WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD!
...Alright, lately EU IV has been taking all my free time...
I started playing England with the intent of winning the Hundred Years War, or failing that fleeing to the New World and becoming a colonial superpower.
Anyway, since the last patch England and France start at peace so I had a few years to expand while waiting for the HYW to continue. Unfortunately I haven't played for a year or so, so after buying a few expansions and the changes in the patches I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm slowly rediscovering how the hell the game works.
The first thing I did was start expanding into Ireland. That went fairly well and I got a province and a vassal there. The War of The Roses disaster was averted by a few Royal marriages that produced an heir after a few years (this was a really stupid outcome as anything has to be better than the idiot Henry VI with his godlike 0/0/0 stats). But his heir William turned out to be just slightly wiser.
After that France decided it's time to kick off the war again so they DoWed me. Fortunately I allied Provence who were smart enough to fight them in the mountains and drained their ridiculous manpower. The North of France was basically won and the war turned into a stalemate thanks to me having no idea how the new forts system worked. A few years and loans later I was up to 60 % warscore and tired of fighting so I made them release some insignificant OPM, pay me lots of cash and give both me and Provence a province.
Let's just say it was a mistake. In the few years of truce I rebuilt my manpower and managed to fudge up in Ireland as Connacht got to siege first and they ended up being a two province vassal of mine. While France returned to the stage stronger than ever and decided to whack it's neighbors Burgundy and Brittany
Meanwhile the truce with France expired and I noticed their war turned extremely bloody so I decided to join and maybe beat up France properly. Unfortunately they peaced out with Burgundy and Brittany was broke. I also failed to notice that I was falling behind in military tech which meant that France killed 10 of my peasants for every man-at-arms my peasants killed.
The runaway vassalThe war soon went even more awry when France managed to miraculously persuade Savoy to join in the middle of it. With this they averted a major catastrophe as by then they were over 800 ducats in debt and relied mostly on mercenaries. After that Provence decided to suicide in an attack on Paris where over 30 000 French and Savoyards were having a tea party. I decided to end this bloody thing before everything went bananas and peaced out, reverting any progress made since the last war, and losing my newly acquired vassal.
The European cluster****Anyway the year is 1467 A.D. and Europe is in turmoil. There's war (or the consequences of war) everywhere. England is in a precarious situation being 400 ducats in debt and lacking any technological progress. Logically, I decided the best course of action is to attack some weak but cash-laden nation to cover my costs. The Hansa seemed a perfect piggy bank but there's a problem, they're part of HRE and Austria will protect them. So I though, why not ally Austria and then attack. Of course that didn't work as the devs thought about this cheap exploit, but it did have some... interesting ... consequences.
The Austrian problemsAustria is currently supporting the Genoese in their defense against the evil Crimean hordes, which are in turn supported by the Ottomans. Of course, the Emperor being deep in war is a perfect opportunity for smaller powers to steal provinces from him. Or so the Venetians thought. So I got dragged into that too. Naturally, I have no intent of actually helping anyone in their goals, I'll just go around and loot their gold.
The Ottoman CrusadeBut there's a problem. The Ottomans are smart and have landed their army in Genoa. The war might be over soon and my plan of filling my coffers might epically fail.
The Burgundian declineBut I noticed another opportunity. Burgundy is deeply hit by the turmoils of their war with the French in which they lost their big vassals Flanders and Brabant and also the Heretics have taken up almost half of it. I could kick them now while they're on the ground but being in so many wars at once is kinda nerve-wrecking. So what do you guys think, should I just go for it and hope I can regain my strength faster than the dreaded French until the truce ends?