Heres my FIRST game with a Balkan country (Byz not included), real close to my real life home, The Bosnian Kingdom (soon to be Empire i hope):
And a bit zoomed out screenie:
First, thanks to Hungary attacking me when i was low on manpower, i was reduced from 5 province minor, into a 2 province minor, however i managed to agro my way out, attacking small Serbian principalities in the buffer zone between myself and Ottomans, until i was powerful enough to join a gangbang wagon against Hungary to take my vengeance. Sadly, it didnt quite work out, 20+ province Hungary peaced out with most big war participants almost immediately, and as if that wasnt enough Lithuania and Portugal join their side, needless to say i realized it was a lost war, so i gave up on defending my home and instead proceeded to devastate Croatia (junior partner in union with Hungary). Then i realized that the union between HUN and CRO had dissolved, conveniently allowing me to vassalize already besieged Croatia, while Lithuania, Portugal and a bunch of others raped my homeland. Luckily AI was dumb enough to accept 25 ducats peace offer (probably because success with Croatia counted as high war score or something) so i was able to gain something (4 province vassal) out of that war, despite 3 of my cores still in Hungarian hands. I spent next few years carefully forging my alliances with Galich, Poland, Moldavia and Wallachia (+Naples), so once i dowed Hungary again (fools kept closing their CoT right after they lost a war) we had enough power to kick their butts, hence me owning that small blob going towaed Budapest (i think provinces of Somogy and Pecs, with Pecs being CoT
).
Sometime after, somehow, Serbia revolted from POWERFUL Ottomans, without declaring war or being forcereleased (its either something to do with 5.2 exe or i slightly overdid new slider-triggered rebel-spawning events) which meant WAAAAGH!!!111 despite me not having any CB and taking -2 -2 stability. I grabbed 2 provinces from Serbia and then force released Montenegro where i had core + declared war on MON asap taking more stab hits, but it was worth it, MON didnt have chance to make any alliances.
Anyway, i just answered a Two Sicilies CoA (fromed by lucky Naples), however, despite having France on our side, we got our butts kicked by Spanish led mega alliance. Im still alive and kicking after annexing my loyal vassal Croatia, and i think i might survive it, because Ottomans made one HUGE mistake, they never attacked me, now that i have over 30 units and stable economy, they probably wont have an easy time
Tell me if you want close up on any area.
