• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Sir_Robert

DJ Duddles
102 Badges
Jun 5, 2009
389
2
  • Hearts of Iron 4: Arms Against Tyranny
  • Hearts of Iron IV: No Step Back
  • Hearts of Iron IV: By Blood Alone
  • 500k Club
  • Victoria 3 Sign Up
  • Stellaris: Nemesis
  • Imperator: Rome Sign Up
  • Imperator: Rome Deluxe Edition
  • Imperator: Rome - Magna Graecia
  • Crusader Kings III: Royal Edition
  • Europa Universalis IV: Call to arms event
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rule Britannia
  • Europa Universalis IV: Dharma Pre-order
  • Europa Universalis IV: Golden Century
  • Europa Universalis 4: Emperor
  • Victoria 2
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Stellaris: Digital Anniversary Edition
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Stellaris - Path to Destruction bundle
  • Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn
  • Stellaris: Humanoids Species Pack
  • Stellaris: Apocalypse
  • Stellaris: Distant Stars
  • Stellaris: Megacorp
  • Stellaris: Ancient Relics
  • Stellaris: Lithoids
  • Stellaris: Federations
  • Stellaris: Necroids
Come in Come in. Well thanks for checking out my thread. So you must be here to tell us something great right?

Ok I'll get to the point at hand I am have been playing a DW game as Austria and well I remember that I played them once or twice in past EU 3 games and remember several strategies that people talked about. Well that’s what I am really looking for now you see I mostly check out the EU 3 wiki page before or after awhile of playing a game to see some hints, goals, strategies to use and well the Austria one is not up to date and is not really fully writing. So I guess I break this down into several questions and everyone could give me their strategies and what they do when they play Austria. Also I am asking and doing this also as I plan to eventually do an ARR after I complete a game. This will allow me to also help write out some future strategies and guides.

Two things though I am not going for a united HRE, and I did want a German Austria but I know to do it you must change cultures which I don't want to do. (Rp value I guess)


So Questions. Well really if you have anything to give me just post it I will take all the help...

But here are some of the things I need help with.

1. Trade? Yea I know Austria is not a Trade Nation but what to do with the slider. Should I stay Mech or go for Free Trade? With that what should be my opening slider moves? What should be the game plan of moving which direction when ECT? About Merchants should I just not send any at all or should I try to send some?

2. Next what should my Relations, RM's alliance’s ECT be? I know there are some PU/RM strategies here so please enlighten me about them. Seems I can’t find them but I have read about them. Example I had an easy mission of getting a RM with burgundy and relations over 100. Going good until another mission gave me a CB and Cores (need to get all provinces in one go to get these) on Milan the problem was Burgundy was allied to them. Also he was the Emperor of the HRE. I did manage to get these but it took two wars which was a bad idea as I didn’t have core on imperial land and made my relations with burgundy really bad.

3. Really Economical help. Like above about Trade. I am not sure how I should handle my economy. I understand to use the yearly cense tax to pay for things and have a negative monthly but it sometimes isn’t enough and you need up getting inflation the question Is should I worry about inflation or should I just maintain a bit of inflation until I can really lower it. Also anything else you could give me here would help.

4. Army management, how should I organize my army? Really so I can get the best benefit out of fights and so I can at lease stand a chance to France and the Ottomans we it comes time. Also any other strategies that help me here.

5. Other things, NI’s what should pick, is Bureaucracy a good one? I do want to colonize eventually and somehow, I know I need a coastal province which is why I want to inherit or at least get Burgundy’s Northern provinces in which I need to keep France at bay.

So really that’s all I can think of to ask right now but remember I am taking all the help I can get even if it’s not a question I asked so go ahead and spill your darkest secrets about Österreich.
 
When you play as Austria most important thing is not to overthink it.

1.) You should not base this question on specific game, it should be a decided before you even start. If you wanna grow big and then take most of your own within-borders generated income, then go merchantile (i prefer it) or if you wanna trade in foreign CoTs go free trade. Know that growing aggressively doesnt go well with trading since badboy will give you penalties, in which case trading in your own CoTs with fully merchantile will hurt a lot less, while being free trade can make you lose lots of merchants. Grow big > merchantile, stay small lead tech = free trade.

2.) Honestly completely unimportant. Generally speaking you want as many RMs as you can get to have decent legitimacy gain, then you want as many RMs as you can get to give you good chances of inheriting land around you, and finally you dont want RMs on people you want to conquer. An exception to this would be scenario in which you want to impose PU from RM on someone by claiming throne, in that case, the less RMs you have, the better.

3.) If you start game in 1399. most important thing is to scale down your ambitions to the level your economy can support. After that, if you wish to expand (a lot) its very important to get a CoT province asap. By having CoT in a province, said province gets +2 tax income, and another +2 tax income for every 100 worth of trade it maintains. So, a 1000 trade worth province would give you 2+10X2 = 22 additional income stacked on top of the province base tax modified by everything else. Then come production buildings. Constable, for example, gives you 25% on yearly taxes on whatever the tax value of the province is. You can probably see by now where im going with this. More valuable province you get early on - more valuable it gets when you upgrade it. Higher the tax income is, higher the upgrading priority is. Everything that gives you tax_income, not only gives you that - income, it also modifies your land and naval force limits, so yeah, its crucial that you upgrade stuff.

4.) What you want to do, most of the time, is get land. As much as possible. If youre in western tech group, there is no such thing as worthless province. Even if its base tax 1 grain. Over time it will become more than worth it. Generally try to expand by blobbing. That means if you play as Austria, expand in the same region. Dont go crusading in Spain or whatever, because all that will give you is land border with more countries, which is a bad thing early on. Annex stuff around you, its easier to grab and much easier to hold on to. As for army organization, always maintain healthy cav/inf ratio, and scale stack size to whatever province can supply. When it comes to combat make groups of 2-3 stacks and support each one when its needed. Number one priority always should be locating and destroying of the enemy stacks, and then besieging their provinces, very simple really.

5.) Again, depends on what you wanna do. If you wanna fight and expand, military drill is a good choice, it will give you the edge over enemies, specially early on. That +1 morale bonus is quite big, specially if stacked with 7+ MIL ruler.
 
No, screw randomly annexing nearby states, unless you have obtained a core on them.

Your most important job as Austria is relations with the HRE electors. Spend whatever gold you have on increasing them and getting elected Emperor as soon as possible before reformation hits. Once it does, it'll become a shitshow (if you're not emperor) as relations slowly and forcefully take a hit with potential electors who will never look at electing your nation of heretics.

Once you're emperor though, you get a massive landforce bonus which will enable you to be more aggressive with your neighbors, and raise imperial authority through defensive wars. As your imperial authority increases, so does your ability to enact HRE reforms.

The point of this? Don't go for the small fries of neighboring border states. Go for the large fries of reuniting the Holy Roman Empire under the banner of the one true emperor. Renovatio Imperii!!!
 
I have to agree with bitparty, I'm playing my second Austria -> HRE game. The first one I didnt court the Electors early on leading to Bohemia and Burgundy beating the snot out of each other and grabbing land when they became Emperor and annoying everyone so the other was voted in for the first 200 years and I finally got the crown in the middle of the Reformation. Cue me converting to Protestant to get the electors to vote for me and having to take on the blobs of Burgundy and Bohemia to split them apart for imperial influence while trying not to annoy the member states so they would vote through the reforms...

This one I did the missions and got great relations with the vassals early on (And broke Emperor Hungary in a defensive war), the Empire was united by 1511. Now well on my way to rebuilding Trajan's empire. May have to move my capital to Thrace.

Basically, be nice to the German states. Don't steal too many chunks of them, release states and rebuild relations afterwards. What I found vital however were a few annexed states to release to get the last few points of Imperial authority. It seems a rather gamey way to do it but I released Provence (annexed from Burgundy), Saxony (Inherited early XVth century), Styria and Tyrol to give me enough authority for the final reform
 
Main things for a 1399 start that I have found are integral.
You are rich enough to build up to your force limits and still have extra money at the end of the year. Build up 3 stacks of 8k men or so (5inf/3cav).

Bavaria starts without an heir so hopefully you get the mission for a RM with them at the start which gives you +1 stab. Force a PU on them first. You can easily overrun them, and not having Bavaria under your control means that you will have an enemy who can potentially be a problem in the future. After forcing a PU on them there are a few key things to do.
Claims to northern Italy is a great mission. Make sure, however, that you will be able to make it a quick and painless war. Ideally without needing to fight Hungary and Bohemia, who they like to ally.

Also, if you can force a PU on Bohemia, do so. This means waiting until they're in a huge war with France and their WE is rising.

Key things to do:
-Don't waste your prestige. Expand your Sphere of Influence over countries in the HRE, starting with the electors. This will increase your diplomatic skill which will be key for diplomatically vassalizing princes of the empire. It will also give you more magistrates, which are obviously, priceless. Be careful, however, to not let your prestige get too low or else you will risk losing your PUs.

-Take advisors for government and land tech as a priority. Since you will not be a trader for at least 50-100 years, whether mercantile or free trade, you want to boost your tech research. Also, other key advisors are a master of the mint, to both counter inflation from your gold provinces and also to mint. Also look at getting either a grand marshall to improve your legitimacy, to help you with forcing PUs and also a philosopher, to keep your prestige high (until you become emperor).

-Force PUs on any states near you in the HRE. Instant cores on their provinces will quickly turn Austria into the power it deserves to be. As well, as your diplomatic skill rises through your SOI and also through the Habsburg Dominance decision, you will easily persuade the princes of the empire to willingly become your vassals. As Austria, it's not unreasonable to get 10-15 vassals this way (including some of the electors).

-In any war that there is an elector fighting you, vassalize them. The BB will burn off, but vassalizing electors is the safest way to ensure that you will become Emperor.

-As for NIs, first one for Austria should be Military Drill. This is EXTREMELY important. Assuming that you become emperor soon, forcelimits are not really a huge issue for you and neither is manpower, especially on SP and if you're building military buildings. This frees up other NI spots. Other good ones: Battlefield Commissions will help you raise army trad. and slow its stagnation. You will need good generals to protect the empire from the outsiders who would seek to force their will on it. Also, Church Attendance Duty is not only great for cutting stability costs--it has the added bonus of either slowing/stopping the reformation if you want to stay catholic OR, if you decide to convert to protestant (which is great for Austria), it will give you events to auto-convert your provinces, helping to stop your country from falling into chaos. Basically, take army NIs and other ones that will ensure dominance on land. Take Unam Sanctum at some point, so you can declare war on other nations without penalties in stability or BB.

-Whenever outsiders take HRE land, use the imperial ban cb and get a province you will receive an instant core on (if its in the hre) for basically no infamy.

-Stop France or Spain from invading Italy. You want to keep those rich lands for yourself or for your vassals.

Basically--PU everything in sight, acquire vassals and keep your BB low. Keep relations high within the empire (no annexing princes with no cores unless you must) and protect the empire whenever you can win or at least draw. You want to get free IA and higher relations so you can pass reforms.

-If you are going to unite the HRE go all the way with reforms. If not, stop after the 4 (+25% tax), the other reforms have serious penalties that are not worth incurring unless you plan to form the HRE.


edit: if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
OH. And sliders aim for:
Centralization (obvious bonuses), aristrocracy (shock bonus & cheaper cavalry), free subjects (morale, tech bonuses), around the middle on inno/narrow, eventually fully inno by end of game, full land (austria is a land power, forget the sea, dominate the continent), offensive (shock bonus & morale), mercantile or free trade depending on your style, i prefer merc. so i can dominate my one or two huge COTs and get spies to fabricate claims & get more PUs and finally Quality.

These sliders will make you rich, have powerful armies with great generals, low tech costs and great trade regardless of which slider you choose.

The important thing is to know your strengths as Austria. Also do not let France blob too much--they are your biggest enemy once you are Emperor.
 
When you play as Austria most important thing is not to overthink it.

1.) You should not base this question on specific game, it should be a decided before you even start. If you wanna grow big and then take most of your own within-borders generated income, then go merchantile (i prefer it) or if you wanna trade in foreign CoTs go free trade. Know that growing aggressively doesnt go well with trading since badboy will give you penalties, in which case trading in your own CoTs with fully merchantile will hurt a lot less, while being free trade can make you lose lots of merchants. Grow big > merchantile, stay small lead tech = free trade.

I don't agree. I have conquered all of Europe as a free trading Austria. It was a lovely shade of white. I did not use any cheap tricks (release, annex for infamy burn). Granted, I had a lot of Pu's, but I also conquered a lot during wars where I demanded provinces straight up/annex vassals I never exceeded 8 infamy, and my trade income was never seriously dented. Mercantilism is never good, it is not even circumstance dependent. It is never superior to free trade in any way, even with every single modifier... (unless you want to continuously ride at max infamy the whole game, or have conquered [most of] the world).
 
Lol, ideally as Austria you should get absolutely no infamy whatsoever (except for the vassalization of electors).

For the first, it's pretty simple, really. Merchantilism sucks, or at least no trade focus sucks. It can be great to be merchantilist and get all the toll bonuses, but you need to have a high trade efficiency throughout the game and that is hard to achieve as Austria.

So, first slider moves: Free trade, then Centralization, then Land and Quality. Then there are the events and i usually take Plutocracy (the Aristocracy bonuses are largely worthless compared to spies, merchants and TE that comes from Pluto) and Free Subjects (stability really shouldn't be a problem as Austria)

The expansion must be through almighty Personal Unions. The tactic is this: always look at the disputed succession thingy on the upper side of the screen (the one with the black head), when you see a potential target don't lose time and send RM, claim throne, DOW. If you DOW even when the claim expired you'll still be able to establish the PU. Don't be afraid of people guaranteeing that country, they'll stay warleaders anyway.
Also there's the spy mission Fabricate Claims (only on capital) that gives you a CB that is pretty much the same as that of the claim throne. However, the mission has totally different requirements (basically low legitimacy) and countries susceptible by this mission not always have disputed succession, so just check from time to time your targets and see if the mission is available.
There are then a few "exploits" that basically involve annexing a country and then releasing it, after the truce wears out take the spy mission and unvassalize, then PU them.
 
Lol, ideally as Austria you should get absolutely no infamy whatsoever.

For the first, it's pretty simple, really. Merchantilism sucks, or at least no trade focus sucks. It can be great to be merchantilist and get all the toll bonuses, but you need to have a high trade efficiency throughout the game and that is hard to achieve as Austria.

So, first slider moves: Free trade, then Centralization, then Land and Quality. Then there are the events and i usually take Plutocracy (the Aristocracy bonuses are largely worthless compared to spies, merchants and TE that comes from Pluto) and Free Subjects (stability really shouldn't be a problem as Austria)

The expansion must be through almighty Personal Unions. The tactic is this: always look at the disputed succession thingy on the upper side of the screen (the one with the black head), when you see a potential target don't lose time and send RM, claim throne, DOW. If you DOW even when the claim expired you'll still be able to establish the PU. Don't be afraid of people guaranteeing that country, they'll stay warleaders anyway.
Also there's the spy mission Fabricate Claims (only on capital) that gives you a CB that is pretty much the same as that of the claim throne. However, the mission has totally different requirements (basically low legitimacy) and countries susceptible by this mission not always have disputed succession, so just check from time to time your targets and see if the mission is available.
There are then a few "exploits" that basically involve annexing a country and then releasing it, after the truce wears out take the spy mission and unvassalize, then PU them.

I would add, that if you don't care about roleplaying, you should royal marry every.single.country. Even if they don't appear in the tooltip to have a succession dispute, random game events will kill their heir in the last years of the kings reign, and then there is a small chance for a PU. The Austrian decision for +2 diplo skill is helpful.
Claiming throne through the diplomacy button is really a bad idea :
1. Destroys trust -- They will "completely distrust", and thereby eliminating your inheritance chances. Improves very slowly over time.
2. Completely destroys relations with other royal marriage partners.
3. You lose legitimacy and prestige. A healthy chunk.
When you get a new king, this is the time to claim thrones, because now you don't have any royal marriages (or very few).
 
Focus your buildings. Early on, you can't afford to build too quickly. Recruit your regiments from just two provinces, and you'll only need two Army buildings to see savings on your maintenance. Yes, eventually they will be everywhere, but you want to get the biggest impact as quickly as possible.

-Pat
 
I would add, that if you don't care about roleplaying, you should royal marry every.single.country. Even if they don't appear in the tooltip to have a succession dispute, random game events will kill their heir in the last years of the kings reign, and then there is a small chance for a PU. The Austrian decision for +2 diplo skill is helpful.
Claiming throne through the diplomacy button is really a bad idea :
1. Destroys trust -- They will "completely distrust", and thereby eliminating your inheritance chances. Improves very slowly over time.
2. Completely destroys relations with other royal marriage partners.
3. You lose legitimacy and prestige. A healthy chunk.
When you get a new king, this is the time to claim thrones, because now you don't have any royal marriages (or very few).

1: I always inherited well, usually at the death of the first king. It depends only on relative size in my opinion
2: That's why you shouldn't spam RMs
3: When you form the PU with the war option you get around 80 prestige from it, while legitimacy is easy to restore.
 
No, screw randomly annexing nearby states, unless you have obtained a core on them.

Your most important job as Austria is relations with the HRE electors. Spend whatever gold you have on increasing them and getting elected Emperor as soon as possible before reformation hits. Once it does, it'll become a shitshow (if you're not emperor) as relations slowly and forcefully take a hit with potential electors who will never look at electing your nation of heretics.

Once you're emperor though, you get a massive landforce bonus which will enable you to be more aggressive with your neighbors, and raise imperial authority through defensive wars. As your imperial authority increases, so does your ability to enact HRE reforms.

The point of this? Don't go for the small fries of neighboring border states. Go for the large fries of reuniting the Holy Roman Empire under the banner of the one true emperor. Renovatio Imperii!!!


In my current campain that has gone quite well, I left the HRE fairly early on and just went to war with everyone. For me the key to eat the HRE is to be best friends with Hungary, and withdraw captured provinces from the HRE. I have taken all of Italy, must of Bohemia, all of Switzerland, Bavaria and most of the smaller states. So basically the HRE is just a big blob of Burgundy and some small minions who are of no consern. I plan to split up Burgundy by liberating a lot of nations, and once I jam that crowbar in there and it give way, all of Western europe will be mine for the taking.

Playing Austria and not being a part of the empire has been great fun , as the amount of wars I have fought has been unbelivable. Despite not being a member of the HRE, I've had a lot of royal marriages though, just to be able to catch my breath between the wars. Another strategy is to attack and annex much of Hungary right away. Just get land tech a level or two a head of them and you should have no problems getting most of their land within a short amount of years.

When it comes to sliders, I always go all the way in quality over quantity, and land over navy.
 
Last edited:
There are no secrets for an Österreich Strategie, it is basically:

NX6UE.jpg
those people make love and produce a heir (names listed below)
NZLrG.jpg


Beautiful heir makes whole Europe going crazy and while they think it is love Austria knows it better, so the result will ultimately be:

s5W18.jpg


And if you manage to beat down UK, France, Russia and Spain , well , then you are truly...

2fgEI.jpg





For those who don't know and are actually interested:
This is Archduke Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen with his wife Francesca (née Francesca Anne Dolores Freiin Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva^^) and daughter Eleonora.
 
I always get a royal marriage with Hungary first. Then I claim their throne and beat the crap out of them before anyone can help them. The only real threat to you at this point is Bohemia and/or an alliance of other states as Hungary is really quite powerful in the beginning.
 
Mercantilism is never good, it is not even circumstance dependent. It is never superior to free trade in any way, even with every single modifier... (unless you want to continuously ride at max infamy the whole game, or have conquered [most of] the world).
Soo.. If your Austria own 15 CoT's, among them all of the American ones (the America you own 100% of), and have a monopoly on all of them, free trade is still better than mercantilism? And adding to that, an Austria that also have the bosporous (spelling?) sound toll that demands mercantilism, free trade is still better?

By the way, does anyone know how many CoT's can be seen without scrolling in the ledger? That +1 is how many CoT's I own in my ongoing Austria game right now. I very much doubt that free trade is better...
 
There are also some other examples where Mercantilism is better. In my Aztec game for example I was embargoed by nearly whole Europe all the time. Thank god I was mercantilistic and had very rich american CoT monopolies. Only for me because I was also embargoing them, too. Hehe, I had so much money for tech, it was insane.
 
Soo.. If your Austria own 15 CoT's, among them all of the American ones (the America you own 100% of), and have a monopoly on all of them, free trade is still better than mercantilism? And adding to that, an Austria that also have the bosporous (spelling?) sound toll that demands mercantilism, free trade is still better?

By the way, does anyone know how many CoT's can be seen without scrolling in the ledger? That +1 is how many CoT's I own in my ongoing Austria game right now. I very much doubt that free trade is better...

Who cares how many CoT's you have? If they are not worth anything, then what is the point? If you don't own the entire world, then there is countless more wealth to be had from foreign CoT's. Mercantilism is only good for world conquests and excessive badboy accumulation.

Mercantilism is also good for nations that have to prioritize centralization and innovative slier moves in order to westernize. Free trade, as a strategy is far superior than mercantilism. Every country can become a tech leader as soon as they become free traders. Mercantile nations only become tech leaders late game due to human efficiency in building buildings.
 
Who cares how many CoT's you have? If they are not worth anything, then what is the point? If you don't own the entire world, then there is countless more wealth to be had from foreign CoT's. Mercantilism is only good for world conquests and excessive badboy accumulation.

Mercantilism is also good for nations that have to prioritize centralization and innovative slier moves in order to westernize. Free trade, as a strategy is far superior than mercantilism. Every country can become a tech leader as soon as they become free traders. Mercantile nations only become tech leaders late game due to human efficiency in building buildings.
Hmm.. Yes. I guess I must check ingame if my american CoT's are worth anything if I own the entire American continent.. And you should care very much how many CoT's you own, since as a free trader you can only own a very limited amount of CoT's since you (almost) can't take any without a core and the fact that a province with a CoT is extremely rich. Or is it just a coinsidence that the provinces with CoT's are among the richest in the world? How many CoT's can you have a monopoly in as a good free trader? Say Holland in the late 16:th century or something.. 20? 30?

EDIT: This is my trade page in the ledger from where I am now in the game. 1644. I must agree, Mercantile looks absolutely useless. ;)
EDIT2: Ignore my income from the different CoT's by the way, that's because of a "quite high" TE, the point was the monopolies in almost all of the richest CoT's in the world.
mercantile.png
 
Last edited:
Hmm.. Yes. I guess I must check ingame if my american CoT's are worth anything if I own the entire American continent.. And you should care very much how many CoT's you own, since as a free trader you can only own a very limited amount of CoT's since you (almost) can't take any without a core and the fact that a province with a CoT is extremely rich. Or is it just a coinsidence that the provinces with CoT's are among the richest in the world? How many CoT's can you have a monopoly in as a good free trader? Say Holland in the late 16:th century or something.. 20? 30?

EDIT: This is my trade page in the ledger from where I am now in the game. 1644. I must agree, Mercantile looks absolutely useless. ;)
mercantile.png

Lol is all i can say. You have half of the world in your hands.

I don't consider mercantilism to be a hopeless strategy. With A LOT of provinces for customs houses, trade NIs and all the decisions and tolls merchantilism is on par with free trade. But this only if you own rich colonies (Indonesia, Brazil, Caribbean and so on), but as Austria that expands in a realistic way (that is Germany and such) you can't expect to have an ultra rich COT.
 
Lol is all i can say. You have half of the world in your hands.

I don't consider mercantilism to be a hopeless strategy. With A LOT of provinces for customs houses, trade NIs and all the decisions and tolls merchantilism is on par with free trade. But this only if you own rich colonies (Indonesia, Brazil, Caribbean and so on), but as Austria that expands in a realistic way (that is Germany and such) you can't expect to have an ultra rich COT.
Haha. I like colonizing I must say. :) And I'm pretty sure it's better than free trade if the game ends up like this.. And do notice that Liguria and Lübeck is still there and not mine, so I have not formed the HRE. I have also only forced 1 PU, Bohemia because of the Austrian mission, and only taken around 15 provinces in Holy wars. So of all the cheap tricks that are so very popular here for taking provinces I have basically used none.