Italy Megacampaign: Part 05: 1501-1509: Hungarian Wars

So it turns out none of my allies had any easily returnable cores, so coalition war had to be fought the hard way, at least for a while.

After horribly bloody war, at about 2:1 kill ratio, we finally agreed that Castile would release Morocco for 35% warscore, and we'll call it a day. Morocco then released OPM pirate state which started raiding everyone.

Castile instead of trying to reconquer the bastards, decided to guarantee them. AI guarantee spam is almost as bad as in HoI4.

Hungary was so happy about their victory, they attacked and annexed Bulgaria right away. Bulgaria really liked me, so I could have intervened, but ever since they removed warleader switching I no longer bother.

Instead, I declared war on Serbia, calling in Bosnia, and that chained to Hungary. With just Austria helping me (for double favors cost, and at much lower value since they no longer had HRE troops), I was able to beat up Hungary a bit, and take their money, leaving them 1500 ducats in debt. Then I vassalized Serbia, annexed Bosnia into my new vassal, without causing too much outrage.

I also diplovassalized Montferat (which somehow reappeared) and the Knights. It's not just AE, I'm also constantly really low on paper mana.

Meanwhile, Theodoro attacked Ottomans, and Ottoman's only ally Qara Qoyunlu was too scared to defend them. Oh and Ottomans somehow got (Coptic!) Aq Qoyunlu as junior PU partner, I guess that's from extra missions mod. Theodoro lost. Somehow Ottomans lost Aq Qoyunlu PU.

And France somehow got itself some land in England.

Now I need to decide religions. I need to decide now before spawning any colonial nations, as it will get a lot harder afterwards.

By dev, my country is: 274dev Sunni, 255dev Catholic, 200dev Orthodox, 7dev Fetishist, and 4dev Ibadi.

Options are:

• remain Catholic, for best diplomacy, at least until I try to take Rome. Also once I tag switch and form Italy the whole Treaty of Tordesillas mechanic will bug out.
• move capital to Constantinople, go Orthodox, for really nice bonuses
• follow the peasants and go Sunni, really pissing off everyone in Europe, but getting maybe even better bonuses - I can almost just accept rebel demands, as I'm nearly 50% Sunni by province count
• be the first Protestant country
• wait for Reformed to appear and go Reformed

Protestant or Reformed would sort of make story sense, but Protestant is bad, and Reformed is outright garbage tier.

Orthodox would actually be OKish diplomatically longer term - I'd get half penalty with both Catholics and Protestants instead of bonus with one and full penalty with the other.

And I guess Orthodox wouldn't be too crazy. Venice was sort of a bridge between Catholic and Orthodox world over thousand years, so setting up Orthodox patriarch of Rome would be a way to achieve unity of the faiths.

Any religion flipping now will really mess with my anti-coalition diplomacy, turning +25 into anything from -10 to -40. There are currently 30 countries unhappy about my expansion, but I'm placating them all. Fortunately most of them are only borderline outraged, so I could just wait a few more years and then flip safely.

Balkans are basically divided between me and Hungary.

Hungarian-allied Albania, and OPM Ragusa are the only leftovers, and probably not for long.

Castile beat up Portugal, France beat up England. Overall the map is rather typical.