How to ally great powers (as Great Powers)

[Unit 202]

I am northern Germany in my first game and am having trouble with alliences. I need to declare on france to form Germany (my main goal for the playthrough) but baguette is allied to Kebab (which wasn't removed) and Austria, I'm allied to GB, but if I know anything of EU4 it's that they won't do much, so I need to ally at least one other nation, so I had Russia and Italy, even with italy's cores on southern austria, it's still impossible for them to ally me. I improve relations with them and them decrease relations with their enemies. and now France is leading GB in industrialization by a solid 1000 points, so now I really need another power. And I tried removing GB as ally but nobody would join (italy wasn't a thing then, so I couldn't test with them) Russa said maybe when they were at war with the ottomans, who I could decrease relations with, but I doubt it will help. This is why I wish nations told you why they don't like you as they do in EU4.

[Lembley42]

You cannot ally a second Great Power until the invention of Great Wars ~1890.

As you mentioned Great Britain is basically worthless in most cases. The AI usually just sends a 30k stack every now and then to suicide. It cannot deal with recruiting troops in their Colonies and shifting them to Europe, so thats why they're pretty weak.


You overestimate two things :
- Ottoman Empire is seriously ♥♥♥♥. They are outteched, are broke, and not really that strong.
However, pretty neat to ally to kill Austria as the Austrian AI sends a good deal of their troops south, so you have less opposition.

- The AI in general is bad and you can beat France + Russia Alliance plus Austria + anything as Prussia within the first few years easily and form Greater Germany by 1842ish.
Have stacks ~45% Artillery, pick good Generals for the different battles, care for Terrain and let your exhausted stacks recover on your own terrain for faster reinforcement for a few months if they're badly broken.
Don't be afraid of the AI, its really not that good and with a little bit practice you can easily beat it. So just go ahead and get some! I know in EU IV its better, but thats because EU IV lacks any strategy and is just about "who has the bigger stack". Vicky2 has more strategy, though only really in Multiplayer as the AI - well I mentioned that :P

[Unit 202]

Perhaps, I'm new to the game but have 11 armies of 10 brigades and almost all possible millitary techs, with some more force limit to go around, but I remember that while allied to GB Russia was once at maybe for accepting alliance, so I'm a little unbeleiving of the Great wars preventing two Great Power allies, also since austria and ottomans are great powers allied to france. unless the AI will make things difficult for the player only like with Spheres Of Influence.

[Lembley42]

Hover over the "Propose Alliance" button to see what influences the AI's decision then.

I've never said Great Wars PREVENT it, Great Wars allow it. France might have allied Ottomans when they dropped to SP.

[Unit 202]

I figured that. and I did hover over it, perhaps that's a DLC feature. I misworded my self on the preventing thing.