Breaking off the Sweden/Denmark union

[Kumiko]

As pretty much everyone here is aware, Sweden starts as the lesser partner in a PU with Denmark. I posted here yesterday asking for general advice as to how to get started in the game and was suggested to try Sweden, breaking off the PU with Denmark and going from there, but I find myself struggling to even keep up with Denmark due to them having a guaranteed ally in Norway, meaning you need to be able to take on both countries at once.

My question is, how do you actually manage to reach the point at which you are strong enough to take both of them on? As far as I'm aware, you can't actually raise your force limit without expanding or reaching a high level of tech, but you can't do that while in a PU. Do you just take out billions of loans to be able to fight them while above your limit or... what?

Also, less important question, what should I spend my monarch points early on? Boost stability up a bit? Go for tech? What ideas to go first, especially as Sweden?

[Yaldabaoth]

Build enough galleys to block the strait to Denmark, defeat Norway which is super easy and occupy the danish provinces on your side. Take them and repeat after 5 years. Use the truce time to fabricate claims on norway, see if you can make them a vassal or annex them outright after taking a few provinces, don't forget they also have iceland and shetlands/faroer islands. Once you have a few ideas, just beat up denmark's army. Don't worry the swedish troops are so extremely overpowered by their traditions and national ideas, you almost can't lose.

[Nordic Mole]

Build till you have a totall of 20ships (build galleys) Place your ships at the strait by Skåne. Build till you have 18k Men ready for combat. Save cash+Declare war= Independence and a few cores.

[Bandit17]

Building galleys is a gamble because if Denmark/Norway by chance combine their fleet in battle with you (as what happened to me on a failed attempt) they can beat your navy. I recommend just doing nothing for about 15-20 years except saving up money, doing missions, making friends, not committing any troops to Denmark's wars and building up your economy.

I actually disbanded my entire fleet and reduced my army so I could make more cash per month. Use this time to also solidify your hold on your colony up north by finishing it and changing it's culture.

When you can save about 700g or so build about 12 large ships and go to war using your navy to prevent Denmark from reaching you. Occupy Denmarks provinces near you with the minimum required to siege and prevent them from building troops up there.

Now send your main army at Norway and destroy their force. Use some mercs in your main army to beef it up and to ensure early success. You will be losing money every month so disband the mercs once you feel comfortable with the situation.

Make sure to grab all of Denmarks provinces near you and Norways capital so you can get a couple of your cored provinces out of the peace deal.

For ideas I recommend Diplomacy first followed by Offensive and than an admin idea. I picked Religion here but in hindsight I don't think I really needed it even though it did come in handy a few times. But taking the economic idea is probably a good choice instead.

Teching up you want to focus on unlocking admin techs so you can get your first idea and also focus on mil tech to get the better units. This is why I always pick a diplo idea first because those monarch points are easier to horde early on so you can fill out that idea line pretty fast.

[Kumiko]

Originally posted by Bandit17:

I actually disbanded my entire fleet and reduced my army so I could make more cash per month. Use this time to also solidify your hold on your colony up north by finishing it and changing it's culture.

Wouldn't reducing your army be a bad thing for you considering that when you rebuild it, that costs manpower that could be used to reinforce? Unless you mean reducing maintenance, which you should do anyway.

[King Crimson]

get rid of your transports wait to build up money take a couple loans to get at least 2 carracks then just galleys take all your ships even your trade ships and an admiral and block the strait. So you only have to deal with norway if your lucky they will also break with Denmark so you can get a seperate peace with them you only have to hold your capital to build up warscore and win but i siege then danish provinces to get at least 2 of my cores back.

[vogonistic]

There is a bunch of variables in this, depending on how long it takes from start to declaring independence, but building Galleys and preventing Danish troops from entering Sweden is a sound strategy. You don't even need additional troops to beat Norway.

An alternative is to get about 20 troops (I might have had less) and make sure you beat Denmark to Skåne after declaring war of independence. That way Denmark gets the crossing water negative modifier and you can beat them back before they can combine with Norway. Most likely you won't be able to chase them down and crush their troops though, unless you have your navy strong enough to keep theirs in a harbor. It's a riskier way of doing it, but it can be done.

The biggest benefit of going down the navy superiority route is that you can use it to prevent Denmark from interfering with your conquest of Norway as well as preventing that route of attack later in the game by any other enemy.

[Bandit17]

Originally posted by Nebula von Draven:

Originally posted by Bandit17:

I actually disbanded my entire fleet and reduced my army so I could make more cash per month. Use this time to also solidify your hold on your colony up north by finishing it and changing it's culture.

Wouldn't reducing your army be a bad thing for you considering that when you rebuild it, that costs manpower that could be used to reinforce? Unless you mean reducing maintenance, which you should do anyway.

You need to wait about 15-20 years or so. Using mercs to bolster your main army for your offensive will solve any mp problems. Plus having a larger army (even if maintenance is lowered) is still going to add up. But since your army starts off not all that big anyways you can go either route and be ok.

[Bandit17]

As others have shown there is no one way of gaining your independance. Just go with what feels right added with some of the wisdom written here by those that have succeeded. In the end if it blows up in your face you can easily start over since you only advanced a couple of decades into the campaign.

[Kumiko]

Alright, thanks guys, I'll try again tonight.