Austria - Newbie-AAR

[Mygreatlord]

MY GOAL: ANNEX AS MANY GREAT COUNTRIES PEACEFULLY AS POSSIBLE

At first: My English isn't that well. My difficulty is hard, which seems quite easy.

This time I wanted to begin in a very easy position. So I started with Austria in 1478. Why? Because to this time it just got the netherlands.

at first i decided to annex not to much but to make the conquered countries my vasalls...

meanwhile i had started first explorations... (castille had allowed me to send military troops across their territory so i could easily use their islands as harbour for my explorations)

 

[Mygreatlord]

here we see again all my little friends and vassals...

and while i made a lot of party with them in europe, while i've drunken alcohol and while i've eaten pork my little colony in west-africa slowly shaped itself...

 

[Mygreatlord]

i finally decide to annex a bit and connect my two european parts of my country...

then i conquered a bit more... (or well i've just seen that i guess that i've annexed mailand peacefully) but still there were some conquests^^

and then after about 100tries (-.-) [unlikely] i annexed france peacefully after i had peacefully made them my vassal. my badboy went up to 55.

my next target was castille.... ^^

 

[unmerged(70598)]

Awesomestria!

Good Lord man, that's one huge Austria for 1569!

Some thoughts...

I wonder what would have happened if you'd continued vassalizing everybody without the annexations. Your province count would be low, allowing you to tech up amazingly, and instead of the ~30% (?) penalty you get for wrong-culture provinces that you have to guard and administer, you'd get nearly the same income (50% penalty on unpenalized income of vassals). Of course, with friendly happy vassals just sitting there, it must have been impossible to resist annexing them.

Also, it looks like Vienna itself is right on the border with Lithuania and Poland. Poland appears to be your friend, with 200 relations, but do you not fear the dark sword of the Lith? You live dangerously...

In my own Austria game I also have the unsightly blotch of an unannexed Salzburg in the middle of Greater Austria (though it has often been owned by others). What is with those guys?

I'd love to see details on your income, policy settings, and technology.

Hmm ... might you consider updates covering smaller time periods? That might show more of your strategic thinking step by step, rather than these huge rafts of results. Of course, as a confirmed Austria junkie I'll take whatever you give me!

All this said, congratulations on some fine work! I can't wait to see if your continental empire has enough oomph to allow peaceful vassalization of Castille and it's presumably massive colonial empire. Or were you thinking of the other way...

Cheers,
Ak

 

[Mygreatlord]

Did I mention that annexing France PEACEFULLY cost me about 40 years although it was [unlikely]?! Well as I couldnt increase my badboy tooo much in this time because that would have lessened my chance to annex France I built up a small colonial reich.

Hausa is my vassal naturally

then there were the colonies in central america

well and this is what i mainly got from france, france was the 2. mightiest power in the game when i annexed them i think

Well after annexing France I didnt know what to do and just didn't do much for a few years. Then I decided to get my badboy down and so i only made white peace with the countries that attacked me OR i made them my vassal
By the way: Did I mention that Portugal was my ally and vassal since decades?

But you wanted some "dates" how I rule my lovely Austria:

as i always have i have a lot of anti-badboy-guys:

and at this early time a strong focus on military and govermental research (can you say so in english?):

new things later

 

[Tmac]

Very interesting AAR

You doing great

 

[OutsiderSubtype]

Your English has been very good so far.

I really enjoy this style of game. Once you get your BadBoy back to a reasonable level you should think about Patron of The Arts. Your prestige will stay at 100 forever and there are some nice events associated with it.

 

[Mygreatlord]

My Aims

My next aims are:

1. Annexing Castille or Portugal peacefully
2. To do so, get my badboy down
To do so

- care about the colonies and connect my 3 american colonies (you might see at the pictures that they have no connection, in the very north there's another gold colony you can't see)
- but as I only get 2 colonizers a year I need some other aims. so I decide to make countries that attack me because of my badboy my vassal

Mali loved to become my vassal and ally. Songhay didnt love it and after they attacked me 2 times although they were my vassal I gave it up to rule them this way. I decided to send strong troops at the border (which I had anyway) and that it would be with Songhay. Anyway. Mali still vassal and Hausa also.

(well I got some provinces from mali but I dont know why... I guess there was gold or something)

Well this picture just shows how great me and my vassal portugal divide south-america...

And these two pictures show how I connect
a) my gold province in the north with the central-american colony
b) my south american things that I got from france with the central-american colony

a)

b)

Well all this went quite straight forward but I still had some badboy. Very bad. So I decided to make Castille, Hungary, Saxony and the Ottoman Empire my vassals. You will see that soon...

 

[Mygreatlord]

well...
after doing this and that (would be too long to describe) castille attacked me (because of my high badboy) and I defeated them.

i haven't stolen any of their provinces?

but they are my vassal now another one^^

they have not much colonies only north-africa and a smaller north-american colony

but all in all after a while i annexed them peacefully and so made myself immortal.

in fact this had a bad consequence because my bad boy raised about 40 points up to over 70...
(the picture is a bit later when it's only 69 xD)

by the way: the many fleets in the north symbolize one of my next aims: attacking great britain
ah and by the way²: the war with the ottoman empire means that i make them my vassal or if that already happened earlier and they are independant again (i can't remember anymore) i just get 2 ottoman provinces because i was to lazy to make them my vassal again...^^