Austria

[leonardo]

thanks thoght it was just me

[A Very Super Market]

They get 25% more men per unit, in all difficulties.

[PBI]

My thoughts on Austria, VH/H:

As others have pointed out, you start in a tricky position; almost landlocked, and surrounded by strong factions most of whom have some form of historical grievance with you. Your empire initially looks quite large, but aside from Vienna, most of your provinces are quite poor and undeveloped.

One would expect the main enemy of the Austrians to be the Ottomans, but in fact I found they seemed like fairly good neighbours, being preoccupied with war against the Russians, and in fact I would argue invading them would be more trouble than it's worth anyway: Other than Istanbul most of their European provinces are pretty worthless, will be difficult to hold, and will take years to convert to Catholicism. It is also a dead end; building a fleet from scratch to contest the Bosphorus with the Ottoman navy will cost a fortune for little reward. Meanwhile leaving your homelands undergarrisoned will practically be rolling out the red carpet for the Poles, and there's no reason to deprive the Russians of such as convenient distraction.

As others have suggested Venice is probably the best place to expand early; it's not too hard to take, quite wealthy, and will reduce the Venetians to a rump state in faraway Greece. At this point in my campaign I was attacked by Poland-Lithuania, and withdrew my armies northward to deal with their raids, however I would suggest you do not; when I did this, I was then attacked by the Italian States, who attacked in strength on land and seized Venice, while at the same time sinking my nascent fleet and blockading my trade port. This together with the Polish raids put me in a very sticky economic position; I would suggest that when you take Venice, you take the opportunity to push on and capture Rome, eliminating the Italian States. This will make life in Italy much easier for you; the only remaining threats south of the Alps are puny Genoa, and the impoverished Spanish holdings of Milan and Naples, leaving you with three ports and a much safer position.

Regarding Poland; it is by far better if they attack you first. This will make it less likely that their allies Russia, Saxony and Couland will come to their aid. In my game they raided Silesia, Hungary and Austria quite extensively, causing a lot of economic damage. However, leaving a reasonable garrison in Transylvania seems to be sufficient to ensure all their incursions will come west of the Carpathians. This is good, since the narrow front line means you can mass your forces there and use your greater economic strength to overwhelm them. After dealing with their raiders, I pushed on and took Warsaw and Gdansk, before agreeing to peace with them so I could deal with the Italians. I then traded Gdansk to Prussia, a move I would later come to regret. Warsaw, meanwhile will be very rebellious and will take a long time to pacify.

Poland may look beaten at this point but as long as they still hold Lithuania they are still dangerous, as I found out when the war restarted a year later; I found myself in a very sticky situation when they simply bypassed Warsaw and went straight for my homelands, taking Pessburg and very nearly taking Vienna, which just goes to show why fighting a two-front war as Austria is not at all desirable. I eventually repelled the invasion, and after a few more tricky battles I annexed their lands entirely. This will leave you with a long land border with Russia, who will be none to pleased with you expanding at the expense of their ally; hopefully they will be to busy against the Swedes and Ottomans to worry about you but just to be safe I gave the a state gift and made a trade agreement which seems to be keeping them happy.

After this I turned to deal with Prussia before they got any more dangerous, an enemy who proved a lot more difficult than the Poles. Prussia definitely seems to be the superpower of Eastern Europe, able to spawn endless huge stacks of high tech troops who will quite comfortably outgun your more numerous but inferior line infantry one on one. I found it best to start by taking Konigsberg, its strong defenses proving useful to me in repelling the Prussian counterattack. There then followed a long and bloody struggle of attrition through West Prussia to beat the Prussians back to the gates of Berlin, a struggle which could have been made much easier had I not ceded Gdansk to them earlier. Knocking out Courland before attacking Prussia might also be wise, in my game they attacked from the rear, took Lithuania from me and forced me leave a strong garrison in Konigsberg.

That is the current state of my campaign, in around 1720; the Prussians are surrounded and on the brink of defeat in Berlin. My next move will probably to finally take the offensive against the Ottomans, to take Rumelia and thus fulfil the short campaign victory conditions.

Regarding troops, Austrian line infantry are significantly weaker than normal in accuracy, morale and melee ability, but have 150 men per unit rather than the usual 120. This means that your line will generally be longer than the enemy's, but also brittler. Thus it will be easier for them to outflank and enfilade the enemy, but you will definitely have to do so and make it count before your center collapses. My battles usually tend to take a rather odd form, with the enemy generally succeeding in breaking through my center, but being enveloped and overwhelmed on the wings, leading to a last stand in the center of the map with my troops closing in from both sides. Early on, Pandours are pretty useful to use to enfilade the enemy; the greater range, coupled with small unit size to form up in line quickly, help a lot with making your greater width count. I have also had good results with firing grapeshot down the length of the enemy line, devastating if you can pull it off. Alternatively you could opt to match the length of the enemy line and keep a tactical reserve to plug gaps; either way though, large battles are going to be very costly in men. I have yet to find a tactic which delivers victory without heavy losses in the center of the line.

[Polemists]

This will make life in Italy much easier for you; the only remaining threats south of the Alps are puny Genoa, and the impoverished Spanish holdings of Milan and Naples, leaving you with three ports and a much safer position.

Be careful of this. Genoa is quite weak it is true but Savoy is not. I took over the Italian states and Venice completely. (even in greece) However I left Savoy and Milan alone. Later on Savoy developed in such a military power they marched on Paris. They beat the French and took Paris.

The smaller states can become quite powerful without compeition. Just be aware of it.

[PBI]

Good advice. I never had any further trouble in Italy until I took Milan from Spain in a succession war; my ally Savoy attacked me almost immediately, closely followed by Genoa.

Hence why it is a good idea to keep the Spanish in place as a buffer for as long as possible; the minor factions will be reluctant to attack them, but the Spanish themselves will be too occupied elsewhere to be interested in expansion.

[hellraiser]

My advice is to shoot for a republic soon after you aquire important provinces of enemy nations surrounding you.

I found it almost impossible to keep Poland under control even with a large military force stationed inside. Same issue with Hungary. A large part of the discontent was caused by the clamour for reform, since I am a tech freak and austrian is so stuck in the mud :)

1. Prussia will come. Sooner rather than later. Capture Berlin, move priests to start converting ppl to catholicism. Ask for peace. If they agree, replenish your army, rebuild and go after them. If they don't agree, replenish your army enroute to your next city target. Wipe them out asap.
2. Poland - in my game they were a constant nuissance by declaring war on me, raiding various sites and accepting peace after i captured something. At some point, their allies decided to join and almost threw me into bankruptcy by cancelling the trade agreements with their allies.
I destroyed them but was shocked to find Poland region rebelling every 2nd or 3rd turn. University there plays a role in this but I hate destroying schools, college, unis just to make room for brothels and churches so I let them rebel and crush their rebellions - financially wise is a disaster :)
Together with Poland I waxed Saxony (allies of poland).

Constant riots, rebellions and wars drove me to the point of bankruptcy again. Noticing that my capital's hapiness started going down rapidly I set the lower classes taxes to high, moved away the garrison and waited :)
Viva la revolucion!!! In 3 turns I sided with the rebels and Austria was a republic! TBH, a republic is the best thing that can happen to Austria. Judging from the +13, +14 happines I see in my cities, austrians are living in a constant orgasm ;)

First military act of the new republic was to capture Venice and make peace immediately with the venetians. Istanbul is the only province i need to finish the game but i am in 1737 or so and there is a lot of waiting till '50.

El Presidente is hated by most monarchs in Europe (well after I saw the little move with the succesful revolution, I can understand them:P ) so every now and then gifts go to some foreign royal courts (those who have relevance that is ).

Economy is running at full steam, science as well that translates into the ability to maintain a very large and modern army and still making 15-17k gold per turn. Yes, nothing - and i mean NOTHING - can prevent me from winning this one ;)

[Slaists]

Despite their seemingly low stats, in an early Austrian game I'd suggest using Pandours extensively as a support force for the main line.

1) They are cheap/disposable with low upkeep (a very important economic consideration for a country with minimal sea trade opportunities).
2) They can move on the battle map while hidden.

As noted before in this thread, flanking is critical given the weakness of Austrian line. Pandours make excellent flankers since they can move to the needed position without being noticed by the AI. One just has to be careful not to lead them into open meadows; they become visible to the AI on those, but on all other terrain they retain their stealth.

Taking advantage of Pandours' stealth I have also successfully used them to annihilate enemy's artillery without any reprisal.