Austria at VH/VH - winnable?

Decided to play through all 5 factions to victory before retiring the game.

Austria however are a nightmare at very hard - their armies are mediocre, their starting economy is crap and at Very Hard you are attacked by the Turks on turn 2 as well as by the French and their allies.

So I successfully blitzkrieg'd the Turks in order to focus on the French - but this just brings Prussia and Russia down on me as well at the very moment when I am starting to make progress.

So has anyone actually won as Austria at VH/VH without using exploits like looting and abandoning provinces or spamming stacks of militia?

I have not managed to win either. Maintaining the russian alliance and establishing an alliance with Prussia is very important. EVERYTHING must go to the army. You must always outnumber the enemy. I have managed to sneak into central France by marching through Italy into southern France looting and pillaging the rich landscape.

The problem is that with Austria you can't have both a strong army and a strong economy

If you send out trade ships they get sunk by the French, Spanish and Turks.

If you invest in mines, farms etc then they will get trashed by raiders (and everyone of your starting provinces is easily raided.

So looting and abandoning leaving a trail of ruined provinces to be occupied by rebels seems to be the only option available.

But I like to play as close to history as possible and the Austrians were just not looters (unlike the French who even looted their fellow countrymen when they were driven back home in 1814).

So guess I'll just have to reduce difficulty to Hard (I just tried Medium and it was too boring).

I found Austria.....very challenging indeed though I spent most of my time guarding the bridgehead to Venice and trading innsbruck back and forth till the situation got better. Though lucky for me the russians did a fine job in beating up the ottomans. Usually your best bet is to hold out till you can build a decent eco and a stable homefront before even thinking of fighting nappy. Ay least thats how my last two austrian campaigns went

Austria at Normal: You take the whole world
Austria at Very Hard: You're dead in 2nd turn....

1st Destroy french army at Italy and make italian state your protectorate. 2nd capture (easy) Bavaria and make Wuttemburg your protectorate. 3rd Now you can beat easily turks (they have weak army). Make Greece your protectorate .
The 1st and 2nd step in 3 turns
For some turns you'll not have problems with french and spanish, your western border are safe with Italian State and Wuttemburg
So when you finish turks , you secure your southern borders. The key is the protectorates ...

Good starting advice - and I am good enough (500+ hours of NTW, thousands on the other TW games back to STW1) that even with Austria I can survive the first few moves no problem (the trick being too never autocalc battles)

My problem is with the middle game when suddenly you find that every major faction turns against you.

For instance I knocked out the Turks very quickly and sent an army marching all the way from Venice to Caen taking Milan, Turin, Marseilles, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Rennes en route - but this just meant that the British, Prussians and Russians all declared war on me...

Even France doesn't seem to have this problem - my last VH/VH French campaign I allied with Prussia on turn 1 by swapping Hannover for Cleves and they stayed allied to me right until they were destroyed by the Russians and Hessians - and not one of my starting allies back-stabbed me.

I've also tried a turtle strategy of defending my core provinces and building up my economy: but every single province is vulnerable to invasion and I've never managed to make enough money to garrison them all.

So after several serious attempts I've just given up on Austria.

I am not expecting 'balance' (which is totally unhistorical) but at least in theory any of the 5 playable factions should be able to win at any level of difficulty - if you can't then the game has just been badly designed.

You must capture all prussian regions and make all german land yours, after that you are the superpower of the game Looting Alsace and Provence is a good way for getting money.You cannot win all major factions together , use your protectorates as "shield" and destroy them one by one. First turks and then Prussia

The idea of making Wuutenburg a Protectorate is a good one as it acts as a barrier. Help them defend it by giving them every tech you have. As for making Greece a protectorate, I am not in agreement. You need Greece to enable ship building just as you do the Ottoman capital. Once you have them then trade picks up fast enough.

As for defensive battles West of the Austrian Capital. I found it useful to whenever possible stay withing reinfocement range of a nearby Russian army stack. You need the boost and it makes the French more wary of attacking. I have done this and they redirected their forces to Brandenburg via Cleves and Hessen. Thius can buy you enough time to tech up especially if you change any Spy buildings to colleges.

It's those darn French Lancers that give the grief. Always where possible build stacks from Hungary and just arty from Austria and Hvy Cav from Austria. The cap on Hungarian Fusiliers is annoying but there Hussars are redeeming.

Thanks.

Had one more try and found that making Bavaria a protectorate in turn 2 (they always surrender without fighting that turn if you besiege Munich in turn 1) creates a useful barrier against the French who won't declare war on them and never seem to negotiate military access.

I also handed over Innsbruck and the Tyrol to the Bavarians later when my garrison got destroyed in an ambush (how can a full stack French army sit outside a city and remain invisible?) and I had no chance of holding it - this actually worked out better than trying to defend it.

I was also lucky in that the Russians rather than wandering around aimlessly until they get destroyed took Milan and eliminated the Kingdom of Italy early - which let me focus on beating the Turks.

I then rather screwed up by responding to a Turkish peace proposal by demanding a load of technology (why the hell do the Turks who historically couldn't even manage to adopt the printing press until well after this period get two universities and always end up leading in the technology stakes?), trade agreement, alliance, joining all my wars and all their money - and much to my surprise they accepted.

Although this released my main army to march west I should really have kept fighting as although dealing with the rebellions is a pain Austria needs every resource it can conquer.

Did well until late 1806 keeping my allies on side, but taking Milan from the Swiss (who eventually took it from the Russians) has pinned me down in Italy fighting hordes of French, Spanish and Swiss and Napoleon has just popped up outside Vienna with a full stack and is demanding surrender - so unless I can beat him with landwehr and armed citizens it does look like game over as my economy is too fragile to survive losing the capital....

But overall pure luck seems much more important than it is playing any other vanilla faction - if your allies AI behaves better than it usually does and doesn't turn on you too early on then you might just survive long enough to build up your economy and armies.

Yes I was just coming back to suggest making Bavaria a Protectorate rather than taking it. Just played out the first 20/30 turns or so. It is wastefull of badly needed resources in building Militia to keep Bavaria happy. The French come in fast. Another reason to change the Market in Vienna province to a Supply Post quickly. Build a Market instead in Galacia. The only thing usefull (some may think) in taking Bavaria is the Spy building to the north. But its too costly to keep fighting back and forth for the province. Also a great idea was from 'Count von Orlok' in making Italy a Protectorate quickly. Very usefull barriers indeed. There's very little chance of taking Wuttenburg early on because of casualties without resupply. Its a little scary to leave the back door open to the Turks for to long.

Yet to try the game with Radious's Campaign_AI Mod though. The French are aggressive enough as far as Austria are concerned.

First of all I have the lower taxes so everyone is happy (my regions). I take Bavaria and Wuttemberg (sometimes or make them my protectorate). I make Greece my protectorate because spanish with their fleet attacks in balkans and greece. So I let the greeks to defend themselves and I dont waste money and army for this. When I keep Wuttemberg I place an army on the bridge (franco-german borders) and I can defend with success french attacks. Russians take over Swiss...
When you take Turin give it to your protectorate (Italian State) and use their land for attacks in Provence (for looting ). Spanish will help french in "german" front so you must make peace with french before that .Usually I keep Wuttemberg because I need their University.Make Hessen and Saxony your allies , you will need them for Prussia later... LEAVE the supply depot in Galicia (you will need you after few turns...) You must make peace many times with your enemies... I do that: I take them 2-3 regions (beat them in 3-4 battles) and then i propose peace and they accept . You must do the same ,especially with Prussia and Russia. I have win 2 times in austrian campaign (VH/VH) . At the end I destroy my protectorates and take them

*You need at least 2 strong armies in Wuttemberg to defend your western borders.

Yes its winnable with Austria on VH/VH. I beat it about a month ago with them. The secret is using protectorates as speed bumps and using innsbruck as a chokepoint vs Napoleon. The grand strategy was pretty simple. The only tricky part was winning battle after battle with inferior troops.

You've tweaked my interest. I had completed all the factions and campaigns on hard and was going to wait a few weeks then do them again on VH. Just never got back to it. Now I will have to make some time.

Your very lucky if the Russians take over the Swiss! With my game the Russians were no help at all and the Swiss came attacking via the forested southern route. Therefore a Bridge block is not of help as you have to retreat them to protect Bavaria...giving the French a doorway.

They all can go for Tyrolia (hiding in forest along the way) and once that's gone they have a route to Vienna. Annoying that spies can not find hidden stacks in forests!

Nice to know that the game varies in routes the AI can take though.

You need 2 armies (at least) in Wuttemberg :one in franco-german borders(the brigde) and another in swiss-german borders (in the forest ).Italian front is safe with your protectorate (Italian State) so you have to concentrate to german front. Make some victories and then propose peace , they will accept. You must keep your major enemies "busy" with your allies (Hessen is one of them) ,I use Saxony for prussians. With russians I have no allies but I am strong enough to take over them by myself

Clodius!

Get out your ing flag from this forum! This is the most hated symbol around the world, between the civilized peoples.

I was about to agree but then I suppose some may not like my flag.

The only reason I have it (and the Israeli girl soldier avatar) is precisely because of people who proclaim how much they hate Israel and Jews with their sigs and avatars.

FWIW I have a very low opinion of Israel and its awful current government - but even so its second class Arab citizens and the third class Palestinians under occupation are still much freer, safer and better off than anyone else in the Middle East.

And as the only real democracy in the whole region at least it has the capacity to reform itself and give justice to the Palestinians - which is more than you can say of any other Arab state.

Don't make me laugh. The Zionist policy of Israel is as racist and divisive as the old apartheid regime in S Africa which is why Mossad worked to support that regime.But as the old saying goes
'They have all the watches but we have all the time'.