Austria-Hungary

[HourLong]

I recently played Austria in a multiplayer game and noticed how its ideas don't stack well against its major competitors such as Poland Prussia France and Ottomans. I want to suggest the creation of an Austria Hungary tag around admin tech 20 with the prerequisites being owning Praha Wien and Pest.

This tag should have ideas that bring it up militarily and focus less on diplomacy. The 3% discipline should be brought up to 5%. Manpower and fort defense should be considered in the idea set and again the elimination of the 33% improve relations and +1 diplomatic relations. This also opens the avenue to introduce a unique dual monarchy for Austria Hungary. How that would be implemented I do not know.

I felt like this was a good idea with next patch being focused on Europe. If anyone has suggestions I would like to see them.

 

[Matihood1]

Oh boy, here we go again... You clearly don't know how Austria-Hungary came into existence, do you?

Okay, let's make it a tag but after forming it, all non-Austrian provinces get permanent local autonomy to represent decentralization that happened historically.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

Austria is strong because of the diplo annex idea, mixed diplo/mil bonuses, the Tirol gold mine, good expansion opportunity in Italy, but most importantly because it starts as HRE and has the potential to keep it in an iron grip, making a revoke strat somewhat easy to pull off. But of course these things are not super relevant in MP!

So yeah, if there was a player Otto, a player France, a player Poland, a player TO/Brandenburg, you got the short end of the stick and you can't really compete at some point. It's not because your country is weak - it really isn't. It's because it's MP weak. I don't think a buff is in order.

 

[BugJr]

Austria is a diplomatic juggernaut and her ideas only cement that fact. It just so happens that diplomacy doesn't matter in a world where two post rivals who should hate each others guts can ally each other(not all the time but you get the idea). If the Otto player is your friend or you both really don't like France/Spain/Russia, you can ally while an AI would never do such a thing. All the dip potential in the world is useless against a human after all.

 

[delta180]

I recently played Austria in a multiplayer game and noticed how its ideas don't stack well against its major competitors such as Poland Prussia France and Ottomans. I want to suggest the creation of an Austria Hungary tag around admin tech 20 with the prerequisites being owning Praha Wien and Pest.

This tag should have ideas that bring it up militarily and focus less on diplomacy. The 3% discipline should be brought up to 5%. Manpower and fort defense should be considered in the idea set and again the elimination of the 33% improve relations and +1 diplomatic relations. This also opens the avenue to introduce a unique dual monarchy for Austria Hungary. How that would be implemented I do not know.

I felt like this was a good idea with next patch being focused on Europe. If anyone has suggestions I would like to see them.

Austria does not play multiplayer like it does singleplayer, Austria should have a super aggressive start, do not be fooled into playing an Austrian farming game where you force a PU on Hungary, because it will put a big target on your back for being in the middle of Poland and Ottomans, instead try to ally either Poland or Ottomans offering to share Hungary between you.

If you cannot ally Ottomans throw a guarantee on Byz and ask any allies you have to do the same, remember you start with a the 2nd best force limit in the game (after Ming), the 2nd best manpower recovery speed and a starting military idea (10% morale), if Ottomans allies someone or you are busy in a war, simply decline the call to arms, without Constantinople, Ottomans are crippled and cannot get free claims in Europe, so it is your best bet to stop them from getting it

If France and Castille are not allies from the start, ally one of them, if you cannot ally ethier, stay out of the way of France at the start of the game, tell France that they can eat parts of the empire and that you will not join the war against them (ask for something in return if possible). it will cost them double AE to do so and limit there early expansion to a more manageable level.

If you have any players in the empire (such as BBurg), use your remaining slots trying to ally them, they will nearly always accept, if a member of your empire does not play game, warn them and threaten to declare war if they expand using imperial liberation, again use your head, if they pull in allies like France and Poland, do not go through with your threat

Your main early game aim should be to take Italy or at least the bits in the Venice trade node, often wars are won in multiplayer by strong economies and lots of mercs and Austria is arguably in the best position to capitalise on the richest region in the game, which is Italy and you should be able to easily defeat the Italian minors, do not play the HRE game because that will just earn you enemies and do not try to PU big AI powers because that will also just earn you enemies, as Austria stay quiet until you have some good allies and some Italian trade income

Also, sometimes no matter what you do everyone will gang up on you as Austria, many players will go in with a gameplan to either dismantle the empire or make someone else emperor, if you log in one day and find that 5 players have allied and set you as a rival or joined the league war against you ect... Do not doom yourself by trying to fight them all, if you can, lose the emperorship to another player, the easiest way to lose the empire is by converting yourself, once done you will not be as much of a target anymore and note that if you avoid a long and blood war with several players, their coalition against you is more likely to fall apart.

 

[Me_]

Well, we did get "Flee to Brazil" decision, so maybe a "Collapse into Austria-Hungary" could be added, where if you have a number of rebels you can choose to collapse, losing prestige and gaining a ton of autonomy but also ending all the ongoing rebellions without them getting their goals.

 

[fr-rein]

Austro-Hungary is plain ahistorical and out of time, like USSR would be and which we clearly won't get (unless Dithmarschen has more meme surprises in stock). And an idea that any successful rebellion would settle for A-H instead of independence is also unreal and ahistorical.

 

[RMS Oceanic]

I like the idea of forming Austria-Hungary carrying negative penalties, like how Portugal becoming Brazil hits stability, because it's a sign things have gone wrong. I had my own crack at this a while ago, and the important thing is that for Austria to do it they had to not be the Emperor, it cost Prestige and Stability and you left the Empire no matter what.

 

[Dakka]

No, please no. Austria-Hungary has no place in EU4

 

[The Prussian Blackadder]

View attachment 490837

No, please no. Austria-Hungary has no place in EU4

I absolutely agree here. I’m sick of hearing this idea, go to HOI4 or VIC2 for the Dual Monarchy...

As for Austria’s military capabilities and strategy, I believe I am qualified to speak about this subject. You see, just like @Dakkadakka127’s adoration for Iberia, Eastern Central Europe is my Holy Grail.

I always play talI, and so often I see people critique Austria’s ideas as not having a strong enough military focus ad nauseasm. Thankfully, others have commented on this.

So, to throw in my two cents, Austria does not have a strong military focus because they probably have the most unique idea set and goals of any country in EUIV.

Austria’s lacking in strong military NI’s is easily made up, ifyou know how to play Austria ‘well’ militarily, which, IMO, relies entirely off which ideas you select, military policies, and your MIL tech level.

From my experience, it is VITAL that you are always ahead of time in your MIL tech level for Austria. This usually ensures an edge on most countries and often the Ottomans, who always are slow to get institutions and incur the penalties brutally around 1510 with Colonialism.
(Side Note: Always ally with Castile as Austria for obvious reasons, but also for the Knowledge Sharing offer for Colonialism).

Furthermore, Austria is stuck in the position of weirdly being on the offensive and defensive throughout the game. Though your offensive wars are entirely for defensive purposes, cutting down France and stopping the Ottomans. So you’ll often declare an offensive war to protect yourself, not to just mindlessly expand.

I regularly see that taking ‘Defensive’ first and ‘Quality’ and ‘Plutocracic’ later are all quite useful for Austria. I never see the need for picking ‘Quantity’ due to massively extended FL due to being Emperor, which was previously mentioned. Defensive works great when battling the Ottomans. Especially as the +20% boost to fort defense makes the Ottomans struggle to occupy quickly, even with their far superior siege ability, since they always pick Offensive.

I know quite a few people who overlook quality for Austria because of the naval ideas present, (even though Naval Morale is nice for any nation). The combat ability for artillery and cavalry is great though.

A great advantage Austria can have in terms of proper MIL ideas is it’s morale, espically with the right advisor and policy, I’ve had Austrian morale easily at 12 before, far out trouncing my competitors by 4 points.

So, if you pick your ideas carefully, and take meticulous care of your MIL points, you’ll shape up to the ridiculously broken Russian Streltsy units, the French Élan, and the Ottoman Janissaries just fine.

 

[neondt]

We are not adding an Austria-Hungary tag. It doesn't fit the period and it's contrary to our vision for what a formable nation should be.

 

[Vaximillian]

says the one who posted the N-th Yugoslavia thread

 

[Dakka]

says the one who posted the N-th Yugoslavia thread

I didn’t see previous threads and as I said in the original post, I don’t know the history of the concept or the region enough to know one way or another. That’s why I created a thread asking. But I guess I made the mistake of asking a question on the paradox forums and expecting an answer instead of vitriol.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

We are not adding an Austria-Hungary tag. It doesn't fit the period and it's contrary to our vision for what a formable nation should be.

The way you say it sounds like you have some precise requirements about it. Could you please share those so that we suggest things that would actually fit?

I remember that you shared the requirements for a reformation at some point, which should be a country that

Spoiler: see thetrue7man post below for the exact quote! thanks!

- enjoys some specific flavour
- has specific mechanics or a mission tree
- has a number of candidate tags that can form it (be it already 1444 existing tags or releasable),
if I recall correctly. The point is to make a goal towards these nations and making the continuation of a campaign starting with these enjoyable. That was really helpful and helped me see the point in the design.

Could you share those requirements for formation as well if they exist?

 

[thetrue7man]

The full quote for reforming was:

this is the criteria I use for whether a country that exists in 1444 should be formable:
1. It defines the region and the name of the country would be adopted by a regional minor that united the region (England, France, etc)
2. There are minor nation/s or releasables with its culture that should be eligible to form it
3. The country has access to unique content (missions, events, etc) that would make the game more fun for aforementioned minors.

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

View attachment 490837

No, please no. Austria-Hungary has no place in EU4

Ok. I genuinely laughed at that meme.