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

[Djigit]

I gave EU4 another try and picked Sweden. I am still Denmark's junior partner (1 lost independence war, during which I lost my entire fleet) and am involved in wars I don't want to fight lol. I lost 1 province after the most recent one against Russia.

I'm annexed at 64%. Where's the lion from the north when you need him?

[duckzilla]

Sounds bad. You should be able to draw other great powers into the fight by "support independence". Maybe even Russia itself.

Make sure to have generals attached to your armies when fighting. Their quality regarding shock pips should also be quite important. Offensive ideas can be a tremendous help here.

[Riotcoke]

If you lose the first independence war just quit .

To win it it's piss, just abuse the op swedish units and merc up, go over fl. Stackwipe denmark then sit on his proviences in lund and you win.

[Djigit]

@duckzilla Yeah, I made a lot of mistakes like not accepting (in time) Muscovites' help to gain independence. I actually use generals and admirals, although they tend to be lower in quality compared to the enemies'.

@Riotcoke Denmark is indeed too strong for me right now. I'll wait for a random event to save me.

[pecelot]

The initial independence war shouldn't be that tough, spend some time on building up your bank (burghers) and diplomacy to secure at least one great power support. Then quickly take and occupy the Lund fort, after which you should march up north to deal with Norway and by which time the support (from the likes of Muscovy or Lithuania) should arrive. You can try to time the declaration when the Danish army is misplaced to catch them off guard or maybe even kill their troops in a favourable battle (just don't let Denmark and Norway merge their forces). Save your fleet as you pretty much can't beat the 1444 Danish numbers.

[Scroogie]

If youre not confident you can win big wars, snatch up small guys around you, building up your power while keeping tabs on the Diplo situation (opportunities arise eg when russia is allied with ottoman livonian order and tver, and livonian order only is allied to russia, attack them and separate peace russia, forcing them to cancel ally with ottomen).
As Sweden targets are livonian&teutonic order, riga, novgorod, norway, denmark, lithuania/poland if alone and scotland even. Gotta focus on consolidating the blue trade node and later lubeck trade node. Expansion opportunities are mostly eastern europe, so try to kneecap plc and russia wherever possible. Allies can be ottos, poland(for a while), england (mostly for show, they will not actually send troops cuz stupid), France or Brandenburg.
Ideas early game...
if you need military : Quantity (Sweden has shit manpower but good quality)
if you need money: Trade (better to conquer more land if money problems tho)
if youre strong and wanna blob: diplo, admin, (religious)
Also if youre encircled and need a break-out war go all-in, mercs, loans,over force-limit.
Last one, a very powerful strat early game is tech-timing. Like in aoe3 if you have a miltech advantage, you will just sweep. Especially powerful is 3 vs 4 and 4 vs 5. Always focus milpoints early game because of that.

[duckzilla]

I can also recommend switching religion to orthodox (Sweden should have some orthodox provinces in Finland to spawn religious rebels). They can choose among quite useful patrons, e.g. one of them giving +5% discipline and some manpower.

[lordraphael]

Orthodox is the best religion, so it's always worth switching to it

[Scroogie]

Orthodox is the best religion, so it's always worth switching to it

Except for WC where you want Muslims for TradeCompany exploit.

[duckzilla]

Not even sure about that. It helps for converting trade company provinces, but orthodox is overall just much better at converting (get more missionaries, higher missionary strength, a -3 unrest patron).

[lordraphael]

+ -2 from 100 % authority. I think with byzantium you get a ridicolous -15 to 17 unrest in provinces of your own faith. basically impossible to ever get rebels.

[duckzilla]

It is not just the +2 at 100% authority. Orthodox also gets all these nice christian decisions for extra missionary strength. These alone should add up to an additional +3. Together with the bonus from authority, this means orthodox can have up to +5 missionary strength compared to muslim faiths.

[Mr_Bramboy]

+ -2 from 100 % authority. I think with byzantium you get a ridicolous -15 to 17 unrest in provinces of your own faith. basically impossible to ever get rebels.

They patched this unfortunately. Provinces have a negative unrest cap now.

[Scroogie]

Orthodox is the best religion, so it's always worth switching to it

Except for WC where you want Muslims for TradeCompany exploit.

My bad, i meant One-faith. You can do Castile-Persia with Religious, Diplomatic, Administrative, Offensive, Humanist, that gives you 8 Missionaries and up to 19% missionary strength (with mysticism and Unite Islam). On top of that, you dont have to convert TC regions. Makes for a rather "chill" Onefaith.
Also, Humanist+Offensive policy gives -5years of Separatism, combined with the insanely fast converting you do, there are basically no rebels since provinces jump to negative unrest real quick.
But for anything else, Orthodox is just so much more versatile.

[Djigit]

Ok guys, I've just found out I was playing on Hard difficulty...
This is something impossible for me, even back when I played with England

[pecelot]

hard just makes AI numbers higher, it doesn't increase their brain capacity

[Scroogie]

hard just makes AI numbers higher, it doesn't increase their brain capacity

Id rather have 50% Manpower, Forcelimit than a brain.

[pecelot]

well, I wouldn't

[Jaeger]

As Sweeden, you can often declare the independence war right away; just look at Denmark's rivals and ask for support.
I would not go for Denmark's fort first, I would go for Norway's army. The problem is that Denmark's army can come out of the darkness at any time and catch you in an unfavorable fight. The way I do it is I wipe out Norway's army, and siege the level 1 capital if I have time. Then after Denmark has suffered months of attrition while trying to siege my fort, I come back with my army, overpop with mercs, and crush them in a fight. At that point you may want to start sieging their own fort, or you can repeat the same strategy I just said a few more times.

[Scroogie]

i usually just press "^", type "yesman" click enter then ask for independence and all their provinces. Works well most of the time

[duckzilla]

I usually click "^" and type "integrate DEN". Works well most of the time.

[pecelot]

isn't it ` though

[Djigit]

isn't it ` though

It depends on the tastatur.

[pecelot]

they could just release the Emperor now

[duckzilla]

They did not even announce a date yet, right?
Guess the game is gonna change quite a lot with the new patch.