Balance of Power : Austria 1.25 AAR

[mackwolfe]

The balance of power is an old concept, dating back to Thucidydes. England and Austria were the European powers that espoused it the most as an explicit foreign policy. EU4 models it by having a Great Power designation and allowing the GPs to intervene in wars to keep the balance . In practice, this seldom works, and a few runaway powers end up dominating the scene.

In this run, I will play as Austria with the express purpose of maintaining the balance of power between the European nations. I will use the GP table to define power balance as follows:

Power is balanced if the rating of the #1 European power is no larger than 150% of the 6th ranked European Great Power.

In other words, if the 6th ranked power has 500 Dev, the top European power cannot be more than 750 Dev.

At the beginning of each decade , I will take a screenshot of GP table and see if power is balanced or not. If balanced I will give myself +1 score, and if not balanced, a 0 . At the end of the run, I will tally the total. Since the game runs for 377 years, the maximum balance score is 38 - assuming I play all the way through.

A few notes about the rule:
1) this refers to European powers only, defined as nations whose capital is in Europe. This means Ming , Mamluks , Timurids, Persia etc do not count. Ottomans and Muscovy are included of course. I thought hard about this and the reasoning behind it is that ROTW nations will often leap onto and drop out of the table all of sudden due to institution adoption and will mess up the table. Also, they historically did not matter much for the European diplomatic game and given I will be playing as Austria, getting to affect those nations will be hard.

2) I picked the 6th ranked power for the ratio after careful thought. I did not pick last (i.e 7th since Ming takes one spot), because of ROTW countries occasionally making their way on the table and suddenly changing the bottom of the rankings. In other words, there are sometimes only 6 European GPs on the table. Also, maintaining 7 European powers in equal power may well be impossible.
I did not pick 5th power because that may be too easy . Among the top GPs will probably be Ottomans, Russia, France and the Player . Propping up one more is not that hard. Propping up 2 more is much more challenging.

3) I am torn about whether to allow the human player to be ranked 1st or expressly prohibit that. In any case, the human player still counts in the table and cannot be more than 50% larger than the 6th ranked power.

If things play out as I anticipate, I will spend a lot of time trying to keep Ottomans, France and Russia under control. And will need to prop up the 5th and 6th power to balance things out.

I chose Austria based on a suggestion from @atwix in another thread. And because they are the diplomatic power par excellence in eu4. And being HRE will one to punch above their Dev weight.

 

[mackwolfe]

1444-1450: Lucky Austria

I will start with the settings screen:

For the first time in an AAR, I will play on very hard setting . THis will make the AI more powerful and make the run more challenging. Although it may also help me since I plan on playing AI's against each other.
A quick survey of AUstria's ideas shows it is geated to diplomacy and defense, and not outright blobbing. Again , a good fit for this run.

My opening strategy basically follows @remanemporor video on Austria

Although things may have changed with the missions system ( particularly, there is now a guaranteed mission to PU Hungary), I think most of the video still applies.

My first move is to milk the estates for points, so as to develop the gold mine in Tirol and put our finances on a good footing:

Now to boost the influence and loyalty of the estates, I grant them provinces, to the point that all my provinces except the capital and Tirol are actually assigned to an estate. I specifically avoid using the "Convene Diet" , "Grant Charters" and "Seek Support" interactions because these cost -5 prestige each. And to claim thrones , you need to have more prestige than your target . Which brings us to the diplomatic game.

My top priority at start is to get the PU on Bohemia. Bohemia starts in interregnum, and by marrying them, there is a chance a blessed Hapsburg will get on their throne. And Lo and behold this happens almost immediately ( 1st month):

(screenshot of Hapsburg on Bohemian throne , England already at war with France before Dec 11 rolled around!)

I quickly look for allies to help me with upcoming Bohemian war, and enlist the help of Saxony . I then claim throne on Bohemia and without further ado, declare war:

This is certainly a different tempo from my most recent Pacifica AAR.

Bohemia was allied to two minors, and my plan was to knock them out first, letting the Bohemians siege my forts in the meantime. I did not recruit to my force limit ( which was 51 at the time, thanks to being HRE ) because of money . So I start the war outnumbered. But I soon capture Wurttemberg's capital and kick them out for money and prestige:

I then move my stack to Luneburg. This when I get one of the luckiest events in the early game, the "Foreign Military Expert" event.

(screeshot showing hiring of a great general via event, first stackwipe, fall of Wien to enemy)

I get a certain Albrecth Schruder ( not very foreign sounding if you ask me!), but with a god-like 5/5/5/3 stat. Talk about lucky Austria. He proceeds to stackwipe enemy stacks with ease, turning war score in our favor despite the loss of Wien to the enemy.

Things get mildly complicated soon after, when my ally Saxony sends me a defensive CTA as a result of a succession war against Brunswick:

After waiting on the CTA a month, and realizing that Saxony had Brandenburg on their side already, I agree to join them. Brunswick was too weak to affect my own war with Bohemia. And eventually, Brunswick loses the war and coughs up 2 provinces to Saxony.

As for the war with Bohemia, my god general manages stackwipe victories a few times, and then directs the siege of Prague. Once the enemy capital falls, we have enough warscore to enforce the union:

(peace giving Austria a PU over Bohemia - Silesia remains a vassal of Bohemia)
I immediately start to improve relations with Bohemia, whose liberty desire was 95% after the peace. But this quickly goes down to about 70 .
Because I gave nothing in the peace to Saxony, they soon break the alliance with me. I retaliate by demanding return of Unlwaful Territory from them.

With my first immediate aim achieved, I take my first serious look at Europe and the current balance of Power:

Things are fairly balanced still. Top ranked France at 347 is only 10% larger than bottom ranked Muscovy ( although they are 5th ranked european GP, with TImurids popping up to displace 6th place Castile at 243).

Now I debate whether to attack Venice or not. They are tied up with Ottomans and I have set them as rivals. But if I back stab-them now, I would be helping Ottomans who are potentially the biggest threat to the balance of power. So, for now, I am holding back. And as the new decade starts, things are pretty stable . I will post that screenshot to calculate the "balance of power" score, but otherwise it is pretty close to the last one:

So the first chapter ends with a "win" on the balance score. But I anticipate that France will grow once they annex some land from England, who may drop down to last place. Poland and Ottomans will both likely grow. If I manage to pass Castile myself , I would be the 6th ranked power and may be able to keep things balanced that way. Unless Castile gets the Wedding , in which case they will leapfrog both Austria and England.

 

[mackwolfe]

1450-1460: Joining The Club

I left off having secured a PU over Bohemia. I was watching the Ottoman-Venetian war over Albania with interest, not wanting to interrupt the Venetians while they fought my future nemesis. But just two months into the new chapter, Venice makes a whitepeace with Ottomans leaving Albania alone. I take this as my signal to attack them, and I hurry up when I see Lucca join their trade league:

Strategy for the war is simple. I park my army with my god-general on Treviso and dare them to attack it:

Meanwhile Albania gets annexed by Ottomans, and France finishes its war with England pushing the latter down to 273 Dev, and getting themselves up to 407 ( ratio: 1.49) . After sieging Treviso for 260 days, it surrenders to general Shruder. I then turn my attention to chasing Venice's minions who had busied themselves attacking Bohemia and Silesia:

So , it turns out Bohemia was a huge help despite them being disloyal, because they sucked up the brunt of the enemy attacks. I manage to stackwipe the enemy allies one by one , and I siege Dithmarschen and eventually capture it:

(screenshot of Dithmarschen army getting stackwiped before we lay siege to their city- inset shows PLC annexing TO land)
I then do the same to Lucca:

(fall of Lucca, inset shows Castile annexing Granada)

I avoid making separate peace treaties with the enemy minors, so as to keep my warscore with Venice high. Once Dalmatia , their last mainland fort is taken, I make peace with them :

I take the rich province of Verona, along with Treviso and its fort ,and Istria to complete my state of Carniola . Anything more would have triggered a coalition. And I get enough money to cover my 4 loans I took during the war. A good result. And I owe a lof of the success to my Bohemia junior partner, who became loyal at the end and helped capture Dalmatia for me (as an aside, Silesia helped with the fighting from the start - they were loyal to their overlord and so ventured out of their land to attack the enemy)

The immediate effect of annexing this much land is the completion of the "Decline of Hungary" mission:

This gives a Restoration of Union CB on Hungary .

I initially decide to wait on enforcing the CB, since I had till 1465. I was hoping to get Poland to help with the fight. But I only had 4 favors with them, and would reach 10 favors in 1460 or so. I did not want to wait and possibly lose my god general by then . Also, PLC is unreliable for offensive wars as they often get into debt from fighting TO ( I know that from a recent Novgorod run when they abandoned me ). So when I find Milan willing to help, I decide to declare while general Schruder was still in good health:

(DOW on Hungary for PU)
Hungary had a good size army (~ 40K) and some good allies. Strategy for the war was to let my minions Bohemia and Silesia , together with my ally Milan, absorb Hungary's attacks, while I go straight for their heart with my awesome general .

(Schruder wreaks havoc in the Hungarian plain)
Having a 3 star general at this stage is really a game changer. Few RNG events rank that high on the makes-a-difference scale.
After stackwiping enough Hungarian troops, I manage to spare enough to siege down Pest and capture it:

(fall of enemy capital , inset shows Ottomans annexing Byzantium)
By 1457 , the enemy resistance crumbles as they run out of troops and I start to carpet siege. I also get a CTA offer from my ally Brandenburg and I call them in to help speed things up:

(Brandenburg joins the fight to give the coup de grace , inset shows France annexing Brittany and jumping to 466 Dev)

A year later, I capture Ragusa who I decide to vassalize in a separate peace ( they are more useful as a naval vassal than directly annexing, also a direct annexation risked too much aggressive expansion and an early coalition - but vassalizing costs an extra relations slot) . And soon after, Hungary itself agrees to the personal union:

And apparently Serbia had declared war on Hungary earlier, and I find myself now in a defensive war with the Serbs. This is a quick fight as the small country cannot fight the combined forces of HUngary+Austria+Bohemia+Silesia+Ragusa:

(war with Serbia, as we are promoted to Great Power Status , inset shows Castile annexing a good chunk of Aragon)

Serbia is overrun in a few months, and I wait till January 1649 to annex them, to avoid a big coalition:

The annexation of Serbia upsets many neighbors, but is totally worth it as it cuts off Bosnia from the Ottomans, and gives me a nice defensible frontier.

And this would be the last major action of this chapter. Time to calculate the balance score. France had grown a lot, and are now over 50% larger than England. But thanks to Austria entering the club of the Great Powers, the top 6 powers are balanced. But barely

(calculation of the Balance score. Muscovy is 6th ranked from ledger, and adding 1/2 its vassals development will put it just above the threshold needed) Cumulative balance score so far is : 2 of 2 .
Biggest threat right now is France who is one Burgundian inheritance or English war away from breaking the limit, unless England or Russia pick up the slack.
I will close with my diplomatic map.

I had allied and married too many countries in order to ensure I get elector support and get part of the Burgundian inheritance. This is putting a drain on my DIP generation as I am 4 over the limit. I will need to switch focus to DIP as soon as I unlock the first idea slot, which is most likely going to be Diplomatic Ideas.

 

[mackwolfe]

1460-1470: Punishing Agression

Fresh from establishing rightful Hapsburg control over Hungary, the HRE flexes its new muscles and forces Munster and Hesse to return unlawful territory, and they do:

It is nice to have your orders followed . And to prove I am serious about this empire business, I take action when Trier insolently refuses to return Nassau:

(DOW on Trier and friends, inset shows Diplomatic ideas taken with innovativeness bonus)

On Trier's side were several german minros. On ours was Poland and Lithuania. So no contest. The war does trigger a small coalition led by Florence, but I ignore the puny Italians knowing I had a big alliance block to protect me.

Strategy for the war was to peace out the enemy one by one , and finish with Trier. I start with Munster, who is quickly occupied and forced to release Cleves as an independent prince, and cede Groningen to us:

(peace with Munster , insets show coalition started by Florence, England and Ottomans consolidating their backyards)

I chose to annex Groningen ( instead of releasing Frisia) to give me a power base in the North, so that I can intervene against future Center of Reformations in the area. I then proceed to peace out Palatinate , Frankfurt and Baden for money and prestige. Finally , it is Trier's turn:

(peace with Trier, discovery of silver in Tirol, changes in Iberia leading to Castile rivaling Austria, England consolidating Ireland)
In the peace , I return Berg to Cleves and release Nassau. Cleves really loves us now, having first released them in peace, and now returned a core to them.
During the war, I had the happy event of the Schwaz silver mines , giving a big boost to my gold income. But I also get the bad news of a Castilian rivalry . What happened is Portugal beat up Morocco, who dropped as a valid rival for Castile and they picked us instead . So much for the old Austrian-Spanish alliance against France.

The release of Cleves and Nassau helps shore up imperial authority a bit . BUt this soon negated by Hesse annexing Mainz. But since Mainz was an elector, I quickly promote a grateful Cleves to their place:

(electoral college of the HRE. Succession is safe for now)

FOllowing these imperial interventions, I rest for a few years and accumulate money to Embrace the Renaissance and tech up to MIL 5. BUt my peace is rudely interrupted by a DOW from Florence, citing coalition WAR!:

(FLorence declares punitive war on Austria).
This took me by surprise, as I had several strong allies ( Poland, Milan and Brandenburg) and the coalition did not have a single Great Power. But I guess the annexation of Groningen did not go well with the other HRE princes. In hindsight, I should have checked the coalition icon when I made peace with Munster.

The next screenshot shows the two sides and the balance of forces ( about even):

I had the overall stronger side . But I was at risk of losing my smaller allies - Milan and Brandenburg - in separate peace treaties , while the enemy did not have worry about this . My first step was to neutralize Bosnia by annhilating their army in battle and then fully occupying them:

(general Schruder stackwipes the Bosnian , inset shows their capital falling 9 months later)

I then wheel my army north to defend Brandenburg who was getting overrun by enemy stacks. Plzen turns out to be my God-general's favorite battlefield:

(example of two stackwipes at Plzen - there were others)

THese skirmishes are then followed by a big battle at Straubing, a battle that starts medium and then attracts every stack in the vicinity :

My God general comes out victorious , as always ( I don't think he has lost a single battle yet!) .

The victory at Straubing gets me to within -28 of a white peace. But things go south again, as I divert my general to sieging Bavarian forts, and the enemy manages to mount a counter-offensive and defeats my allies . It is at this point that Burgundy decides to attack Liege:

(enemy counter-offensive underway when I get a CTA from Liege)

Man that CTA hurts. I kept the alert on screen for 2 months, watching how the war with Florence was going before I painfully declined, and lost -10 Imperial Authority . I really, really , wanted to answer and help Liege to gain IA. But there was no hope of reaching Liege at this moment, and I feared that a single Burgundian stack could tip the war in Florence's favor.
Fearing another external event like this ( an Ottoman attack on Hungary, for example), I hurry up the war with Florence and decide to take the war to their homeland. Once I captured Landshut in Bavaria, I use general Schruder to wipe out some stacks in Plzen area again, then head south to relieve Milan:

ONce the siege of Milan is lifted, it is onwards to Florence which is sieged by the God-general himself ( he has +3 siege pip) . Florence falls after 229 days:

(fall of Firenze , inset shows Burgundy annexing Liege)

But despite the loss of their capital, the Florentines would not agree to peace. It takes the capture of Ferrara, the carpet occupation of Papal States and Tuscany, the siege of Rome and another victory at Plzen to convince them of the error of their ways:

Finally, Florence takes a white peace.

I did debate at this point whether to continue the war and gain territory. In particular , I was eyeing either Ferrara ( estuary for trade in Venice node), or Papal state provinces ( to prevent Shadow Kingdom event). But I did not want to risk the coalition returning soon ( I had dipped under 50AE with everyone by now). And worried that an unlucky event ( eg. death of my beloved general, or Poland quitting the war ) would make my life miserable. So I played it safe and took the peace. Was it a mistake? Feel free to give your opinion.

This was the toll of this pointless war:

In the meantime, France had gobbled up Provence. Only Burgundy and a couple of English provinces stood between the blue blob and its natural borders. Apparently this leads Burgundy to seek an alliance with us:

(Burgundy asks for alliance from Austria)

I stared at this screen for some time. I had lost the ability to ally Castile as they have rivaled me. So Burgundy would be a natural ally to contain France. BUT, and this is a big but, Burgundy was the largest drain on imperial authority at this moment. If this was a standard run, I would have declined, and hoped for a French - Burgundian war and the inheritance. But this is not a usual run, and I decide to go for the alliance to counter France. This is my diplomatic map, with the 7 Great Powers labeled:

By allying Burgundy, the chance of the Burgundian inheritance firing drops tremendously . Burgundy is unlikely to get declared on as long as I am their ally. ANd if France does indeed declare, my reading of the "Succession Crisis" event says that France and HRE cannot be at war . So this alliance may very well mean Burgundy is here to stay.

By the way, another country that may very well persist into the future are the Mamluks. I am planning on pouncing on Ottomans the moment they declare on Egypt. I wonder what Mamluks would do if they are allowed to survive.

And as you can see in the screenshot, there are really 7 great powers in Europe. Three Eastern powers ( Poland, Ottomans, Muscovy) , three Western powers ( Castile, France, England) and one Central power keeping the balance ( Austria) .

Maybe I should adjust my criterion to NOT use the institution tech modifier ( makes the run easier), but use 7 great powers instead of 6 ( makes the run harder).
By this adjusted criterion , the current ratio between first place and 7th place is : 496/333= 1.489 which is barely, just barely, balanced.

 

[mackwolfe]

1470-1480: Natural Growth

The balance of power is soon put to the test when France declares Reconquest on England for their cores. France was allied to Scotland, England to Portugal ( the usual setup as most players are aware). I start to improve relations with England, thinking to intervene in the war. But when I see the French army size in the ledger, I chicken out:

The +50% to force limit due to the "Very Hard" setting really makes a big difference. Even if I go to my force limit , which I cannot financially support, I would be outnumbered by the *current* French army. So I decide to wait a bit, let France waste some manpower on sieging English and Portuguese forts, and allow England to beat up Scotland. In the meantime, I wanted to get MIL tech 6 to have parity with France.
While I waited, 3 events conspire to permanently delay my intervention. First, my beloved general Albrecht Shruder passes away. He served for 3 chapters , in basically every single war, and won every battle. He deserves his own goodbye screenshot:

(death of the hero of Plzen )
I doubt I will see another like him in this run.
The other two delaying factors were a Styrian rebellion ( via event) and Ottomans declaring on Venice:

I had designs on Venice myself . But the Venetian navy always stood in the way. Now I could take advantage of the Ottoman navy .
But first, another distraction:

(CTA from Poland against Teutons as we unlock free war tax age ability, insets show Iberian Wedding firing, England taking a bite out of Scotland)

I get called into a war by my faithful ally Poland. THis is an alliance I want to nurture as a balance against the Ottomans ( and to protect my own back) . So I agree of course. I let my PU juniors fight on my behalf while I keep my army at the ready to pounce on Venice. And pounce I do the moment the Ottoman navy shows up:

(DOW and battle of Venice, thanks to the Ottoman navy. Inset shows integration of Ragusa)

My army makes quickwork of the Venetians and I siege them down, while my ally Milan takes their core at Brescia. Once Venice falls, I have to siege down some of their other allies before they finally give up the Jewel of the Adriatic:

(Peace with Venice )
Now I have the entire Veneto state in my hand. Coring is expensive because these are full cores, but will be worth it. At some point, I will be moving my trade capital to Venice node.

Meanwhile, France and England finish their fight, and France takes all their cores ( minus Calais) back:

(Peace between England and France, inset shows diplovassalization of East Frisia thanks to our province in Groningen)

So we now have several Great Powers experiencing some "natural" growth: Austria and Ottomans at the expense of Venice, Poland at the expense of the Teutons, Castile at the expense of Aragon and Naples, France at the expense of England, England at the expense of Scotland. That left Muscovy, who was fighting NOvogorod. But , surprisingly, the Novgorodians had snagged an Ottoman alliance and end up surviving to a white peace:

(Novgorod survives thanks to Ottoman alliance, inset shows my effort at intervening )

I had tried to intervene in that war, by declaring on Ottomans ( I have a claim on the gold mine in Kossovo), but before I could recruit a few more regiments for the war, peace happened.
I was a bit surprised at the Ottoman presence in that war. Is someone else playing "Balance of power" ?
In any case, that brings us to the end of the decade and time for the power rankings:

For the first time in the run, I do not have 7 Powers within 67% of leader. England had dropped too low after the loss of its French provinces. Nipping at England's heels is Burgundy . And , as it happens, they are actually at war over Calais. One of them will eventually be the 7th Power. Denmark is not far behind, although their Swedish minion might eventually break free.

My biggest challenge, as stnylan has mentioned several times, is France. France is allied to Savoy ( who is still in the Empire, so under my protection as well). So if France wants to grow now, they will have to go through Burgundy or Castile.

As for immediate plans , I want to improve my finances , and I am hoping for a chance to swipe Kossovo from Ottomans. Money would certainly help bail out my Hungarian junior, who is in a debt spiral:

 

[mackwolfe]

1480-1490: An Imperial Capital Falls

I will start with events in the middle east, as these affect the latter part of the chapter:

Dulkadir annexes Karaman and is the last independent turkish Beylik. Mamluks have success against Qara Qoyunlu. Ottomans lurk menacingly nearby.

Meanwhile in Europe, Burgundy beats England and takes Calais, jumping temporarily onto the Great Powers list:

(England loses to Burgundy, inset shows completion of Diplomatic idea group which allows me to break some costly royal marriages)

As for Austria, I consider several expansion wars at this time. I consider attacking the Pope, Ferrara or Bosnia:

(Ottomans annex Wallachia while Austria sits idle)
Any attack on the Pope, however, goes out the window when they conclude a Castilian alliance. No point in weakening France's southern rival. Being unable to take provinces from the Papal States means that the Shadow Kingdom event will fire and North Italy will leave the Empire. And so I decide to hold off on attacking Ferrara now. Better when they are out of the HRE and I will incur less AE that way. As for Bosnia, after some thought, I decide not to annex useless land. You see, with my rules, I do not want Austria to grow too big and put the Power rankings out of balance. With a soft limit on my own Dev , I want to pick valuable land to annex, not any land. And I consider coastal provinces more valuable because they help with Navy force limits and trade.

SO in contrast to a typical blobbing run, I spend the first half of the 1480's sitting by watching other powers grow, such as the Ottomans annexing Wallachia (preceding screenshot).

But this is about to change. In 1486, I get early notice of an Ottoman attack on Dulkadir. This coincides with my unlocking the second age ability:

Dulkadir was allied to Golden Horde. There was no question that Ottomans will win this fight, but it would take them some time. And I had to take advantage of this opportunity. So I take the "Adaptive Combat Terrain" age ability which gives me +1 combat in Farmland provinces - which included both Wien and Constantinople. And then I wait a few months till the Ottoman armies are engaged in the East, and declare on the heathens:

(DOW on Ottomans, inset shows balance of forces at the start)

Thanks to having the help of my faithful ally Poland , we actually have numerical superiority . I quickly move to take the war goal at Nis, and then start sieging Macedonia and Tirgoviste:

(early phase of the war, WS at 4%, note that I was about to take religious ideas, but I don't)

This coincides with my accumulating enough points to unlock my first idea of the second idea group. And I was about to click the Extra Missionary idea when I have a change of heart. I often take religious ideas before the Age of Reformation for obvious reasons. And with Autria being near the epi-center of the REformation, this looks like a given. But on further thought, I saw little to gain from the group. The Deus Vult idea is not that useful unless you plan on super-blobbing . Which , given my rules, I was not going to do . And the extra conversion strength was also most useful if I am annexing SUnni land. But I will not be doing a lot of that, lest I will become too large for the Balance of Power.

Instead, I needed a group that gives me a lot of benefit for less Development. In other words, a way to maximize ducat production for minumum land. And this is where @Tom D. comment on the Gold mines becomes important:

(Economic idea group and Gold Provinces)
I owned one of the 5 gold mines in Europe already, my PU juniors had 2 more, and I was in the midst of a war to get the 4th one. This meant I can have Gold as a primary monetary source for hte long haul. And the inflation reduction idea in Economic group , as well as the DEv cost finisher would be a big help in that regard. Plus the tax and production and land maintenance bonuses will all help my economy.

And so I ditch religious and take Economic ideas. In addition to the Burgundian alliance , I consider this the second big decision that is shaped specifically by my rule set and that I would not have taken in a normal run.

Back to the war. I manage to take Tirgoviste, and win a battle to relieve the siege of Moldavia, thanks in part to the "Adaptive Terrain" bonus from the Age:

After that victory, I move to siege Constantinople, as Macedonia falls as well:

(run up to the battle of Constantinople)

The Ottomans and Tunisian try to relieve their capital, but my troops hold and win an important victory:

(Victory at Constantinople)

There is not doubt in my mind that I would have lost this close battle without the Adaptive Terrain.

Artillery barrage is used then on the enemy capital, which falls just as the Ottomans conclude peace in their other war with Dulkadir and start a counter offensive in Ukraine:

(fall of COnstantinople, inset shows Dulkadir reduced to 2 provinces).

My intervention may have helped Dulkadir avoid total annexation. This may eventually affect the Mamluk-Ottoman balance when that inevitable war comes. We shall see.

SOon after this happy news , my old Emperor gives up his soul , and my under-age heir gets elected Emperor:

This means I will have enough IA now to pass a reform, but first we need to be at peace.

The war with Ottomans has dragged on now to 1490, and i have completed the occupation of their Balkan provinces, while they have occupied most of Poland. Their allies ( TUnis, and AQ) have managed to walk through Iberia and France to harass my western most provinces:

(war in 1490. Can you find the Tunisian stack in Germany?)
I am winning the war, and have some more ticking score to collect. I may also be able to recover Warsaw for the Polish, and improve war score that way. My plan is to maximize the pain I can inflict on the Ottomans. I am thinking about a peace along the following lines:

(possible peace proposal)

I am thinking I should take Edirne and Constantinople, and release Byzantiym as vassal from Edirne ( I do not think I can release them from Turkish culture Constantinople).
This will split the Ottomans, slowing them down tremendously. And would not increase my Dev rating by too much, since Byzantine vassal will count as 1/2 .
If there are better suggestions, please chime in .

And since this is the end of the decade, I will post the current Power Rankings. We are unablanced again because of France and Ottomans. I need England to pick up the pace:

 

[mackwolfe]

1490-1500: Have to Keep Up

I left off in the midst of war with Ottomans. Since it is 1490 and I did not conquer Rome, the Shadow Kingdom event fires and North Italy is lost to the Empire:

(Shadow Kingdom event)
This effectively puts IA growth at zero or close to it. If there is one thing I clearly mismanaged in this run, it is Imperial Authority. At one point I did not realize that demanding unlawful territory costs IA (unless they accept) , costing me about 5 points before I noticed it. Now it will be the Reformation and I have just enough for one reform.

Back to the Ottoman war. I free Warsaw from enemy control, giving me +38 Warscore:

(liberation of Warsawa)
The warscore was enough to get the peace I outlined earlier, but I decide to continue the fight , hoping to extract maximum concessions from the enemy. Unfortunately, I make a tactical mistake. So far I had kept my armies united. But now with Tunisians sieging Bohemian land, and Ottomans sieging back Constantinople, I decide to split my force to defend both ends. ANd I end up with close defeats on both sides, at Edirne and Plzen:

(near simultaneous defeats on Eastern and Western fronts)

The losses lead to the capture of Edirne and Plzen by the enemy , and the sieges of Constantinople and Praque. With that WS goes down, and I am unable to conclude the peace I showed earlier. So I end up having to re-combine my troops, and walk them all the way to Edirne and retake it, a year after the last screenshot:

(recovery of Edirne)
This gives me just enough WS to get this peace:

(peace with Ottomans)
This is basically what I outlined in the earlier chapter. I did not have more WS to , for example, connect Macedonia to Kossovo. But at least I pushed the Ottomans down a peg or two, as stnylan put it.

After the peace, I pass the 1st Imperial Reform. This has the benefit of 5% Construction cost, which is handy since I intend to "develop" my provinces with buildings to extract as much value from limited land as possible. And then the Reformation hits in Milan:

(REformation start)
So the first province is NOT in the HRE. But I am sure this will spread.

After that, I integrate East Firisa, pushing me close to the French and Ottomans in the table:

I decide to slow down my own expansion at this point, and wait for a chance to knock France down and bring the GPs into balance. But England was just not expanding fast enough. They had taken Exploration ideas and added about 8 Dev points to their tally, so I am guessing they colonized somewhere. But that growth was too slow to catch back up , and I soon find the Ottomans resuming their expansion by declaring on Genoa:

(OTtomans DOW GEnoa who controls the Pontic Steppe. Look at that Hisn Kayfa!)
ANd this time I am helpless to intervene due to my own truce with Ottomans , which runs to 1501.
So I focus on internal affairs. In 1497, I move the Trade Port to Venice and start to steer there from Wien and Ragusa:

(moving trade port)

But as the decade near its end, I find France and Ottomans extending their Dev leads over everybody else:

(Ottomans annex land from Genoa, France grows to over 612 Dev )

Without a chance to attack them direcly, and without the ability to help England directly, my only choices are to sit idle, or keep up with the leaders by expanding. I chose the latter, and declare on Ferrara who had annexed Parma, Modena and Milan:

(DOW on Ferrara)

This should be an easy war. Ferrara was allied to Florence - the leader of the coalition war against me years back . I quickly move my troops to siege the enemy capital and the city of Milan. The Florentines decide to trek around the Alps and siege Wien. They meet their demise there:

(annihilation of the Florentine army at Wien, inset shows CTA from Poland against Denmark)

Without an army, the enemy provinces are overrun and I conclude peace just before the chapter ends:

(peace with Ferrara)
I went a bit aggressive with the annexation. Now that North Italy is out of the HRE, AE is less of an issue. And by getting a border with Genoa and Savoy, I position myself to completely dominate the North Italian plain . In the geopolitical struggle for North Italy between France, Spain and Austria, I have a good head start.

The annexation boosts my Dev by 46 points, putting me more than 50% ahead of England. But I am still behind the leaders:

Two things to note about the screenshot. The Great Powers are separating into a top tier of France, Ottomans, Austria, a middle tier of Poland, Muscovy and Castile, and finally England. I must keep up with the Ottomans and France , otherwise I will not be able to bring them down .
Second, there is only on CoR in Europe so far. The provinces I annexed in Italy are all protestant, so my religious unity is now 78% . I am undecided on whether to stay catholic or switch to protestant if I lose HRE title, or by rebels. The bonuses of Protestant faith are much better. Since I won't be blobbing and converting provinces to Catholic , my papal influence grows very slowly, and so far I have only used my PI once , to get stability . But , flipping to Protestant makes securing the Emperorship harder, since I have to win the religious war. It may also affect the alignment of alliances. Geopolitically, Spain and Poland should be Austria's allies in facing Ottomans and France. It would be easier if we are all catholic.

 

[mackwolfe]

1500-1510: Resisting The Green Tide

I left off with the annexation of several provinces in Emilia-Romagna region. After having given some thought to the campaign, I decide to go ahead with what I call the "North Italy" strategy . The policy of containment and restraint is not working. No matter how hard I try, I will not be able to stop Ottomans and France, unless I am as powerful as they are. Even if it meant temporarily breaking the power balance.

The best place to build a power base is North Italy. I might as well take advantage of the shadow kingdom event, after all. So i start fabricating on Genoa itself:

(situation in NOrth Italy as I fabricate on Genoa , inset shows Ottomans easily going back to strongest power in Europe by beating up Georgia)

As I do this, Colonialism is born in England:

(birth of colonialism the day I click on more free war-taxes .)
Hopefully this would help England catch up to the other powers. With England at odds with Burgundy and France across the Channel, and without any mainland English provinces , it is likely Colonialism will take some time to spread to the continent.

In April 1502, claim in hand, I declare on Genoa:

(DOW on Genoa)
I call in Palatinate for help, but do not call in Burgundy. I am very leery of entangling Burgundy in a fight and inviting a French attack when I am not ready to help them . (BTW, since we are in the 1500s, the Burgundian Inheritance will not fire, as I suspected once I allied them). The war is straightforward as the sides are lospided. After sieging down the enemy cities, I look at peace options. INitially, I had wanted both Genoa and Lucca, but soon discover that a large coalition will form if I take both, despite checking off Lucca as co-belligerent:

(Peace with Genoa , inset shows coalition if I had annexed Lucca as well , age of Reformation starting and taking Blasphemy act decision for +1missionary strength and -1 heretic tolerance )

The annexation of Genoa does not change my trade income much yet. The power in Genoa node is still too low, and it is a practical wash whether I steer to Venice ( for the +20 power bonus from steering), or collect in both Venice and Genoa. But owning Genoa means I deny it to France or Castile in the future. And it will help my naval force limit once I state it up.

The annexation of Genoa, which was Protestant due to the Center of Reformation in Milan, pushes my Religious Unity down to 73, and starts the ticker for the Religious Turmoil disaster. I respond by firing my Master of Mint advisor and hiring an level 3 inquistor from the estates:

The inquisitor gets his advisor event almost immediately, giving me +50 admin as my stability was already at +3.

A year later, 1505, Poland finally concludes its war with Denmark, and takes several provinces in Estonia area:

(Denmark-Poland peace, turning Byzantium into March, GP table showing Ottomans at 727 already)

I am happy for my ally, but it took them too long. While they were occupied, Ottomans had grown to 727 Dev. Luckily, Poland came out with no debt.
My first action while at peace is to turn Byzantium into a march. I need them on a war footing to help fight their nemesis. I also strengthen my other minions by developing their Gold Mines:

(developing the Bohemian and Hungarian gold mines, note that i have not unlocked Economic Ideas finisher yet)

And as soon as the Ottomans declare a new war- against Dulkadir's remnant as it turns out , I call my minions, my ally Poland and my new best friend Mamluks to the feast:

(DOW on Ottomans, joined by Poland and my new ally Mamluks to whom I promised land)

I concluded an alliance with Mamluks just before the war start, to open a second front on the Ottomans, and prevent TUnis from causing trouble like last time. Of course, the risk was that Ottomans would overrun Mamluks and end up annexing land from them .

The war starts well. I quickly siege and capture Macedonia, and annihilate the only Ottoman army on the European side of the strait:

The Ottomans respond by sending their armies through the Ukraine and siege Warszawa , while my allies armies where busy helping me or attacking NOvgorod. So I simplify things by peacing out Novgorod:

In the peace, I take money and reparations, but also break the Novgorodian alliance with Ottomans. This was a decision that I almost immediately regretted. So far, the Ottoman alliance is what kept Novgorod alive and prevented Muscovy from swallowing them. Without the alliance, Muscovy will take Novgorod. That in itself is not bad. Muscovy is trailing on the GP table and some growth is OK. But I worry that Muscovy will later attack Poland, and possibly ally the Ottomans. If that happens, it will become virtually impossible to contain the Green blob.

I now count on the Lithuanian armies coming back from Novgorod to relieve the siege of Warsaw. And I make a bold invasion of Eastern Anatolia by trekking around the Black Sea:

(trek around the Black Sea, as the Reformation branches out, note manpower at zero)

The Ottomans respond to my maneuver by withdrawing their troops from Poland. I manage to drag them into a mountain battle at Imereti that I win , despite their 3 start general. But unfortunately, I was unable to save a siege stack at Trebizond:

(victory at Imereti , stackwipe defeat at Trebizond)

The loss of my siege stack forces me to withdraw my troops back to Europe. There, I park my armies in Thrace and wait for an opportunity to cross the Dardanelles. And I manage to do that thanks to having a 5Maneuver general who crosses the troops when the enemy fleet was temporarily away:

(trying to cross the Dardanelles as our fleet acts as a decoy)

(success. A province is secured on the Asia side. Insets shows Muscovy attacking Novgo as expected, Sweden rebelling against Denmark)

BUt this good news is negated by the surrender of the Mamluks, who peace out and lose 2 provinces in Syria and one in Lybia:

(Mamluks peace out with Ottomans)

I feared a Mamluk loss of territory when I started the war. But this is not all bad. Because provinces from non-belligerent cost double, the Ottomans have a 15 year truce with the Egyptians running to 1523. ANd they only took 2 provinces in north syria instead of usually reaching Damascus in the first war. THis will give Mamluks some time to recover, I hope.

Back in Anatolia, I lay siege to the enemy capital at Hudavendigar, and use Barrage on it. But then I suffer a close defeat just south of it , thanks to the enemy having a 3 star general:

This will force me to lift the siege of the enemy capital , wasting the 50MIL points..

And this coincides with the end of the chapter, as the battled happened on December 30, 1509. This is the peace I can get for now:

(possible peace with Ottomans - I have not signed yet)

I will be able to return some, but not all, cores to Byzantium and get a land connection to them. What I would really like to get is a province on the Asia side of the strait.
I plan on fighting this war a few more months and see if I can improve my standing. Worse case scenario, the military situation can stalemate and I will then run out the ticking war score and make peace then .

THis is the current map of Europe with GP rankings:

The Great Powers are very unbalanced . Only Poland and Castile are within 50% of the top and bottom powers. I am neck and neck with France, and everyone is far behind Ottomans.

 

[mackwolfe]

1510-1520: Victorious but Exhausted

I left off in the middle of a war with Ottomans. The Ottomans had just defeated an allied army at Denizlie south of their capital at Hudavendigar. I respond by lifting the siege of Hudavendigar and assembling my forces with those of my allies in Karasi. Luckily, the Ottoman AI decides against taking the only Asian province I held, and instead decide to trek around the Black sea to invade Ukraine:

(Ottoman AI deciding to go around Black sea instead of directly attacking via Sea of Marmara)
This allows me to actually siege and capture their capital . And then I discover I can abuse the AI by sieging Ankara, which would draw them back from South Russia, and then unsiege it , which would get them started back towards Ukraine.

(abusing Ottoman AI to win more ticking warscore and enemy exhaustion)

Meanwhile in the West, a Polish army had made its way to Tunis. With a bit of merc recruitment on my part, and the use of my fleet to blockade, I get enough WS to get a good peace out of the North Africans:

(separate peace with Tunis)
In the peace, I finally kill the Ottoman-TUnisian alliance. And manage to return Benghazi to Mamluks. With luck, the Mamluks will manage to expand into Tunis and get stronger.

BY late 1511, I had managed to occupy 2 more forts in Western Anatolia ( Kocaeli and Sugla) and pushed warscore to +60%:

(war situation as England converts to Anglican )

But that is as good as it gets for me. Once I push deeper to Ankara and Icel, the Ottomans return and push me back. In addition, rebels now pop up in the Ottoman provinces in Europe, and these threaten to whittle away my war score. So it is time for peace:

(peace concluding the second Ottoman war)
This was a very advantageous peace. I achieved most of my goals. I returned several cores to Byzantium, weakening Ottomans by loss of land. I could have returned more to them, but I did not want Byzantium to go over 25% of my own Dev ( remember that Austria proper is not that large, and my Hungarian and Bohemia PUs do not count in calculation). I also managed to give Mamluks their two provinces they lost back. I am hoping this strengthens them enough to act as a future check on Ottoman expansion. I also release Ramazan back , in the hope that Mamluks will swallow it before its truce with Ottomans expires. And I get a foot-hold in Asia, right next to the Ottoman capital.

This puhes Ottoman Dev rating down to 671, with 50% of Muscovy ( but still more than 50% over England):

(Dev rankings after Ottomans are brought down a peg or two) .

And when Muscovy annexes a chunk of Novgorod, the GP rankings are almost balanced. Only issue is England lagging:

(GP table after Muscovy grows at expense of Novgorod - England is stuck at 453).
The Scottish-French alliance is clearly holding back England. And unfortunately, Scotland's only other ally - Kildare- is also allied to France.

Without a way to help England at this time, I decide to go back to the "North Italy Strategy" and strengthen my situation there. Specifically, I wanted to secure the Alpine passes between France and Italy, which were controlled by Savoy. Since Savoy was a French ally, and I could not attack them directly. Instead, I chose to attack them via Venice, and for various reasons I brought several allies to the party:

(DOW on Venice)

I expected this war to be easy, and was planning to mostly sit back while I recover some manpower and let my allies handle the situation. But 5 months after war start, I get a very important notice. Tuscany - allied to France - had declared war on the Papacy - allied to Castile:

(France and Castile at war) .

I so wished I had not already declared on Venice. I could have declared on Savoy instead at this time and ended up fighting France while they were embroiled with Castile.
SO I hurry up my own war and land on the Venetian capital in Crete:

and then wait for the sieges of Cuneo and Savoie to end. And in preparation for intervening against France, I start to fabricate on the only French province I could claim, Forcalquier in the south ( shares sea tile with Genoa)
But my enthusiasm for helping Castile is dampened when I go to check on their war score with France and discover they had allied the.....:

....Ottomans! ( Castile is buddy with Ottomans, inset shows claim fabricated on France) .

That was an unexpected alliance. I do not ever recall a Castile who had Aragon and Naples under them allying Ottomans. This is definitely not good news for me. Although I guess one silver lining is that Ottomans would not become allies with France as a result!

In 1515, Cuneo fort falls and the Savoyard army is destroyed by Burgundy in a battle. THis convinces them to part with a couple of provinces:

(separate peace with Savoy)
I manage to annex Cuno and its mountain fort. But there was not enough Warscore ( since savoy was not main belligerent) to give Savoie to Burgundy . The separate peace generates a decent amount of AE, and I decide to wait a bit before peacing out Venice. In the meantime, I watched Castile and France duking it out:

(Castilian and French war)
As French armies overran the Italian peninsula, the Castilians succeeded in pushing deep into France. I should have acted at this point, but I hesitated. Instead I waited for my own AE to dissipate for one more year before i peaced out Venice:

I go for full annexation. I wanted Dalmatia so that I can eventually add Ragusa and SErbia to the Empire. And although I initially thought of giving Crete to the Mamluks, I decide to take it myself so that I can help the Mamluks in the future with Institution spread ( they were not friendly with my Vassal Byzantium, so if Mamluks owned Crete, institution would not spread to it. Plus if I owned Crete, institution would stpread to it quicker by Embracing than if Mamluks owned it and it spread by diffusion).

After I peaced out Venice, I was ready to intervene in the French-Castilian conflict. French troops returning from Italy had by now pushed the Castilians back in Bordeaux, and the tide of the war was clearly in France's favor:

(Castilian warscore with Florence , inset shows difficulty of getting alliance with England)

I wanted to intervene now against France . And I wanted as many allies as I could get. Sadly, Poland refused no matter how I declared war on France ( directly or via their allies) . I tried to recruit England, but the "Very Hard" difficulty was the difference between success and failure ( see screenshot- I could have increased my Dip Rep by +2, using Papal Influence and advisor, but would not have been enough) .

So in the end , I go with a coalition of the willing , and play it safe by picking an easy war goal:

(indirect DOW on France , via Ferrara)
I picked 2 province Ferrara as primary belligerent so that I can be assured of easy warscore and main enemy war exhaustion . This way, in case of a disaster (such as France overrunning BUrgundy), I can always ask for a quick peace.

My first action of the war is to free Romagna province, which was the war-goal in the Florentine-Papal war. My logic was to cut down on the Florentine war score and prevent them from concluding a peace where France gets some land at the expense of Castile. The immediate effect of this , however, was the conclusion of their war with the Pope:

(peace between Florence and Pope, and by extension France and Castile)

Clearly, I had waited too long to intervene against France. ANd now I faced them alone. I so wish I could take my decision to delay back.

ON paper, me and my allies outnumbered the enemy by 3 to 2 factor. But in reality, they had several advantages. First were France's internal lines of communication. My troops had to trek between Italy and Low countries using the long way. Second, French Elan!. Third, my allies were easily distracted by rebels, small enemy stacks and other crap:

(Example of problems plaquing my coalition in the war against France)

So I was never able to assemble a big enough army to win a battle against France . But I was able to amass warscore thanks to having an easy war goal, which the French could not reach due to my fort at Cuneo:

(fall of the war-goal Cremona - Warscore is a positive +11 , but I have rebels in Parma, Dalmatia and Kocaeli )

After I take Cremona, I help my allies overrun Tuscany for more warscore, while I try to capture any French land. But with my manpower at zero, my stack kept getting smaller over time. I thought about burning some of my Professionalism ( now at 27), but decide against it. January 1519 marks the high-water mark of my military efforts:

(warscore at 29 thanks to the fall of Firenze, and a couple of victories in Picardie).

After that, France takes the offensive and without manpower I am powerless to resist them . FOrtunately, I still had the ticking warscore in my favor, and as 1519 draws to a close, I move my army from the NOrth back to Italy, and manage to occuppy the unfortified province of Forcalquier:

(Austrian army in Souther France, as French armies are about to break into Burgundy)

I check peace options at this time, and this is what I can get:

(conclusion of war with France)
I am able to get a single province from France, release Pisa from Florence and get some money.
Forcalquier is useful as it is hilly (defensible terrain) and holds a Provence core, so I can release them if I wish . I could not get any more French provinces. PLus anything extra would trigger lots of AE. What I really wanted to do is either return cores to England, or feed Burgundy. But I never captured the requisite provinces.

IN addition to Forcalquier, I released Pisa which is promptly diplo-vassalized:

For now , I am coring Forcalquier. Like @atwix suggested, I will probably add it to the Empire before releasing Provence out of it. This is the imperial map and the power rankings:

This another unbalanced decade. ANd the sad thing is that my own expansion as Austria is causing the loss of balance. But I have a good chance to restore the balance next decade. If England grows, and I manage to keep the Ottomans under check, and Muscovy does not explode, I can end up with a balanced result. I marked in the screenshot provinces that I can add now to the Empire for a total of +15 IA. Sadly, IA is heading South due to the Reformation and so any IA I get from adding land will be lost. But some of provinces I add can be released to create new princes of the Empire, which would decrease my Dev and help rebalance the rankings while at the same time enlarging the imperial base.
Ideally, I would get the REformation under some control before I start adding to the Empire.

 

[mackwolfe]

1730-1740: Austrian Space Marines

I left off in the midst of a war with Great Britain. I had just landed an army in the New World, having snuck by the British fleets. This force then proceeds to occupy Colombia. Although badly outnumbered by the British colonials, the force under general Hatzfeldt (3/6/5/2) secures multiple victories including some big stackwipes:

(stackwipes against British CN forces)
Generally the CN forces were weaker because of not having taken any Military ideas. In contrast, Austria had Offensive, Defensive, and most of Quality filled already. And this qualitative advantage proved to be decisive, because my attempt at reinforcing the army with troops from Africa was defeated by the British Navy, who this time managed to catch my fleet in open waters:

(defeat of the Austria fleet en route to Africa to fetch reinforcements)

The force in America had to then depend on locally recruited mercenaries to keep up with losses. But it manages to capture both the colonial capitals of Colombia and Mexico:

(fighting in Central America, as we capture British Colonial Nation capitals)

THe fighting continues in the same vein a while longer, but now I clearly had the advantage in the New World. And when the ticking war score runs out to its maximum in 1732, it was time to make peace:

(peace with Britain)
In the peace I take the islands off Scotland's coast, like everybody suggested. This will be the future launchpad for a Britain invasion. I also release Norway out of Iceland . And I take 5, and only 5, cheap coreable province in Mexico. These will become Austrian Mexico, and allow me in a future war to ask for "Cede Colonial Region" in the peace treaty.

I was very pleased with the peace, since I managed to cut Britain's Dev ranking down to below that of Austria. Looking at the rankings, I could restore the Balance by feeding Russia and Portugal. And I thought I had the perfect target for that, the Ottomans. SO before the ink dries on the peace treaty with Britain, I declare on the Turks:

(DOW on Ottomans)

I had plans to feed Turkish allies Tunis and Kanem Bornu to Portugal and then feed Turkish land to Russia. But I should have checked first that Portugal actually desired land from Tunis and Kanem Bornu, before I declared. Because when it came time to peace, they refused to take anything I gave them. And even Russia, who joined the war with promise of land, did not want to take any provinces I gave them :

Initially Russia was occupying provinces near their border. But then they switch occupation to me, and refuse to annex the land when I give them occupation back:

(Russia refuses to take the land I wanted to give them )

So I end up releasing Georgia and Arminia out of Ottomans, in teh hope that Russia eventually either vassalizes or annexes one of them:

(peace ending pointless wars with Ottomans)

As proud as I was with the result of the British war, I was very disappointed in this war . It was a total waste of time and resources. I lost 283 DIP points on releasing Georgia, who ends up allying Russia's rival, the Timurids. I lost 10 out of 30 favors with PLC. I weakened the Russian and Portuguese armies. And I could not feed my allies anything. I should have been more careful and checked exactly how much land Portugal and Russia wanted (via Diplomacy tab map) before declaring.

And the worst part of that war is that Mamluks soon after declare on Tunis who was now guaranteed by Portugal, and allied to Ottomans:

(Portugal getting declared on by Mamluks via Tunis , Ottomans are helping Portugal)

On the bright side, the Austrian CN of Mexico is born in 1735 , and Quality ideas finish in 1736:

(Austrian Mexico is born, inset shows Quality ideas finishing)

The completion of Quality ideas boosts my discipline by 10%: 5% from the finisher, and 5% from activation of Economic-Quality policy. My total discipline now stands at 126% . And this activates another Age objective. Add to that an effective discipline of 9.5% from professionalism sitting in the upper 90s, a high military tradition ( upper 90s) , and bonus artillery power from a policy as well as idea group and Age Ability, and you have the makings of an elite military force.

It was time to try out this force, and I decide to target the Timurids, with the aim of feeding Russia land. And I do it without calling in PLC (to preserve favors for the future wars against France and Britain)

(DOW on TImurids, note that I do not call in Commonwealth )

The first action of the war is to knock out Georgia. Austrian troops fearlessly charge into the mountains, defeat the Georgians and take their capital:

(mountain battle at Tibilisi, exit of Georgia from the war )

I then pour the troops into Persia proper, sieging the fort at Qazvin. But Timur has now invaded the Russian steppes , and I feared an early exit by my ally. So I send a full stack back to Turkestan to help the Russians:

(battles in the Steppes)

The Space Marines acquit themselves well. They stackwipe anything with equal numbers, and are only forced to withdraw when outnumbered 3:1 .
The diversion in the Steppes of Russia allows my main force to push deep into Persia and capture the mountain fort at Ardakan despite multiple attempts by the enemy at relieving it:

(fort battle in the mountains at Ardakan - we win )
The "Napoleonic Warfare" Age ability, allowing a +8 from artillery on sieges, proves to be a timely acquisition at this juncture. Despite heavy losses, I manage to push to Herat and I capture it with "Barrage" just before the decade ends:

(fall of Herat , late 1739) .
And thanks to having won many stack wipes in the steppes, the enemy are now numerically inferior and I am clearly on the offensive . I have to be careful, however, of Russia making another bone headed move and peacing out.

This is the current situation with rankings and truces:

This is the second decade in a row we are unbalanced. But I should be able to feed Russia some good land soon. And then I can see if I can help Portugal, before tackling Britain (truce expires 1742 ) . If I manage to bring Britain down a peg or two, I will then start to release land from Austria to bring my own rating down .

If all goes well, I hope to have a restored balance by 1750.