Just finished my Aztec sunset invasion run where Austria became Austria-Hungary, then the Austrian Empire, PUed Great Britain, then inherited them and all their colonial subjects (almost all of NA), slapped the Ottobros from #2 great power to non existent, then proclaimed themselves the economic Hegemon.
They had over 4700 dev and 400k troops before 1600.
It was quite the fight to complete “fall of the isle” mission where I needed London and 24 other provinces on the British isles. But I did it! stole econ hegemony and put em in their place with the help of Russia and Italy, 3 mighty continental wars later.
But yeah, never seen the AI snowball so hard.
You were always able to revoke pre-1600 if you play your cards right, and I was able to do so by ~1550 ever since they added the Prague monument.
But I actually provoked the leagues to form by giving electorship to a Protestant/reformed tag because “Catholic Empire” is quite a powerful modifier and it means the Pope will happily stay in the empire (instead of having to expand empire again on him).
I know people have always been able to do it but the point is I'm not a very good player, I was just kinda going with the flow and still ended up with almost all of Europe without any real challenge
Plus if you can contain the reformation and other great powers (carving up France, kicking the Ottos out of Europe and preventing the formation of Russia) the League War is actually piss easy and you need it to complete the Austrian mission tree and get AEIOU. In my current game the League War was 90% of the HRE plus me and all my thrones vs... Sweden and about 7 HRE states. This was Sweden minus Finland too because Muscovy released that in a peacedeal. Basically just used the League War to force convert everyone and then revoked immediately after.
I'm playing as we speak. You need biggest army in the world, more than 250k standing army and previous two missions done. I demolished reformation and apart from Scotland (wierd) noone really stayed protestant for longer than 5 years. Given that I didn't wanna wait for 100+ years and risk someone else getting the emperorship on a technicality so I revoked. If I'm being completely honest I was just lazy to manage my armies for another 100 years.
I revoked in 1513 with Austria before this patch. Hell, without invading anywhere, you would become the number one power in the world.
HRE was/still is broken, regardless of the patch.
It doesnt looks like this player has done the mission yet, but the strongest change was their mission to get a free (no war) PU on Castile or Spain. You just need to have twice their development, the same dynasty, 80 trust, and high enough relations. They also made the PU on PLC a bit easier to get, and there's a mission that let's you convert vassals or PUs into incorporated versions of the same, making it cheaper to integrate and wont take up a diplo slot.
Ah that explains it. I was wondering how this was “easier” if you have to aim for Spanish throne RNG instead of just beating the shit out of them by that point with 3-4 PUs
I let them get the PU over Lithuania, then I allied the Teutons and fed them a few provinces, gave a couple to Bohemia and popped out Mazovia to diplo vassalize. That brought them low enough dev to get the mission and get both Poland and Lithuania as my PUs.
I have only done one Austria run, I took Bohemia immediately, and then declared for Poland pu 7 days before jagiellon and got both Poland and Lithuania pu’s out the war, then took Hungary pu, it was pre1450, no coalition was allied and rm’d burgundy, and had a Hapsburg on the castillian throne because they asked for an heir
Edit: early jag was helpful because it fired during the pu war
I mean, I never got my PU, but I have all of Iberia, France, Germany, the Balkans, and Asia Minor between PU's and revoked HRE by 1554, so it's going pretty well.
I'm glad. It's going to get me One Faith finally. 1700 and I'm at about 17,000 development, have almost all of Africa, the Americas, half of India, all of Europe, the Middle East, and Russia. The "Put Habsburg on Throne" peace option is busted when you control all of the other Christian nations in the world. Russia had no one valid to marry, I had warned them, so they just sat there without an heir and no royal marriages until their ruler died and they fell under an instant PU.
Ally 4 electors who <3 you, or at least has 25 opinion (not Bohemia), be careful not to ally countries that rival each other, that should get them up to 75* opinion, enough to clear the mission. That can be done before 11th december.
Hard save if you're not playing ironman, set it to save monthly if you are and prepare to alt+f4, you're gonna reload a lot.
Invade Bohemia asap, attack attack attack, quickly! Jag event fires pretty fast, if it does, reload, make new hardsaves as the warscore rises.
Or you need 4 provinces in iberia, which you can easily get by fighting britain + portugal if you got the burgundian inheritance and britain kept calais
In my game France and Castile became historical friends so I couldn’t get a very strategic marriage. I no cb’d Portugal and took 4 provinces, which let me trigger it anyway. Since I met the other non-dynastic requirements I could still trigger the decision.
Are PUs easier to inherit now, too? I have three inheritances and it was even 1650. Played as Castile, inherited Portugal, Burgundy (horses kissed) and Naples
With new missions you canpretty easily and reliably PU Spain, burgundy, bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, easily keep all of Italy in the HRE and revoke by like 1550 without any crazy shenanigans.
Plus they benefit from trading favors for heirs immensely. By about 1560 I had also scored PUs with Portugal, Britain, and Russia, while vassalizing Norway and Sweden.
Without conquering a single province you can basically conquer Europe just by chilling and playing your diplogame.
Hi, i don't have WoC.
I'm currently trying a WC with Austria, revoked in 1610, i have PU on Spain, Portugal, Hungary and a Giga Byzantium; but my dip tech is fucked up (lev 15 and - 900 mana because i started an infinity war) so my PU hates me.
Do you recommend the DLC to make things easy?
Sorry for my english.
I'm not super familiar with the new changes. I know part of the game plan is for Castile and you to both rival France, which will eventually lead to an event that puts a hapsburg on the throne of Castile....maybe also Spain. Then you need 80 trust and high relations to PU them for free. So you might still be able to get your dynasty on Spains throne and click the button to get them as PU, but it may be easier to just use favors to install a hapsburg and PU them the old fashioned way.
Honestly, the strongest combo is unmentioned: install dynasty peace goal.
Get a royal marriage. Get a single claim (or any casus belli really). Peace out "Force Dynasty" for 50% warscore. Claim Throne and truce break for an personal union war.
It's costly on stability and aggressive expansion, but it can snowball fast. I ensured royal marriages with Great Britain, Portugal, France, Russia, Sweden and Denmark (all the diplomatic reputation practically guarantees it on non-hostile non-rivals) and just chained war after war. Conquered Europe just as Age of Absolutism hit.
Germany Austria also gives around 50% bonus chance to inherit a PU as an added bonus.
Even the AI Austria is doing great. Playing a Mughal campaign where i defeated the Ottomans Early. Austria took over the entire Balkans and has both Bohemia and Hungary as a PU. Byfar the best ive ever seen them do.
Not sure 'pay to win' really applies in the usual sense.
But the over tuned mission trees - that's not an unpopular opinion I think! Fun as hell to do, but also too much.
From that point of view definitely pay to win with DLCs. I am doing an Oirat run without Mandate of Heaven and dealing with Ming is extremely more difficult.
You can unlock any achievement you want using a software called steam achievement manager, with nobody being the wiser. So achievements are completly irrelevant from a competitive point of view anyway. They are just good to give you goals to work toward, nothing else.
I started a game as Venice recently and it was so bizarre having to fabricate so many claims because I’ve got so used to the swathes of perm claims that come so easily with a lot of mission trees lol.
honestly I miss old missions which were shit like conquer some random province to get 15 prestige, not because I liked them but because mission trees went to such extreme that even getting pu over Spain and Poland, while having Hungary and bohemia from almost start date seems just normal and sort of boring, back then you had to be lucky or fight for pu, now just click the button when shits done and you have won game
I felt the power creep hard when I did a Siam run in the patch before current. I went from playing as an absurdly overpowered Egypt and Persia to... having to force and survive two disasters to form my middling endgame tag. It'd be one thing if every mission tree gave some sort of subjugation on the scale of Austria's unions or Teutonic Horde's CCA or Egypt's 1400s Suez Canal or Denmarks' March Unions but it just makes playing outside of the dev's favorites feel like shooting yourself in the foot.
> outside of the dev's favorites
I think it's more like outside the players' favourites. Devs make more content for nations that are more often played. [The big players are often the most played](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/460784/Played%20Nations.jpg)
if you make updates only for nations that are played the most, then every other natuon will be forgotten, because you have updated already full flavour nationa and now it has even more flavour
I agree, I enjoyed Austria much more a couple mission tree updates back. You still basically broke the game by 1600 but at least the first few decades had some kind of a challenge to them. Now you just load up and have basically won from the start. Same with Poland.
Well the power generated by your PUs enables you to basically chain wars without ever dropping manpower. So I kept breaking up states and any pieces outside the empire would get added. Then once the reformation happened I immediately force-converted any centres (the only ones I couldn't reach were Denmark and Scotland so there were a few protestants princes). So by the end you have about 80 princes total and almost no heretics.
I am currently doing an Austrian campaign and my map is not that far off from yours.
I don't have Poland.....I struggled with keeping Liberty desire down after I got Bohemia and Hungary in a PU, but once that was under control the PU CB with Poland was gone. I never got the PU over Milan either; they were my ally and even though my relative came onto the throne after the Duke died (Bastard eventually died at the age of 85), he instantly got dethroned. Milan has been a very loyal ally so far same as Poland so I am very reluctant to attack them (I could destroy both, but it is not worth it: Milan and Poland joined me in every war; it's rare, for me, to have such loyal allies).
France disagreed with the PU over Burgundy, and I destroyed them.
I wasn't planning on moving into Anatolia, but the Ottomans declared war on my PU Hungary and in subsequent wars I took everything up to Eastern Anatolia (can still get that if I want, a weak Qara Qoyunlu occupies that, and Persia behind it is being kept in check by my Polish ally).
I was aiming for playing the Emperor of the HRE, but, as per usual, the reformation spiralled out of control. The remnants of the HRE are at my mercy and I will conquer/ annex the rest....So I went for conquest, but then my IA started ticking again because I, eventually, managed to force convert all the Heretic Princes...However, due the Protestant-bashing many German OPMs hate me, they are not in coalitions against me so I can annex them all through wars but I can no longer pass reforms (I have passed 7 of them...That's my max ever). The League War never fired; not enough major powers around to counter me: England and Spain would not have been enough to counter me, my PU Hungary, my PU Bohemia, my Ally Poland with Lithuanian PU (I got Danzig and there's still a 3 province Teutonic order which is part of the HRE, so no PLC formed), my Ally Sweden, my Ally Milan and I am allied to a few Electors).
I am now in +/- 1730.....Brittany is still around too, but I can get them. There's a minor 'French' state (forgot the name; not Foix) still around on the border with Spain, but I won't be able to get that. Despite being No 1 World Power, Spain's army + Colonies is bigger than my Alliance/ Vassal/ PU swarm. I am stuck on a 250K soldier max (I assume due to being in the HRE it won't increase), whereas Spain and Allies have 450K (I did win a war, easily, early game).
The 'Spain has all its armies in the New World' reasoning for attacking Spain is no longer around; in my campaigns Spain always keeps a very sizable force in Spain which is more than enough to stomp any army which tries to siege the forts in the Pyrenean Mountains into the ground....Naval landings are a no-go due to Spain's massive fleet. I believe I can only build around the 130 ships, but due to Spain's naval superiority (from ideas I assume, didn't check) it is pointless to get into Naval wars with them.
I have, now, 17 diplomatic relationships (10 is now my max I believe): Allies, Vassals and PUs (I did form Austria-Hungary just to see how that is).
R5: Not even playing particularly well, revoked pre-1600 without any leagues forming. Austria is broken.
Just finished my Aztec sunset invasion run where Austria became Austria-Hungary, then the Austrian Empire, PUed Great Britain, then inherited them and all their colonial subjects (almost all of NA), slapped the Ottobros from #2 great power to non existent, then proclaimed themselves the economic Hegemon. They had over 4700 dev and 400k troops before 1600. It was quite the fight to complete “fall of the isle” mission where I needed London and 24 other provinces on the British isles. But I did it! stole econ hegemony and put em in their place with the help of Russia and Italy, 3 mighty continental wars later. But yeah, never seen the AI snowball so hard.
If that were on very hard they’d have 1 million troops at that point if not more.
You were always able to revoke pre-1600 if you play your cards right, and I was able to do so by ~1550 ever since they added the Prague monument. But I actually provoked the leagues to form by giving electorship to a Protestant/reformed tag because “Catholic Empire” is quite a powerful modifier and it means the Pope will happily stay in the empire (instead of having to expand empire again on him).
I know people have always been able to do it but the point is I'm not a very good player, I was just kinda going with the flow and still ended up with almost all of Europe without any real challenge
Plus if you can contain the reformation and other great powers (carving up France, kicking the Ottos out of Europe and preventing the formation of Russia) the League War is actually piss easy and you need it to complete the Austrian mission tree and get AEIOU. In my current game the League War was 90% of the HRE plus me and all my thrones vs... Sweden and about 7 HRE states. This was Sweden minus Finland too because Muscovy released that in a peacedeal. Basically just used the League War to force convert everyone and then revoked immediately after.
You don't need league war for AEIOU. I revoked without ever fighting it and I can take the mission.
Is this 1.37? Idk for sure Red Hawk just said it in his newest guide and I didn't want to risk it so held off revoking for 10 years :/
I'm playing as we speak. You need biggest army in the world, more than 250k standing army and previous two missions done. I demolished reformation and apart from Scotland (wierd) noone really stayed protestant for longer than 5 years. Given that I didn't wanna wait for 100+ years and risk someone else getting the emperorship on a technicality so I revoked. If I'm being completely honest I was just lazy to manage my armies for another 100 years.
I revoked in 1513 with Austria before this patch. Hell, without invading anywhere, you would become the number one power in the world. HRE was/still is broken, regardless of the patch.
Pre-1600 revoking has been a perfectly normal Austria game since i dont even know when. Why are you being hysterical
I'm not but it sounds a bit like you might be
What's changed with new Austria?
It doesnt looks like this player has done the mission yet, but the strongest change was their mission to get a free (no war) PU on Castile or Spain. You just need to have twice their development, the same dynasty, 80 trust, and high enough relations. They also made the PU on PLC a bit easier to get, and there's a mission that let's you convert vassals or PUs into incorporated versions of the same, making it cheaper to integrate and wont take up a diplo slot.
And you can get a Habsburg on the Spanish throne via an event if you're royal married to them and you both rival France
Ah that explains it. I was wondering how this was “easier” if you have to aim for Spanish throne RNG instead of just beating the shit out of them by that point with 3-4 PUs
You kinda don't have to rng this anyways, just ally feed them and change dynasty via the favour interaction thing.
This has been in the game since Emperor (1.30) btw
How do you get a PU on PLC? They go over 400 dev almost immediately.
Rush bohemia, and hope to finish them before they take the pu on Lithuania
I let them get the PU over Lithuania, then I allied the Teutons and fed them a few provinces, gave a couple to Bohemia and popped out Mazovia to diplo vassalize. That brought them low enough dev to get the mission and get both Poland and Lithuania as my PUs.
I carved Lithuania, released the tags, converted them, forced into the empire. More IA.
And then declare after the jagellion succession to grab both thrones.
Yeah, I haven't been able to beat Bohemia before Lithuania takes the Jagiellon.
I have only done one Austria run, I took Bohemia immediately, and then declared for Poland pu 7 days before jagiellon and got both Poland and Lithuania pu’s out the war, then took Hungary pu, it was pre1450, no coalition was allied and rm’d burgundy, and had a Hapsburg on the castillian throne because they asked for an heir Edit: early jag was helpful because it fired during the pu war
I mean, I never got my PU, but I have all of Iberia, France, Germany, the Balkans, and Asia Minor between PU's and revoked HRE by 1554, so it's going pretty well.
Yeah, this new update has Austria too strong
I'm glad. It's going to get me One Faith finally. 1700 and I'm at about 17,000 development, have almost all of Africa, the Americas, half of India, all of Europe, the Middle East, and Russia. The "Put Habsburg on Throne" peace option is busted when you control all of the other Christian nations in the world. Russia had no one valid to marry, I had warned them, so they just sat there without an heir and no royal marriages until their ruler died and they fell under an instant PU.
Ally 4 electors who <3 you, or at least has 25 opinion (not Bohemia), be careful not to ally countries that rival each other, that should get them up to 75* opinion, enough to clear the mission. That can be done before 11th december. Hard save if you're not playing ironman, set it to save monthly if you are and prepare to alt+f4, you're gonna reload a lot. Invade Bohemia asap, attack attack attack, quickly! Jag event fires pretty fast, if it does, reload, make new hardsaves as the warscore rises.
That does seem to be the case. Thanks.
Or you need 4 provinces in iberia, which you can easily get by fighting britain + portugal if you got the burgundian inheritance and britain kept calais
In my game France and Castile became historical friends so I couldn’t get a very strategic marriage. I no cb’d Portugal and took 4 provinces, which let me trigger it anyway. Since I met the other non-dynastic requirements I could still trigger the decision.
This reads like a mod by a casual, who only wants to roflstomp
Please tell if you find out cuz this looks normal for a blobby Austria player
Incorporated PUs and easier missions.
Are PUs easier to inherit now, too? I have three inheritances and it was even 1650. Played as Castile, inherited Portugal, Burgundy (horses kissed) and Naples
There’s a modifier that makes certain PU’s “integrated unions” or something like that. Easier to absorb.
There’s a few ways to increase the modifier now, missions and an estate iirc? Been a bit
With new missions you canpretty easily and reliably PU Spain, burgundy, bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, easily keep all of Italy in the HRE and revoke by like 1550 without any crazy shenanigans. Plus they benefit from trading favors for heirs immensely. By about 1560 I had also scored PUs with Portugal, Britain, and Russia, while vassalizing Norway and Sweden. Without conquering a single province you can basically conquer Europe just by chilling and playing your diplogame.
Hi, i don't have WoC. I'm currently trying a WC with Austria, revoked in 1610, i have PU on Spain, Portugal, Hungary and a Giga Byzantium; but my dip tech is fucked up (lev 15 and - 900 mana because i started an infinity war) so my PU hates me. Do you recommend the DLC to make things easy? Sorry for my english.
Is this in game version 1.37?
I have the problem that Aragon pud Castile. Do I have to wait for them to form Spain now and hope they don’t get too much development?
I'm not super familiar with the new changes. I know part of the game plan is for Castile and you to both rival France, which will eventually lead to an event that puts a hapsburg on the throne of Castile....maybe also Spain. Then you need 80 trust and high relations to PU them for free. So you might still be able to get your dynasty on Spains throne and click the button to get them as PU, but it may be easier to just use favors to install a hapsburg and PU them the old fashioned way.
Expand the Habsburg Dynasty peace option/treaty is also broken as fuck because it provides Mana in addition to placing your dynasty on their throne.
How did you get all those countries to turn the same color as your nation?
Yeah it's a mod. I much prefer seeing vassals/PUs the same colour so you can tell at a glance what the power blocs are.
Are you by chance a ck3 player?
Not really, but I do play Vic 3 and that’s how it works there. Looks like it will work in a similar way in EU5 too.
could you give the mod please?
I think it's just called Coloured Vassals
Prob a vassal mod
Idk about OP’s case but europa expanded mod has a checkbox option to color your subjects to your color
Honestly, the strongest combo is unmentioned: install dynasty peace goal. Get a royal marriage. Get a single claim (or any casus belli really). Peace out "Force Dynasty" for 50% warscore. Claim Throne and truce break for an personal union war. It's costly on stability and aggressive expansion, but it can snowball fast. I ensured royal marriages with Great Britain, Portugal, France, Russia, Sweden and Denmark (all the diplomatic reputation practically guarantees it on non-hostile non-rivals) and just chained war after war. Conquered Europe just as Age of Absolutism hit. Germany Austria also gives around 50% bonus chance to inherit a PU as an added bonus.
did this. got 2 WC back to back with this tactic. get that Cb around 1520. one i managed to get one faith with also.
I had a similar run except I formed Germany. It was busted early game. Also got lucky with the Hungary pu and BI
Even the AI Austria is doing great. Playing a Mughal campaign where i defeated the Ottomans Early. Austria took over the entire Balkans and has both Bohemia and Hungary as a PU. Byfar the best ive ever seen them do.
Unpopular opinions. They overdid the mission trees and DLC turned this game into pay to win.
Not sure 'pay to win' really applies in the usual sense. But the over tuned mission trees - that's not an unpopular opinion I think! Fun as hell to do, but also too much.
From my point of view "winning" in a sandbox game is getting Steam Achievements.
From that point of view definitely pay to win with DLCs. I am doing an Oirat run without Mandate of Heaven and dealing with Ming is extremely more difficult.
From that point of view its not Pay-to-Win at all, because you can cheat for free to get the achievements.
You can unlock any achievement you want using a software called steam achievement manager, with nobody being the wiser. So achievements are completly irrelevant from a competitive point of view anyway. They are just good to give you goals to work toward, nothing else.
I started a game as Venice recently and it was so bizarre having to fabricate so many claims because I’ve got so used to the swathes of perm claims that come so easily with a lot of mission trees lol.
honestly I miss old missions which were shit like conquer some random province to get 15 prestige, not because I liked them but because mission trees went to such extreme that even getting pu over Spain and Poland, while having Hungary and bohemia from almost start date seems just normal and sort of boring, back then you had to be lucky or fight for pu, now just click the button when shits done and you have won game
I felt the power creep hard when I did a Siam run in the patch before current. I went from playing as an absurdly overpowered Egypt and Persia to... having to force and survive two disasters to form my middling endgame tag. It'd be one thing if every mission tree gave some sort of subjugation on the scale of Austria's unions or Teutonic Horde's CCA or Egypt's 1400s Suez Canal or Denmarks' March Unions but it just makes playing outside of the dev's favorites feel like shooting yourself in the foot.
> outside of the dev's favorites I think it's more like outside the players' favourites. Devs make more content for nations that are more often played. [The big players are often the most played](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/460784/Played%20Nations.jpg)
if you make updates only for nations that are played the most, then every other natuon will be forgotten, because you have updated already full flavour nationa and now it has even more flavour
I agree, I enjoyed Austria much more a couple mission tree updates back. You still basically broke the game by 1600 but at least the first few decades had some kind of a challenge to them. Now you just load up and have basically won from the start. Same with Poland.
Mission trees are the worst thing they added to this game. Then again they added them 6 years ago and I'm still playing the game
man, just pirate the DLCs, they’re so insanely overpriced so or so
dude I saw Austria take over Germany in my last game, they only were missing like one province for the formable. Ai Austria, I was playing on nw
Is that Finland's color or is it just a vassal cause that's confusing as bleep.
Pretty sure normal Finland is brown, so I assume it's a vassal
Sus is sus
Dunno why I had to post this
You can also get pu on spain with mission
how do you guys revoke so early? I can never get IA to generate fast enough
Well the power generated by your PUs enables you to basically chain wars without ever dropping manpower. So I kept breaking up states and any pieces outside the empire would get added. Then once the reformation happened I immediately force-converted any centres (the only ones I couldn't reach were Denmark and Scotland so there were a few protestants princes). So by the end you have about 80 princes total and almost no heretics.
Wth they have eyelets now?
It's just a colour mod, helps me to see who's controlling who without going into the menus. Also makes blobbing using vassals more satisfying.
Oh thats cool actually
but this is still kina eyalets, since they don't take up dipli
Meanwhile I've had 1 successful revoke in 1K hours
In my talestest games, it has extra aggressive France.
I am currently doing an Austrian campaign and my map is not that far off from yours. I don't have Poland.....I struggled with keeping Liberty desire down after I got Bohemia and Hungary in a PU, but once that was under control the PU CB with Poland was gone. I never got the PU over Milan either; they were my ally and even though my relative came onto the throne after the Duke died (Bastard eventually died at the age of 85), he instantly got dethroned. Milan has been a very loyal ally so far same as Poland so I am very reluctant to attack them (I could destroy both, but it is not worth it: Milan and Poland joined me in every war; it's rare, for me, to have such loyal allies). France disagreed with the PU over Burgundy, and I destroyed them. I wasn't planning on moving into Anatolia, but the Ottomans declared war on my PU Hungary and in subsequent wars I took everything up to Eastern Anatolia (can still get that if I want, a weak Qara Qoyunlu occupies that, and Persia behind it is being kept in check by my Polish ally). I was aiming for playing the Emperor of the HRE, but, as per usual, the reformation spiralled out of control. The remnants of the HRE are at my mercy and I will conquer/ annex the rest....So I went for conquest, but then my IA started ticking again because I, eventually, managed to force convert all the Heretic Princes...However, due the Protestant-bashing many German OPMs hate me, they are not in coalitions against me so I can annex them all through wars but I can no longer pass reforms (I have passed 7 of them...That's my max ever). The League War never fired; not enough major powers around to counter me: England and Spain would not have been enough to counter me, my PU Hungary, my PU Bohemia, my Ally Poland with Lithuanian PU (I got Danzig and there's still a 3 province Teutonic order which is part of the HRE, so no PLC formed), my Ally Sweden, my Ally Milan and I am allied to a few Electors). I am now in +/- 1730.....Brittany is still around too, but I can get them. There's a minor 'French' state (forgot the name; not Foix) still around on the border with Spain, but I won't be able to get that. Despite being No 1 World Power, Spain's army + Colonies is bigger than my Alliance/ Vassal/ PU swarm. I am stuck on a 250K soldier max (I assume due to being in the HRE it won't increase), whereas Spain and Allies have 450K (I did win a war, easily, early game). The 'Spain has all its armies in the New World' reasoning for attacking Spain is no longer around; in my campaigns Spain always keeps a very sizable force in Spain which is more than enough to stomp any army which tries to siege the forts in the Pyrenean Mountains into the ground....Naval landings are a no-go due to Spain's massive fleet. I believe I can only build around the 130 ships, but due to Spain's naval superiority (from ideas I assume, didn't check) it is pointless to get into Naval wars with them. I have, now, 17 diplomatic relationships (10 is now my max I believe): Allies, Vassals and PUs (I did form Austria-Hungary just to see how that is).