I got a dilemma
I’m a very new player (less than 150 hours), so to be clear I bought only the beginner’s dlc pack to learn the very basics before moving on to other dlcs.
I decided to pick a small country after playing a while with large ones and my choice stopped on picking Holland, I want to form the Netherlands, I won an independence war and instantly got coalitioned, where all my allies refused to join and where thankfully they only took my money, then I decided not to bankrupt myself and methodically paid off all my loans (each was from 25 to 53 coins)
Then I picked both of colonisation ideas, because I had in mind colonising Canada and Africa to later get to India and Indonesia
While I did that, my allies being Stettin and Poland right after we did another war with a relatively huge Anhalt and Hamburg, declared on brandenburg which Bohemia protected and at first when I re-checked it was just Bohemia and Brandenburg to which I decided not to pay attention, but then I thought the war was dragging too long and I decided to check again, turned out Austria joined along the way with its vassals and allies (because it had a PU on Bohemia that I didn’t notice, I think?)
So now I’m sitting with Poland (without Lithuania) and Stettin that just were in another war against England, Austria and some vassals, while Poland technically has a larger field army than Austria, it has way less reserves of manpower and this army is tbh nowhere to be seen, Stettin is already getting sieged and it’s only a matter of time until England crosses to besiege either me or rejoin with Austrians,
My ally isn’t Poland btw, it’s Stettin
Question is:
Should I increase trust of France and then peace out with war reparations, annulling with France, with which I have 200 relations to re-ally them and instantly clash with burgundians, to then go and colonise. Or should I combine my 20 k reserve manpower with 11 k standing army and mercs by loaning and try to kill Austria to try and expand into Friesland which holds Utrecht and independent leftovers of Brabant (I made a bad decision to leave the hre in the beginning) via crippling Austria and instantly declaring again on them?
What should I do?