So I bought EU4 a long time ago because it was on sale and now that I am stuck at home and have nothing to do I decided to finally start playing it. I picked Ottomans because the youtube tutorials I watched all said they were a good choice for a first time campaign. Everything went pretty well for the first 25 years; I ate Byzantium, Epirus, Candar, Karaman, and Serbia without any real trouble. I was getting set to finish off Dulkadir who I have some claims on but then I noticed I had a claim on a Hungarian province that was about to expire so I checked their allies, didn't see anything to worry about (I'm the number 3 power in the world at this point so there's not much I need to be scared of) and declared war. About 3 months in, Castile, one of two countries in the world that rank higher than me, shows up with about 40,000 men and kicks my ass. Turns out Castile is defender of the faith, which I'd never heard of but I looked into it and as far as I can tell, that means if a non-Catholic country declares war on a Catholic country, Castile intervenes automatically (correct me if this is wrong). I reload an old save (no ironman b/c first campaign) and decide to let my claims in Hungary lapse and attack Albania instead because my dumb ass thinks they're Orthodox. Nope, they're Catholic, and once again my entire army is limping back to Constantinople as Castile sieges down all my European provinces. I don't want to go back and attack Dulkadir because it turns out they're allied with Mamluks, and I don't really feel like fighting Mamluks at the moment. I check who else I have claims on and I decide to annex some random Greek islands that belong to Genoa, thinking that I can occupy them in a couple weeks and take them in a peace deal before Castile arrives to wreck my shit. I take Genoa's islands, take over their territories in Crimea for good measure, and beat up their navy which is about a third the size of mine and a lot less advanced. I rack up about 25 warscore, which should be enough to annex the islands but the "relative strength of alliance" factor means that as long as Castile is on Genoa's side, they will essentially never surrender; they won't even take a white peace. Basically all my expansion in Europe is on permanent moratorium because every country I could possibly expand into is being baby-sat by Castile (the only non-Catholic countries in the Balkans are Serbia, which I already conquered, and Wallachia, which I'm reluctant to attack because I know Hungary has claims on it and I don't need to give them a reason to attack me). So my question is, is there any way to fight a Catholic country without a DotF intervention? Is there some special CB I can use? If I somehow got a truce with Castile (which is itself a long shot since any war I get into with Castile basically doesn't end until I cease to exist) and then declared war on another Catholic country before the truce expired, would that keep Castile out of the war? Alternately, is there some diplomatic trickery I can pull off so that Castile loses DotF status? The only option that really comes to mind at the moment is converting to Catholicism, and since all my provinces are currently either Sunni or Orthodox I suspect that would be more trouble than it's worth.
Any way to circumvent defender of the faith?
- Thread starter whomst among us
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TL;DR Castile is DotF and fucks me up whenever I war a Catholic country; is there a way around this?
Yes, there is dozen way to do it.
- Ally Castile, call them, then declare another war. They cannot come against you.
- Wait Castile is at war. Declare war against one of their ennemy. They cannot be allied and at war with one nation.
- Wait Castile is at war. Help the ennemy (give money, send troups, spy). They will not come in a second war if they are in a bad shape.
- Declare war on a no-catholic nation and allied with a catholic. You can eat the catholic.
- Rival Castille, take humiliation war against them, beat them. Low prestige often lead to lost DOTF. Hope no DOTF after or a small one.
- Take 2 military idea group. Stack bonus for troup (quality and offensive for example). You will easly win againt the DOTF.
- Ally Castile, call them, then declare another war. They cannot come against you.
- Wait Castile is at war. Declare war against one of their ennemy. They cannot be allied and at war with one nation.
- Wait Castile is at war. Help the ennemy (give money, send troups, spy). They will not come in a second war if they are in a bad shape.
- Declare war on a no-catholic nation and allied with a catholic. You can eat the catholic.
- Rival Castille, take humiliation war against them, beat them. Low prestige often lead to lost DOTF. Hope no DOTF after or a small one.
- Take 2 military idea group. Stack bonus for troup (quality and offensive for example). You will easly win againt the DOTF.
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Pavel's right, however, if the defender of the faith loses a war (any war), they lose their defender status. So watch to see if Castile is losing a war (and maybe help). Any loss will strip them of their status.
A few related suggestions:
- Check the religious mapmode when looking for war targets so you know which religion you're moving against. (You may know this already, but you're new so I'm mentioning it)
- When you rival Castile, ally any (strong) country who is also rivalling Castile. France is very useful here. Countries with the same rival often like allying each other, and France is powerful. Eventually, they may help you in an offensive war.
- Make sure Castille is a 'Country of Special Interest': open up the province view of a single Castile province (not at state) right click the big shield with Castile's emblem. The star that drops down should be yellow, but if it's dark click on it. Castile will now be a 'Country of Special interest' and you will get notifications in your bottom-right notification box(above the world map) when they win/lose wars.
- Check the size and quality of your respective armies/fleets in the ledger (bottom-right button below the world map). Know your comparative strengths.
What you can do is attack a Catholic minor nation, then peace out for a slight victory before Castile can respond. This can be a risky strategy, and if Castile controls Naples, it might not be possible to pull off.
What you do is carpet siege down the target as fast as possible and naval blockade it. If Castile has a heavy ship based navy, you should be able to get navy supremacy within the Mediterranean, and even blockade Castile itself in the Mediterranean. You will need 10% warscore to get any concessions, and the primary defender's war enthusiasm needs to be at 2 less than the warscore. Focus on lowering the primary target's war enthusiasm by focusing on attacking it's troops and navy and sieging down it.
Also, if you declare war on Castile's Catholic rival, it will generally not answer the call to arms, which will remove its DoF status. But, Castile's rivals will probably be of similar size, so this may or may not be helpful.
What you do is carpet siege down the target as fast as possible and naval blockade it. If Castile has a heavy ship based navy, you should be able to get navy supremacy within the Mediterranean, and even blockade Castile itself in the Mediterranean. You will need 10% warscore to get any concessions, and the primary defender's war enthusiasm needs to be at 2 less than the warscore. Focus on lowering the primary target's war enthusiasm by focusing on attacking it's troops and navy and sieging down it.
Also, if you declare war on Castile's Catholic rival, it will generally not answer the call to arms, which will remove its DoF status. But, Castile's rivals will probably be of similar size, so this may or may not be helpful.