Need help crippling Germany!

[Dr. Pwnage]

title says it all. In a game as the South German Federation and I want to form Germany. I have smashed Austria already and taken Bohemia and I have also taken alsace and lorraine from France. All that is left is to beat the north german federation. The problem is beating them, reducing them to a secondary power and then sphering them though...

So how do I cripple them enough after one war to manage this? Just beating them isn't enough as there industry score is around 600 in 1874. Do I need to fully occupy them for like 2 years? For longer? At what point do their factories shut down for good after being sieged?

Should I try to humilate? I took a state in a previous war but it has merely dented their industry. I have 20 infamy now so can't really do much regarding taking another state. Is there essentially a way, in one war to bring them to a secondary power? To give some perspective, they are currently ranked 6th in the world. They are 200 points off 8th (800 compared to 600), so could I feasibly reduce their score by 200 points for 5 years and then successfully sphere them?

Any help/tips would be appreciated!

 

[Velorian]

Well I was going to suggest forcing them to release the Rheinlands but I just realized that's probably not possible in vanilla. Not sure how long you'd need to keep them occupied as I've never tried that strategy.

You could always just take some more of their stuff, damn the consequences.

 

[DesNibelungen]

If you occupy them long enough, driving their warscore to 100%, you can count on rebellions as well.

 

[Velorian]

If you occupy them long enough, driving their warscore to 100%, you can count on rebellions as well.

One problem is that it will kill/emigrate a ton of pops which were going to become his accepted, valuable subjects. Ideally I'd rather take it a bit slower.

 

[Greybeard0815]

Whenever I went for a Greater Germany as Prussia, completly occupying Austria (especially it's industrial centers first) was paramount. It will take some years (single digits). First the industry has to shut down and then the nation needs to loose GP status (which takes at least a year). Then you can use the "add to sphere" cb on them.

Your situation is very similar. So yes declare war with the humiliate CB and occupy all of the NGF. Ignore all of their peace offers until they loose GP status. Peace out with the add to sphere CB and then you can form Germany. If you feel especially mighty, you could also occupy NGF first and then do the same with Austria. Let both peace out at the same time and you could even form Greater Germany as South German Federation.

 

[grimkm]

Won't you have a ridicolous amount of mil to deal with in the aftermath? Also, a far lesser population. Beating them and eating away over time is generally enough to set off a spiral of revolts and increase in revanchism, which dissapears once you unite.