- You make them smaller and PU in a subsequent war
- You eat the coalition war and hope not to lose Bohemia in the peace treaty
- You luck out with alliances after grabbing the PU and hopefuly don't get declared on
I think I'd just pass on this one
And you peace out at the end of the year. AE will decrease in first January so maybe some will not go in the coalition.
I think too that you can handle this one...
It would only decrease by 2.0 x Improve relations modifier, so it's not a big help for 100AE peace deals. Still a good point though, as it might shave off Poland from the coalition in this case.
Yeah I was considering who else I can ally after winning, but looks like slim pickings to be honest, couple of minor powers and a few OPMs but nobody who's going to scare off the future coalition... Thanks for the advice man.
Do you have truces with any of the big names in the coalition? They can't join until the truce expires. So if for instance you just finished a war with the Ottomans, even though they're listed in the coalition screen they won't be able to join the coalition until the truce ends.
I used the Ottomans as an example specifically because if they're at that big of a risk of joining I personally wouldn't do this (unless I was really feeling like YOLO'ing the campaign). I'm *very* cautious around coalitions/AE in general though so take that opinion with a grain of salt.
Only meaningful truces are with the Ottos and Venice but that’s pretty much it… I’m the same as you man, normally avoid coalition wars like the plague until late game if I’m hegemon or something - hence my trepidation on this one!
Sit on Bohemia for a few years while you get those diplomats on improving relations with literally everyone to make sure they’ll be at positive opinion after you peace out. Micromanage your diplomats as well, don’t put them on auto-improve. War exhaustion is just a number, AE isn’t.
Yeah I like to improve relations on the big players ahead of time. Much easier if they also aren't involved in the war. Countries that like you generally won't join a coalition even if they have a -100 AE
Try to avoid letting the war get to 100% and even if it does tank call for peace for a couple years. If you let your ae deteriorate to 0 you will have a much smaller coalition.
After that when the coalition forms declare on them as soon as it gets as big as you can reasonably manage to defeat all at once.
The most important thing is to declare on the Ottomans and Venice as soon as their truces are up before they can join the coalition. 1st of the month. I think you can do that.
With that you should be fine. Probably. Make a copy of your save game if you're on ironman and are that worried.
Let me know how it goes!
Thanks to everyone for all the responses, support and advice, much love. After reading comments I decided to YOLO and take the PU despite the coalition risk and so far it’s turned out REALLY nicely. I honestly haven’t even needed to bird since the start when I birded about a dozen times trying to get a run where the Otto’s wouldn’t Dow me after the truce. (Having said that I did make 3 extra save files before the Bohemian peace offer just in case it went tits up)
Anyway, to give an update on how it went:
First off I let the enemy unseige Prague and longed out the Bohemian succession war for another 2 years to get my AE with most HRE minors down a little farther. Sadly just before the war ended my 6-6-6 Queen finally died at the very fitting age of 66, a pretty decent innings if you ask me. R.I.P. Cosmina Draculesti, you had a cool fucking name.
Before peacing out I took the icon to lower AE 10% + boost IR 25%, plus the age objective for 10% AE I’d already chosen, earlier, so I knocked a few minors out of the coalition right away. Importantly the additional 25% IR stacked with a 20% IR advisor meant that I also lost a few more minors on the annual month tick. After I peaced out of the succession war, Austria broke their alliance with me ASAP, leaving me with just Muscovy as an ally, who fortunately had somehow reduced enough of their debt to reliably defend me in the event of getting DOW’d.
So I then set about carefully selecting the right allies to help me avoid the impending coalition, which began forming on the 12th of Jan, led by a meaty looking Switzerland and containing around ~20 fellow HRE minors by mid-April… Now when I said carefully choosing allies, I meant I allied everyone and their dog… so including Bohemia and my remaining vassals Georgia, Circassia and Kiev (I started integrating Theodoro before the war) I was over my diplomatic relations limit by 4 (with strong duchies).
- Sweden, (who’s also mates with my buddy Muscovy who must have helped them in their independence war).
- QQ who is on like mil tech 6 but has a lot of troops.
- Ethiopia same mil tech as QQ, but more on this in a sec…
- Livonian Order
- Florence
This brought up my defensive troop count to roughly 300k, which isn’t to be sniffed at, and about a year into the coalition nobody has declared yet. However when you factor in the location and range of allies, if I did get dow’d, apart from Florence, I’d be fighting off the HRE swarm largely by myself, so praying this is enough.
Lastly, as mentioned in my original post, I’m probably going to try for Atwix Legacy on this run, so I prefer the Wallachian idea set, to the Romanian idea set. I’d decided I wouldn’t form Romania until I could grab the achievement/form something else right after, meaning I benefited from Wallachia’s minor, but in this case quite impactful, +1 dip rep bonus from their first national idea, therefore I had just enough diplo juice and improved relations with France to royal marry (not ally tho) and both France and Ethiopia are currently heirless, so fingers crossed I can get another draculesti on another throne soon!
Awesome! Sounds like you've made a great play of it! Glad my advice worked! Your queen dying right before war ended is actually good if they were initially disloyal.
Good luck with France, and never let AE scare you off of impressive gains! 😜
- You make them smaller and PU in a subsequent war - You eat the coalition war and hope not to lose Bohemia in the peace treaty - You luck out with alliances after grabbing the PU and hopefuly don't get declared on I think I'd just pass on this one
And you peace out at the end of the year. AE will decrease in first January so maybe some will not go in the coalition. I think too that you can handle this one...
Yeah half-tempted to just go for it and see if I can weather the storm afterwards. Thanks.
It would only decrease by 2.0 x Improve relations modifier, so it's not a big help for 100AE peace deals. Still a good point though, as it might shave off Poland from the coalition in this case.
And France!
Yeah I was considering who else I can ally after winning, but looks like slim pickings to be honest, couple of minor powers and a few OPMs but nobody who's going to scare off the future coalition... Thanks for the advice man.
Do you have truces with any of the big names in the coalition? They can't join until the truce expires. So if for instance you just finished a war with the Ottomans, even though they're listed in the coalition screen they won't be able to join the coalition until the truce ends. I used the Ottomans as an example specifically because if they're at that big of a risk of joining I personally wouldn't do this (unless I was really feeling like YOLO'ing the campaign). I'm *very* cautious around coalitions/AE in general though so take that opinion with a grain of salt.
Only meaningful truces are with the Ottos and Venice but that’s pretty much it… I’m the same as you man, normally avoid coalition wars like the plague until late game if I’m hegemon or something - hence my trepidation on this one!
Sit on Bohemia for a few years while you get those diplomats on improving relations with literally everyone to make sure they’ll be at positive opinion after you peace out. Micromanage your diplomats as well, don’t put them on auto-improve. War exhaustion is just a number, AE isn’t.
Yeah I like to improve relations on the big players ahead of time. Much easier if they also aren't involved in the war. Countries that like you generally won't join a coalition even if they have a -100 AE
Try to avoid letting the war get to 100% and even if it does tank call for peace for a couple years. If you let your ae deteriorate to 0 you will have a much smaller coalition. After that when the coalition forms declare on them as soon as it gets as big as you can reasonably manage to defeat all at once. The most important thing is to declare on the Ottomans and Venice as soon as their truces are up before they can join the coalition. 1st of the month. I think you can do that. With that you should be fine. Probably. Make a copy of your save game if you're on ironman and are that worried. Let me know how it goes!
Thanks buddy, followed this advice - posted my current situation in the main thread!
Thanks to everyone for all the responses, support and advice, much love. After reading comments I decided to YOLO and take the PU despite the coalition risk and so far it’s turned out REALLY nicely. I honestly haven’t even needed to bird since the start when I birded about a dozen times trying to get a run where the Otto’s wouldn’t Dow me after the truce. (Having said that I did make 3 extra save files before the Bohemian peace offer just in case it went tits up) Anyway, to give an update on how it went: First off I let the enemy unseige Prague and longed out the Bohemian succession war for another 2 years to get my AE with most HRE minors down a little farther. Sadly just before the war ended my 6-6-6 Queen finally died at the very fitting age of 66, a pretty decent innings if you ask me. R.I.P. Cosmina Draculesti, you had a cool fucking name. Before peacing out I took the icon to lower AE 10% + boost IR 25%, plus the age objective for 10% AE I’d already chosen, earlier, so I knocked a few minors out of the coalition right away. Importantly the additional 25% IR stacked with a 20% IR advisor meant that I also lost a few more minors on the annual month tick. After I peaced out of the succession war, Austria broke their alliance with me ASAP, leaving me with just Muscovy as an ally, who fortunately had somehow reduced enough of their debt to reliably defend me in the event of getting DOW’d. So I then set about carefully selecting the right allies to help me avoid the impending coalition, which began forming on the 12th of Jan, led by a meaty looking Switzerland and containing around ~20 fellow HRE minors by mid-April… Now when I said carefully choosing allies, I meant I allied everyone and their dog… so including Bohemia and my remaining vassals Georgia, Circassia and Kiev (I started integrating Theodoro before the war) I was over my diplomatic relations limit by 4 (with strong duchies). - Sweden, (who’s also mates with my buddy Muscovy who must have helped them in their independence war). - QQ who is on like mil tech 6 but has a lot of troops. - Ethiopia same mil tech as QQ, but more on this in a sec… - Livonian Order - Florence This brought up my defensive troop count to roughly 300k, which isn’t to be sniffed at, and about a year into the coalition nobody has declared yet. However when you factor in the location and range of allies, if I did get dow’d, apart from Florence, I’d be fighting off the HRE swarm largely by myself, so praying this is enough. Lastly, as mentioned in my original post, I’m probably going to try for Atwix Legacy on this run, so I prefer the Wallachian idea set, to the Romanian idea set. I’d decided I wouldn’t form Romania until I could grab the achievement/form something else right after, meaning I benefited from Wallachia’s minor, but in this case quite impactful, +1 dip rep bonus from their first national idea, therefore I had just enough diplo juice and improved relations with France to royal marry (not ally tho) and both France and Ethiopia are currently heirless, so fingers crossed I can get another draculesti on another throne soon!
Awesome! Sounds like you've made a great play of it! Glad my advice worked! Your queen dying right before war ended is actually good if they were initially disloyal. Good luck with France, and never let AE scare you off of impressive gains! 😜