Which version of the mod did you use?
Erm... I don't know really... I think the last one, as I downloaded it only a few weeks ago.
Which country did you play as?
I've tried multiple, but the one I commenting for is Germany
How long did you play for?
I started in 1897 and am now in late 1899/early 1900.
When did war break out in your game?
Well.... it's complicated. I'll explain in the next question.
Please describe the general course of the war. Which countries did well, and which did badly? If countries were conquered, how long did it take?
Okay, let me begin. First of, I like history. However, If I want to know about history, I read. If I play a game, I wanna play. So, you guessed it. After placing my starting troops a bit more strategically, I DOW'ed Denmark. I attacked with I think 8 troops, and won within a second.
My Bel. went up, so I decided to sit it out. The reason I had chosen Germany was to see all the neat events, so I had to be patient. However, patience wasn't my greatest point, so I DOW'ed Sweden. Somehow Sweden's puppet Norway stayed out of it, so Sweden was conquered. The logical next step: Norway.
It was just as easy. At september 11th Germany had conquered Scandinavia. Fearing Russia (those french are pussies) I decided to lower my bel. by liberating the conquered countries, wich gave me a dissent hit, but I could take it.
Then the most strange thing happened: Russia made the following proposal: In order to annoy Great Britain and the USA, Russia wanted to join the Centrals and the Entente together. Curiously, I accepted. Italy did as wel, but A-H didn't. So basically, the alliance was Germany, Russia, Italy and France. At that point, I was sad of loosing my friendliest allie, so I started influencing Austria (somehow, I had money like hell). Within a few months they liked me enough to return to the alliance, but France left.
So, basically, it was everyone against france, though there was no war yet.
Learning from history (and getting bored again) I wanted to walk over Belgium before they were Allied to france. But, afraid it would anger England or the USA (with whom I had quite a good relation), I decided to try my luck at the netherlands. Won within no time, liberated, but got Indonesia as my colony.
After that Belgium, not worth a breath, liberated as well. Through events my bel. went down, and although my dissent was high because all the liberating and DOW'ing, it never rose above 15, which I could easily manage.
Oh yes, somewhere in between there was this event making a part of ottoman empire my national provinces, and they gave in to my demands.
I dare you to guess the next step.
I really tried waiting. I really did. But my armies were building and there was nothing to do!
So, eventually, france. Immedeately dozens of 'digging in' events went off, followed by an event declaring there would never be a 'digging in' event. I first went through belgium and attacked rheims, and then started banging on the fortresses. I pushed right through (enormous numbers larger then the french, who where scattered to much), and even did some blitz-krieg style encircling. After I took Paris I began to notice Russian troops marching though Germany and Scandinavia. Within no time they took the battle of my hands, allways being a step ahead of me, except when it came to encircling, a tactic which RUssia obviously didn't grasped. Fortunately, Russia had to go through MY lands to fight the french, so every territory the conquered became mine.
Transports from Indonesia conquered Indochina (4 troops, no more), Two light infantry in afrika conquered those victory points and a landing in turin and Algiers finished them, about 1899.
This bothers me. What I noticed about 1914 mod was that everything was slower: Lower IC, armies moved slower, armies were produced slower. Although annoying, I really appreciated this because of its historic truth: back in 1897, production just wasn't as big as it is now.
But when I started playing germany, everything went super fast.
Strange?
If the AI did anything really stupid or unhistorical (such as a country lending its entire army to an ally), please let us know.
Well, I was one historical disaster but other then that.... Well, the obvious alliance Russia proposed was one.
And then there was the fact that Italy didn't put troops along it's borders with either A-H or France. Luckily, the bastards had me^^
Please let us know if there were any actual bugs in your game
Well, actually.. If trying to "Sue for Peace" with the demands of a few provinces and then "Make Puppet", the game crashed. This was with both Belgium and Sweden, two countries who had puppets themselves, perhaps that was a problem?
Also, I haven't reloaded it again, but an hour ago I suddently got a message "Denmark annexed Norway" (which are BOTH my puppets and allies), and the game crashed. Perhaps due to the whole puppet-net I got?