I want to form the HRE as Austria while keeping the 1444 HR borders intact all the way, and only expanding outside the HRE. What tips can you give me?

[Cheydinal]

First of, do you think that this is realistic? I have about 1100h of experience, so my gut feeling tells me it is, although I reckon it would still be really hard. France and possibly Poland taking bites out of the HRE would probably be kind of tough to beat, although the hardest part must be to keep Northern Italy in the HRE, otherwise it must be basically impossible, I assume. Here's my idea for a strategy so far:

Ally up with Northern Italian states and fight wars against Venice and the Pope, giving most conquered provinces to allies to avoid AE; they will then core them if your relations with them are good enough. With that, avoid the breakaway of Northern Italy until 1490.

Next, expand into Hungary and the Balkans to gain strength. Meanwhile ally up with France's and Poland's rivals, so that you can defend the HRE if they attack, and so that you can liberate provinces that have been taken while you were fighting in Northern Italy

Fight wars against every HRE lord who has eliminated another HRE lord, until there are as many lords as possible. Fight against outside powers until all HRE provinces are owned by a local HRE lord.

That's basically it. While doing this, keep expanding outside the HRE to make it easier for you to do all those things, and then just kind of go through the reforms. And of course save some money to bribe lords into voting for the reforms.

Thoughts?

 

[Tyriion]

This is how I started out my mist recent hre run;

Get PU on Milan once they form a republic. Of you get this fast you unlock PU over Hungary through mission.
While doing that suck up to some electors to get 5 to support you So you can PU Bohemia.

With those PUs in place nothing much can touch you. I didn’t bother with Italy though you can ofcourse. Smack around some expanding princes to keep them all small and get provinces back from Savoy, Venice and Denmark. I allied Burgundy, but the Inheritance failed to fire so I beat them later on for more HRE provinces.

Do all this before 1500 so you are ready for reformation. Kill the centers asap. Of you take scattered provinces throughout the empire it shouldn’t be a problem to get cbs, but I managed to dodge a coalition even with a no cb.

Dont feed PUs too much so you inherit them, I integraties Hungary myself in the end to keep on with the missions. Ideas were Diplo, Religious, Influence.