Ok, I played way too much of this game over the weekend.
Balance seems off and way too far in the Entente's favor, both historically and for fun. I tried the Central Powers first and restarted 4 times, then tried the Entente, then went back to the Central powers once. The last game I haven't finished yet. The first four games I was in the process of losing by mid 1915. The Entente game I won by winter 1915 and the writing was on the wall well before. Austria is near useless and Germany harder time on the Eastern front than they did in real life. The quality difference between the Russian and German troops is not represented well.
Now personally, I'm not great at attacking in this game. It wasn't until the final game I figured out how to push through in Serbia and I still struggle attacking France compared to what the AI did to me. But still, I easily defeated the AI so the initial push didn't matter that much.
Artillery seems both underpowered and overly expensive ammunitionwise. I get they don't want players just spamming the things, but Austria can only fire an artillery battery 2 times every 5 turns, and that's if you avoid using ship bombardment. Which would be dumb, since the battleship gives you way more bang for the buck. Germany can fire 1 artillery battery once every turn, which means you choose either western front or eastern front, and this means not using the zeppelin unit you start with or your ships again. This is not particularly fun, nor does it add much strategy. Meanwhile the Entente powers have nothing to spend their ammunition on most of the time, build up a huge stockpile and then unleash hell once Germany's advance has been stopped.
Germany and Austria should start with a sizable stockpile of ammunition I think, maybe 50 and 20 respectively. Or screw Austria if you want, but Germany should.
Fighter planes seem slightly overpowered, especially compared to real life. Although they cancel each other out, so maybe the moral is keep up with your enemy.
The time delay on buying units leads to weird happenings in the first 4 turns each power enters the war. It would make more sense if maybe they started with units in the production queue.
Huge protip for anyone struggling with running out of money: sell off your starting lab on any non-infantry tech path. This goes double for the Central powers. Turkey isn't going to do shit with Artillery tech. Austria could use some of the techs, but navy is definitely right out, and I said before how infrequently they'll be shooting artillery, so the investment cost just doesn't make sense. Not only do you get an injection of cash right away, but not paying upkeep on the labs is huge.
The final game I played, where I have slim chance with the Central powers, I sold all of Austria's except infantry, sold Germany's navy lab, and Turkey's artillery lab. This gave me enough money with Austria to keep throwing fresh troops at Serbia and fend off the Russians. Previously, I couldn't break through Serbia or I'd get overrun by Russia. I probably should have sold more with Germany, but I couldn't bring myself to. I want my tanks
With the Entent, France and Russia don't need navy tech, and England doesn't need artillery tech. The others are all a judgement call. With England I like to double down on airforce technology. It's easier to get planes across the channel or use them straight from your own island.
Also, use fore knowledge and place units to be ready before a front actually opens up. The AI does, so it's not cheating anymore than they do.
I hope you all enjoyed my wall of text.
fending off Austro-German incursions (and even pushing into Austria) as well as juggling the Bulgarians even as their manpower goes into the red. Italy and Russia have also kicked a fair bit of ass. Britain for the above mentioned reasons have been a joke, getting their asses handed to them by Turks.
