Alliance Leader Prestige

[Rich Oliver]

So playing as Prussia I like to get an acquire state casus on Austria, a humiliate on Parma and then declare war on Parma. When I peace out, does it effect Austria's prestige, whether I enforce the humiliate Parma war goal? I'm not bothered that about the prestige hit for Prussia and I certainly couldn't care less about Parma's prestige level. I like to do a similar trick with Papal States and France.

I presume the big prestige hits for Austria are early in the war when they've got a lot of troops to kill, so peaceing out as quickly as possible makes sense.

 

[Lemony Nelson]

Are you trying to grab a state from Austria by declaring a war against their ally Parma?

 

[Rich Oliver]

Yes. I want to attack Austria, but not the whole array of its allies. In the Wiki it suggests that AI allies may bring in their own allies to a war, but I have hardly ever (if ever) seen that happen. So my concern is to maximise Austrian prestige loss, in order to knock them out of Great power status. I sometimes do a similar thing with France: get an acquire state casus on France. Get a humiliate casus on one of its sphere /allies and then declare war on the ally to avoid fighting all of France's allies, particularly Russia.

So I've been trying to check the prestige gain/ loss for an alliance leader, when an alliance leader signs a peace deal in which it has no war goals of its own. Generally there seems to be no prestige loss / gain as defender for fulfilment or non fulfilment of the attackers war goals. (unless its a humiliate directed at that specific nation).

 

[Lemony Nelson]

I assume that the Austria in your game is teetering on the edge of becoming a SP. If you want to knock them out of their slot I think it would be better to try to kill off their entire army and mobilized reserves and occupy all their industrial states instead of trying to kneecap their prestige.

Of course, that is going to take a bit longer than a few quick battles. Are you planning to take a state from Austria while you're at it?

 

[Rich Oliver]

The purpose of the early take down of Austria as Prussia is to save the 100 diplo points on sphereing Saxony and get Bavaria, Wurtemburg and Baden into your sphere early, again saving 100 diplo points on each sphering. As well as adding military force, any annexations they make come infamy free when you create the German empire. Even if Austria bounces back to GP status, these are still enormous benefits. The problem with this strategy is the Netherlands.

The Netherlands frequently attacks and annexes Belgium but gets its prestige cratered by Britain in the process. This means that in the early game even if you take Austrian industry and military down to 0, there's no civilised power that can take its place.

My latest opener for Prussia is acquire state on Papal States, acquire state on France, while getting Switzerland up to friendly status, then declare war on Papal States. I ally early with Sardinia, to stop it allying with Papal states, but don't call it as its already in France's sphere by the time I've got the two acquire states casus belis. Switzerland, Sicily, Sweden and Denmark can all be brought into the war. I add Franche Comte, as Alsace Lorraine can be picked up infamy free later, by a German minor ally or with Nationalism and Imperialism. Normandy is also an interesting option for the first state to take from France, but it may take a long time to link it up with the rest of the empire.