I'm still relatively new, but I'm currently just past the starting point of a run as Holland and I'm curious about the options I have ahead of me. I'm already independent thanks to Austria and Bohemia forcing a deeply suicidal Burgundy to release me and Brabant, I've stolen a fair bit of money from Provence who tried to exploit Burgundy's suicidal tendencies but ended up being fully occupied, and I've just taken Utrecht on my own despite interference from Bremen and Munster. I'm looking towards Gelre and Friesland now but unfortunately they're both in separate trade leagues, leaving me no real opening whatsoever as of right now. In this situation, what would be best?
1. Save up favors with a few allies and attack one of them.
2. Save up favors with a few allies and attack Brabant, who has rivaled me and has a few allies but certainly no trade league backing it.
3. Merc up heavily and do one of the above. I'm not particularly fond of this one, especially in the current patch as I tend to like relying on mercs as little as humanly possible, but I feel it can actually work decently well seeing as in my previous war with Utrecht, Munster and Bremen seemingly refused (despite a 5k man advantage) to walk in, kill my army and retake Utrecht, only resorting to doing so when I stepped into Munster's territory and started taking its capital (by which point I could take Munster's capital faster than they could a level 3 fort, and peacing out Munster left Bremen utterly defenseless).
4. Something else?
As well, there are two other things I've done that may or may not have been mistakes.
1. Is going for Exploration instantly in this scenario a mistake? When I was liberated I wasn't even at admin tech 4 so I didn't make the choice beforehand, but I felt like my income was already sufficient enough that I didn't particularly need an instant boost from Trade just yet, and if I succeed in beating up Brabant and taking their major trade node (and Breda potentially since I still need it) I should be fine in that regard for the foreseeable future. The biggest problem with that right now is AE, since...
2. I don't have Austria as an ally. I tried improving relations ahead of time but they just won't budge. Worse yet, I am allied with France, who has rivaled them. I never even asked them to support my independence or anything like that as I really did not think I was going to have a proper opportunity to do so before the suicide war with Austria and Bohemia ended which released me. In this context, who else should I be looking towards? I still have Liege as an ally and I believe they've rivaled Brabant and are not allied with Gelre or Friesland, but I'd want to beat up Gelre and Friesland a bit sooner without having to wait for 20 favors from France or risk suiciding by not knowing exactly how much I should be mercing up. I previously forgot to mention that Brabant is allied with Gelre so I could make a play and take Gelre that way without getting the wrath of a trade league on my rear, but then the resulting coalition would probably be happy enough to take on even France, and it would certainly stop me from taking the other required provinces fast enough.
I also don't know what events I could rely on or have to deal with, especially ones that might be relevant towards forming the Netherlands or inheriting whatever little Burgundy still has now (some of its own territories + Flanders). The little bit I found through a few searches yesterday showed that I could RM Burgundy (no hope for an alliance as the -200 modifier from them abandoning me is stopping that) and hope for the best after taking Breda, but that still leaves me with the issue of actually taking Breda.
1. Save up favors with a few allies and attack one of them.
2. Save up favors with a few allies and attack Brabant, who has rivaled me and has a few allies but certainly no trade league backing it.
3. Merc up heavily and do one of the above. I'm not particularly fond of this one, especially in the current patch as I tend to like relying on mercs as little as humanly possible, but I feel it can actually work decently well seeing as in my previous war with Utrecht, Munster and Bremen seemingly refused (despite a 5k man advantage) to walk in, kill my army and retake Utrecht, only resorting to doing so when I stepped into Munster's territory and started taking its capital (by which point I could take Munster's capital faster than they could a level 3 fort, and peacing out Munster left Bremen utterly defenseless).
4. Something else?
As well, there are two other things I've done that may or may not have been mistakes.
1. Is going for Exploration instantly in this scenario a mistake? When I was liberated I wasn't even at admin tech 4 so I didn't make the choice beforehand, but I felt like my income was already sufficient enough that I didn't particularly need an instant boost from Trade just yet, and if I succeed in beating up Brabant and taking their major trade node (and Breda potentially since I still need it) I should be fine in that regard for the foreseeable future. The biggest problem with that right now is AE, since...
2. I don't have Austria as an ally. I tried improving relations ahead of time but they just won't budge. Worse yet, I am allied with France, who has rivaled them. I never even asked them to support my independence or anything like that as I really did not think I was going to have a proper opportunity to do so before the suicide war with Austria and Bohemia ended which released me. In this context, who else should I be looking towards? I still have Liege as an ally and I believe they've rivaled Brabant and are not allied with Gelre or Friesland, but I'd want to beat up Gelre and Friesland a bit sooner without having to wait for 20 favors from France or risk suiciding by not knowing exactly how much I should be mercing up. I previously forgot to mention that Brabant is allied with Gelre so I could make a play and take Gelre that way without getting the wrath of a trade league on my rear, but then the resulting coalition would probably be happy enough to take on even France, and it would certainly stop me from taking the other required provinces fast enough.
I also don't know what events I could rely on or have to deal with, especially ones that might be relevant towards forming the Netherlands or inheriting whatever little Burgundy still has now (some of its own territories + Flanders). The little bit I found through a few searches yesterday showed that I could RM Burgundy (no hope for an alliance as the -200 modifier from them abandoning me is stopping that) and hope for the best after taking Breda, but that still leaves me with the issue of actually taking Breda.