Trade With the Ottomans

[jimwinsor]

I just got this game a couple days ago, very interesting!

One thing I note in my first couple games as CP is the importance of trade between Ger and A-H, with A-H sending it's surplus RMs to Ger for processing; Ger sending finished goods south to help the impoverished A-Hs.

Now, I see the Ottomans...and I realize I can do this on a much grander scale!

I take it, tho, that I need a direct land link to establish a route for such usefule resource swapping? Conquering Serbia, wooing Bulgaria seems the most logical course for this, I suppose...

Would a route thru southern Russia and the Caucasus be (theoretically) a way to go too? You would not need to conquer Russia, just control the hexes of the land route?

Is there a possible way to set up this trade link by sea (useful if the Serbs refuse to get out of the way)?

[06 Maestro]

You need to defeat Serbia and draw Bulgaria into the war to enable transshipments of RM from Turkey  It had been reported here that a corridor through Serbia would also work-even with Serbia fighting on. 
If you had shipping in the Med, then perhaps you could sneak past the British and French fleets-but I doubt it.
About moving RM through Russia; I don't think that would be possible-it's not even worth thinking about.  You want those resouces asap-those should be flowing NLT Jan of '15.  It may take longer, but that will hurt the CP.

[FrankHunter]

The Russian route works theoretically but not in practice because by the time you'd conquered that part of Russia they'd surrender and Germany doesn't get the land required by that strategy in the treaty.