New to DW, What to do

[unmerged(795360)]

A week ago I upgraded to DW and started a game with Castille. After some testing I started a game with Poland and now I'm fearful
with what is happening. The Horde wars had sapped my strength for more then a century and Austria had blobbed beyond any imagination and is
poised to strike.
I colonized Timurid provinces in such a way to deny Austria land access to them and ultimately India. Austria has x1.5 troops and has advantage of 4 land tech levels. I had westernized but only now finished stabilizing. The units remain oriental.
Diplomacy: I have alliance with Castille, Britain is defender of Catholic faith and will join me as Austria is protestant.
Austria has alliance with Brabdenburg. It isn't the emperor and will never be as only one elector is protestant. Bohemia is emperor for now and the alternative is Burgundy. France is totally destroyed, Turkey and Hungary destroyed. Muscovy was destroyed.
National ideas: Bureocracy, Ecumenism and colonial ventures. I took these to colonize horde land quicker and to cope with the fact
I have no missionaries.
When Austria attack and it has reconquest CB on me, how to fight them?

 

[sebas379]

We will need to know the army sizes, both of you and Austria, as well as the large allies on both sides. Also, how does Land Tech compare?
If you cannot beat their troops in a stand up fight, scorch the land and pull back, wait for their troop number to lower due to attrition and them spreading out in order to siege you. Then you can pick them off one by one (divide and conquer, basically)

 

[unmerged(795360)]

Austria: 200k, allies: Brabdenburg: 15k, various minors: 10k total.
Poland: 130k, allies: Castille:70k, Britain:50k, possibly Portugal: 35k if Castille is leader, possible Burgundy: 80k instead of Britain if buy defender of the faith.
Navies: Poland 20, Austria 10, Castille 70, Britain 90, Austrian minor allies: 12 (only warships counted)

Land techoland 18, Austria 21, Castille 20, Brabdenburg 20, Britain 19

 

[TheArchMede]

Use spies to infiltrate administration so you know where their troops are.

Make sure you always have the larger army in battles. There's a huge difference in the chance of you getting stack wiped depending on whether you overlap their line or not.

Wait for them to commit forces and go passive on sieges, then concentrate against them a stack at a time and roll them up.

Blockade the straits so that they can't switch forces between Europe and Asia.

 

[unmerged(795360)]

Did as you said an it worked in the end. They declared war but I had a warning as they cancelled military access first. Located forces one province from border
in most regions (Dash-i-Lut,Kiev,Poltava, Warmia, Alania). Placed small units (1k) on border to scorch earth and placed all ships in Crimea.
The moment they Dowed I blocked the straight and my allies joined with some others I didn't expect (Castille, Burgundy, Bohemia, Pomerania,Aquilea, Venice).
They got only Brabdenburg and Salzburg. They attacked in the Caucasus during the winter under scorched earth and lost horrendous amount of soldiers.
Bohemia steamrolled their Austrian and Hungarian provinces and their attempt to relieve those caused their demise.
I got Brabdenburg out of the war and defeated their invasion of Poland and Ukraine.
Their southern stacks got bogged down in Afghanistan with no reinforcements while I reconquered Persia.
The result was: I got all their money ~2000d and release of Milan, Bohemia got Hungary.
Castille got Athens and two African provinces and the release of Syria. Austria got split in half with all ME provinces turning distant overseas
with zero tariff efficiency. And they lost all chance to be Emperor as all electors are Catholic and de-vassalized from them.

 

[cacra]

Congratulations, if you take Edirne (i think it is) - the province underneath Constantinople then all of Austria's territory outside of TUrkey becomes overseas. Which could be something to consider.