I recruited soldiers for both Germany and Austria-Hungary very heavily in 1914 and was able to knock-out the Serbians before the Italians joined the war. This allowed me to "box-in" the Italian troops in Italy for the first time - in previous games they had been able to swarm up into southern Germany and eventually cause my western army to collapse. The Entente still started to drive me back in the west during 1915, and Belgium re-entered the war, but I was able to stabilise the front there by the winter of 1915. The other key thing for me was using the Bulgarians (with some Austrian support) to defeat Romania and then invade south-western Russia in 1916. This eventually led to the Russian Revolution taking place in November 1918 shortly before the game ended. In the last few moves I expanded my railway network and was ferrying troops to the western front where the Entente forces were starting to buckle. There was not enough time for me to win on that front though.
