Protestant league is too strong

[Puffin]

Anytime I play Austria I lose the game because of this war, why Ottoman, GB and even Russia is with the protest league, they are not even protestant!!!
I think it is terrible that not protestant countries can join protestant league!

Also how I am supposed to force religion on a country, if this option is always more than 100 war score point??? I can't force any HRE member to change religion even if I beat them in a war!

[grotaclas]

It is historical. The war was more about politics than religion. Catholic France was on the protestant side and the Ottomans gave some support.

If you want to avoid this war in the game, you can just make sure that there are no protestant/reformed/hussite/anglican electors. Or you can convert to protestantism to lose emperorship and then join the protestant side

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by Puffin:

Also how I am supposed to force religion on a country, if this option is always more than 100 war score point??? I can't force any HRE member to change religion even if I beat them in a war!

The cost to enforce religion depends on the warscore cost of the provinces. If you have modifiers which increase the province warscore cost(e.g. because you have negative admin efficiency for being over the government cap), you will pay more. But the best way to keep the cost down is to make sure that the HRE members are small. Then you will also have more HRE members which gives additional imperial authority

[Puffin]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Originally posted by Puffin:

Also how I am supposed to force religion on a country, if this option is always more than 100 war score point??? I can't force any HRE member to change religion even if I beat them in a war!

The cost to enforce religion depends on the warscore cost of the provinces. If you have modifiers which increase the province warscore cost(e.g. because you have negative admin efficiency for being over the government cap), you will pay more. But the best way to keep the cost down is to make sure that the HRE members are small. Then you will also have more HRE members which gives additional imperial authority

I beat like a country with 3 provinces it was still 110% war score to force my religion on it! This game has so many unrealistic and annoying things in it even after so many years and updates.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by Puffin:

Originally posted by grotaclas:

The cost to enforce religion depends on the warscore cost of the provinces. If you have modifiers which increase the province warscore cost(e.g. because you have negative admin efficiency for being over the government cap), you will pay more. But the best way to keep the cost down is to make sure that the HRE members are small. Then you will also have more HRE members which gives additional imperial authority

I beat like a country with 3 provinces it was still 110% war score to force my religion on it! This game has so many unrealistic and annoying things in it even after so many years and updates.

Is the country maybe a non-co-belligerent in the war? Then their provinces cost double. Otherwise 100% warscore for 3 provinces would indicate that you have some massive modifiers which increase your warscore cost

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

It is historical. The war was more about politics than religion. Catholic France was on the protestant side and the Ottomans gave some support.

100% this. And besides, if you're an effective Emperor, the religious leagues never form at all. Get rid of every center of reformation the moment it appears. Force every HRE nation to convert back to Catholic, especially the electors. If there are no Protestant electors, there cannot be a religious league.

[Marquoz]

Here's my standard "how to crush the Reformation" advice:


You want to destroy every center of reformation (CoR) the moment it appears. As Austria, or any other Emperor, you spend the decades prior to the Reformation preparing to do just that.

Only the first CoR of each type (Protestant and Reformed) will have religious zeal. You REALLY want both of them to appear in either an OPM or the capital of a bigger nation so that you can force them to convert in a peace treaty. To make this likely, fight constant wars to break up large HRE nations and force aggressors to give back the small nations they annex. The more OPMs and capitals of larger nations there are within the HRE, the better the odds that CoRs appear in them. CoRs that don't appear in OPMs or the capitals of larger nations should be annexed by the Emperor directly and then converted. This is obviously easier and MUCH faster if they don't have zeal.

Note that as Emperor, you can personally annex any province in the HRE. Grabbing important ones like Holstein from Denmark long before the Reformation begins is critical. Holstein enables you to fabricate claims as needed on much of northern Germany, for example. Even if you can't declare war on a CoR nation directly, you can try to set up a co-belligerent chain to do so. Maybe you can get a claim on one of their allies. Or the ally of one of their allies. Or the ally of an ally of one of their allies. Etc. Then you make them all co-belligerents to pull in your actual target.

You must be strong to make all this fighting work. If you're playing Austria, I strongly recommend conquering the entire Venice node for yourself and moving your trade collection point there. At the same time, expand through the Balkans and destroy the Ottomans (Poland helps with this a lot, so ally Poland). You can send trade from those areas to Venice and it will make you very, very rich.

[Marquoz]

And here's a screenshot from a campaign where I followed my own advice. I revoked the privilege around 1540, giving the the vassal swarm. The Reformation never had a chance.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3114579158

If you're wondering why I've pushed so hard into Great Britain, I did this run to get the Georgia achievement that requires you to have a bunch of European vassals affiliated with St. George. I got all of them (including England) as Austria and then formed Georgia. It was much easier that way than actually starting as Georgia would have been, and the achievement didn't require a Georgian start.

[red1]

I agree, the Protestant League AI almost always wins , unless I join on the Catholic side.

[Mr.X]

Other large nation will join the oposition just because they want a piece of you, they don't care about the event it self. You should be prepared that your rivals and countries threatned by you to join the protestant league as Austria. As Austria you need to:

1) Snowball by having Hungary, Bohemia, Milan, Burgundy plus what ever you have conquered in Italy and wars won vs. Ottomans. (If you havent done anything about ottomans around the protestant league war its most likley they have snowballed as well and are dangerous). I try to ally castile span and muscovy/russia if they are strong. So keeping 4 PU/Vassals and 5 strong alliances. With the last DLC you can get a personal union with spain if you conquer 4 iberian provinces and then have strong diplimatic relations with spain.

or

2) Agressivly pursue the HRE mechanic, as other have said stomp down on any religious centres that appear to destroy them ASAP even if it costs you -2 stab hit.

or

3) You could always ditch the HRE at some point by trying to leave it which can be done by making the electors hate you. Insulting them etc. Putting a ruler on a throne will also decrease their relations. If your not the emperor you can leave the HRE and if you keep bohemia you have a guaranteed vote to get voted back in at a later date. This is not recommended tho.

[Marquoz]

Your 1) and 2) are not "or." Austria can and should do both at the same time. In the screenshot I shared, I "aggressively pursued the HRE mechanics," revoking the privilege around 1540. I also got unions, crushed the Ottomans, and so on.

[ChaffyExpert]

If anything protestantism isn't strong enough when the player is in control, and about the same when the AI is playing as Austria.