Campaign Guide: Austria

An in-depth campaign guide for Austria.

Introduction: Austria

This is an in-depth guide for Austria. This guide will include unique units and buildings and where to build them, starting position info, recommendations for first targets, tips for research, tips on how to use your agents best, and more.

NOTE: This guide will be taking units added by DLC into consideration.

Starting Information and Victory Conditions

Starting Year:
1700

Starting Regions:
Austria - Vienna (Capital)
Bohemia & Moravia - Prague
Croatia - Zagreb
Hungary - Breßburg
Silesia - Breslau
Transylvania - Klausenburg


Starting Government:
Absolute Monarchy

Religion:
Catholicism

Starting Funds:
10000

Amount of Starting Generals:
3

Amount of Starting Admirals:
0

Amount of Starting Gentlemen:
1

Amount of Starting Rakes:
1

Amount of Starting Missionaries:
1

Victory Conditions:
Capture and hold 30 regions by the end of the year 1799, including the regions shown:
Venetia (Owned by Vencie)
Hungary (Already Owned)
Austria (Already Owned, is the Austrian Capital)
Rumelia (Owned by the Ottoman Empire
East Prussia (Owned by Prussia)
Brandenburg (Owned by Prussia)
West Prussia (Owned by Poland-Lithuania)

Faction Strengths and Weaknesses

Map Position/Starting Stance Strengths: Austria starts out in the middle of Europe with multiple major cities ripe for recruiting they also have Hungary which despite not being a major city is still a good recruitment center. Your starting regions and most of the regions that neighbor you are mostly catholic so religion unrest isn't too big of an issue. The nations that neighbor you are also weak or easy to conquer, Prussia can be devastated by easily going for Berlin, Poland-Lithuania is large but has a small weak military, the Ottoman Empire is big but obsolete military and undefended Balkan regions, and you have many single region nations that can be easily wiped out in a single battle. Another big strength for Austria is that all of it's victory conditions are extremely close and are easy to get very early.

Map Position/Starting Stance Weaknesses:
Though mostly weak or easily to wipe out one by one, you are still surrounded by rivals, upstarts minor nations like Venice or a German minor might surprise attack you while you are busy with major rivals like Prussia and Poland-Lithuania.



Military Strengths:
Austria benefits from having very strong light infantry with units like Grenzers and
Windbusche Jaegers but they also can recruit Pandours from the very beginning of the game. Austria also have a strong cavalry roster with the game's best Uhlans (mass recruitable lancers) and the game's best Cuirassiers (mass recruitable heavy cavalry). Austria can also get Hungarian Grenadiers and Hungarian Hussars from Hungary which are very good units.

Military Weaknesses Austria is known for having the one of the worst line infantry in the game stat wise other than that Austria's military is very solid, though to get their very powerful light infantry you will need to get deep into the military section of the tech trees.

Unit Roster

The previous section covered the strengths of the Austrian army and navy this section will simply list the full roster of units available to them.

Elite Infantry:
Guards
Republican Guards (requires government change to republic)

Line Infantry:
Line Infantry


Grenadiers:
Grenadiers
Hungarian Grenadiers

Light Infantry/Skirmishers/Irregulars:
Grenzers
Jaegers
Windbüchse Jaegers

Militia:
Militia
Conscripts (requires government change to Republic)

Melee Infantry:
Pikemen

Cavalry:
Provincial Cavalry

Dragoons:
Light Dragoons

Lancers:
Uhlans

Heavy Cavalry:
Cuirassiers
Household Cavalry

Light Cavalry:
Hungarian Hussars

General:
General's Bodyguard

Fixed Artillery:
Sakers
Demi Cannons
Mortars
Rocket Troop

Foot Artillery:
12-lber Foot Artillery
24-lber Foot Artillery
12-lber Howitzers
24-lber Howitzers
Puckle Guns

Horse Artillery:
3-lber Horse Artillery
6-lber Horse Artillery

Local/Colonial Units:
Colonial Light Infantry (Requires territory in the Americas, India, Middle East, and North Africa with military buildings)
Colonial Line Infantry (Requires territory in the Americas, India, Middle East, and North Africa with military buildings)
Colonial Militia
Colonial Light Cavalry (Requires territory in the Americas, India, Middle East, and North Africa with military buildings)
Colonial Dragoons (Requires territory in the Americas, India, Middle East, and North Africa with military buildings)
Company Infantry (Requires territory in India with military buildings)
Company Cavalry (Requires territory in India with military buildings)
Native Indian Cavalry (Requires territory in India with military buildings)
Native African Infantry (Requires territory in North Africa with military buildings)
Pandours (Requires territory in the Balkans)
Ghoorkas (Requires the Kashmir territory)
Dahomey Amazons (Requires territory in North Africa with military buildings)
Native Musketmen Auxiliary (Requires territory in the Americas)
Native Warrior Auxiliary (Requires territory in the Americas)
Native Bowmen Auxiliary (Requires territory in the Americas)
Mounted Tribal Auxiliary (Requires territory in the Americas)

Naval Warships:
Bomb Ketch
Brig
Sloop
Galley (requires territory in the Baltic Sea or the Mediterranean Sea)
Light Galley (requires territory in the Baltic Sea or the Mediterranean Sea)
Carronade Frigate
Razee
Rocket Ship
Sixth Rate
Fifth Rate (along with an Admiral's flagship variant)
Forth Rate
Third Rate (along with an Admiral's flagship variant)
Second Rate
First Rate (along with an Admiral's flagship variant)
Heavy First Rate
Steamship

Merchant Ships:
Indiaman

Unique Units/Buildings and Where to Build Them

Austria like every other major faction has two unique buildings along with a wide variety of unique units for it's army, this section will detail the effects of these unique assets and where to build them.

Hofburg
Built in your national capital (which should be Vienna)
Category: Government
Level: 6
Turns to build: 8
Building cost: 10000
Effects:
+1 Happiness (lower classes)
+1 Happiness (nobility classes)
+5 repression in the region
+15% tax bonus to region tax income
Recruitment capacity (units in training):3
Enhances National Prestige
Recruits basic infantry and cavalry

Albertina Museum
Built in your nation's Capital (which should be Vienna)
Category: Culture
Level: 4
Turns to Build: 8
Building Cost: 10000
Effects:
+5 Happiness (Middle Classes)
+5 Happiness (Nobility)
Enhances National Prestige

Unique Units:

I mentioned Austria's entire unit roster in a previous section but here I will explain where to build the more unique/DLC units and any technology that is required to build them.
Note: Some of the buildings required to build some of these units do have technology requirements.

Hungarian Grenadiers

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Military Governor's Barracks in Hungary

Grenzers

Technology Requirements: Machined Rifling
Building Requirements: Military Governor's Barracks in Croatia

Jaegers

Technology Requirements: Light Infantry Doctrine
Building Requirements: Barracks or Military Governor's Barracks anywhere

Windbüchse Jaegers

Technology Requirements: Airguns
Building Requirements: Army Staff College

Hungarian Hussars

Technology Requirements: None
Building Requirements: Military Governor's Barrack in Hungary

Opening Moves

In this Section I will be going over what are think the best first moves while playing as the Austria. Including first targets, research, agent priorities, and diplomacy moves.

Government

Austria starts out as an absolute monarchy, I you can stick with this type of government as I advice on putting off industrializing until much later.

Diplomacy

Not much to explain here as later I will explain how you will be expanding into all of your neighbors with the main exception of your allied German Minor states, stay on good terms with them as long as possible so you can focus your military elsewhere and come back to those german minors later if you want to.

Research

As mentioned before you want to go straight for military techs, Austria's powerful light infantry units are deep into the tech tree and you want to get them as soon as possible.

Agents
For agents send your gentlemen to your research center, your rake to scout out Poland-Lithuania, and your Catholic missionary to Prussia. Italy and the German minor states are all mostly catholic so you should be sending missionaries to the Protestant lands in Prussia and the Islamic lands of the Ottoman Empire.

Army
Your first target will be Prussia, get the grand majority of your units and send them north to attack Brandenburg.


You will also want to start building a force to expand into Ottoman territory, I recommend armies of Pandours and Carbiners along with all your starting demi cannons, the ottoman forces are weak so you don't need any super heavy troops.


You will also want to prepare a force to take out Venice, while your previous forces are in Prussia and the Ottoman Empire, I recommend building up the military government building in Hungary and making Venice the first target for your new Hungarian Troops.

Navy
I don't recommend doing much in regards to a navy, it is best to just dominate on land and eventually getting the funds by those means to just spam out heavy ships later to wrestle control away from anyone who might have gotten the upper hand at sea.

Second Move and Your Victory Conditions

Getting your victory conditions will be easy, once Prussia is defeated you can then expand into Poland-Lithuania where the rest of your victory conditions are. After you take care of Prussia, Poland-Lithuania, the Ottomans, and Venice where you go next is pretty simple. After taking out the Ottomans you should continue to push through the middle east into India, keep in mind once you reach the major Indian cities like Panjab there you will want to start recruiting lots of Howitzers, Sepoys, and Company Infantry, the fight for India will be long and involve lots of sieges something pandours and carbiners don't do too well. Back in Europe you can start going after the german minor states, expand into North Africa, or start going to the Americas.

Victory and Beyond

As mentioned before getting your victory conditions will be very easy and once you have them there are many routes you can go down as you play to the end of the game.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading, feedback and comments would be greatly appreciate. Leave any questions as well and I'll be happy to answer them.

I plan on writing guides for all the other nations too once I get playthroughs of them done (I'm playing this game after a long time and am playing all the nations again) The other factions that are done is the USA, Great Britain, France, and United Provinces here is the links:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1735435353
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2151572392
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2184430847
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2425180365
I also have a Multiplayer guide too, the link for that one:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624134097