How did you manage to eat up in 30 Years Poland, Brandenburg and Lithunia? (Your Post in the Obligatory EUIV Strange Screenshot Thread)
Have you been elected and used the HRE Vassal Swarm?
In which Year did you start your first war against the ottos?
I´m Trying a WC with Portugal, including All Blue, and after three Wars with them, (the Year is now 1729) they are still really big, holding Turkey and the whole arabian peninsular...
I have still, after integrating Austria a PU with France (they inherit Neapel-.-), a half of Germany big Ansbach and Sweden (thanks for the hint with Skandinavia) and it´s so diplo expensive of about 40 Years to integrate just one of them, so sad but one Tag WC would not be a thing...
it took more than 30 years. it took me the last 100 years to invade Germany, Aragon, Commonwealth, Russia, Persia, most a Adal, North America from Portugal and a third of India. i had way too much AE so nobody near me liked me so i had to physically invade everything except for my lucky PU with Castile, i then fed any far away province to Castile to let them deal with rebels.
First war against the Ottomans was my first invasion of Tunis and i was barely able to get a single province from them, i then waited for them to invade austria and brought the Commonwealth to split the Ottoman attention. My tactic with a strong mid/late game Ottomans is always invade Egypt first, move up the coast to Constantinople, release Greece and Syria and sometimes Bulgaria as OPM vassals for reconquest, invade Anatolia and hope i get Baghdad before Persia/Timerids do.
Brandenburg became the HRE Emporor so every time i invaded a HRE member they ended up joining and i separate peace them for 100% warscore, my previous Brandenburg cores get halted while at war with them but if you have decent vassals and manpower recovery speed you can deal with the rebels. i was able to be at war with Brandenburg over half a dozen different times within a decade using that trick. the Commonwealth was allied to Brandenburg to i was able to also separate peace them every time too. coalitions are bad for essentially only one reason, you cant separate peace nations for 100% warscore.
Ideas that will help annex faster.
espionage to lay claims on entire states and faster spy network and faster siege, diplomatic to get 20% province warscore, Influence to get 50% unjustified demands, administrative to get 25% core creation costs, offensive for faster siege, defensive for manpower recovery.
tricks i use to annex vast amount of territory
100% warscore, declare war the day truce ends, declare war on guaranteed nations to bypass truce, rotate conquests, stop caring about upgrading administration technology late game and used all the admin points to core provinces, get over 500% over-extension, essentially be in constant warfare so your vassals will help with your constant rebels, accept demands of particulists rebels to avoid 2000k+ rebels, build courthouses and other governing reduction buildings, use any excess monarch points on developing key provinces based on trade goods and location, never upgrade technology ahead of time except maybe military if you need advantage, dont be afraid of being 2 admin technologies behind (technology upgrade gets cheaper up to 20% neighbor bonus), always wait for institution to be developed before upgrading technology,
OWC is definitely possible if you use the right ideas, properly release vassals to gain reconquest claims which reduces AE and province warscore costs, become HRE Emperor, rotate your conquests, attack the day truces end so they dont join coalitions, get strong enough that countries are too scared to start a coalition, if you end up getting a coalition that blocks your expansion declare on an easy target to gain enough warscore to white peace or gain a few provinces and once truce is over immediately attack the strongest nation to scare off the others from starting a coalition. not destroying forts and letting them accumulate will help significantly slowdown and divide enemy troops and make forts have a reduced warscore loss, dealing with 5 different wars at the same time also helps .
Here is a Comparison between 1703-1820, if i can steamroll early enough i can easily get a OWC, i usually aviod nations like Poland, Austria, Russia and Spain because it would be way too easy to steamroll very easily and get a OWC but i like a chalenging beginning of campaign because after a while everything gets too easy and repetitive and like not being able to just declare on any nation at the beginning because im already too powerful.