Tips for Savoy-SP-Italy

[Dragonquack]

I never thought this run would be as hard, although I bet I just got extremely unlucky and made a few dumb moves. My first attempt, Venice became unusually powerful and managed to war me when all my allies declined the CtA. My second attempt ended when my ally France white peaced Austria for no reason and I was crushed, and now my third attempt has been going well so far until I (somewhat stupidly) declared on Milan, who had rejoined the HRE, dragging in Austria and its allies, which includes a large Papal State, and am currently engaged in a battle which will likely end up with me losing half my army

Any tips on how to win this war and go forwards? The game file is attached

 

[Blust]

Go in debt and merc up

 

[Astalic]

First we absolutely don't have the same playstyle. No debt, not estate privilege a promise of land to an ally, (usually i don't even have ally or more "i don't have ally after 1500 if things went well"), no agressive expention, you took aristocratic and eco without quality...
Should have taken quantity over aristocartic. But since you trained your troop, you have a lot of professionalism and no debt so with this setup i can win pretty much any war.

Your FL is too small to build 23/4/27 stack (or 27/0/27 depend if you like cav or not). Since one of your army got stackwiped and the other lost ~60% of is strenght i took an huge number of loan and i made a 23/4/27 stack. You had the tech adventage so battle were easy with a full with (army + canon). I made one or two dumb move (assaulted a fort at some point in the hope of quick peace + milking monney from the pope unfortunaly the austrian army noticed it...) so somebody more carefull can do it with less debts/ professionalism burned. Also i burned more ressources to make france happy and i gave them land to not break the alliance.

Oh and your king died got a new dynasty and he's terribad.

EDIT : you can do the same by yourselve i'm 100% sure it work (look at the save). BTW : try to focus on the pope and peace them ASAP.

 

[Dragonquack]

First we absolutely don't have the same playstyle. No debt, not estate privilege a promise of land to an ally, (usually i don't even have ally or more "i don't have ally after 1500 if things went well"), no agressive expention, you took aristocratic and eco without quality...
Should have taken quantity over aristocartic. But since you trained your troop, you have a lot of professionalism and no debt so with this setup i can win pretty much any war.

Your FL is too small to build 23/4/27 stack (or 27/0/27 depend if you like cav or not). Since one of your army got stackwiped and the other lost ~60% of is strenght i took an huge number of loan and i made a 23/4/27 stack. You had the tech adventage so battle were easy with a full with (army + canon). I made one or two dumb move (assaulted a fort at some point in the hope of quick peace + milking monney from the pope unfortunaly the austrian army noticed it...) so somebody more carefull can do it with less debts/ professionalism burned. Also i burned more ressources to make france happy and i gave them land to not break the alliance.

Oh and your king died got a new dynasty and he's terribad.

EDIT : you can do the same by yourselve i'm 100% sure it work (look at the save). BTW : try to focus on the pope and peace them ASAP.

Ah, okay, thanks. I took aristocratic mainly for role-play purposes, I’m planning to go revolutionary later on so I felt it would fit with the theme of having an oppressive nobility. I’m thinking of mercing up as well, my main goal is to complete the Lombardy missions so I get claims on Tuscany and Venice, and then take that land during the league wars when the rest of Europe is busy.

I usually don’t like going into debt, so it didn’t really occur to me, I think I may have to go out of my comfort zone and play style if I want to win this

 

[Astalic]

Yeah i went really agressive on ressources (my goal was to win the war at all cost) and i had to rebuild your forces. Also having France on your side help a lot they kept Austria and the HRE troop busy when i was dealing with the pope. I had to defend Paris only one or two time to be sure to keep them in the war.

Debt can help a lot, but it can become a curse if you fail or abuse of it. Still la great tool to overcome the odds. Take monney and war rep to papal state and austria (with their cappital occupied they will gladly give you monney). You have a privilege in burghler estate who give 5 loan for near of no cost.
Also you have economic and papal sanction your bank loan cost 3.25% and you have inflation reduction this is perfect to use this game mechanic at your adventage.