[Micah]

I'm not so convinced about the pillaging. If the war is close enough for it to make a significant difference it's also likely to be close enough for your opponent to return the favor.

While demoralizing your opponent is a great technique against some players, keeping your opponent thinking he has a chance to recover is usually the best way to win a war against ANYONE, as he'll be taking risks that you can exploit to kill his forces off bit by bit, as opposed to either completely turtling up in his cap or throwing everything he has at you in an attempt to get revenge, especially if you start playing dirty with pillaging. The last thing you want is for those 100D gems he was saving for his tart factory to suddenly go into spamming black death on all your high-pop provinces.