Papal States: Part 13: 1571-1585: War of the Heretic League

My alliance network of nearly all Catholic powers started to fall apart. My ally Portugal and my enemy France both joined the Protestant League, allied each other, so next time I had to fight France, Portugal joined on their side. After I beat France, I allied Portugal again, as there was still one vassal core I wanted them to return, but I never managed to do so.

I kept getting involved in minor religious wars in the HRE, but avoided joining either league, having allies on both sides.

But the leagues would not abandon me. The Catholic League was quite a bit stronger, but Bohemia found the perfect time to strike. Due to other ongoing wars Sweden and (Anglican but on Catholic side) Great Britain could not join, so that was 90k Catholic League troops who could not participate, bringing the balance pretty close to even.

So my choice was either to take Austria's call to arms, lose alliances with Commonwealth and Portugal, and maybe win the war. Or to dishonor the call, lose alliance with Austria, and see them probably lose or white peace the war due to AI incompetence.

So I joined the League War. If I was war leader, it wouldn't even be hard:

• just go for Portugal and white peace them so their CNs also leave
• go for HRE minors and France to kick them out of the war, maybe converting some HRE minors in the process
• then big fight with the Commonwealth for white peace
• and finally force Bohemia to accept Catholic supremacy

Unfortunately the emperor is in charge of the war, not the pope, and AI just does not understand the concept of kicking countries out of the war quick to improve balance of power.

AI Austria was just as bad as I thought. I was 100% occupying one country after another starting from Portugal, hoping they'd get peaced out for some gold, but no, Austria just kept them in the war indefinitely. Meanwhile Commonwealth and Bohemia focused on occupying my land in the East.

Eventually Austria figured out how to play this game, but peace terms were just money and land, and not a single forced conversion. Eventually our side won. Austria released 13 new countries over the war, which actually really increased HRE heretic count.

All this distraction prevented me from reaching China, but I got myself a vassal Aceh in Indonesia, Medri Bahri in Africa, and got an African province from France.

Nice global war. I had to fight some local Sunnis too, as they tried to start a coalition., but that was a very minor war.

I could have prevented occupation of my land by spamming forts but it's usually not possible to spam forts from every direction, and the upkeep is too high.

Austria was sure annoying by pointlessly prolonging the war.

France and Bohemia got dismantled, and there's been a lot of changes among HRE minors I don't care for. Commonwealth is now my rival, as I'd be losing too much on power projection without any, and it's either Commonwealth or Spain.