So it looks like Fall 1908 was where I really messed up. I had the draw then, but instead I focused more on keeping as many centers as possible and trying to get Turkey to go against Italy. Really I could pretty much have forced a stalemate by playing:
mid - por, egy - mid. Nothing can stop these moves from succeeding, and if I lose mor, I can just retreat to gib. I may have two disbands then, which would be and army and fleet in the eas/egy/pal/ara area.
I should also have played edi - den, not edi - bel. Even if Austria hadn't saved himself, the army is much better in den. I should have just forgotten about the mainland, because I could only delay losing it.
If I do these things, then next year I can move the fleet in mor/gib to mid with support from por, and move mid - ire. Nothing could be done to stop this either. Now I have mid, ire, and por, which means that I will be able to hold the mid atlantic ocean until they get F Spa (wc) or A spa, in addition to F egy or F hej, which will take a while. The season when they set that up, I send F nth or F nws to add another support to mid, and it can hold forever.
Meanwhile, I devote everything else to scandinavia. In 1909, I can do the kie-lvo convoy and then either crush F gbo or take Norway. I will have a few disbands, but I should have enough mainland armies which I can get rid of. Then in 1910 I can crush F bar and get Stp, maybe crush A fin too.
The idea is that I end up with the following scenario:
I have my home centers, por, den, swe, nwy, stp, for 8 total. My units are: F por, F mid, two fleets supporting mid, A den, A stp, two fleets supporting stp. With this setup, and the two Russian fleets destroyed, it should be impossible for them to ever break through.
I came up with this plan in spring 1909, and it was too late. It ended up working out, but I got a bit lucky. Anyway, couldn't resist sharing it now because it would have been really cool.