what do all of you do when

[ScuffedGaming]

Sorry about the title I clicked enter by accident and that’s my one chance gone apparently. Anyway that was meant to say what do all of you do during wars. I’m fairly new (as I’m sure you can tell) to both paradox forums and eu4 -40 hours invested at this point, which is abysmal by the standards of this game. So I was playing out my campaign as the Ottomans, I.e doing the usual ottoman thing of just invading everyone, and I was wondering what everyone else does when they get to decide a peace deal. I came to this forum because I’m fairly sure my way, just selecting as many provinces as I can and then filling the rest up with money, isn’t the best route. I did try forced vassalisation when I was playing as Castile (upon Grenada) but it was ridiculously slow and honestly would’ve been better to just right off the rebels and get the extra trade power instantly rather than in 10 years when I can diplomatically annex them. Obviously I know that just asking for province after province ends up with a coalition against you but I’m only playing that way at the moment because I know I can beat the coalition (you’re gonna have to be pretty tough to take down the ottomans). Ironically I took provinces from the coalition as well so by 1449 on my Castile campaign I had all of morroco, the province of Tunis and a few around it and even some from fezzan from the coalition. Highly unadvisable yes but I did it and still had 500 ducats and a personal Union with Portugal and Aragon (somehow). So I was just wondering what all of you do whether you prefer forced vassalisation and all of that, maybe I hate it so much because I play everything on x1 speed and so 10 years feels miles away. I could play one x3 but I just prefer to get wars done within 2 years to keep war exhaustion low and so that I can go and take yet another enemy. I was just wondering if I’m doing it wrong and I should be doing something else when I win with my 23K stack against 4K Albanians. Sorry I know it’s probably way to commonly asked, but I’m just curious. What do yall do? I’ve watched like 20 hours of eu4 content on YouTube (remans paradox is still my favourite) but even though I searched it several times I couldn’t find anything on YouTube. I’m about to check the wiki now but I thought I’d just ask all of you as a well if it isn’t too much bother.


EDIT: oh yeah I also meant to ask, at you point do you guys start negotiating for peace cause I always aim for 100% but I know that in terms of a casualty and worthwhile-ness ratio it’s far more efficient to go for say 70%​

 

[Portal4Life]

When demanding provinces in a peace deal I try to look at 3 things : development ,the resource in said province and (rarely) strategic purpose(fort,terrain). Also when making a peace deal you mostly want to do it for >80% if nothing is bothering you. Another thing is you don't want to risk taking provinces that result in a coalition that you can't beat or that might attack you while you are in another war.

Btw the Ottomans get weak after 1600.

 

[JangoBunBun]

I also look at what I want to take for the next war. Take forts to make the next one easier to siege. Take Beijing as Manchu to tank mandate further,
Vassalization is a little more complex for me. If they're small and have a lot of cores on my enemy then imo it's worth it, like taking Byzantium early. They might have other utility, like taking Portugal/Castile as a vassal for the colonization. It's also a question of Adm or Dip, as coring takes admin power and integration takes dip, so if you're low on Admin you may opt to vassalize.

 

[Sphynxx]

there are a number of topics to cover:

1) Length of war
Prior to start of the war you want to have a pretty good idea what you are trying to accomplish (for example, you want to humiliate your rival) and how much aggressive expansion (AE) and overextension (OE) you can afford to take, and what length of truce to aim for (it depends on warscore (WS) in the peace deal). When to finish really depends on your War Exhaustion (WE), manpower, other wars lined up (truces expiring) and is an excercise in estimating expected value of each additional month / additional siege / additional battle. As you correctly point out, ramping WS up to 100 is rarely optimal

2) What Provinces I prioritize in peace deals, order rebalanced as needed:

• Own cores, claims and provinces of your culture/religion
• Provinces with “sleeping cores” of nations to be released as vassals for subsequent reconquest (like taking one Gascon province from France)
• access chokepoints (like Ayrshire with straits). Also in this group provinces to establish land connection between isolated parts of the country or to distant vassals
• Crippling the opponent: splitting them in two, taking forts, leaving no land connection to provinces, currently occupied by rebels, etc
  
• Trade centers in relevant trade nodes, gold/expensive trade goods provinces. Coastal provinces
• Provinces to finish the states that I already have (while deprioritizing single provinces within new territories)

3) other peace terms
As I played predominantly in Europe, AE is the natural limiter to the # of development you can take, and I rarely end up taking more than 30-40% worth of WS in provinces anyway. Other options may include:

• Humiliate: very powerful option for rivals to keep your Power Projection (PP) high, that not only gives you Extra monarch points, but also improves your prestige and other bonuses. It is also an Age objective in the first era
• Trade power / steer trade: can be powerful against nations in your node of interest
• War reparations: nice if you need extra money. If you don’t have enough WS to take both the reparations and full money, use ledger to estimate the approximate amount in reparations you will receive over the period
• Cancel alliance: very helpful if the country has a very inconvenient ally (big, distant or an island nation with a powerful navy).
• Return cores: you obviously use it on your or your vassals’ cores (watch out for hidden implications: for example, returning cores to your vassals from a rival gives minimal PP, while transferring occupation to vassals and using “cede province” will give a lot), it can also be situationally helpful to return cores to the third party (for example, if you maxed out on opinion modifiers but the third country still can enter a coalition against you, or if the country you are returning cores to is your next war target, so you could get the provinces without waiting for truce to expire)
• Release nation: usually used to cripple the opponent or to later diplo-vassalize the released country
• Force religion: is an age objective, and also useful in HRE wars on minor allies of your target if you don’t plan to annex them right away
• Other options (end rivalry, etc), can be used to ramp up prestige, for example after you disinherited the heir or converted to a religion

Overall, knowing when to stop the war and mastering the peace options to craft the perfect deal is a skill and an art that opens up with experience. It really requires you to think in a context of