England/Spain/Portugal alliance

[Heretic]

Is it just me or do England, Spain and Portugal stick together in an alliance way too long?
As such they have 3 of the largest fleets in the game, so to get into the colonial race you need to build a truly huge fleet to take them out?

What simple methods of breaking them up are there?
if it helps, playing as either Hansa or Venice.

 

[Moridin997]

You must build the Triply Invincible Armada

 

[Viperswhip]

Is it just me or do England, Spain and Portugal stick together in an alliance way too long?
As such they have 3 of the largest fleets in the game, so to get into the colonial race you need to build a truly huge fleet to take them out?

What simple methods of breaking them up are there?
if it helps, playing as either Hansa or Venice.

They tend to rival France, until Henry screwed over Catherine of Aragon England had decently cordial relations with Spain, because of, well, France. Of course once the protestant revolution and all that happened it can collaps, give it time in game.

Can you sabotage relations in this game? I have never taken espionage, but maybe that will help. Eventually their colonial nations will run into each other and they might fight, but strategically allying and find a mutual target that say England will help you with that is allied to Spain and voila, broken up.

 

[Franconian]

If England and Castille are not rivals at the start, you can only pray that they rival each other later on. Of course, you can also have the luck that England is allied to Portugal, Castille and Aragon...

 

[Pugman]

It's worse when France allies Castile, especially now that Castile has better troops.

 

[heroforhirerob]

And the Castille/Portugal/England alliance still doesn't stop French expansion the majority of the time.

 

[Viperswhip]

And the Castille/Portugal/England alliance still doesn't stop French expansion the majority of the time.

They can't because the AI is really, really still quite stupid. Portugal will march a 15 stack into France to get wiped, England will land stacks of 15 in France to get wiped, even if they group up a 30 stack isn't going to survive the 55 French stack with their god generals.

Then Castile will march a 17-25 stack into France (the rest of their men will stay standing in Galcia forever), they may or may not arrive in time to help Portugal, but the numbers still aren't in their favour. If Castile has Aragon in a PU, maybe in Art of War they will link up, but normally no, Aragon puts 17 into France, they will join fights in progress but can't do crap if they are killed before Portugal and Castile arrive. Naples will land clumps of 5 men who will be wiped constantly.

Here's how it should work. They all link up in Castile, march together into France, siege territories in clumps of 4-5 so they can back each other up with their 100 units v. France 50, once that fight does happen, leave a few troops in each seige, maybe 5 to guard against France building troops too quickly, and the rest of your men chase the French stack, wipe. Then 2-3 men in every province of France, keeping two units of 10 roving around wiping out any stacks until you get situated, and more men on the Eastern border to guard against a 10 stack coming from Hungary.

Oops, the AI is way too stupid to do that, where as I as Byz managed to wipe the French stack that had been routed by Austria and siege 70% of France while the entire alliance and Austria's 50 men sat in their territory only attack French stacks that formed.

The AI is really, really bad at war, and France can make several doom stacks unless you carpet siege them super quickly. I do that because I want to inherit a strong France, as Castile I let France make troops, and slowly siege the land, a 24 year war that bankrupts France drops them to 0 manpower and destroys them for the rest of the game, but the AI can't do that either.

 

[Azikiel]

In my game earlier Castile got allied with England, France and Portugal, had Aragon PU'd and Aragon had gotten Naples. I wanted to take Castile's colonies but that wasn't going to work out as you can guess...