This is my world in 1811, It may not be impressive at first but it is the best I have done with Austria.
Instead of going with the traditional way by attacking the Ottomans first and then (trying) to defeat France in Italy.
I decided to improve my relations with France and mass my armies on Prussia. after four small but sucessful wars with Prussia I had drained their manpower and knock their army to just under 100k.
I had taken all thier southern territory and the land dominance target.
You may wonder why I have it on easy, well there are two reasons, first I was going to go the traditional way (but i changed my mind) and secondly this is a guide for new people and people who struggle with Austria.




This guide is WIP so morwe will be added.

Ideas are important to MOTE. Choosing ideas can be tricky especially at the start of Austria's game.
The first two ideas are the most important. I always choose march to the sound of guns and volley fire as my first two.

• Volley fire desceases infantry iniative(basically increasing effetiveness).

• March to the sound of guns allows your armies to get to a battle in an adjacent province. Timing is varied.

After that you can really use your own judgement on what you want. I do recommend either the Austrian idea, supply idea or command idea after those two.

Austrian ideas

You may already know what the Austrian ideas are but if you don't you can always look here for an explanation for each.

• Glorious arms

"With the Austrian army wielding glorious arms, our adversaries will tremble in fear"
This idea basically gives you 50% more prestige from land battles, prestige is important as it is used in some diplomacy deals and is shown to all at the End game screen.

• Spy network

"The network of spies will monitor dissent and report to the secret police"
Spy Network gives you -2 National revolt. This is also good as alot of conquered territory may revolt against you.

• Military frontier

"The frontier soldiers are professional military, ready to move to all of Europe's battlefields"
This is another very imporrtant Austrian idea it gives you the +50% manpower modifier and -25% land matainance modifier. Allowing you armies to live longer. The -25% land maintainance looks bad but is actually good it allows you to use supplies mor wisely.

• Austrian army reorganisation

"To defeat our enemies we use adopt the nation in arms principle and the french war organisation and tactics"
This excellent idea increase morale 0.25, manpower by +25% and land maintainance by -25%.

• Austrian National bank

"The Austrian national bank is founded with the aim of reeastablishing monetary order in Austria"
The Austrian National Bank idea increases taxes by a good +5% and decreases interest by -0.5 excellent if you are in need of loans.

Army organisation
To have an good army you will need a strategy. My favourite startegy is the the Corp system. to have a good corp system you will need

• March to the sound of guns
  
• 5-10 corps of about 20k to 30k
  
• enough generals for each flank(dont exceed you generals as you cant make more of them)

The my flanks usually have 3-4 brigades in them, the rest are in the reserve. My flanks consist of a guard unit; 1 piece of artilley; a brigade of skimishers and a brigade of cavalry. with that setup you are allowed to use the tactic "Up the guard" this greatly increases you attack strength.
Supply trains are also important, bringing them helps with the fight against attrition. I usually bring 2 to 3 thousand

When attacking a city use the corp with the most artillery to siege it and then surround it with your remaining corps like this, turn march to the sound of guns on on all of your corps apart form the besieger.
Lets say that Lemburg is is russian hands (which is isnt). The red line is the border.
I am surrounding the city with my corps half in my territory (to stop as much attrition as possible)
and the other half in russian territory. if one corp is attacked, the adjacent ones will join the battle after a certain amount of time. when they join move you other corps (apart form the besieger) into the adjacent territories and wait for them to join.



War
Your first few wars should be against Prussia if you use the tactics I have shown you you will suceed
You targets should be Glewitz, Breslau, Glogau and making saxony join you. It is best to do it all seperate wars. remember the corps system, never slipt up unless you are against a small nation

If you did it in seperate wars it should be 1809 or 1810(remember you can speed up during peace) Your next target is Belgrad in the Ottoman empire


You really only want to take Belgrad for the Ottomans as fighting for more can lend on to a very long war (they dont give up quickly)
From there you can do what ever you want, I decided to join France's colation and invade Russia with them.

Building is not as complex as it is in previous games such as EU3 or Victoria 2.
To keep your army supplied is important, building depots can help with that, change to the map mode called "manpower" all the greens porvinces have a lot of men, build depots there to get even more. If the province has a tent and some cannon balls on it it means that there is already a depot there.
If you want to invade Africa or islands you must build a port, this is really important for Austria as Austria only hase one port in the south. You will be able to build ships there.

If you have a lot of money you can build civilised development for Austria this is important in conquered territory. This will increasde taxes, happiness and man power in the province

The final thing is a fortress this is really self expanatory, it protects you land and the enemy has to siege it