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I have just finished a very fun campaign with Central Powers where my main focus was on maximizing diplomacy gains. I won a major victory in Early October 1916, and I have a few insights about the diplomacy possibilities I want to share with you all.

I started with a historic war plan for A-H (the best option IMO) and Kronpritz for Germany (the best one IMO, because 5 NM hit is easy to recover, and Schlieffen is almost impossible to pull off and take the Paris before the end of 1914).

I started my diplomacy game by sending a diplomat to Bulgaria, Romania, Greece (to balance WE) and Holland (wild card, has the best army out of small countries, they were really close to cross the 70% mark at some point, but then WE sent a diplomat to balance it out). Send your major to Italy, and hopefully you will turn the percentage to your advantage while WE is too busy getting the UK to join (which will take a few turns due to the Kronpritz Plan). I waited for the end of the first French assault on my fortresses in the West before counterattacking and taking their first line of defense. The East is a bit of a struggle, but nothing impossible. I focused on defending my territory and encircling the Polish salient and taking Warsaw fast. Eventually, it is easy to take everything from the Kiev in the south all the way to the Baltic coast.

By the time the UK joined I did not only have an advantage with Italian alignment, but I was also able to take quite a bit of territory in France and hold to it. As soon as you can, play Give Concessions to Italy decision. NM hit is easily replaceable that early in the game (I got return to neutral value +5 a turn after giving concessions). Now, Italy should slowly shift towards your alliance. WE and EE will use d'Annunzio and Armenian genocide to push it back, but you will still have bigger chance advantage to get your 2 point per turn.

Crucial thing is not to allow Ottomans to join too early. Play just the "give them ships" card to make sure they will slowly drift towards you without a need for a diplomat, but keep the gold. Ottomans are not too useful if you do not have Bulgaria on your side to link their armies with the Eastern Front. Do not bother with the Caucasus, it is a bloodbath and a cohesion nightmare to move around. Just defend your territory.

With a bit of luck, I had Romania join CP in Early April 1915 (which was great for flanking Russia and finishing off Serbia). Do not recognize Bulgarian war goals! Have patience. You want both Romania and Bulgaria on your side, otherwise Romania can become quite a challenge to take on if you are too busy with Russia. Also, with Romania on your side, you can send all the Bulgarian armies to the Western front once you are done with Serbia, which is a great way to tip the balance there. I had Ottomans join in Early June 1915, and Bulgaria 3 turns after. With all of these armies and clean line of communications, you can tip the balance in the West in 1915 (especially because WE got only Portugal and Japan to join them, I managed to keep Greece neutral and prevent a long Balkan campaign).

The goal is to eventually have Italy join you and invade France from the south. You do not want to waste resources on fighting Italy, so keeping it neutral is great. Do not worry about the US, by the time they join, Paris is in German hands and the war is done.

When Bulgaria joined, Italy was 60-40 for Centrals. I used this time to grab Persia (why not, what else are you gonna do with those diplomats lying around). When Bulgaria joined, army strength ratio of WE was 72, and EE was 50 of my army. The grind could begin. I just pumped German divisions and slowly crawl towards Paris. Do not bother with naval game, it is too risky to engage full British fleet (NM loss can be insane). Do though occasionally put all your ships together and visit the blockade box to keep it around 1 or 2.

In early March 1916 Arabia joined WE, but by then I was at the gates of Paris. In early May 1916 my NM was 113, WE 53, and EE 71. Italy was 70+ for Centrals, and only a dozen turns before they join me and finish off the French. In early October 1916 I took Paris and it was a game over. The US was going to join the fight in 4 to 5 turns if I did not win then, but Italy would have joined at the same time, so I would still have an advantage.

Reason for my victory? Diplomacy game. I finally figured a way to get Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and OE to join CP, which was my goal for last few plays.

Also, Brazil, China, Spain, Norway, Denmark and Sweden do not have any armies and one cannot declare war on them, so I think that Devs should either make them useful or remove them from diplomacy because I use to waste my diplomat on Norway for example.

Very well done. I have been following a similar path of diplomacy,but with less effective results. Romania and Bulgaria have joined the CP and the Ottomans are at 95 percent. However I started with my major diplomat in the U.S. and D'Annunizo brought Italy back to 50 percent. Genocide will cause me to lose Italy,but it will take awhile. In the east I have sacked Warsaw and have Keiv besieged, with the help of Bulgaria and Romania. However this has left me with a stalemate in the west, where I am dancing around a WE supper stack of doom. It is early 1916 and the US is not even close to joining the WE,however this is overkill as I really could use the help of Italy. Focusing on diplomacy has definitely
made the game more epic.

Guys, sorry to state a trivia, but play with human. If you play against AI, as CP you got Romania, Bulgaria Turkey and Italia on your side with no problem. I stopped playing AI after getting all of them on my side for 2 grand campaigns in row. Ageod AI just don"t have an idea how to deal with diplo engine, just my humble opinion of course.

Yeah, I know that the AI is not perfect, but I was excited to get all of them for the first time, even though I played quite a few campaigns. I do agree about the human thing, but sadly I do not have a single friend who has even heard of Ageod games, even though most of my friends are avid gamers and some of them are even programmers. Even when I show them my collection, they do not like it, because wargames are such a niche and one needs to be deeply invested to play them (I have a history degree which is a reason why I enjoy them so much, I just finished a long research paper about the East Prussia campaign and celebrated it by playing TEAW as EE).

Also, because the forums are sooooooooo quiet, I feel that it would take a lot of time to assemble people willing to play and it would take forever to finish a game. I like to play in increments of a few hours each, because of my work schedule.

Glad you enjoyed it, part of the goal of TEAW was to allow for ahistorical alliance members if the cards are played right. AI does have certain preferences for diplomats so it''s possible to "outsmart" it. But a game to late 1916 is still a respectable game, IMO.

Altaris wrote:Glad you enjoyed it, part of the goal of TEAW was to allow for ahistorical alliance members if the cards are played right. AI does have certain preferences for diplomats so it''s possible to "outsmart" it. But a game to late 1916 is still a respectable game, IMO.

Strange the US cant join the CP then too Ahistorical? Muaha.

Good plan with the Italian's you honestly don't need to bother using a diplomat on the Ottmans as you'll get them with the +1% the 70% Alignment modifer! atm during my current recording as the CP in the Historical campaign i was bogged down by High traffic and attrition and etc in belguim but The Ottoman's will join soon along with Romania and Bulgaria to allow me to sweep aside Serbia but my wild card maybe getting Italy into the CP or Holland.

In my first campaign as the CP I got the Ottomans in as early as possible and ended up fighting (to use the term loosely) the Romanians and also Italy. It was still a pretty easy game to win as Romania folded extremely quickly against the Bulgarians and Italy fought poorly against A/H. My game did not end until June '17, but was very fun to play, even though the game ended when I had a successful naval invasion of Petrograd rather than storming Paris

The idea of trying to get certain allies in is a fun challenge especially since you've played a few campaigns and don't want the game to get stale.

paladin, you don't come across as humble, just short sighted. Someone posts about having fun and you swing the player vs player epeen at them? Use you head... when we get some life on this board, lets support it.

Franz Ferdinand, try to post in PBEM forum, there are not many post with request for PBEM but if you post it, usually you got your opponents. Probably within today I am going to post there request for the PBEM opponents, so you are most welcomed.