What's the point of Austria?

Has anyone come up with any decent strategies for Austria? They just seem inferior to the other major factions in about every way militarily.

thats why I love them. My favorite faction, won more battles with them then any other nation by far. The reason I love them so much is kinda retarded. I like the fact that they have no elites, like... I am a rusher, so I like that I can rush my inf up, allow the enemy to get 1st shots and I will fire back. When the enemy get 1st shots it dosn;t matter because they are just normally line inf.

So basicly, unless your crazy or just messing around it's better to play as (inserts every major faction but Austria)

Although I don't play as Austria much, I really like the Hungarian Hussars since I use sabre cav rather than lancers. As for strategies I can't really help you here as my tactics change depending on many factors, though I suggest having a large army rather than a small one.

They're problem is that they lack any outstanding units. The lack of guards means that even when you have an advantage in a game you're still vulnerable to a collapse. Always pick a strong general and go for numbers. Their ulans are good and base your army on hungarian units. Hungarian grenadiers are deadly in melee which is good if you need to take a house or battle through a town.

i like austria. if i want a more challenging game i'll use them..

So they just play like a Spanish army with no guerrilla units?

Well not really because Spain has elites. Austria's line is quite decent, like Ottoman Nizam-Cedit Inf. Austrias lights aren't the best shooters but are a bit better in melee than most lights. The cav selection is quite nice, strong light cav, strong lancers, some heavy cav. Austrias weakness is having no inspirational units besides the General, so If he is killed, or is not at the crucial part of the battle, your in big trouble. Especially If your fighting Old Guard

My main Austrian army is this:

8 Line Infantry. Two of them are DLC versions, the others are Hungarian.
4 Light Infantry
The rest cav (I personally use Hungarian Hussars as I previously said however you can use lancers instead)
1 general ( Can't remember how many stars I think for this army its only a 1 star)

This army personally for me is to field as much units as I can for my particular style of play. If you want to sacrifice the number of units in your army to have a better general and or some heavy cav in the mix etc then you just need to take away some light cav.

Most people takes 5 lights, I only take 4 because that's how I roll. However I do use my lights to focus fire on the enemies lights one at a time which has given me light on light victories, but the main purpose of my lights is to be my meatshields. I use the lights as my meatshields instead of milita because If I came in without any lights at all, I could be kited.

Austrian line is nothing like ottoman line. Austria has like 40 reload and 40 accuracy. The ottomans are better compaired to British foot imo.

Well I said Its decent like, not is exactly like. This is all off the top of my head, so I wasn't looking at exact stats, but for a faction with no elites at least their line infantry has a base morale of 7 rather than 6.

But I do agree that Ottoman line is better, they are my favourite line infantry in the game because well the Ottomans are my favourite faction, I just wish their Deli Horsemen had the same stats as hussars

The previous two posts got me curious, so I looked up the stats on line inf.

Nation, Unit - Accuracy / Reload / Morale / Cost

Austria, Hungarian - 40/40/7/760
Austria, German - 40/40/6/700
GB, Foot - 50/60/6/760
Ottoman - 45/50/7/760
Russian - 35/40/7/740

The Hungarians do Melee Attack of 9, all of the others are 6 or 7. At the same price point GB line is clearly a better value.

I did a test game to see how those stats translate into actual reload time in seconds. I had a friend walk units up with fire at will off, and had my units take 3 volleys, timing the duration in between shots.

It's just me with a timer, so it's not exact, but by zooming in on one individual soldier you get a pretty good look.

Unit Stat R1 R2 Avg
Mlitia 25 29.2 28.7 28.95
Highland 55 22.6 22.6 22.6
Foot 60 21.6 21.7 21.65
Black Watch 70 20.2 20.5 20.35
Foot Guard 85 16.7 16.4 16.55
Coldstream 90 15.6 15.8 15.7

(sorry that looks terrible, I just pasted from a spreadsheet)

I'm sure there's an equation for this buried in the game files, but it seems that 5 points of reload makes you shoot about 1 second faster, but it's obviously not linear. I never took a statistics class, so I don't know what to do with these numbers, someone else feel free to take over the analysis.

Looking at your stats it would appear that German line would fair poorly in any situation, while Hungarian line could rival even the Russians in melee. Charge the Hungarians into Foot and they'll crack under the pressure.

Originally Posted by Border Patrol

Looking at your stats it would appear that German line would fair poorly in any situation, while Hungarian line could rival even the Russians in melee. Charge the Hungarians into Foot and they'll crack under the pressure.

With reservation of not having played the game for 6 months-ish I'd still say that the Hungarians would get shot on their way to melee and break once they get there.

basing any strategy on melee charging with line infantry is risky in NTW. Austria are vulnerable to the chain route if you're not careful as you don't have guards to give you a boost. That's why i normally take a good general and keep them fairly close to the action.

Thats whats so deppresing about them. But with supear tactics and positioning you can pull it through

WBJ rock in small/small...but...well ill leave it for you to figure.

Austria is my favourite faction, infact i have most wins in MP with Austria even more than FR/GB/PR. But they suck terribly. Their only strenght is their good and cheap cav, and their numbers. So i ussualy take German Fusiliers and a 9 star, so whole army gots a morale boost not just +1 morale for my Hun. Fusiliers. With Austria you have to play well in order to win, because they got no guards, and fighting 3 OG for example, is a sure loss, unless you do something with your cavalry.