Pray for me my dwarven brothers. I am playing my first ever Ironman game as Denmark. I managed to be married to Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, England, and France. However I fucked up and failed to get my alliance with Hungary before they rivaled Poland. FML. I managed to conquer Osel from the Livonian Order for my mission, then I managed to get the Denmark trade mission and somehow with none of my worthless allies helping take Lubeck from the Hansa and take down Austria and some HRE OPPs. It took ages and ended up costing me more dip points in war exhaustion than I got from the mission. I fucked up again here. I should have truced out some OPPs for their 50 ducats and 3 prestige. I could have just waited for the war goal + war length to lower the peace cost in warscore. I could have gotten 6 prestige and 100 ducats. Might have been able to gift Hungary into allying me with that money. Or at least got some prestige and cash for later efforts.
But in the end after I miraculously tanked Austria with my 4/2 pip king general I got lucky again. My marriage with France has resulted in their next ruler being of my dynasty. So I did some research to be sure and claimed throne. So many people hate me but fuck em, with only a single royal marriage I am likely to inherit France once it finishes crushing England in the Hundred Years War. Sadly they may end up not annexing or vassalizing all the french minors but this PU will be worth tons later. I'll inherit the Burgundian lands, or at least France will, and if I am lucky I can win a war against Burgundy before that to get Antwerpen before Austria inherits it, move my capital there, and have the best trade node in the game with control over its major feeding nodes.
If we all pray, maybe their 26 year old king will die and I shall have a chance at a crazy trade empire with Denmark and the power to fight the HRE. I was considering joining the HRE with the possibility of stealing the imperial crown myself. Does anyone know if that's a good strategy for Denmark?