Not to the extent it would effect Italy, having the largest vulnerability to blockade. I read on the 'net (FWIW) that Italy had like three months of coal reserves when it declared war on the CPs, and the UK was witholding neutral (US and Italian) freighters bound to Italy with foodstuff and else to ...

There were some serious obstacles with Italy joining the Central powers. It was totally reliant on imports, like 5 MT of coal and 2.8MT food, 1.5MT iron in 1917. http://www.gwpda.org/naval/stats001.htm During WWI Germany had problems with supplying coal even to Austria-Hungary. Getting through 14000...

Got a similar problem. 4 player game, AI UK vs AI GER, naval battle. AI gets into a loop rearranging the first line of the battle and the combat cannot go on. I managed to reproduce it.