The Mittelmächte are willing to start peace negotiations as well. (And we'll promise to not let this become a second Treaty of Versailles, the "peace to end all peace"...! Justice shall be done to our honorable foes.)
Interesting to hear that other TGW PBEMs also ended with an early central power victory. At the beginning of this game I thought it would be a long-drawn open-ended battle. Could be that it favors Germany a bit, because of its very good Inf A and Artillery units, but I thought that French and British units and production capabilities should be on a similar level. And Russia is quite unbeatable for a long time, because of its huge numbers. (I was able to make some progress against Russia initially, because I caught Tigranes off guard at one point, but after that it was virtually impossible to make any further gains. I think in this scenario progress against Russia can be made only after the Western Allies are defeated and Germany can concentrate 100% of its forces and slowly grind down the huge numbers, city by city. And only after the invention of tanks.)
The end came quite surprising to me as well. Clearly the game-breaker was the teargas mass-upgrade. Don't know if there is any way to counter this? Probably only if you know it in advance and start mass-drafting like the Russians and protect every border town with 30 conscripts?!
But in any case, I don't think the chlorine gas was the only factor in the Germans getting the advantage. If you ask me to point out the most decisive factors of this game, I would list the following:
- I think you neglected mining and rail-roading. When I conquered France two turns ago, I noticed that most tiles are still irrigated and that the French cities of size 30 were making around 50-60 shields per turn. In contrast I build a large number of workers in the first few weeks of the war (relying on my initial forces to carry me through the first weeks) and then mined and railed virtually every tile, starting with the important cities and then working towards the smaller ones. (Most of my playing time went into this, figuring out, which city needs a few more shields here and there in order to produce something a turn faster.) In the end my size 30 cities were making 110-130 shields per turn, enough to produce an Inf A or a Zeppelin every turn or an Artillery in two turns.
- You did not find an efficient way to make use of your Army Corps. (Which became increasingly more difficult, after I had gained a majority of Armies, because then any attack you would try with your Armies would run into the risk of loosing these Armies in the counter attack. Again the mining and rail-roading plays a role here: Berlin was the first town to be "finished", so from quite early on it was able to produce a new Army every 4 turns. I think that even London and Paris combined were not able to counter-balance this Army output.)
- It seems you did not build a sufficient number of heavy artillery early on?!
- Towards the end, Austria and the Osman Empire became "useful" as well, because they were able to produce Armored Car Armies. (Both countries had lost thousands of gold trying to steal tech from Germany, but I think 2 times I was successful, so finally the Ottomans were able to build Armored Cars. Italy and Russia on the other hand did not have any efficient units to fill into Armies. (The two annoying "bugs" that Russia's minor wonders all were in Belgrad, and that the wonder that was supposed to produce the "Elite Guards" did not work, played a role here as well.)
Some of these imbalances can easily be fixed, and I see that in your other TGW-based PBEM you have already addressed a lot of them. I would suggest one more change: the game should start already fully mined & railed, so that it is unnecessary for the players to spend hours in worker micro-management. Workers & combat engineers should be necessary only for fortifications and for repairing/constructing rail connections to the front.
I would like to try WW I again, perhaps from the Allied/Russian side, but to be honest: for now I need a break... More than 1-2 turns in such a time-consuming scenario is not possible for me...
)
) I told them to leave now, and they did. (Probably still scared to death 
). But do I get the Victory points just from having the sites within my borders, or do I need to fortify a unit on them nevertheless?!
(Though it might be powerful as well...) How about the upgrade to Tank for the Ottomans and Austrians?
