Advice for war.

What advice could you give me to make war easier?

If I play with small countries I usually can't face the big powers.

And in a game with Spain in 1890 I fought against Portugal and France and ended in a draw due to not being able to counterattack.

Basically I took Portugal and ended up defending the Pyrenees and despite the fact that the French more than tripled the casualties, I decided to stop due to the commercial blockade to which I was subject.

It was the 5th largest economy in the world with almost 100 million GDP and 35 million people.

And my military technology reached crank machine guns two years after the trenches when the war ended.