well that happened

[Andy578]

spent the entire game trying to avoid the HRE forming but Austria got a lot of PUs early on and had alliances with some of the other bigger powers very early on which i was never able to break, pretty much gg i guess

 

[Yenzen]

Man, that's just a challenge. Ally France, ally the Ottomans, ally Spain, Ally Russia. Tear the HRE int bits and pieces as often and as hard as you can.

 

[Andy578]

Man, that's just a challenge. Ally France, ally the Ottomans, ally Spain, Ally Russia. Tear the HRE int bits and pieces as often and as hard as you can.

Russia is allied with the HRE which is biggest problem, Russia has more men then and Spain and France combined

 

[Yenzen]

Ah, didn't spot that from the screenshot :-/. You're in pretty deep trouble, yeah. Not impossible, but still.

I get the feeling that the most probably cause of action is, if you can siege the HRE to insane amounts of war exhaustion or otherwise destabilize it to create nationalistic rebels. Also maybe even investing in Spy ideas to break apart the HRE-Russia Alliance, or allying one and declaring war on a third party allied to the other to do so.

 

[unmerged(184583)]

ally Russia, tear lithuania apart with them until they have borders with HRE, they'll predictably rival and hate each other after that. Or just coax them into attacking crimea, probably even do it themselves given enough time.

 

[brifbates]

Russia is allied with the HRE which is biggest problem, Russia has more men then and Spain and France combined

And your soldiers will kill the Russians at a 3-1 or better ratio, even more if you let them attack you with their doomstacks in mountains, across rivers, etc...

Honestly though, it depends on what you want to do with the game. If you want to eat the HRE then yes, you've got your work cut out for you but there are other options.

 

[frolix42]

Are you playing Ironman or with Lucky Nations On? With Lucky nations On Austria always forms the HRE early with boring regularity.

Man, that's just a challenge. Ally France, ally the Ottomans, ally Spain, Ally Russia. Tear the HRE int bits and pieces as often and as hard as you can.

I think most people who are blasé about the strength of the HRE, and the speed at which it forms, don't play with lucky nations on. When Lucky Nations are on, you must fight Austria tooth and nail or it dominates Europe virtually every game. It makes Ironman especially frustrating for nations too small or too far away to stop Austria.

ally Russia, tear lithuania apart with them until they have borders with HRE, they'll predictably rival and hate each other after that. Or just coax them into attacking crimea, probably even do it themselves given enough time.

I'm going to guess that Russia and Lith. are Eastern Tech so will be around 2 or 3 MIL Techs (and a few Ideas) behind the HRE by 1670. Basically a bunch of primitives that won't help you much as allies. I agree with you when you said your game is basically over if the HRE is allied with France. Unless it's Westernized and mostly caught up to HRE Tech, Russia isn't going to save you.

I had the same thing happen. This formed in 1670 while I was playing as Ironman Crimea. It's allied with France and Russia so it's gg for my westernized Crimea.

HRE needs a nerf, at least in part to it's missions. They get free PU CBs with Bohemia, Burgundy and Hungary. The easy Improve Relations with Electors mission gives +1 Stab. and 5 Imperial Authority. They're too good!

 

[Andy578]

ally Russia, tear lithuania apart with them until they have borders with HRE, they'll predictably rival and hate each other after that. Or just coax them into attacking crimea, probably even do it themselves given enough time.

Lithuania, HRE and Russia are all allied. Lithuania is also allied with France.

these alliances have been going for quite some time which is the only reason i'm still small, there's been plenty of wars waged to try break these alliances or simply grab a little land here and there and i can give them a good beating but i just don't have the manpower to actually sustain any war against them

also i use a few mods so no ironman and lucky nations is random but i suspect Austria is lucky since they pretty much owned the HRE through PUs long before they actually passed all the reforms

 

[hauptman]

I've stopped letting that happen to me by making sure I was emperor. Theres really no reason to not take it over yourself, especially when you too are an elector.

Anyways, consolidate and add more troops. 2 40k stacks and beat them to a pulp... I mean cmon, you are prussia. No one can beat you in a war.

 

[lordelenath]

It's actually quite doable to win against the AI while being badly outnumbered if you're doing it right. I fought HRE, Russia and France as The Knights (wasn't weak obviously, owned almost all of the Mare Nostrum and Africa) and won, being outnumbered about 4-1 to 6-1 in several wars. It should be easier for you, since you're playing Prussia. You simply have to sit in 100% (or close to) mountain provinces with a small but not to small stack, let yourself be attacked and keep reinforcing until you win. Don't hunt them down, just consolidate, set up the trap again and repeat until you've killed their manpower (yes, that is possible even against HRE, France and Russia) and drove their WE up. You can try to siege provinces close to your trap with small merc stacks, but avoid fighting if there's a reasonable chance you'll miss the -3 terrain. It's going to be stressful and I would probably prefer to restart in your case, but it should be possible.

If you've picked decent ideas for your military (like Offensive, Defensive, Quality, Innovative) I'd wager you should be able to beat about 6-1 odds in mountains, I managed to do 4-1 without the Prussian supersoldiers consistently. You should definitely have some nice cash backup before you start though, you'll need a lot of mercs. You should also check the rivals of everybody you want to peace out separately, get military access with those and offer "annual treaties" to get them to peace out. Combined with enough money that should give you the chance to peace out the ones you don't want to take anything from pretty fast. If I were in your shoes I'd probably go for a very early peace (depending how it's going) and immediately break truce with the HRE, that way you'll have them separated and without allies to go for nasty 100% peace deal (if there's no coalition). And you should definitely try to make Austria release small nations instead of taking things directly and diplo-vassalize them yourself.

 

[frolix42]

No offense but I'm finding this general advice hopelessly naive.

You simply have to sit in 100% (or close to) mountain provinces with a small but not to small stack, let yourself be attacked and keep reinforcing until you win.

What province does Prussia own that's anywhere near 100% mountain? Even the Pyrenees Mountains is like 40% Mountain. The AI is going to surround his armies and attack his reinforcing army before it can reinforce him. Even if he can hold out in one province, the AI HRE is going to carpet seige the rest of his land. I can't speak to your Knights game but the AI is smarter than you make it out to be.

 

[zodium]

Provided you are the only human player, the following dominates (always beats) all AI war strategies:

Field at least one 32/8/40 stack, scaled to maximum combat width. Keep a 32/8/0 stack nearby, with your proper combat stack in between the enemy stack and this reinforcement stack; have Forced March. Roll generals until you get at least 4/x/x/x.

Split your stack to entice the enemy to attack you for a -1 to -2 malus (mountains not necessary). One day before the enemy stack arrives, FM your reinforcement stack towards the battle. Insta-wipe AI stacks all day long.

This is essentially an exploit, but there you go.

 

[thesodality]

AI forms HRE far too often.

 

[unmerged(184583)]

Provided you are the only human player, the following dominates (always beats) all AI war strategies:

Field at least one 32/8/40 stack, scaled to maximum combat width. Keep a 32/8/0 stack nearby, with your proper combat stack in between the enemy stack and this reinforcement stack; have Forced March. Roll generals until you get at least 4/x/x/x.

Split your stack to entice the enemy to attack you for a -1 to -2 malus (mountains not necessary). One day before the enemy stack arrives, FM your reinforcement stack towards the battle. Insta-wipe AI stacks all day long.

This is essentially an exploit, but there you go.

AI is also terrible at sieging you down to 100%. If they siege themselves into a corner they just sit there (I learned during my aztec campaign), allowing you to just follow them around and assault, meaning as long as you have good manuever and can avoid their doomstack (or force march), you can white peace or even win wars where you are hopelessly behind in tech or numbers.

i never uploaded it, but i took a ss of me forcing spain to concede 7 provinces (as aztec) in the 1500's using that tactic.

 

[Andy578]

I've stopped letting that happen to me by making sure I was emperor. Theres really no reason to not take it over yourself, especially when you too are an elector.

Anyways, consolidate and add more troops. 2 40k stacks and beat them to a pulp... I mean cmon, you are prussia. No one can beat you in a war.

my economy could just support fielding 80k and still have a small profit left for the odd building so that's exactly what i did and i actually managed to grab 2 provinces from the HRE while they were busy fighting The Ottomans. this is going to be hard but i think i can manage as long as Russia doesn't go western

 

[Marcus Septim]

crap lucky you hre formation is just a reason to continue your game im never that lucky only twice in my 789 hours of gaming HRE has formed and it was me who formed it

 

[Vedinu]

crap lucky you hre formation is just a reason to continue your game im never that lucky only twice in my 789 hours of gaming HRE has formed and it was me who formed it

Strange. It gets formed in almost all of my games I think.

 

[BossAsianMafia]

Strange. It gets formed in almost all of my games I think.

Strangely I've never seen it form in my Portugal games.

 

[lordelenath]

What province does Prussia own that's anywhere near 100% mountain? Even the Pyrenees Mountains is like 40% Mountain. The AI is going to surround his armies and attack his reinforcing army before it can reinforce him. Even if he can hold out in one province, the AI HRE is going to carpet seige the rest of his land. I can't speak to your Knights game but the AI is smarter than you make it out to be.

Well, you don't have to own the provinces to fight there, do you? I'm pretty sure there's enough mountains in the HRE where you can sit and wait. In my experience the AI tends to prefer killing your armies, especially if they're smaller and in enemy land, over sieging. I wouldn't call the AI dumb, but it definitely has serious issues calculating some factors which are especially important while fighting in mountains: it underestimates the effects of a -3 modifier on casualties and the required men to overcome it and it's severely miscalculating (if at all) the possibilities of reinforcements considering longer battles due to reduced combat width. Overall that leads to very nasty defeats for the AI basicly all the time. Granted, it's obviously easier if you don't have to maneuver to get there and have those 80%+ mountain provinces right next door, but it's still entirely doable.

 

[Marcus Septim]

Strange. It gets formed in almost all of my games I think.

again lucky you in my games it never does as much as i try to help austria (gold lots of it , armies) and after a while mecklenburg will get elected siting there with 100 authority doing nothing...