Dracula's Revenge Trophy help

[Garret Mvahd]

Okay so, I know it's been a while, but I figured I'd come back to continue my attempt. So here are how things are going. I abandoned Serbia as being less than helpful in the grand scheme of things and also being a bit of a liability overall and now I am once again stabilized. My bankruptcy has ended and I have rebuilt my forces up and thankfully, the ottomans did not take advantage of the situation, so I have been able to rebuild. However, I have found myself in a difficult position if I hope to push the ottomans back.

The ottomans have been on a conquest rampage and have eaten Serbia, Hungary, and are working their way into northern Africa and their military has now become absurd, with a standing army of 141k. I could possibly fight them, if I could get both Poland and Muscovy in the war, as both have a military of approximately 60k each, which would greatly even the odds. I am also trying to slowly win over Spain, as I am close, only 19 more points before they'll agree, and they have an army of about 50k, so all three combined could maybe do it. I also released Kiev as I have in mind the idea of feeding them territory from Lithuania in order to increase their power and military and have designated Kiev as a military march. I am not sure if I can pull this off, but it would be a lot easier if Poland, Muscovy, and Bohemia weren't depleting the crap out of their armies in wars against others. I missed a golden opportunity when the ottoman's declared on the Mamluks, where I could have used that to my advantage, but I suppose that there will be other chances."

 

[Garret Mvahd]

Okay so, I can't save this campaign, I'm reasonably sure of it. To summarize, I got into a reasonably strong position where I had Kiev and Bulgaria as two reasonably sized marches, I had my bloodline on the Bohemian Throne, one of my line in line for the Russian throne, and I had a reasonably strong group of alliances who could regularly defeat the ottomans and I came close to taking the balkans from them. Then it all went downhill from there.

First, Kiev wanted independence and Russia also wanted all of their land, so I had to eat a stability and prestige penalty releasing them from vassalage so that I could avoid Russia breaking their alliance with me. That in of itself wasn't too bad, but then I noticed that I started to fall behind in terms of institutions and technology. It started with me being one tech behind, then progressed to 2, then three. But I had been very behind in diplo tech and admin tech for a long time now as I'd used admin and diplo tech to dev provinces to force spawn institutions and to develop my economy. I'm assuming that me spending monarch mana on developing up the provinces base tax, production, and manpower was what led me into a downward spiral.

Third, I noticed that Russia was getting involved in a lot of crusades in the asian theater, and was also getting involved in other conflicts, that even though they could win them, was pushing their debt to astronomical levels, with them reaching about 8k in debt by the time I gave up. It basically made it so that Russia was unlikely to ever dig out of their hole before the end of the game, not without declaring bankruptcy, and given the fact that their debt was so high, they weren't going to get involved in a war I asked them to join.

Fourth, I got hammered by multiple failing wars one after the other. First, I declared war on the ottomans to take advantage of them fighting the Russians but it hit a stalemate and I had to white peace before it went bad for me. The bohemia was declared on by austria and their alliances not long after that, which was almost immediately followed by Poland declaring on me. This basically made it so that me 3 mil tech behind armies were fighting 80-100k death stacks with my allies and not making much gains. I was forced to surrender to Poland, loosing decent bit of land, and I had to surrender to Austria, losing a lot of money and also losing Bulgaria as a vassal and Bohemia as an ally.

My other two wars against the ottomans leading up to this point also resulted in Georgia, my strongest ally in that region, losing most of their territory to the ottomans. So now, I have no army, I am too far behind in tech, and my allies are both thinned out or unable to help.

On the plus side, my economy is great lol.

So anyone got advice for what I should do next time around?

 

[Nwaij]

Kiev wanted independence and Russia also wanted all of their land, so I had to eat a stability and prestige penalty releasing them from vassalage so that I could avoid Russia breaking their alliance with me.

You could/should have toggled Enable Scutage multiple times to increase their liberty desire, then release them with no stab hit once that is over 50%

That in of itself wasn't too bad, but then I noticed that I started to fall behind in terms of institutions and technology. It started with me being one tech behind, then progressed to 2, then three. But I had been very behind in diplo tech and admin tech for a long time now as I'd used admin and diplo tech to dev provinces to force spawn institutions and to develop my economy. I'm assuming that me spending monarch mana on developing up the provinces base tax, production, and manpower was what led me into a downward spiral.

Devving random land just because when behind in tech is never a good idea. Developing for institutions in europa really isn't necessary. Rather save up on that mana, and maybe find an ally who is willing to share knowledge with you.

Third, I noticed that Russia was getting involved in a lot of crusades in the asian theater, and was also getting involved in other conflicts, that even though they could win them, was pushing their debt to astronomical levels, with them reaching about 8k in debt by the time I gave up. It basically made it so that Russia was unlikely to ever dig out of their hole before the end of the game, not without declaring bankruptcy, and given the fact that their debt was so high, they weren't going to get involved in a war I asked them to join.

AI at its best. Not much you can do there, other than end the alliance and find better allies.

Fourth, I got hammered by multiple failing wars one after the other. First, I declared war on the ottomans to take advantage of them fighting the Russians but it hit a stalemate and I had to white peace before it went bad for me. The bohemia was declared on by austria and their alliances not long after that, which was almost immediately followed by Poland declaring on me. This basically made it so that me 3 mil tech behind armies were fighting 80-100k death stacks with my allies and not making much gains. I was forced to surrender to Poland, loosing decent bit of land, and I had to surrender to Austria, losing a lot of money and also losing Bulgaria as a vassal and Bohemia as an ally.

1) Don't attack countries stronger than you that are ahead in MilTech, unless they are already loosing HARD.
2) Know when to fold em! When an ally trys to drag you into an unwinnable war, just bow out and eat the reputation hit.

My other two wars against the ottomans leading up to this point also resulted in Georgia, my strongest ally in that region, losing most of their territory to the ottomans. So now, I have no army, I am too far behind in tech, and my allies are both thinned out or unable to help.

On the plus side, my economy is great lol.

If your economy really is this great, maybe start saving up on mana, hire some advisors for even more mana, and befriend someone to share knowledge with you? Heck, not knowing how small you are by now, maybe you could even join the HRE for some extra protection?

 

[Garret Mvahd]

You could/should have toggled Enable Scutage multiple times to increase their liberty desire, then release them with no stab hit once that is over 50%

Devving random land just because when behind in tech is never a good idea. Developing for institutions in europa really isn't necessary. Rather save up on that mana, and maybe find an ally who is willing to share knowledge with you.

AI at its best. Not much you can do there, other than end the alliance and find better allies.

1) Don't attack countries stronger than you that are ahead in MilTech, unless they are already loosing HARD.
2) Know when to fold em! When an ally trys to drag you into an unwinnable war, just bow out and eat the reputation hit.

If your economy really is this great, maybe start saving up on mana, hire some advisors for even more mana, and befriend someone to share knowledge with you? Heck, not knowing how small you are by now, maybe you could even join the HRE for some extra protection?

Well I am probably going to start over at this point. I do appreciate the help and advice.

I am making about 30 ducats per month, mostly because I have no standing army, this is the game state before it went bad

And this was what it became after several hours of play