After numerous tries, I gave up on saving Austria from the French in the initial war of 1805 - without the British, I just couldn't do it. (Reminder: when I played Britain I rushed the starting forces to defend Austria, successfully). [Note: I was playing quick combat for the first year or so, preparing for my PBEM game where I am Austria...) Instead, I surrendered early to France to Spain, and concentrated on peaceful pursuits. I conquered Papacy and Saxony, sent the diplomats to get me Hesse, and made a mega treaty swapping land with Turkey. [You see, Turkey doesn't get glory for many of its provinces, but AUstria does, and similiarly in reverse. So I traded them Grosswardein, Ofen and Peterwardein for several provinces in the balkans. Since my provinces were better developed, and worth more glory to it, the AI gave me a good trade rate.] I set up dozens of trade routes, with both sides - being neutral was pretty cool - and imported every textile I could find.
Development plan: IN ORDER:
(1) build or locate 3 x barracks level 5 for producing corps when I can (and maybe guards - I wish!) - 100% effort on development. Get em to factories whatever too so they can build artillery. Selected Styria, Austria and Saxony (got to conquer the last one, but no biggie).
(2) if a province specialises in food, build up farms to level 5 (priority for those making wine) - 25% effort on development
(3) develop up to culture 3 and barracks 3 in every province - the low levels are cheap... - 25% effort on development
(4) if the province specialises in labour, build up factories - 25% effort on development
This is quite different to what I was doing as other countries - I view banks as essentially worthless to Austria, and didn't bother with lots of other things.
Why the culture and barracks thing?
- I wanted military upgrades to make my existing forces more capable. I was getting an upgrade EVERY season, which by 1808 makes a huge difference - by 1808, I had a military training level of 13.05, with the following upgrades: Quality Horses, Cavalry Organisation, Training, and Operations; Wheel Training, Formation Drilling, Field Medicine 1, and Espirt de Corps; Massed Arty 1, 2 and 3.
- And culture is worth glory. By 1808, I was in first place for culture with a culture level of 106 (worth a total of 6 glory a month to me).
Banks just aren't a very good deal - a 10% increase on not much from many provinces, for far too much initial outlay. Maybe in a 10 or 15 year game, but most of my games are completely over in 3 or at most 4 years. Its probably worth if for Britain (and maybe Venice), but not for Austria.
But what did you do for money, I hear you say.
A) I decided to sell my trade goods for cash (I let the trade adviser do that, and manually initiated other trades, maninly getting all the textiles anyone was willing to trade).
B) I had my merchant out - defended by the whole fleet.
C) Over time, I dropped my feudal level as much as I can whenever I can (monitoring the national morale loss carefully), which makes by economy stronger, including in cash production.
D) I just refused to pay for supply until the final months of the game - besides saving cash, I wanted reinforcements to raise the morale of my starting forces to make them better.
E) I wanted some treaties to raise money (which is plentiful for the AI at Napoleon level), but didn't really manage anything in this game.
So - a political history:
We surrendered early to the French/Spanish, and they took Tyrol/Austria. The Russians engaged in a sniping war with France, retreating back into Austria where the French/Spanish couldn't follow them. They managed to conquer Austria province, and continued the war for quite some time, drawing away French troops from their other fronts [front 1: Russians accross the Austrian border].
Meanwhile, Turkey attacked Austria, and got swiftly crushed, while Prussia somehow got into the war with France [front 2: inside Prussia].
Sweden and Britain sent a combined army against Paris [front 3].
For some ungodly reason, Prussia declared war on Austria (dunno why), while their capital was already beseiged by the French. The Austrian army entered Berlin. This probably didn't change anything, though: France surrended to England, Russia and Sweden. Prussia surrendered to France and Austria.
At the end of these wars, France still had a very very large army, and lots of territory - but not Normandy and Brittany. Their glory put them in about 6th place, having just lost a war, and they were not gaining quickly at all. But that army is still very scary.
Turkey obviously became frustrated at the accumulation of feudal troops, and declared war on me. Although there were lots of them, they were cannon fodder - especially for my massed artillery. I sent three armies (2 combat and 1 seiging) down to Constantinople, aggressively seeking battle with the 4 Turkish Armies. Wonderful fun, and created some 'gaps' in my divisions for reinforcements to fill.
By late 1807, all of Europe became alarmed at the rise of Austria - while I was in third place after Britain and Spain - and started attacking me. Actually, fair enough they got alarmed - I was gaining glory much faster than the others, and building up the army, etc etc.
I accepted a conditiional surrender from the Turks so I could march north (taking some more provinces), and started fighting off the Russians and Swedes, who had forces in Styria. And France declared war on my, sending in 2 of their armies, but not Napoleon (I wonder if the allies exiled him?) I waited for the enemy in Styria, and used sacrificial militia divisions to chew up depot chains, and watched the mega armies shrink. I had a few thousand in gold at this point, and started to pay for supply, since the stacking was getting so silly. I won more battles than I lost, and made a practice of targetting enemy guards and artillery - I didn't want to fight these units more than once! Britain declared war on me too. (That left Spain and Prussia as neutral towards me [they were at war with each other and some others] and Turkey under enforced peace.)
The fact that I could fight all these enemies to a standstill was because of the military upgrades, and the improved morale and composition of the Austrian armies.
No one surrendered before the end of the game - the glory from the combats (plus my usual 26 per turn) puched me over the top. But I was mopping up the enemy forces in Austria and starting to think about counter invading them one at a time...
The end of the game was in April 1808.
At that point, my 'standard' glory per month was
- Target Province: 15;
- Culture 5, superior culture 1;
- Empire 2;
- Luxery consumption 2,
- Morale 1 (Sometimes superior morale for 2)
I had been getting a minumum of 25 glory per month for the previous year and half.
Austria had 464k men [start with 252k], organised into 2 combat armies, each with 1 corps, (each combat army had 4 arty, 4 cav and 5 inf (with at lest 2 light or jager inf included in the inf) - army morales were up to 5.3 and 5.0. [We also had a seiging army of poor infantry.]
32 cities, with control of the following provinces: Albania; Banat; Bessarabia; Bohemia; Bosnia; Carniola; Carpathia; Crete; Croatia; Cyprus; Galicia; Greece; Hesse; Izmir; Karlsburg; Lodomeria; Macedonia; Moldavia; Moravia; Papacy; Pest; Prague; Pressburg; Saxony; Serbia; Silistra; Sivas; Styria; Transylvania; Venetia; Wallachia; West_Egypt
Total population of 112 [starts at 89] even after all my military units and drafting (we made lots of excess food and deliberately grew the population all game). 59 Colonies, Feudal level of 0. Enclosed is a screenie of my economy screen at the end of the game.
