Lord Chungus Plays Europa Universalis IV: This Episode, Uniting The Holy Roman Empire

[QTesseract]

1620, and war has finally broken out. Not the League War, but a big war. Me and the Commonwealth vs the Ottomans.

Highly relevant to that, I ended up going with Defensive as my Idea Group, and am now in a conundrum; do I get the second-last Quality Idea (which gives me less naval attrition but puts me close to finishing the idea group) or the first Defensive idea (which gives me yearly army tradition)? I'm thinking the Quality Idea, if only for getting the last Idea sooner.

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Priorities for Mil Points, early game:
1. Tech. Always stay up to date, it's way more important than ideas
2. Good Policies
3. Specific Good Ideas
4. Strengthening government (below 50)
5. Development.

I'm not sure where in Quality you are, atm, but in terms of combat power defensive >>Quality, so in a vacuum I'd recommend investing there once you get up to date.

Who declared the war: commonwheel on ottoblob, or ottoblob on commonwheel?

 

[Lord Chungus]

Not sure how I forgot to address this in my post, but

What's the status of the Commonwealth? It looks like quite a few provinces are rebel allied. Is it temporary, or are they going to fall?

What about your allies? Are they many, strong and reliable, or not?

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I'm allied with Castile, the Commonwealth, Sweden, the Mamluks, the Papal State, and some electors. Only Commonwealth and Mainz are in this war though. Strength-wise, the Commonwealth seems to be much weaker than I am, probably having suffered a tremendous amount of defeats recently; they only have 3k troops, and 8k manpower. But lucky for me, the Ottomans aren't doing so well either, they have 2k manpower!

Priorities for Mil Points, early game:
1. Tech. Always stay up to date, it's way more important than ideas
2. Good Policies
3. Specific Good Ideas
4. Strengthening government (below 50)
5. Development.

I'm not sure where in Quality you are, atm, but in terms of combat power defensive >>Quality, so in a vacuum I'd recommend investing there once you get up to date.

Who declared the war: commonwheel on ottoblob, or ottoblob on commonwheel?

Click to shrink...

I'm ahead of time tech-wise (currently 9 years ahead of everything) and as I said, I'm almost finished Quality; if I spend my mil points on the Quality idea, I'll only have one idea to go before I have all the Quality Ideas.

Also, the Ottomans declared the war.

 

[QTesseract]

Not sure how I forgot to address this in my post, but

I'm allied with Castile, the Commonwealth, Sweden, the Mamluks, the Papal State, and some electors. Only Commonwealth and Mainz are in this war though. Strength-wise, the Commonwealth seems to be much weaker than I am, probably having suffered a tremendous amount of defeats recently; they only have 3k troops, and 8k manpower. But lucky for me, the Ottomans aren't doing so well either, they have 2k manpower!


I'm ahead of time tech-wise (currently 9 years ahead of everything) and as I said, I'm almost finished Quality; if I spend my mil points on the Quality idea, I'll only have one idea to go before I have all the Quality Ideas.

Also, the Ottomans declared the war.

Click to shrink...

Even if you're that close, don't finish Quality. The army tradition won't help you immediately vs the ottomans, but neither will the ship power really, and once you have the two ideas you would need to get get Religious Zeal Act + Quality Finisher (gives you a nice 5/5 Morale/Disc) you could instead get the 15% morale from defensive, which is slightly stronger at the moment (will change later on, admittedly).

I would only invest In quality if you wanted Professional Diplomatic Corps, have a lot of cannons, or thought you could beat the ottomans navally. If one of those is true, go for it, if not, I wouldn't

 

[Arcus]

The point where it becomes worthwhile to field a full backrow of cannons is Mil Tech 16, I believe. At that point ideas and policies that buff artillery combat ability become very useful. That said the morale idea given by Defensive is quite good, though the advantage is more pronounced in the early game, when morale matters more.

 

[Lord Chungus]

On the eve of the sixth of January 1630, the League War broke out. The war between me, the Commonwealth, and the Ottomans ended when the Commonwealth surrendered and pulled me out of the war even though the Ottomans had 0 manpower and I was ready to anihalate them. Now, the Ottomans have 90k manpower and are ready to kick my ass. Thanks for nothing, Commonwealth. If you can't tell, I'm a bit salty that the fucking AI pulled me out of the war right when I was ready to completely crush my main rival.

As you can see, it's very big, and not exactly in my favor. Here's hoping I can win it.

 

[Plausbius]

On the eve of the sixth of January 1630, the League War broke out. The war between me, the Commonwealth, and the Ottomans ended when the Commonwealth surrendered and pulled me out of the war even though the Ottomans had 0 manpower and I was ready to anihalate them. Now, the Ottomans have 90k manpower and are ready to kick my ass. Thanks for nothing, Commonwealth. If you can't tell, I'm a bit salty that the fucking AI pulled me out of the war right when I was ready to completely crush my main rival.

As you can see, it's very big, and not exactly in my favor. Here's hoping I can win it.

Click to shrink...

Wait, you allowed the Commonwealth to be the war leader? Yeah nothing good comes out of hoping your allies won't turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble for them. I'd do the same, tbh. "Me? Helping an AI ally? Preposterous!"
Maybe take on the Ottos after you Revoke Priviligia, show those bastards what you're about!

 

[QTesseract]

On the eve of the sixth of January 1630, the League War broke out. The war between me, the Commonwealth, and the Ottomans ended when the Commonwealth surrendered and pulled me out of the war even though the Ottomans had 0 manpower and I was ready to anihalate them. Now, the Ottomans have 90k manpower and are ready to kick my ass. Thanks for nothing, Commonwealth. If you can't tell, I'm a bit salty that the fucking AI pulled me out of the war right when I was ready to completely crush my main rival.

As you can see, it's very big, and not exactly in my favor. Here's hoping I can win it.

Click to shrink...

I told you to ally Great Britain, smh. Keep your forces concentrated, occupy the war leader quickly, and then go after the minors one after another. If they still have troops (>3k) alive when you occupy them, white peace out for cash / conversions, so you can continue fighting for longer. If they don't, then leave them for the warscore (although keep an eye on them, because you can still separate peace them when their allies are about to de-siege their capital).