I'd like to ask a few questions here about some stuff that I've seen discussed but never very authoritatively.
I'm playing Austria now in the GC in 1.08. I decided to try to be peaceful and do diplomacy with everyone, so here I am giving people money and doing royal marriages and trying to get them into my alliance.
I was able to annex Saxony, so I had a little bit of a BB problem.
Shortly thereafter, a German state that was an ally of mine went Protestant. That blew it out of my alliance, gave me -200 against it, and gave me a CB. Rather that just saying "oh well", I used the CB, because I was enraged. I annexed the little bugger.
A few years later the same thing happened, and this one brought in an ally, so I smashed both of them. In total I annexed approximately three countries totaling 5 provinces, so I had a significant BB problem.
Okay. Here are the questions:
1) Spain ended up being elected HRE every time. Is this because of my BB, the fact that I broke two royal marriages, that fact that I having given the electors enough money, or what? I have heard that the HRE is a popularity contest, but how is popularity measured?
2) I've had a devil of a time annexing my vassals, and I'm wondering if BB or those two broken royal marriages has anything to do with that. Eventually I snagged Hungary, but it as hard. Venice won't be vassalized, and I've had to re-vassalize Milan approximately three times after it told me to shove off when I tried to annex it. I'd think that I'm big enough and strong enough that they'd allow me to annex them by now, but no go.
How do others play Austria? After I smashed those three states, I just sat there, for like a hundred years. Eventually I got bored, and began to start wars with major European nations. I got Hungary to allow me to annex it after one of those. I took a port from Poland and built a shipyard, converted to counter-reform, and now I'm trying to colonize Indochina and beat on Spain, while maintaining a sane BB. This seems rather unhistorical. Can you win with Austria by just sitting in the middle of Europe and ignoring the rest of the world? I was neck and neck with Spain up until when I decided to start warring, and now I'm a bit ahead.
As an aside, I believe that I got zero VP's for annexing Hungary. I know that Austria annexed Hungary historically, but do you really even need to do it?
It's startling how well you can do without being very aggressive.
bruce
I'm playing Austria now in the GC in 1.08. I decided to try to be peaceful and do diplomacy with everyone, so here I am giving people money and doing royal marriages and trying to get them into my alliance.
I was able to annex Saxony, so I had a little bit of a BB problem.
Shortly thereafter, a German state that was an ally of mine went Protestant. That blew it out of my alliance, gave me -200 against it, and gave me a CB. Rather that just saying "oh well", I used the CB, because I was enraged. I annexed the little bugger.
A few years later the same thing happened, and this one brought in an ally, so I smashed both of them. In total I annexed approximately three countries totaling 5 provinces, so I had a significant BB problem.
Okay. Here are the questions:
1) Spain ended up being elected HRE every time. Is this because of my BB, the fact that I broke two royal marriages, that fact that I having given the electors enough money, or what? I have heard that the HRE is a popularity contest, but how is popularity measured?
2) I've had a devil of a time annexing my vassals, and I'm wondering if BB or those two broken royal marriages has anything to do with that. Eventually I snagged Hungary, but it as hard. Venice won't be vassalized, and I've had to re-vassalize Milan approximately three times after it told me to shove off when I tried to annex it. I'd think that I'm big enough and strong enough that they'd allow me to annex them by now, but no go.
How do others play Austria? After I smashed those three states, I just sat there, for like a hundred years. Eventually I got bored, and began to start wars with major European nations. I got Hungary to allow me to annex it after one of those. I took a port from Poland and built a shipyard, converted to counter-reform, and now I'm trying to colonize Indochina and beat on Spain, while maintaining a sane BB. This seems rather unhistorical. Can you win with Austria by just sitting in the middle of Europe and ignoring the rest of the world? I was neck and neck with Spain up until when I decided to start warring, and now I'm a bit ahead.
As an aside, I believe that I got zero VP's for annexing Hungary. I know that Austria annexed Hungary historically, but do you really even need to do it?
It's startling how well you can do without being very aggressive.
bruce
