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I have tried a few times already, and always seem to lose. Of course, everyone then attacks austria, which does give me some satisfaction, howewver i lose my status as "protector of liberalism" and Poland doesn't like me anymore. So what to do to win? Should I head to Vienna straight away? Or berlin? When I fight the Austrian Armies in France I cannot seem to win... Somebody please help me!

what diff are you playing at ?

I normally play at normal, so not sure if my advice will work if you play at another one

I try to send a army towards Flanders (holdit back into France for a turn and) and the other 2 into the border of Swizerland, and put a depot in both areas, so they can grab reinforcements

place the corp inbetween them, so it can be pulled as reinforcements

try to get a Inf or two getting built as soon as you can, starting troops will be pretty bad

Aus normally pulls out of Flanders, but Prussia will head in

try to take Flanders, battle the Prussians, once the Prussian run away, if you used the corp, pull it out and send it to the real battle

you got to build battle lines to favor your arty (with the newer Cav rules it gets a little HARDer to hold off early battle with weak Inf)

if enemy has lots of Cav, get your Infs into Square as soon as you can, so they don't have to take the die roll to do so if attacked

if not enough troops, try splitting the Divs, use the Skimishers

save your Cav for busted units or the chase when the battle is over

and keep slipping new built troops into these armies

try to keep a column or two in reserve, a Inf Charge can do wonders if timed right

the best part of the early battles, you get to work with very little and poorly trained troops, so you get to learn the tricks, that will make the later battles easy

oh, by the way, did I mention build SQUARES

you will learn to love the Square

I usually play the frogs in 1792 on Bonaparte level with -1 power so pretty much all I can do is march everyone into Paris and let them come to me, otherwise I get creamed, both militarily and financially (from trying to support too many separate stacks).

The initial frog army isn't very good for anything for a couple of turns because they are way understrength, so sending them out to the frontiers to seek battle right away seems to me less prudent than reinforcing and waiting. The Germans won't arrive in Paris for 3-4 turns, allowing two infantry builds from Paris to join the army, as well as bringing up the army strength to nearly full levels.

Another bonus to fighting in Paris is the massive fortifications that you can use to anchor your flanks and damage the enemy before they close.

During the battles I concentrate solely on capturing prisoners, and especially the artillery units, which I charge with all my cavalry when the opportunity presents itself. The key is to recognize the point at which the enemy army will call a retreat, and have flanking cavalry and militia units ready to swoop down and encircle any vulnerable German pieces.

Over the initial couple of months of battles your goal is to attrit the enemy and capture as much of their artillery as possible. Avoid fighting small battles if you can; concentrate on getting into the biggest fights possible. That way you won't have to march to Styria to force a surrender; I regularly see the Germans lose 1000-1200 morale from a battle. A couple of those and one or both Germans will throw in the towels and you will save yourself supply and time.

While tempting, DO NOT abandon Paris to chase a weak stack. Your easy pickings will turn into a nightmare when the Austrians march a small force into Paris and you start taking the large morale hit which might cause you to surrender when everything else is going well.

For the non-military matters, make sure your Merchants are in the top money areas, chase down all Prussian/Austrian merchants with your fleets, and send all your Diplos to one of the Gernman states to lower their morale. Development-wise, make sure you are producing enough to crank out one infantry every turn, and one cavalry every 4-6 turns.

is an alliance with either spain or england wise? I have been able to get an alliance as well as a declaration of war from either of those two powers in exchange of a non-agression treaty of a little more than two years. WHat is your take on that?

I don't like either, although a non-agression treaty with the Brits will allow your fleets breathing room until you can build some more ships and research naval techs (if the naval game is your thing - personally I always aim to dominate the seas). A downside is that the Brits hold tasty Hanover and will certainly enlarge their holdings on the continent - provinces which will be barred from your more efficient administration until you can make war on them. I consider the British land forces to be a very minor threat at best initially, so I would only ally with them if I feared their navy.

The Spanish are decent allies, but their army sucks much more than yours, so the amount of help they can provide is debatable, especially since it will take them a while to march to help you out. Also, after beating the Germans and scooping up some minor provinces there will be time to war with the Spanish and perhaps capture their navy before war brews up again with the German states, so you might not want to hinder yourself with an alliance.

As France, I aim to ally with Sweden and Turkey. They will be very useful when you decide to make Tsar Alexander your mistress somewhere down the line, and a well timed Turkish agression can halt even the most determined Austrian advance into France.

as long as you do not want to attack them, it is great, make one a tradeing partner and keep hammering trades with them (that keeps them happy)