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Definition
This is a modification for Pride of Nations, for players starting the 1850 grand campaign as Austria. The mod investigates the possibility and what-if scenario of an Austrian Empire actually prevailing in its struggle against Prussia, effectively being the one that unifies Germany under its banner. It should mainly use facilities and methods used in the Prussian campaign. It is essentially a unification campaign with Austria as the protagonist!

Historical Background
After the revolutions of 1848 there was a huge nationalistic excitement in Germany. Many citizens of the dozens of small German states dreamed of a unified Germany under a single ruler. The obvious pretenders for this project were: Prussia and Austria, the preeminent German states of the era. The German War of 1866 decided that Prussia would have that honor. Scholars have asked for some time, what would have happened if Austria won that war? Would the German Confederation continue under the Austria banner? Would it evolve in a German Empire under Austria's authority?

Possible End Goals by 1870
I will work so that Austria reaches one of these four results:

• Germany is united under Austria, Prussia is excluded (mirror image of the vanilla game, where Prussia unites Germany)
• Germany is united under Austria, Prussia is included, abandoning its non-German provinces (strict Großdeutsche Lösung)
• Germany is united under Austria, Prussia is included, retaining its non-German provinces (Großösterreichische Lösung)
• Germany abandons in non Germanic lands for an ethnic-pure Germany, Prussia is excluded (Austria will have less problems in the East and accept the challenge to reunite its holdings)

Tools Used
This mod will be authored using tools and events already available in the game with minimal customization. I will try to adapt the Unification cards for Austria and author events and conditions that will lead to one of the potential results.

AI Awareness
This mod will be playable only by human players. If all goes well, I might try to teach the AI care about unifying Germany under Austria. The events will be available for the AI as well, but unless Athena gets some instructions, it might not seek to unify Germany as Austria.

Versioning
I will use three versions: v0.x will be initial code (script) snippets for individual events and discussion. v1.x will come some time before Christmas and it will be a complete Zip file to decompress onto the game folders and start a new campaign. This will include all necessary events and facilities needed to unify Germany under Austria to the loss of Prussia. It will cover 1850 to 1870, mainly. If everything works, a v2.x might come in the future with additional improvements including the aforementioned AI awareness and events for the adapted Kaiserreich under Austria, up to WW1.

Balancing
Given that a German Empire which includes both Prussia and Austria as a unified entity is a terrifying prospect for the world order, I will do my best to adapt the game for balance. This will include updated structure and force pools, as well as potential rebellion effects for the huge empire, especially if it achieves the maximum potential size.

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More to come soon! Will update here. Onward!

Current Status
v1 Initial Release

Hi Kensai, sounds great ... I will play it immediately Will it work with 1.04 version?

It should be ok. I will try to make it mainly through custom events so it should work with any version.

The most important problem is probably already overcome as the decision for the German unification is "nation agnostic".



As you see the output does not specify any specific country as target. In theory, one could make a mod to unify the country as Hesse or Saxony. Any nation for that matter, although it makes sense that it has the German ethnicity. My first goal is to adapt this event (perhaps make it harder for Austria) and create a German unification chain of events that should lead to the Southern German Federation (with Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria). Thus, as Prussia is trying to do the same with the Northern Federation, Austria will try that with the Southern (Catholic) states.

Thankfully, the game has reserved a nation tag with its own flag for the SGF.

It looks like it must works ... and you can prepare it like goal to 1870?

I will add the necessary VP bonuses for the events I will author. But it will be up to the player, obviously, to achieve the goal of unification under Austria or follow a more historical path by allowing Prussia to do it. The important thing to remember is: we came really close to an Austrian unification, nobody was expecting Prussia to win by 1866. Prince Felix von Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Bismarck as sometimes they call him, was adamant about going all the way: uniting all the German states under the Habsburgian banner, including those non-German in the East and South. Unfortunately for his nation, a stroke got the better of him very early (in 1852).

These are the Prussian events leading to the German unification, I will obviously start adapting from here. Historically Austria had influence in the 3 Southern German states of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria. These were predominantly Catholic nations which would have been quite positive to be included in an Austrian-dominated German nation.

Would be interesting change of Loyalty of Badens etc. between Prussia and Austria (and Badens). Are you sure the game will not have problem with situation, when Prussia and Austria use the cart on the same country?

I don't think so. The card will change the loyalty towards the nation that played the card. This means that if both countries play cards on Baden, Baden might end up into something like having loyalty: 50% Badish, 20% Prussian, 30% Austrian. If Prussia insists in playing cards there, it might actually surpass Austria. By design I will make sure that Austria has less cards (which are less effective and costlier, possibly) than Prussia so that Prussia will be more able to unify Germany. In case this mod is played in a PBEM* this will probably mean that Austria can only slow down Prussia, not surpass it.

*I believe that in such a game the human players will settle this in an open war, anyway, as it happened historically in 1866.

Kensai wrote:I will add the necessary VP bonuses for the events I will author. But it will be up to the player, obviously, to achieve the goal of unification under Austria or follow a more historical path by allowing Prussia to do it. The important thing to remember is: we came really close to an Austrian unification, nobody was expecting Prussia to win by 1866. Prince Felix von Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Bismarck as sometimes they call him, was adamant about going all the way: uniting all the German states under the Habsburgian banner, including those non-German in the East and South. Unfortunately for his nation, a stroke got the better of him very early (in 1852).

I sympathize with your "what if", and take all my warm support

still, in your analysis, it seems to me you forget two MAJOR factors , namely .... France ...and Russia

Russia early, before breaking with Austria about principalties (Rumania) matter, backed her Austrian ally at olmutz to prevent a limited german unity under Prussia - now in cold with Austria, a large unity under Austrria was eben more unacceptable

France had indeed anticipated a close fight, won by Austria by a margin, prolonging, and arbitrated by France
in Napoleon schemes, in this case, a redraw of Europe resulted, Prussia forming NGF (without Saxony) nut giving Silesia to Austria who gave Venetia to Italy (Austria had agreed beforehand), France got compensation (Saarland I guess, perhaps Rhenania), and SAX BAV WUR BAD remained independant

and France was ready, but NOT for a quick Prussian victory

Austria could win against Prussia, but not adding France and Russia

so I consider the what if interesting, but unlikely - still worth to explore and play

cheers

What you say Christophe, are things I should certainly take into consideration. Remember that this mod is an "alternate reality mod", thus in the Austrian Unification chain of events I should certainly include what the other nations will feel. So perhaps a couple of events with potential triggers of warning or war might be in order. But other than that, a victory of Austria in 1866 might have been the glue to unite Germany under Austria, in a form somehow stronger than what the German Confederation was.

The question is... would a winning Austria accept to lead-unite a national Germany by abandoning its Eastern non-German domains? Or would it unite them all (Großösterreichische Lösung) as Schwarzenberg dreamed in 1848? I am thinking to give this opportunity to the player to decide with a final event (if Austria has prevailed) in a "decisional event".

- In case Austria abandons its Eastern provinces, a stabler union emerges. All non-German Austrian domains become independent nations (thankfully their tags exist).

- In case Austria insists on keeping its Eastern provinces, I would probably add some serious dissent in all German provinces as well as some rebellious sentiment to abstract the dissatisfaction of a multiethnic Empire.

These are not really issues... they can be decided upon debugging and balancing. My biggest worry has been if I could NOT do that because of an engine issue. But it seems the game is very open-ended and hopefully the "unification cards" are faction-agnostic (given that all Germans share German ethnicity, even Austria). Which helps a lot!

This looks fantastic!

OK, just playtesting with some script commands to have some early balancing considerations. A very early 'grand unification' would mean an almost instant win for this new German Empire! Austria will pass first in almost all rankings and even surpass Great Britain in overall Prestige, reaching 83% of its goals. I think this could be close to reality, but nonetheless worrisome for the game's balance and fun. I must definitely find ways to counterbalance this awesomeness!

OK, here we go.

I created a new chain of events called "Austrian Unification Events" and I linked it to the main 1850GC chain. This, as I said, will mirror the German events I will use as model. The first German events are about a gradual "cooling" of relations between Austria and the rest of the German Confederation, to the profit of Prussia. I decided not to touch these, to historically abstract the rising star of the Prussian nation. The first useful event for the Austrian unification is the one giving Austria the ability to play its own unification cards.

I have completed the basic chain of events that lead to a putative Southern German Federation. Before making them public I will need to balance them. This is a chain that leads to the formation of a mirror image of the NGF, effectively combining Austria with the Catholic States of the South. If I force the events, as I did before, the balance of power against Prussia is more normal (Prussia alone is at circa 60-65% of Austria's military value) and Austria does not surpass GBR or even FRA in Prestige, albeit reaching 27% of its goals.

It looks beautiful!



Two things I want to better understand:

• what changes should I make to the initial files to make the German nations subfactions of AUS, as it happens for Prussia
• if the nation tag changes to SGF, will events for AUS still run

I have completed the rest of the basic events that could lead to a united huge Germany. I say basic because as soon as I learn to author decision events, I will go for something more complex, ie the decision between a Großdeutsche Lösung and stability or a Großösterreichische Lösung and immenseness.

Currently, the chain is simpler: after Austria has formed the South German Confederation (essentially annexing the Catholic states of the South) there will be a standoff between Prussia and Austria in the usual scripted events of the Duchies Crisis some time in the 60s. Now, if Austria (played by the human player) has already managed to form the SGF and has enough loyalty in the bordering German states of Sachsen, Hessen-Kassel, and Hessen-Darmstadt (no need for Hanover or Holstein) it can force its way into uniting the whole Germany by having a victorious war against Prussia. When I say victorious, I mean convincingly victorious, therefore I placed a rule that Prussia must have lost its capital in this war.

This leads to a Großösterreichische Lösung. If we change the Prussian annexation to something that simply gives the Western provinces of Prussia to Austria and its allies, we might have a Großdeutsche Lösung withOUT Prussia. Ideally I should leave this to the player to decide, but I just wanted to have a basic chain ready.



If Prussia has formed the NGF, I must think of another chain... I am even considering to leave it as it is, cause a NGF and a SGF is a nice balanced duo.

Nice Austrian Empire ...

just looked at your map ! impressive ! (am myself testing the ("normal") German unification)
at first glance, such a central monster is untolerable for Russia AND France AND Prussia AND Sardinia (which has probklems winning a war against normal Austria on his own - more of it later)
and even for Ottoman Empire (such a powerful MittelEuropa/Greater germany can be a threat with her "drang nach Salonika and Bosnia annexation wish, as great as Russia)
Britain won't be pleased with balance of power
so before achieving this unification, creating indeed the historical goal of Mitteleuropa dreamed by pangermanists (your variation indeed makes sense), with just capital in Wien and not Berlin, ALL and every great power and his cousin should oppose to it, to some degree
imho that 's the way you should balance your game, reactions of other nations
that seems both logical, historical and makes sense gameplay wise

when you manage to recrerate the Holy Roman Empire/Groszdeutschland/MittelEuropa it you indeed have won, and colonies or Serbia, Franche Comté or Riga are only the cherries on the cake, you won as surely as I win when mymicromanaged Russian or German powerhouse, encircled by allies but one (guess whom ?), gets twice the industrial power (and military superiority) of the second competitor
then game is over, if not by right, but by extinction of challenge, de facto

so I guess you must balance situation BEFORE success, when the monster is created, challenge is met

see you later

Hehe, truth to be told, you are right. Such a Germanic state will be indomitable. I will be posting the v1 of the mod one of the following days to see how things go and what feedback I get. I didn't have the time to dwell into learning how to make decisional events.

So to give you something, I shall deliver for starters v1.0 with the "Großösterreichische Lösung" alone and see how it goes from there. Perhaps I should add an automatic event of war in case the union happens. Ideally I want to abstract the worrying of the other major nations. So some script that destroys relations, cancels alliances, and gives a long CB to the adversaries (with automatic forming of coalition) might be in order.

If the players unifies Germany WITH Austria, he gets a big time Anglo-French-Russian-Piedmontese Coalition to deal with. To avoid screwing their own rivalries I might just put them at war with this huge Austria without allying them between them. Can Austria deal with such a combined menace? Well, if it does, then it has won its place on this map.

Another solution would be to annex those parts of Prussia that were earned after the Napoleonic wars and allow Prussia to survive ousted from the Austrian-led German Empire. Prussia will still possess Brandenburg and its Eastern provinces. But I think it is cooler to think of a REAL German unification with all states inside. After all, this is probably a skewed total war scenario.

However, when I learn to do proper decision events, I will strive for the following two options:

At the moment of unification:

• Include Prussia --> get a war with Russia, France, UK, Sardinia-Piedmont immediately
• Annex Prussia's Western provinces --> mirror image of the game, but with Austria the unifier, allowing Prussia to live on its historical pre-Napoleonic provinces

And a little later (regardless of the above option):

• Keep the non-German provinces --> rebellious sentiment all over the Empire, would be quite cool to keep the Empire from crumbling, especially while in war
• Release the non-German nations --> Austria releases Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, etc and becomes their protector (alliance with them)... I will need to set up their armed forces though, the same way I did for Bulgaria in the PBEM

Alright, I want to give you something even if the events have no descriptions or graphics so far. So perhaps players that start a 1850 campaign with Austria can troubleshoot and report any potential issues. Let's call it version v0.9.

You need to unzip this file in the Events folder of your game. I presume you have the vanilla version with no other modifications. It will add an updated index file for all 1850 Grand Campaign events and the new Austrian ones. In order to achieve unification you need to do the opposite of Prussia. Start from the Southern German States (Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden) and when done work your way to the rest of them. You can also play your decisions to slow down the Prussian ones. If Prussia achieves NGF and Austria SGF, then it is not necessarily a deadlock. But I do think that as a human player you will be able to outsmart Prussia in this competition. If not, it will simply mean a more difficult war later on. Fortunately, the decisions to propose German Unification can still be played if Prussia has proclaimed the North German Confederation.

The Austrian unification attempt is obviously weaker than its Prussian counterpart, this is by design and normal, as the effects are really powerful in the end. Although the first unification attempts can begin in February 1850, do not expect to proclaim the South German Confederation before 1860. In order to unify the whole of Germany you need to win a convincing war against Prussia or the NGF (capturing their capital) 5-10 years later, more or less in the historical timeframe of the German War, while keeping a convincingly high loyalty in the rest of small states.

I was kind of worried about the rest of Austrian events, in case Austria unifies Germany, but I think I have found a clever way to make those events that do not make sense (for example the 1867 Compromise) not fire.

Basically, if you want to be absolutely historically accurate (I mean not taking events has happened, but keeping only options which COULD have happened with some high possibility/probability), you have to take the very nature of Habsburg/Austrian Empiore in consideration, and THEN the approach changes - and some of your problems disappear.

the first thing to consider (it is not explicitly in game, but it is deep into 19th century (and before) reality and is implicitly into initial game) - and this is critical structural point , is that a Prussian-German Empire and an Austrian-German nature are intrinsecally of different nature !!!

The centralized Prussian Second Reich is a federation : major matters (army diplomacy..) are indeed centralized ! I suspect it's even more centralized that the Bundesrepublik Deutschlands for some points - I am not sure, but for example strategic assets like railways, are prussian, but there is a Reichs bahn - am niot sure of status and relative power structure of deutsche bahn - to check , strategic assets like railway, army, diplomacy in one hand, 2 third of germany in one hand, Prussia ! autonomy is limited to secondary matters (local post office). remaining prices are just for show, no real power (last one, Louis II of bavaria, suicided probably and Bavaria was incorporated). no freedom for allogenous : Alsace Lorraine is a common prize "reichsland" with limited autonomy, n,one for Sleswig danes, and Poles are to be germanized. it is a unitary one peace country, fundamentally

Conversely Austian germany is a confederation : historically Austrian (by tradition) emperor is their protector, he is the protector of "germanic freedoms" (for princes, not people - cujus regio ejus religio for exalmple, read autonomy, sovereignty) they all have (hannover, prussia, saxony, bavaria, baden...) their own finance, army , diplomacy (including Elector of Brandeburg allying with French against Empire with Louis XIV, or saxony opportunistically allying to napoleon before swapping sides) not pooling it - Austrian Empire is decentralized.

add to that half Austria (Galicia and hungary in wider acception) are not part of germany, and won't ever want to, and that a part of germany (Bohemia) is (for czech part) ther against her will

add this century is the century of nationalism, the most marking feature of the time, and one quickly understand why Prussia, not the more powerful (and popular, and initially backed by Russia) Austria, was the one uniting Germany

"uniting" Germany would, from Habsburg (crtainly righ) opinion, led to Hungarian (and Polish) secession - a multinational Habsburg rule (even despotic, though ...see 1848) looked acceptable to Hungarian or Pole or croatian nobility/upper class (and perhaps to the people, czech included), a pure german one, relagating them to second rate subjects, not !

Still secession risk, while commiting, was not the paramount feature :

paramount feature was the principle of legitimacy : no legitimacy, no habsburg, principle of legitimacy/conservatism/social order was all that habsburg stood for (implied keeping balance of power too, hence the supports habsburg got from nations interested to keep things in place, either in germany, Italy, or Ottoman Balkans)

they fought for it against Revolution, against Napoleonic (1st) French Empire, at the congress of Vienna, in 1848, and in their conflicts in Italy and Germany (somehow even in balkans, but it is more complex) they fought for legitimacy always, everywhere !

add that Austria was at least as adverse to liberal popular aspirations (even if national) as Wilhelm was (crown of mud) - if legitimay freak was habsburg first name, conservative was the second one !

would victorious Franz-Josef have stripped (or let strip) German Princes(allied moreover) from their real power as bismarck did , no way, ever !

so german "unity" under Austria would have meant a confederation - de facto little diplomacy from bavaria, hannover, baden, saxony ...., an undefectible permanent alliance with Austria (a real 999 and not 240 turn duration), and still independant (even if coordinated, customs, rail gauge) armies and economies - the one player rules

anything more would have been self destroying of Austrian goals (you don't expect populace impose her revolutionary views) to a victorious Emperor

Prussia status (with Silesia lost to Austria) would have depended on their attitude, you can imagine her ither as a big Bavaria, or a fully independant state, but not annexed (nor was defeated Austria)

so in my opinion a realistic victorious Habsburg Austria would look like my former description - iron alliance with german minors, but not annexation, plus Silesia, less venetia (see french)

a real pangermanist view is indeed a unitarian Germany with Austria and Bohemia ! but it is not a Habsburg one after crushing the Prussian Elbe army at Sadowa

the Habsburg Germany is balance compatible and solves all your balance and VP questions

the Pangermanist view certainly assumes a departure of Hungary, likely Austrian Poland as well. following pangermanist popular view, it certainly assumes Habsburg dynasty be overthrown (they stand for legitimacy) or stay "for show"and another regime (liberal, conservative, reactionary, it is open). Prussia may be in (likely) or out - it may be unitarian - unlikely but consistant therefore "realist"

both are less powerful than a fully united and Added germany +full Austria

which one do you want to simulate if you want to be historically realist ? both may be less uncompatible with European balance of power

else, the superpowerful...is not really realist.

Thanks for the insight! I will seriously take them all into consideration.

Unfortunately the game does not abstract "puppet" states. It does, partly, with vassals, as China in the beginning with Korea (which is colony and allied to China), but that's not applicable for the federated Germany under Austria I want to portray. Ideally, in the end, I want to offer all three of the initial options to the player through decisions. So if the player decides to unite Austria with Schwarzenberg's plan it should be powerful but brittle and with too much outside pressure (France and Russia, especially). If Austria goes for the least powerful option, a Germany without its non-German provinces, then a more "peaceful" situation should arise.

As I wrote in the initial post, there is also the option of Austria simply uniting Germany locking Prussia out of Germany's affairs, permanently, which will be a mirror image of the Prussian game of unification. It should be up to the player to decide. I can help in two ways: (1) making it progressively difficult to achieve if the target is high, (2) making it progressively more difficult to sustain after unification is done by "what if" all-against-Germany mini scenarios.

I would rather not simply keep the minor states with normal alliances, as this is the current situation (the status quo), which is not a real unification. I want to explore Schwarzenberg's plan with this mod!

I see some players have downloaded the modification. Any comments, ideas, questions, remarks?

Have created the events with images and text. Instead of using new images, I decided to recycle the Prussian ones, after all, they are very near the story I am telling.

The dates are obviously wrong cause I made them fire without prerequisites. Any suggestions regarding the text?

if you can modify that image to have the good format, would be closer than getting Moltke, Bismarck and Wilhelm imho

[ATTACH]26022[/ATTACH]

or this one

[ATTACH]26023[/ATTACH]

good luck to the mod

cheers

I love your images. I can certainly use these instead of the generic (Prussian) ones. Thanks!

I have implemented Christophe's suggested images. Do not worry about the typos, will correct them in the final release. To add images of your own: remember the correct size (400*250), a Sepia treating, and PNG format. Nothing that cannot be done with Paint and Picasa.

The four decisions are almost ready and I have started to map them. I still haven't found what's the exact size for the image to fit precisely in the window of a decision.

Size should be 508 x 298