EU4 How do you beat a great power when it's allied to another great power?

[Jaeger]

I am playing Castille in 1650 and I am having some difficulties. I have taken over the whole peninsula and Morocco, and I would like to continue expanding into Europe; but I don't know how. I am strong enough to beat anybody in Europe 1v1; however, France is allied with the Commonwealth. Englad with Denmark (who is a great power in my game). And for the smaller countries, I don't have any way to fabricate claims vs them since I border France. What can I do?

[deleted_user0]

break up alliance. or find ur own ally.

[Googol]

That depends on your idea setup, do you have any colonies ? Can you afford long wars ? What is your manpower limit and recovery speed? Morale and discipline compared to France and PLC, if you have enough money and good income i guess you could build a fort wall on the borders and make them come to you to take advantage of the terrain and attrition and just starve them up on your territory and go for Paris after. Dont be shy to go mercs to conserve manpower (if you can afford it) check the combat width and build up your mostly of infantry and artillery preferabbly infatry consisted of mercs and artilerry of your own. These wars are so much damn expensive but as Spain that shouldnt be much of a problem since you get colonies with extra merchants and youre swimming in Papal influence.

[Googol]

Also there is a chance that another great power intervees on your side like @iamturk the mighty kebabini or your ultimate goal should be to ally Ulm which is an instant gg for you, with Ulm being your ally you can do anything you want.

[HUMMAN]

Take southern italy in EU, and invade Africa, India and get the best trade income. With money you will feed the largest army. AI is stupid. Make a big war 10+ years, with blockade, with smart defense manevours and with good military ideas. Your enemy will collapse after war.

[Googol]

Take southern italy in EU, and invade Africa, India and get the best trade income. With money you will feed the largest army. AI is stupid. Make a big war 10+ years, with blockade, with smart defense manevours and with good military ideas. Your enemy will collapse after war.

You should get naples into an PU (if they didnt broke from Aragon) with the Iberian wedding event but yeah i agree this is also a good option, although i preferabbly go for colonies in Americas since it synergize so well with your national ideas.

[Jaeger]

That depends on your idea setup, do you have any colonies ? Can you afford long wars ? What is your manpower limit and recovery speed? Morale and discipline compared to France and PLC, if you have enough money and good income i guess you could build a fort wall on the borders and make them come to you to take advantage of the terrain and attrition and just starve them up on your territory and go for Paris after. Dont be shy to go mercs to conserve manpower (if you can afford it) check the combat width and build up your mostly of infantry and artillery preferabbly infatry consisted of mercs and artilerry of your own. These wars are so much damn expensive but as Spain that shouldnt be much of a problem since you get colonies with extra merchants and youre swimming in Papal influence.

I have 100g balance with zero army maintanance, is that good for 1650? I have 5 colonial nations. But if you go defensive, isn't it a problem that I your light ships can get rekt, so you have to dock them? 90% o my fleet is light ships so they would get rekt. Also why is cav not good?

[Jaeger]

Take southern italy in EU, and invade Africa, India and get the best trade income. With money you will feed the largest army. AI is stupid. Make a big war 10+ years, with blockade, with smart defense manevours and with good military ideas. Your enemy will collapse after war.

You should get naples into an PU (if they didnt broke from Aragon) with the Iberian wedding event but yeah i agree this is also a good option, although i preferabbly go for colonies in Americas since it synergize so well with your national ideas.

But if you do Iberian wedding im pretty sure you're the junior partener as castille?

[Mr_Bramboy]

Attack a smaller ally of France and separate peace France. Force them to break their alliances, nothing else. Anything else that you ask will extend the duration of the truce, which will give them time to find new allies. Then in the 2nd war, attack them and weaken them by taking strategic provinces (trade centers, choke points, mountains, forts) and breaking alliances once again.

As Castile, you should have no problem taking on France and another big country at this point with your colonies and infinite money. Expand into West-Africa for the Ivory Coast trade and make sure nothing is steered towards Bordeaux/English Channel to reduce England's/France's trade. Then start colonizing Indonesia and take over India and Indochina to steer even more trade towards Africa. In 1650 you could've already started on India, but it's not too late. Finally, expand into Italy and move your home port to Genoa once you've got a decent percentage of the trade there. Steer the trade from Sevilla to Genoa and you should be making tons of money. Invest this into manufactories in your colonies and in India.

If you do this then you can easily take on large alliances in Europe by spamming mercenaries and buildings.

Having 4-5 cav (depending on tech) is good as they will serve as flanking units. Having more cav than that is suboptimal since they hardly perform better than infantry and they are a lot more expensive. If you're playing a civilization with exceptional cav bonuses (Poland, Mughals) then you can use more cav in your army.

Your fleet depends on where you're situated. If you plan to fight a lot in Italy (which you should) you should create galleys, as Italy is surrounded by inland seas. The left side of France is not inland seas, so you'll want to use heavy ships there. You can go over your naval force limit if your income allows it.

[Googol]

Take southern italy in EU, and invade Africa, India and get the best trade income. With money you will feed the largest army. AI is stupid. Make a big war 10+ years, with blockade, with smart defense manevours and with good military ideas. Your enemy will collapse after war.

You should get naples into an PU (if they didnt broke from Aragon) with the Iberian wedding event but yeah i agree this is also a good option, although i preferabbly go for colonies in Americas since it synergize so well with your national ideas.

But if you do Iberian wedding im pretty sure you're the junior partener as castille?

Haha no youre not the juniorr partner with this event, atleast it never happened to me yet.

[Jaeger]

Attack a smaller ally of France and separate peace France. Force them to break their alliances, nothing else. Anything else that you ask will extend the duration of the truce, which will give them time to find new allies. Then in the 2nd war, attack them and weaken them by taking strategic provinces (trade centers, choke points, mountains, forts) and breaking alliances once again.

As Castile, you should have no problem taking on France and another big country at this point with your colonies and infinite money. Expand into West-Africa for the Ivory Coast trade and make sure nothing is steered towards Bordeaux/English Channel to reduce England's/France's trade. Then start colonizing Indonesia and take over India and Indochina to steer even more trade towards Africa. In 1650 you could've already started on India, but it's not too late. Finally, expand into Italy and move your home port to Genoa once you've got a decent percentage of the trade there. Steer the trade from Sevilla to Genoa and you should be making tons of money. Invest this into manufactories in your colonies and in India.

If you do this then you can easily take on large alliances in Europe by spamming mercenaries and buildings.

Having 4-5 cav (depending on tech) is good as they will serve as flanking units. Having more cav than that is suboptimal since they hardly perform better than infantry and they are a lot more expensive. If you're playing a civilization with exceptional cav bonuses (Poland, Mughals) then you can use more cav in your army.

Your fleet depends on where you're situated. If you plan to fight a lot in Italy (which you should) you should create galleys, as Italy is surrounded by inland seas. The left side of France is not inland seas, so you'll want to use heavy ships there. You can go over your naval force limit if your income allows it.

Well I don't have any CB on any of France's allies, so I guess I should just do no CB and take the 2 stability hit? Is that considered ok?

[Googol]

That depends on your idea setup, do you have any colonies ? Can you afford long wars ? What is your manpower limit and recovery speed? Morale and discipline compared to France and PLC, if you have enough money and good income i guess you could build a fort wall on the borders and make them come to you to take advantage of the terrain and attrition and just starve them up on your territory and go for Paris after. Dont be shy to go mercs to conserve manpower (if you can afford it) check the combat width and build up your mostly of infantry and artillery preferabbly infatry consisted of mercs and artilerry of your own. These wars are so much damn expensive but as Spain that shouldnt be much of a problem since you get colonies with extra merchants and youre swimming in Papal influence.

I have 100g balance with zero army maintanance, is that good for 1650? I have 5 colonial nations. But if you go defensive, isn't it a problem that I your light ships can get rekt, so you have to dock them? 90% o my fleet is light ships so they would get rekt. Also why is cav not good?

You should dock the ships that are in europe when the war starts, if you have the advantage over French colonies its nothing to worry about also your colonial nations will help you with the blockades but thats pretty much it, you should build some heavies before you declare war the balance is good i guess, make sure you got all the manufacturies in your own provinces stacked with workshops for the maximum production income, actually it would be nice if you post some screens of the current situation, like the military overview, economic overview, and the screen of map of europe and americas.

[Jaeger]

That depends on your idea setup, do you have any colonies ? Can you afford long wars ? What is your manpower limit and recovery speed? Morale and discipline compared to France and PLC, if you have enough money and good income i guess you could build a fort wall on the borders and make them come to you to take advantage of the terrain and attrition and just starve them up on your territory and go for Paris after. Dont be shy to go mercs to conserve manpower (if you can afford it) check the combat width and build up your mostly of infantry and artillery preferabbly infatry consisted of mercs and artilerry of your own. These wars are so much damn expensive but as Spain that shouldnt be much of a problem since you get colonies with extra merchants and youre swimming in Papal influence.

I have 100g balance with zero army maintanance, is that good for 1650? I have 5 colonial nations. But if you go defensive, isn't it a problem that I your light ships can get rekt, so you have to dock them? 90% o my fleet is light ships so they would get rekt. Also why is cav not good?

You should dock the ships that are in europe when the war starts, if you have the advantage over French colonies its nothing to worry about also your colonial nations will help you with the blockades but thats pretty much it, you should build some heavies before you declare war the balance is good i guess, make sure you got all the manufacturies in your own provinces stacked with workshops for the maximum production income, actually it would be nice if you post some screens of the current situation, like the military overview, economic overview, and the screen of map of europe and americas.

Thanks a lot for the help!

[Jaeger]

Also how do you keep your colonial nations happy? I wanted to conquer some natives and give them the provinces, but as soon as I signed the treaty deal the colonists recieved the nations instantly without me even giving them.

[Googol]

Keeping your colonies happy relies mainly on your tarrif regulations and if you have high levels of mercantilism also inreases their liberty desire, you can also develop their provinces with some usage of monarch points to calm them down for some time if theres no other way, but the ammount of money you get later on from them, makes it able for you to get lvl 5 advisors so you should be swimming in MP so it kinda balances out. just one thing there is that makes you not able to take on PLC and france at the same time is the lack of quantity ideas imo. So if you want to have a better chance you should ally GB and promise them land they have a foothold in normandy and supperior naval force to France for sure, at the end of the war if you want to conquer them just dont give them anything, and they will break the alliance, try to separate peace PLC asap for the easier warscore on France, since you got 11k you can afford an long term offensive war fairly easily although i would still preffer to keep defensive in the first stage just in case GB gets overrun in Normandy and besides you do have a lack of manpower, you can of course can spam mercs but its not gonna be enough since you dont have any idea which increases merc force limit, Milan could be also a good pick for an ally if possible.

[Googol]

btw look at that juicy kebabini @iamturk

[tedere12]

If they ally with serbia, its over4u

[Snuden]

At least Cyprus is on the map. Usually it is not.

[Googol]

If they ally with serbia, its over4u

[Mr_Bramboy]

Also how do you keep your colonial nations happy? I wanted to conquer some natives and give them the provinces, but as soon as I signed the treaty deal the colonists recieved the nations instantly without me even giving them.

That's intended behavior. Keep them happy by having high prestige and not taxing more in that one event where you get the choice between taxing more (and adding 5% liberty desire) and getting random 33 monarch points.

[princeofkabul]

drop nuclear bombs to paris and london

[duckzilla]

Also how do you keep your colonial nations happy? I wanted to conquer some natives and give them the provinces, but as soon as I signed the treaty deal the colonists recieved the nations instantly without me even giving them.

That's intended behavior. Keep them happy by having high prestige and not taxing more in that one event where you get the choice between taxing more (and adding 5% liberty desire) and getting random 33 monarch points.

I want to recommend the opposite. Increasing tariffs can net you a lot ducats. In a recent Castile game (2 weeks ago), I made around 60 ducats/month at around 1520-1540 only by tariffs!

I usually increase tariffs as early as possible to their maximum. At the same time, I always pay off the debt of my colonial nations to reduce liberty desire and develop their provinces (preferably by increasing base production in expensive trade good provinces with beneficial terrain).

[Jaeger]

Keeping your colonies happy relies mainly on your tarrif regulations and if you have high levels of mercantilism also inreases their liberty desire, you can also develop their provinces with some usage of monarch points to calm them down for some time if theres no other way, but the ammount of money you get later on from them, makes it able for you to get lvl 5 advisors so you should be swimming in MP so it kinda balances out. just one thing there is that makes you not able to take on PLC and france at the same time is the lack of quantity ideas imo. So if you want to have a better chance you should ally GB and promise them land they have a foothold in normandy and supperior naval force to France for sure, at the end of the war if you want to conquer them just dont give them anything, and they will break the alliance, try to separate peace PLC asap for the easier warscore on France, since you got 11k you can afford an long term offensive war fairly easily although i would still preffer to keep defensive in the first stage just in case GB gets overrun in Normandy and besides you do have a lack of manpower, you can of course can spam mercs but its not gonna be enough since you dont have any idea which increases merc force limit, Milan could be also a good pick for an ally if possible.

Well I can't be ally with GB because they hate me simce they desire my colonies (Spanish Peru, who knew). Also Milan, I helped them out in like 3 wars but I think they allied france so they won't help me out. I guess the best thing is to do what bramboy said, declare war with no CB on one of France's other allies and force them to break alliance?

[Googol]

Keeping your colonies happy relies mainly on your tarrif regulations and if you have high levels of mercantilism also inreases their liberty desire, you can also develop their provinces with some usage of monarch points to calm them down for some time if theres no other way, but the ammount of money you get later on from them, makes it able for you to get lvl 5 advisors so you should be swimming in MP so it kinda balances out. just one thing there is that makes you not able to take on PLC and france at the same time is the lack of quantity ideas imo. So if you want to have a better chance you should ally GB and promise them land they have a foothold in normandy and supperior naval force to France for sure, at the end of the war if you want to conquer them just dont give them anything, and they will break the alliance, try to separate peace PLC asap for the easier warscore on France, since you got 11k you can afford an long term offensive war fairly easily although i would still preffer to keep defensive in the first stage just in case GB gets overrun in Normandy and besides you do have a lack of manpower, you can of course can spam mercs but its not gonna be enough since you dont have any idea which increases merc force limit, Milan could be also a good pick for an ally if possible.

Well I can't be ally with GB because they hate me simce they desire my colonies (Spanish Peru, who knew). Also Milan, I helped them out in like 3 wars but I think they allied france so they won't help me out. I guess the best thing is to do what bramboy said, declare war with no CB on one of France's other allies and force them to break alliance?

Yeah I guess that's the way to go

[pecelot]

do what Brambonnie says, attack weaker allies of great powers
also if you have no CB you can try to unlock religious ideas to get the Deus Vult one