I thought I got off to a decent start, but now it's just an endless series of wars, my mnpower has been depleted, my armies broken, and my lands are far away from each other (Inherited Holland from burgundy) So any tips for me if I decide to restart? :/
Any tips playing as Austria?
- Thread starter CihanTuglu
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My first game was as Austria (not counting the demo), so yep! I have a lot for 'ya.
So this is gamey as hell, but on D1 a LOT of countries have disputed successions. From what I can tell, Hungary is always one of them. D1, Royal Marry Hungary. As soon as you can, claim their throne. Then, as soon as you can, declare war on them for their throne. You may want to ally either Bohemia, Poland, or both to assist you in this war. If Hungary picked powerful allies this war may not be winnable - if that is the case, restart and try again (given you're only about a year in at this point so restarting is no big deal). They're a very powerful ally, so I'd keep them around for awhile and then annex them whenever it's convenient for you. Naturally you want to improve relations with them as soon as the PU forms so that the PU doesn't break (it will break if their relations are below 0 with you when your monarch dies).
You'll want to keep a close eye on disputed successions. In my game I PUed Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland by RM+Claim Throne+Declare War (maybe Bavaria, too, I forget). I managed to PU Russia, too, but I think it was a little buggy because they converted to a Noble Republic and things got wonky, so the PU broke. Anyway, you'll also want to keep the electors happy. Bohemia will always vote for you if they're in a PU with you. A lot of times I'd have another vassal as an elector. This will make the other electors mad, but seldom are the other electors coordinated enough to have the remaining of them vote for a single person. So typically if even two electors vote for you, you're good. That said, you can typically stay as the emperor forever. Don't ever use the "Enforce Religious Unity" option unless you've passed the reform that disallows internal HRE warfare. It gives -25 relations with ALL HRE members, and ticks away at only 1.5 a year. Plus it stacks. Before I realized this I had -75 relations with all HRE members... which made passing reforms difficult. If you must use this option, use it sparingly (wait for the relations to come back up between usages). Eventually you will be able to form the HRE, but this didn't happen to me until about 1700. It takes awhile to build that imperial authority.
For NIs I'd go with the Diplomacy tree as one of your first. Faster fabricating+cheaper cores+more diplomatics+better relations is outstanding for Austria. It's a great idea anyway, but especially for Austria. I'd also go with the military ideas. In order I'd do defensive, offensive, and quality. I wouldn't focus so much on colonists. Unless you beeline towards colonization, you're going to be beat by Portugal, Spain/Castille, Great Britain/England, and France. You have too many juicy targets all around you to be focusing on that.
Your biggest enemies are likely to end up being France, the Ottoman Empire, and later Sweden and Russia. When you annex Hungary the Ottoman Empire will hate you forever since they'll border you hard, so be prepared for that. France will constantly declare war on your OPMs within the HRE, who will request your aid. It sucks to have to say no since you lose imperial authority and relations, but don't be afraid to say no. Check France's military power against yours (+factor in your PU members partially) before accepting that call to arms - if they're way above you, fighting the good fight won't do you any good and you'll get stomped. Declare war on France when they've been weakened - usually either by fighting GB or Spain. Unfortunately, this will occasionally never happen... it's sort of a luck thing.
Something to keep in mind: the Netherlands will revolt all game. It doesn't matter what your revolt risk is... it's an event that happens over and over and over and over again the entire game, and the longer the game goes the bigger the stacks get (mine are typically around 30 strong at 1755). You'll have a big stack around there because of France anyway, so it's no big deal but it gets annoying.
I now control most of Europa aside from the west coast + Iberia and most of India (I was trying to get the achievement for taking over India as a European nation). Unfortunately for every province you control, coring is like +5% longer. I'm up to the point where coring takes about 10 years per province... and if I go anywhere over 100% overextension I get about 3 revolts a month - often times with stacks upwards of 50 rebels. At any given point there are typically enough rebels in my land to, if they were a nation of their own, have the second strongest military in the game. It's not very fun anymore, but before you get to that point it's pretty fun playing as Austria.
:Edit: Oh, I forgot. You'll get a decision to become an archduchy. It's basically the same as the default monarchy (despotic monarchy? I forget) but it's +1 relationships, too. This is nice but you're never able to change away from this government type (except via events that would change your government type). So look at the different types of monarchy and determine if you want that before accepting to become an archduchy.
So this is gamey as hell, but on D1 a LOT of countries have disputed successions. From what I can tell, Hungary is always one of them. D1, Royal Marry Hungary. As soon as you can, claim their throne. Then, as soon as you can, declare war on them for their throne. You may want to ally either Bohemia, Poland, or both to assist you in this war. If Hungary picked powerful allies this war may not be winnable - if that is the case, restart and try again (given you're only about a year in at this point so restarting is no big deal). They're a very powerful ally, so I'd keep them around for awhile and then annex them whenever it's convenient for you. Naturally you want to improve relations with them as soon as the PU forms so that the PU doesn't break (it will break if their relations are below 0 with you when your monarch dies).
You'll want to keep a close eye on disputed successions. In my game I PUed Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland by RM+Claim Throne+Declare War (maybe Bavaria, too, I forget). I managed to PU Russia, too, but I think it was a little buggy because they converted to a Noble Republic and things got wonky, so the PU broke. Anyway, you'll also want to keep the electors happy. Bohemia will always vote for you if they're in a PU with you. A lot of times I'd have another vassal as an elector. This will make the other electors mad, but seldom are the other electors coordinated enough to have the remaining of them vote for a single person. So typically if even two electors vote for you, you're good. That said, you can typically stay as the emperor forever. Don't ever use the "Enforce Religious Unity" option unless you've passed the reform that disallows internal HRE warfare. It gives -25 relations with ALL HRE members, and ticks away at only 1.5 a year. Plus it stacks. Before I realized this I had -75 relations with all HRE members... which made passing reforms difficult. If you must use this option, use it sparingly (wait for the relations to come back up between usages). Eventually you will be able to form the HRE, but this didn't happen to me until about 1700. It takes awhile to build that imperial authority.
For NIs I'd go with the Diplomacy tree as one of your first. Faster fabricating+cheaper cores+more diplomatics+better relations is outstanding for Austria. It's a great idea anyway, but especially for Austria. I'd also go with the military ideas. In order I'd do defensive, offensive, and quality. I wouldn't focus so much on colonists. Unless you beeline towards colonization, you're going to be beat by Portugal, Spain/Castille, Great Britain/England, and France. You have too many juicy targets all around you to be focusing on that.
Your biggest enemies are likely to end up being France, the Ottoman Empire, and later Sweden and Russia. When you annex Hungary the Ottoman Empire will hate you forever since they'll border you hard, so be prepared for that. France will constantly declare war on your OPMs within the HRE, who will request your aid. It sucks to have to say no since you lose imperial authority and relations, but don't be afraid to say no. Check France's military power against yours (+factor in your PU members partially) before accepting that call to arms - if they're way above you, fighting the good fight won't do you any good and you'll get stomped. Declare war on France when they've been weakened - usually either by fighting GB or Spain. Unfortunately, this will occasionally never happen... it's sort of a luck thing.
Something to keep in mind: the Netherlands will revolt all game. It doesn't matter what your revolt risk is... it's an event that happens over and over and over and over again the entire game, and the longer the game goes the bigger the stacks get (mine are typically around 30 strong at 1755). You'll have a big stack around there because of France anyway, so it's no big deal but it gets annoying.
I now control most of Europa aside from the west coast + Iberia and most of India (I was trying to get the achievement for taking over India as a European nation). Unfortunately for every province you control, coring is like +5% longer. I'm up to the point where coring takes about 10 years per province... and if I go anywhere over 100% overextension I get about 3 revolts a month - often times with stacks upwards of 50 rebels. At any given point there are typically enough rebels in my land to, if they were a nation of their own, have the second strongest military in the game. It's not very fun anymore, but before you get to that point it's pretty fun playing as Austria.
:Edit: Oh, I forgot. You'll get a decision to become an archduchy. It's basically the same as the default monarchy (despotic monarchy? I forget) but it's +1 relationships, too. This is nice but you're never able to change away from this government type (except via events that would change your government type). So look at the different types of monarchy and determine if you want that before accepting to become an archduchy.
-immediatly make a royal marriage with bohemia->claim throne->force personal union.
-try to vasalize 1 or 2 extra electors to ensure succecion.
-never ally hre minors they tend to blob if you can't cut them to size now and then.
-always try to release hre minors and don't take hre lands you don't have a core on(also don't absorb hre vassals the other hre minors don't like that).
-look out for chances to pu burgundy and hungary there are missions the give you a cb for that.
-spain/castille is a usefull ally if france comes knocking on your door
-if manpower is low or you are going in an evenly matched war hire some mercs they are expensive but 12k extra men is very handy just fire them when you don't need them anymore.
-try to vasalize 1 or 2 extra electors to ensure succecion.
-never ally hre minors they tend to blob if you can't cut them to size now and then.
-always try to release hre minors and don't take hre lands you don't have a core on(also don't absorb hre vassals the other hre minors don't like that).
-look out for chances to pu burgundy and hungary there are missions the give you a cb for that.
-spain/castille is a usefull ally if france comes knocking on your door
-if manpower is low or you are going in an evenly matched war hire some mercs they are expensive but 12k extra men is very handy just fire them when you don't need them anymore.
Thankyou very much! This has actually been very helpful, I shall start a new game and try the personal union with hungary/bohemia trick! This should make my life easier 
To declare war on Bohemia the only option i get is "Revoke Electorate" and since i have a RM i get -1 stab hit
Do I just take the hit or is there a way around this??
Am I supposed to have the claim throne option as a reason for going to war or can i just choose any reason then select PU when i sue for peace?
Do I just take the hit or is there a way around this??
Am I supposed to have the claim throne option as a reason for going to war or can i just choose any reason then select PU when i sue for peace?
Same here. I have not seen the "Claim Throne" CB in any of my games, ever. I must be missing something.
Does declaring war with "Claim Throne" CB count as a succession war?
Cheers!
You need to declare with the Claim Throne CB if you want to form a PU in the peace deal. The -1 stab hit is the price you have to pay for gaining the PU (unless you dissolve the marriage first and are the Curia Controller, though I'm not sure if that will remove the CB).
You need to have a royal marriage with the nation, their current ruler must be in your dynasty, and the target country must have no heir. The disputed succession pop-up will list nations which also have weak claim heirs, but these weak claimants will prevent you from claiming the throne. Assuming that you meet all the requirements, you can then claim the throne of the target country and receive the Claim Throne CB.
I've read somewhere that Claim Throne only gives CB if you're from the same dinasty of that king.