Religious leagues questions

[Dragos M]

I'm playing my first Ironman game as Austria, religious leagues just formed and I have some questions.

Current situation
I had an excellent start as Austria. Got the early PUs over Bohemia and Hungary and inherited both early on. The Burgundian Inheritance triggered in my favour. I have a PU over England.

I am allied to Spain (Castile PUed then inherited Aragon/Naples), the PLC (formed just recently), Denmark (PU Sweden but not Norway), Bavaria (2 provinces) and The Palatinate (slightly bigger).

France is allied to Scotland, Savoy and Baden. I recently finished a war with Scotland/France to help England conquer most of Scotland.
OE is allied to Muscovy, but Muscovy is friendly and they are no longer a possible target to rival.


I finished enforcing Catholic religion on a few minor states and then the religious league formed led by Baden (2 provinces). The only country with some firepower would be Brandeburg which I just finished beating the crap out of.

Spain+Portugal are in a war against Tunis+OE and OE dragged France in since Spain and Portugal are both GPs. It will be a while before the war is over so I have some time.

My only rivals are France and the Ottomans, together they are quite strong so I'd still prefer waging a war against one but not both.
I'm currently sitting at 0 manpower due to my wars with Scotland/France and some minors (enforcing religion). I'd like to known France down a peg while it's at war with Spain and possibly prevent it from joining the league as well.

Here are my questions
1) As the Catholic Emperor, is there any way to start the war? I found some references saying that a DoW/Enforce religion on the leader might work
2) Can country join the leagues AFTER the war has started?
3) Is there any point in enforcing religion on Protestant nations at this point? Do I risk starting a war?
4) Would a country join a religious war while at war?
5) Can countries switch the leagues once they joined? Would improving relations with them help?
6) Hamburg is a CoR, I border them so can attack. The problem is they are a Free city (-3 stability hit) and no allies. Shall I try removing it as a Free city and then attack them?

Thanks

 

[Viktor Vaughn]

1: I'm kind of certain that only the protestant league leader can start the league war, though you can certainly start a war against him. But I don't think you get the Religious League CB and therefore I don't think you can end the league mechanic.
2: Nope
3: Totally up to you. It's cheaper to do it during the league war. Doing it before the league war risks the targets hating you and therefore maybe joining the protestant league but it does mean there are less heretics running around. So yeah, up to you.
4: Varies. I don't think as a player there really is a way of knowing, but the AI always seems to and it pisses me off lol. Just because people are in the Catholic league doesn't mean that they auto-join, and I see a bunch countries being barely involved in a war with little exhaustion, occupied territory, etc, and they seem to use just being in a war as an excuse to duck out of the league war.
5: I think they can but there's a big cooldown and I've never seen AI do it.
6: I'd personally just insult them and get them to hate you, provoking them to join the protestant league, and then just enforce religion during the league war, but again, up to you.

also fyi, using 'kebab' to refer to otto's is a big no-no here.

 

[Dragos M]

Cheers, read too much reddit, I've edited my post