The most important thing you can do when a war is going wrong is to keep a credible army in existence. If you can't win pitched battles, you need to give up on the idea of fighting them. You might be watching a rout unfold, but here is how you turn that into a victory. The chances are, you can not only survive this crisis, but come out of it almost unscathed. But this is why EUIV is a game where it pays to never give up, and never reload. But no, this is a war that poses an existential threat.
If it were easy, if it were just a matter of agreeing to a minor settlement, you wouldn't hesitate. The point is, you're losing a major war in EUIV, and you're losing it badly. Or maybe you just got unlucky, and your enemy had a military genius in their back pocket while you're stuck with the equivalent of Ambrose Burnside. Maybe you gambled that your enemy's powerful ally wouldn't actually bother to travel across Europe to fight you, but they did, and now they have arrived, unwanted and obligatory guests at your war, and they look hungry. Perhaps you declared war on someone the day before they hit a new level of military technology. Europa Universalis IV is a game of ruthless caprice, where even slight mistakes, misjudgments, and lapses in attention can bring you to ruin. It's nobody's business but your own why this article is suddenly relevant and important to your well-being. First off, let's not fall to finger-pointing of the laying of blame.
