I've been playing some EU4 and I've come to wonder about this little piece of land to the north of Switzerland that Austria owns. After a quick search in the wiki, I've learned that Hapsburgs originate from it (pardon the tittle, this is an eddit), but it still boggles me, how they managed to grow so large and own so much land a few centuries later? As far as I know Hapsburgs where on most thrones of Europe and some rulers like Charles V, had multiple realms that he ruled (HRE, Spain, Spanish Netherlands and Belgium, Milan etc.), what did the Hapsburgs do to achieve all this from a small county. Was it just a stroke of luck?