Tips for Austria campaign

[RedCommissar]

So i'm coming back to the game after a year and half, picked Austria for a campaign, not trying a world domination or something like that.
I got the Pu's on Bohemia, Hungary and Burgundy took some lands from Venice and the Polish and passed 2 reforms nothing amazing.

I would like to ask you more experienced players how is the best way to pass more reforms i have seen in some posts that letting the AI be the emperor would get the reforms passed more quickly but i dont want to do that in this campaingn, im trying to get some other countries to join the HRE like the Papal States but i failed so far, also any tips on how to deal with the reformation and nice places to expand would be aprecciated
OBS: I dont have the new DLC yet

 

[Cancerofthehead]

You can cheese the IA by repeatedly joining the HRE if you aren’t the emperor and they get 10 IA.

Without doing that, you need to ensure you have as many princes and free cities as possible and accept the Italians leaving in the shadow kingdom. Once you get the “expand empire” CB to force all your smaller neighbours into the empire and Force larger neighbours to release as many smaller nations as possible to add them to the Empire.

You also want to keep lots of princes and snuff out the reformation.

 

[holyvigil]

Force release countries. Use expand empire CB from third reform.

Crush anything not Catholic.