I leave myself really, really vulnerable so that someone else could win with a simple stab. But building relationships though correspondence helps, and telling the truth as you see it always doesn't hurt either. Lots of people think diplomacy should include lies just for the reason the game is diplomacy. Sometimes you don't tell all the truth, but little lies are stupid, and ruin your credibility.
To do your best, you need to write often, and make realistic offers the other guy could believe. It certainly helps if those offers are meant sincerely.
I am a great believer in the Italy/Austria long term alliance. I'd like this game to be a demonstration of the power of that alliance. Sure, it takes a lot of trust to have home centers adjacent, but you have to trust someone in this game, unless you want to be eliminated pretty quickly. And both Austria and Italy are strategic players, we don't stab for one center. You don't give up a good ally to get a bad ally, or find out you have no ally at all.
To get better at the game, play with good players and see what they do. There is also a lot of litterature on line, for example at diplomacy pouch website. The openings have been extensively analyzed, and there is also discussion of stalemate positions that Austria used to help us meet the challenge of France and Russia outnumbering our alliance.
Probably your should ask KittenofChaos for more advice, to become a better player. My advice is write everybody, every turn. You don't need to say much, just enough so that if there is an opening in the game, you can convert it into an alliance. At this point in the end game, it is probably too late to turn things around. And attacking Russia was not the greatest strategy if you were worried about Italy/Austria. It pays to think strategically, what happens after I do that, and it succeeds?
