Need help with Austria

[Invictus5966]

I just started playing EU4 again after playing lots of stellaris and hoi4 so I figured Id play a slower diplomatic game with Austria.

Started out ok got Hungary in a PU but where I got stuck was with the religious turmoil.

Almost all of the HRE wasn't Catholic anymore and half of Austria changed causing me strife. When war broke out I got crushed by most of the HRE and the ottomans who joined them.

What did I do wrong and how do I fix that. My goal was to create the HRE


Thx for any input.

 

[Dominion]

Conquer centers of reformation and convert them to make them disappear.
If Centers are in an OPM you can use force religion instead. Gets rid of them as well.

Marry Bohemia early on. They'll get your dynasty for some time before having him replaced per event.
Use that window to claim throne and go to war. Gives you another PU to play with.

 

[Sfan]

Playing Austria can be a very dangerous game, and it's a "fake" easy and relaxing country. You can quickly fall under the impression that Austria can be played while chilling and looking for PUs, but if you seriously want to play the HRE game you need to be super agressive. Ideally, you want Erbkaisertum passed before the League Wars. Or even better, a full reform before the League Wars. To do that, you do not only need the Hungary union, but also the Bohemian one, and either one or both of the Shadow Kingdom and the Burgundian Inheritance.
That gives you an early boost to Imperial Authority, because that's a lot harder to have it tick naturally after the Reformation. After that, add provinces to gain IA, but you need to be really quick.
If you fail to do that, you have to manually destroy CoR one by one by forceconverting nations in the HRE and play a very tedious HRE police.

The difficulty with an Austria playing the HRE is that you can play well and become the strongest GP by far, but still have everything destroyed if you are unlucky with League participants and CoR spawn. You either have to accept that this run is heavily delayed, or to be a lot more agressive and dynamic early on. The best land to add to the HRE is low dev land. By many aspects, if you want a 100% winrate in an HRE game despite any religious bad luck, your run should look like a Big Blue Blob. Chase low dev European provinces, except that this time it is to stack IA and pass as many reforms as possible before the Reformation potentially ruins everything.

 

[Invictus5966]

I tried Bohemia but got beat and Burgundy never popped. I'm thinking I was also warned by France on top of that.

Maybe my start wasn't as good as I thought lol

 

[Dominion]

I tried Bohemia but got beat and Burgundy never popped. I'm thinking I was also warned by France on top of that.

Maybe my start wasn't as good as I thought lol

If you can't beat Bohemia you can ally Hungary and call them in with promise of land. Don't give them anything.
You wanna PU them later anyways, them breaking your alliance won't hurt.

 

[jdavis86]

Reformation is not difficult to deal with as Austria, but you need to pick religious as second idea group.

As you're freeing princes with Imperial Liberation, take extra provinces. I usually take ones that don't create a new prince. They'll give you borders with more princes for the reformation.

By the time reformation hits, if you've completed Religious, you'll have an instant CB to immediately crush reformation centers.

Sometimes you get unlucky and need to declare without a cb, but you should have picked diplomatic as first so you'll only get hit one stab.

Sometimes a free city gets a center, just revoke their free city status before declaring war.

 

[corgi911]

All the advices above are useful and right.
For Austria there are 2 important mottos:
1. Tu felix Austria nube,
2. A.E.I.O.U. for explanation see Wikipedia
Thats the reason why Austria in many EU-Games is blobbing without any war

 

[corgi911]

And in addition as it has been in their best time

 

[Sfan]

But you can't rely on that alone to reform the HRE. You can have a very interesting game, but it's unlikely you'll really outperform the historical Habsburgs at their height by following the same strat. Austria can be fun to roleplay with, being both the Emperor and the shield of Europe against the Ottomans means you can play the game, go to war and avoid expanding outside PUs if you release nations and protect weak states. But that's not the best way to reform. To reform, you need to snake towards Crimea and the Caucasus asap to stack IA.

 

[corgi911]

but it's unlikely you'll really outperform the historical Habsburgs at their height by following the same strat. Austria can be fun to roleplay

Sure, but you can try it and its always different otherwise the game soon would become boring

 

[Sfan]

I never said otherwise, but OP asks for advice to reform the HRE, so I try to give advice to reform the HRE.

 

[corgi911]

My comment was only a historical appendix not an advice

 

[Gratak]

Did you do anything in between gaining Hungary PU and the reformation hitting? Like conquering the Balkan and Poland? You must have been tiny if France was able to warn you.

 

[corgi911]

@Invictus 5966 playing Austria could be a nightmare or felix Austria it depends, if you got a lucky game ore not.
1. inherit Hungary as soon as possible, care for super good relations,
2. now its difficult to decide which nation do you prefer first a)Boehemia what is sometimes really difficult because they have in the beginning a PU too with Silesia
3. b) Burgundy which is perhaps a little bit more easy and very rich but many revolutionaries provinces, its up to you and last not least c) the biggest chunk: Spain
4. as you know when playing this historical simulation game Habsburg inherit so many other countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Habsburg
frankly I prefer playing tall

 

[corgi911]

You must have been tiny if France was able to warn you

France will be always an austrian enemy but when Austria succeded with the inheritance of Burgundy and specially the rich lowlands the boiler can explode. In this case hopefully the austrian emperor has loyal princes and electors and perhaps some other alliances. There is one other big enemy in the south: the ottomans. When they suddenly attack Hungary, and they will, the emperor must defend this country under any circumstances otherwise the PU is irrevocable"perdu".

 

[Invictus5966]

Did you do anything in between gaining Hungary PU and the reformation hitting? Like conquering the Balkan and Poland? You must have been tiny if France was able to warn you.

I think I got too greedy with Venice. This game is going much better but the religious stuff just started and I'm not done with the religion idea yet.

How can I remove a center in my territory?

 

[Dominion]

I think I got too greedy with Venice. This game is going much better but the religious stuff just started and I'm not done with the religion idea yet.

How can I remove a center in my territory?

Convert the province through either a missionary or rebels.

 

[Invictus5966]

2nd time the ottomans came into the HRE religious war and kicked the snot out of everyone



Edit: This time I was doing pretty good converting

 

[Sfan]

Your expansion is way too slow for what you're trying to achieve. It seems to me you barely conquered anything or dismantled any nation besides getting your PUs and giving PLC land to Bohemia (a dubious choice, better have it yourself). If AE is too high (And with Diplo, Influence, Emperorship and Austrian ideas you should be able to do more without coalitions), at least break France by releasing nations for 100% WS, or something like that. And I doubt you could not eat that Kiev and follow up on that Crimea, they probably don't give any AE to western catholic nations. That would make League War easier. If you just wait until it fires, as I said, there is a 50% chance the enemy side will have more men no matter how well you do. You need to grow super fast or at least to break potential rivals.

Else, many things seem wrong with your screenshot. Your financial situation, your merchants positioning, your manpower, your PP, your diplomats, your army composition. Well, pretty much everything, actually. And everything is related in EU4.

Reforming the HRE is not something easy, as I said. That's not a Ryukyu WC, but it's not a walk in the park either, there needs to be a little bit of expertise. Feel free to ask any advice and don't be offended if I'm a bit too harsh; it's up to you to know whether or not you want to see what can be improved.

 

[corgi911]

Else, many things seem wrong with your screenshot. Your financial situation, your merchants positioning, your manpower, your PP, your diplomats, your army composition. Well, pretty much everything, actually. And everything is related in EU4

see his first posting he is a beginner!