so i expected id have to restart a few times but im still going strong on my first one, 1504 have all of greece, most of asia minor, vassals: wallachia, bosnia, georgia
Here's what I did
Before Unpause: Warn the Ottomans, mostly so they don't warn you.
military access with a country next to serbia.
Build more land troops to your force limit, move all your units next to serbia. Immediately start improving relations with Poland.
Declare war on Serbia without a casus belli, just take the stability hit, vassilize them. Disband your cogs start building galleys, keep building infantry to stay at your force limit. My understanding is that the AI targets weaker players first unless they got the "City of the world desire mission" which in my case they didnt get until later. So as long as your military power is greater than the Turkish minors the ottomans want to go after, you'll be safe for a bit.
If you were lucky Bosnia or Wallachia trade disputed you for your aggressive actions, if not you need to spend some administrative points to keep your stability at -2 (since all provinces have the right culture and religion, stability doesnt really matter early, just cant be -3). Declare war on them 1 at a time and vassilize them as well. After you declare war on 1 of them go check poland and see who their rivals are, name one of them your rival as well. You should also be able to get a royal marriage. Once you have vassalized Bosnia and Wallachia, you should be strong enough for Poland to ally you.
The next step is controlling the Bosporus, if you get lucky (which again i did) the ottomans turned on Dulkadir or some province the mamluks guaranteed, and got into a war with the mamluks, who with the bigger navy sunk all their ships. The ottomans do rebuild their navy but you should be able to have a stronger force by having only galleys where they will build cogs and barques, also make sure you have an admiral. Once you are sure you have the better navy, wait for them to move their army stack into turkey, declare war. You and your vassal armies can easily siege them out, and you can blockade them once you finish off their navy. Poland will usually come to your aid unless they are in a war but it isnt even really needed yet, since you only want to take a few provinces at a time. From here its pretty easy to just slowly rinse and repeat this process demandind all greek and bulgarian provinces.
Between the wars pay attention to Corfu, Naxos, Rhodes, Cyprus and Crete in my game Crete got independence from Venice, i immediately DoW'd them, and the mamluks took, then lost to patriots rhodes and cyprus. Aragon gave me Corfu after winning a war vs Venice and i picked off naxos somewhere along the way. If you aren't so lucky, you can easily take them from venice so long as you maintain naval superiority (sink theirs, then siege their capitol and they cant do anything)
The bigger threat to you is actually Crimea, they surprised me with a navy and for some reason in a war i didnt call them to, poland gave them military access, if the ottomans start getting too many powerful allies, improve relations with the remaining turkish minors to +100, they will invariably DoW them without calling their allies, and you can join the war via the enforce peace option to only have to fight them.
Once they only have erdine left in europe is when you really want polands help crushing them, making them release more turkish minors. Eventually cut them down and vassilize them, then you can DoW the turkish minors, give the provinces back to the ottomans so when you anenx them they are already cored.
In my game Crimea reduced georgia to 1 province and vassilized them, when you have poland with you in a war you can easily get them to release georgia and give you a province next to them. Spend time building a claim on georgia's province, and DoW them after the truce is up, vassilizing them then giving them the province you used to claim from. The next time you war with crimea, you can make them release the other georgian provinces.
This is pretty much where I am now, I integrated serbia (had a border with hungary anyway and it was a relation i didnt need), also got Candar and Trebonizid, but the Karamans are sticking around since im currently warned by the mamluks and need to recover manpower before i can enter a major war. I'm pulling in about 12 gold a month even with 3 lvl 1 advisors and a 30 stack army/navy. I also broke my alliance with poland, they were just getting in too many wars with a united denmark and muscovy and not teching, and formed a new one with the austrians. I dont expect them to help me in wars any more, but just hopefully keep castille who inherited aragon and naples off my back for the time being while i find a way to push thru the mamluks and the hordes to india.
The downside here is it takes monarch points because of your alliance + vassals will push you over the limit and you are going to need at least 1 general and 1 admiral but you will pull in a lot of gold pretty fast and can afford it. Do make sure when you build your army you make muslim units in the provinces you took from the ottomans they are better than your early units.
