Situation: playing as Prussia (started as brandenburg) in early 1600s. Own almost the entire north german region. Konigsberg to Koln, Jutland to Saxony. The HRE is a husk of its former self. The catholic league won, but during all my wars against the minor-medium princes I've enforced protestantism on them so there's only 3 princes eligible to be an elector. A Scottish emperor was crowned a decade ago.
Cologne has been a thorn in my side the whole game, so I've fabricated claims on their entire country. I'm riding high off of a war with Denmark, and have my prussian space marines at this point lead by a continuous stream of 99 tradition generals. They're currently at war with a France that owns its home region as well as half of Iberia which they're (obviously) badly losing.
Scotland is a 4 province minor, so I'm not worried about them in the slightest. England can spend all day landing a slow trickle of troops in Jutland, not worried. Cologne's other allies are OPMs. I'm outnumbered ~70k to 30k but I have no debt, full manpower, the most advanced network of fortresses in Europe, and my armies routinely wipe stacks double in size.
I declare war. Scotland calls in England (as expected) and the Netherlands (not as expected). The balance is now closer to ~100k to 30k. Slightly more worrying, but still. 40k of that is England and Scotland who will likely only send 20k as the rest just sit on their island and watch. I beat the shit out of Cologne and the Netherlands, France peaces out with Cologne, and I put their capital under siege as soon as the French leave. Months tick by, and then I shit my pants.
France joined the war against me.
They were allied to Scotland, but since they were at war with Cologne when I declared I figured they wouldnt join. I didn't know that they would still join afterwards. In hindsight, I was really stupid and shouldn't have pushed it. But, here we are. 30k Prussians against a now 200,000 strong coalition of France, the Netherlands, England, Cologne, Scotland, and a couple of minor duchies in the HRE.
I am constantly trying to separate peace anybody I can, but they know they have me outnumbered and outgunned. Cologne refuses to accept any offer I make. I'm ambushing their smaller stacks and doing the best I can to make solid trades. Thankfully, my army comp and generals are much better than theirs. (Had a ~35k, 40%art 60%inf stack obliterate a 60k stack of all infantry) But still, as I'm fighting tooth and nail to keep Hamburg from falling, Nassau burns. Then Hesse, Brunswick. Hanover and Stade. Where once the front was in Westphalia, now the enemy has pushed to the Elbe. I can't win, my armies have routed a dozen times and killed tens of thousands of French and Dutch troops, but each time I retreat I need to take out loans to replenish the fallen. 3,000 ducats in debt, manpower at less than 10,000 out of 40,000. Nobody will accept a separate peace. Berlin and Hamburg are under siege. I surrender. Cologne seizes five provinces in the west, isolating another 4 in the process.
As my armies trudge back to Kolberg to rest and recruit fresh troops, Bohemia declares war and floods my southern and eastern holdings with 50,000 troops. Battered and bruised, but not broken, we will rally again under Queen Anna Maria I (my first ever 6/6/6 that lived to take the throne, and at 19!!!!!) and beat back these Czechs.
Honestly, I've always been the kind of person to reload a save in these situations. I read something the other day about how savescumming just makes the game so boring because who wants to look back at the campaign and see just an endless series of victories? So when France joined, I just resolved to put up as good of a fight as I could. In the end I think I honestly did alright. I probably could have pressed more, but I knew either Bohemia or Poland (who are super big and scary this playthrough) would definitely take any opportunity to declare war on me when I'm almost bankrupt and totally drained, so I took a worse peace deal than I might've gotten by dragging it out. Additionally, I still have cores on all the lost land, so I'm sure I'll be back before too long. After I pay off all this debt, I'm putting every ducat I can into fore limits and manpower. I just need some strong allies to cap it off, I've been relying on France for most of the game but now they've gotten way too big and scary and need cut down before long.
Submitted November 11, 2019 at 02:35AM by durktrain https://ift.tt/2X5KqWW
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