Austria's Rise: Forming The Roman Empire In Eu4

Playing as Austria in Europa Universalis IV offers a unique experience, as it starts the game as the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. One of the key strategies for Austria is to form personal unions with other nations, with missions granting a casus belli for forming a union with Bohemia, and another with Hungary. Austria is also in a prime position to form unions with Milan, Bavaria, Naples, Poland, Castile, and Burgundy. Forming these unions can help Austria expand its empire and stake its claim on history as a world power.

In addition to forming personal unions, Austria must also focus on maintaining its position as the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. This involves playing the diplomacy and imperial authority game within the HRE, as well as enforcing religious unity and keeping the peace. One way to do this is by revoking the privilegia and centralising the empire.

With its unique government reform power structures and national ideas, Austria has the tools to become a dominant force in Europa Universalis IV. However, it must navigate complex diplomatic relationships and potential religious turmoil to achieve success.

Annex Hungary for the Austrian Imperial Monarchy government type

Annexing Hungary is a crucial step in forming the Austrian Imperial Monarchy government type and restoring the Roman Empire as Austria in Europa Universalis IV. Here is a guide on how to achieve this:

Early Game Strategies:

Begin the game as Austria by focusing on uniting the Habsburg lands and strengthening your position as the Holy Roman Emperor. Take advantage of your unique missions and government reforms to gain an edge. Secure alliances and royal marriages, especially with Burgundy, to increase your influence and expand your realm.

Dealing with Burgundy:

Burgundy controls several Imperial territories, impacting your monthly Imperial Authority. There are a few strategies to handle this:

• Wait for the Burgundian Succession Crisis event, which can grant you direct control of Burgundian territories within the Holy Roman Empire. This is a luck-based approach.
• Force Burgundy to move its capital to one of its Imperial provinces, making it an Imperial prince and returning territories to the Empire.
• Declare war and cancel the subjects of Holland and Brabant, releasing Hainaut and Luxembourg, and reclaiming Franche-Comté. This approach may require multiple wars and generate aggressive expansion.

Hungary: The Path to Annexation:

Hungary plays a significant role in your campaign. Here's how you can bring it under your control:

• Hungary often starts with an interregnum, and events can lead to a Personal Union under Austria or provide a Casus Belli for one. Seize these opportunities to bring Hungary into your fold.
• If you don't get a Personal Union, focus on increasing your and your subjects' development compared to Hungary. This will grant you a Casus Belli for a Personal Union.
• Alternatively, you can ally and royal marry Hungary, but this may not be the best use of your diplomatic slots early on.

Managing the Reformation:

As the Holy Roman Emperor, you must navigate the Reformation carefully. Here are some strategies:

• Use your diplomatic options to enforce your religion on princes who convert. This will cost Imperial Authority and relation points but can help maintain religious unity.
• Go to war with heretic princes and enforce conversion through war concessions. This is especially useful for removing Centers of Reformation.
• If a Center of Reformation appears outside the Empire, consider leaving it alone as converting HRE princes will be a higher priority.

Forming the Austrian Imperial Monarchy:

To form the Austrian Imperial Monarchy, you must complete the "Multicultural Empire" mission, which is unlocked by fulfilling the following conditions:

• Own and control the province of Wien.
• Have Austrian as your primary culture.
• Have at least six European cores with Austrian culture.
• Have not enacted this decision before.
• Not be an end-game nation, a German regional nation, a custom nation, a subject nation (except a tributary), or a nomad nation.
• Not be in a regency.

Completing this mission will trigger the "Reform the Austrian Imperial Government?" event, allowing you to choose between the Imperial Austrian Monarchy and the Austrian Archduchy government types. Select the Imperial Austrian Monarchy to gain advantages in diplomatic power and promoted cultures.

Vassalise the HRE

To vassalise the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) as Austria, there are a few key strategies and considerations to keep in mind. Here are some detailed instructions to guide you through the process:

Accumulate Imperial Authority

As the Emperor of the HRE, focus on accumulating Imperial Authority. This can be done over several years by passing reforms. Most of these reforms provide small buffs, but one particular reform, "Revoke the Privilegia," is especially powerful. It allows you to vassalise all HRE members that are small enough or loyal enough.

Manage Relations

When you vassalise HRE members, you will receive a significant relationship boost with those vassals, but it will come at the cost of negative relations with other HRE members. If you can vassalise four electors, you will have significant influence in the HRE. However, having only one vassalised elector will result in a net negative for your relations in the HRE, so be mindful of this balance.

Avoid Unlawful Territory Demands

One advantage of having HRE vassals is that you can give them any HRE land you take, avoiding demands from the Emperor to return unlawful territory. This is particularly beneficial as failing to return unlawful territory damages your reputation with all HRE members.

Manage Aggressive Expansion and Coalitions

Be cautious when taking provinces with the HRE tag, as it significantly increases your aggressive expansion with all HRE members. Keeping your aggressive expansion below 50 will ensure that no coalition forms against you. If a coalition does form, you may find yourself in a challenging situation, possibly even facing the abandonment of some allies.

Strengthen Your Position

Strengthen your position by forming alliances with powerful nations outside the HRE, such as France or Denmark. This will deter the Emperor from declaring war on you, especially if your alliances are stronger than theirs.

Timing and Opportunity

Keep an eye out for opportunities to vassalise electors of the HRE. Doing so will incur some negatives, but if you can time it right and act quickly, you can gain significant influence in the HRE.

By following these strategies and carefully managing your relations, expansion, and alliances, you can successfully vassalise the HRE as Austria and work towards restoring the Roman Empire.

Kill reformation centres

To kill Reformation Centres in Europa Universalis IV, you must first understand how they work. Reformation Centres are locations that automatically convert provinces around them at a high rate, with zero input from their owner. They apply Religious Zeal, which reduces missionary strength by 100% for 30 years.

There are a maximum of three Reformation Centres for each branch of the religion: Protestant and Reformed. These centres will only appear in the first three countries that embrace Protestantism. However, this does not stop other nations from converting to Protestantism and spreading it via missionaries.

To prevent the spread of Protestantism, you must defeat all six Reformation Centres (three for each branch). This will significantly reduce the impact of the reformation. Additionally, ensure that Protestant countries do not expand, and stop any other nations from converting to Protestantism.

• Focus on blobbing and expanding your influence. Austria has a useful discount for diplo-annexation cost, so take advantage of that.
• Get personal unions over Hungary and Bohemia first. These nations will provide strength and useful allies.
• Ally with Poland and England. Poland will be a valuable ally, and England can help in wars against France. Remember to give them provinces occasionally to maintain the alliance.
• Expand southwards towards Iberia to block Castile and Aragon from expanding into France.
• Target Aragon to gain access to Sicily and ocean provinces, which can be used to make claims on Africa.
• Expand along the Egyptian coast to border the Ottomans and prevent their expansion.
• Attack countries to the east of the Ottomans and wrap your border around them, limiting their expansion options.
• Take advantage of the Shadow Kingdom event to attack Italy.
• Strengthen your position by forming Italy as Austria to gain a national idea for reduced coring costs.
• Choose the right ideas: Influence, Administrative, Diplomatic, Quantity, Offensive, Humanist, and Religious.
• Expand within the HRE by vassalizing nations that have lost cores, regaining those cores for your vassals, and then integrating them. This will help you maintain low AE while expanding.

Diplo-annex land

Diplo-annexing land is a useful strategy in Europa Universalis IV, particularly for Christian countries that can get PUs. It can be a very strong choice if you lean into it. Diplo-annexing is slower than coring and gives you a dip rep penalty, but it also saves you from rebel troubles and won't increase your overextension. It is also AE-free if you diplo-vassalize someone.

To diplo-annex land, you must first vassalize a nation. This can be done in a few ways:

• Force vassalization as part of a peace treaty. The total warscore cost for this is 1 warscore per 1 development plus 5 warscore for each province.
• Offer vassalization via a diplomatic offer. To do this, you must have at least +190 relations with the target country, be allied to them, the target country must be at peace, the difference in technology cost between the two countries must be less than 50%, the target country must have at most 100 development, and you must not own any of the target country's cores.
• The Holy Roman Emperor can also vassalize members of the Holy Roman Empire by passing the penultimate Imperial Reform, "Revoke The Privilegia".

Once you have a vassal, you can feed it provinces by annexing territory directly and granting the provinces to the vassal. This will reduce the vassal's liberty desire. However, the more provinces the vassal has, the higher its overall development, which increases the diplomatic power required to annex it. It is recommended to only annex vassals when taking Influence ideas as the cost will be 25% less.

When choosing a vassal, look for nations with lots of unowned cores or claims, strong military or economic ideas, the ability to deal with unrest, and the same culture/religion as your own nation.

Once you have a vassalized nation and have fed it some provinces, you can begin the process of diplo-annexing. To do this, you must have the following:

• The subject's vassalage must have lasted at least 10 years.
• The vassal's opinion of the overlord must be at least 190.
• The vassal's liberty desire must be less than 50%.
• The vassal must have control of its capital.
• The vassal must have at least one core province that can be cored.

The cost of diplo-annexing is 8 diplomatic power per development of the vassal, excluding any provinces the overlord has cores on. This cost is decreased by administrative efficiency, all power cost modifiers, and diplomatic annexation cost modifiers.

To optimize your diplo-annexing, you can take certain idea groups and policies. For example, Influence and Administrative ideas will give you a 25% reduction in cost. The Vassal-Integration Act policy (requires Administrative Ideas completed in addition to Influence Ideas) will give you a further 10% reduction. As a Catholic nation, you can also get a 10% diplo-annex reduction through the curia.

In conclusion, diplo-annexing can be a powerful strategy in Europa Universalis IV, but it requires careful planning and optimization to be effective. It is a good choice for players who want to expand their empire without dealing with the consequences of coring, such as overextension and rebel troubles.

Form Italy for reduced coring costs

As Austria, you can form Italy to get a national idea for reduced coring costs. This is part of a strategy to form the Roman Empire in Europa Universalis IV.

To form Italy, you must meet the following requirements:

• Italy does not exist.
• The country is not the Papal State or the Holy Roman Empire.
• The country has not enacted this decision before.
• The country is not a colonial nation.
• The country is in the Latin culture group.
• The country has an administrative technology of at least 10.
• The country owns at least 20 core provinces in the Italy region.
• The country gets the event ‘New Traditions & Ambitions’, unless it has custom ideas.
• The country increases rank to kingdom, if it is a duchy.
• The country gets a permanent claim on the Italy region.
• The country moves its capital to Roma.
• The country enacts "Italian Signoria" government reform if no reform has been selected.

If Italy is a member of the Holy Roman Empire but not the emperor or an elector, then all its provinces are removed from the Empire. The emperor of the HRE gets the opinion modifier “Left the Holy Roman Empire” towards Italy and gets the event ‘Italy breaks out of the Empire’.

Any nation on the Italian peninsula is a viable option for forming Italy. The most powerful states which hold provinces necessary to form Italy in 1444 are Florence, Milan, Venice, and Genoa. Naples starts in a personal union under Aragon, but it can quickly make powerful allies, reclaim its independence, and its Sicilian cores, and find itself the most powerful force on the peninsula. Savoy is also an option, with the potential to ally France and gain a power base in the Genoa trade node before forming Sardinia-Piedmont and, as in history, going on to unify the peninsula.

Forming Italy as Austria is a good strategy because Italy is a very strong nation. It is positioned to dominate both the Genoa and Venetian trade nodes, and a powerful Italy with even a modest trade fleet is poised to completely control 2 of the top three earning nodes in the early game. Italian ideas are also equipped with fighting prowess, with infantry combat ability on land and galley power at sea.

Italian blobbing ability is also strong, with the prized Core-Creation Cost Reduction and the Improve Relations modifier, which is the only way to increase the speed at which Aggressive Expansion decays.

With the complete development of the Italian region, it will take relatively little expansion after formation to meet the 1000 development requirement for Empire. While the culture bonuses will be unlikely to benefit coring, as the Italian Peninsula will likely have been united long before Empire status, such rapidity at upgrading to Empire will open up the culture spots for future expansion and coring.

Forming Italy as Austria is, therefore, a strong strategy to gain reduced coring costs, which will be useful in forming the Roman Empire.

Frequently asked questions