How to beat the Franco-Ottoman Alliance?

[Silver Felyne]

It's historical, but still difficult to break it. Especially as the intended target, Austria. How can you expect me to beat a near 150k combined Force? Even with Spain and Denmark as allies and the combined land of Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Bohemia I'm losing horribly.

I'd appreciate some "Unholy Alliance" mechanic where Alliances between certain (or any) Great Powers would be put under scrutiny (damage to relations across the board) or cause a similar Alliance between rivals. Such as Austria getting an event to bilaterally break Rivalry with and ally Persia, the Mamluks, or England to counter it.

*update* Another run ruined by lack of "Oh, you just need to beat X early"

[Malvastor]

If you need meat, try getting Russia and/or the Commonwealth involved. Otherwise, try attacking a nation that's allied to one but not the other, and forcing whichever blob you're able to pull into the war to drop its alliance.

[Silver Felyne]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

If you need meat, try getting Russia and/or the Commonwealth involved. Otherwise, try attacking a nation that's allied to one but not the other, and forcing whichever blob you're able to pull into the war to drop its alliance.

Yeah, unfortunately it was a Defensive War and I was totally beaten. But it's seriously stupid to have the Ottomans get 90~ FL before 1600 when other nations (except France) can't even get 50 by that time.

Next time I'll just blow through France, and get Influence before Diplo for that sweet, sweet AE discount.

It's really hard to like EU4 when even the smallest mistake or bad luck can end a perfectly good run.

[OnlyBradParker]

Originally posted by Silver Felyne:

It's really hard to like EU4 when even the smallest mistake or bad luck can end a perfectly good run.

Don't play on Ironman mode?

[Lord Kraken]

I empathize/sympathize with small mistake/bad luck breaking a game, but I have found that sometimes if I hang on and keep playing things even out. And it's also sometimes fun to go with the new history you made and see where it leads. of course, you can probably forget any achievements. ) :

[Hartassen]

The answer is simple. Pick the weaker target (ottomans or france) pick one of their isolated allies (one which will drag france/ottomans into war with you) and peace out france/ottomans separately with a "break alliance with france/ottomans peace deal".

If you can't do that with your current lands then the issue isn't the game.

[Silver Felyne]

Originally posted by Hartassen:

The answer is simple. Pick the weaker target (ottomans or france) pick one of their isolated allies (one which will drag france/ottomans into war with you) and peace out france/ottomans separately with a "break alliance with france/ottomans peace deal".

If you can't do that with your current lands then the issue isn't the game.

Yeah, I was just "Too Spooked" to try to remove France from the Map. Didn't help that I was drowning in AE due to eating Italy for their trade. I was foolish and tried to eat Naples when I should have gone for all the trade zones instead, giving me enough money to build troops, forts, and maintaining my army. (Also Reigning in Italy should really give you like 25 IA for how much you'll be drowning in AE).

This might as well be a good time to do one single counterpoint in the "No Fort" meta. The Ottomans are probably the only nation that it's worth building a border fort with (Also can we get free Border Forts against rivals? I forget if the AI still doesn't pay maint for them).