Advice - is now a good time to start trouble?

[unmerged(176109)]

I am new to Eu3 but am enjoying my first serious attempt at glory. I am playing Castille and have an itch to go to war with Portugal and / or Aragon. I have the border friction CB against Portugal and my relations with them are in the tank despite a royal marriage and military access (both ways) We were once in an alliance, but they broke that off. Aragon has the attack Castille mission.

My dilemma is this. Although my military is bigger than both Portugal and Aragon combined, Portugal and Aragon are allied and Portugal has an alliance with England. There is no way I could handle all three. My only significant ally is Milan However England's king was just excommunicated. I was hoping to use the CB to attack Portugal, have Aragon drawn in, then I would focus on doing a land grab on Aragon before peace broke out.

Will other countries attack England because of the excommunication - thus keeping their attention away from me?

My other thought is to go after Aragon despite not having a CB - looking to move closer to achieving the 'create Spain' event and hoping Portugal does not join in. If Portugal honors their alliance, will England get an alliance CB?

I thought about creating a save point and seeing how it goes and reloading if it does not go well, but that is not my style.

Lastly, its still early in the game, 1419, and I have taken the 3 Muslim provinces to the south of Castile.

Thanks for your advice
Joe

 

[brifbates]

I am new to Eu3 but am enjoying my first serious attempt at glory. I am playing Castille and have an itch to go to war with Portugal and / or Aragon. I have the border friction CB against Portugal and my relations with them are in the tank despite a royal marriage and military access (both ways) We were once in an alliance, but they broke that off. Aragon has the attack Castille mission.

My dilemma is this. Although my military is bigger than both Portugal and Aragon combined, Portugal and Aragon are allied and Portugal has an alliance with England. There is no way I could handle all three. My only significant ally is Milan However England's king was just excommunicated. I was hoping to use the CB to attack Portugal, have Aragon drawn in, then I would focus on doing a land grab on Aragon before peace broke out.

Will other countries attack England because of the excommunication - thus keeping their attention away from me?

Potentially, although their relative strength will deter many nations. However, depending on how things have gone thus far, there is a fair probability they will end up at war with France and/or Burgundy regarding their continental claims or by going after Scotland.

My other thought is to go after Aragon despite not having a CB - looking to move closer to achieving the 'create Spain' event and hoping Portugal does not join in. If Portugal honors their alliance, will England get an alliance CB?

Yes they will. It is also generally not the best idea to declare no-CB wars; far better to manufacture a CB in most cases. This is particularly true when the goal is a land grab: 2 infamy+4/province adds up pretty quickly, especially if your monarch is a diplomatic disaster. Keep an eye on their legitimacy and heir status for an easy claim on throne/obscure documents CB, get a border friction/claims on rivals event, etc.

I thought about creating a save point and seeing how it goes and reloading if it does not go well, but that is not my style.

Lastly, its still early in the game, 1419, and I have taken the 3 Muslim provinces to the south of Castile.

Thanks for your advice
Joe

When first learning the game I did a fair amount of save/try something/reload just to see how things worked. I'm sure most others here did the same. It takes a while to figure out how the si is going to respond to certain situations, how well your strategies work, how much of a firepower gap you can beat, etc so I don't see any real shame in it. Your best course at this point might be to take the time and wait for a good CB on Aragon while working on integrating your new holdings fully (convert them, get cores if you didn't already). You might also try for an alliance with France although that does have some potential drawbacks.

 

[cuendillar]

England and France are usually at each other's throats early on. England most likely won't honour the Portuguese call for aid, nor declare on you, if they're preoccupied with France. They almost never join if their war exhaustion is over 6 or so, which shouldn't take too long if they fight France.

I'd say attack Portugal when England and France are busy with each other, especially as Portugal might have sent part of its army into France proper too. The best way to deal with Aragon is to wait until they have a legitimacy below 50% (can be checked in the ledger) and then fabricate a claim to their throne with a spy.

 

[Dathon]

Even when you DoW Portugal and both Aragon and England joins the war against you, you will have some time to wipe out the armies of both Aragon and Portugal before England will have landed enough troops to be a potential thread. What you can do after you have destroyed these armies is detatching siegetroops and maintain 1 or 2 bigger armies that can take out any troops England will drop on you.

As you stated it's still early in the game, so the navy of England will pose no thread as they can't blockade provinces yet. The only point of concern/advantage is the province of Balearis (or whatever it's called), taking it will be problematic if England's navy is the area, but once you taken that one, it's highly likely that England will drop small armies there to wrest it out of your control and using small fleets to get the troops there. These small fleets are perfectly for you to lower the size of Englands fleet and potentially increase your own.

So, in short...DoW Portugal and see what happens, imo the worst case scenario is that you will have to make a white peace, in the best you vasalize both Aragon and Portugal (althou the score will most likely to high to do so), but the changes are high that you will beat the crap out of them.

 

[Viperswhip]

England's only true strength is their fleet. You cannot hope to match it. If England presents a major problem by landing troops, you might consider allying with Scottland. They will White Peace with you pretty quickly if they lose a few armies to you. Just have troops stationed in the mountain regions, otherwise you could get screwed if their generals have higher maneuverability than you.

Also, don't just declare war on Portugal, declare war on Aragon (send the diplos off the same day). That way you can peace out of the junior and still gobble up the senior.

 

[unmerged(176109)]

Thanks for the responses. It certainly gave me something to think about. In the end I decided to press my CB against Portugal, defend against a possible involvement by Aragon and hope that I made enough progress to be ready for peace by the time England decided to do something about it. That was my plan, but it did not turn out that way!

My thoughts leading up to the outset of war:

Trying to get France on my side was not an option. I tried to claim France's throne a few years back and it flopped. Their king passed before my relations were high enough to inherit them. I was not going to try a military claim. Needless to say there are not happy with me.

England was having their way in their area. All of Ireland save Ulster belonged to England and Scotland was divided with all the Scottish provinces belonging to England except Fife, Aberdeen and the Western Isles. The Scots would not be of much help.

I had a vassal in Sardinia - that was a byproduct of my failed incursion into Naples from the 'Italy conquest' mission. I also had a personal union with Brittany which was a result of an alliance CB when I was allied with Portugal and they were at war with them. For some reason they were not fighting, just at war. So I invaded. I was hoping to use Brittany as some sacrificial land or a diversion once I decided to dabble in altering boundaries further inland

So I moved about 3/4 of my troops to the border with Portugal, I was planning on hitting 4 provinces at once. The rest of my troops remained in my capital Toledo just in case Aragon decided to intervene there. I kept my navies in the Straight of Gibraltar and off the coast of Lisboa. It would be foolish to put them in the way of England I thought. I decided to wait to build 4 more regiments, which took me over the land force cap by 4 but felt I would lose enough in the assault to quickly get me back to the cap and not lose much in maintenance costs.

As my regiments were assembling, Almeria converted to Catholicism but I noticed my conversion chances in Grenada and Gibraltar drop by about 2% - interesting. To my delight Armagnac took the 2 English provinces on the continent. Just as my new regiments morale was restored to full, my king died. A regency council took over my government, I lost the personal union and had to disband my newly formed regiments to avoid extra troop costs. I can't declare war and my heir is only 11 years old. My 'border friction' CB is about to expire. When does he 'come of age?'

I think I like this game, a lot.

 

[brifbates]

As my regiments were assembling, Almeria converted to Catholicism but I noticed my conversion chances in Grenada and Gibraltar drop by about 2% - interesting. To my delight Armagnac took the 2 English provinces on the continent. Just as my new regiments morale was restored to full, my king died. A regency council took over my government, I lost the personal union and had to disband my newly formed regiments to avoid extra troop costs. I can't declare war and my heir is only 11 years old. My 'border friction' CB is about to expire. When does he 'come of age?'

I think I like this game, a lot.

Part of the conversion chance equation is revolt risk. My guess is you moved armies that had been in those provinces countering the expected rebellions. Moving those troops out increased the revolt risk which decreased the conversion chance.

Your heir takes over on their 16th birthday, but you have to watch closely to figure out exactly when that is (or take notes when they are born).

In case you don't know, personal unions end if your ruler dies and the two nations don't have positive relations OR the senior nation doesn't have positive prestige. It is generally fairly easy to avoid have happening in most cases.

 

[unmerged(176109)]

Part of the conversion chance equation is revolt risk. My guess is you moved armies that had been in those provinces countering the expected rebellions. Moving those troops out increased the revolt risk which decreased the conversion chance.

I think that must be the case as I moved those armies to the border with Portugal. I moved them all before that one province converted but did not pay attention to the conversion chance just after I did it - it was something I noticed after I checked the other provinces after the conversion.
Thanks

 

[amirberner]

Part of the conversion chance equation is revolt risk. My guess is you moved armies that had been in those provinces countering the expected rebellions. Moving those troops out increased the revolt risk which decreased the conversion chance.

Your heir takes over on their 16th birthday, but you have to watch closely to figure out exactly when that is (or take notes when they are born).

In case you don't know, personal unions end if your ruler dies and the two nations don't have positive relations OR the senior nation doesn't have positive prestige. It is generally fairly easy to avoid have happening in most cases.

I believe it is 15, not 16. and you need to take notes only if you want to know the exact month the regency will end, otherwise, when you see your heir is 14 years old you know the time is coming...