I had a go myself. One botched run where I was lazy, then I decided to try (difference being micromanagement of improve relations to make the alliance faster, before the Ottos target you, which can discourage them). Improve with Aragon (rivals Venice in both starts, you rival Venice too) and Poland (or if no statesman, whoever you can get). Build galleys. Screw all the other strategies, just load the heck up on galleys. Way over force limit. Re roll admirals until you get a good one.
The second the Ottomans get distracted in a war on the other side of the straits, you take advantage. They don't get easy military access through all the garbage now. But they have tons of galleys! Yes, the trick is similar to what I did last patch too, only this trick is more important now: you hammer a separated Ottoman fleet with no admiral when you declare, and you sink it before they can react, then you go block the strait. The rest is as you expect, except due to Greek culture you will occasionally get a province defection to you or a core on some Orthodox province, doesn't matter. Run up the war score and take nearly 100%.
After releasing Bulgaria, went ahead and vassaled a grown Serbia, this caused a coalition of course. I then broke truce on Ottomans and took more, only the other Beyliks care much now because the derps are no longer in the "Turko-Semetic" group, so I have like 200+ AE with Ottos, 120+ with Beyliks, and 0 with Mamluks by the time I stopped playing.
The reason I broke truce is that I saw a nice, morale shattered stack while Ottos were fighting the other Beyliks:
During that war Venice declared coalition, bringing in the Beyliks too. Venice had 44 galleys, but again I just caught out one of their 22 fleets and sunk it, and after that I had more galleys so a winner is me. I had a claim on Crete already because I'm a good person, so I just took that and Corfu back (apparently, Mamluks won Cyprus war and freed Naxos, so they're next though Austria is DotF and will protect). I had NF on military and opened quantity so had good manpower, solid #cavalry and current miltech with an OK general, mopped Venice like nothing.
This is where I stopped after getting tired of 1.8's performance crawl, allied with France + Aragon (Poland dishonored when Venice declared). An alliance with France and no true threat in Anatolia means this one is somewhat wrapped up. Next steps were I to care would be to take some of the Beyliks I released in peace, and sequentially hammer the Beyliks + Otto to get Turkish accepted, convert the Turkish stuff with PA + eventual inquisitor, then work in multiple directions. I've done enough BYZ though, only the opening is a puzzle.
I didn't call anybody to help in the wars, all that matters is catching that fleet out.
And yes, none of this matters to OP point, just sharing if you care to play a targeted nation that's been overnerfed and the 1444 cores break the game's own rules ^_^.
edit: First war can be done much faster. I was experimenting with rebels. I was NOT getting greek patriot chance in greek provinces. Why? I had cores on those. Instead it was saying Orthodox zealots, which no longer defect. That seems pretty fishy. Bulgarian nationalists did proc though.
