Haha, pretty much!!
Sounds a bit like my Oman->Mughals Third Way game. I need one more war to eat Ottoman’s remaining Sunni land, but mega France guaranteed them. I can call in mega Tuscany (France owns Milan) on offer of land to distract France, betray them and then DoW them for the one Sunni province in Tunis they hold that I need to convert for achievement.
You will need some allies in your war of independence… and your navy isn’t likely to be strong enough at this stage to be very effective. I would scrap the navy entirely.
The general recommendation is to have 5 allies before you declare war… England, France, Burgundy, Austria, Brandenburg, Poland, Muscovy are the major options… but you can also look to Scotland, Novgorod and the Tuetonic Order. I’ve seen Lithuania work out as well
To get those allies, you will need to improve your relations and it can take quite awhile. You will also need to navigate your allies web of rivals… You likely can’t ally Burgundy and France, for example. However, once you get them involved in the war, they will do the heavy lifting for you. Your job is to keep yourself alive and drive up Denmark’s war exhaustion.
It also means the first stage of a Swedish game can be a bit boring. If it was me, I would scrap my fleet and save as much money as possible, and focus on developing my government as much as possible.
Once you are independent, you can focus on the fun chunk of playing a Sweden. Invade Europe? Move into Russia/Asia? Unify Scandanavia? Colonize Canada? Whatever you want!
Sweden has excellent infantry, so taking ideas that maximize their ability is ideal - like Quality and Offensive. Eventually your infantry will be as tough as any nation in the game outside Brandenburg.
Sounds good. But how do I actually get the allies? I thought that I wasn’t allowed to actually make treaties while still a junior partner.
Butter up people who dislike Denmark. Make yourself stronger militarily by building to force limit as possible. Wait. There isn’t anything you can actively do really to force it, it is something the AI nations can and will do on their own.
If the Danes attack Brandenburg, for example, improve relations with Brandenburg and sandbag the war.
If you have either of the Conquest of Paradise or El Dorado expansions you can request a nation Support Independence.
If not, gotta get your force limits and development up as high as you can and backstab Denmark when they start a war they can’t win without the support of the Swedish infantry they were expecting. :)
What should I spend my money on? I have a lot more of it this time around because I scrapped the fleet (except for the one light ship that I’m pretty sure is earning it’s upkeep) and mothballed the forts and reduced the army budget.
Get to max force limits if you’re not already there already and pick up some advisors for the extra monarch power. Construct buildings that increase your income or boost your manpower or even forcelimits, if you’re really doing well cash-wise.
You’ll want to bank some money for your eventual war with Denmark. Your manpower might not hold out and if not you’ll need to rely on mercenaries, which are more expensive. You may also want to go over your force limits during the war, which can get very expensive. Don’t be shy about going into some debt if that’s what it takes to see you across the finish line during your war.
Well, I did it! It required some careful whack-a-mole with the army but I won enough battles (all of them, in fact) and outlasted the blockade. If the AI had actually chased down my army instead of just besieging everything in sight I probably would have lost. I don’t feel like my diplomats did anything, really, but maybe they prevented some others from joining the Danes. (The allies they had were Norway, of course, and Ulster (?)).
I made a couple big mistakes that cost a lot of money: (1) I blew 190 gold supporting a Danish peasant rebellion that never actually happened (a noble revolt did happen, so I guess I should have backed that one instead) and (2) I hired more mercenaries than I really could afford, not realizing how expensive it would be to reinforce. I guess the mercenaries probably helped out a bit in the early battles, though. I dismissed most of them after the initial phase of the war and only kept the cannon around to help the sieges (but I guess it wasn’t necessary since I already had one and you don’t get another bonus until 4, if I was reading that right).
So I’ve got a bunch of loans (maybe five) and that’s annoying, but my income is positive even with the forts active and the army fully funded, so I shouldn’t have too much trouble paying them off.
Now what? I guess it’s time to form a Scandinavian hegemony of my own…
I chose quality and trade for my first two idea groups, because they seemed like things I should focus on. The next couple quality ideas are about ships, so I held off on them during the war because I don’t have a navy (the one light ship I kept was quickly sunk because I forgot to pull it into port). I kind of want to go for the colonization idea next because that seems like fun. The Swedes did some colonizing, right? Minnesota?
Congrats!
Depending on the arrangement of forts, maybe they weren’t able to chase you until they won the sieges?
While I haven’t played EU4 in couple years, I was a colonization addict, I’d start to twitch if I didn’t do any (this is sub-optimal play, but I never played optimally anyway.) I did once form a South American colonial empire as Teutonic Order (later, Prussia) but range is an issue and the Iberians, England and France will likely get there before you. (It’s kind of weird though, in the few games where I didn’t do any colonizing the AI took it’s time settling the New World.) You could try to take Iceland from Norway, core it and start colonizing Canada/NE America. (The rules may have changed on that since I’ve played though.) The other option is to take colonies militarily from rivals. You’ll need a decent navy for that, especially if you anger the English. While colonies are long-term very lucrative, in the short term they are very expensive to maintain.
As for real life Sweden colonizing, they did (Delaware) but the Dutch swiped them.
My general died, and it said “He died too soon without being able to accomplish much of note.”
Uh, he lead our army through our glorious war of independence… maybe that counts for something?
Also it’s going to take me a while to pay back these loans…
One way to pay back loans is to win wars and force the losers to either pay you big sums or monthly reparations. See, waging war is the secret to financial independence!
The Livonian Order should prove a tempting target, as is Nihzny Novgorod.
If you feel you can rumble with Poland or Muscovy respectively.
Pairing with Brandenburg to carve up Pomerania or Teutonic Order is also an option.
But be aware, most of your target money bags will likely cause you to go into conflict with Poland or Muscovy eventually. And double beware of pushing into northern Germany. Be very cautious about pushing them around, as the HRE emperor will not look too kindly. So maybe butter up Austria before you try anything. If you can ally them, so much the better.
I allied Lithuania, because they were willing, and have a big blob on the map.
My first plan is to continue against Denmark/Norway once the truces and loans end. I’m still fairly disadvantaged by not having a navy right now, but hopefully I can work around that.
Ugh, and I missed paying off the loan by 1 (yes, one!) gold, and now it’s going to cost me another 10 gold in interest because there’s no early repayment. Plus the inflation.
I should have just hit up the burgers for some cash.
This will help you against Muscovy in the future.
Do note that their large area has some drawbacks. It is generally pretty poor and underdevloped, and the religion tends not to match the state religion. So Lithuania is actually weaker than Poland.
They will probably form the Commonwealth at some time, so be prepared for that. Be on good terms with Poland as they likely are the senior partner in that.
Also stripping land from Norway is a good idea. And be especially aware that if you can force the Danish force to cross the straights to attack you, they get a stiff crossing penalty. So try and meet them on your side of the Oresun straights.
Keep an eye on inflation. I definitely had one of my early games end in death by complete economic collapse when my loans caused too much inflation.
In really dire situations you can use Admin monarch points to lower your inflation- but that’s a pretty poor use of points unless you have no other choice…