1571-1580
At the beginning of this decade, I was shockingly enough, at war with several countries! One of those was Portugal. They weern't the worst of 'them' on my list, but they were usually either allied with Castille or absorbed by them, and therefore needed to die.
I was having trouble fighting them however, because they didn't have much left in Europe! I captured everything I could see, including their Islands and several provinces in Africa. Still, it wasn't enough to force peace. I would need to destroy their army and navy somehow to convince them that the gig was up and it was time for them to permanently vacate Iberia.
As I was killing them, killing hordes, and killing rebels, I got a new heir, thus ensuring my continued overextension for a long time to come!
With such an awesome ruler, I was certain glory would be mine!!!
I got a border with a 2pm Hindu country in India and 3 months later, annexed them to celebrate my upcomming 3-5-3 King.
Mmkay. Eventaully, I found the 22k main Portugese army in Africa! I transported 15k over and in 3 fights, wiped out the last of them, knocking his force strength down to 6k. Then a fleet with troops trying to retake the Canarias was intercepted and wiped out a week later! Portugal gave me everything I wanted at that point. I didn't take the islands, knowing they'd be hard to defend.
Ha! OE > all of them. Why am I messing with a nobody like Portugal?!! Pshh, time to go for a country with some meat on their bones!
Prussia had good troops. They always fought better than their Spussian friends, so I decided to hit them next! I moved tons of armies up to the border areas I was going to invade and then I started a huge war where I actually had a very big troop disadvantage because so much of my army was elsewhere.
Here was the statistical breakdown:
You can see there that Muscowy declared war almost instantly in a seperate war. OE response: Good. Die.
Yemen declared the next day. OE reply: Be patient. We'll kill you when it's your turn.
Those were both secondary to the 'big' war that had a battlefront that stretched from Spain to Novgorod. The English would attack from the sea all over the Med, mostly in Italy.
I had a big troop advantage vs Castille and England because of sliders and 2 levels of tech. Prussian troops were about equal, except that they sucked because they were them. English naval forces were much superior, and the navy of Castille was mostly light ships so not nearly as dangerous.
With the other two alliances that also were fighting me, the global party map looked like this:
Straight away, I engaged and sank the bulk of the Spussian fleet. I was reserved with my land forces, waiting to see where the enemy would deploy troops first before deciding on a strategic push for the war.
I did send about 30k to pummel the snot out of Muscowy, and they did just that.
Several more 'allies' were called into the three wars, but mostly chumps not worth noting other than to say they died too.
The English were not well possitioned at the start of the war and their navy was devided. I handed them several losses on the seas, putting a small but noticable dent in their naval uberness.
The scale of this war required turning speed down to 2, with fights breaking out everywhere from Bahir India to the newly taken Portugese provinces. There was much killing all over the place!
As fast as my armies made it to Muscowy territory, they assaulted while the other war was going on all around this minor war.
I gave the Russians peace for land, taking only two provinces since I didn't want to spend too much BB there yet. Those Russian provinces with their crazy manpower would be needed later, but for now I wanted to move more towards the heart of the HRE.
The body count was incredible for such a short amount of time! I think somewhere around 50k worth of enemy stacks were wiped in Iberia, not counting reinforcements that rebuilt those stacks between fights.
In the East, it was even more dramatic. A 34K Spussian army was knocked down to about 13k in retreat, came back at about 28k later and got wiped. About 60k Prussian forces were also destroyed, and several other stacks were driven back with heavy losses.
OE forces also suffered, but as much from attrition as from actual combat. All of that was in just a few months!
The war started to turn dramatically in my favor, with the English taking heavy NAVAL losses in the Med and everyone else taking losses everywhere else.
Then someone decided to crash my awesome party. An uninvited guest showed up, but you know the OE way to party; We always have room for more!
My mightly 10k army in Hungary at that moment was the only thing on the border when 65k Bohemians drove across it. I was -just- making a serious push into Prussia and then suddenly had to withdraw much of my force to move South.
There were now several nations sending small naval forces against me all over the Med. My Navy and Marine stack could handle any of them, but collectievly, it was becoming hard to manage so many fights on so many fronts.
I made peace with Prussia, taking only one province. The cost of those Polish provinces was very high, and I'd need to capture over half their country to get enough warscore for a second good province.
I then made peace with Castille, taking no land, but forcing them to break alliances, give up cores, and give me money.
I continued to maintain a holding pattern with Yemen, just not ready to divert enough attention there yet.
My armies moved into possition to start a push against Bohemia. This war was about to get bloody! Their inital drive had been followed up with another 20k or so of rapidly build mercs. My own forces drove in, crushing several Bohemian armies and driving them back.
I wasn't sure why, but my troops definitely had an edge despite tech, ideas, and generals being very equal. All I could think of was sliders being in my favor, but whatever the reason, his troops cracked and retreated from my forces. He lost over half of his army before I even really got started!
I drove in hard with huge stacks all converging like a landslide that completely crushed his armies. My forces spilled right over into Bohemia and started assaulting!
The OE drive was stopped cold by the level 2 forts! My armies depleted almost every drop of infantry blood trying to capture territory, but I got very little to show for it except for building WE. With winter came devistating attrition for my siege forces, and my WE jumped up to over 11!
In the South I was now beating up on Yemen, and rebels were starting to go crazy with my higher WE. Yemen used a CB that would make taking territory too expensive (they had a core on me), so I took their money, made them give up cores and alliances.
Eventually, I was forced to make peace in Bohemia. My assaults had pittered out, and he'd built new stacks that were reaching dangerous strength again. I sent a force to hunt his armies down, and made a last asssault attempt with reinforcements before making peace and taking 2 very nice provinces.
So the decade ended with lots of RR and revolts all over. Here's a map of OE showing recent gains and revolt risk, the worse of which was about 22, not so bad compaired to earlier I guess.