Tips for taking on mega-blob france

[ryak2002]

I'm playing the "mighty" nation of cleves. I'm doing pretty well considering what a weak start they have, but I may have played a small part in removing some of france's usual competitors with somewhat predictable results. Now i'm wondering what i can do against them. Their army is probably 2 or 3 times the size of mine and is maybe 1.5 times at least the size of mine plus all of my vassals.

I'm thinking the sensible thing to do is try to get an alliance with austria against them and we should at least be on a fairly even playing field. I'm worried that austria would not be interested in that kind of arrangement no matter how much i butter them up, though.

I did just get elected HRE, which at least helps my manpower.

I have a slight land tech advantage and pretty decent generals, but so do they.

Any suggestions?

EDIT: yes, thats granada. Theyre catholic too, for some reason. Doesnt seem to stop everyone and their brother from declaring war on them though.

 

[Profane]

Wont be pleasant but at least it shouldn't be boring, i would aim to pounce on them in a moment of weakness, high we is best imo since attacking when they are at war seems to just result in an immediate wp with whoever they are fighting, a warning might get you a war with them with Austria or GB on your side, various possibilities exist.

As for the war itself i would suggest recruiting up to your max even if that results in minting (hre raises your limits along with giving you manpower after all) and naval superiority would allow you to fully blockade them and move troops around much faster than they can (nothing like landing a full army in a province that has just been assaulted) As for your iberian possessions i am not sure you should even bother defending them unless you can significantly increase your armies (with the possible exception of a single army moved by ship hunting assault armies)

Basically inflict maximum we on them + doing everything to raise revolt% in their provinces in order to cripple them strategically (with vastly increased recruiting times and reduced income) while scorching and using your armies to eliminate enemy stacks.

Peace objective would be to force them to release countries that you can then diplovassalize making you stronger and them weaker for the next round, and with that blob its going to take 2-3 wars to destroy them.

My problem is that i tend to nip in the bud any potential blobbers right at the start, makes things a lot easier but also makes for boring end game.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Not much you can do other than keeping in good terms with them and taking advantage of them when they are at war with Austria. Your choice of territorial expansion has put you in a very bad strategic position.

 

[Linx MP]

What I would do is is a bit cheezy but wait for you to have such a landtech advantage that it allows you to have a better land unit than France and then attack. Focus on destroying their armies then taking provinces. Once you have an advantage push it so you can release a lot of HRE nations which will help you in two ways. You get athority but it also hurts France badly as those are the richest provinces they own. Flanders would also be a good choice as they are large and wealthy.

In the mean time try and expand with the HRE and leave them alone.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Suppose he didn't expand into the New World, I doubt he has the manpower and economy to support an army comparable to BBB's. After all, his German provinces are few and the Iberian provinces tend to be poor. To make things worse, France also took the richest Iberian provinces (Navarre, Barcelona, Rousillon, and Toledo). The ones the OP took are largely dirt poor except for Adalucia, Gibraltar, Granada, and the few metal provinces along the northern coast.

 

[Caban]

Ugh... that's a tough one. I'd do everything in my power to force them to take a stability hit if they declare war(Royal Marriage/Guarantees/access) and work their stability down. If you can get it to -2 or -3 they won't even be that tough if you can stay in long enough to drive up War Exhaustion.

 

[unmerged(204522)]

release castille, if you can do so without losing andalucia, and guarantee portugal-race ahead to land tech 28 for a tactics upgrade, gustavian infantry and gallop cavalry-build your army to maximum and station them all in the north-hopefully, half their army will stay in iberia to fight castille/portugal, while you destroy the other half, one stack at a time-when your warscore is sufficient, force release and vassalise small nations, preferably cutting france into 2 separated chunks, since this will make it extra tough for them to deal with all the rebels-watch out that austria/GB/bavaria etc dont get the chance to jump in on the french side.

 

[ryak2002]

I have absolutely no colonies since you cannot colonize unless you have a sea province connected to your capitol, which i don't. With land/sea at -5 i think my naval support limit is about 5 ships at the most, so i haven't even bothered attempting to build a navy. I could do it and even a few transports would certainly help my situation where i'm currently dependant on military access with france for moving troops back and forth from iberia.

This is my first game where i started as an OPM which didnt end in annexation and i wasn't ever really in a position to challenge france since i started so weak. It probably didn't help matters when i annexed burgandy and half of castille, though.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

I have absolutely no colonies since you cannot colonize unless you have a sea province connected to your capitol, which i don't. With land/sea at -5 i think my naval support limit is about 5 ships at the most, so i haven't even bothered attempting to build a navy. I could do it and even a few transports would certainly help my situation where i'm currently dependant on military access with france for moving troops back and forth from iberia.

This is my first game where i started as an OPM which didnt end in annexation and i wasn't ever really in a position to challenge france since i started so weak. It probably didn't help matters when i annexed burgandy and half of castille, though.

So you aren't even a naval power. Since you are at 1600 AD, you can forget about massive colonization in general and focus on European conquest.

An option would be to diplo-vasssalize every minor around you and be in good terms with France and have an alliance with Austria.

 

[unmerged(399291)]

Hmm, Austria sounds like a good bet, considering France has a few provinces in the Adriatic, unless there is HRE politics involved that makes it impossible. However, you should also try to ally a naval power, Great Britain or Scandinavia, by the looks of it.

Releasing Castille, though, I'm not sure. It's already bad enough that you can't access them except through France (you might try getting a small fleet and secure military access through Oldenburg and such), but chances are that an independent Castille won't survive long on its own, and you will have made it worse for yourself. Do you have cores on all these provinces yet, by the way?

 

[ryak2002]

Most of them. I didn't realize being HRE gives you such a ridiculous land support bonus. I took grand army and was able to spend a few years just building troops to more than double the size of my army and just declared on france with the fantastic imperial ban casus belli when i saw they had high war exhaustion and had sent some troops to africa. Once it became clear france was losing, everyone with a border declared war on france too and it was fairly easy to mop up any remaining resistance at that point. I managed to get 6000 ducats plus some free cored HRE territory and release several vassals, and france was pretty much destroyed in the one war, since the opportunist DOWs all took fairly generous peace offerings, too.

The only real hitch was portugal declared a reconquest on me during the war with france, but i was pretty much able to ignore it until i was done with france then move enough forces down there to defeat Portugal.

 

[unmerged(368282)]

To drive up their WE just use scorched earthtactics. Will drive RR insane and Will drain their armies. Also use generals. Sorry for type-os. Stupid autocorrect on ipod

 

[sigi333]

I would sugest to tech like crazy until you get the ability to build army lvl 6 buildings which give you increased forcelimit.
its what i did as switzerland against mega france and austria basically split lower HRE and northern italy between them.
and always fight the doomstacks on the defensive