Best way to destroy a great power?

[Arginine]

So at my current standing in the game, I can only have 2 rivals: Spain and Ming. It is 1628, I have 1700 develpment, 230 force limit, I am by far stronger than Spain. But I don't want them to ever join a coalition, and right now, they have 52 AE against me. I don't know how many colonial nations they have, they at least have Brazil. They are allied to a small Brandenburg, normal sized Bohemia and a weak Saxony. I can easily take them on, but I want to only have one war against them where I completely destroy them, that I do as much damage as possible, so that I can expand without any worries.

I have no allies but 3 vassals, and 2 okayish marches with 20k army force. I could ally france, they would be willing to. Otherwise only some minor nations in south-west asia and denmark would ally me.

I though occupying 100% of their land, let 1000000 rebels spawn, and let them break the country. I play as Hungary, so the only land I can take from them is the old Napels

[DankDansk]

Continues wars while they are weak.

[Crim]

Just do that then

[Silver Felyne]

Another trick you can do is get over 50% warscore, leave a fort or something, and demand the fort.
You see, extremely generous peace offers are designed so that refusing gives a stability hit. Because the province is near/on a fort, the AI will refuse. The AI will then lose Stability for refusing. Repeat until they have -3 Stability, then fully occupy them.

If you're scared of too much aggressive expansion, take Galicia and force Spain to release discount Castile Leon. You can then diplomatically vassalize Leon.

[tonypa]

Originally posted by Arginine:

I though occupying 100% of their land, let 1000000 rebels spawn, and let them break the country. I play as Hungary, so the only land I can take from them is the old Napels

No large country can be completely destroyed with single war.

In first war break alliances and ask for money only. This gives short peace and hopefully forces them to get loans. Next war work to reduce manpower and force rebels.

[Arginine]

Thanks, but these aren't really an option. I want them off my radar asap. They are quite far away from me, for continuos wars. What if I just occupy their entire land, and only peace them out once they reach 20 war exhaustion?

[DankDansk]

That is impossible.

You can try to disrupt trade, but you have to be pretty masterful with the chain of trade routes and it will not completely wipe out another nation. You should mix this tactic with taking money and lowering stability, while taking near states first. I only take full states because of the state maintenance cash modifier and the ability to lower unrest.

[Arginine]

Great advices, but not what I want to achieve. It is hard to explain, but I'll try it this way:

Moscavy: big, but fairly poor. Bad trade nodes, low development. I declared against them, took 25 WS worth of ducats + war reps and they are now in 3k dept and increasing. They will never join a coalition against me. Spain on the other hand is downstream of me in trade, I am too far away to take juicy land, and ducats + war reps doesn't do much harm to them. They have the same income as me, but less expenses.

Spain's strength is kind of in their colonial nations. Most of their income(trade + tariff) comes from them. Development wise, the Iberian peninsula is also just moderate. So IMO, in order to cripple them, I would need to make them disloyal. and declare independence. I can only see one of their CN, and I kind of don't know how to tackle this.