Dealing with Austria

[arcticpulse]

Yeah, this. After spending a good while with Brandenburg and watching events play out in my favour, I finally managed to form Germany. It seems really luck based as alliance chains and the anti player agenda doesn't really work out in my favour.While consolidating northern Germany, I didn't pay attention to much of the goings-on in the empire. When I finally took a breather, I realised France was crushed and Austria had Burgandy. All of it.Now, Austria is a little too big for my tastes and I'm uncertain if I should deal with him. I have more money than I know what to do with and a standing army of ~70 men with some cavalry and cannons with ~250K manpower. While Austria is quite spread out I'm still wondering if attacking him is even a good idea. He has few allies which are really weak anyway, and I have Prussia as an ally (though I have my doubts if he will help me or be of use). I want to reclaim all German cores, which means I'll have to conquer most of the 1399 Austria. How do you guys decide if you can take someone on?

 

[Kurblius]

What's Austria's Land and Naval tech relative to yours?

 

[arcticpulse]

We break even at 31.

 

[unmerged(39179)]

you need alot more then 70K to take on that Austria, build some more land lvl 5 and 6 land buildings to get more a higersupport limit and more manpower.

 

[Blazehack]

That Austria probably have 200k troops, but do check in your stats in the ledger. You will probably need at least that much if not more to just grind that austria down to the point you can start gobbling it up and they fall apart(make sure to smash there fleet for sure so after you crush them they will have a harder time putting down the rebellions)

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

That Austria probably have 200k troops, but do check in your stats in the ledger. You will probably need at least that much if not more to just grind that austria down to the point you can start gobbling it up and they fall apart(make sure to smash there fleet for sure so after you crush them they will have a harder time putting down the rebellions)

200k? That's too little... Even with its de-jure territories, Austria could easily muster 150+k. In this case, it also has Burgundy, parts of France, parts of western HRE, and western half of OE. I'd say it should at least have 300k.

 

[ind2bc]

depending on how your spies are you could use them to try and get rid of some of Austrias more remote holdings as well as get their attention away from the front during a war but that really depends on whether or not you get spies and how effective they are

 

[anubisfike]

What the heck happened in your game? I haven't seen such a messed up map since DW 5.0

 

[sprites]

Seems like Austria inherited Burgundy ... they will be hard to beat!

 

[Kepheren]

To be honest I would worry more about that monstrous Prussia. They might be your ally at the moment but if you have doubts about their loyalty I'm betting your relations arent that hot. Sadly I've been ganked by more then a few former allies. hmy:

Double check what their relations are to each other and plan accordingly. Both will have a lot of interest in lands you currently live on so by all means try to keep them from getting too cozy. Then I would suggest making as many allies as possible to try and draw more folks to your side of the eventual fight. As it stands now it looks like your sitting on an ugly situation waiting to happen and need bunches more troops before it starts.

 

[unmerged(399969)]

Inherit Prussia. It's the only way.

 

[unmerged(277230)]

TBH, this is a great end game boss for sure. You should upload the save.

That Austria will be HARD to beat. It looks powerful. I think the only way to beat it is a war of attrition and defensive tactics while it slowly crumbles. And by slowly I mean, over a span of 100 years. Prussia looks weak. It uses a lot of piss poor Russian territory.

 

[unmerged(204522)]

use your reconquest CBs on everyone not allied to austria-vassalise electors and become the emperor, then use imperial ban CB to nerf prussia and increase your force limit.....

 

[arcticpulse]

I apologise for the late reply, things have been pretty hectic lately and I haven't had much free time.Anyway, thanks for all the tips guys, I'll probably fight out a long drawn out attrition war after I build up my structures and hopefully, gain some more land. My spies aren't all that great, but I'll take all the help I can get. If anyone is eager to duke it out with Austria and/or Prussia, I'm sending a link to sendspace containing the save. If there's a better way to upload it, let me know. http://http://www.sendspace.com/file/yrsk2d

 

[yqt1001]

Just loaded the save. You are incredibly weak for what you should be. If Austria invaded you would have maybe 5 minutes at a medium speed until you would have to surrender. Your army is 1/3 of Prussia's, but your forcelimit is larger than Prussia's current standing army. You're at 54 units, but your forcelimit is 199. Why you don't have your military to the max is my main question. But even your army at your max forcelimit would be unable to meet about half of Austria's, but you and Prussia combined would have a decent chance of not getting absolutely destroyed.

You are holy roman emperor but in the next election no one will vote for you, you have no other option but to keep your place as emperor as it gives a large manpower and forcelimit bonus. I also noticed that you are excommunicated, which is never a good thing. So you'll want to avoid that by keeping your relations with the papal states above 100, at this point you have more than enough money to do that. Also your infamy is rather high, so I strongly recommend that you build an embassy soon.

However, your relations with Austria are pretty decent. Royal marriages and giving them military access (both "Very Likely") would be beneficial to boost relations and give them a stability penalty for invading you. Since your relations are decent there will more than enough time to get an economic powerhouse going and becoming stronger than Austria (you have, after all, the second largest economy after Austria). Don't wait too long to build up, if you're going to become a large nation all your relations will quickly plummet and everyone will hate you. You'll need "Grand Army" for you and Prussia be able to fight Austria fairly, so for your next idea I would recommend that. For now I would simply suggest staying HRE emperor and building up a bunch of level 5 and 6 land buildings to get your land forcelimits up to around 300-350, as well as maintaining relations with Prussia and Austria to keep the balance of power in your favour. Trying your best to avoid conflict with Austria and conquering your remaining German cores would be a great idea, as well as attempting to force PU Savoy would be a good idea (inheritance will give insta cores and a lot of northern italy-very valuable provinces). You might also want to war with Sweden/GB to get some Scandinavian/British land and to get some prestige to pull some of Austrian's sphere to you so you can easily conquer some German minors.

Just be ready for an epic war with Austria.

Edit: Just did a mock war with Austria to see the exact value of an Austria alliance at this moment. It is roughly ~230 cavalry units, ~165 infantry units and ~28 artillery units.

 

[thelettuceman]

ohmigoshlookatthatPrussia..*hyperventilate*

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

ohmigoshlookatthatPrussia..*hyperventilate*

Pfft. Prussia has always been a weak country in my game. And in this screen, it's occupying a whole swath of useless horde lands with large province borders. I'd be much much much more concerned about that super Austria.

 

[unmerged(79411)]

You want some advice?

Click on the map within the Austrian borders
Press Declare War
Use your core cassus belli
defeat the AI

or..

play how you would actually play the game without using gamey internet manuals from the paradox forums.
It's not very courageous to annex a mighty Austria into your 'super great germany' if you have to ask the forums how to do that...

Having AI countries that can be a real threat to you is one of the best things of EU3, don't throw that away with spoilers.

cheers!

 

[Jos de trol]

I like to pull the old switcheroo on big nations, having them come on to my scorched lands while sending troops of mine to some corner of their realm where they have no megastacks and either insta-siege their provinces there or divide up my troops to prevent new hostile troops from being levied. It works very well.

You need to infiltrate the administration for this and have enough provinces you can scorch the land and give up when necessary.

In my DW game Austria also got very powerful (it's the new France to some extent, apparantly) but it got a lot weaker once I won a war in which I forced them to release a big Hungary again.

It also does not matter if they have a lot of troops in far flung places abroad if you have naval supremacy.

 

[Steezus Christ]

You want some advice?

Click on the map within the Austrian borders
Press Declare War
Use your core cassus belli
defeat the AI

or..

play how you would actually play the game without using gamey internet manuals from the paradox forums.
It's not very courageous to annex a mighty Austria into your 'super great germany' if you have to ask the forums how to do that...

Having AI countries that can be a real threat to you is one of the best things of EU3, don't throw that away with spoilers.

cheers!

So your advice is to remain as ignorant as possible to game strategies to maximize your enjoyment of the game? He is not even asking for gamey tips, nor has anyone posted anything beyond basic, sound strategy.

Sorry, but the play style you describe and like is probably preferred by 1% of all EU players and will probably make the game become the opposite of fun for a lot of newer players, who then may end up giving up on the game entirely.