There's not much to say here. I stumbled upon this strategy after watching BudgetMonk's Austrian world conquest video (I highly recommend watching his videos if you're a beginner like me). I decided to give things a try as Austria. So I started my game, made sure that the diplomatic stars had aligned, got my opening alliances set up, and everything was going great. Then less than 3 months into the game I was suddenly at war with Bohemia. I was alarmed to find out that the Austrian ruler had died with no heir, and now Austria was the lesser partner in a personal union under Hungary. Bohemia had declared war on us to contest the PU. Some 5 year old von Hapsburg todler was ruling Austria. Things could not have gone worse. I quit the game in frustration. Then I realized, had I been playing as Hungary in that particular game, I could have gotten the Take that, von Hapsburgs achievement before 1500. So I did just that (well by 1544) and wrote this guide.

This strategy relies on personal unions and a tactic called save scumming. If you don't know what either of those are, here is a helpful video that does an excellent job of explaining both.

If you think it's cheating, fair enough, but then you can write your own guide to get this achievement some other way. In a nutshell, the game starts with Austria having no heir. As Hungary, ask Austria for a royal marriage. Whatever you do, make sure you do that.

Now comes the tedious part. Keep a hawk's eye on disputed inheritance tab. Any time that that a baby Von Hapsburg is born in Austria, crash your game and reload. Effectively, you'll prevent the Austrian ruler from ever getting an heir. It should take anywhere from 3 months (apparently) to 60 years, but most likely will take about 45 years. Once the Austria ruler dies, you will inherit Austria in a PU and someone who rivaled Austria will fight you for the throne. You absolutely must win this war in order to get the PU. I had to fight Aragon, but I suppose the worst case scenario is the PLC fights you for it.

If you read this far, then you're not above the tactic of save scumming, so I'll recommend you save scum to prevent the Polish Lithuanian PU from happening too. I've noticed if the Polish union doesn't happen there's about 50% odds that Poland patiently waits until the Ottomans get to military tech level 5, promptly declares a suicidal war against the Ottomans, gets completely wrecked, loses half its territory, and is weak for the rest of the game. That's what happened in my play through. If it doesn't happen, no big deal. Poland is still much weaker without Lithuania as an attack dog.

It might be entertaining to watch Poland send 15k stacks attack Ottoman stacks of 45k, get stack wiped one after the other, take loans and hire 20k stacks of mercs, get stack wiped all over again, have 0 manpower, and then get carpet sieged within 2 years. As Hungary you're in a position to watch some of the battles as they usually take place in Moldavia.

While we're at it you might as well use save scumming to prevent the Iberian wedding and Burgundian inheritance, just in case Castile or France decide to rival Austria right before the Austrian king dies. You might as well have all your bases covered.

The one exception to this rule is if you get the Burgundian inheritance. Typically France gets Burgundian lands outside the HRE, and someone else (usually Austria) gets Burgundy's lands inside the HRE. Somehow the inheritance fired and I inherited 100% of Burgundy's lands. I honestly have no idea how that happened, and I don't expect to ever see that happen again. Perhaps someone more familiar with the game could explain to me how that happened, but for me it was just a stroke of good luck.

This part will take a while, so take opportunities to get stronger. I attacked and vassalized Wallachia, Serbia, and Bosnia because they were easy targets and they'd provide about 21 more regiments for the eventual succession war.

A PU needs to last 50 years before you can begin the integration process, and integrating Austria could take 20 - 25 years depending on your diplomatic reputation. So this part will also be tedious. The only thing that could go wrong now is if the Ottomans or Poland attacks you, wrecks you, and forces you to release subjects in the peace deal. I'd recommend training up to your force limit to discourage an attack from ever happening.

With Austria ineligible to become emperor, you stand a chance at getting elected if you improve relations with the electors and get a diplo rep advisor (you were going to hire one of those anyway for the integration process). If this happens, you'll have a higher force limit and more resources, making an outside attack even less likely.

Also, make sure that the Ottomans don't get a really good ally in Europe (like France or Poland) as they could potentially ruin everything. If that happens, find better allies for yourself, train above your force limit, or do both. Otherwise, this could happen....


It's hard to tell from this one screenshot but this is an OP Ottoman Empire with a PU over Russia and allied to the PLC. In this particular scenario, Hungary never stood a chance. Don't worry, I highly doubt that would happen to you, but if it does remember to look for gold nuggets of opportunity in failure. That Ottoman Empire looks like it's only a mouse click away from getting the Mare Nostrum achievement (but I'll save that for another guide).

Once the integration finishes, you'll get the achievement popup a few days later. And that's about it.