Empire: Total War -- Part 3: Oh Austria! How I Love to Shoot You!

Austria has been the most annoying major nation so far, mainly because they keep invading me. First they offer to "have me sell them my provinces" in exchange for "infinite military access" AKA "please die." I refuse to die, and they attack! They take EVERYTHING north of Greece and Istanbul, which is my capital (at least, I think it's my capital; I guess being the leader I should know where my capital is). Anyways they take the provinces and ravage the lands just west of what is definitely my capital Istanbul for years. But they don't attack Istanbul for some reason. I'm guessing they're confused. Or maybe they're so at war with Prussia and Poland that they forget I exist. Or maybe the strategic AI is dumb.

Near the end of defeating the bastard evil minor nations in the previous post, I attack Austria-controlled Bulgaria with melee troops and lots of musket, chainmail men. They win! Against peasants! (literally, peasants) And then Austria responds with three armies of linemen (these are the typical, European, white, 18th century, triangle hat-wearing troops; they have muskets and are better than my chainmail men; just think NFL). My army, personally commanded in realtime by me, utterly destroys the first army. But then I retreat, because my 1,200 unprofessional, casualty-ridden army is no match for the oncoming, fresh, 3,200, triangle hat army. I retreat to Istanbul, and they attack! And I hold it, killing 2,700 troops! Then I train the few new elite troops I can afford for a counter-attack.

Elite Ottoman troops in the early 18th century! Yes! They look like pornstars! Exclamation mark! These men are half-naked! They're dressed in funny, Turkish sultan hats! They look like genies in their green, revealing jackets, that surround washboard abs and pectoral muscles! And they have a perfect tan and a mustache that would make any woman blush! Or hell, any man blush. Oh, those mustaches!

Also they do lots of damage with their big rifles, and, in the case of the grenadiers, with their exploding balls. Although somehow they can't do the square formation, which my scientists spent years on!

Oh yeah! The Austrians! So they kick me back to Istanbul and fail to defeat me there. I have already fought one of my two epic battles (in the last thirty hours of gameplay!) with them; seriously, they're army seems bigger than what their budget can afford, and also this game needs to produce more epic battles because 30-hours is a long time!

I attack Bulgaria again. Waiting for me are three armies, two Austrian and one Venetian. And we fight the 2nd epic battle of the last thirty hours. With my 1,800 troops versus their 3,000, I win the battle with 350 troops remaining. O' it was epic. I saved the replay because...I like to save replays. My pornstar grenadiers threw so many of their exploding balls onto men.

And then the Austrians died. Their seven province nation was overwhelmed by all their enemies in a mere two years after that battle.