Austria strategy guide from the original cog.

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Harvey Birdman
Posts: 143
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2006 11:32 pm

Austria strategy guide from the original cog.

Post by Harvey Birdman »

Austria 1805
Austria begins at war with France, a frighteningly powerful adversary. Once the Grande Armee arrives you will be hard-pressed to win battles against it. Your immediate goal is to hold out until your Coalition partners in England, Russia, and Sweden can come to your aid. Consider falling back into Hungary and setting rally points in Styria for your British and Russian allies. If the French occupy Vienna in Styria, your national morale will begin to drop quickly. Austria must be careful to avoid losing national morale by setting too high a tax rate or by losing large battles.
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Your immediate production goal is to build one or two corps. The Austrians start with their divisions in seven armies, but no corps. Corps can be loaded with divisions and attached to armies. They allow much larger groupings of units, and give many different bonuses to units during combat: increased
reinforcement rate, increased initiative, etc. Consider
proposing trade routes to increase your textile supply to give you the textiles you need to produce these corps.
If things are going badly for you, don’t hesitate to surrender to France. France may accept an offer of limited surrender. Austria’s biggest mistake is to allow France to crush its army and capture its cavalry and artillery. France has a larger economic
potential and can rebuild faster than Austria, so attrition
is not in your favor.
As your national morale drops, rebels will begin to gather in your Hungarian provinces, and on the Turkish border. Building some courts (in Peterwardein and Grosswardein especially) helps to reduce the chance of rebelliousness in provinces. It’s unlikely that the rebels will form any serious
threat, but they can be quite a nuisance: they can halt production on military units, cut your supply lines, and if three units gather in a province then they may have enough strength to halt the economic production of the province. Austria has enough problems in 1805 without having to worry about a rebellious Hungary.
Austrian diplomats are well used to Charm Prussia, increasing
its attitude toward you and making an alliance with them more likely. Delay Battle can also be useful to Austria, with its fragmented military groups: if you send diplomats to delay
battle in a province into which you are converging, there is more of a chance that all your units will arrive in the province
before the battle begins. If France captures Austrian cities
(usually in Tyrolia, Linz, or Austria), consider using the diplomats’ Resistance ability to attempt to raise guerilla units in the occupied provinces. As with other nations, Insurrection
and Coup can be useful to Austria when used judiciously (Bavaria is one of Austria’s political targets, and it helps to get control of it as early as possible). Too much Insurrection and Coup will make everyone hate you.
Consider sending the navy around to help the British blockades
- you might get some glory. Britain may also accept a treaty lending your fleet to them for cash or for colonies. Also, consider bribing the Prussians to join in - if you promise
not to attack them for three years they will do anything for you.
Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are as inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away but to return once more. Sun Tzu
Joram
Posts: 3206
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:40 am

RE: Austria strategy guide from the original cog.

Post by Joram »

Good tips, not much to add. 
It's actually a somewhat tough choice to decide if you want to go full bore against the French army or if you should just cut your losses and run.  If you can coordinate well with Russia and get Prussia on your side immediately, there is some hope in actually turning away if not severely delaying the French advance.  However, this isn't easy and even then isn't guaranteed so your other option is just to roll over and save your army and pray that you aren't given crippling surrender terms.
 
Assuming you can save your army, you will have at least a year of enforced peace with France and you can use that to go after Turkey assuming Prussia isn't looking to make a land grab against you.  Turkey will not be a cakewalk but it should be doable assuming you don't get backstabbed.  That will help eliminate the glory loss from losing to France and furthermore may even knock Turkey out of empire status which will greatly help you in the future should Turkey come a-knocking.
 
There isn't much to gain by going after Russia but you could potentially follow on the heels of a French advance.   Prussia is a tempting target but you may of course need them to stay friendly with you so they don't pull the same tricks on you!
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