Ethiopia run at stake - Asking for suggestions

[Il Pregno]

Hello there!
Little warning for the few ones that read my first post: I tried to post this exact same thread in the FAQ and solutions forum, but it seems to be quite empy and almost abandoned. Meanwhile here I've seen a lot of interaction. So here I am, trying again.
There could be a little exaggeration in the title, but let me explain what is going on.
I have the latest DLC and I am currently going through an Ethiopia campaign hoping to get the related achievements. I'm not constant in my gameplay and also not so good as a player, but I usually get by. My problem is that I am quite stubborn and love to roleplay a little in my games and now this is putting me in danger.
This is my situation:

I am allied with QQ and they were declared by Ottomans. Now, I know I can simply decline and keep going on my way but this is not ideal in my roleplay. So, I thought for once to jump in the forums and ask for help on how to manage keeping the alliance and beat the Ottomans.

Until now I tried twice to do this, both times focusing first on the Ottomans' allies. I can beat Tunis, Mogadishu and Najd but, at the same time, I can't help QQ. As soon as I finish the minor nations, QQ is fully conquered and Ottomans simply bulldoze me out of middle east by sheer numbers. I managed to win multiple battles, getting around, sieging a little and jumping on little armies but sooner or later I have to engage with full stack. I can win those battles, the problem is that I finish my manpower in about a couple a years while Ottomans simply don't care.

So here's my question: how would you try this acrobatics, accepting to help my ally and beating that coalition?

Thank you for the help, if you need any other screenshot just ask.

 

[Nostalgium]

Honestly, the best you might manage given the situation you describe is fighting hard enough that you yourself don't lose any land. Take nothing but defensive engagements as you deal with the Ottomans' allies, as you have, and try to make yourself enough of a nuisance that you make the Ottomans take a less-than-perfect peace. Given the amount of land and - presumably - forts between you and QQ, there isn't a whole lot you can do for them. I'm assuming the Ottomans has in the region of 100-150k troops, judging by their size and the year?

 

[Il Pregno]

Not exactly, around 80k at the start but still too many to try and go offensive against them while leaving my back opened to Tunis.
Also I find more difficult to deal with their manpower (100k while I only have 45k) as they can freshly reaarm after the initial defeats.
I must confess I also am quite shy on taking huge debts and go full mercs, as I don't fight well with mercs (personal limit, I guess). Could this be a better way in this situation? In that case, maybe I can have one try.

 

[Dominion]

There's no win to get here because you're not the warleader.

No matter what you do, even the biggest win will have QQ fully occupied at least temporarily, giving them "occupied provinces" and "war exhaustion" modifiers.

Massive ones.

You can force a lot in your position but anything you gain runs into a very frustrating finishing as QQ will always surrender too early for your liking.

Being geographically separated from your allies will do that to you. It's just a bad idea in general if you're on the defensive unless your position from the get go is to use them to inflate your own numbers and drop them like a hot potato when they get attacked.

 

[watchout86]

Good news is that it looks like the Ottomans aren't absurdly strong, and since it's no longer the Age of Discovery they don't have their age bonus to contend with... but that is about all you have going for you since the Ottoman's allies (and I assume they'll call them all in if you get involved) surround you on all sides and QQ isn't next to you.

However, I'd agree with Nostalgium that the best you can probably expect is to minimize the damage they do to QQ rather than actually win (or secure a white peace for QQ) because of the geography of the situation: Ottomans will occupy QQ by the time you can get the others out of the war, and any advances you could make into the Ottomans after that is going to be too late; alternatively, ignoring the smaller allies of the Ottomans means they will occupy you while you make your way to link up with QQ and by that point Ottomans would be able to 2v1 you because you won't be able to reinforce your armies.

If you went into significant debt and used a lot of mercs, maybe you could pull off a white peace if you played it well enough (my initial idea would be to use mercs to defend your territory while your main force creeps up through the Ottomans) but it would be at significant cost to you while only delaying the inevitable (Ottomans will just declare again when the truce is up and you'll be in the same situation, but even less able to defend QQ). If you want to roleplay that you need to assist QQ, then do as you already tried and just minimize the losses by taking out the smaller allies of the Ottomans and hope they won't be able to turn the tables on you. You'll still have to find a way to create more of an advantage for the next round in that case, though (e.g. removing some of the Ottoman's allies through proxy wars while growing your powerbase).

 

[cuendillar]

It might be a good idea to mark some provinces belonging to their lesser allies as provinces of interest. That way, QQ will likely be willing to give you those when peacing them out if you have them fully occupied and you get at least something out of the war.

 

[LazySiege]

I think the main error was getting QQ as an ally. You should try to get Ottomans as ally, or Tunis or a eurpean one. QQ will never be in the position to win a war against ottomans.
You need to pick your allys wise, some allys help, some ally like this will just dont help you at all.

 

[Il Pregno]

Thanks for all the answers!
Yeah, you are all depicting the situation as I was fearing. No worries, I understand my position is a forced and illogical one, I was more interested in searching for something I hadn't thought.
I know QQ is usually not good, but they were incredibly good until this situation. They were the only ally to help against a greater Mameluks and they even helped when I fought a big alliance while finishing the conquest of Horn of Africa (my enemies were allied with something like Oman). The problem is that I didn't realised Ottomans reached QQ and they were bordering each other since the last war between Ottomans and Mameluks. Basically the cut through middle east Mameluks and immediately after declared on QQ. My mistake for sure not realising the situation.

Well, probably this would be my first ever loss in a war. Let's see how the game evolves in that situation. ^^

 

[Dominion]

was more interested in searching for something I hadn't thought.

I was just being blunt to draw you an accurate picture.

You can invest a lot of time and energy into this and learn a few things, but it won't be useful for your run in any way so don't expect an actual victory.

As to what I would do, based on the limited amount of information we got here:

B-line to Kef into Tunis. Don't siege, smash.
You want to artillery barrage and assault Kef+Tunis.

How to assault forts

This is not a 1:1 guide. It is completely sufficient to continuously hammer the consolidate button. You will need around 16k for Kef and around 10k for Tunis.
This is where you will learn your first lesson: Which generals do I use, how many troops do I actually need on [currTechPlayer] vs [currTechTunis]

An AI's willingness to stay in a war drops A LOT when they lose their capital. It has approximately twice the base warscore of a normal province + the highest dev and has its own special modifier in peacedeals.
It's 1541, so I'll assume you have milTech 12, this puts your east african units vs the Ottoman's Anatolian and Tunis' Muslim units.

Unit types and their pips

Try avoiding any engagement with Tunis. Not because they are stronger, but because it's useless manpower down the drain. You can peace them out quickly.

I see you are collecting in Zanzibar but earn barely anything. For the future: Your tech group is better, your access to institutions is better, your mil tech is better and your development is better than anything that could crawl around the south. Eat everything. You dropped a lot of gold and manpower by piercing north.

As for the Ottomans, the problem is that they have three forts blocking you: Al Karak, Dimashq and Halab. One of those is in the mountains.

Both your forts are in flatlands. That's bad, but not horrible. Qahira has rivers. Lots of them.

The fort owner is considered the defender. Giving the enemy a river crossing is a bit wonky atm. They no longer get it from you when you cross a river, but do, when their reinforcements cross one so you'd have to engage it either early or wait until a minor unit detaches (or is in the area).

This is, by the way, extremely stupid and should absolutely get changed. I didn't even notice that change.

Slack your army professionalism for manpower, then hire mercs. Go to force limit. Check defensive edicts for fort states and take loans. Lots of them. Money is a resource there's no need not to tap into that. Start out with the merchant guild estate privilege "Indepted to the Burghers".

This gives you five loans fixed at 1%. Let the cash flow.

I wouldn't push into Anatolia at all. Conquering Al Karak and consistently fighting into mountains should give your side +40 warscore.

Which is a lot more than QQ is worth.

The idea is to keep the Ottoman's warscore below 10 to force a white peace.

(You could also do cheese strats by building forts in your backyard. This changes WS calculations but not retroactively. Which is also very weird, but who am I to judge.)

 

[Big Bad France]

You might be able to "win" this war by sieging down some of the allies and offering a separate peace offer for a minimal amount of gold. I do that sometimes when I'm dotf and get drug into a war that would be too expensive to justify, but I also don't want to take the trust hit with a whole bunch of nations that comes with declining the call to arms.

 

[Il Pregno]

Hopefully reviving this thread will still get some answers.
My job asked for my full attention for a couple of month but I could get back in EU4 last week and I decided to try again Ethiopia and set a better campaign while trying to keep my decisions. So, I managed to get QQ again as an ally, again I got towards Egypt region and this time I was in a better shape to confront Ottomans when they declared on QQ.
Long story short, I applied some of your advices, keeping my manpower safe while dealing with minor nation. In the end, even with all QQ sieged down, Ottomans where rapidly wasting all their manpower against my forts while I was unsieging some QQ territory. Final results: QQ lost a couple of territories and was forced out of our alliance, I got a couple of arabian minor's territories, Ottomans didn't get anything from me. I see this as an absolute improvement, thank you all again!

That said, now my focus is on how to beat Ottomans on my way towards Antioch. They basically own all middle east, they have more maximum manpower and force limit and better troop quality even tho I have better professionalism and morale (basically institutions are screwing me up with tech).
I managed to ally Austria, Lithuania (no PU with Poland, only alliance) and I was working my way towards allying Poland when religious league war started and Austria called me in. So now I'm looking at this call to arms prompt and wondering if I can earn something as Ottomans are in the protestant league! But I simply don't know well how this war works, if I can obtain territories in a peace deal, how I can better use this in general. Should I accept the call and maintain my ally or refuse, loose Austria but wait for the Ottomans to engage in Europe and then attack them from the back?

EDIT: I will add a screenshot as soon as I'll get home tonight, so the balance between factions could be better understood.

 

[Nostalgium]

Should I accept the call and maintain my ally or refuse, loose Austria but wait for the Ottomans to engage in Europe and then attack them from the back?

EDIT: I will add a screenshot as soon as I'll get home tonight, so the balance between factions could be better understood.

I would accept, depending on how the Leagues look. If it's Austria VS [Everyone Else], drop them like a hot potato. If the leagues are more balanced (with i.e. Spain and PLC also on the Austrian side) definitely throw your lot in with them. The best way to fight the Ottomans is in a two-front war, and the AI likes going for the weakest targets first - in this case, this might mean you get lucky and the Ottomans completely abandon Anatolia to go fight in Germany, leaving their forts ripe for the taking. Worst case, they come for you, but then the Catholic League (assuming they can win Europe) will wash over their Balkan holdings.

If you have to fight them at all, implement the lessons learned. Fight defensively and methodically until your allies can batter them down from the north. If they leave for a German holiday, try and keep track of their army stacks via allied vision, and proceed up their Asian holdings to your heart's content. Keeping track of them might be challenging in the hodgepodge of armies the League Wars tend to bring, but it'll pay off massively to keep tabs on exactly how much of the Ottoman army is where. What you don't see is more important, because those unaccounted for stacks are the ones you have to worry about.

Good luck!

 

[Il Pregno]

Here's the screenshot about Ottoman's situation and the prompt about my call to arms from Austria. I reckon Austria+Lithuania could be a good league, enough to deal with Bohemia+Ottomans while I reach for all Ottoman's asia. Portugal could be a problem, as I am allied with them, but I count on my "historical friend" to get back in "friendly shape" after this breakup.

Anyway, I'm going to try this, I'll let you know how it will go. Feel free to add any specific advice, but in the meanwhile thank you @Nostalgium for your tips!

 

[Nostalgium]

NGL, that doesn't look like a great war for Austria. Lithuania, while big, are pretty weak - especially held up against the Ottos - and the German sitation looks like a 50/50 gamble. You could be a deciding factor depending on how you play it, but it's far from a sure thing.

 

[EarlKonrad]

View attachment 834382Here's the screenshot about Ottoman's situation and the prompt about my call to arms from Austria. I reckon Austria+Lithuania could be a good league, enough to deal with Bohemia+Ottomans while I reach for all Ottoman's asia. Portugal could be a problem, as I am allied with them, but I count on my "historical friend" to get back in "friendly shape" after this breakup.

Anyway, I'm going to try this, I'll let you know how it will go. Feel free to add any specific advice, but in the meanwhile thank you @Nostalgium for your tips!

You can always create a backup save in case things go bad.

Troop count can be a bit misleading. One of the Ottomans strength is how they have a lot of troops under the command of a single nation. I say this for sometimes you'll find yourself going up against them in a war where your side has more men but yet is taking more casualties. Why? Partially because two nation's leading 50k troops each can be weaker than a nation leading 75k troops. While the former has more total troops, the later is focused on a single goal.

 

[Il Pregno]

As promised, here's my update.
As said by @EarlKonrad, I've created a backup save before clicking on the prompt, as I usually do on topic moments. At first (little spoiler here) I went to help Austria and the catholic league. I tried it twice and both time I managed to deal with Ottomans, while keeping most of their armies on my side of the world. Even with that catholic league sucked and eventually failed in their goal, basically screwing up the war for my purposes.
Third time I decided to refuse the call to arms and instead prepare for a personal war on Ottomans while they were busy in Europe. Even better, I reckoned that Poland would be interested in intervening against Ottomans and asked them for a help.
This is the version of my campaign I dediced to continue. I managed to grab all the mediterranean coast from egypt to Antioch, get about 3k gold and give a couple of territories in Europe to Poland. Furthermore I got some regions from Tunis.
I feel satisfied of this performance, so thanks for all the advices!

 

[Dracupuncture]

My problem is that I am quite stubborn and love to roleplay a little in my games and now this is putting me in danger.

You're not alone in this regard.

also glad to see the update. more often than not you never here how these things pan out.