Dealing with dying factions

[JohnJK]

Hey guys, as the title suggests how do you usually deal with dying factions?

This my first time playing the mod so I went with England VH/VH late campaign and right now HRE and Denmark only have one settlement left and they're pretty much done for.

Problem is they simply don't have any more initiative in the game. They're just sitting there with every army they have left surrounding that last settlement (I'm talking like 3 armies full stacks plus HRE has another gigantic army coming back from a crusade) so I was just wondering how you guys deal with that.

I know I can siege the settlement so at least the army inside won't be able to help when I attack the ones outside, but other than that do I just have to throw armies into the meat grinder to kill everything?

[Kopronim]

I generally do the "meat grinder" because I like the challenge, but there are ways. You can maybe do a Blücher and lure one or a few of their armies out by placing just a few units in their territory. After/if they've taken the bait, you can frontal their settlement with the aid of either artillery or spies, so you can do it in one turn, before those armies can come back. Another way is to send assassins and kill their leader and heir in the same turn. That will destroy the faction, though you'll still have to deal with what remains as rebel forces if you want to take that territory. If you happen to have a plague outbreak in a settlement that's not too far, and you're that Machiavellian, you can recruit a spy there and send it to the enemy settlement. He will spread plague, which will kill a about a quarter or a third of the garrison. It might spread to the armies outside too, if they fill them with units recruited from the settlement. However, I've noticed you can't spread plague to armies outside the settlement with spies, only those inside. Never tried with forts. By the time the plague is over, you'll have enough time to prepare a proper invasion force.