So how are you supposed to win the league wars as Catholic Emperor?

[qqmagnuz]

My goal: Get the achievement to form the HRE

The year is around 1550 or so and I am playing as Austria. My previous feats includes getting a PU over Bohemia, Hungary and The Palatinate. I have passed three reforms and reined in Italy. Not only that, but I have fought against the Balkan nations and even successfully annexed a bunch of Ottoman land pre-religious wars. All that land has been added to the HRE. That also includes Hungary's land who has been integrated and added to the HRE as well. In fact, I thought I was doing extremely well considering I have not played Austria before. The HRE was gaining about +0.20 and I repeatedly released land to princes.

Then the Protestantism came quite late (well after 1500). I quickly captured their center of reformation, but even with my religious idea group you can't convert any center of reformation for 30 years. That allowed about half the HRE to turn Protestant before I finally was able to conquer and drive out first all the centers of reformation, but then all the smaller princes. I fought smaller wars within the HRE prior to the massive league war and [most of the HRE was catholic](https://imgur.com/a/nLVdb).

Then all the largest world powers decided that fuck the Hapsburg dynasty and they all ganged up on me despite none of them being Protestant. As you could see from the link above, France, England, Ottoman and Russia all joined the Protestant side despite none of them being Protestant. Sweden, my ally and also a Cathloic, did not join any side. They decalred war on me and the war went on for a long time. I managed to successfully occupy all of France and separate peace them for 4 nice provinces in the low countries. But the Eastern flank got completely overrun by Russia and Ottomans (who were more concerned about beating me than beating their own Mameluk rebels).

At this point in 1567 I figured it was impossible to white peace the major powers of England, Ottomans and Russia. So it was literally impossible to win the league wars. They outnumbered us 5 to 1 as the war started and French, Brandenburg and Ottoman troops are much better than Austrian. Even as I had full offensive idea group as my third. The war was a a slaughter and we lost decisively, even after peacing out France.

[This was the war situation](https://imgur.com/a/DxcZB) before I peaced out.

[And this was the after-peace out map](https://imgur.com/a/zy826).

[Check out all the land I had added to HRE!](https://imgur.com/a/WB8Jp)

Now as the war was over and Protestantism was the main religion, the game became unplayable. And the reason for that is because even if I switch to Protestantism myself, there is a -0.85 modifier in the HRE Imperial Authority because most of the lands are Catholic still. And I killed all the Protestant reformation centers. Even worse yet is the fact that the Reformed religion is slowly but surely gaining ground because they have centers of reformation in Sweden (my ally), who are allied to Russia. Forget about a nice quick war to remove those centers of reformation. Basically the HRE will be split evenly 1/3 catholic, 1/3 protestant, 1/3 reformed. Essentially making it impossible to pass new reforms.

So what the hell can one do from this position? How can one avoid getting the league war to fire? I had even watched Reman's videos specifically on both how to beat the Protestantism and how to play as Austria. Everything in those worked very well. But the problem is that all of the major powers just joined the anti-Habsburg side when the league wars arose and I have literally no chance in that war. Essentially ending the game.


This was also posted on Reddit but I got no good answers there so I thought I'd post it here as well.

 

[iquabakaner]

Completely occupy the Protestant League leader for 5 years and the warscore automatically jumps to 100%. That's how I won a League war I thought was impossible to win. (For details see my thread here) I suppose Anhalt was still an OPM in your game? Even if it's not it's probably a small country that you can completely occupy easily.

Also you can convert centers of reformation even if it has the religious zeal modifier, by using 'force religion' on the country, since the capital of the country will immediately convert no matter what. If the CoR is not the capital, just annex all other provinces to make it the capital of that country, then force religion in your next war.

 

[qqmagnuz]

Completely occupy the Protestant League leader for 5 years and the warscore automatically jumps to 100%. That's how I won a League war I thought was impossible to win. (For details see my thread here) I suppose Anhalt was still an OPM in your game? Even if it's not it's probably a small country that you can completely occupy easily.

Also you can convert centers of reformation even if it has the religious zeal modifier, by using 'force religion' on the country, since the capital of the country will immediately convert no matter what. If the CoR is not the capital, just annex all other provinces to make it the capital of that country, then force religion in your next war.

That's not what I did either. What I did was to annex the province which had the Center of Reformation. But that province has a modifier for 30 years that gives -100 missionary strength no matter what.

 

[iquabakaner]

That's not what I did either. What I did was to annex the province which had the Center of Reformation. But that province has a modifier for 30 years that gives -100 missionary strength no matter what.

If you annex the province you will have to wait 30 years for the modifier to go away. If you just force religion you convert your enemy's capital whether or not the modifier is present (it will go away as the province converts).

 

[Ixal]

Become the Emperor again, fabricate claims within the HRE and use the Enforce Religion demand against your target and its allies.
For countries you cant reach through fabrication or allies you can try the emperor action to chanhe religion but use that sparringly as the opinion penalty stacks and can become a problem later when you try to do Revoke.

For later games, make sure to make some friends with the big surrounding powers because as you noticed you do not need to be protestant to join their league, you just need to hate Austria enough.

 

[Vince75]

Well if you want to unify HRE, you can just prevent leagues to form by crushing the Reforms when they appear.

 

[qqmagnuz]

If you annex the province you will have to wait 30 years for the modifier to go away. If you just force religion you convert your enemy's capital whether or not the modifier is present (it will go away as the province converts).

That small bit of information basically cost me the game. That's bitter.

 

[Ixal]

That small bit of information basically cost me the game. That's bitter.

Well it is a bit cheesy and I dont think its intended anyway.

 

[Thrake]

Then all the largest world powers decided that fuck the Hapsburg dynasty and they all ganged up on me despite none of them being Protestant. As you could see from the link above, France, England, Ottoman and Russia all joined the Protestant side despite none of them being Protestant.

Now you know how the Habsburg felt:

Anti-Habsburg states and allies:
Sweden (from 1630)

Dutch Republic

France (from 1635)
Denmark (1625–1629)
Bohemia (1618–1620)

The Palatinate (surrendered in 1623)

Saxony (until 1635)[1]
Brandenburg-Prussia (until 1635)[1]
Brunswick-Lüneburg

England (1625–30)[2]

Scotland (1625–38)[3]

Transylvania (from 1619)[4]

Supported by:

• Ottoman Empire
• 
  Russian Tsardom[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War

 

[ShahanShah]

You said it was your first Austrian game, so I can understand it, but in essence a good austrian player should have the entire continent of europe in his hand by the mid-late 1500's, and you should have been taking over the northern german opm's that often cause trouble with protestantism. I also recommend a restart until Castile rival France, means you can get the event that gives your dynasty on their throne.

 

[Ninaran]

If you annex the province you will have to wait 30 years for the modifier to go away. If you just force religion you convert your enemy's capital whether or not the modifier is present (it will go away as the province converts).

Yeah, I learned that the hard way too.
I was so impatient that I didn't wait for the prince to convert but instead declared immediately with the goal to convert the province myself and gain a foothold for Deus Vult once more people convert.
Should've definitely waited until he converted and then forced religion instead. Very important advice.

 

[Rocketskates]

you were doing too well in fact, instead of slapping around everyone you, prepare for the event and have some solid allies, france ottos and russia should never ever be on the same side of a religious conflict unless something went horribly wrong

most of the times you can just wait out the conflict and the protestants dont dare declare on you, just force convert them back without expanding, it will slow you down a bit, most of my games the protestants are always in hopeless position, but for some reason they declare the war which is unwinnable for them, usually when the emperor is doing something, so you might be able to bait them to declare on you early, my last religious conflict only saw a handful of countries at war instead of the usual world war 1