Just finished my Austrian campaign:
-In my game everything went according to plan. I inherited burgundy in the middle 1400's.
-My Habsburg line died out unfortunately, but instead it gave me the Trastámara hegemony!
-There were 5 Trastámara kings eventually: Austria, Saxony, Napels, Castille, Great Britain.
-I forced Union on Napels in the early 1500's
-I forced Union on Hungary through Austrian events.
-I forced a Union on Castille in the 1700's, it was a diffucult war, which I heavilly lost at the beginning. Eventually I won after a 12 years war.
-In the meantime during the war with Castille, Anne I Trastámara died childless, luckily I claimed the throne of GB.
-By 1770's my Austrian Archduke became the supreme leader of Europe, leading Unions with Castille, GB, Genoa (oh yes, also claimed throne): whereas Napels and Hungary were integrated in the late 1500's.
Before the game ended I managed to integrate Genoa and Castille. Due to religious, competition issues I did not manage to integrate GB. Nevertheless, the integration of Castille made me a true powerhouse even without having Britain, besides, it would also give me a headache with religious and revolutionary revolts if I chose to integrate GB. Castille was the best option, as they were the score leading nation of the world and truly catholic. The choice for me as Austria was easy.
Look at these nice pics ofmy campaign. It was of course played in Iron man. I am a bit sad I did not manage to achieve the Ruin Imperia achievement, by dissolving the HRE (as the HRE was full of heretic elector I did not manage to get their support for my election). I was constantly involved in seperate wars. I roulated allies pretty much as well, to achieve the best situation as possible.
-Sweden: quality troops and always involved. I liked them to have as an ally, detested as enemy of course haha
-GB: Powerful navy, armies were competent but often of stage because of the distant wars.
-Castille: Very powerful alround, had same dynasty from beginning when Habsburg ended. Castille helped me to win the game, sadly I had to backstab them for my own profit.
-France: Was a very helpful ally in the 1400's too defeat Burgundy and to achieve the Burgundian inheritance goal. Then I sided quickly with England and Castille to backstab France. (They asked for it when I was Emperor and they annexed Liège.
-Poland was a very valuable ally in the 1400/1500's to have a counterweight against Russia, as it was always involved in succession wars against me. Besides, in my game the Rurikovich dynasty was the second dominant after the Trastámaras. Fighting Sweden/Russia proved to be a pain in the arse. It proved to be effective to let them come to me, rather than to siege Moscow and lose 200K men.
-Ottoman Empire stayed my enemy throughout the game. You can see it ripped to shreds, this was my doing. They were simply too powerful.
-I controlled the curia 95% of the time.
-I controlled the Emperor's Seat 45% of the time.
-My ideas where:
1.Diplomacy > I diplo-vassalized some German states to have their support, in the long run it made me have enemies in the Empire, thus not backing my candidature for Emperor in the long run.
2.Quality > By 1500's my armies were the finest. I waited in the Alps and crushed French armies before sieging their lands.
3.Defensive > I was aiming to have the best generals by achieving army tradition of 100, crème de la crème with 3 stars. I had some in the 1600/1700's. They were magnificent in defeating the French and Ottomans. Also served well in Castille.
4.Quantity > By 1600's, I wanted to build bigger armies to withstand enemy coaltions. Quantity made it possible to build up to 200K men.
5.Innovative > By the end of 1600's, I wanted to be the best in everything as a nation and went for innovation.
6.Offensive> By the early 1700's I went for the offensive idea
7.Espionage> my attempt to regain the Imperial Crown from the heretics failed unfortunately, hoped to regain it by sabotage Saxon and Bavarian Rep.
8.Naval> By the end of 1700's, I was achieving allround power. I aimed at building up a grand trade fleet to gain enough wealth from the London trade center which was a real Gold mine! It damaged however the relotion with the British in the long run, preventing me to integrate them into my powerful Austrian nation.
I ended the game with a war against France, taking some provinces from them and to have a connection with my mainland.
I really enjoy this game. And the big nations such as Austria, France, England, Russia, Zweden, Castille, Ottomans and Poland have a set of nice events that make this game very grand!
But Hamburg (Saxe Laneburg in fact) is elector, so its gonna stay like that 
