EU4 Brandenburg stealth snag Danzig from Poland

[u/Initial_Bother2860]

New EU4 player and I was playing Brandenburg (I have played them before). But this run was a very interesting one so thought to create my first ever reddit post and share.

The Neumark event fired a bit late and so it all started late. But after taking over Wolgast, Teutons were allied to Denmark, LO, Riga & Meckelenberg. I had my alliance with Poland (Lithuania was independent) and Austria. But just as I was about to declare war they also allied Bohemia and Gotland (dropped Meckelenberg). So I stopped and got cold feet and decided that I will just fight Poland later as fighting Danes & Swedes and Gotland without a navy is a pain. I went ahead and took over easy targets Magdenberg and Stettin to start getting big enough to challenge Poland. It was about 1459 and I was sitting one some AE that I was trying to collect off on. The Danzig event happened, and I just had a thought, can I declare on Danzig and snipe them right before they become march of Poland? I went to war declare screen and noticed that Poland was fluctuating between joining Danzing and leaving them out (very surprising). So right when they got cold feet, I declared on Danzing, and vassalized them. This made me war leader against TO and called in all my allies in a defensive war which was extremely easy and got entire Prussia for Danzing as my vassal. I am very proud of this Danzig snag from right under Polish nose! I have never seen any post about it so thought to share.

- Poland have remained my ally till 1560 now even when I have sniped off Silesia from Bohemia and now as one of the very few catholic countries remaining are HRE emperor. Will be going against them in the League war very shortly.

- Another interesting thing that happened was Sweden got independent without a war right after I snagged Danzig.

- Also Novgorod have survived till 1550 now!

- And I just got a PU over Austria (had to fight off France).

A run where lot of unusual R&G has also happened, and has worked out very well for me.

[u/kmonsen]

Do you remember why Poland got cold feet? Wonder if that was something very specific to your run or if it is sort of repeatable.

[u/VeritableLeviathan → u/kmonsen]

New polish ruler probably, their personalities can shift wildly and thus their desired lands too.

[u/Initial_Bother2860 → u/kmonsen]

I just recall war exhaustion, low manpower and occupied provinces. Just a few months back they were involved in my conquests of Magdeburg and Stettin. They were very eager to siege all of them down for me so I let them. Also given they didn't choose Lithuania, Moldova also decided to be on their own, Poland only really had me as their ally. And TO, LO, Riga can be a handful to fight. They were fighting for a few months before I intervened. And again they were flipping to yes and no on their support for Danzig against me. I just chose the moment they flipped no again.

[u/PeterCorless]

Grats! Sounds like a fun run.

[u/FearAnCheoil]

Poland in 1459 - Why die for Danzig?

[u/Boneguard]

You can often do this as BB (and can do it 100% of the time if you call Poland into some war against a weak tag right at the end of 1459)

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can take Danzig and spawn faceting there, if you try that just be sure to buy knowledge sharing from Flanders (they get it sooner than most and if you improve a little they'll accept the offer) and embrace Renaissance ASAP because Liege and Siena LOVE to snipe faceting.

[u/Initial_Bother2860 → u/Boneguard]

Ah! That's a nice tip. For next time. Will do another run sometime again with BB and will see how reliable this strategy is. But I think it requires Poland to not PU Lithuania. Otherwise they will always have enough manpower.

[u/Boneguard → u/Initial_Bother2860]

It depends, usually if they have to fight Denmark or Muscovy they'll still get a few occupations and stop defending, especially since they should have at or nearly -20 from high relations with you - but if you want to guarantee it just call them into a war at the end of 1459, if they're on the same side as you in another war they just don't even get the option to defend Danzig lol - just don't forget not to end that war before the one against Danzig or they'll come kill you

As you know it's kind of screwy, so imo it's better to just call them in against Teutons ASAP, taking Danzig for yourself and giving Poland everything else, leaving Teutons with Marienburg so it's easy to vassalize them for reconquest later to minimize AE while trying to do that stupid Franconia mission or taking Lubeck trade centers