Compared to round 1, this AAR is half the number of moves and the exact same result (a bit better on tiebreakers but that's not a big deal). Nice!

But since lolsmithlazy, I’m going to do through 1904 and then chat on the rest later.

Spring 1901: 1,000,000 better spring 1901 phase for me than last time, though I certainly sweated it a bit. England tells me he's making an anti-Russian Northern Opening, at least one of (maybe both? I forget tbh) France and Germany tell me that England wants a Western Triple, Germany refuses to negotiate any kind of committal to Sweden… and then I basically beg France to open to the channel and run a Sealion (which, honestly, is way better for France than WT is anyway). And it works!
Just eyeballing the board, this is an awful start for both corner powers (E/T). England has a potentially developing sealion against him, and Turkey is facing a possible AIR (or at least an unusually friendly A/R pairing, and an Italian who’s made a substantially anti-Turkey opening. The only real upside for Turkey was Austria didn’t trust Italy enough to go Tri-Alb (and I think that such a move would have made the game a lot eaiser on Austria down the road fwiw).

Fall 1901: I’m in Sweden AND Romania, which is about as positive an opening for Russia as you can get, and F/G are fully on board with the Sealion (England gets to build, but I’m in Sweden and Germany is in NTH and France is in ENG). I think in retrospect I’d be better off moving STP-Fin here (then building F STP NC, which would have potentially paid off long term I think), but there was a non-zero chance that England would try to convoy and get stopped, or try and get cute otherwise, and committing visibly to the anti-English alliance made my northern front a complete non-issue for a LONG time, enabling me to focus on the south in future turns.

Winter 1901: standard/obvious builds for me here. Italy getting a navy means that Turkey’s in huge trouble unless Italy wants to throw a curveball and occupy ADR and Alb…

Spring 1902: I do that thing I do when games are going well and start getting lazy on messaging. I pay for this with Austria and Turkey attacking me. Not the greatest feeling here…
I also sent my army north because I was a bit worried about possible shenanigans or England making a comeback. Fortunately that didn’t happen (also I wanted space for Romania to retreat if needed… SHOCKINGLY it was needed)
Up north I think England really didn’t have good options, but it was at least possible to try and set Germany against France (NTH-Bel supported by Hol almost always works, and Munich-Ruhr potentially gives Germany an extra body in that area). Austria tried selling me on “we can still be friends and allies after I take Romania because I need to equalize our centers”; SHOCKINGLY I ended up looking for better options elsewhere

Fall 1902: I convince Turkey to back off (he claims BLA-SEv and Smy-Arm were just defensive against Sev-Arm in the spring, which is almost certainly a lie unless Turkey just thinks I’m an idiot tactically).
Italy gives Austria a major present in Bulgaria, which puts Austria in a much better position than I’d like (although I think that Austria picked up a center here at the cost of permanently burning bridges with Turkey, right after he’d burned bridges with me over Romania... I think Austria would have been far better off going strong anti-Russia, tapping Ukraine with a follow-up from Serbia and giving Turkey Sevastopol for free, which would have caused me to have MAJOR problems instead of being able to focus 1903 on killing him).

Winter 1902: Austria’s theoretically in a strong position, but he’s taken a majorly anti-Russia stance, Germany has started to come after him, and he just basically declared war on Turkey one turn after he’d tried to use Turkey to war on me.

Spring 1903: Austria’s over-aggression comes home to roost a bit, in that he’s getting attacked by Germany, Russia, AND Turkey. Oh and Italy helped Austria hold Bulgaria, but at the same time, Italy helped Germany into Tyrolia. What this signals is that Italy is no friend to Austria but IS a major enemy of Turkey. Meanwhile in the west, France has moved enough forces into the area to be set up nicely to stab either Germany or Italy. Both I and G are actually, positionally, quite vulernable to future stabs. Ironically, in this turn had Germany stabbed France (Hol-Bel, Munich-Burgundy), the outcome would have been utterly brutal.
But I and G continue to essentially present France with a golden choice of “stab whichever of us you want and it’ll succeed”. I’m France’s ally and I have much bigger problems elsewhere, but if you chop the board along the Versailles line (STP/Ber/Mun/Mar/Spa and north/west), here’s the unit count:
France 6
England 2
Russia 2 (and one is an army in Norway that’s ZERO threat)
Germany 4
As of this moment, France was the strongest power in the board, because he had no enemies that were any kind of threat.
This may also be the final turn whereby a rapproachment between Austria and Turkey could have reasonably worked. Tri-Adr, Vie-Tri, and Turkey cycling BLA into Con and Con into Ank… that makes life potentially painful, or at least more difficult, for Italy.

Fall 1903: France prepares for the upcoming attack on Germany, and Germany is way out of position to defend it. Austria also takes the “free” German center in Berlin, at the cost of making Germany his long-term enemy. I take back Romania, and I’m set up to crush Austria down south in 1904. Interestingly, Italy continues to “support” Austria against Turkey while making moves that make it (IMO) quite obvious the stab is coming. Austria is down to 5 supply centers, theoretically still a power, but surrounded by enemies and with one of his key units way out of position.
I also wonder if Austria would have been better off negotiating with Germany to stay out of Berlin in exchange for Germany staying out of Vienna; similarly, "Germany supports Tri-Ven in exchange for Austria not attacking Berlin" seems like a potentially mutually positive offer? Idk if these sorts of things were discussed... but it was a CHANCE for A/G to come to terms and change the game (I'd like to think that I played some part in that not happening by befriending Germany while encouraging Austria to take the "free" berlin center but you'd have to ask A/G why things happened the way they did)

Winter 1903. Why does Austria destroy Trieste, a potentially important fleet, instead of the clearly out of position Berlin? “Let me hang onto Berlin for a bit, and I’ll help you against the obvious stab attempt coming from France” seems like not that problematic of an offer from either A or G… but I think that ship has sailed, and the war between A and G clears the board for F/I/R to mutually grow strong enough to make everyone else’s elimination just a matter of time.
Going back to counts north of Versailles…
France 7
England 1
Germany 3
Austria 1
Russia 2
So just 14/34 units were on France’s half of the board, one of them was effectively a French ally (Austria), two of them were France’s ally (Russia) and basically useless in contesting anything France would take for a while… I vaguely recall this is around when I started to worry about France’s potential growth quite a bit. Certainly this mindset was part of my thinking for a while.

Spring 1904: If Austria had destroyed Berlin, there’s no way that France gets into Munich, and Germany can productively go Kiel-Holland. Tyrolia-Munich supported by Ruhy, and Kiel-Holland, maybe supported by NTH. Do those moves, and France’s rapid-fire growth turns into a long hard slog. Moreover, by having a fleet in Trieste, Austria could have retreated to Albania in the spring and potentially overpowered Italy in Greece. Instead Austria was a dead man walking and Italy stuck in the knife. I will say, fwiw, that even given the moves on the board it’s unclear what Germany was going for this turn. Kiel-Berlin and Ruhr-Holland keeps France out of Munich for a season (bouncing NTH with Ruhr might have worked if keeping Ruhr where it was was important? London was lost anyway most of the time I think…), and then you can realistically retake Berlin with Kiel in the fall, while probably doing something like NTH-Hol in the fall to avoid destruction there…
I also have no clue what England is doing here, and start to worry that he’s going to try and throw Norway to Germany. Germany asked me to go Sweden to Denmark (I think to help kill A Berlin?) and I comply… but that English move makes me super paranoid. Ended up not happening but COULD have happened.

Fall 1904: Austria’s Berlin holding fell as had always been inevitable… but because France got into Munich in the spring, he could retreat into Kiel in the fall and then Germany was just toast. France’s odd looking move into NWG was at my request btw, since I figured decent odds Norway was going bye bye (obviously I was wrong but oh well)

Winter 1904: Here F/R collectively control the board. Austria has been destroyed, Germany is basically a rump power, etc.
I'll circle back to what happened in 1905 and subsequent years later, but I think it's kind of interesting how/why F/I/R had such an easy run of it (despite some late game drama). England never mounted any kind of resistance to Sealion. Turkey never got past four centers, and retreated away from its one chance to really change the game in late 1902. Austria spent the game perpetually attacking people, antagonizing G/R/T and never (as far as I could tell) doing anything to make Italy more than an ally of convenience. And Germany couldn’t step away from his war with Austria, and made some notable errors in his defense against France.
I’d probably say that all things considered, fall 1903 was the #1 most important season for locking in F/I/R as having collective board control. G/A/T could have turned the tide that season… Romania-Sev supported by BLA would have succeeded. My attack on Romania would have failed if Turkey wasn’t attacking Bulgaria at the same time. Italy would have lost Venice if A/G could have cooperated there. Instead… none of those things happened, G/T were both attacking Austria, Austria crippled Germany by taking Munich, and after that turn it was really a question of if or how F/I/R would ever break down… and that never actually happened. Spring 1904 probably wasn’t impossible either… but it would have taken a massive overarching resistance to ever make it work out.