Austria strategy
From EU3 Wiki
Austria is the largest of the German duchies during the setting of the game.
The key to success with Austria is to play the Emperor and the Papal Controller cards simultaneously. Controlling Pope helps to burn off BB quicker.
Ignore trade, that is not Austria strength.
Jumping Venice as it fights Milan early on is a given. Vassalize it and make it release Crete during the peace negotiations. This way they would be easier to diploannex. You could get all of the Lombard culture as your tolerated culture. North Italy is very rich. Probably richer than any other single culture region in your vicinity that is not in your culture family. You could go for Hungary. They are not as rich. Hungary and Bohemia. Vassalize them. Their wrong culture group will do no good to hold.
A cunning emperor can use royal marriages to claim thrones on larger of the HRE members and strip them of their lands through war. Your larger armies can do that. Again, controlling the Papal Curia helps to burn off that BB. It would be unwise to have more than one royal marriage if one wishes to use this tactic.
Don't be afraid of stability hits while declaring wars, as the emperor, you get it recover so quickly that you don't even notice when it goes back to +3 again. Also, check who the electors are and secure your future. Electors should be the primary target of your diplomatic efforts. Make Royal Marriages with them, give them military access and get the same from them. Drop them a bit of your cash time to time. Make sure they love you.
Don't neglect asking countries around you whether they want to become your vassals, many of your neighbours just dream about such an opportunity like joining your glorious and powerful nation. Bayern is your first target here.
After a while, Germany and the Balkans will start to get crowded as you start to bump up against the other big boys(Ottomans, Poles, French) When this happens you can take one of two options. The first option is to strike out on your own into the new world, colonizing in order to expand your empire. The other option is to roll over these other powers.
If you intend to take the colonization route, remember that your colonies will be initially hard to reach if you have not acquired any sea bases closer than Krain so you should aquire a stop off point on your way to Africa and the New World. A middle path is an option if you wish to simply follow in the footsteps of other colonizers as they rarely grab everything they find before it becomes revealed to you. If you intend to actively search for new lands, my adivce would be to go for the brazilian highlands an South Africa as a start. They are relatively valuable areas with little competion during the early phases of the game. South Africa and the Brazilian highlands also give you easy access to the Incas and Swahili, two great powers to subjugate for the glory of God.
It makes things easier if you have a military access agreement with Portugal. Your ships can stop on the Azores and repair there while searching for new lands. It is not very hard to get such an agreement, just send a few gifts (that's what all those gold mines are for) and be persistent enough.
If you want to go on the path of conquest you can go to the east or to the west. If you want to have an eternal war, go east, you will eventually come out in China if you keep digging through the Muslims and other north Eurasians. As you expand in this direction, it would be best to have deus vult and a hearty tolerance for Islam and orthodox Christianity as those will become large parts of your empire as the game progresses. Be warned that theses nations are quite powerful so don't forget to bring lots of troops to the fight.
Another issue with the conquest path is that you will have BB like you would not believe. It is possible to have BB into the 80s if you are not careful about how fast you conquer. If you have strong alliances when this happens and a large enough military, it can be a godsend as you will get a free DoW on nearly every country that borders you, but since you have those alliances and that giant army, there is no reason why you cant vassalize your remaining neighbors after they get tired of the war, leaving the world open for the lebensraum you Austrian heart has yearned for all along. If you sucessfully vassalize europe, make sure that you spam gifts to them until you can get an alliance, then they will not revolt and even help you put down other revolts in your empire, not a bad thing when you are this big. If you get to this point, it becomes a moot point what you do from then on as you could not possibly lose a war unless the Ming controlled India, Japan, Korea, Manchuria, and the Timurids and even then it not not be so bad.
