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Basically as Central Powers any way to delay or prevent Ottoman entry into the war for as long as possible? Feel super shackled to them. Also any way to prevent fail of Basra? Does moving units there stop it?

Sure - you could refuse to send the Goeben to Constantinople (a DE on the first turn for the CP) and you could decide not fund the Ottoman army and send General Liman von Sanders (a DE on the third turn for the CP). Both those choices will slow down the Ottomans from swinging towards the Central Powers considerably and delay their entry into the war - probably until sometime in the first half of 1915. (They also mean the Ottomans will be somewhat weaker when they do enter the war, since they will neither have the Goeben, nor von Sanders HQ nor 200 MPPs from Germany). If the Entente choose to send the British dreadnought to the Ottomans as well, it is possible that the Ottomans never enter the war, though I have only ever seen that happen once in a game.

I believe if the Ottomans have a unit on Basra the UK attempt to capture it via their DE will fail. There is a thread in this forum discussing this situation, posted in May 2020.The challenge is to get a unit to Basra in time to occupy it before the UK event fires. But if the Ottoman entry into the war is delayed, there may be time to do that.

If you give the Goeben to Austria and move the nearest unit in an optimized way, you'll reach Basra 1 turn before the event and prevent it. By optimized movement I mean figuring in supply next turn, so that you can forcemarch from the next position as much as possible. Best do a trial run in a hotseat vs yourself.

Bavre wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:51 pm If you give the Goeben to Austria and move the nearest unit in an optimized way, you'll reach Basra 1 turn before the event and prevent it. By optimized movement I mean figuring in supply next turn, so that you can forcemarch from the next position as much as possible. Best do a trial run in a hotseat vs yourself.

I've done this in my current campaign, it's also the first time that I did not send Sanders to the Ottomans.
The Ottomans seem not to join the war at all, it is end of 1916 and they are at 52% mobilization. The UK had seized the dreadnought, so in 1914 the Ottomans had reached 38%. But since then it had only increased one or two times to 52%. I've also done a hotseat test and it seems enough to send Sanders to them to get them in the war, you can still send the Goeben to Austria. I think having the Ottomans in the war is benefical for the Cental Powers, because they tie up Russian forces in the Kaukasus and British troops in Egypt and Iraq. After the initial learning process in the first games I played where the poor Ottomans got beaten very badly, I usually manage to do ok with them.

By the way, regarding the Goeben. If you send her to the Austrians, she still sails under the German flag and doensn't become an Austrian vassel. I think this is an advantage, because Germany has better naval tech and if it comes to naval combat you can decide which nation should get the national morale boost when dealing the killing blow.

I checked the settings in the Editor. None of the Mobilization scripts that fire after August 1914 that move the Ottomans to war will fire unless the Germans say yes to the Decision Event to send additional funds plus General Sanders to the Ottoman Army. So, if you don't want the Ottomans in the game decline that Decision Event. Whether the Ottomans help the Central Powers overall is a moot point, but it makes for a much duller game not to have in the war.

Bavre wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:51 pm If you give the Goeben to Austria and move the nearest unit in an optimized way, you'll reach Basra 1 turn before the event and prevent it. By optimized movement I mean figuring in supply next turn, so that you can forcemarch from the next position as much as possible. Best do a trial run in a hotseat vs yourself.

This is a crazy good idea. I didn't know it was possible. I will try it out. I was never really able to come up with an acceptable defense strategy for Ottomans in Iraq, given the supply situation, distance from rails, and the eventual British artillery that shows up.

Does it straight up stop the British event 100% of the time? I'm not sure this was an intended feature in the game for the Ottomans to be able to do such a thing.

It does not stop the entire event, you'll just not loose Basra thanks to your unit sitting on it. But that is already a nice advantage, because it gives you a very comfortable defensive position.

Bavre wrote: Wed Apr 19, 2023 12:31 pm It does not stop the entire event, you'll just not loose Basra thanks to your unit sitting on it. But that is already a nice advantage, because it gives you a very comfortable defensive position.

Position and saving 2000 NM points for the Ottomans is huge. They only have a pool of 22K NM points so it's 9%